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Marlborough - Britain'S Greatest General (Paperback)
Loot Price: R400
Discovery Miles 4 000
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(16%)
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Marlborough - Britain'S Greatest General (Paperback)
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List price R476
Loot Price R400
Discovery Miles 4 000
You Save R76 (16%)
Expected to ship within 12 - 17 working days
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Bestselling military historian Richard Holmes delivers an expertly
written and exhilarating account of the life of John Churchill, the
Duke of Marlborough and Britain's finest soldier, who rose from
genteel poverty to lead his country to glory, cementing its
position as a major player on the European stage and saviour of the
Holy Roman Empire. John Churchill is, by any reasonable analysis,
Britain's greatest-ever soldier. He mastered strategy, tactics and
logistics. His big four battles, Blenheim (which saved the Holy
Roman Empire), Ramilies, Oudenarde and Malplaquet were events at
the very centre of the European stage. He captured Lille, France's
second city, overran Bavaria and beat a succession of French
marshals so badly that one, the squat and energetic Bofflers, was
rewarded by Louis XIV for only losing moderately. A coalition
manager long before the phrase was invented, he commanded a huge
polyglot army with centrifugal political tendencies and bending it
to his will by sheer force of personality. Yet John Churchill was
also deeply controversial. He accepted a pension from one of
Charles II's mistresses for services vigorously rendered. He owed
his rise and his peerage to James II yet, determined to be on the
winning side, he deserted him in his hour of need in 1688. He
maintained regular correspondence with the Jacobites while serving
William and Mary and with the French while fighting Louis XIV. He
made money on a prodigious scale, but was notoriously tight-fisted,
long regretting an annuity given to a secretary whose
quick-wittedness saved him from capture. But in the age when
commissions were bought and sold, and commanders often owed their
position to the hue of their blood, he never lost his soldier's
confidence.
General
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