Featured battle : Figueras [3]

Part of The French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars

Date : 04 May 1811 - 19 August 1811

The Spanish took the fortress on the 10th April 1811 [see Figueras 1] and garrisonned it with 5 weak regular battalions. The remainder of the garrison were made up from volunteers and Miqueletes [Catalan irregular mountain troops]. In May Napoleon had ordered an immediate re-capture of the fortress but the Spanish put up such a determined defence the immediate became over three months. The Spanish dead numbered 1,500 the French lost nearly three times that number. A French victory but a long expensive one.

Salamanca 1812. Wellington's Year of Victories.

Peter Edwards
A high level of research is presented in a most readable way. The book has a pervading quality in its insights which can only come from an experienced 'military mind'. Throughout the author uses appropriate and varied selection of original text providing both colour and veracity. The maps are few and lacking in detail, in Further Reading the author recommends Ian Robertson's Atlas of the Peninsular War which I would have found most useful in this case. That said however this book is difficult to put down once started and thoroughly recommended.
The Praetorian Press, Pen & Sword Books Ltd., 2013