Search results for ""author ian fletcher""
Pen & Sword Books Ltd Robert Craufurd: The Man and the Myth: The Life and Times of Wellington's Wayward Martinet
To most students of the Peninsular War the name Robert Craufurd evokes images of a battle-hardened martinet, flogging his men across Portugal and Spain, driving them hard and generally taking a tough stance against anything and everything that did not meet with his own strict disciplinarian code. But that is only a partial picture of this most complex character, and it is the other side of Craufurd's personality that is revealed in this, the first full-length biography to be written in the last hundred years. Craufurd's letters to his wife are published here for the first time, and they show that he was a far more interesting and varied man in his private life than he appeared to be on campaign. Ian Fletcher follows Craufurd's controversial career from India, Ireland and South America to the Iberian Peninsula where he achieved immortality as one of Wellington's finest generals.
£27.00
Pen & Sword Books Ltd A Crimean Winter of Discontent: The Crimean War Letters of William John Rous
As the snow fell on the face it froze, and my hair was matted with ice, and icicles formed on my eyelashes. So intense was the cold that whenever I was compelled in visiting the sentries or otherwise to face the blast, my nose burst out bleeding, which with the exposure exhausted one so much, that it was only the certainty of never rising again that prevented me throwing myself down in the snow.' This is just one of many lurid passages from the letters of William John Rous, who arrived in the Crimea in December 1854 with his regiment, the 90th (Perthshire) Regiment. Throughout the following months Rous wrote a series of letters describing the ordeal of life in the trenches before Sevastopol in graphic detail. These letters have remained unpublished ever since. Now though Ian Fletcher, one of the leading authorities on the Crimean War, has edited and illustrated Rous's work for republication. The letters were written during what was the most controversial period of the Crimean War for the British army, for it was during this period that the shortcomings in the army were cruelly exposed during a bitter winter which saw more British soldiers die of cold, disease and overwork than were killed through enemy action. Rous's words bring home the terrible conditions in the trenches, the lack of sleep, the endless overwork, the constant fear and threat of a Russian sortie, not to mention the ever-present dangers posed by the Russian guns inside the city. Rous's experience sheds new light on one of the most famous but tragic campaigns ever fought by the British army.
£20.00
The History Press Ltd A Desperate Business: Wellington, The British Army and the Waterloo Campaign
Presents the story of the Waterloo Campaign and illustrates just how desperate the battle was, with Wellington's Anglo-Dutch army hanging on to the ridge at Mont St Jean until their Prussian allies arrived to put the seal on one of the most decisive victories in military history.
£22.50
The History Press Ltd Against All Hazards: Poems of the Peninsular War
This text includes twenty seven poems of the Peninsular War, written in a robust traditional style, recreating not only the horrors of 19th century warfare but also the human stories.
£15.00