Description
Book SynopsisTrade ReviewGreat Britain's seven year campaign against the French in Spain and Portugal (the Peninsula), has gotten considerable attention from both scholars, soldiers and scribblers of historical fiction for the past two hundred years. Yet no one (excluding the latter class of writers), until now,has focused on the battles that Lord Wellington fought with his own superiors, the Whig Party and even his own brother, Richard, who harbored his own political ambitions. In addition to these roadblocks were the economic problems facing England. By 1811, the cost of prosecuting the war had jumped to over £10 million; at the same time, revolts in South America were creating a world wide shortage of precious metals, specifically gold and silver. To hamper further Britain's access to precious metals, France had, in early 1810, occupied and controlled Spanish silver mines in the southern portion of the peninsula. More demands on Britain's gold reserves occurred in 1812, with the onset of war with the United States and Napoleon's invasion of Russia. This second front would prove to be almost as difficult to win as the one against the French. Wellington, from a Northern Irish landowning family, was an easy target for certain newspapers and his victorious campaigns in India were viewed by the British high command as a minor achievement. This is a very interesting and informative look at the effects on strategy of home policies, bureaucracy and press scrutiny; war in a faraway place always under a microscope, especially today.""-
Past in Review
