Of all the books on the Peninsula War, the most indispensable must be that written by Sir Charles William Chadwick Oman. He utilised a vast mass of primary source material, and created a mammoth seven volume history, which is not only very detailed, but also extremely readable. Whilst researching 'That Astonishing Infantry', I visited Sheffield central library one evening, and began to read Oman's account of the storm of Badajoz. When I next looked up, it had gone dark outside, two hours had passed and I felt shell shocked! It really is that good, and shortly afterwards, I invested in my own set.

Oman was born in 1860, and had been studying primary sources on the war for fifteen years before he encountered the Vaughan papers. Sir Charles Vaughan landed at Corunna in 1808 with Charles Stuart, English emissary to the Central Junta. He travelled to Madrid, and began to take copious notes of all he saw and heard, from Roman inscriptions to interviews with priests, politicians and Generals Cuesta and Castanos. In Aragon, Palafox introduced him to Agosatina, the 'Maid of Saragossa'. He carried news of the Spanish defeat at Tudela to Madrid, and took despatches to Sir John Moore at Salamanca which prompted the retreat on Corunna. During a short sojourn in England, he wrote an account of the siege of Saragossa, aided by the captive General Lefebvre-Desnouettes. He returned to Spain in 1809 and spent most of the war under English ambassadors at Seville and Cadiz.

During this time, he amassed a great collection of diaries, correspondence, statistics and Spanish newspapers. On his death, these bundles of notes were passed down through Vaughan's family until his last surviving relative donated them to his old college, All Souls, Oxford, where Oman was deputy professor of modern history. The bundles had not been opened since Vaughan's death, and it was the discovery of this vast wealth of information that made Oman resolve to write a history of the war.

At the Record Office, he had access to British reports, captured French despatches and Spanish correspondence. He read everything possible, including all the Parliamentary papers of 1808-9 and a complete run of the Madrid Gazette. Manybooks of memoirs were also consulted, though he realised these must be treated with caution in regard to precise details.

His aim was not to supersede Napier's history, but to make use of the large amount of material which had become available in the sixty years since its publication. At the same time, he wanted to redress the balance of Napier's work, which is rather biased, and sometimes inaccurate in points outside the author's personal experience.

Oman's first volume was published in 1902, and covered the origins of the war, up until the evacuation from Corunna. Volume Two, the following year, took the story to the end of the Talavera campaign. His research was aided by visits to such places as Talavera and Oporto, where inspection of the ground made clear what was not apparent from written accounts. Searching the Madrid and London archives revealed long lost Spanish 'morning states', and Oman was the first historian to document Beresford's reorganisation of the Potuguese army.

More Material

Following the publication of his first two volumes, Oman was furnished with further material from private sources.

Descendants of D'Urban, QMG of the Portuguese army, General Le Marchant, and the militia leaders Trant and Wilson, came forward with information. He made two tours along the Spanish / Portuguese border, making detailed observations of Bussaco, Torres Vedras, Badajoz, Fuentes D'Onoro, Albuera, Almeida and all points between. Some of this material went into Volume Three in 1908, which covered the war as far as Torres Vedras. The rest was filed away with the fervent hope that later volumes could be produced in the not too distant future.

Volume Four actually appeared in 1911, after Oman had made two further tours, the first covenng Cataslonia. The second journey was facilitated by the government of King Manuel, who lent Oman a motor car and an expert guide. He was thus able to chart Massena's retreat from Portugal, the deadlock on the frontier, and we have the notes he had previously made on Albuera. Back at home, he was able to examine the papers of Major Scovell, Wellington's cipher-secretary, which included translations of captured French dispatches, and many originals, written on tiny pieces of thin paper, and folded small enough to be hidden in a button or coat seam. No doubt their bearers had fallen foul of the guerilleros.

About this time, Fortescue, the historian of the British army, moved to Oxford as a lecturer, and was only too pleased to help Oman.

In 1913, Oman published his book, 'Wellington's Army', using information on organisation and military life, which was too good to ignore, but did not fit into his mainstream history of the war.

Aided by Fortescue, and many hours walking round the Arapiles, Oman was able to publish Volume Five in 1914, covering Ciudad Rodrigo, Badajoz and Salamanca. Unfortunately, war clouds were gathering once more.

At the age of 54, Oman offered his services, and spent the war years in Whitehall. In 1919, he was sent to the House of Commons as MP for Oxford University, and made two long official tours to France and the Rhineland. It was only in the Parliamentery recess of 1920 that he could once again take up his historical studies. A planned trip to the Pyrennees had been cancelled after his travelling companion was killed on the Somme in 1916.

However, Oman now had the use of Fortescue's material, which had overtaken his own history, and reached Waterloo. The long lost 'morning states' of Wellington's army in 1813 were discovered sandwiched between two pieces of cardboard in the Record Office. They had been separated from the relevant despatches, and eluded three generations of researchers, but Oman was able to accurately present the Anglo-Portuguese strength at Vittoria and the Pyrenees. Volume Six being thus completed, it was published in January 1922, with apologies for the shortage of maps, due to post war price increases.

The next book to appear was 'Studies in the Napoleonic Wars', in 1929. This was another collection of interesting side lights that did not fit in the History. They included an essay on Wellington's infantry tactics, and some secret service tales.

Parliamentary business made it difficult to fit in two more visits to the Pyrenees, and write the final, seventh, volume of the History. It appeared in 1930.

Despite enforced gaps between publication of the later volumes, Oman's History of the Peninsula War was the result of thirty years of intensive research, and remains the standard work on which hundreds of other books (mine included), have been based.

I take my hat off to him.