A history of the marriage of Sir Harry Smith to Lady Smith, who accompanied him on British military campaigns throughout the world in the 19th century.General Sir Harry Smith, respected and beloved by the Duke of Wellington, famously married the Spanish beauty, Juana, after the siege of Badajoz in 1812. Juana choose to stay with her husband for the remaining battles of the Peninsula war. With the French defeated, Harry left with the British expedition to America in ...

A well written and in-depth overview of the life and literary accomplishments of Ronald Knox, the famous Catholic convert and apologist from England who was a major figure in the English Catholic literary revival in the first half of the twentieth century.Rooney presents a look at the full range of Knox's writings including his apologetics, detective fiction, satire and other genres, offering an intellectual portrait that is fascinating and engaging. He includes a heavy dose of samp...

History of the Boer War, by the author of the Sherlock Holmes stories, first published in 1902. According to Wikipedia: "Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle DL (22 May 1859 – 7 July 1930) was a Scottish physician and writer, most noted for his stories about the detective Sherlock Holmes, generally considered a milestone in the field of crime fiction, and for the adventures of Professor Challenger. He was a prolific writer whose other works include science fiction stories, plays, romances, poet...

Redcoat is the brilliant story of the common British soldier from 1700 to 1900, based on the letters and diaries of the men who served and the women who followed them.Delving into the history of the period – charting events including Wolfe's victory and death at Quebec, Wellington's Peninsular War, Waterloo, the retreat from Kabul and the Sikh wars – celebrated military historian Richard Holmes provides a comprehensive portrait of a fallible but extraordinarily successful fighting ...

In this compelling book, Richard Holmes tells the exhilarating story of the Duke of Wellington, Britain's greatest ever soldier.Seeing Wellington as a remarkable figure, Holmes follows his career from the ruins of his family seat in Ireland to the plains of India where Wellesley first gained his reputation as a brilliant commander, to the horrors of the Peninsular War and Waterloo.Combining his astute historical analysis with semi-biographical examination, Holmes artfully i...

The author of Wellington at Waterloo delivers an in-depth history of the military commander's tactics and strategy in the Peninsular War.After gaining strategic and tactical experience in Colonial India, Arthur Wellesley went to battle against French forces in the Peninsular War. With his decisive victories there, he ascended to the peerage of the United Kingdom as the 1st Duke of Wellington. In this volume, historian Jac Weller delivers a complete account ...

On 16 May 1811, the small town of Albuera was the setting for one of the Peninsular War’s most bloody and desperate battles. A combined Spanish, British and Portuguese force of more than 30,000 men, under the command of Lord Beresford, stubbornly blocked the march of the French field marshal Soult, who was trying to reach the fortress of Badajoz, 12 miles north.Beresford, who defended himself with his bare hands against a Polish lancer, was victorious, but at the cost of 6,000 Alli...

One of the Duke of Wellington's officers once remarked, We would rather see his long nose in the sight than a reinforcement of ten thousand men. Arthur Wellesley, first duke of Wellington (1769û1852), was one of the greatest military commanders in history and is best known as the successful opponent at Waterloo of arguably the leading general of all time, Napoleon Bonaparte.Although Waterloo is the battle most associated with Wellington, his career was much wider. He gained his fir...

Scotland's reputation as a nation proud of its military history betrays the fact that the past is littered with catastrophes and failures. From the time of the Roman invasions until the Korean War, Scotland's military history is testament to the fact that victories are always talked up and recorded, but disasters are quietly forgotten. In all some 32 episodes of Scottish battlefield ineptitude are investigated by journalist Paul Cowan. These are: A Desolation Called Peace: Mons Graupius 83...

Military histories of the struggle against the French armies of the Revolution and Napoleon often focus on the exploits of elite units and famous individuals, ignoring the essential contribution made by the ordinary soldiers the bulk of the British army. Carole Divall, in this graphic and painstakingly researched account, tells the story of one such hitherto ignored group of fighting men, the 30th Regiment of the Line. She takes their story from one of the opening clashes of the long war, ...

The commissioned officer ranks in the British Army from 1740-1815 were almost entirely composed of the affluent and educated - the sons of the landed gentry, the wealthy, and other professional people. This title looks at the enlistment, training, daily life and combat experiences of the typical British officer in the crucial periods of the North American conflicts, the American Revolution, and the Napoleonic Wars. It compliments the author's previous treatments in Warrior 19 British Redco...

The Peninsular War was a savage war fought as part of the Napoleonic Wars that convulsed Europe for more than a decade. They saw set piece battles, guerrilla campaigns, sieges and every form of warfare known to the early 19th century.The Peninsular War began when the citizens of Madrid rebelled against the rule of a new French king imposed on them by the French Emperor Napoleon. The fighting spread rapidly across Spain, drawing in more and more French forces. Meanwhile, Britain sen...