Dear Sir,

With reference to Paddy Griffith's stimulating essay entitled Where Did Our View of Napoleonic Warfare Come From which appeared in THE AGE OF NAPOLEON #12, perhaps the following comments may be of interest to your readers.

Paddy stated that: The second major weakness in our evidence for 'continental' tactics seems to be that there are really very few detailed first hand accounts of low level tactics, written by genuine eye-witnesses, which have been left to us either by the Grande Armee or by its enemies-and that applies to 1806 as much as 1813. We have political, strategic and 'operational art' accounts in profusion-but not many truly 'tactical' accounts.

I would really like it to be true that- for reasons of national or linguistic bias-] have simply failed to locate the massive body of evidence for low-level 'continental' tactics that is probably lying around unreported and unexploited, somewhere out there, such as might equal the quantity and quality of the well-known body of British first-hand accounts for the Peninsular War and Waterloo. But after thirty years of searching, I am starting to lose hope that it actually exists. So please can you help?

Yes Paddy, I can help. And it is true that-for reasons of national or linguistic bias-you have simply failed to locate the massive body of evidence you hope exists.

You could start by reading one or two of the books or articles I have written over the last fifteen years or so. Some of these have the odd quote from works of the sort you are starting to lose hope that actually exist. Also, you are more than welcome to read any of the works in my collection. I have a shelf a metre or so of such memoirs. Then there are all the unpublished sources in various archives in Europe-Vienna, Hanover, Berlin and Brunswick, for instance, which contain fairly significant collections. Then there is also the substantial body of published works in the German language.

For instance, I have in my collection a number of accounts by German participants in the Peninsula War as well as an entire tome of extracts of accounts by German participants in the Battle of Waterloo alone. There is a large amount of evidence available which has not been used to any appreciable extent by modern scholars, but to use it, you will have to learn the German language.

The information you require is there. It is relatively easy to locate. It is simply a case of going there and reading it.

Hope my comments have been of some use.

Yours faithfully,
Peter Hofschrer

Dear Sir,

While I tend to concur with Stuart Reid about the .... editor's fervent attempts to attribute politically correct feelings to the subject are both inappropriate and irritating. 'Political correctness' itself requires some explanation in general terms as well as in reference to the R.N. Buckley edition of THE HAITIAN JOURNAL OF LIEUTENANT HOWARD, YORK HUSSARS. (See AoN#12, pg13, ED) Most people in Britain tend to associate political correctness with phrases such as 'vertically challengedi'which are both silly and unintentionally funny. However, there is a more serious side to this subject. It is in fact an intellectual disease sweeping the campuses of the United States. Works that do not fit into the ideological norm (usually marxist) are at best ignored and at worst suppressed and attacked. I think we all agree that this offence against scholarship is to be deplored.

Yet, R.N. Buckley whose SLAVES IN RED COATS (Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 1979) is worth a read, may have resorted to this deplorable verbiage in order to get this work published. Thus Political Correctness is an occupational hazard when dealing with works published in the United States. Danger signs to watch out for are usage of terminology such as 'Native American' which is not offensive to the parties involved and is merely proof positive that Columbus should have lost his pilot's licence. The military historian should not worry overmuch about this, since military history is still regarded as the idiot nephew of political history by many (but not all) historians.

This leads us on to the matter of The French Army 1789- 1815: a Bibliographical note (NN&Q# 10, pp7-11, ED) Quite what Dr,. Charles Esdaille meant by recent years I don't know, but I feel that the omission of Samuel F. Scott's THE RESPONSE OF THE ROYAL ARMY TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1978) must be rectified. While much of its contents are indubitably applicable to other armies, it should be pointed out that Dr. Lynn's book specifically refers to the ArmLe du Nord. The description of Jean-Paul Bertaud as a Jacobin is perhaps a little imprecise. The term 'marxisant' might be more appropriate. For the uninitiated, that means that while the writer does not embrace fully the tenets of marxist history, he uses some of the methodology and tends to be left-leaning.

Finally, I must admit to being a little surprised at Dr. Esdaile's comments on Colonel Eltings's; work. Mostly, because I was not entirely sure what his objection to the book was. The use of terms such as 'hero-worship' about a book could be levelled against just about any text on a specific subject and steer dangerously close to the 'argumentum ad hominem'. I grant you that Colonel Elting's style and occasional lapses into U.S. Army patois may not be to everyone's taste, and perhaps Dr. Esdaile just did not like the book without being able to find anything particularly wrong with it. All-in-all, the objections seem to be on an interpretational level rather than on a factual level, yet this was not made clear.

Yours faithfully,
Magnus Guild