Featured battle : Hanau

Part of The French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars

Date : 30 October 1813 - 31 October 1813

Wrede, commanding the Austro-Bavarian army of 30,000 attempted to halt Napoleon's retreat from Leipzig. The Grand Armée was still 60,000 strong and commanded by Napoleon. Wrede's conduct of the action was incompetent in all aspects. He had wasted most of his artillery ammunition [see Würzburg] so that only 58 of his 134 guns were deployed. He had wasted time in getting into and preparing his blocking position. He positioned his army on either side of an unfordable river without settingup additional bridges. Napoleon brushed him aside and continued his withdrawal towards Frankfurt and Mainz.

Fighting for the French Foreign Legion - Memoirs of a Scottish Legionnaire

Lochrie, Alex
There are quite a number of memoirs out there of men attracted by the legion, and I've read most of them. Luckily, this one ranks quite highly amongst those I've read. The author manages to join the legion at quite an advanced age - 38 - and so brings a different viewpoint to the training and life as an older man.
His training and experience as a member of their special forces is usual for this kind of book - he serves in Tchad, Bosnia, Desert Storm, but he becomes a technical specialist in photographic techniques and brings a sensitivity to his writing that is sometimes lacking in others. It's a more thoughtful book, and should be a good addition to anyone's Legion library.

Pen & Sword Military, 2013