Author: MemoirsPublisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 460
Book Description
Memoirs of a sergeant, late in the forty-third light infantry regiment ... during the Peninsular war
Author: MemoirsPublisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 460
Book Description
Memoirs of a Sergeant in the 43rd Light Infantry in the Peninsular War
Author: AnonPublisher: Pickle Partners Publishing
ISBN: 1908902949
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 356
Book Description
In this anonymously published memoir, the experiences of a “light-bob”, or light infantryman, are recounted in a readable and exciting account. The Author reveals himself to be a proud Irishman who joined the 43rd in time to join the expedition to Denmark, before embarking on more serious skirmishing and heavy fighting in the Peninsular. First during Sir John Moore’s retreat to Coruña and then as part of the famed Light Division under General Craufurd. His view of the actions on the Coa, Masséna's invasion of Portugal, the battle of Fuentes d'Oñoro, the siege of Ciudad Rodrigo follow before his wounds at the storming of Badajoz force his retirement. The author gives an excellent account of the day-to-day life as an N.C.O. in the light infantry, tactics and experience recounted in detail, along with the impact on the Portuguese and Spanish civilians that he encounters. An enjoyable Peninsular read. Author — Anon Text taken, whole and complete, from the edition published in 1835, London, by John Mason. Original Page Count – 278 pages.
Women in the Peninsular War
Author: Charles J. EsdailePublisher: University of Oklahoma Press
ISBN: 0806147636
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 368
Book Description
In the iconography of the Peninsular War of 1808–14, women are well represented—both as heroines, such as Agustina Zaragosa Domenech, and as victims, whether of starvation or of French brutality. In history, however, with its focus on high politics and military operations, they are invisible—a situation that Charles J. Esdaile seeks to address. In Women in the Peninsular War, Esdaile looks beyond the iconography. While a handful of Spanish and Portuguese women became Agustina-like heroines, a multitude became victims, and here both of these groups receive their due. But Esdaile reveals a much more complicated picture in which women are discovered to have experienced, responded to, and participated in the conflict in various ways. While some women fought or otherwise became involved in the struggle against the invaders, others turned collaborator, used the war as a means of effecting dramatic changes in their situation, or simply concentrated on staying alive. Along with Agustina Zaragoza Domenech, then, we meet French sympathizers, campfollowers, pamphleteers, cross-dressers, prostitutes, amorous party girls, and even a few protofeminists. Esdaile examines many social spheres, ranging from the pampered daughters of the nobility, through the cloistered members of Spain’s many convents, to the tough and defiant denizens of the Madrid slums. And we meet not just the women to whom the war came but also the women who came to the war—the many thousands who accompanied the British and French armies to the Iberian peninsula. Thanks to his use of copious original source material, Esdaile rescues one and all from, as E. P. Thompson put it, “the enormous condescension of posterity.” And yet all these women remain firmly in their historical and cultural context, a context that Esdaile shows to have emerged from the Peninsular War hardly changed. Hence the subsequent loss of these women’s story, and the obscurity from which this book has at long last rescued them.
Wellington's Light Division and the Defence of Portugal
Author: Robert BurnhamPublisher: Frontline Books
ISBN: 1399060619
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 270
Book Description
There are many books on Wellington’s campaigns during the Peninsular War. Yet very few examine the pivotal year of 1811, when he went on the offensive and forced Napoleon’s armies back over 300 kilometers, from the doors of Lisbon to the Spanish border. For two months he pursued the retreating French, fighting skirmishes and rearguards virtually the whole way. The French finally halted at the Spanish border and turned on Wellington in early May, where an epic three-day battle was fought at Fuentes de Oñoro. The rest of the year, Wellington defended the border while making plans to liberate Spain in 1811. Wellington’s Light Division and the defense of Portugal looks at the famed Light Division as it led the pursuit of the French and was involved in almost every combat and battle fought that year. The book also explores the stalemate of January and February 1811, where the division maintained outposts overlooking French positions in the vicinity of Santarem, as well as the pursuit of the French Army back to Spain in March and April, when the division fought many skirmishes, combats, and small battles, often on its own. These include the actions at Pombal, Condeixa, Redinha, Casal Novo, Foz d’Arouce, Freixada, and Sabugal. May saw the Light Division in a desperate fight at Fuentes de Oñoro, where for much of the battle it held the army’s right flank. For the rest of the year the Light Division was in the vicinity of Ciudad Rodrigo where it occupied ground that it held for much of 1810, where it served as Wellington’s advance outposts. The assumed similar positions and were engaged at Fuente Guinaldo and El Bodon. In addition to these fights, the book will examine the changes in the organization of the division, with the addition of new battalions and release of other units. It will also go into great detail on the problems it had with command and control – with its leading officers exhausted, requesting permission to return home to recuperate. Drawing on diaries, letters, and memoirs, the authors tell the story of the officers and men who fought in the division. Many of these sources have never been published before.
Wellington's Light Division in the Peninsular War
Author: Robert BurnhamPublisher: Frontline Books
ISBN: 1526758911
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 357
Book Description
“A detailed and riveting account of the Light Division and its three regiments, 43rd and 52nd Light Infantry and the 95th Rifles . . . An important book.” —Firetrench In February 1810, Wellington formed what became the most famous unit in the Peninsular War: the Light Division. Formed around the 43rd and 52nd Light Infantry and the 95th Rifles, the exploits of these three regiments is legendary. Over the next 50 months, the division would fight and win glory in almost every battle and siege of the Peninsular War. How the division achieved its fame began on the border of Spain and Portugal where it served as a screen between Wellington’s Army and the French. When it came time pull back from the border, the division endured a harrowing retreat with a relentless enemy at their heels. It was during this eventful year it developed an esprit-de-corps and a belief in its leaders and itself that was unrivaled in Wellington’s Army. Wellington’s Light Division in the Peninsular War uses over 100 primary sources—many never published before—to recount the numerous skirmishes, combats, and battles, as well as the hardships of a year of duty on the front lines. Others are from long-forgotten books published over 150 years ago. It is through the words of the officers and men who served with it that this major, and long-anticipated study of the first critical year of the Light Division is told. “Given the limited scope of the book, covering only one year of the Peninsular campaign, the depth of the study is truly remarkable . . . An excellent history of the Light Division ‘Warts and All.’”—The Napoleon Series
Voices from the Peninsula
Author: Ian FletcherPublisher: Frontline Books
ISBN: 1473884799
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 240
Book Description
The Peninsular War was one of the most successful campaigns ever fought by the British Army. Between 1808, when British troops landed in Portugal, and 1814, when Wellington's Army advanced into the south of France, British soldiers were involved in countless battles and sieges against Napoleon's vaunted French veterans. Drawing on rare letters, diaries and memoirs, Ian Fletcher presents a superb insight into the daily lives of British soldiers in this momentous period and evokes such key battles and sieges as Vimiero, Talavera, Badajoz, Salamanca, Vittoria and San Sebastian. Ian Fletcher's skillful compilation of accounts, placed in context by important background detail, make this the story of the Peninsular War in the words of the men who marched, fought and triumphed with Wellington. Although there have been many accounts of soldiering in Wellington's army, Voices from the Peninsula throws new light on the experience of Napoleonic warfare and brings to life what Wellington called 'the finest military machine in existence'.
The Peninsular War
Author: Charles EsdailePublisher: Macmillan + ORM
ISBN: 1466892366
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 945
Book Description
A stunning look at Napoleon’s early nineteenth-century campaign across the Iberian Peninsula from historian Charles Esdaile. “Drawing on first-hand accounts of the conflict, Esdaile paints an indelible picture of the cruelties of Napoleonic warfare. His vigorous writing, comprehensive analysis and even-handed judgments make this an indispensable treatment of one of the watersheds of European history.” —Publishers Weekly At the end of the eighteenth century, Spain remained one of the world’s most powerful empires. Thanks to a long period of enlightened absolutism, Portugal, too, was prosperous. But by 1808, everything had changed. Portugal was under occupation and ravaged by famine, disease, economic problems and political instability. Spain had imploded and worse was to come. For the next six years, the Iberian Peninsula, for three centuries a byword for religious and military aggression, became itself the helpless victim of others, suffering perhaps over a million deaths while troops from all over Europe tore it to pieces. Charles Esdaile’s brilliant new history of the Peninsular War makes plain the scope of the tragedy and its far-reaching effects, especially the poisonous legacy that produced the Spanish civil war of 1936-1939. Portugal suffered unparalleled disaster, with casualties that have no comparison in its history. For Britain, the Peninsular War became the arena in which the redcoats of first Moore and then Wellington created one of her great national epics. For Britain, it was also the war that established a dazzlingly powerful military machine that both never lost a battle and became the first invading army to set foot on the soil of Napoleonic France. The Peninsular War tells this compelling, terrible story for a new generation with all the detail, color, and painstaking research for which Charles Esdaile has become famous. It is a monumental work of military history that has all the great military set pieces but never loses sight of the people of Spain and Portugal and the suffering they endured. This is a classic work of history that will set the standard for all that will come after it. “I found myself consuming it like a devouring flame. It is brilliant, indispensable and challenging. I suspect this will become the standard work on the Peninsula War and it certainly deserves to be.” —Bernard Cornwell “Well written and featuring rational conclusions based on solid research, it is highly recommended.” —Lt. Col. Charles M. Minyard, Library Journal
The British Soldier in the Peninsular War
Author: G. DalyPublisher: Springer
ISBN: 1137323833
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 433
Book Description
Combining military and cultural history, the book explores British soldiers' travels and cross-cultural encounters in Spain and Portugal, 1808-1814. It is the story of how soldiers interacted with the local environment and culture, of their attitudes and behaviour towards the inhabitants, and how they wrote about all this in letters and memoirs.
Peninsular Eyewitnesses
Author: Charles EsdailePublisher: Pen and Sword
ISBN: 1473817153
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 612
Book Description
Many books have been written about the British struggle against Napoleon in the Peninsula. A few recent studies have given a broader view of the ebb and flow of a long war that had a shattering impact on Spain and Portugal and marked the history of all the nations involved. But none of these books has concentrated on how these momentous events were perceived and understood by the people who experienced them. Charles Esdaile has brought together a vivid selection of contemporary accounts of every aspect of the war to create a panoramic yet minutely detailed picture of those years of turmoil. The story is told through memoirs, letters and eyewitness testimony from all sides. Instead of generals and statesmen, we mostly hear from less-well-known figures - junior officers and ordinary soldiers and civilians who recorded their immediate experience of the conflict.
The Military Memoir and Romantic Literary Culture, 1780–1835
Author: Neil RamseyPublisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351885677
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 284
Book Description
Examining the memoirs and autobiographies of British soldiers during the Romantic period, Neil Ramsey explores the effect of these as cultural forms mediating warfare to the reading public during and immediately after the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars. Forming a distinct and commercially successful genre that in turn inspired the military and nautical novels that flourished in the 1830s, military memoirs profoundly shaped nineteenth-century British culture's understanding of war as Romantic adventure, establishing images of the nation's middle-class soldier heroes that would be of enduring significance through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. As Ramsey shows, the military memoir achieved widespread acclaim and commercial success among the reading public of the late Romantic era. Ramsey assesses their influence in relation to Romantic culture's wider understanding of war writing, autobiography, and authorship and to the shifting relationships between the individual, the soldier, and the nation. The memoirs, Ramsey argues, participated in a sentimental response to the period's wars by transforming earlier, impersonal traditions of military memoirs into stories of the soldier's personal suffering. While the focus on suffering established in part a lasting strand of anti-war writing in memoirs by private soldiers, such stories also helped to foster a sympathetic bond between the soldier and the civilian that played an important role in developing ideas of a national war and functioned as a central component in a national commemoration of war.
