This study is based largely on printed primary sources - mainly the memoirs, letters and diaries of the soldiers themselves. There is such a vast and rewarding literature of this kind that it seemed superfluous to seek unpublished sources in the archives unless they provided evidence different in quality or kind from that which has been published. But such material is not readily found. Having been interested in this subject for many years, I kept my eyes open for it while spending months at Southampton University working working on the Wellington Papers for Britain and the Defeat of Napoleon, but found little that was relevant to the nature and experience of combat. At the Public Records Office I specifically looked at the full casualty returns for several regiments at Salamanca in the hope they might give details of how individual soldiers had been wounded - wether their wounds were due to artillery, small arms fire, swords or bayonets - but found the records barren. I did, however, find a most interesting return (WO 79/50) which lists the losses of Wellington's army in action, divided by year and by rank, and I have used this extensively in Chapters 8 and 9. At the National Army Museum and several other archives I saw a number of manuscript sources which provided some interesting material, although not fundamentally different from that found in similar printed accounts. Finally, I may mention that I have read - though not principally for this work - the very extensive correspondence of Alexander Gordon, one of Wellington's aides-de-camp throughout the Peninsular and Waterloo campaigns. It is a most interesting source for Wellington's operations, but again, it has little which is relevant to this study. Some general comments can be made about the published primary sources. Normally one would expect the works written closest to the time - particularly the letters and diaries - to be the most useful; and this rule generally holds good for discovering what happened at a particular engagement, where reminiscences have often been influenced by accounts published subsequently. But memoirs are often better at describing aspects of daily life which are taken for granted by those writing letters and diaries, while they can also be surprisingly honest in admitting to fear and misconduct. Detailed descriptions of fighting are surprisingly rare in soldiers' accounts there is usually much more on the joys and miseries of life on campaign and, in letters and diaries, speculation about future operations. In part this was because fighting itself was quite rare in a Napoleonic soldier's life, while battles were often followed by periods of intense activity, which left little time for writing. But it may also have been because battles were very confusing for most soldiers, so that even a few hours later they might be left with only a kaleidoscopic recollection of vivid images, but with no certainty of how they fitted together or related to the battle as a whole. Veteran troops were naturally less confused than novices, while mounted officers had a better view and wider responsibilities than subalterns; but no one not even the commanding general could see all of a battle, or appreciate all it's facets at the time. B<>Reconstructions Almost all personal accounts therefore contain a large element of reconstructing what happened after the event. This began on the evening after the battle as the soldiers exchanged stories over their camp fires. Striking or amusing incidents which had occurred during the fighting would gradually be smoothed into neat anecdotes which might, years later, be told with varying details in different memoirs even being attributed to different people at different battles, though the germ of the story would still be based on an actual event. In the same way, reminiscences occasionally credit the unit with performing an action at one battle which properly belongs to another, though such gross errors are rare. More common, naturally enough, are mistakes over the strength and identity of opposing forces, and uncertalnty over questions of timing, or the sequence of events, while many authors overstate - quite sincerely the importance of their unit's part in the action. The more detail we seek to extract from the sources the less reliable they generally become, especially when describing moments of intense combat. Some resort to stale rhetoric, others are vague, while even those which seem most plausible usually cannot be independently verified. The problem can be partly overcome by noting recurring elements in different though similar incidents, but in the end an element of uncertainty remains, which needs to be acknowledged. Among the scores of primary sources consulted for this study, only a few can be singled out for comment, but Sir Charles Oman gives an extended and still excellent discussion of the Peninsular sources in Wellington's Army. Of the British memoirists, none is more livey and amusing than Kincaid, that connoiseur of a good anecdote. Less well known is Thomas Brotherton, whose stories have been collected and made more widely available by Bryan Perrett. They make only a slim volume, but are most entertaining and suggestive, while conveying a wonderful impression of Brotherton himself in later life, at ease after a good dinner, a fine port beside him and a tale to tell. But despite his jovial manner, Brotherton was no fool, and other sources confirm that he was an active, intelligent and extremely gallant soldier. Harry Smith was another serious soldier who wore his professionalism lightly, while George Bell, William Grattan, Moyle Sherer, Richard Henegan and Colonel Landmann of the Engineers all deserve mention for their entertaining personal accounts. Andrew Leith Hay's Narrative of the Peninsular War is less humorous, but no less valuable, as should be clear from his wonderfully detailed account of Salamanca, often quoted above. Of the 'voices from the ranks', Edward Costello's memoir has proved the richest source, with comments on a wide variety of subjects. The anonymous 'Soldier of the Seventy First' has written a simple book of great appeal, and Thomas Morris, William Lawrence, Rifieman Harris and Private Wheeler are all useful. The memoirs of French officers and men tend to be more extravagant and less matter of fact than their British counterparts, though this may partly reflect the choice made by translators, for the results are most entertaining. Marbot, Parquin and Coignet all delight in the improbable story which reflects glory on them and tests our credulity, but in between these tales they give much interesting and plausible material. Rocca is less outlandish and so more useful, while his description of Andalusia is delightful. Lejeune writes with a painter's eye for a scene, while Thiebault, though not dependable, has much of interest. Other important foreign sources include Ammon and Herold's life of Christian Hagel, and Reuter's experiences at Ligny edited by May. Two useful contemporary accounts which go beyond personal experience are Stutterheim on Austeriltz and Muller on Aspern-Essling and Wagram. Letters and Diaries Letters and diaries tend to be less entertaining than reminiscences, though an exception must be made for Mercer's famous Journal of the Waterloo Campaign in which a contemporary diary has been written up for publication. The result is one of the most colourful and evocative accounts of the Hundred Days, showing considerable literary ability, and well deserving its frequent reprints. Less polished works are, however, sometimes more reliable Captaln Tomkinson's Diary has been recognized as a source of great importance since its first publication in 1894, and it has now been joined by the almost equally important letters and diaries of his friend Edward Charles Cocks. William Bragge's letters are quite interesting, as are those of Robert Ballard Long who commanded a brigade of British cavalry in the Peninsula, although not always to Wellington's satisfaction. Captain Dyneley's affectionate, amusing letters home were first published in the Minutes of the Proceedings of the Royal Artillery Institution in 1896, and have been made much more widely available by their publication in a slim volume by Ken Trotman. Less graphic and appealing, but still useful for a gunner's experiences, are Frazer's Letters and Swabey's Diary, while there is some good material buried deep in the Dickson Manuscripts. Comparable infantry sources abound, but it would not be unfair to single out the letters of Hennell, Aitchison and Simmons: while there is useful evidence of the attitudes of more senior officers in the lives of Colville and Uxbridge (see under Anglesey). Wellington's correspondence, however, seldom reveals much about the events of a battle, though there are some interesting reports about aspects of Busaco and Barrosa, for example, printed in the Supplementary Despatches. The collection of Letters produced by Captain Siborne's enquiries about Waterloo, and published by his son as Waterloo Letters, makes a tempting source, but one which needs to be used with caution. The letters were written twenty years or more after the battle, when memories were influenced by many accounts which had been published and some violent public controversies. They cannot resolve disputed details of the action, especially those touching on the 'Crisis', but they contain a great deal of interesting information, including excellent detail on points such as the way fresh supplies of infantry ammunition were brought up, or skirmishers were recalled. Journals In addition to these books, much good primary source material has been published as articles in journals. These range from specialist military publications such as the United Service Journal, the Journal of the Royal Artillary, the Cavalry Journal, the Journal of the Royal United Service Institution, and the Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research: through standard scholarly works such as the English ilistorical Review, to more popular serials from the Cornhill Magazine of the 1890s to Country Life and the Listener. Some of these articles are very brief for example a single page printing a letter from an officer at Albuera - to much more substantial series of articles, such as the diary of Francis Hall, or the original publication of Dyneley's letters. Others which I found particularly useful include the letters of Private William Windsor, and three relating to Salamanca: Charles Synge, Norcliffe Norcliffe (see Maj Gen J C Dalton), and Captain Barralier. Such journals can normally only be found in a good research library: much more generally accessible are the works Antony Brett-James and Faul Britten Austin which weave entertaining accounts of individual campaigns by a careful selection of extracts from memoirs, letters and other sources. At its best this can work very well indeed, bringing to light obscure and little-known sources, sometimes not previously available in English. It does not, of course, supersede conventional campaign histories, which provide a far better vehicle for detailed analysis and explanation, but it is a very useful supplement to them. The sum of all these personal accounts of fighting is inevitably impressionistic, suggesting interpretations of how battles worked, rather than proving them. The relatively hard data of statistics provide a measure with which these interpretations can be tested. This is so even though the data are often less reliable than they look when neatly laid out on the printed page. Neither the 'morning states' showing the strength of an army, nor its casualty returns, are invariably accurate, and even when accurate, they can still be misleading. The morning states included men such as bandsmen and farriers who were present with the unit, but who would not take part in the fighting: while casualties were sometimes inflated by the inclusion as wounded or missing of men who had gone to the rear, or artificially reduced by commanders wishing to minimize a defeat. In general British figures seem to have been accurate, apart from minor discrepancies and mistakes. Many scholars have examined them, including some inclined to be critical, without detecting major irregularities, though it is worth adding that British estimates of French losses in battles against them - like most such estimates - were often greatly exaggerated. French flgures for the Peninsula vary widely some are good, some non-existent (e g Marmont's losses at Salamanca), and some willfully inaccurate - Soult being particularly notorious in this regard. But in general, thanks above all to Sir Charles Oman, there are detailed figures for both sides for most battles involving the British in the Peninsula. Statistics for the great battles of central Europe are far inferior we do not even know the strength of the French army at Austerlitz, let alone the breakdown of its losses. The one great standby we do have is Martinien's list of every French officer killed or wounded in any action between 1805 and 1815. i-xtrapolating from such a list is not without risks, but it is far better than having nothing with which to test the accounts of the likes of Marbot (Scott Bowden's eagerly awaited Napoleon and Austerlitz should add greatly to our knowledge of these issues when it appears). Books Bridging the gap between primary and secondary sources are a number of books written after the war which are not personal accounts but which are informed by personal experience Clausewitz saw extensive service in the Prussian army, and On War is the grandest and most far-reaching of these books. Although his main interests are broader and more theoretical, Clausewitz makes some interesting comments on tactics, and especially on the degeneration of armies durinq a battle of attrition. However he assumes that his own experiences had a universal relevance which was not altogether justifled. Jomini's Art of War is also more concerned with strategic than tactical matters, but his chapter on the 'rormation and Employment of Troops for Battle' is full of interest and belies his reputation for dry, artificial abstractions. Marmont's Spirit of Military Institutions, Ney's Military Studies (written for the benefit of his corps in the Camp at Boulogne), and, although he was not born until after the war, Nolan's Cavalry all contain good material mixed with much which is less interesting. Napier's famous History is equally the product of both research and his own experience, but his accounts of battles are seldom very long and the details are often lost in the rhetorical flourishes. His letters from the Peninsula, printed in the typically Victorian life of him compiled by H A Bruce, are much more interesting, though there are frustrating gaps in the sequence. Similarly, Napier's life of his brother Charles is enriched by extracts from Charles Napier's journal, and by his memorable account of his experiences at Coruna. Napier's History has been largely superseded by Oman who gives very long detailed descriptions of all the major battles in the Peninsular War. Oman writes well and quotes from a wide range of first hand accounts to elucidate obscure points and to convey something of the atmosphere of the battle. His knowledge of the war and of sources in many languages is unrivalled; he takes great pains to ascertain what happened in as much detail as possible: he does not conceal difficulties and contradictions in the sources: and he produces a compelling narrative, while printing invaluable statistical material in his appendices. Compared to such achievements his failings are slight his first volume lacks some of the authority of its successors, his references are skeletal and his quotations can be disconcertingly full of trifling inaccuracies; his maps of battles have often been criticized as imprecise, though they are visually pleasing: and he is sometimes careless over details. Fortescue had the advantage of publishing most of his volumes on the Peninsular War after he had read Oman, and he can sometimes make cor rections or offer alternative interpretations which are convincing but in general the two great authorities largely agree, and of the two, Oman normally gives the greater detail while having the wider view. No other writers in English have worked on the same scale as Oman and rortescue, but there have been some valuable monographs and campaign histories. Busaco has been the subject of special studies by George Chambers and Donald Horward - the latter is very thorough and has the advantage of being able to draw on all previous accounts of the battle. Piers Mackesy has recently published a superb history of the British conquest of Egypt in 1801. Napoleon's campaigns have often been described, but seldom in sufficient detail to shed much light on how tactics worked in practice. Chandler writes brilliantly, but has space for only a sketch of each of the battles: Petre gives rather more detail but is sometimes confusing and often dull. The best monographs are Christopher Duffy's Austerlitz - shrewd, lively and with some marvellous quotations, it is much superior to his Borodino - and James Arnold's Napoleon Conquers Austria, which is less well written, but thorough. alert to tactical questions, and very useful. Robert Epstein, writing of the same campaign, makes an interesting if not altogether convincing case for regarding 1809 as marking the beginning of a new era of warfare. Strangely, despite the many books on the subject, there is no good modern history of the Hundred Days, and it may be that many of the disputed issues relating to Waterloo are so shrouded with controversy and confusion as to be Insoluble. Studies A number of valuable studies have been published on individual armies which often shed light on tactical questions. Probably the fullest account of the French army is Elting's Swords Around a Throne which covers a huge range of topics in considerable detail and with great enthusiasm. Blond's La Grande Armee Is more Impres sionistic and is much concerned not to forget the miseries of war. Johnson's Napoleon's Cavalry and its i,eaders is interesting and rewarding. but ultimately fails to do its subject full justice - possibly it should have been longer. Finally Paddy Griffith's Military Thought in the French Army, 1815 - 51 has a chapter on tactical training which sheds some light on the Napoleonic experience. Not surprisingly there are fewer studies of the other Continental armies Charles Esdaile s excellent Spanish Army in the Peninsular War has some good comments on tactics, though its main focus is on broader questions. Gunther Rothenberg's Napoleon's Great Adversaries Is helpful on the Austrian army, but has an enormous subject to cover in a relatively short book. The Prussian army has attracted rather more attention Paret's Yorck and the Era of Prussian Reform is erudite and forceful, though his strong emphasis on light infantry and skirmishers seems excessive, even anachronistic. There are two good articles by Showalter, while Peter Hofsehroer has written widely in amateur magazines and published various slight booklets - but has yet to produce the full account of the Prussian army at war which he has seemed to promise for so long. There have been a number of important books on the British army. Oman, Michael Glover, and Philip Haythornthwaite have each published studies of Wellington's army which explore different aspects of the subject, so that they are complementary. All three are excellent in their different ways, though none gives much consideration to the allied contingents under Wellington's command. As the most recent, Haythornthwaite faced the dimcuRy of making his book distinct from its predecessors, and has succeeded admirably by passing lightly over familiar topics, asking interesting and novel questions, and discovering fresh material in obscure sources. His approach to tactics is sophist) cased, though they do not figure very largely, and overall his book is most refreshing. So too is Life in Wellington's Army by Antony BrettJames. It has nothing on the fighting (though there is an excellent chapter on the wounded), but gives a vivid and interesting account of the daily life of the army both in cantonments and on campaign. Brett-James draws on a very wide range of sources and weaves quotations and paraphrases together with great skill to create an original and informative book. S.G.P. Ward's work on Wellington's headquarters is meticulous and authoritative, and he has rescued Sir George Murray from undeserved obscurity. Two important books on the background of the army also need to be mentioned Richard Glover's Peninsular Preparation is a scholarly if combative account of the reforms of the British army by a great admirer of the Duke of York: while J A Houlding's Fit for Service describes the training of the army in the eighteenth century with academic authority and detail which is sometimes overwhelming, but which does not obscure its important conclusions, especially the distinction between partly and really well trained troops. Regimental Histories In addition to these books there are many histories of individual regiments or larger units Regimental histories vary widely some are quite useless: others shed just the occasional ray of fresh light on what their unit was doing: while the most useful - at least for a study like this - are those which print otherwise unpublished letters or first-hand accounts. which give new details on precisely what the regiment did in a particular battle. A good example of this last type is Levinge's Historical Records of the 43rd Light Army. Verner's Historly and Campaigns of the Rine Brigade belongs in a class almost of its own based on considerable original research and wide reading, it is a detailed and beautifully produced account of its subject. There have also been several important modern unit histories Clark-Kennedy's account of the Royal Dragoons in the Peninsula and at Waterloo reveals much about the troubled inner history of the regiment and prints many extracts from its marvellously scurrilous Journal. Michael Mann's account of the King's Dragoon Guards at Waterloo is useful with some good new material, while Sir Neil Cantlie's History of the Army Medical Department is a scholarly work which sheds useful light both on the treatment of the wounded and on the constant drain which sickness caused in Wellington's army. Light infantry of the period have always been the subject of particular interest, partly because of the outstanding performance of the British Light Division and the fondness of its members for recording their achievements in lively memoirs, and partly because, both in tactics and philosophy, it was seen to be progressive and forwardlooking. David Gates has skilfully traced the origins, training and techniques Of the British Light Infantry Arm, though he too has found it difficult to discover many good descriptions of precisely what skirmishers did - as opposed to what they were meant to do - in action. Two well-known books on the subject by J.F.C. Fuller have been discredited by more recent research J A Houlding writes of British Light Infantry in The Eighteenth Century that it is to be avoided, since it is unhistorical, inaccurate, merely a vehicle for his tactical theories of the 1920s', while Gates makes even stronger criticisms of Sir John Moore's System of Training. Modern Studies There are a number of modern studies of the art of war in the period, or of particular aspects of it Gunther Rothenberg's Art of Warfare in the Age of Napoleon is wide-ranging, scholarly and authoritative: and he has also written a sensible, level-headed essay on the laws of war in the period. David Chandler includes a sparkling account of tactics and their interaction with strategy in The Campaigns of Napoleon but lacks the space to explore the topic fully. The technical aspects of weapons and equipment are well covered in Philip Haythornthwaite's Weapons and Equiptment of the Napoleonic Wars, and B.P. Hughes's Firepower and Open Fire, although the latter's attempts to calculate the effectiveness of weapons in action appear simplistic and unconvincing. Jean Colin's Transformations of War has many interesting comments on different aspects of the subject, although his views are sometimes heavily influenced by the military debates of his time. Drill regulations are explored with teaming enthusiasm by George Nafziger and George Jeffrey, although they constantly encounter the problem of not knowing how far these regulations were applied in practice (See also the article by John Keegan in the Times Literay Supplement and the interesting correspondence which it provoked). The role of the general in action has been little explored: Vachee gives a detailed account of Napoleon on campaign and the workings of Imperial Headquarters which is most rewarding, but his account is much less effective once the battle begins. Keegan's Mask of Command, van Creveld's Command in War and the improbably named Lt - Col. C.O. Head's Art of Generalship are all most disappointing, while Wavell's Generals and Generalship is slight but quite interesting. Infantry Tactics Infantry tactics have been the subject of rather more attention, although there has been much copying of dubious material from one secondary source to another. Home and Pratt's Precis of Modern Tactics should have been forgotten long ago, but still wields surprising Influence, often at second or third hand Decke's Introduction to the History of Tactics is rather better, but is now super seded. Ross's Flintlock to Rifle is a considerable improvement on these, although it still conveys a rather dry, mechanical view of tactics Robert Quimby's Background of Napoleonic Warfare traces French debates about tactics during the eighteenth century. It is an important and scholarly book, but its influence has not been entirely beneficial, for it has directed attention to military writers engaged in controversies rather than to what actually happened in battle. John Lynn avoids this pitfall in Bayonets of the Republic- though he takes due account of such debates. His book is based on a very detailed examination of a single army In action the Armee du Nord in 1791 - 4. By trawling deep in the archives he has found a mass of fresh material that overthrows some old assumptions which had become too well established, and provides a solid basis for new argument. Some of his conclusions seem disputable, and the general applicability of others may be doubted, but it is a most significant book. Tactics and the Experience of Battle In the Age of Napoleon was almost completed before I was able to read Brent Nosworthy's Battle Tactics of Napoleon and his Enemies. I approached it with some trepidation, fearing that It might pre-empt some of my own arguments; however it has a quite different approach to the subject, being more concerned with the history of tactical doctrine than how tactics worked on the battlefield. An example of the difference in perspective is that Nosworthy devotes a single brief chapter (fourteen pages in a book of 516 pages) to 'the psychological basis of tactics', which I feel lies at the heart of the subject. But if there is little contact between our arguments for much of the time, there is a pleasing level of agreement when we do approach an issue in the same way. For example, we are both sceptical of the practical application of complicated drill evolutions in close proximity to the enemy, and I can heartily recommend his chapter on cavalry versus infantry. British infantry tactics in the Peninsula have been the subject of much controversy and debate. In the 1850s and 1840s Napier and Major General John Mltchell disputed the relative importance of firepower and bayonets (for a lively account of this quarrel see the chapter on Mitchell in Jay Luvass's Education of an Army). In 1910 Oman presented his famous paper on 'Column and Line in the Peninsular War' to the British Academy, subsequently reprinting it with variations in both Wellington's Army and Studies in the Napoleonic Wars. Much of this essay is an original and generally convincing description of Wellington's tactics, making points which have won universal acceptance, so that they now appear commonplace and obvious, even almost trite. However he also makes one important error of fact, and two interpretations which have been challenged. The factual mistake is simple: he says that the French attacked in column at Maida where in fact they were in line, and the point is central to his argument, for he uses Maida as a case study of why line was intrinsically superior to column. The error was corrected in the version of the paper published in Welilngton's Army but not in that in Studles - for which none of the obvious explanations (carelessness? pressure of other work? copyright?) provides a reasonable excuse. The first of his interpretations which has been attacked is his statement that attacking French columns in the Peninsula had no intention of deploying into line before closely engaging the British. This contradicted both French tactical doctrine and the arguments of Oman's contemporary, the French authority Jean Colin. Their view has been revived by James Arnold in his rather bad tempered article 'A Reappraisal of Column versus Line in the Napoleonic Wars'. However Oman's argument is more subtle than Arnold allows, and though Arnold scores some definite hits, his alternative interpretation appears unconvincing. The second element of Oman's essay which has attracted dissent is his emphasis on British firepower as the vital point in explaining their success, shown at its crudest when he counts the number of muskets which could be brought to bear in any confrontation between troops in line and in column. Here the criticism seems well founded, for the accounts of participants usually lay at least equal stress on psychological factors - surprise, the cheering, the counter attacking charge - as on the volley; while, as we have seen, it is not clear that the British troops always fired before the French broke (see above pp 95, 96 - 7). Oman's leading critic on this ground has been Paddy Griffith, who gives an excellent account of the whole issue, and many other aspects of infantry tactics, in his Forward Into Battle. (This has appeared in two editions, the second having significant new material in the Napoleonic chapter, though not particularly relevant to this point). I fully agree with the thrust of Griffith's argument and have been much influenced by his approach, though I think that he is inclined to overstate his case. (His study of tactics in the American Civil War is also very interesting, although not all readers will be convinced that it was 'the last Napoleonic War'). There is another ground on which Oman's essay might be criticized, although less for Its content than for its immense influence. Oman concentrates on Wellington's defensive tactics, and this has been transmitted through countless popular works into an unthinking cliche that the British always stood on the defensive, in line, on the reverse slope of a ridge, and that the French always charged forward to attack them in column, never learning their lesson. In fact, of course, battles in the Peninsula took many forms, with the British often taking the offensive and the French sometimes O'ghting in line. Oman knew this well, and the descriptions of battles in his History are more subtle and careful than the disputes over his essay would suggest - aithough he does occasionally make sweeping statements, especially about the superiority of line over column, which now seem unwise. Napoleonic tactics may appear an arcane subject to outsiders, but it is discussed with great enthusiasm and passion in a number of amateur journals. From the late 1970s to the mid-1980s, when I first became seriously interested in the subject, I found these magazines most stimulating and rewarding Empires, Eagles and Lions, the Journal of the Napoleonic Association, The Courier and Wargamer's Newsletter contained fresh work from writers including Paddy Griffith, Philip Haythornthwaite, James Arnold, George Nafziger, Peter Hofschroer and Richard Riehn. Some of the pieces were distinctly amateurish, others were no more than idle thoughts tossed up for discussion, but others were quite substantial articles (often spread over a number of issues) and have since been developed at length in books. Occasionally the lively discussions led to prolonged controversies which could be exasperating to those who took part this is said to be the reason for the tone of James Arnold's article on column and line), but in general they encouraged a cross-fertilization of ideas. I should add that I lost touch with these magazines in the mid-1980s, and do not know how they fare today, though I have seen some good articles in a similar, journal, The Age of Napoleon. A few books remain to be mentioned John Keegan's The Face of Battle has had great and deserved popular success, for it developed a fresh and innovative approach to the subject by concentrating on the experience of individual soldiers in battle. The analysis of tactics is not always entirely convincing, and Waterloo is not the most typical battle of the period: but the book is well written and raises many interesting issues, often exploding previously unquestioned assumptions in the process. Keegan himself traces the origins of this approach back to Ardant du Picq who, in the mid-nineteenth century, explored what actually happened in battle with a refreshingly open mind. Battle Studies Ardant du Picq's book remains immensely stimulating, though few would doubt that he often carries his arguments too far. Both Keegan and Ardant du Picq stress the importance of psychological factors in combat, and Richard Holmes in Firing Line takes up this theme and explores it at length. He is particularly interested in how soldiers were trained and prepared for battle, how group loyalty sustained their morale in action, and how men dealt with their fears and reacted to the horrors of war. Although he draws examples from all periods the focus is very much on the twentieth century, but It is fascinating reading and points of comparison, similarity and difference from the Napoleonic period constantly spring to mind. My only real complaint is that his notes and references are very limited, so that it is often impossible to trace stories back to their source. More directly relevant and no less stimulating is Christopher Duffy's excellent Military Experience In the Age of Reason. It describes the military experience during the eighteenth century both in Europe and overseas, in cantonments, on campaign, and in battle, drawing on a remarkably wide range of sources, while remaining entertaining and enjoyable to read. The long (eighty -page) chapter on battle is perceptive and original, and it has often been the only secondary source which touched on questions which I wished to explore, suggesting lines of approach and hinting at possible answers. Duffy's book is nicely complemented by Jay Luvaes's compilation Frederick the Great on the Art of War which contains many relevant and suggestive comments, Interest in military history, and in the Napoleonic Wars in particular, continues to flourish. Rare, early memoirs are keenly collected and sell for hundreds of pounds - many have been reprinted, as have Oman, Napier and numerous lesser works. New books regularly appear, and while some are slight and derivative, obviously aimed at an uncritical audience, others are more substantial, being based on painstaking research or developing original arguments. No single approach can do justice to all facets of Napoleonic warfare, and many important books have been written which have not been mentioned here because they do not relate to the details of combat, This diversity is the best and most encouraging indication of the health of the subject. Our Thanks To Rory Muir and Yale University Press For Permission to Reprint this Extract Back to Age of Napoleon No. 28 Table of Contents Back to Age of Napoleon List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master List of Magazines © Copyright 1998 by Partizan Press. This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. 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