FROM THE PUBLISHER

About the Author

Robin Neillands is a well-known military historian and travel writer. His books include The Hundred Years'War, The Conquest of the Reich, and The Bomber War.

SYNOPSIS

Wellington and Napoleon tells one of the great stories in the history of warfare: the clash between the two most brilliant commanders ever to meet on a field of battle. Wellington, according to his men, "didn't know how to lose a battle", but Wellington himself greatly admired his adversary: "In this age, in past ages, in any age, Napoleon."

At the time the book opens 1807 the two men's careers were far apart. Napoleon was Emperor of France, rearranging the map of Europe at Tilsit; Wellington was the most junior general on the British Army list and was languishing as the parliamentary member for Rye. But fate drew them nearer. In the campaigns in Spain and Portugal, Wellington showed that the French army could be beaten, bleeding away Napoleon's reserves and causing the first cracks in the Emperor's continental system.

The armies of the two generals were remarkably different. Napoleon's army was comprised largely of conscripts living off the land. Its leaders were marshals who rose by merit. Wellington commanded a smaller, volunteer army ruled by harsh discipline. Its officers were those selected and sent by the government. Yet Wellington's faith in the British infantryman - the thin red line that, if properly placed and properly handled, would never give ground - proved to be well-founded. Napoleon's bayonet-wielding columns never learned to counter Wellington's infantry.