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Books > History > European history > 1750 to 1900
Intelligence was just as important in the Napoleonic Wars as it is
today. Then there was only one way of obtaining it by spies and
informers. The Author uses first hand accounts of three of
Wellingtons most daring and successful Intelligence Officers. The
three men, all of Scottish descent, were very different in
character. One was killed in action and another taken prisoner and
after narrowly avoiding summary execution made a dramatic escape.
There is a romantic angle too. Their stories skilfully interwoven
against the backdrop of the brutal Peninsula War where atrocities
were common place. This book gives a fresh insight into Wellingtons
remarkable triumph over Napoleons armies.
After Napoleon was defeated at the Battle of Waterloo, he was sent
into exile on St Helena, arriving in October 1815. For the six
years until his death, he was an 'eagle in a cage', reduced from
the most powerful figure in Europe to a prisoner on a rock in the
South Atlantic. But the fallen emperor was charmed and entertained
by Betsy Balcombe, the pretty teenage daughter of a local merchant.
Anne Whitehead brings to life Napoleon's time on St Helena and the
web of connections around the globe which framed his last years.
Betsy's father, William Balcombe, was well-connected in London, and
he smuggled letters and undertook a clandestine mission to Paris
for Napoleon. Betsy's friendship with Napoleon cast a shadow over
the rest of her colourful life. She married a Regency cad, who soon
left her and their daughter, and she travelled to Australia in 1823
with her father, who was appointed the first Colonial Treasurer of
New South Wales. After her father was exposed for fraud and the
family lost their fortune, she returned to London and published a
memoir which turned her into a celebrity. With her extraordinary
connections to royalty in London and to the Bonaparte family and
their courtiers, Betsy Balcombe led a life worthy of a Regency
romance. This new account reveals Napoleon at his most vulnerable,
human and reflective, and a woman caught in some of the most
dramatic events of her time.
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