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Wellington's Peninsular War Generals & Their Battles: A Biographical and Historical Dictionary
by T. A. HeathcoteWellington's achievements in the Peninsular War cannot be overestimated. At the outset in 1808 Napoleon and his Marshals appeared unstoppable. By the close Wellington and his Army had convincingly defeated the French and taken the war across the Pyrenees into France itself. He and his Generals had waged a hugely successful campaign both by conventional means and guerrilla warfare.This book contains the pithy biographies of some forty senior officers who served Wellington, in the majority of cases, so ably during this six year war. Many had experience of battle prior to the Peninsular and went on to greater heights thereafter. There is a section summarizing the major engagements that this 'band of brothers' took part in. The book is arranged in alphabetical order and each thoroughly researched entry places its subject's life in his historical and political context. The result is a highly entertaining, informative and authoritative book.
Wellington's Redjackets: The 45h (Nottinghamshire) Regiment on Campaign in South America and the Peninsula, 1805–14
by Steve BrownThe assault was failing. Wellington's men had stormed the walls of the great frontier fortress of Badajoz only to be beaten back with terrible losses. Then on the keep of the old castle the French flag was torn down and a British officer's red jacket was hauled up the flagpole. It was the signal the British were inside Badajoz!This was one of the most famous incidents during the Peninsular War and marked not only the turning point in the capture of Badajoz but of the entire conflict. The jacket belonged to Lieutenant James MacPherson of the 45th (Nottinghamshire) Regiment. The 45th had landed with Wellington at Mondego Bay in 1808 and fought with him throughout the entire Peninsular War gaining more battle honours than any other line regiment.Wellington's Redjackets, The 45th (Nottinghamshire) Regiment on Campaign in South America and the Peninsular War is one of the most detailed unit histories ever published of a regiment during the Napoleonic era. As the first, and only, study of this regiment, Wellington's Redjackets will undoubtedly be an essential purchase for those interested in Napoleonic warfare.
Wellington's Rifles
by Mark UrbanHistory of the Napoleonic War as it effected six of Wellington's soldiers. History becomes personalized as the author draws upon letters and diaries to weave his story.
Wellington's Right Hand: Rowland, Viscount Hill
by Joanna HillOne of the most unlikely soldiers of his day, General Rowland Hill, 1st Viscount Hill of Almarez was imaginative, brave – and perhaps more surprisingly for the period in which he lived and fought – compassionate towards those under his command. This is the compelling story of one of history’s forgotten heroes, a man who frequently led from the front in some of the deadliest battles of the Napoleonic Wars. Hill was given his own ‘detached’ corps and fought his way through Spain, Portugal and France, winning battles against the odds – such at St Pierre, where he defeated the redoubtable Marechal Soult when outnumbered two to one. When ministers at home asked that Hill be allowed to leave the Peninsula and lead an army elsewhere, Wellington dismissed the idea with ‘Would you cut off my right hand?’Hill fought at Roliça, Corunna, Talavera, Bussaco, Almarez, Vitoria and Waterloo. He succeeded the Duke in 1828 as Commander-in-Chief of the forces and served as such until he resigned in 1842, a period marked by civil unrest that he reluctantly was obliged to confront. Based upon the Hill papers and a wide range of other primary sources, Wellington’s Right Hand is an important addition to the literature of the Napoleonic age and in particular to that of the Peninsular War.Writer and historian Joanna Hill is the great, great, great niece of Rowland Hill and as such has gained unique access to the Hill family archives. In April 2005, she published her first book on the Hill family, The Hills of Hawkstone and Attingham; the Rise, Shine and Decline of a Shropshire Family.Serendipity has sometimes led her life in the footsteps of her illustrious ancestor. While working at the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University’s post graduate department for the history of art and archaeology, she spent three very hot seasons excavating in the Nile Delta of Egypt, a few kilometres from the site of one of the General’s very first battles, at Aboukir in 1801. She currently lives with her husband (and an international champion Skye terrier, Dougal) in a 13th-century hilltop bastide village in South West France. This is just a short distance north of St Pierre d’Irube at the foot of the Pyrenees, where Rowland Hill won his very own general action in the closing stages of the Peninsular War in December 1813. When the victorious British cavalry rode home through France from Toulouse to the channel ports in May the following year, they must have passed by.
Wellington's Scapegoat: The Tragedy of Lieutenant Colonel Charles Bevan
by Archie HunterLieutenant Colonel Charles Bevan was the key figure in an extraordinary, controversial and ultimately tragic episode during the Peninsula War. He was the commanding officer held responsible for the dramatic night escape of the French garrison from Almeida over a vital bridge. For this disaster he incurred the extreme wrath of the Duke of Wellington but whether this was fair remains highly debatable.
Wellington's Specialist Troops
by Bryan Fosten Philip HaythornthwaiteThe specialist troops of Wellington's army played a crucial role in the success of the British Army. Though often understaffed and ineptly managed, the artillery, engineers, transport and commissariat, and medical services contributed to Wellington's ultimate victory in 1815. The Royal Artillery and Corps of Royal Engineers comprised a small number of highly trained officers, while the commissariat was composed of untrained civilians outside military discipline, and the medical services suffered from a shortage of trained surgeons. This richly illustrated book examines the organization, uniforms and equipment of each of these specialist departments.
Wellington's Spies
by Mary McGrigorIntelligence was just as important in the Napoleonic Wars as it is today. Then there was only one way of obtaining it by spies and informers. The Author uses first hand accounts of three of Wellingtons most daring and successful Intelligence Officers. The three men, all of Scottish descent, were very different in character. One was killed in action and another taken prisoner and after narrowly avoiding summary execution made a dramatic escape. There is a romantic angle too.Their stories skillfully interwoven against the backdrop of the brutal Peninsula War where atrocities were common place. This book gives a fresh insight into Wellingtons remarkable triumph over Napoleons armies.
Wellington's Wars: The Making of a Military Genius
by Huw J. DaviesArthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington, lives on in popular memory as the "Invincible General," loved by his men, admired by his peers, formidable to his opponents. This incisive book revises such a portrait, offering an accurate—and controversial—new analysis of Wellington's remarkable military career. Unlike his nemesis Napoleon, Wellington was by no means a man of innate military talent, Huw J. Davies argues. Instead, the key to Wellington's military success was an exceptionally keen understanding of the relationship between politics and war. Drawing on extensive primary research, Davies discusses Wellington's military apprenticeship in India, where he learned through mistakes as well as successes how to plan campaigns, organize and use intelligence, and negotiate with allies. In India Wellington encountered the constant political machinations of indigenous powers, and it was there that he apprenticed in the crucial skill of balancing conflicting political priorities. In later campaigns and battles, including the Peninsular War and Waterloo, Wellington's genius for strategy, operations, and tactics emerged. For his success in the art of war, he came to rely on his art as a politician and tactician. This strikingly original book shows how Wellington made even unlikely victories possible—with a well-honed political brilliance that underpinned all of his military achievements.
Wellington's Worst Scrape: The Burgos Campaign 1812
by Carole DivallThe disastrous retreat and near disintegration of Sir John Moores army on the road to Corunna in 1809 is traditionally regarded as the low point in the history of the British intervention in the Peninsular War. Yet under the Duke of Wellington, the British and their allies suffered defeats and retreats that tend to be overshadowed by the series of victories that eventually drove the French from Portugal and Spain. None of these setbacks was graver than the retreat that followed the disastrous failure of the siege of Burgos in 1812. It is this, less than glorious, phase of the Peninsular campaign that is the subject of Carole Divalls latest study of the British army of the Napoleonic Wars.By reconstructing events in close detail, and by bringing together [many] primary sources, she gives a vivid account of what happened and why. Wellington himself recognized the mistakes and miscalculations that led to the potentially catastrophic situation in which he placed his men. He described it as his worst scrape. Yet most of the letters, journals and memoirs that have survived praise the skill with which he saved Britain's only army from disaster. Carole Divall weaves together Wellingtons dispatches with the eyewitness testimony left by British and Portuguese officers and men, by civilians, and by the French. A fascinating, multi-layered impression emerges of the siege of Burgos itself and the sequence of maneuvers that preceded it. She describes in authentic detail the tense decision-making and the misjudgments that were made on the allied side and the headlong retreat that followed as the British fled from two French armies that threatened to trap and destroy them.Carole Divalls in-depth study of a pivotal and neglected episode in the Peninsular War gives a fascinating insight into the character of the fighting, at every level, and into the strengths and weaknesses of Wellingtons command.
The Welsh at War: The Somme and Arras
by Steven JohnThe Welsh at War trilogy is the culmination of over twelve years of painstaking research by the author into the Welsh men and infantry units who fought in the Great War.These units included the four regular regiments the Royal Welsh Fusiliers, South Wales Borderers Welsh Regiment and Welsh Guards as well as the Territorial Monmouthshire Regiment, the Yeomanry regiments: the Denbighshire Hussars, Pembroke Yeomanry, Montgomeryshire Yeomanry, Glamorgan Yeomanry and Welsh Horse Yeomanry and their amalgamation into service battalions for the regular regiments during 1917.Welsh troops fought with great courage in every theater of the war the Western Front, Aden, China, Gallipoli, Egypt, India, Italy, Salonika and in Palestine and in addition to the casualties suffered during these campaigns, many men gained recognition for acts of gallantry.The three volumes, split chronologically, cover all of the major actions and incidents in which each of the Welsh infantry regiments took part, as well as stories of Welsh airmen, Welshmen shot at dawn, Welsh rugby players who fell, Welsh gallantry winners and the Welshmen who died in non-Welsh units, such as the Dominion forces and other units of the British armed forces.The Welsh at War records the gallant work of Welsh units and servicemen during the period between the arrival of the 38th (Welsh) Division in France during December 1915 until the aftermath of the Battle of Arras in the summer of 1917, covering: the campaigns in Mesopotamia, Salonika, Egypt and Palestine; the Battle of Jutland; the Somme offensive; the German Withdrawal to the Hindenburg Line; the Battle of Arras; the Battle of Messines Ridge; and the build up to the Third Battle of Ypres.
The Welsh at War: The Somme And Arras
by Steven JohnWelsh at War From Mons to Loos and the Gallipoli Tragedy is the culmination of twelve years of painstaking research by the author into the the Welsh men and infantry units who fought in the Great War.These units included the four regular regiments the Royal Welsh Fusiliers, South Wales Borderers Welsh Regiment and Welsh Guards as well as the Territorial Monmouthshire Regiment, the Yeomanry regiments, the Denbighshire Hussars, Pembroke Yeomanry, Montgomeryshire Yeomanry, Glamorgan Yeomanry and Welsh Horse Yeomanry and their amalgamation into service battalions for the regular regiments during 1917.Welsh troops fought with great courage in every theater of the war the Western Front, Aden, China, Gallipoli, Egypt, India, Italy, Salonika and in Palestine and as well as the casualties who were suffered during these campaigns, many men gained recognition for acts of gallantry.The book covers all of the major actions and incidents in which each of the Welsh infantry regiments took part from the opening of the war in 1914 until the end of 1915, as well as stories of Welsh airmen, Welshmen shot at dawn, Welsh rugby players who fell, Welsh gallantry winners and the Welshmen who died in non-Welsh units, such as the Dominion forces and other units of the British Armed Forces.While chronicling a history of the war through the events and battles that Welshmen took part in, the stories of individual casualties are included throughout, together with many compelling photographs of the men and their last resting places.
The Welsh at War: Third Ypres and the 1918 Offensives
by Steven JohnWelsh at War From Mons to Loos and the Gallipoli Tragedy is the culmination of twelve years of painstaking research by the author into the the Welsh men and infantry units who fought in the Great War.These units included the four regular regiments the Royal Welsh Fusiliers, South Wales Borderers Welsh Regiment and Welsh Guards as well as the Territorial Monmouthshire Regiment, the Yeomanry regiments, the Denbighshire Hussars, Pembroke Yeomanry, Montgomeryshire Yeomanry, Glamorgan Yeomanry and Welsh Horse Yeomanry and their amalgamation into service battalions for the regular regiments during 1917.Welsh troops fought with great courage in every theater of the war the Western Front, Aden, China, Gallipoli, Egypt, India, Italy, Salonika and in Palestine and as well as the casualties who were suffered during these campaigns, many men gained recognition for acts of gallantry.The book covers all of the major actions and incidents in which each of the Welsh infantry regiments took part from the opening of the war in 1914 until the end of 1915, as well as stories of Welsh airmen, Welshmen shot at dawn, Welsh rugby players who fell, Welsh gallantry winners and the Welshmen who died in non-Welsh units, such as the Dominion forces and other units of the British Armed Forces.While chronicling a history of the war through the events and battles that Welshmen took part in, the stories of individual casualties are included throughout, together with many compelling photographs of the men and their last resting places.
The Welsh Girl: A Novel
by Peter Ho DaviesA WWII-era Welsh barmaid begins a secret relationship with a German POW in this &“beautiful&” novel by the author of A Lie Someone Told You About Yourself (Ann Patchett). Longlisted for the Man Booker Prize Set in the stunning landscape of North Wales just after D-Day, this critically acclaimed debut novel traces the intersection of disparate lives in wartime. When a prisoner-of-war camp is established near her village, seventeen-year-old barmaid Esther Evans finds herself strangely drawn to the camp and its forlorn captives. She is exploring the camp boundary when an astonishing thing occurs: A young German corporal calls out to her from behind the fence. From that moment on, the two begin an unlikely—and perilous—romance. Meanwhile, a German-Jewish interrogator travels to Wales to investigate Britain&’s most notorious Nazi prisoner, Rudolf Hess. In this richly drawn and thought-provoking &“tour de force,&” all will come to question the meaning of love, family, loyalty, and national identity (The New Yorker). &“If you loved The English Patient, there&’s probably a place in your heart for The Welsh Girl.&” —USA Today &“Davies&’s characters are marvelously nuanced.&” —Los Angeles Times &“Beautifully conjures a place and its people, in an extraordinary time . . . A rare gem.&” —Claire Messud, author of The Woman Upstairs &“This first novel by Davies, author of two highly praised short story collections, has been anticipated—and, with its wonderfully drawn characters, it has been worth the wait.&” —Booklist, starred review
The Welsh Guards
by John RetallackAlthough the youngest of the Regiments in the Household Division, the Welsh Guards have established a reputation on both the battlefield, and on the parade ground, that is fully equal to the proud standards for which Guardsmen have long been famous. The Welsh Guards were formed in 1915, and they saw much hard fighting in both World Wars. Of the first thirty years of their existence, almost a third were spent at war and as a result tradition and regimental spirit were quickly forged. Such is the variety of a modern soldier's life that in the years since the Second World War, the Welsh Guards have been employed in sixteen different countrys, (in some of them two or three times) as diverse as texas and the snows of artic Norway. This swift account takes their story from the regiment's foundation in 1915, from their baptism of fire at loos, through another World War, and on to the tragic business of trying to preserve lives, and some sort of life, in the internecine bitterness of Northern Ireland.
Welsh Yeomanry at War: A History of the 24th (Pembroke & Glamorgan Yeomanry) Battalion, The Welsh Regiment
by Steven JohnSoon after the outbreak of the Great War, following many years of part-time soldiering as cavalry troops on home defense duties, the members of various British Yeomanry regiments were asked to volunteer for overseas service. In 1916, officered by well-known members of the landed gentry, two of the Welsh Yeomanry regiments, the Pembroke Yeomanry and the Glamorgan Yeomanry, were amongst many who embarked for foreign service for the first time ever in their history. Spending the next twelve months in Egypt during the campaign against the Senussi tribesmen, the two regiments merged to form the 24th (Pembroke and Glamorgan Yeomanry) Battalion, Welsh Regiment, which joined the 74th (Yeomanry) Division to take part in the historic offensive into Palestine that ultimately led to the liberation of the Holy City of Jerusalem after 400 years of Ottoman rule. In May 1918, after two years of hard campaigning in the Palestinian deserts, the 24th Welsh embarked for France with the rest of the 74th Division, joining the Allied forces in the victorious 100-day offensive against the Germans. Welsh Yeomanry at War sheds new light on the battalions almost forgotten campaign in Palestine, which saw many of its troops killed and buried in the Holy Land, and also tells the enthralling story of its short but arduous period in France.
Went the Day Well?: Witnessing Waterloo
by David CraneMidnight, Sunday, June 18, 1815. Britain holds its breath. Since Napoleon's escape from Elba in February, Europe has been jolted from eleven months of peace back into the frenzied panic of a war it believed had ended. "The whole complexion of the world is changed again," writes George Ticknor, then a young American lawyer in Britain for the first time. "God only can forsee the consequences." The nation is awash in reports and rumors. The Battle of Waterloo is close at hand. Went the Day Well? is an astonishing hour-by-hour chronicle that starts the day before the battle that reset the course of world history and continues to its aftermath. Switching perspectives between Britain and Belgium, prison and palace, poet and pauper, lover and betrothed, husband and wife, David Crane paints a picture of Britain as it was that summer when everything changed. Drawing on a wide range of primary sources--from newspapers and journals to letters and poems--Went the Day Well? offers a highly original view of Waterloo, grand in scope but meticulous in detail. What was Britain doing on that Sunday, from the mad king downward? Who were born to live out their lives in the Britain created at Waterloo? Who died? Who was preaching, who was writing and who was painting? Lyrically rendered in Crane's signature prose style, Went the Day Well? freeze-frames the men and women of Britain in 1815 as they went about their business, attended lectures, worked in fields and factories--all on the cusp of a new, unforeseeable age.From the Hardcover edition.
We're Doomed. Now What?: Essays on War and Climate Change
by Roy ScrantonAn American Orwell for the age of Trump, Roy Scranton faces the unpleasant facts of our day with fierce insight and honesty. We’re Doomed. Now What? penetrates to the very heart of our time.Our moment is one of alarming and bewildering change—the breakup of the post-1945 global order, a multispecies mass extinction, and the beginning of the end of civilization as we know it. Not one of us is innocent, not one of us is safe. Now what?We’re Doomed. Now What? addresses the crisis that is our time through a series of brilliant, moving, and original essays on climate change, war, literature, and loss, from one of the most provocative and iconoclastic minds of his generation. Whether writing about sailing through the melting Arctic, preparing for Houston’s next big storm, watching Star Wars, or going back to the streets of Baghdad he once patrolled as a soldier, Roy Scranton handles his subjects with the same electric, philosophical, demotic touch that he brought to his groundbreaking New York Times essay, “Learning How to Die in the Anthropocene.”
West Country Regiments on the Somme
by Tim SaundersPrevious works have concentrated on the 'Pal' in Britain's northern towns and cities. This book seeks to explore the little appreciated part in the Battle of the Somme played by the Regular and Volunteer Service battalions of two small West Country regiments; the Devonshire Regiment and the Dorset Regiment. These two regiments had five battalions in action on the first day of the battle and were represented in most of the significant attacks during the three and half months of the 1916. The reader will be able to form a clear picture of the battle's development as a whole through the eyes of Westcountry soldiers who fought on the Somme.
West Dickens Avenue: A Marine at Khe Sanh
by John CorbettIn January 1968, the 26th Marine Regiment was ordered to a place in the far northwest corner of South Vietnam called Khe Sanh. John Corbett, an untested replacement in a clean, green uniform, and his fellow leathernecks were responsible for building and defending the combat base, and holding positions on the strategic hills overlooking the Ho Chi Minh Trail as it crossed into Laos and South Vietnam from nearby North Vietnam. Only days after Corbett arrived at Khe Sanh, some twenty thousand North Vietnamese soldiers surrounded the base, outnumbering the American Marines seven to one. What followed over the next seventy-seven days became one of the deadliest fights of the Vietnam War--and one of the greatest battles in military history. Private First Class Corbett, an "ammo humper" in an 81mm mortar section, made do with little or no sleep for days on end. The enemy bombarded the base incessantly, and Corbett's mortars returned the fire, day and night. Extremes of heat, cold, and fog added to the misery, as did all manner of wounds and injuries too minor to justify evacuation from frontline positions. The emotional toll was tremendous as the Marines saw their friends suffer and die every day of the siege. Corbett relates these experiences through the eyes of an eighteen year old but with the mind and maturity of a man now in his fifties. His story of life, death, and growing up on the front lines at Khe Sanh speaks for all of the Marines caught up intheepic siege of the Vietnam War.
West Germans and the Nazi Legacy (Routledge Studies in Modern European History)
by Caroline SharplesThis book constitutes a new history of the complex memory cultures that persisted within post-war West Germany, examining the attitudes of ordinary people to the second wave of Nazi war crimes trials ushered in during the 1960s. It explores responses to the prospect of continuing investigations, the reception afforded to the defendants, and the sheer resonance that such proceedings could generate within a local community. Drawing upon case studies from across the Federal Republic, it bridges a gap between the current historiography and localised memory studies, and analyses of war crimes trials. Far from viewing the 1960s as an uncomplicated decade of change, this book emphasises the range of voices that were competing to make themselves heard during this period, whether they came from survivors’ groups, crusading journalists and students, or from former prisoners of war, veterans’ organisations and the war widowed. This diversity of opinion and experience enabled the persistence of silences, distortions and mythologies that could afford some level of distance to be imposed between the perpetrators of the Nazi genocide, and the ordinary West German population. The process of ‘coming to terms with the past’ was thus complicated and protracted.
West of the Sun
by Edgar PangbornSeveral light-years west of the Earth's Sun lay the planet, Lucifer, circling a sun of its own, circled by its own two moons. The five specially selected and trained passengers of the "Argo" found much on Lucifer to remind them of the Earth they had left eleven years before. The air was invigorating, the vegetation lush, and there were people - a race of friendly white giants and a swarming population of wary pygmy tribes. The Earth pioneers soon faced the problem of survival on the red-green planet, and also the founding of a democratic civilization among the strife-torn pygmies. However, they were soon entwined in a brutal war between opposing pygmy forces. On the outcome of this war hinged the very fate of the new way of life on Lucifer...
West Pac
by Scott SchmidtWhen a carrier goes to sea, those who work on the dangerous flight deck are at an average age of twenty years old. To add to the danger, those who work with aircraft ordnance, the bombs and missiles of these planes, are at even more risk of injury on the pitching deck. This is a true story of one young man, an aviation ordnanceman, who went to sea on his second cruise in 1978 at age twenty. What he discovered in the hot Pacific and Indian Oceans would change his life forever and set him on a path to discovery. Follow the author on his personal and poignant journey as he explores the universal truths of those who must succeed under arduous conditions.
The West Point Candidate Book
by William L. SmallwoodA "how to" book for those who want to go to West Point - how to prepare, how to get in, and how to survive after you get there.
The West Point History of the Civil War
by The United States Military Academy Clifford Rogers Colonel Ty SeiduleThe definitive military history of the Civil War, featuring the same exclusive images, tactical maps, and expert analysis commissioned by The United States Military Academy to teach the history of the art of war to West Point cadets.The United States Military Academy at West Point is the gold standard for military history and the operational art of war. West Point has created military history texts for its cadets since 1836. For the first time in over forty years, the United States Military Academy has authorized a new military history series that will bear the name West Point. That text has been updated repeatedly, but now it has been completely rewritten and The West Point History of the Civil War is the first volume to result in a new series of military histories authorized by West Point.The West Point History of the Civil War combines the expertise of preeminent historians commissioned by West Point, hundreds of maps uniquely created by cartographers under West Point's direction, and hundreds of images, many created for this volume or selected from West Point archives. Offering careful analysis of the political context of military decisions, The West Point History of the Civil War is singularly brilliant at introducing the generals and officer corps of both Union and Confederacy, while explaining the tactics, decisions, and consequences of individual battles and the ebb and flow of the war. For two years it has been beta-tested, vetted, and polished by cadets, West Point faculty, and West Point graduates and the results are clear: This is the best military history of its kind available anywhere.
West Point Warriors: Profiles of Duty, Honor, and Country In Battle
by Tom CarhartWhen America must be defended, the men of West Point are there. From the War of 1812 to the twenty-first-century fight against terrorism at home and abroad, in the heat of battle and in the face of certain death, they give ever-renewed meaning to the West Point motto, "Duty, Honor, Country." They range from the celebrated, like Robert E. Lee and Douglas MacArthur, to the unsung, including Patrick H. O'Rorke, who stunned the Confederates at Little Round Top with a ferocious and gallant charge that stopped their advance; Russell P. Reeder, Jr., who led his regiment ashore at Normandy and valiantly fought German forces before losing a leg; and Joseph G. Clemons, Jr., who commanded an infantry company that held off the enemy on Pork Chop Hill in Korea. They -- and many more -- were all West Point warriors, men who led America's soldiers through this nation's wars and who protect us to this day with selfless sacrifice and unbounded bravery. Book jacket.