The Wars of the French Revolution, 1792-1801 offers a comprehensive and jargon-free coverage of this turbulent period and unites political, social, military and international history in one volume. Carefully designed for undergraduate students, through twelve chapters this book offers an introduction to the origins and international context of the French Revolution as well as an in-depth examination of the reasons why war began. Aspects unpicked within the book include how France acquired a de facto empire stretching from Holland to Naples; the impact of French conquest on the areas concerned; the spread of French ideas beyond the frontiers of the French imperium; the response of the powers of Europe to the sudden expansion in French military power; the experience of the conflicts unleashed by the French Revolution in such areas as the West Indies, Egypt and India; and the impact of war on the Revolution itself. Offering extensive geographical coverage and challenging many preconceived ideas, The Wars of the French Revolution, 1792-1801 is the perfect resource for students of the French Revolution and international military history more broadly.

First published in 1995 to great critical acclaim, The Wars of Napoleon provides students with a comprehensive survey of the Napoleonic Wars around the central theme of the scale of French military power and its impact on other European states, from Portugal to Russia and from Scandinavia to Sicily. The book introduces the reader to the rise of Napoleon and the wider diplomatic and political context before analysing such subjects as how France came to dominate Europe; the impact of French conquest and the spread of French ideas; the response of European powers; the experience of the conflicts of 1799-1815 on such areas of the world as the West Indies, India and South America; the reasons why Napoleon's triumph proved ephemeral; and the long-term impact of the period. This second edition has been revised throughout to include a completely re-written section on collaboration and resistance, a new chapter on the impact of the Napoleonic Wars in the wider world and material on the various ways in which women became involved in, or were affected by, the conflict. Thoroughly updated and offering students a view of the subject that challenges many preconceived ideas, The Wars of Napoleon remains an essential resource for all students of the French Revolutionary Wars as well as students of European and military history during this period.

The Wars of the French Revolution, 1792-1801 offers a comprehensive and jargon-free coverage of this turbulent period and unites political, social, military and international history in one volume. Carefully designed for undergraduate students, through twelve chapters this book offers an introduction to the origins and international context of the French Revolution as well as an in-depth examination of the reasons why war began. Aspects unpicked within the book include how France acquired a de facto empire stretching from Holland to Naples; the impact of French conquest on the areas concerned; the spread of French ideas beyond the frontiers of the French imperium; the response of the powers of Europe to the sudden expansion in French military power; the experience of the conflicts unleashed by the French Revolution in such areas as the West Indies, Egypt and India; and the impact of war on the Revolution itself. Offering extensive geographical coverage and challenging many preconceived ideas, The Wars of the French Revolution, 1792-1801 is the perfect resource for students of the French Revolution and international military history more broadly.

The Spanish Civil War: A Military History takes a new, military approach to the conflict that tore Spain apart from 1936 to 1939. In many histories, the war has been treated as a primarily political event with the military narrative subsumed into a much broader picture of the Spain of 1936-9 in which the chief themes are revolution and counter-revolution. While remaining conscious of the politics of the struggle, this book looks at the war as above all a military event, and as one in whose outbreak specifically military issues - particularly the split in the armed forces produced by the long struggle in Morocco (1909-27) - were fundamental. Across nine chapters that consider the war from beginning to endgame, Charles J. Esdaile revisits traditional themes from a new perspective, deconstructs many epics and puts received ideas to the test, as well as introducing readers to foreign-language historiography that has previously been largely inaccessible to an anglophone audience. In taking this new approach, The Spanish Civil War: A Military History is essential reading for all students of twentieth-century Spain.

First published in 1995 to great critical acclaim, The Wars of Napoleon provides students with a comprehensive survey of the Napoleonic Wars around the central theme of the scale of French military power and its impact on other European states, from Portugal to Russia and from Scandinavia to Sicily. The book introduces the reader to the rise of Napoleon and the wider diplomatic and political context before analysing such subjects as how France came to dominate Europe; the impact of French conquest and the spread of French ideas; the response of European powers; the experience of the conflicts of 1799-1815 on such areas of the world as the West Indies, India and South America; the reasons why Napoleon's triumph proved ephemeral; and the long-term impact of the period. This second edition has been revised throughout to include a completely re-written section on collaboration and resistance, a new chapter on the impact of the Napoleonic Wars in the wider world and material on the various ways in which women became involved in, or were affected by, the conflict. Thoroughly updated and offering students a view of the subject that challenges many preconceived ideas, The Wars of Napoleon remains an essential resource for all students of the French Revolutionary Wars as well as students of European and military history during this period.

The Spanish Civil War: A Military History takes a new, military approach to the conflict that tore Spain apart from 1936 to 1939. In many histories, the war has been treated as a primarily political event with the military narrative subsumed into a much broader picture of the Spain of 1936-9 in which the chief themes are revolution and counter-revolution. While remaining conscious of the politics of the struggle, this book looks at the war as above all a military event, and as one in whose outbreak specifically military issues - particularly the split in the armed forces produced by the long struggle in Morocco (1909-27) - were fundamental. Across nine chapters that consider the war from beginning to endgame, Charles J. Esdaile revisits traditional themes from a new perspective, deconstructs many epics and puts received ideas to the test, as well as introducing readers to foreign-language historiography that has previously been largely inaccessible to an anglophone audience. In taking this new approach, The Spanish Civil War: A Military History is essential reading for all students of twentieth-century Spain.

The Spanish Civil War continues to attract attention as a brutal political and military struggle which foreshadowed the wider war across Europe that followed, and it has given rise to myths that have become commonplace since the war ended eighty years ago. Few of these myths are as potent as those associated with the International Brigades, the 45,000 volunteers from many countries who travelled to Spain to fight for the Second Republic. That is why this perceptive and original study by Charles Esdaile is so valuable. Using the recorded experience of the British Brigaders as well as primary research in the Spanish archives, he thoroughly re-examines the contribution they made to the war effort against the Nationalists of General Franco. During the war the Nationalists exaggerated the importance of the International Brigades in order to demonstrate the influence of the Communists on the Republic, and the Republicans portrayed them as part of the great crusade to defend democracy. Then, after the war, surviving Brigaders tended to overstate the part they played and the sacrifices they made. The one fact that nobody would dispute was the terrible losses sustained by the volunteers. This produced an impression that they were veritable men of iron who played a key part in the fighting and helped stave off the Nationalist victory until the eve of the Second World War. By concentrating in close detail on the major battles in which the British Brigaders took part, Charles Esdaile reassesses their impact and considers whether their performance on the battlefield justifies their reputation.

In the iconography of the Peninsular War of 1808-14, women are well represented-both as heroines, such as Agustina Zaragosa Domenech, and as victims, whether of starvation or of French brutality. In history, however, with its focus on high politics and military operations, they are invisible-a situation that Charles J. Esdaile seeks to address. In Women in the Peninsular War, Esdaile looks beyond the iconography. While a handful of Spanish and Portuguese women became Agustina-like heroines, a multitude became victims, and here both of these groups receive their due. But Esdaile reveals a much more complicated picture in which women are discovered to have experienced, responded to, and participated in the conflict in various ways. While some women fought or otherwise became involved in the struggle against the invaders, others turned collaborator, used the war as a means of effecting dramatic changes in their situation, or simply concentrated on staying alive. Along with Agustina Zaragoza Domenech, then, we meet French sympathizers, campfollowers, pamphleteers, cross-dressers, prostitutes, amorous party girls, and even a few protofeminists. Esdaile examines many social spheres, ranging from the pampered daughters of the nobility, through the cloistered members of Spain's many convents, to the tough and defiant denizens of the Madrid slums. And we meet not just the women to whom the war came but also the women who came to the war-the many thousands who accompanied the British and French armies to the Iberian peninsula. Thanks to his use of copious original source material, Esdaile rescues one and all from, as E. P. Thompson put it, "the enormous condescension of posterity." And yet all these women remain firmly in their historical and cultural context, a context that Esdaile shows to have emerged from the Peninsular War hardly changed. Hence the subsequent loss of these women's story, and the obscurity from which this book has at long last rescued them.

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.

Napoleon's forces invaded Spain in 1808, but two years went by before they overran the southern region of Andalucia. Situated at the farthest frontier of Napoleon's "outer empire," Andalucia remained under French control only briefly--for two-and-a-half years--and never experienced the normal functions of French rule. In this groundbreaking examination of the Peninsular War, Charles J. Esdaile moves beyond traditional military history to examine the French occupation of Andalucia and the origins and results of the region's complex and chaotic response.
Disillusioned by the Spanish provisional government and largely unprotected, Andalucia scarcely fired a shot in its defense when Joseph Bonaparte's army invaded the region in 1810. The subsequent French occupation, however, broke down in the face of multiple difficulties, the most important of which were geography and the continued presence in the region of substantial forces of regular troops. Drawing on British, French, and Spanish sources that are all but unknown, Esdaile describes the social, cultural, geographical, political, and military conditions that combined to make Andalucia particularly resistant to French rule.
Esdaile's study is a significant contribution to the new field sometimes known as occupation studies, which focuses on the ways a victorious army attempts to reconcile a conquered populace to the new political order. Combining military history with political and social history, "Outpost of Empire" delineates what we now call the cultural terrain of war. This is history that moves from battles between armies to battles for hearts and minds.

Charles Esdaile's new guide to the Battle of Waterloo presents the experience of the soldiers who took part in the battle in the most graphic and direct way possible - through their own words. In a series of walks he describes in vivid detail what happened in each location on 18 June 1815 and he quotes at length from eyewitness accounts of the men who were there. Each phase of the action during that momentous day is covered, from the initial French attacks and the intense fighting at Hougoumont and La Haye Sainte to the charges of the French cavalry against the British squares and the final, doomed attack of Napoleon's Imperial Guard. This innovative guide to this historic site is fully illustrated with a selection of archive images from the War Heritage Institute in Brussels, modern colour photographs of the battlefield as it appears today and specially commissioned maps which allow the visitor to follow the course of the battle on the ground.

"Catherine Exley was born in Leeds in 1779. Aged thirty, she boarded a ship and sailed for Portugal. Her memoir of the years she spent following the 34th Regiment is unique, the only first-hand account of the Peninsular War by the wife of a common British soldier. Published shortly after her death as a booklet which has since been lost, Catherine s Diary survived in a local newspaper of 1923 to be rediscovered by her great-great-great-grandson. It is difficult today to comprehend the hardships Catherine endured: of her twelve children, three died as infants while with her on the march; her clothes, covered with filth and vermin, often went unchanged for weeks at a time, and she herself more than once almost died from illness and starvation; shocked at the mutilation inflicted by muskets and cannons, she still had the composure to manhandle blackened corpses upon a battlefield in search of her missing husband when hardened soldiers could no longer stomach the task. Her diary is reproduced here along with chapters which bear upon Catherine s experiences in Spain and Portugal, and which put her life and writings in their social context.""

In the iconography of the Peninsular War of 1808-14, women are well represented--both as heroines, such as Agustina Zaragosa Domenech, and as victims, whether of starvation or of French brutality. In history, however, with its focus on high politics and military operations, they are invisible--a situation that Charles J. Esdaile seeks to address.
In "Women in the Peninsular Women, "Esdaile looks beyond the iconography. While a handful of Spanish and Portuguese women became Agustina-like heroines, a multitude became victims, and here both of these groups receive their due. But Esdaile reveals a much more complicated picture in which women are discovered to have experienced, responded to, and participated in the conflict in various ways. While some women fought or otherwise became involved in the struggle against the invaders, others turned collaborator, used the war as a means of effecting dramatic changes in their situation, or simply concentrated on staying alive. Along with Agustina Zaragoza Domenech, then, we meet French sympathizers, campfollowers, pamphleteers, cross-dressers, prostitutes, amorous party girls, and even a few protofeminists.
Esdaile examines many social spheres, ranging from the pampered daughters of the nobility, through the cloistered members of Spain's many convents, to the tough and defiant denizens of the Madrid slums. And we meet not just the women to whom the war came but also the women who came to the war--the many thousands who accompanied the British and French armies to the Iberian peninsula. Thanks to his use of copious original source material, Esdaile rescues one and all from, as E. P. Thompson put it, "the enormous condescension of posterity." And yet all these women remain firmly in their historical and cultural context, a context that Esdaile shows to have emerged from the Peninsular War hardly changed. Hence the subsequent loss of these women's story, and the obscurity from which this book has at long last rescued them.