A Commanding Presence: Wellington in the Peninsula 1808-1814

by Ian Robertson

The many battles fought by Wellington have always excited interest and controversy. Almost all of the fighting on land between British and French troops during the Napoleonic period took place in Portugal and Spain, and so the extended struggle became known as the “Peninsular War.” Few are aware that Wellington’s armies were actually engaged with the enemy less than 10 per cent of the time. Much of the campaign was spent finding food and drink for man and beast, and withstanding the severe physical conditions encountered in the Peninsula. The unforgiving climate and mountainous terrain materially affected Wellington’s strategy, and it was his commanding presence that enabled the many logistical problems to be over come.  In this new study, Ian Robertson draws on many vivid first-hand accounts of campaigning life and places the several stubbornly fought actions in their proper context.

Genres: History, Military Fiction

448 pages, Hardcover

First published April 1, 2008

About the author

British author Ian Robertson (1928-2020) travel-guide writer & historian. Robertson was a leading authority on the Peninsular War and on the early travel writers and diarists who visited Spain.

Reviews

[Rob Markley · Rating 4 out of 5]

This would be an excellent companion volume to Oman, in that it snippets up things into neat chronological packages, albeit exclusively focusing on the British experience. In this it gives the human experience of eating, suffering, surviving rather than the history covered so abundantly elsewhere. In a sense this has all been done before, notably Esdaile's Peninsular Eyewitnesses recently; however where that book gives a broad perspective, Robertson gives a soldier's tale. Even if you've read some of the memoirs he draws from ( and perhaps there were too few?) putting them into context really helps.

Notwithstanding these positives the title is quite misleading in that there is no assessment of command, nor really of Wellington. There is also a bizarre preponderance of lengthy chapter endnotes which surely would have been better incorporated into the text, or at least better as footnotes. Then again this makes no pretense at being complete in its own right; always needing a full or campaign history alongside. Together with Robertson's own excellent atlas of the British in the Peninsular, in the end everything rounds out nicely, as indeed this volume contains lots of useful material not easily obtained elsewhere. E.g. Some very valuable pictures, photos and large scale topographic maps, not to mention aspects addressed in the text.

['Aussie Rick' · Rating 3 out of 5]

Decent overview of the British Peninsular Campaign, 1808-1814.