When I was writing the novels of Richard Sharpe's exploits in the Peninsular War, and had much recourse to diaries and memoirs, I used Schaumann twice as much as any other source. The famous, bestselling Sharpe books by Bernard Cornwell are firmly based in non-fiction, as the above quote by Cornwell in his Introduction to the latest addition to the Napoleonic Library demonstrates. He also says about On the Road with Wellington by A. L. F. Schaumann: "Delight in a difficult, dangerous and picaresque life infuses Schaumann's diaries, for they are among the very best memoirs ever to have come from the Peninsular War. Schaumann had a roguish eye, a good pen, and an appetite for life. This is no dull account of troop movements and supply difficulties, but a lively account of a young man unleashed to the pleasures of a foreign campaign. Anyone who is interested in the Peninsular War must be delighted that Schaumann's book is being republished, for it is truly the most entertaining and keen-eyed account of the wild and triumphant years when Wellington led his men from the coast of Portugal, across Spain, and into the heartland of France itself. Schaumann marched every step of the way and, this, now, is his splendid story." The remarkable memoirs of August Schaumann capture the life and adventures of a junior officer in the British Army as he endures the drama and agonies of the fierce struggle in Spain, Portugal and the south of France between 1808 and 1814. Schaumann took part in Sir John Moore's ill-fated campaign in Spain, was present at the 'bloody battle of Talavera', witnessed the battle of Bussaco and invasion of Portugal, fought at Fuentes d'Onoro and Vittoria, and accompanied the Allied forces over the frontier into France itself in 1814. As a commissary, entrusted with gathering supplies as the army advanced, Schaumann was caught up in a host of brawls and skirmishes, and his narrative is all the more valuable for relating the small war of picquets and outposts that went on through the conflict but was overshadowed by the more famous battles. He laments the lot of commissaries 'to expose themselves on their various raids to the danger of meeting enemy forces, to shoulder the greatest responsibilities, to be constantly threatened with assassination by enraged natives and to be treated shabbily by the generals'. This is a classic narrative from the pen of a gifted writer and superb observer of the people, places and events on campaign. To quote from On the Road with Wellington: "While on an errand in the town I passed a convent where the wounded were having their limbs amputated and dressed. Never shall I forget the heartrending cries which could be heard coming from the windows in the front of this building; while from one of the windows the amputated arms and legs were being flung out upon a small square below. On the morning of the 31st July I once again rode round the scene of the battle. Two battalions were still busy gathering the dead into heaps, and with the view of preventing pestilential smells and of saving time, partly burning and partly burying them. Here and there, however, one could see arms and legs appearing above the soil. Many corpses, both of men and horses, had been burnt brown by the sun, and, swollen to an immense size, filled the suffocatingly bad air with the most poisonous stench. In the afternoon various auctions were held in the bivouacs. At the auction held of the belongings of Colonel Gordon, who had been killed by a howitzer, I bought, for a mere song, his extremely fine dark blue overalls with two rows of buttons. And I wore them a very long time." On the Road with Wellington is the thirty-fourth volume in the continuing Napoleonic Library. 18 of the volumes are now out of print, or awaiting reprint, or appearance as a Greenhill Military Paperback. A number of those out of print are selling at enhanced prices on the secondhand market. Bernard Cornwell's basing his Sharpe books on non-fiction is a feature in each of his books, for at the end he provides a Historical Note to indicate that which is fiction in the novel and that which is based on actual events. He frequently cites a book published by Greenhill, such as A History of the Peninsular War by Sir Charles Oman, and in the recent Sharpe's Tiger he says: 'I owe gratitiude to the late Jac Weller for his indispensable Wellington in India.' (Wellington in India will be published as a Greenhill Military Paperback next spring.) Back to Greenhill Military Book News No. 90 Table of Contents Back to Greenhill Military Book News List of Issues Back to Master Magazine List © Copyright 1999 by Greenhill Books This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com