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.

Battle Understanding Conflict Hastings to Helmand

Graeme Callister & Rachael Whitbread
This is a rather different sort of book in not being about a war, campaign or battle but rather about all battles. It gives the reader a framework through which to assess any particular battle or conflict. The authors make the case that every conflict has a number of contributing factors which add or subtract from the outcome. Their approach is to give each of these factors a chapter which concludes with an account of one or two battles in which the particular factor was significant. They do stress that all the factors have a part to play to a greater or lesser degree in every battle. They also point out the ever present difficulty of finding accurate information about these matters.
The aim of the book is to aid in the understanding of battles and in this it succeeds very well indeed.
We highly recommend this book to anyone wishing to understand battles of any place or period.

Pen & Sword Military, 2022