Wellington and Napoleon

by Robin Neillands

Wellington and Napoleon tells the story of the convergence and final clash of two of the most brilliant commanders ever to meet on the field of battle, Wellington, his men said, "didn't know how to lose a battle." But Wellington himself admired his adversary. In Portugal and Spain, Wellington helped wreck Napoleon's Continental System, bled his reserves away and showed the 'unbeatable' French could be beaten after all. It was the British infantryman who made the difference. Napoleon never learned to coanter Wellington's infantry, and at the great climax ot Waterloo it cost him dear. Even so, the battle was so near-run that, but for luck and the Prussians, history might have taken an altogether different course.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Military History

264 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1994

About the author

Robin Hunter Neillands was a British writer known for his works on travel and military history. A former Royal Marine who served in Cyprus and the Middle East, he later became a prolific author, publishing under multiple pen names. His military histories, often featuring firsthand accounts from veterans, challenged revisionist narratives, particularly regarding Bernard Montgomery, the Dieppe Raid, and the Allied bombing campaign in World War II. Neillands also authored numerous travel books inspired by his extensive journeys across Europe. His works, both popular and scholarly, earned him a nomination for the Royal United Services Institute’s Military Literature Award.

Reviews

[Jared Lovell · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting concept providing a history from the Peace of Tilsit, the height of Napoleon's empire, to his complete defeat at Waterloo. Not the easiest to read unless already a military historian. Average readers can easily get bogged down in names of places and generals and troop movements and struggle to see the forest for the trees. I would have liked to seem more themes traced out across the narrative as well. A lot of facts, but not a lot of context supplied.

[Jim · Rating 2 out of 5]

Robin Neillands's stated intention was to write a history of the Peninsular War (in Portugal and Spain) between Britain and France, combined with a history of the Napoleonic Wars, in general. The result was informative but dry.

Part of the problem is that there's too much to cram into a relatively slim volume. Neillands almost exclusively focuses on the the set-piece battles waged by Napoleon, his subordinates, and Wellington, which he does in a straightforward and easy to follow manner. While he occasionally gives the reader some vivid images, however, he rarely makes you smell the powder smoke. It's usually more a matter of "this division marched here, that general moved a brigade there."

Neillands also leaves an awful lot out. For example, he barely touches on the role played by Spanish and Portugese irregular forces. The term guerrilla was first used here, and Spain was the arena for a particularly vicious form of that type of warfare. Spanish guerrilleros turned swathes of countryside into terrifying no-go areas, ambushing French patrols and assassinating French officials and their collaborators. For their part, the French retaliated by shooting civilians in reprisal, burning villages, matching atrocity for atrocity. Thousands of French troops were tied down in securing their own rear areas, draining their battlefield strength. This was important, because overall French troop strength in Spain almost always outnumbered Wellington's available forces. The guerrilleros were a crucial part of the British success in driving Napoleon's forces from the peninsula.

This would have been a much more interesting book if it had taken account of contemporary social and cultural history, placing the war in a wider context. It would have been worth the extra pages.

[Michael Hicks · Rating 3 out of 5]

The purpose of history will, in my mind, always remain as Herodotus gave it- "...preserving from decay the remembrance of what men have done, and of preventing the great and wonderful actions of the Greeks and the Barbarians from losing their due meed of glory; and withal to put on record what were their grounds of feuds."

Here, the Greeks and Barbarians are Frenchman and Allies, and specifically Napoleon and Wellington. Neillands' clearly meticulous research is long on order-of-battle and short on the sort of anecdotal vignettes that really make the "rattling good history" one may well expect from a time which produced such quality and conviction in so many- as another reviewer so aptly commented, he doesn't make us "smell the powder."

Another conspicuous absence was any sort of table or chart containing the commanders and the forces they commanded- the many nationalities involved means that his reliance on contextual clues to convey to the reader which general fought on which side is at times confusing. Maps would also have been helpful.

The raw emotional power of such massive events was not entirely masked, however, and one comes away from the work with a very real sense that the battles covered were the cruel marriage of the angels of manly excellence and the demons of brutality and excess which lead General Lee to comment half a century later that "it is well that war is so terrible, lest we grow too fond of it."

[Todd Price · Rating 2 out of 5]

For a small book, this packs a lot of information. Neillands is obviously a Napoleonic-era expert, and his breadth of knowledge is demonstrated in this narrative. As an individual with limited Napoleonic Wars knowledge, this work could be overwhelming with dates, names, and battles at times. However, Neillands definitely demonstrates the growing rivalry between the Duke and the Emperor leading to their epic clash at Waterloo. If you are Napoleonic-era lover, you may find this too basic, but if you are generally uninitiated like me, you may drown in the data flood. A good read, but ultimately, I would imagine another historian could strike the balance between the two extremes of knowledge.

[Martin Koenigsberg · Rating 3 out of 5]

Written for the newcomer to the field, this book traces the last eight years of the Napoeonic Wars. The lense is the relationship between France's Dictator and England's best General of the period. Using a plethora of maps to explain the campaigns, Neillands brings it all down to a simple level. The fully informed reader will find this work derivative, but anyone else will appreciate the straightforward approach. A good find, a fun quick read, but not an authoritative work.

[Maxo Marc]

The Ali and Frazier of Military Commanders.