Featured battle : Heilsberg

Part of The French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars

Date : 10 June 1807

Initially only the Reserve Cavalry Corps and Soult's IV Corps came up against what they thought, and because of their messages sent back to him, Napoleon thought, was the Russian Rearguard. Initial attacks were costly and unsuccessful and it was realised that the Russian main body had made a stand. Hastily summoned Napoleon came up with Lannes V Corps and the Imperial Guard. He immediately threw in Lannes Corps in yet another fuitless and costly frontal attack. During this engagement Count Bennigsen, the Russian commander, was so ill that he fell unconscious from his horse several times. The Russo-Prussians retired from the battlefield on the 11th having inflicted heavy casualties on their opponent.

Man of War

Anthony Sullivan
Having very recently read about the development of the supply system for the Baltic fleet [see Transformation of British Naval Strategy review on this site] I developed an interest in the career of Admiral Saumarez. Quite fortuitously I found Anthony Sullivan's new book on the life of the man himself. The book covers the whole of his life and, as one would expect from the title, gives a lot of information about his naval career. The ships he served on, the ships he commanded, the squadrons and fleets he eventually led, as well as the actions he was in are all there. Saumarez did not fight in the battle of Trafalgar and, to the authors credit, that battle gets only a paragraph in passing. The author has done his research and does not need to pad out the narrative. The book is without illustrations but has a sufficient number of maps and battle plans to support the text.
Saumarez was a remarkable fighter, a true naval hero, a family man and a man of his time who was not free of some minor blemishes this I know from reading this excellent book.
Frontline Books. Pen & Sword Books Ltd., 2017