The brutal conflict that raged across Spain and Portugal between 1808 and 1814 was one of the most devastating episodes of the Napoleonic Wars. It made Wellington and his redcoats heroes, crushed Napoleon’s army – and set the scene for his ultimate downfall. Yet the Peninsular War was, above all, an Iberian tragedy: where a once-invincible imperial power was plunged into terror and over a million were slaughtered, leaving a bitter legacy for years to come. This gripping book draws on the accounts of generals, soldiers and guerrilla fighters to take us into the heart of one of the bloodiest battles in European history.

In October 1810, the Third French invasion of Portugal under Marechal Massena arrived at the Lines of Torres Vedras and his triumphal march into Lisbon came to an abrupt halt. Five months later a thoroughly demoralised and defeated French army retreated from Portugal and never returned. The Lines played a vital role in enabling the allied army to operate against a more numerous enemy. When threatened, there was a safe place for the allies to retire to, and from this secure base, Wellington eventually liberated the Iberian Peninsula. France, Portugal and Britain developed plans for the defence of Lisbon in 1808 and 1809. In November 1809, the British proposal was commenced and became the Lines of Torres Vedras. The Memorandum on the construction was written in October 1809 but was more of an outline. The design and construction was completed over the next 18 months, the bulk being completed before the arrival of the French in October 1810. The initial design was expanded through 1810 as more time became available and the construction in October 1810 was significantly different to the original memorandum. The book takes the reader through events in 1809 that led to the need for the construction of defences. The construction work is detailed and illustrated through several maps to explain the position and purpose of the several defences. The French invasion of 1810 is summarised through to the time when the French arrived at the Lines. The operations and movements over the next month are again detailed along with the continuing construction work on the Lines. One of the unusual elements of the defences was the construction of a telegraph system and this is described in great detail. One of the lesser-known facts about the Lines, is the position of the opposing forces between October 1810 and March 1811. They were only facing each other at the Lines for a few weeks during this period and most French troops never approached them. The operations and defences were spread over a much larger area. This book uses many new sources to prove a new, in-depth, English language account of the massive engineering exercise that built the Lines with the help of thousands of Portuguese civilians. Without the construction of the Lines, it is likely that Portugal would have been lost and history would tell a very different story.

In October 1813, the soldiers of one of Napoleon's staunchest Allies, Saxony, defected en masse in the midst of battle at Leipzig. Almost immediately III German Army Corps was formed with these same soldiers as its nucleus and augmented with returning former prisoners of war, volunteers and militia. Commanded by the Duke of Saxe-Weimar the Corps was sent to the Southern Netherlands to take part in the final defeat of Napoleon amidst of a constant changing command of control structure, in which the Swedish Crown Prince Bernadotte played a major and dubious role. Although for the greater part inexperienced and badly armed, fighting against the much superior French I Corps which even contained Imperial Guard units, III Corps struggled to prove that it could be trusted, paying a major role to protect the Netherlands against the French as these regions tried to regain their own identity after decades of French rule.

Imperial Bayonets examines the maneuvering systems of the French, Prussians, Russians, Austrians and British from 1792 to 1815. It studies infantry maneuvers and firepower, cavalry maneuvers, and artillery. It is THE definitive work on Napoleonic tactics and a must read for anyone wanting to understand the fundamentals of period tactics. It provides not only a discussion of every major maneuver of the five major powers, i.e. from line to square, or column, but does time and motion studies of how long it would take to execute those maneuvers and compares them to the other nations. It covers infantry and cavalry maneuvers on this level. It performs an analysis of both musketry effectiveness and artillery effectiveness, providing curves that demonstrate the effectiveness of both. It also covers brigade maneuvers and army marches.

Austria was one of the five major players of the Napoleonic Wars. In early 19th century, the Austrian army (Kaiserliche-KoeniglicheHeer) was the third largest and one of the best-trained armies in the world.The individual regimentsperformed well and were considered solid. However, hampered by the inherent conservatism of the hierarchy, the Austrians had to face the most modern army in Europe. Despite the many defeats suffered, the Austrian soldiers performed with discipline and played a central role in the coalitions against France, from the campaigns in 1790s, to the Austerlitz campaign of 1805, the closely-balanced battles of 1809, and the final victorious campaigns of 1813-1814. Austrian cavalry, in particular, was considered one of the best in Europe by allies as well as enemies. For the first time, this topic is introduced starting from the first campaign against France. The book includesthe regimental histories of each unit after the original sources, unpublished iconography, and is completed by detailed illustrations depicting uniforms and equipment of the mounted 'kaiserlich' white coats.

The Crimean War, fought by the alliance of Great Britain, France, and the tiny Italian Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia alongside Turkey against Tsarist Russia, was the first 'modern' war, not only for its vast scale (France mobilised a million men) but also the technologies involved, from iron-clad battleships to rifled artillery, the electric telegraph and steam. Best known for the blunder of the Charge of the Light Brigade, the fearful conditions in the trenches at the front, and the quiet heroism of Florence Nightingale, the Crimean War saw the railway go to war for the first time. The Grand Crimean Central Railway was the brainchild of two Victorian railway magnates, Samuel Morton Peto and Thomas Brassey; in order to alleviate the suffering at the front, they volunteered to build at cost a steam railway linking the Allied camps at Sevastopol to their supply base at Balaclava. In the face of much official opposition, the railway was built and operational in a matter of months, supplying hundreds of tons of food, clothing and materiel to the starving and freezing men in their trenches. Largely worked by civilian auxiliaries, the Grand Crimean Central Railway saw the railway transformed into a war-winning weapon, saving countless thousands of lives as it did so.

In the early 1930s, approximately 6,500 Finns from Canada and the United States moved to Soviet Karelia, on the border of Finland, to build a Finnish workers' society. They were recruited by the Soviet leadership for their North American mechanical and lumber expertise, their familiarity with the socialist cause, and their Finnish language and ethnicity. By 1936, however, Finnish culture and language came under attack and ethnic Finns became the region's primary targets in the Stalinist Great Terror. Building That Bright Future relies on the personal letters and memoirs of these Finnish migrants to build a history of everyday life during a transitional period for both North American socialism and Soviet policy. Highlighting the voices of men, women, and children, the book follows the migrants from North America to the Soviet Union, providing vivid descriptions of daily life. Samira Saramo brings readers into personal contact with Finnish North Americans and their complex and intimate negotiations of self and belonging. Through letters and memoirs, Building That Bright Future explores the multiple strategies these migrants used to make sense of their rapidly shifting positions in the Soviet hierarchy and the relationships that rooted them to multiple places and times.

Giuseppe Mazzini's Young Europe and the Birth of Modern Nationalism in the Slavic World examines the intellectual currents in Eastern Europe that attracted educated youth after the Polish Revolution of 1830-1. Focusing on the political ideas brought to the Slavic world from the West by Polish emigre conspirators, Anna Procyk explores the core message that the Polish revolutionaries carried, a message based on the democratic principles espoused by Young Europe's founder, Giuseppe Mazzini. Based on archival sources as well as well-documented publications in Eastern Europe, this study highlights that the national awakening among the Czechs, Slovaks, and Galician Ukrainians was not just cultural, as is typically assumed, but political as well. The documentary sources testify that at its inception the political nationalism in Eastern Europe, founded on the humanistic ideals promoted by Mazzini, was republican-democratic in nature and that the clandestine groups in Eastern Europe were cooperating with one another through underground channels. It was through this cooperation during the 1830s that the better-educated Poles and Ukrainians in the political underground tied to Young Europe became aware that the interests of their nations, bound together by the forces of history and political necessity, were best served when they worked closely together.

NORMAN CROSS was the site of the world's first purpose-built prisoner-of-war camp constructed during the Napoleonic Wars. Opened in 1797, it was more than just a prison: it was a town in itself, with houses, offices, butchers, bakers, a hospital, a school, a market and a banking system. It was an important prison and military establishment in the east of England with a lively community of some 7,000 French inmates. Alongside a comprehensive examination of the prison itself, this detailed and informative book, compiled by a leading expert on the Napoleonic era, explores what life was like for inmates and turnkeys alike - the clothing, food, health, education, punishment and, ultimately, the closure of the depot in 1814.