Book Review:

1757: The Defense of Prague

Review by James J. Mitchell


The Journal of Horace St. Paul from 7th May to 28th June including the Campaign of Marshal Daun
Translated and edited with additional material by Neil Cogswell

In his latest, and I believe final, offering of the writings of Horace St. Paul, a real-life Barry Lyndon who fled England after a duel over the favors of a lady and who eventually joined the Austrian army, Neil Cogswell continues in the fine tradition established in his earlier volumes. Having been defeated at the battle of Prague, the Austrian army has been bottled up in this city and is now threatened by an impending siege. Thus begins the narrative with the Austrians making preparations to resist the anticipated siege as well as proposing various plans for breaking out of their encirclement.

As in his earlier volumes, St. Paul provides a wealth of information concerning the makeup and morale of the Austrians, giving us numerous orders of battle and strength reports. He also details a number of small actions in and about the suburbs of Prague. With an unmatched eye for detail the meticulous St. Paul provides details of a general sortie against the Prussians that was proposed prior to the siege. He also gives a detailed list of casualties from the battle of Malleschitz (Prague) and a listing of effective troops.

Likewise as in his earlier volumes, a great deal of graphic material is included in the form of useful maps and drawings of many of the main features in and around Prague. Neil Cogswell is an accomplished artist, and some of his drawings of Prague, if larger, would be suitable for framing as works of art in their own right.

As an added bonus to the book, there appears a series of first-hand accounts, taken from various sources, of the battle of Kolin. As the Austrians held on to Prague, a second army had been created destined to relieve that beleaguered city. This second army was lead by General Leopold Daun and would hand Frederick his first defeat at the battle of Kolin. The latter part of this book is devoted to various accounts of this crucial battle and features numerous useful maps detailing the different stages of the action. Also included are sketches of many features of the battlefield such as hills, villages, and buildings. These were drawn by Mr. Cogswell based on his personal visit to this site as a member of the Duffy tour.

With its exhaustive orders of battle, gazetteer of place names, and listing of notables mentioned in the text, this book proves to be invaluable for the student of history or wargamer who is trying to achieve a fuller understanding of the first half of the campaign of 1757. For this reason alone it is worth the $40.00 price tag. In essence, there is practically all the information a wargamer could want within these pages to enable him to recreate this portion of the campaign of 1757.

The book is a quality paperback. It is 261 pages in length and is available either directly from Gralene books, PO Box 22, Guisborough, TS14 8YQ, or can be ordered from "The Seven Years War Association Bookstore" (see ad in this issue of the Journal) or from "On Military Matters" (also see ad on the back cover of this issue of the Journal) or other quality military history book stores.

We all should be pleased with the efforts of Neil Cogswell, Peter Wilson, Alister Sharman, and other members of the Seven Years War Association to make available information which would otherwise be inaccessible to the vast majority of the membership. I encourage all of you who have access to hard to get information to consider republishing it, or, if you can read French, German, Russian, etc., to consider translating some of this material and publishing it in the Journal.


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© Copyright 1999 by James J. Mitchell

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