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Inside
Wellington's Peninsular Army, 1808-1814
Muir, Rory, Robert Burnham, Howie Muir
and
Ron McGuigan. Inside
Wellington's Peninsular Army, 1808-1814.
Barnsley,
UK
: Pen & Sword, 2006. 325 pages. ISBN#-13: 9781844154845. Hardcover. $50/£25.
This fine collaborative effort is the
work of four historians -- Robert Burnham,
Ron McGuigan, Howie Muir and
Rory Muir -- well known to the readership of the Napoleon Series. As
Bob Burnham explains in his brief introduction, all four had been working
on different aspects of the Peninsular army and decided to combine
their separate efforts into a joint publication. Their objective was
to explain "what was so special about
Wellington and his army" and why it was consistently victorious
during the five years the Peninsular campaign lasted. The result is
an excellent book that should be in the libraries of all serious students
of the Peninsular War.
The context for Inside Wellington's
Army is set out clearly in
Rory Muir's excellent introductory essay, "
Wellington and the Peninsular War: The Ingredients of Victory." In
thirty-eight pages, including notes, Muir distils
Oman
, Esdaile, Fortescue, Gates and Napier, the work of too often neglected
French, Portuguese and Spanish historians, as well as much new research,
into a concise but complete and lucid summary of the war in the Peninsula
and
Wellington's role in its successful outcome. Muir pays due credit to
the efforts of the Portuguese and Spanish people, the suitability of
the Peninsula as a theatre of operations for a naval power, the importance
of the Royal Navy, and the commitment of the British government to
the campaign, but concludes that these individual components would
not have produced success without Wellington's leadership. I was pleased
to see that Muir credits much of the quality of the British army to
the work done over the decade previous to 1808 by leaders such as Abercrombie,
Moore, York and others, but, as he is at pains to note, even "a
fine blade can quickly lose its edge in clumsy hands" and Wellington's
"attention to detail and wide-ranging expertise" contributed
greatly to the Allied victory in the peninsula.
Muir having provided the general background,
and provided it well, the other three authors are able to safely
approach their particular interests.
Ron McGuigan contributes a study on the nuts and bolts of the Peninsular
army -- its origins in terms of units -- and follows that with an overview
of its senior officers. Both these studies are important as they reflect
that
Wellington took over command of an army composed of very diverse units
in terms of their quality and experience whose senior officers were
almost as varied in terms of their backgrounds and competence. These
two studies are the result of a lot more labour than is at first apparent
as the information which McGuigan presents in a well-organized format
had to be pulled, bit by bit, chunk by chunk, out of Wellington's dispatches
and general orders, there being few reliable secondary sources available
for his work. Not the least of the McGuigan's attributes is the fact
that he cuts through the often confusing subject of British officer
ranks and straightens it out for the benefit of the reader.
Robert Burnham contributes no less
than three studies on the subjects of Wellington's
"observing officers," British bridging operations in the
Peninsula, and how units were kept up to strength. The "observing
officers," -- those "near mythical adventurers" as Burnham
terms them -- are well known to readers of Napoleonic fiction but very
little is actually known about their origins, organization, methods
of operation, communication and reporting. Burnham provides that information
and many a fascinating anecdote as well.
I have to confess that his essay on
British bridging operations in the Peninsula is my personal favourite
because, being a mechanical inept, I was struck by the sheer ingenuity
of the engineers' work, which Burnham has thankfully illustrated
with fine drawings. I would also struck by the fact that the engineers
built bridges with whatever came to hand or was readily available
and that no two bridges were alike, each presenting a different set
of challenges which had to be overcome.
Finally, Burnham provides an excellent
study on the subject of how the British units in the
Peninsula were kept up to strength and the short answer is that it
was a matter of considerable difficulty. In turn, Burnham examines
the provisional battalions, the battalions of detachments, the recruiting
of Spanish nationals and from the militia. He also adds a fascinating
sidebar on the offer of the Czar to provide
up to 15,000 Russian troops to fight in
Spain
, an offer that came to nought because of a changing political situation.
Perhaps that was just as well, as possibly the only soldiers of the
time more addicted to alcohol than the British were the Russians --
in 1799 the good citizens of
Yarmouth were astounded to see Russian troops, who had been evacuated
to that port from
Holland, drinking the oil out of the streetlamps!
Howie Muir provides the longest study
in the book, an examination of how
Wellington arrayed his troops for battle, which is almost a small book
in itself. (I would have been more comfortable with "deploy" as
opposed to "array" but that word
"deploy" had certain definite tactical connotation in 1808-1814
which is why Muir used "array"). Muir's examination of his
topic can only be termed "exhaustive", but it is most certainly
not exhausting, in fact it is fascinating and informative. He discusses
how such factors as tradition, custom, rank, seniority, and precedence
affected the positioning of the army in battle before tracing Wellington's
positioning of his troops in almost every major engagement from 1808
to 1814. Muir's examination, although he provided the theory behind
it, is always grounded firmly on a bedrock reality of official manual
and actual situation. Having in my own work tried several times to
answer what seemed like rather simple questions on British tactical
methods of the time only to fall into a sinkhole of mystery, muddle
and myth, I only wish that this important piece of research had been
published decades earlier.
As I said above, this is an excellent
book that should be in the library of any serious student of the
Peninsular War. One of the problems, however, in reviewing a collection
of this nature is that the reviewer ultimately wants to know why
certain subjects were chosen while other were not -- why is there
nothing on the important matters of military medicine, logistics,
discipline or women in the army? The best answer I think is that
a work of this quality deserve a sequel and I hope we see one. Recommended.
Reviewed by D.E. Graves
Placed on the Napoleon Series: September
2007
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