Featured battle : Siege of Cadiz

Part of The French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars

Date : 05 February 1810 - 24 August 1812

The position of Cadiz, on a narrow peninsular, made its long term defence viable provided it cound be supplied from the sea. The initial garrison of 2,400 was reinforced by 13,000 Spaniards and then by three British and two Portugese battalions bringing the total strength up to over 20,000. Over the duration of the siege it involved some 60,000 French troops who suffered a constant trickle of casualties due to sickness, sorties and guerrilla raids. Many troops were also involved in protecting supply routes to the investing force. After the French defeat at Salamanca Soult withdrew his troops.

The Two Battles of Copenhagen

Gareth Glover
This book covers the two battles of Copenhagen, the intervening years and what followed. Both the political and military aspects are dealt with in relation to one another. There is an extensive bibliography should the reader wish to follow up any thread in greater detail.
I declare my bias I am a Gareth Glover fan and I am pleased to say that this book will not disappoint others like me. The narrative flows easily without getting bogged down in lists or too much factual detail. But the detail, the product of much research, is contained in the appendices of which there are thirty six. The author’s forte in flushing out hitherto unpublished first hand accounts is used to good effect. He makes clear the difference between reporting and opinion whenever he has exercised his judgement especially when dealing with variations between a number of original accounts.
There are a number of illustrations throughout the book and a well chosen set of colour plates in the centre of the text. The weak point, true of almost every recently published book, are the maps. It is all very well to insert small facsimiles of the original maps which were used at the time but they are very little use without scales to the reader attempting to understand locations. I turned to the maps in The Great Gamble by Dudley Pope, published in 1972, and used its four excellent maps.
This is a most readable, informative and enjoyable book which we fully recommend to anyone with an interest in the Napoleonic period.

Pen & Sword Military, 2018