Spellmount Ltd.

review by Richard Partridge

Readers will be aware that in this country we are fortunate in having several publishers who specialise in military history in general and the Napoleonic period in particular. One of these is Spellmount who have a most attractive book list, many of which would be of interest to readers of AoN, and which is going from strength to strength under the new owner, Jamie Wilson. Due for publication in the spring is a re-print of Gunter Rothenberg's Napoleon's Great Adversaries, a first rate history of the Archduke Charles and the Austrian Army; more on this nearer the time.

Spellmount have been responsible for publishing most of Ian Fletcher's books, including his two most recent oeuvres, Wellington's Regiments and Fields of Fire (reviewed below), as well as (for example) Waters of Oblivion (the British invasion of the Rio de Plata) and Crauford's Light Division. They have also published Intelligence Officer in the Peninsula (the Letters and Diaries of Edward Charles Cocks) and re-printed George Bell's Soldier's Glory. Talking of re-prints, back on the shelves are Dr. David Chandler's Marlborough as a Military Commander and The Art of Warfare in the Age of Marlborough, which are outside our period but which may be of interest. Spellmount have also published two very good 'entry level' books for the Napoleonic period, Napoleon's Military Machine and Wellington's Military Machine, both by Philip Haythornthwaite.

A visit to your local bookshop will probably tell you what you need to know on availability, or a letter and SAE to Jamie at the Old Rectory, Staplehurst, Kent TN 12 OAZ will do the trick.

Fields of Fire

review by Andy Finch

by Ian Fletcher, photographs by Andy Cook
Spellmount Publications, ISBN 1-873376-16-2, 176 pages, £ 35.00

Parallel to the increase in the number of battlefield visits nowadays, recent years have seen a growth in books giving the details of how to get there. Jac Weller's books included short paragraphs with rough directions, then a couple of years ago Julian Paget issued a dedicated book on visiting the Peninsula battlefields. In AoN13 Mike Oliver reviewed Donald Featherstone's recent book on the subject, and the Osprey Campaign series includes a chapter on the battlefields today. Now Spellmount has published Ian Fletcher's book on the Peninsula War battle sites. Unlike the others however, it is not a book on how to get there and what to see when you do, for there are no maps or directions, nor do I believe that the author intended it to be.

Ian should need no introduction as he has written several books on the Napoleonic period, specialising on the Peninsula War and he has also lectured on the subject.. He leads battlefield visits, and is thus admirably qualified to write this book. What makes it so very different are the illustrations, for the book includes many fine examples of Andy Cook's work. They are no mere "Here's a photo of the Dos Casas at Fuentes", more "The battlefield at Salamanca under a full moon". The book serves in the dual guise of both a general reference book on the War and as a tourist guide to Spain that, without wishing to be disrespectful, can safely be left out on the coffee table.

The text is a workmanlike overview and interpretation of the Peninsula War, and does not attempt to replace the more detailed single volume works by Weller, Gates or Glover (or indeed Ian's other books). The intention is to link the large number of photographs to the story. Andy Cook is a professional photographer and the pictures are therefore highly proficient and atmospheric. Moreover, they allow terrain builders and modellers to get just the right colours and effects, particularly with the buildings. A lot of my Drum and Hovels models are now going to require repainting to get just the right shade of red-brown for the roof tiles. I suspect that it is the cost of reproducing these photographs in colour that has been the major reason for the high cost of the book.

There are some interesting sidebars explaining various aspects of the War, as well as snippets from period autobiographies and histories to give flavour and seasoning. I do have some reservations, one of which is that I would have liked to have had more on what changes have taken place over the last 186 years in order to discount crops and vegetation, etc. in the photographs. The absence of any maps keyed to the photographs makes it difficult to appreciate what it is we are actually looking at. I feel that this book must be considered a supplement to other books on the Peninsular War, rather than a standalone reference work.

Napoleon: An Intimate Account of the Years of Supremacy 1800-1814

review by Ken Guest

Edited by Proctor Patterson Jones
Distributed by Random House; 444 pages; 300 colour and 200 B/W illustrations; $85

Proctor Patterson Jones' exceptional book Napoleon: An Intimate Account of the Years of Supremacy 1800-1814 was winner of the 1992 Napoleonic Society of America literary award. This is very much, as its cover proclaims, an intimate, rather than a military account of Napoleon's years of supremacy in Europe. Jones approaches his subject by selective editing of the memories of two men well-placed to observe the Emperor on a daily basis his secretary Baron Claude-Francois de Meneval and his valet Louis Constant Wairy (known as Constant).

Meneval loyally served Napoleon from 1802-13. He had replaced Napoleon's first secretary Bourienne, dismissed in disgrace, and remained until replaced by Fain. Although his three volumes of memoirs make little, if any, attempt to conceal his adulation of the Emperor, they remain a valuable contribution towards understanding Napoleon the man.

Constant entered the Emperor's service in 1800 and remained his valet until 1814. During those years he was in intimate attendance upon Napoleon. lacking the education to write his own memoirs he nonetheless had the foresight to keep detailed notes. The result, after collaboration with ghost writers, was ten volumes of memories! Although considered by academics to be works of suspect reliability, Constant's volumes offer a fascinating peek into the daily life of Napoleon.

Inevitably what remains of Meneval and Constant's original works n this interesting meshing of their memoirs is fragmentary. That is not to suggest that Patterson Jones' work is in any way a small book, far from it. Printed in an unusual format of 10'/2" by 101/2" it runs to some 444 pages, crammed with sumptuous illustrations of Napoleonic subjects both on and off the field of Mars. Within these pages all the pageantry of Napoleon, his court, army and times leap vividly to life. There are over 300 colour illustrations and 200 black and white, including 15 marvellous black and white photographs of some of Napoleon's old campaigners, proudly wearing their original uniforms for the camera.

At $85 this is not a cheap volume. However, given its outstanding production values (printed in Italy, on heavy matte paper) and that the costs for clearing the copyright on the illustrations was in the region of $40,000, it is amazing that the price has been kept as low as it is.

Wellington's Regiments

review by Richard Partridge

by Ian Fletcher
Published by Spellmount Ltd, ISBN 1-873376-06-5; 188 pages; £ 28.00

The Armies of Wellington
by Philip J. Haythomthwaite
Published by Arms and Armour, ISBN 1-85409-175-1, 318 pages; £ 20.00

When I first saw these titles on an advance publication list, my first thought was that they were going to cover roughly the same ground, and act in direct competition with each other. Having now had the chance to look at and compare them, I could not be more wrong, since they are perfect compliments to each other.

Taking Ian Fletcher's Wellington's Regiments first, the author has undertaken to provide a service history of all the British Army regiments that served under Wellington in the Peninsula or Belgium. After a brief overview of the British Army of the period, Ian then goes into each action for which a battle honour was awarded providing a map and an OB. There is thus a chapter on Arroyo dos Molinos, for which only the 34th got an award, but not one for Quatre Bras.

The meat of the book however is given over to individual service histories of all the British Army regiments, including the Irish ones disbanded as a result of Partition. These are comprehensive, with details of when the units arrived and departed, strengths, losses, etc. If I have one complaint however, it is that I like a "warts and all" history, so that we are not told (for instance) that the officers of the l0th Light Dragoons failed in their attempt to get rid of an unpopular colonel and were removed themselves, or that the reason the 85th Foot got the regimental nickname of the Elegant Extracts was because the regimental mess became clique-ridden.

That said however, what stands out for me are the large number of illustrations, both colour and black and white. Many of these were unfamiliar to me, and show the use to which Ian has put his contacts with Regimental Museums and the Army Museum's Ogilby Trust. Purists may argue that some depict very iffy uniforms, but even they will be very satisfied with the eight specially commissioned paintings by Dawn Waring, one example of which is elsewhere in this magazine. All in all, this book will appeal to a wide range of interests and is unhesitatingly recommended.

Passing on to the second book, The Armies of Wellington, by Philip Haythornthwaite, it is just as well to tell you now about what it ain't, because to an extent it has been mistitled. This is a book about the British Army, including units that did not serve under Wellington, as well as those Foreign Corps in British pay, and a few pages about the Portuguese. It does not have anything about the K.G.L., or any Spanish, Nassau, Dutch-Belgian, etc. units that served under him. What you do get is a plethora of information (warts and all) on how the British Army was recruited, officered, supplied and fought, together with a good trip round British involvement in the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars.

There are numerous little vignettes taken from period newspapers, personal journals and autobiographies; in fact I would almost be tempted to call it the British version of Swords Around a Throne. The illustrations are all black and white. There are some very interesting appendices, giving details of pay, military expenses, etc. as well as one giving details of the regimental colonels as at 1815. Again, a book that will be well thumbed.

If it came down to it, I could not make a choice between them, even the extra cost of Regiments is justified by the colour content. What I will say is that if you can afford both, get them, particularly if you are just starting to collect books on the British Army of the period. These two, plus Wellington's Military Machine will be an excellent base on which to build.

Like Hungry Wolves - Culloden Moor 16 April 1746

review by Charles Stuart Grant

Stuart Reid; plates by Gerry Embleton
Published by Windrow and Green, ISBN 1-85915-080-2, 128 pages, £ 35.00
(deluxe edition ISBN 1-85915041-1, numbered, signed, slip-cased, £ 65.00)

In the military book market these days, most periods produce a reasonably steady flow of new books. Only occasionally does a book come along that stands out head and shoulders above that mainstream and which is something really special. Like Hungry Wolves is one of these special books.

The author, Stuart Reid, will be well known to many readers for his excellent 18th Century Highlanders and Wellington's Highlanders, both published by Osprey in their Men at Arms series. Others will know him for his reenactment work.

I first saw Stuart at the 18th Century Weekend organised at the Tower of London in 1993 by Dave Ryan and Partizan Press. One could not help but be captivated by Stuart's excellent presentation and by the depth of research and knowledge that he demonstrated as he described the nature of the Jacobite forces of the '45. Now these thoughts and work are set out to be shared with us all in a lovely book which is sure to become a modern classic of the period.

Like Hungry Wolves is about 9.5 by a little over 12.5 inches with 128 pages on high quality gloss paper. There are 8 pages of full colour plates and the book is filled throughout with black and white illustrations, line drawings and maps. It follows on from the other titles in the series, The Thin Red Line, Into the Valley of Death and Zulu by Windrow and Greene Ltd.

The book begins by introducing the background and outline history, The author covers from Prestonpans through the war to the preliminaries of Culloden. This is followed by two excellent chapters, one on "The British Army of 1745" and the other entitled "The Jacobite Army". These provide a really good insight into the two armies, their structure and numbers, state of training I weapons and uniforms. these give the would be wargamer or historian a detailed picture of the opposing forces and their strengths and weaknesses. to take just one example of the wealth of information in this section, it is worth noting that each of the three elements of Jacobite cavalry , Lord Strathallan's Perthshire squadron, the Prince's Lifeguards and Bagot's Hussars are each dealt with separately giving details of their origins, numbers, standard of training and uniforms. Elsewhere, the description of the Jacobite way of fighting is very clear and provides a very good insight into their tactics and capabilities. I is from this depth of knowledge and understanding that the author later goes on to explain the battle. The same level of detail is to be found in his treatment of each element of the British army. The description of the nature of the "Vestry Men", so called because the money paid when "such able bodied, idle and disorderly persons" were impressed by the local magistrate into army service went into the parish vestry, provided a quick and relatively cheap means of recruiting. The product was of dubious quality however and it is no coincidence that the author moves on to talk about discipline and punishment in the army of the time. This is but one of the many interesting aspects of this detailed study into the army of the period.

Having set the scene with the background and the armies we are then provided with a detailed chronology of the days and events leading up to the battle. The battle is dealt with in great detail unfolding through no less than eighteen very clear and well detailed maps. He has not been bound by popular misconceptions and, while not setting out to debunk other historians as seems so popular these days, he has put together a view of this, the last conventional battle on the British mainland, which is both credible and extremely well researched.

Finally, in the chapter entitled "Afterwards" the whole issue of what happened to the Jacobite wounded, the remains of the Jacobite army and the stories of atrocities are dealt with using a variety of sources to shed some new light on the popular notions and romantic histories.

Turning to the illustrations, the artwork of Gerry Embleton is nothing short of superb. There are 8 full page colour plates, with 2 figures on each, giving 16 figures of the style and detail with which Gerry Embleton's name has become synonymous. They are accompanied by notes on each plate giving further details and sources. Added to these illustrations are the many black and white drawings and pictures which have gathered to cover virtually every page of the book adding to the wealth of written information. Many of these, provided by kind permission of museums and collectors, provide the enthusiast with scarce contemporary material in a published from under one cover. Other illustrations include photographs taken of the modern field which help to clarify the nature of the ground and the battle.

I can honestly say that this is an excellent new book which I thoroughly recommend to all those with any interest in this period. At £ 35 it may not seem cheap, but if you are looking for a real insight into the period then this book is surely for you. It combines the very best of scholarly but readable work , attractive presentation and wide ranging detail in a first class publication.

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