Britain Against Napoleon: The Organization of Victory, 1793-1815
- ISBN-10
- 0141977027
- ISBN-13
- 9780141977027
- Category
- History
- Pages
- 416
- Language
- English
- Published
- 2013-10-24
- Publisher
- Penguin UK
- Author
- Roger Knight
Description
From Roger Knight, established by his multi-award winning book The Pursuit of Victory as 'an authority ... none of his rivals can match' (N.A.M. Rodger), Britain Against Napoleon is the first book to explain how the British state successfully organised itself to overcome Napoleon - and how very close it came to defeat. For more than twenty years after 1793, the French army was supreme in continental Europe, and the British population lived in fear of French invasion. How was it that despite multiple changes of government and the assassination of a Prime Minister, Britain survived and won a generation-long war against a regime which at its peak in 1807 commanded many times the resources and manpower? This book looks beyond the familiar exploits of the army and navy to the politicians and civil servants, and examines how they made it possible to continue the war at all. It shows the degree to which, as the demands of the war remorselessly grew, the whole British population had to play its part. The intelligence war was also central. Yet no participants were more important, Roger Knight argues, than the bankers and traders of the City of London, without whose financing the armies of Britain's allies could not have taken the field. The Duke of Wellington famously said that the battle which finally defeated Napoleon was 'the nearest run thing you ever saw in your life': this book shows how true that was for the Napoleonic War as a whole. Roger Knight was Deputy Director of the National Maritime Museum until 2000, and now teaches at the Greenwich Maritime Institute at the University of Greenwich. In 2005 he published, with Allen Lane/Penguin, The Pursuit of Victory: The Life and Achievement of Horatio Nelson, which won the Duke of Westminster's Medal for Military History, the Mountbatten Award and the Anderson Medal of the Society for Nautical Research. The present book is a culmination of his life-long interest in the workings of the late 18th-century British state.
Get the book
Other editions
-
- 2013
- - pages
- Paperback
- Penguin Global
Similar books
-
The British Army Against Napoleon: Facts, Lists and Trivia, 1805-1815
By Bob Burnham, Ron McGuiganOther books may tell you how many regiments were sent on the expedition to Hanover in 1805, but The British Army against Napoleon will tell you where every single regiment in the British army was stationed, who were their honorary colonels, ...
-
Defending British India Against Napoleon: The Foreign Policy of Governor-General Lord Minto, 1807-13
By Aditya DasThe First Step: Rodriguez Island -- The Second Target: Bourbon -- The Third Target: L'Ile de France -- The Campaign for L'Ile de France -- The Aftermath -- 5 Pre-empting French Influence in Java -- Minto and the Dutch East Indies -- 1807-10 ...
-
The Coalitions Against Napoleon: How British Money, Manufacturing and Military Power Forged the Alliances that Achieved Victory
By William NesterBritain played exactly the same role during the Napoleonic era. The Coalitions Against Napoleon explores how Britain developed and asserted the financial, manufacturing, and military power to achieve that goal.
-
The Secret War Against Napoleon
By Tim ClaytonWilliam Vincent Barré's History of the French Consulate, under Napoleon Buonaparte came out in November.2 Barré had been employed as an interpreter to the French government and claimed that his account was based on recent experience and ...
-
Convoys: The British Struggle Against Napoleonic Europe and America
By Roger KnightLeading naval historian Roger Knight examines how convoys ensured the protection of trade and transport of troops, allowing Britain to take the upper hand.
-
In These Times: Living in Britain Through Napoleon's Wars, 1793-1815
By Jenny UglowIllustrated by the satires of Gillray and Rowlandson and the paintings of Turner and Constable, and combining the familiar voices of Austen, Wordsworth, Scott, and Byron with others lost in the crowd, In These Times delves into the archives ...
-
British Strategy in the Napoleonic War, 1803-15
By Christopher David Hall13445 . Lloyd , British Seaman , pp . 187–8 . B. Lavery , Nelson's Navy , London , 1989 , pp . 274–7 . P.D. , I , p . 205 . 27 Lavery , pp . 130–1 . 28 Lloyd , British Seaman , pp . 175 , 177–209 , 241 and appendix I , table 3 , pp .
-
Wars Against Napoleon: Debunking the Myth of the Napoleonic Wars
By Ben Weider, General Michel FranceschiGeneral Franceschi and Ben Weider dismantle this false conclusion in The Wars Against Napoleon, a brilliantly written and researched study that turns our understanding of the French emperor on its head.
-
Britain and the Defeat of Napoleon, 1807-1815
By Rory MuirThe book is based on a comprehensive investigation of primary and secondary sources, and on a thorough examination of the vast archives left by the Duke of Wellington.
-
Tactics and the Experience of Battle in the Age of Napoleon
By Rory MuirIn this illuminating volume, historian Rory Muir explores what actually happened in battle during the Napoleonic Wars, putting special focus on how the participants’ feelings and reactions influenced the outcome.