Kategoria BISAC: History >> Wars & Conflicts - Napoleonic Wars

In exile on the island of Saint-Helena, the deposed Emperor of the French mused about a great treatise on the art of war, but in the end changed his mind and ordered the destruction of the materials he had collected for the volume. Thus was lost what would have been one of the most interesting and important books on the art of war ever written, by one of the most famous and successful military leaders of all time.

In the two centuries since, several attempts have been made to gather together some of...

During the Napoleonic Wars, all the major combatants fielded large numbers of light cavalry as Hussars, Dragoons, Chasseurs, Lancers, or even Cossacks. Ridley Scott's 1977 feature film debut The Duelists portrayed French Hussars. Light cavalry provided nimble, fast-moving regiments that performed a variety of vital roles, from reconnaissance and keeping contact with the enemy during the movement of armies, to raiding, skirmishing, and the pursuit to destruction of beaten enemies. In practice, light cavalry were often also employed for battlefield charges alongside the heavy...

In exile on the island of Saint-Helena, the deposed Emperor of the French mused about a great treatise on the art of war, but in the end changed his mind and ordered the destruction of the materials he had collected for the volume. Thus was lost what would have been one of the most interesting and important books on the art of war ever written, by one of the most famous and successful military leaders of all time.

In the two centuries since, several attempts have been made to gather together some of...

The flintlock or firelock musket is one of the truly iconic weapons in history: first used on the battlefields of the Thirty Years' War and the English Civil War, it was carried by both sides at Bunker Hill, Waterloo and the Alamo, and can truly be said to have dominated warfare for more than 150 years, until the advent of cartridge ammunition and breechloading weapons in the 1840s and 1850s and were still being widely used as late as the American Civil War in the 1860s.

During the 18th century flintlocks tended to follow one of two basic patterns: from 1722 the British .75-calibre...

Napoleon's Purgatory is a work portraying the human side of Napoleon as revealed by those who shared his exile on the island of St. Helena. Through the diaries and journals of the Emperor's servants, generals, and companions come the stories of Napoleon's tender love for children, his captivating sense of humor, his eternal love for Josephine, and his agonizing death. Napoleon Bonaparte was sent by the British to the remote island of St. Helena where he could not escape. What followed were six excruciating years of loneliness and depression, mixed with frolicking play with the island's...

Few countries are as marked by their history as the Maltese islands of Malta and Gozo. At least five centuries before St. Paul was shipwrecked on Malta's northern shore on his way to Rome and martyrdom, what are perhaps the oldest stone buildings in the world were raised here. Always vulnerable due to their strategic position in the Mediterranean, the islands have been invaded and occupied by successive forces: Greeks, Romans, Muslims from North Africa, Normans and Spaniards. In the sixteenth century Malta became the stronghold of the Knights Hospitaller of St. John, who built the city of...