The Duke and the Emperor

reviewed by Richard Partridge
Author: Major General John Strawson,
Publisher: Constable £ 15.95

While I was reading this, an irreverent thought came to me. During my first year at Grammar school, my geometry teacher tried to get me to understand that if a line A-B was parallel to a line C-D, and if the line C- D was parallel to a line E-F, then A-B must be parallel to E-F.

What this laboured analogy is trying to say is this: There are three books, the current one linking the Duke of Wellington with the Emperor Napoleon. In 1988, Desmond Seward wrote a book Napoleon and Hitler, A Comparative Biography, and more recently Alan Bullock wrote Hitler and Stalin: Parallel Lives. Does this mean that we can compare Wellington and Hitler? Napoleon and Stalin I can agree. (And no, I'm not kidding: I don't think the average French peasant, secured in his appropriated Church lands, would have thought that the crucifixion of his son on a barn door in Spain an equitable payment.)

Maj-Gen. Strawson does not make it clear for whose benefit he is writing, but in my view it is not for the specialist reader. The two biographies are competently told, but there is very little formal comparison between the tactics and strategic ability of Wellington and Napoleon, nor is there any attempt to expound on the military systems within which they were operating. To try to write the military lives of these two men in a relatively short book of 356 pages means that none of the battles are given more than a cursory treatment.

Maj.-Gen. Strawson notes in his Acknowledgements that A.G. MacDonnell had a suspicion of bibliographies since they tend 'to persuade the non-suspecting that the author is a monument of erudition and laboriousness'. The bibliography included in the book has some fifty-six citations. Admittedly some are for multivolume works such as Churchill and Fortescue, but what are surprising by their absence are any of the many works by David Chandler.

A book partly on Napoleon that does not cite Campaigns of Napoleon? The prose tends to be a bit purple at times, with 'tough, yet touchingly soft hearted' British soldiers, commanded by officers who put 'duty, loyalty and service first'. I can imagine the Peer's caustic comments at that description. One can only assume that it's the British Army's tribalism at work. The author also has the unfortunate habit of including French aphorisms and quotations without translation, therefore rendering them meaningless for those readers (like me) who have forgotten what little French they knew.

There is really little new in the book to recommend it, unless one counts the final chapters which are on the postWaterloo period. These include the return of Napoleon's body to France and the ceremonies concerning its re-interment at Les Invalides. If you haven't already got biographies of Wellington and Napoleon you might find it useful.

Wellington's Foot Guards

reviewed by Paul Chamberlain
Author: Ian Fletcher
Publisher: Osprey £ 8.50

This soft cover book examines the uniforms and insignia of the British Guards, both for campaign and ceremonial wear. The volume contains a general description of the Guards during the period, including their service record. It is generously illustrated with black and white pictures to depict many aspects of the Guard's dress, and there are also 12 colour illustrations by Bill Yourighusband to portray the Guards in various actions and as they would have appeared on ceremonial duty at St. James' Palace, or at the Duchess of Richmond's Ball. I particularly like the one used to adorn the front cover of the book. This is of the Light Infantry Company of the Coldstream Guards at Salamanca, 1812.

This is a new and well-presented study of the subject of the British Guards, and contains much detail that is of use to modellers and wargamers, aside from the student of the British Army.

Recommended.

British Cavalryman 1792-1815

reviewed by Paul Chamberlain
Author Philip Haythornthwaite
Publisher Osprey (Warrior Series) £ 8.50

I enjoyed reading this work, but got to the end wanting more! The volume certainly contains a large amount of information about the subject, but I think that there is scope here for a much greater study. This new offering from an author wellknown in Napoleonic circles examines the life of the British cavalryman, including: how he was recruited and trained; Officers; regimental organisation; pay; home service; life on campaign; tactics theory and practise. Both Heavy and Light cavalry regiments are examined.

The information presented includes a table of regiments and their service records during the period, and uses many black and white illustrations to depict all aspects of the British cavalryman. Contemporary accounts are used to portray the subject matter and explain the use and soldier's opinions of the uniforms and equipment. There is a section on some of the engagements involving British cavalry, namely Villers-en-Cauchies and Le Cateau in 1794, and the activities of this arm during the Peninsular War.

However, what makes this book so useful for wargamers especially are the twelve colour plates by Richard Hook that illustrate the subject so well. Two such plates show Heavy cavalry uniform and equipment, with two others dealing with the Light Cavalry. Examples of horse furniture are shown, and there are some interesting birds-eye views of Dragoons assembled in line, and Brigade tactics. Avery useful and interesting book. Highly recommended.

Nelson's Heroes

reviewed by Paul Chamberlain
Author Graham Dean and Keith Evans
Publisher The Nelson Society £ 8.00

There is always a demand for biographies of the common soldier and sailor of the period, and this book is a brief story of a few of those sailors and marines. It is the result of a Nelson Society project entitled In Search of Nelson's Men; a project to locate details of the men who served under Nelson. This is an illustrated 150 page record of 50 such men, giving short biographies and details of burial places and monument inscriptions.

The men included are both officers and seamen/marines of the Royal Navy. Each name is a story in itself, as each man is different both in his naval career and how his story is told. The book details their lives before and after Trafalgar in many cases, and includes family stories of their domestic activities where these are known. Where their memorials have survived, the inscription is recorded, and there are 20 black and white photographs to illustrate the last resting places and monuments of these men.

It is a book for aficionados of Nelson and British naval history, and gives a glimpse of but a few of the lives of the many thousands of men who served with Admiral Nelson. As the Introduction states: 'It is hoped that, through this book, the pleasure of rescuing from obscurity many a mariner will interest readers sufficiently to look for themselves, and find the final berth of their own Nelson hero.

Perhaps The Nelson Society will publish a bigger study in the future. Until then, Nelson's Heroes will suffice as an interim report, as it were, and hopefully encourage students of the period to keep alive the memory of their own local naval hero.

Battle Tactics of the Western Front, the British Army's Art of Attack 1916-18

reviewed by Richard Partridge

Author: Paddy Griffith.
Publisher: Yale University Press £ 20.

First of all, I make no apologies for reviewing a book on the First World War in a magazine called Age of Napoleon. Paddy Griffith is well known for his work within the Napoleonic period, and it is possible to make a case that the events of 1914-1918 had their genesis in the period 1792-1815.

I can remember reading about the Battle of Passchendaele in a copy of Look and Learn over 30 years ago. My father and mother were born in 1919 and 1920 respectively, so they were able to pass on the soldier's stories of the trenches that they had heard. I supplemented these with books borrowed from the library. What struck me more than anything was that everything I read or heard marked the Great War as being pointless, fought by generals who had no idea of what they were doing.

It was only when I read John Terraine's books The Smoke and the Fire and To Win a War that I realised two things. The first is that the remembrance of the casualties suffered during the War is a form of national self pity. They are nothing out of the ordinary when nation-states involve themselves in total war; big boy's games, big boy's rules. The second realisation was that the ending of the War was probably the British Army's finest achievement. Having been pushed back by the German spring offensive, Haig was able to stabilise the line, then, in a series of counterattacks regain all the lost territory and break out 'into the green fields beyond'.

Starting in August the German Army was militarily defeated and was close to breaking point when the Armistice was signed. In the '100 days' the British Army captured more prisoners than the rest of the Allies put together, along with vast amounts of artillery and stores, to all intents and purposes without substantial reinforcement by the Americans.

Now Paddy's book puts probably the final and most enduring myth to rest. To many people the accepted wisdom is that if any army of the First World War was innovative, it was the German one. The tactically sterile and hidebound British generals could not break into German positions, whilst in 1918 German stormtroops and predicted barrages were able to break British lines with ease. Paddy looks at the use to which the British put their new and improved weaponry. He concludes that whilst the theories had been worked out, it was more the conditions that caused the failure to achieve. The infantry had built up teams of specialists armed with rifles, light machine guns and grenade- throwers that could break open weak spots, whilst the artillery could provide box barrages, etc. to protect the attacks going in.

He makes the compelling point that it was British doctrine to launch trench raids to validate these tactics, something that the Germans did not do. It was perhaps this emphasis on the attack that caused the British to neglect their defences and thus lay themselves open against the attack that came in 1918.

Readers familiar with Paddy's earlier books will be aware of how much an iconoclast he is, and this book continues that trend. It is choc-full of diagrams, vignettes and data backing up his points, including a fascinating one on the speed of creeping barrages in some specified attacks. There are three very interesting appendices, including one on how the study of military history is perceived at university level that it would have been nice to publish in AoN as a stand alone article for discussion.

A second appendix serves to link Paddy's Rally Once Again with the current work, whilst the third looks at the somewhat confusing genealogy of the B.E.F. As is usual with Paddy's books, the Chapter Notes are as illuminating as the body of the text, whilst his bibliographical comments on his sources are useful for any follow-up reading. I was surprised to find that Paddy, with his interest in 'tactical snippeting', had not used Lyn MacDonald's vernacular histories.

The book will appeal to many interests, to British Army historians, to students of the operational art, and to wargamers. There is currently little interest in wargaming the trenches because of the perceived sterility, but this book should go a long way to awakening interest. If I have any gripes, they are very minor: Paddy uses the 9th (Scottish) Division for many of his examples, and it would have been useful to have had the German Staff's battlefield analysis of its effectiveness. Also, since these battlefield practices were the basis of post-war training, what failings were carried over into the British Army's doctrine for the 2nd World War -- or is this Paddy's next book? (Please!) Again, much recommended.

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