Search results for ""Author Stuart Reid""

The first campaign medal awarded to British soldiers is reckoned to be that given to those men who fought at Waterloo in 1815, but a decade and a half earlier a group of regiments were awarded a unique badge - a figure of a Sphinx - to mark their service in Egypt in 1801. It was a fitting distinction, for the successful campaign was a remarkable one, fought far from home by a British army which had so far not distinguished itself in battle against Revolutionary France, and one moreover which had the most profound consequences in the Napoleonic wars to come. In 1798 a quixotic French expedition led by a certain General Bonaparte not only to seize Egypt and consolidate French influence in the Mediterranean, but also to open up a direct route to Indian and provide an opportunity to destroy the East India Company and fatally weaken Great Britain. In the event, General Bonaparte returned to France to mount a coup which would eventually see him installed as Emperor of the French, but behind him he abandoned his army, which remained in control of Egypt, still posing a possible threat to the East India Company, until in 1801 a large but rather heterogeneous British Army led by Sir Ralph Abercrombie landed and in a series of hard-fought battles utterly defeated the French. Not only did this campaign establish the hitherto rather doubtful reputation of the British Army, and help secure India, but its capture en route of the islands of Malta gained Britain a base which would enable it to dominate the Mediterranean for the next century and a half. This little understood, but profoundly important campaign at last receives the treatment it deserves in the hands of renowned historian Stuart Reid.

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The fifty-odd years of Scottish history dominated by the Jacobite Risings are amongst its most evocative and whilst the last battle, Culloden in 1746, is deservedly remembered as a national tragedy, the first battle on the braes of Killiecrankie was unquestionably the most dramatic. It was very much a Scottish battle. The later Jacobite risings would be launched against kings and governments in London. Killiecrankie, on the other hand, pitted Scot against Scot in the last bloody act of the bitter religious struggle known as 'The Killing Times'. Killiecrankie saw the first, and most successful, Highland Charge, as the clansmen broke the line of the Government's redcoats 'in the twinkling of an eye', and though outnumbered the Jacobites achieved a stunning victory. The Highlanders, however, suffered debilitating losses of almost one third of their strength, and their leader, John Graham the Viscount of Dundee, was killed. The Jacobites continued their advance until stopped by Government forces at the Battle of Dunkeld a little more than three weeks later. Though the Jacobites had failed, the struggle of the Highland clans to return the Catholic James, and his successors, to the throne of Scotland and England would continue for the next two generations.

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Britain was rapidly emerging as the most powerful European nation, a position France long believed to be her own. Yet with France still commanding the largest continental army, Britain saw its best opportunities for expansion lay in the East. Yet, as Britain's influence increased through its official trading arm, the East India Company, the ruler of Bengal, Nawab Siraj-ud-daulah, sought to drive the British out of the sub-continent and turned to France for help. The ensuing conflict saw intimate campaigns fought by captains and occasionally colonels and by small companies rather than big battalions. They were campaigns fought by individuals rather than anonymous masses; some were heroes, some were cowards and most of them were rogues on the make. The story is not only about Robert Clive, a clerk from Shropshire who became to all intents and purposes an emperor, but also about Eyre Coote an Irishman who fought with everyone he met, about Alexander Grant a Jacobite who first escaped from Culloden and then, Flashman-like was literally the last man into the last boat to escape Calcutta and the infamous Black Hole. The fighting culminated in Robert Clive's astonishing victory at Plassey where just 3,000 British and sepoy troops defeated Siraj-ud-Daulah's Franco-Bengali army of 18,000 in the space of only forty minutes. The victory at Plassey in 1757 established Britain as the dominant force in India, the whole of which gradually come under British control and became the most prized possession in its empire. Few battles in history have ever had such profound consequences.

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The very word `statistics' is enough to induce panic or cynicism in most people's hearts. The necessity of studying statistics is often regarded by students as a test of endurance rather than an educational opportunity. Working With Statistics is aimed to show such an audience that studying statistics can be both involving and even pleasurable. By minimising specialist terminology and by utilising an authentic set of research data, the book provides a readable introduction into the uses of quantitative methods in social research. It also provides an argument for the value of such methods and aims to provide students with a working knowledge of computing, relating this directly to the demands of statistical analysis. The book offers a lucid and comprehensive guide to statistics methods, and is suitable as an overall text for courses in the subject.

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Though pressed many times to write about his battles and campaigns, the Duke of Wellington always replied that people should refer to his published despatches, and he refused to add further to his official correspondence, famously remarking that: The history of a battle, is not unlike the history of a ball. Some individuals may recollect all the little events of which the great result is the battle won or lost, but no individual can recollect the order in which, or the exact moment at which, they occurred, which makes all the difference as to their value or importance.' Yet Wellington did, in effect, write a history of the Peninsular War in the form of four lengthy memoranda, summarising the conduct of the war in 1809, 1810 and 1811 respectively. These lengthy accounts demonstrate Wellington's unmatched appreciation of the nature of the war in Spain and Portugal, and relate to the operations of the French and Spanish forces as well as the Anglo-Portuguese army under his command. Unlike personal diaries or journals written by individual soldiers, with their inevitably limited knowledge, Wellington was in an unparalleled position to provide a comprehensive overview of the war. Equally, the memoranda were written as the war unfolded, not tainted with the knowledge of hindsight, providing a unique contemporaneous commentary. Brought together by renowned historian Stuart Reid with reports and key despatches from the other years of the campaign, the result is the story of the Peninsular War told through the writings of the man who knew and understood the conflict in Iberia better than any other. These memoranda and despatches have never been published before in a single connected narrative. Therefore, Wellington's History of the Peninsular War 1808-1814 offers a uniquely accessible perspective on the conflict in the own words of Britain's greatest general.

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