Author: Hew Strachan
Publisher: CUP Archive
Published: 1985-11-21
Total Pages: 208
ISBN-13: 9780521304399
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →This book explores the reasons behind the UK army's successes and hardships from 1815-1854.
Author: Daniel R. LeClair
Publisher: McFarland
Published: 2019-10-31
Total Pages: 287
ISBN-13: 1476638594
DOWNLOAD EBOOK → From the Crimean War through the Second Boer War, the British Empire sought to solve the "Great Gun Question"--to harness improvements to ordnance, small arms, explosives and mechanization made possible by the Industrial Revolution. The British public played a surprising but overlooked role, offering myriad suggestions for improvements to the civilian-led War Office. Meanwhile, politicians and army leaders argued over control of the country's ground forces in a decades-long struggle that did not end until reforms of 1904 put the military under the Secretary of State for War. Following the debate in the press, voters put pressure on both Parliament and the War Office to modernize ordnance and military administration. The "Great Gun Question" was as much about weaponry as about who ultimately controlled military power. Drawing on ordnance committee records and contemporary news reports, this book fills a gap in the history of British military technology and army modernization prior to World War I.
Author: Nick Lipscombe
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2016-09-22
Total Pages: 301
ISBN-13: 1472810473
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Published to coincide with the 200th anniversary of the battle of Waterloo, this lavishly illustrated volume looks at all the different aspects of the 100-day campaign which has become synonymous with the Napoleonic Wars and saw the eventual defeat of Napoleon's French forces. Ten articles by internationally renowned historians examine the battle from different angles, from the microcosm of the bitter fighting for the fortified farmhouse of Hougoumont through to a wider perspective of the 100-day campaign in its entirety. The official publication of the Waterloo 200 organization, slipcased and highly collectible, Waterloo – The Decisive Victory offers a unique and authoritative history of one of the most important battles in world history.
Author: Luke Reynolds
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2022
Total Pages: 272
ISBN-13: 0192864998
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →After the Battle of Waterloo, Britain actively incorporated the victory into their national identity. 'Who Owned Waterloo?' demonstrates that Waterloo's significance to Britain's national psyche resulted in a different battle: one in which civilian and military groups fought to establish claims on different aspects of the battle and its remembrance.--
Author: Rory Muir
Publisher: Yale University Press
Published: 2015-06-09
Total Pages: 761
ISBN-13: 0300214049
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →The preeminent Wellington biographer presents a fascinating reassessment of the Duke’s most famous victory and his political career after Waterloo. The Duke of Wellington’s momentous victory over Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo was the culminating point of a brilliant military career. Yet Wellington’s achievements were far from over. He commanded the allied army of occupation in France to the end of 1818, returned home to a seat in Lord Liverpool’s cabinet, and became prime minister in 1828. He later served as a senior minister in Robert Peel’s government and remained Commander-in-Chief of the Army for a decade until his death in 1852. In this richly detailed work, the second and concluding volume of Rory Muir’s definitive biography, the author offers a substantial reassessment of Wellington’s significance as a politician and a nuanced view of the private man behind the legendary hero. Muir presents new insights into Wellington’s determination to keep peace at home and abroad, achieved by maintaining good relations with the Continental powers, resisting radical agitation, and granting political equality to the Catholics in Ireland. Countering one-dimensional image of Wellington as a national hero, Muir paints a nuanced portrait of a man whose austere public demeanor belied his entertaining, gossipy, generous, and unpretentious private self.
Author: Cavalie Mercer
Publisher: Casemate Publishers
Published: 2012-10-24
Total Pages: 812
ISBN-13: 1781599904
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Mercers journal is the most outstanding eyewitness account of the Waterloo campaign ever published. It is a classic of military history. This new, fully illustrated edition, featuring an extensive introduction and notes by Andrew Uffindell, one of the leading authorities on the Napoleonic Wars, contains a mass of additional material not included in the original. As the bicentenary of Waterloo approaches, this beautifully prepared, scholarly edition of Mercers work will be essential reading for anyone who wishes to know what it was really like to fight in the final, great battle against Napoleon.
Author: Scott Hughes Myerly
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Published: 1996
Total Pages: 350
ISBN-13: 9780674082496
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →In the theater of war, how important is costume? And in peacetime, what purpose does military spectacle serve? This book takes us behind the scenes of the British military at the height of its brilliance to show us how dress and discipline helped to mold the military man and attempted to seduce the hearts and minds of a nation while serving to intimidate civil rioters in peacetime. Often ridiculed for their constrictive splendor, British army uniforms of the early nineteenth century nonetheless played a powerful role in the troops' performance on campaign, in battle, and as dramatic entertainment in peacetime. Plumbing a wide variety of military sources, most tellingly the memoirs and letters of soldiers and civilians, Scott Hughes Myerly reveals how these ornate sartorial creations, combining symbols of solidarity and inspiration, vivid color, and physical restraint, enhanced the managerial effects of rigid discipline, drill, and torturous punishments, but also helped foster regimental esprit de corps. Encouraging recruitment, enforcing discipline within the military, and boosting morale were essential but not the only functions of martial dress. Myerly also explores the role of the resplendent uniform and its associated gaudy trappings and customs during civil peace and disorder--whether employed as public relations through spectacular free entertainment, or imitated by rioters and rebels opposing the status quo. Dress, drills, parades, inspections, pomp, and order: as this richly illustrated book conducts us through the details of the creation, design, functions, and meaning of these aspects of the martial image, it exposes the underpinnings of a mentality--and vision--that extends far beyond the military subculture into the civic and social order that we call modernity.
Author: Stephen Wood
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2015-05-24
Total Pages: 304
ISBN-13: 1472813480
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →The Royal Scots Dragoon Guards and their antecedents have been involved in every major British campaign since the 17th century. On 18 June 1815, the Royal Scots Greys charged Napoleon's infantry columns, capturing the eagle of the French 45th Infantry. Napoleon is said to have commented of the regiment, 'Ah, ces terribles chevaux gris (those terrible grey horses)'. Today that eagle is the regimental badge of the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards, Scotland's senior regiment and her only regular cavalry. Here Stephen Wood tells the story of glorious cavalry charges and terrifying tank battles, from the Western Front to the liberation of Basra. Stunning paintings bring the narrative to life while contemporary photography depicts both the horror and the compassion of modern warfare as witnessed by the officers and troopers of this unique regiment.
Author: Ian Beckett
Publisher: A&C Black
Published: 2006-06-22
Total Pages: 298
ISBN-13: 9781852855109
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Ian Beckett's book is already established as the definitive history of the Victorian army. >