Redcoat

Redcoat: The British Soldier in the Age of Horse and Musket
© 2001 Richard Holmes
400 pgs

‘There is no beating these British soldiers. They were completely beaten and the day was mine, but they did not know it and would not run.’

I first knew red coats as the kit of villains, the bad guys of the American Revolution. A healthy diet of other history, however, has given me a ready admiration of the British army - - one I put aside when I'm watching something like The Patriot and am obliged to  hiss at Jason Isaac's amazingly evil dragoon commander character.  It's hard not to admire an army capable of allowing a small island bobbing amid the Baltic and the North Atlantic to maintain influence across the globe.  Redcoat falls within the area of military history, but does not record military campaigns. Instead, it delves into the organization, operation, and experiences of the men who wore red -- and green, sometimes -- throughout the 19th century. 

Holmes' exact range spans from the Seven Years War to the end of the Crimean war and the Indian Mutiny, or just about a century. In that century, Britain drove France from North America,  fought a dictator who had almost the whole of Europe at his command, and appeared both in the middle east and India for the first time. Drawing from diaries and letters,  Holmes examines different classes of soldiers -- officers and enlisted -- as well as the different services and their evolution.  In this period we find the British experimenting more with light skirmish troops at times,  and cavalry is similarly divided into light and heavy despite there not being much of a difference in practice.  Light infantry were equipped with a more precise rifle instead of the 'Brown Bess' musket employed by the regular infantry:  that musket was only good under 100 yards, while the Baker was effective at twice that range.  (Those familiar with Bernard Cornwell's Richard Sharpe, of course, will remember he carried a Baker.)

Most soldiers came from the bottom ranks of society, enlisting primarily for pay -- taking the "king's shilling"-- while their officers were from the aristocracy.  Even the well-bred had to mix money with their service, however, paying for commissions and commands.  (Officers "buying" companies sounds very strange to our ears, but it's not as if modern professional armies appeared overnight.)  Holmes also includes chapters on medicine and camp followers -- particularly wives. Though soldiers were forbidden to marry without permission, the amount of debilitating venereal diseases prompted Britain's military leaders to allow more wives to travel with their husband on assignment to dampen the lure of prostitution.  Only 12% of wives were allowed, however, and those who did were required to work for the company in the form of laundry or otherwise. 

Students of the period will find this a valuable resource for information on the everyday life and duties of soldiers, including the perils and responsibilities. The chapters on organization and the duties of general officer and such were personally sleep-inducing, but they were soon replaced by horses and artillery and other exciting things.  Holmes doesn't shy away from the terror and gruesomeness of war -- I had no idea solid shot was as dangerous as he describes it, thinking that canister fire was more common.   For those curious about how a horse-and-musket army was organized and fought -- those who want to see behind the scenes of battles like Waterloo, say -- Redcoat should prove a fascinating read.    Holmes has other works on the British soldier in history, including Sahib and Tommy. 

Rifleman Dodd and The Gun

The Gun, and Rifleman Dodd
© 1933 C.S. Forester
311 pages

"There was sorrow in Dodd's heart as he looked down on the pitiful scene, but it did not prevent him from turning away and setting himself to survey the next adventurous quarter of a mile of his route. There are many who give up, and many who procrastinate, but there are some who go on."

C.S. Forester is best known for his Horatio Hornblower stories,  naval adventures set in the Napoleonic Wars.   These two short works, The Gun and Rifleman Dodd, are less known but equally entertaining and detailed. Both are set in Napoleonic Iberia, as both a peasant resistance and the shattered remnants of the old Bourbon Army fight for Spain and Portugal's liberty from Napoleon,  with the generous support of English seapower and the Duke of Wellington.

The first story, The Gun,  follows an eighteen pound siege gun which abandoned on the field after a crushing Spanish defeat, but recovered by a priest and a few farmers, The gun passes from hand,  as many realize its incredible potential and attempt to shift it to the best place -- and those who particularly value it seize it by force. It does get put into action, however, fomenting rebellion on the plains and sending the French into retreat for the first time.

Rifleman Dodd pieces together the adventure of the eponymous rifleman after he is cut off from a retreat, and lost behind enemy lines. A hard-worn veteran of five campaigns, Dodd knows how to soldier and stay alive, and so when he encounters a group of Portuguese irregulars, he becomes their leader and becomes a phantom menace to the French, who are haunted by visions of a green Englishmen.  Even as they methodically begin sweeping and scouring the hills to destroy his hiding places, Dodd and a couple of survivors -- and finally, Dodd alone -- endeavor to put flames to Bonaparte's plans.

Although a sketch of their plots gives both of these novels an air of romantic air,  they're not fanciful in the least.  Forester does not shy from the brutal behavior of both parties, French and irregulars, as they fight tooth and claw with one another.  Forester also does not reduce the French to a distant enemy:  in Rifleman Dodd, he tells their story in alternate chapters, and every person Dodd kills is named as he falls.   There's no denying the adventurous drama of the last bit of Rifleman Dodd, however, as he beards the French lion in its den.  Good stuff!

As a bit of trivia, Bernard Cornwell mentions a missing rifleman named Dodd in one of his Sharpe novels, also set in Spain.   This is a deliberate reference to Rifleman Dodd, and one of Cornwell's stories about becoming a writer involves trying to find more stories like Dodd, and then realizing he'd have to write them himself.  Three cheers, then, for Rifleman Dodd, which was not only a great little story by itself, but one that gave us the force of nature that is Sharpe.

Rifleman Dodd was originally known as Death to the French. I speculated that the title was changed after the outbreak of World War 2, but Rifleman Dodd seems to have just been the American title.

Related:
Cornwell's Sharpe books
Forester's Horatio Hornblower sea stories

The Return of Horatio Hornblower

Hornblower Addendum
Collected 2011 eNet press
79 pages

Has it been eight years since I last sailed with Horatio Hornblower?  The naval adventure series by C.S. Forester, and the A&E movie series based on it were one of the highlights of 2010, and in the years since I’ve subjected many friends to those same movies so I could have the pleasure of watching them again in company.  In hunting for books like Horatio Hornblower, however, I stumbled upon a collection of Hornblower tales I’d missed -- or, mostly missed.  This is not a substantial collection by any means; it’s rather shorter than the shortest Hornblower work, Hornblower and the Hotspur, or Hornblower in the West Indies,  and two of its five stories have been previously collected.   The stories are chiefly of interest to those who know and admire Hornblower already,  as they put him in fascinating or morally demanding situations.  The last story here has him encounter a seeming lunatic who claims to be the emperor Napoleon, for instance, while another has him tasked with securing an Irish deserter and discovering a secret compartment in the man’s trunk filled with gold. In all instances Hornblower proves himself to be a perfectly honorable and charitable fellow.  Perhaps the most interesting story in the one in which Admiral Hornblower is asked to take insane King George III to rendezvous with another ship, but they’re stumbled upon by an American frigate in the latter part of the war of 1812.

Although this collection really only recommends itself to the completists among Hornblower readers, I felt instantly at home as soon as I started reading the first story. Forester and his naval hero were good to experience again.

I'd planned this book to be a Read of England post, but it's more "fun-sized" than a regular read. I am gearing up for that, however -- we're a week away from a solid month of English glory!

The Age of Napoleon

The Age of Napoleon
© 1975 will Durant
870 pages

Because I could not stop for Death, he kindly stopped for me – or didn’t.  Will and Ariel Durant intended for Rousseau and Revolution to be the final volume in their epic history of Western Civilization, but grew bored waiting for the Grim Reaper to show up and claim them.  They decided, therefore, to scratch an itch, and devote a final volume to Europe in the age of Napoleon.  No individual has ever dominated a single volume in this fashion; even Charles the Fifth,  in The Reformation, would disappear  in chapters chronicling Persia and Arabia.   But Napoleon’s story encompasses not just France and England, but Spain, Italy, Germany, Austria,  and Russia.  The emperor does move backstage at times – in the chapters on  English poetry and novels, for instance – but he is never completely gone.  This final volume manages through Napoleon’s person to be just as comprehensive, but more tightly bound.

The Durants open with a more involved chronicle of the French revolution that concluded Rousseau and Revolution, this one making more obvious that the revolution was a slow but quickening crumbling of royal legitimacy that collapsed into the chaos of revolution after a few sudden shocks.  The king’s decision to attempt to escape France in fear of his life was one such shock, demonstrating that he was and remained an actor – not a prop.  From here, the Durants follow the Wars of the Coalitions, as the various nations of Eurrope fell in to and out of alliances with or against France, with the enmity between England and France being the only fixed point.  In 1807, with Napoleon  enjoying one of his greatest triumphs – the subjugation of Prussia, and the pretended friendship of Russia –  the Durants pause to cover  both French and English culture, including one hundred pages on English poetry alone.   They then alternate  sections on the culture of Germany, Russia, Italy, Iberia, etc and sections on the Napoleonic wars as they encompassed these regions.

Related to this volume’s unusual dominance by one person is the unusually heavy amount of military coverage here. The Durants typically dispatch wars in  a few sentences, concerned with them only as a background to  the social or political events that develop as a consequence.  There’s no getting away from battles and Napoleon, though, even considering the energy he poured into the political administration of France and Europe, and the long-term effects that energy would have.  The result is not a military history, however; there are no maps of battles.  Instead, the Durants treat the readers with their usual balance of literature, science, economics, etc.   there is a section on Jane Austen, for instance.  Another prominent author, Germaine de Staël,  maintained a long rivalry with Napoleon; she wrote a celebratory survey of German culture that pined for more amity between France and the Germans, and was present in Russia when Napoleon drove towards Moscow.  Beethoven, of course, merits a full section of his own.

Napoleon reliably described himself as a Son of the Revolution, even though his policies ended some revolutionary dreams.  His concordant with Rome, for instance,  re-established the Catholic Church in France, albeit in a corralled form. That was a far cry from the total secularization (or de-christianization, depending on the revolutionary), dreamed of by many – those who redrew the calendar and butchered France's artistic legacies,  those who in a just heaven will be consigned to  war forever with the whitewashing Puritans and the sculpture-smashing Wahhabis,   as well as others who would destroy art and heritage for ideology. Napoleon did apply much of the revolutionary, modernizing spirit to those parts of Europe he conquered  -- overwriting their ancient laws and traditions with constitutions from his own pen.   Although Napoleon kept faith with some of the past as convenient -- his concordant with Rome, for instance -- the Durants observe that in his army and state,  merit reigned, allowing even commoners to advance.

Although the Napoleonic wars have never been of great interest to me, the Durants' volume created an actual enthusiasm in me about the subject. As usual, I was impressed with their critical but forgiving evaluation of Napoleon, whom they regard as one of the singular men of history.  His reputation owes not just to his role in closing the violence of the revolution, or in his spectacular battles -- but pouring so much energy into his work, and being so successful in combat and in administration, that he transformed Europe,  planting seeds that would flourish throughout the 19th century. A century after his final defeat at Waterloo, an even greater war -- one spurred by changes Napoleon wrought -- would be harrowing the soil of France in blood, bones, and cannon once more.

And now, dear readers, what's next in Will Durant's Story of Civilization?

C'EST FINI! 

Waterloo

Waterloo: The History of Four Days, Three Armies, and Three Battles
© 2015 Bernard Cornwell
352 pages

Bang upon the big drum, crash upon the cymbals

We'll sing as we go marching along boys, along

And although on this campaign

There's no whiskey or champagne

Still we'll keep our spirits going with a song, boys!

("Songs and Music of the Redcoats")

Bernard Cornwell's most famous work is his Sharpe's series, well over a dozen novels following a rifleman all around the Napoleonic world -- over the hills and far away, through Flanders, Portugal, and Spain, with India and France as bookends.  In Waterloo: the Story of Four Days, Three Armies, and Three Battles, he attempts to parlay his considerable research into the Napoleonic wars to a work of nonfiction.  He introduces his latest with a question: why write another book on one of the most studied and famous battles in Western history?   Indeed, while Waterloo succeeds as popular history, considering the lavish visual detail it's practically more of a tribute than a study.

For me, Waterloo is a welcome arrival. Not only do I enjoy Cornwell enormously, but my knowledge of the Napoleonic period is fairly dismal; what little I possess is what I've gleaned from novels like Cornwell's and C.S. Forester's, not to mention the odd computer game. By way of background: following the Battle of Leipzig, Napoleon Bonaparte, Emperor of France,  Europe's tyrannical spectre for well over a decade, was sentenced to rule the little island of Elba. Frustrated by his island kingdom's lack of funds, Napoleon returned to Paris and the Allies' war against him renewed.  Hoping to deal with his enemies (England, Holland, Prussia, and Russia) piecemeal, Napoleon marched north to confront the Anglo-Dutch in Holland.  Rout them, and the other Allies might just call the whole thing off.  Thus did Bonaparte finally meet the Duke of Wellington, the man who had helped drive France's armies from Spain.

Like Gettysburg, Waterloo was less one battle than a campaign. Cornwell's tale unfolds across several days. Napoleon has to strike before the Anglo-Dutch and Prussian armies can meet, and fights two simultaneous battles at Quatre Bras and nearby Ligny in the hopes of pushing the Allies away from one another. While this isn't a roaring success for France, it does strain communications and gives Napoleon a day to push at the Anglo-Dutch.  Waterloo is that day of battle, the longest day of the year in which the bullets were still flying at nearly nine o'clock.   In addition to reporting on the campaign's development as the French pushed steadily toward the English lines, Cornwell explains  the nuances of  Napoleonic warfare to the reader.  Key to understanding this kind of war is the relationship between infantry, cavalry, and artillery; Cornwell describes it as a paper, rock, and scissors game.  Infantry moving in a line were effective offensively, but woefully exposed to cavalry charges; if they formed into a square,   they were deadly obstacles to cavalry but inviting targets to the artillery.  The armies involved are constantly attempting to out-manipulate the others and press an advantage.

Cornwell's extensive experience as a novelist is clearly present here: he frequently shifts between past and present tense, and employs the same kind of sentence combinations he uses for dramatic effect in the novels. (It's a one-two literary punch; a series of sentences leading the reader in one direction is suddenly reversed by a following and much shorter second sentence.)  The narrative thus brings to mind a novel, but there's no denying Cornwell's ability to communicate the sheer drama of these armies maneuvers as well as the horrendous cost the chaos of the battle was inflicting on the participants. I mentioned the lavish detail earlier, but it bears more comment. I have never seen a work of history this extravagantly illustrated.  There are two-page spreads of paintings depicting moments in the action, and not just one but interspersed throughout the text. Even the maps are indulgent, abounding and presented in full-color.   It's this kind of loving attention that makes Waterloo seem like something rendered more to honor and remember than merely to inform. While it sometimes seemed he wanted to write a novel, Waterloo is a fantastic first offering of nonfiction from Cornwell's pen.

Related:
Sharpe's Series, Bernard Cornwell.

Master and Commander

Master and Commander
© 1969 Patrick O'Brian
411 pages

This morning, in a quiet courtyard, I finished Master and Commander, the first book in Patrick O’Brian’s Napoleonic naval stories.  These have been recommended to me ever since I finished Horatio Hornblower, though O’Brian devotes far more space to technical seafaring matters. He’s aware of this, too, having a sailor explain the workings of the good ship Sophie’s riggings to the newly-arrived surgeon.  The series is reliably referred to as the Aubrey-Maturin series for centering on the friendship between Commander Jack Aubrey and his surgeon, Stephen Maturin. There are other interesting relationships, like the Mysterious Past between Maturin and the lieutenant of the Sophie, Jack Dillon. Both seem to have a connection to the failed and bloodily-repulse Irish Uprising in 1798.  The book follows  Aubrey’s brief stint on the Sophie, which largely involves him chasing potential prizes, almost to the ruin of his ship.  One character comments that Aubrey would have been a better fit  as a pirate a century prior.  Despite his winning audacity, Aubrey's relationship with his immediate superiors is testy, to say the least. When O’Brian is not attempting to trip or entangle readers in the ropes and riggings of 19th century naval equipment,  he has a lovely hand for description, and I would not be surprised if I sailed with the good captain again. The main attraction for the books other to the naval action is the presence of a natural philosopher, a man fascinated by the world around him.

The Age of Revolution

History of the English-Speaking Peoples: The Age of Revolution
© 1955 Sir Winston Churchill
332 pages

The third volume in Winston Churchill's "History of the English Speaking Peoples" begins with the most dramatic assumption of power in modern English history.  In the age of religious warfare, the Protestant-majority Parliament deposed its Catholic king, James II, and invited William of Orange and his wife Anne (an English princess) to take the throne. The 'glorious revolution' opens The Age of Revolution, an age which ended the long epoch of history-as-made-by-the-king and ushered in the modern dominance of parliaments, congresses, and diets.

The revolutions which felled kings in England, America, and France anchor the book, with countless European wars occupying the chapters between. Although the wars of religion are fading,  state politics causes conflicts aplenty on its own, like the wars of French and Spanish succession, and the seemingly near-constant Anglo-French wars in the Netherlands. The wars leapt continents, as the Seven Years War in Europe became the French and Indian War in North America. The greatest conflict, of course, was the series of Napoelonic wars, which end the book. Throughout this long century (the book spans 127 years),  the English king plays an increasingly smaller role; the 'glorious revolution' isn't the last time Parliament simply chooses to appoint its next king, and the Hanoverian succession of Georges that continues today  demonstrated that de facto sovereignty lay with Parliament, not the king.

Churchhill is a moderate historian, and its coverage of the American War of Independence is as genteel and even-sided as one might expect from a half-American author shared the rigors of World War II at the side of Franklin D. Roosevelt, of whom he said, "It's fun to be in the same decade with you."  The conservative Churchhill is likewise careful when recording the bitter battles between Tories and Whigs, the then-dominant political parties; neither side is favored. (The long view of history aides objectivity; I doubt Churchill is so fair in his narrative of World War 2!) This is narrative history, a grand story driven by personalities like the the handsome, brilliant, dashing, gallant, honorable, endlessly clever Duke of Marlborough.  Also known as John Churchill, or Sir Winston's great-great(etc)-grandfather, the attention given to him shows that  this isn't quite 'objective' history, but what's the point of having famous ancestors if you can't brag about their exploits defending the Netherlands against dictators from the east?  Given his own history in World War 2, little wonder he identified with the Duke's so strongly. The French revolution gives us a villain in Napoleon, and towering heroes in the form of the Duke of Wellington and Lord Nelson to slay the Corsican dragon.

All told, The Age of Revolution is quite an enjoyable survey of this period's history, of medieval kingdoms maturing into modern states, despite being largely about the wills of titanic characters and the wars they fought.

Waterloo

Waterloo
© 1990 Bernard Cornwell
378 pages

Although Napoleon Bonaparte came from Corsican royalty, his upbringing evidently lacked manners, else he would know it is most uncouth to interrupt a ball with a massive invasion. After years of brutal fighting in Portugal and Spain, Richard Sharpe thought he had seen the end of war. The imprisoned emperor's armies were defeated while he languished in Elba-- and yet, like a horror movie villain, he sprang back to life as soon as the peace was settled, resuming his role as Emperor and resurrecting his grand army. So much for the allies' little dance party. Richard Sharpe couldn't be happier to march off to war and leave the frippery of the ballroom floor behind -- well, provided his adulterous wife returned the fortune she stole from him when she ran off with a charming cavalryman.  So the peace is ended, and the conflict begins anew -- but this time there are no grand campaigns, only Napoleon's furious drive toward Brussels to capture the allied high command, and the Duke of Wellington's hurried hope to to find ground firm enough to make a stand against Napoleon's army and utter lack of tack. Both meet on the plains outside of Waterloo, where Richard Sharpe will lay eyes on the man he's fought for so many years, and make history yet again.

The grand finale to Sharpe's series and the Napoleonic wars, Waterloo must be one of the best-known-of battles in western history.  Although many preceding Sharpe stories have rivaled this in spectacle -- the man has charged a fair few forts, both in India and in the Iberian Peninsula --  Waterloo is easily the largest.  The ranks of both armies swell, not just with thousands of ground-pounding infantry and artillery, but a full host of colorful cavalrymen.  Officially attached to a Dutch unit with an aristocratic idiot for a commander, and suspended from duty for refusing to serve incompetent orders, Sharpe spends the battle moving from frantic scene to frantic scene, at one point standing with his own old regiment, the South Essex, against the mighty French horde. Cavalry charges in all their glory strike again and again, but as usual Cornwell is careful to create not only the show of war, but its awful, grisly consequences; one man is left to a fate so obscene that I felt sorry for him despite his loathsome character.  Even though Sergeant Harper is no longer in the service, he and Sharpe spend the entire battle palling around raising hell, seeing  Sharpe's old regiments (including his very first, the 33rd Regiment of Foot) and running into a few old comrades. Cornwell is excellent in the usual categories; dialogue between Sharpe and Harper is fast and witty, and the characters stand out even from the lushly detailed background the author gives them, rich as it is with the sight of fog rolling over the hills or the thick smell of horse manure filling a valley floor. It's the usual Sharpe fun, but added to a far larger and grander battle; Cornwell always writes spellbinding battle scenes, but here the effect is magnified by the sheer scale of the forces involved. Waterloo is thus a good end to a fantastic series. Those who've never marched with Sharpe will be pleased to note that Cornwell adds in a little background information, in no doubt anticipating that the simple title will draw in more readers than the usual Sharpe devotees.

Sharpe's Christmas

Sharpe's Christmas
© 2003 Bernard Cornwell
104 pages

Sharpe's Christmas collects two stories which do the seemingly impossible, in honoring the Christmas spirit while simultaneously being action-adventure tales starring Richard Sharpe. Sharpe doesn't lend himself easily to Christmas stories; he is not lovely or kind. He is a soldier whose battle-scarred face has frightened women, and whose rifle and cavalry sword have frightened men, from Indian to France.  He is a wonder as a soldier, grimly effective, but dismally unlucky outside the killing fields.  His attempts at love have met in disaster as his beloved ones die or vanish, along with whatever fortune he entrusted to them.  And yet the Daily Mail asked Bernard Cornwell to write two Sharpe-related Christmas stories for them, and so he did.

 The stories are not unusual in their Christmastime setting;  the series has seen battles set around the Christmas season before.  But while there Christmas was the background, here it is the abiding theme.In the first story, "Sharpe's Christmas",  Sharpe is participating in the invasion of France, and caught between two forces of Imperial troops in a narrow mountain pass, some of them commanded by an old friend. In "Sharpe's Ransom", disgruntled Hussars break into Sharpe's postwar home in Normandy and hold his wife and child hostage unless he produces the gold  the evil masterspy Ducos framed him for stealing in Sharpe's Revenge.  After outwitting the dopes guarding him, Sharpe must effect a rescue of his family.  Readers are treated to the usual elements of a Sharpe novel -- desperate battles between riflemen and massed columns of French troops, small-scale action by Sharpe himself, plenty of humor (especially between Sharpe and his usual compatriot, Patrick) but with a Christmas twist. Sharpe creates a miraculous victory out of disaster out of nothing but cleverness, skill, and cutting remarks, but the discovery of an old friend allows him to act as an agent of mercy; in "Ransom", he doesn't take out the entire band of Hussars singlehandedly, but turns the crisis into an opportunity to win the trust and acceptance of the local villagers, who -- being French -- resent an English war hero taking up residence among them and taking as his mate a once-noble widow.  Sharpe's Christmas is as exciting, historically grounded, and funny as any Sharpe novel -- but it's also heartwarming. It's positively touching.  I thought it quite appropriate.

Sharpe's Revenge

Sharpe's Revenge

© 1989 Bernard Cornwell

Englishmen in Toulouse, Prussians in Paris -- there are foreigners everywhere, and for Napoleon the war is over. Not for Sharpe, though, not by a long shot. His old enemy Pierre Ducos has seen fit to ensnare Sharpe one last time before the piece is signed, and it will cost Sharpe more than he ever imagined.  Sharpe’s Siege takes the reader  through what seem to be the last skirmishes of the war, and then into the peace, which is far more dangerous. Accused of murder and grand theft,  Sharpe is left to wander through France avoiding the armies of l’Empereur and the English Crown, for both have become his enemy.  Sharpe’s Siege is one of the more agonizing pieces in this series, but satisfies in a way few have.  The plot is vaguely familiar (I’m sure this isn't the first time Sharpe has been on the lam from his own army with no one but Patrick at his side),  but the late game is more than mere military adventurism.  Sharpe’s own soul is tortured here, and while it’s painful for him it’s great reading -- and it is moments like those crafted in here that will be remembered long after the series is finished and the epic battles scenes have evaporated from memory.  I rather doubt Sharpe’s Waterloo can top this, but we’ll see.

Sharpe's Siege

Sharpe's Siege
© 1987 Bernard Cornwell
352 pages

               Napoleon may not realize it, but his wars are lost. The English have achieved total naval supremacy,  and are free to raid the coasts of the imperial hexagon at their leisure. Richard Sharpe, whose sturdy Riflemen are in part responsible for l’Empereur’s imminent job loss, has been dispatched on one such raid. His orders are to capture a small but potentially bothersome fort, and possibly wander over to Bordeaux, where it is said the people are clamoring for the restoration of the Bourbons. Alas for Sharpe,  he is a pawn twice over; he has been invited to join the raid only so the bumbling generals in charge of it will have hope of victory, or at the very least a good scapegoat – and the generals themselves are operating on suspect intelligence fed to them by French counterintelligence mastermind, Pierre Ducos.  When Ducos learns that the redcoats are up for a little raiding and Sharpe is with him, he takes a personal interest in not only rendering their plans moot, but condemning Sharpe to die.  In short order, the good rifleman is trapped in France with no hope of escape but an American pirate who was to have hung for crimes against the Crown.   Sharpe’s  Siege distinguishes itself from many other Sharpe novels in that the military action is wholly fabricated; the raid he participates in never took place.  Although the military scenes are full of excitement and explosions and the like,  they take second place to Ducos’ scheming; there’s no doubt that Sharpe will capture the fort and then defend it against a host of embarrassed Frenchmen, but getting out of the greater trap is an altogether different feat. What I appreciated most about it was the mixing-in of naval action. Alas for me, there are only two more Sharpe books waiting – Sharpe’s  Revenge, which is next, and then  Sharpe’s Waterloo.

The Age of Napoleon

The Age of Napoleon
© 2004 Alistair Horne
218 pages

Napoleon Bonaparte cast a long shadow over history, considering the relative slightness of his origins. Who would expect a boy from a conquered island to rise to the height of power and command one of the greatest empires in history, and leave a legacy even grander?  Alistair Horne's contribution to the Modern Library Chronicles series discusses that legacy in part, although it is a mere sample of what one might say about the Emperor. Horne himself has written larger, more exhaustive works on the same subject, but this series consists of compact introductions. Horne's account focuses on life in the empire away from the war,  treating military affairs in general as background material only to be referenced occasionally.  A story told in eleven short chapters (including an epilogue), Horne  discusses Napoleon's rise to power, his ambitious vision for both France and Europe (unified and modern),  how society responded to him both at home and abroad, the corrupting effects of hubris as his influence grew, and eventually his downfall.  Other books on the Modern Library Chronicles series have succeeded in meaningful summaries of broad subjects by focusing on a few key points, like Karen Armstrong's treatment of ummah (political-spiritual community) in Islam. Horne's reach is more broad, and not quite as potent.  Even so, I don't know if the emphasis on society and culture in the Napoleon era is one covered by many other books, which would tend to focus more on politics and military games.  On the whole, The Age of Napoleon is a short but  enjoyable read, its ideal audience being lay persons who are faintly curious about Napoleon but who have little interest in reading about military maneuvers.

Related:
"Paris", from The City in Mind by James Howard Kunstler, in which Napoleon's architectural legacy is discussed more thoroughly.

Sharpe's Regiment

Sharpe's Regiment
©  1986 Bernard Cornwell
416 pages

The year is 1813, and the Allied army stands upon the Pyrenees awaiting the invasion of France and victory. Napoleon's empire is shrinking: he once stood as master of Europe, but Wellington's army and shrew diplomacy have stripped the Iberian peninsula from his influence, and the eastern members of the allied Coalition are increasingly restive. Now even Austria seems ready to enter the war against Napoleon.  For Richard Sharpe, this should be a proud, happy moment. Wherever Wellington has triumphed in this campaign, Sharpe and his chosen men have been nearby -- in the thick of the fight, perhaps, storming a fortress, or perhaps engaged in a bit of quiet skulduggery.  These triumphs have come at a price, the ever-increasing butcher's bill of casualties. The South Essex has suffered dearly, and needs reinforcements -- reinforcements that are long overdue. Sharpe, temporarily commanding the regiment while awaiting a new superior officer to be appointed, is dismayed to learn that the brass is considering breaking up his regiment, dividing his men up to strengthen other units. To Sharpe, this is a tragedy and an outrage. His men, who fought together throughout Portugal and Spain, who have seen their colors flying through the worst battles of the war, deserve to invade France at one another's side.  Taking advantage of a temporary armistice, Sharpe and Harper decide to undertake a mission in Britain -- to find their lost reinforcements and save their regiment. They find that the unit is imperiled not by administrative bungling, but subtle malice: the South Essex is the victim of a racket, its soldiers being sold to other regiments -- and like any racket, danger awaits those who seek to expose it.


I appreciate Sharpe's series most for its variety; though military action predominates, Cornwell often treats readers to smaller-scale action -- sending Sharpe on little missions into cities, in the interests of diplomacy or espionage. Regiment is in this vein, although Sharpe isn't sneaking through a foreign city but his homeland, and those interested in killing him wear his own uniform. It reminds me in part of Gallows Thief, as Sharpe is stealing through the land attempting to solve a mystery: where are his reinforcements? They exist on paper; they draw rations, but they seem to be nowhere at all. Sharpe and his faithful sergeant (now a Regimental Sergeant Major) decide to track the path of new recruits by following it: by assuming false names and joining up.  Thus we get  to experience through Sharpe the mustering-in process for young soldiers, something we missed earlier given that the series starts with Sharpe as a veteran soldier (both in Sharpe's Tiger and in Sharpe's Eagle).

As ever, humor and plot twists abound, and a romantic thread from the past is finally plucked up and will become part of future stories...though sadly, there aren't too many more left. From the Pyrenees,Waterloo isn't far distance. Between there and here, though, adventures await!

Sharpe's Honour

Sharpe's Honour
© 1985 Bernard Cornwell
320 pages

In Sharpe's Enemy, Richard Sharpe vanquished one foe only to create another, this time the subtle French intelligence officer Pierre Ducos. Ducos is an enemy both to England and Sharpe, for with one plan he manages to ensnare Sharpe in legal turmoil that may end in a death sentence, and begin the destruction of the Anglo-Spanish alliance which is driving the French army back across the Pyrenees. Sharpe's only hope is the possible help of a treacherous and dangerously attractive 'Marquesa'.

Without giving too much away, Sharpe spends most of the book in trouble as an escaped and condemned outlaw working behind enemy lines.  The escape tests Sharpe's character several times, not just his resourcefulness;  there are times when giving his parole or simply refusing to go one would make his life much easier, but Sharpe insists on making a fight of it.At the same time that Sharpe is engaged in a battle for his life,  Wellington's army and the French are moving toward one of the most decisive altercations of the Peninsular War: the Campaign at Vitoria. Much of the battle takes place without our rifleman, but it wouldn't be a Sharpe novel without him making a dramatic entrance at a pivotal moment. The book is worth it just for the ending; being completely unfamiliar with the history of the Peninsular War, I flew into the book blind and didn't know what surprises Wellington had up his sleeve or what fate would await him.

Although I missed the usual running interaction between Sharpe and his men, Honour offers plenty of excitement and a thoroughly satisfying ending that lifts the pall remaining from Sharpe's Enemy's conclusion.

Next time: Sharpe's Regiment invades France!

Sharpe's Enemy

Sharpe's Enemy: Richard Sharpe and the Defense of Portugal, Christmas 1812
© 1984 Bernard Cornwell
351 pages

It's Christmastime, but winter quarters don't exist for Richard Sharpe,  our tall, scar-faced soldier-turned-officer with flint in his eyes. Deserters from the Spanish, Portuguese, British, and French armies have banded together and are terrorizing the countryside, causing considerable friction between the British army and the Spanish themselves. To make matters worse, the renegades have taken a number of royal ladies prisoner and are holding them hostage...and among the leaders of the renegades is Obadiah Hakeswill, a truly despicable creature whose main activities are rape, theft, and escape. Sharpe sets forth with his Rifles to rescue the hostages with a bit of derring-do, but bumps into the French army along the way -- and while they also intend to rescue their own hostages from Hakeswille, the Imperial troops also have other things in mind this Christmas season...

Sharpe's Enemy has all the elements that make for an excellent Sharpe novel --  the action is small in scale, but intense, with Sharpe and his rifles engaged in action first against a castle of blackguards and then an entire French army.  The enemy is an old, familiar, and thoroughly hatable one. The only fictional character whose grisly death I've longed to read more than Hakeswill would be Dolores Umbridge from the Harry Potter novels. The stakes are high -- the lives of innocents and the potential progress of the allied army in 1813 --  and Sharpe has to contend with idiot aristocrats to boot. It is indeed a rollicking good read...but the ending spoiled things for me. What should have been a gloriously satisfying moment for Sharpe is ruined by late-game action, and that same action threw me off, as well. On the bright side, Cornwell introduced a French intelligence officer with a lot of potential -- and he's supposed to make an appearance in my next Sharpe read, Sharpe's Honour.

Sharpe's Sword

Sharpe's Sword
© 1983 Bernard Cornwell
319 pages

The year is 1812, and the Napoleonic wars are broadening. After retreating to Portugal, the British army is once again on the move, now pushing into Spain to confront Napoleon's armies in Salamanca. As much as Wellington desires to draw the French army into an engagement, his opposing counterpart is content to block the English army's advance into Spain and threaten their supply lines,  always obstructing the English but never giving Wellington the chance to use his wiles against them. For the moment, Sharpe and his men are without battle to engage them -- but not without a mission, because someone is killing England's spies and threatening a continent-wide intelligence network. Sharpe and his comrades know who the man is, but first they must find him hiding in the city -- and do so quickly, before he strikes at Wellington's master spy.

Sharpe's Sword is a rich, full Sharpe novel containing several military engagements -- including the big battle Wellington wanted, a superior tale of the event -- in addition to a plot of espionage. Cornwell thoughtfully threw in a few twists and turns, and while Sharpe's foe is largely absent in hiding, he proves to be one of most difficult for Sharpe to defeat, nearly killing our hero -- but he recovers, his faithful friend Patrick at his side, and the attention paid to their friendship is one of the book's better moments. When reading Sharpe, I prefer his solitary adventures to the tales of battle, but Wellington's daring attack enthralled me here. Sharpe's Sword delivers fully.

Next up: Sharpe's Skirmish.

Sharpe's Company

Sharpe's Company
© 1982 Bernard Cornwell
280 pages

Spring 1812. After wintering behind its protective battle lines, the British army is ready to begin driving Monsieur Bonaparte out of Spain -- but first, there's a great big fortress at Badajoz to capture. The fortress has thwarted previous attempts at seizure by the British, but it must be taken....and Richard Sharpe must take it, for his promotion to Captain was refused and now he is but a lowly lieutenant, separated from his friends and his company. Only through some glorious triumph can he salvage his wounded pride and restore his proper rank. Worse yet, he's forced to contend with  an old nemesis, Sergeant Hakeswill, who must be one of the most perfectly loathsome men in all of English literature. Hakeswill is a malevolent force that Sharpe must destroy, for the contemptible sergeant has his eyes set on destroying Sharpe's love Teresa....and their daughter.

 The personal odds are as high as they've ever been for Sharpe, and the final battle one of his most difficult.  The prospect of Sharpe losing his company and his best friend should strike a chord with readers, for we have seen his bond with them grow throughout this series. Originally, Sharpe was assigned as their quartermaster, and when he presumed to take actual command the men hated him for it. Now Sharpe and his company are as loyal to one another as is humanely possible, and though fate and war would seem to drive them apart they will defy both and reunite to help accomplish one of Britain's most memorable victories -- one again, as an American, I've never heard of.  Company is one of the more intense Sharpe novels, although it does not quite satisfy in the matter of Obadiah Hakeswill. Still, I look forward to Sharpe's Sword.

Sharpe's Battle

Sharpe's Battle
© 1995 Bernard Cornwell
304 pages

“You did what, Sharpe? A duel? Don't you know dueling is illegal in the army?”
“I never said anything about a duel, General. I just offered to beat the hell out of him right here and now, but he seemed to have other things on his mind."

Spring 1811, and Captain Richard Sharpe has gotten himself into trouble. At first he was merely lost, but when he stumbled upon a strange band of French troops dressed in grey and led by a man in wolf costume, he earned himself a mortal enemy. Brigadier Loup is a vile French commander who seeks to terrorize the Spanish population into obedience, using even rape as a weapon. This does not sit well with Mr. Sharpe. Cornwell's heroes may live for battle and not think twice about punching  priests who've got it coming, but as a rule they don't abide rape. After Sharpe executes the offenders, their master Loup vows vengeance -- and gives to our valiant greencoated riflemen something we've not before witnessed, defeat. Tasked with babysitting a regiment of Irishmen thought to be more loyal to France than Britain, and threatened with a court of inquiry for executing prisoners,  Sharpe faces the death of his career. Salvation can only be found in a spectatular act of heroism, like the slaying of the Wolf,  Brigadier Loup, whose ferocity has made him a legend among his English and Portugese enemies. Thus begins an exciting story with one of the most personal fights in the series serving  as a conclusion.

Although American schoolchildren are taught the history of England, that history tends to leave off abruptly after 1789, and England appears thereafter only when foreign affairs make it relevant to American history. Thus, the Napoleonic wars are a complete unknown to many of us, and the Peninsular War which British children may be expected to recite facts about might as well be existent. Cornwell's Sharpe series is essentially giving me my education in that regard, as I read his books and various historical articles for context.      When the story picks up, the British army seems to moved beyond its safe fortifications and has tempted Napoleon's eagles into battle.  Sharpe's duties don't allow him a place in battle, but -- being Sharpe -- he finds his way into the thick of things regardless.  Sharpe's Battle focuses more on the movement of armies than other books in the series, and the villain is irredeemably evil, but admittedly interesting. He strikes Sharpe as a pagan warlord, holding a cross of wolves' tales to inspire courage in his men and fear in his opponents'. Cornwell plays a wicked trick on the reader in turns of drama, leading Sharpe into what may be a desperate trap and then moving to Wellington while the reader is left  frantically wondering "What will become of Mister Sharpe?!"  Battle is intense throughout, and another solid hit for the series.

Next up: Sharpe's Company.

Sharpe's Fury

Sharpe's Fury
© 2006 Bernard Cornwell
337 pages

Winter 1811: most of Spain lies under the flag of the Emperor Napoleon, and the British army has beaten a retreat to a fortified corner of Portugal. Cadiz, the last city of the sovereign Spanish, is under siege.  While Richard Sharpe has no business being there, a mission to blow up a bridge right under French noses didn't go exactly as he planned, and he found himself washed down the river following history's wake -- right into Cadiz, where he enters the service of the Duke of Wellington's brother involving a little domestic derring-do. Most book heroes would be content with surviving what Sharpe survives,  and more would consider their task done if they manage to do what Sharpe accomplishes by the book's midpoint -- but Sharpe, being Sharpe, manages to get himself involved in a battle where the odds are more against the valiant redcoats than they've ever been.

Bernard Cornwell delivers yet another novel full of action and suspense, with his Napoleonic hero surviving treacherous priests,  plots of blackmail, several explosions, the uncertain loyalty of Spanish allies, and a dragoon-filled final battle in which he tracks a nemesis. As mentioned before, I like the books which set Sharpe and his chosen men alone by themselves, and this book offers plenty of that when our favored scoundrel becomes a secret agent of sorts.  Fury is another solid hit in this series.

Sharpe's Escape

Sharpe's Escape
© 2004 Bernard Cornwell
357 pages

"Lieutenant Slingsby," the Colonel said, "tells me that you insulted him. That you invited him to duel. That you called him illegitimate. That you swore at him."
    Sharpe cast his mind back to the brief confrontation on the ridge's forward slope just after he had pulled the company out of the French panic. "I doubt I called him illegitimate, sir," he said. "I wouldn't use that sort of word. I probably called him a bastard."

p. 135,136.

1810: the Iberian Peninsula.  Britain's attempt to defeat the French in Spain has failed, and for the mment they are retreating into Portugal. To Wellington, the rereat is a strategtic withdrawal: as the British army seeks safe shelter behind concealed fortifications protecting Lisbon, they leave nothing but a scorched and barren wasteland, purpously destroying food stores as they go. The French, advancing further into enemy territory, are finding themselves in a desolate wilderness, contending with a hostile population who harry there every move. Soon they will see Wellington's secret battle-lines, and be forced to engage the British in ruinous battle or face a cold winter's occupation in a dead land where the only thing living are angry partisans.

 Alas, poor Richard Sharpe's position is not so secure.  Temporarily relieved of command to give an aristocratic lieutenant a chance to gain battlefield experience, Sharpe is assigned as quartermaster and finds himself locked in a cellar, trapped behind enemy lines as part of a running feud with two very nasty Portugese traitors. It's not enough that his long-time superior officer and friend seems to be throwing him under the bus, career-wise, but Sharpe can't seem to avoid getting into one tight fix after another. His and Harper's story is a havoc-filled run to safety that should mark the end of Wellington's retreat and the beginning of the campaigns that will take Sharpe into France and to ultimate victory.

Enjoyable as expected: next will be Sharpe's Fury