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I really have to wonder at the level of obsession that makes someone write so many words on one campaign, and so few on anything else. But, Gill’s obsession is our gain, as his books are worthwhile additions to the studies of Napoleon’s campaigns.

This first volume covers up up through 23rd April 1809, and the aftermath of the Battle of Eggmühl. Before that, we of course get the general build up, and the political pressures that caused Austria to go to war with France, again.

That first part is very informative, as we are treated to the crosscurrents operating in Austria, and how a commander who didn’t feel the Austrian army was ready got swept up in tide anyway. After that we get a nicely detailed account of the initial Austrian offensive, and all the problems that slowed what was supposed to be a sudden, daring, lunge over the border into a fairly slow march.

After this, things break up a bit, as the maps in the book just can’t handle the job of backing up the narrative. There’s a good number of maps, but they are not horribly well-done, and often don’t make things much clearer, as it’s often impossible to find the places being referenced in the text.

That is by far the worst problem here though. The text and descriptions are great, the narrative is a bit slow, thanks to the fine level of detail being presented, but it does not lose coherence in spite of that. I will note that he also stays focused on the main theater; I thought he might borrow some from his earlier With Eagles to Glory to fill in what was going on away from the main armies and at least present the Tyrolean revolt in its bigger chronological context, but no. Obviously, it would have expanded an overstuffed series even further, but I could do with the further context. Even so, this is not to be missed by anyone with a real interest in the Napoleonic Wars.

I happened upon a positive friend’s review at the same time this went on sale, and picked it up. I’m glad I did, it is a good book.

The name “Galatians” doesn’t mean much to anyone who has not spent a fair amount of time reading about the ancient world. They’re best loosely thought of as ‘eastern Gauls’. Which is to say they’re a Celtic people who went east and encountered Greeks instead of Romans. They had a short-lived kingdom in the middle of Asia Minor early in the Successors period, which is part of why they don’t get talked about as much, the Macedonian Soap Opera was going on around them.

Also, that’s not the best period for general knowledge, which tends to skip from Alexander straight to Rome. And the previous is also about the limit of what I knew. So, a lot of this book was new to me, going into what is known about their initial emergence into Greek knowledge around the Banat region of Serbia, some serious raids into Greece, and then the eventual settling into Asia Minor.

That last is the bulk of the book, because there’s a bit more known, and they were active for a good chunk of time before becoming a Roman province. A lot is still uncertain here, as there’s little in the way of records from them, causing everything to be from the viewpoint of looking into something of a blind spot in history.

So, even at its best, there’s not a lot of detail or certainty to be had here. So Grainger has done a fine job with the materials to hand, making everything as coherent as possible, and presenting everything quite clearly. It’s a bit of a niche subject, but it’s handled well, and adds a bit of perspective to things that get hinted at in other books.

Osprey’s book on Castile and Aragon is really more about Trastamara rule, with Enrique II taking the throne of Castile in 1369 and the Hapsburg Charles II taking over Spain in 1516.

The beginning of this tale is familiar to many English-language history buffs, as it crosses over with the Hundred Years War. After that, not a lot of attention is paid until 1492 and the surrender of Granada allows for funding overseas adventures. As usual, there’s a good three-page chronology at the start to help place everything.

The Weaponry & Tactics section is brief, but introduces the important points, including vulnerability to English armies. This is best known for the battle of Nájera,  but lesser known is the battle of Aljubarrota, where Juan I Trastamara tried pressing a claim to Portugal and was defeated by a smaller force with plenty of English and Gascon veterans in it. Unfortunately, there’s little follow-up to this section, including how Iberian organization and tactics changed (or failed to) after this, though in the short term Juan refused any more set piece battles with English troops.

There’s a good couple of pages about sea power in the two kingdoms, a subject that hardly ever gets enough attention in this era. From there, we get a history of the campaigns from 1407-1444, which is mostly the Aragonese expansion into Sicily and Italy. This is also informative, if predictably a bit confusing (we are talking Italian politics here), especially as we get to see how the two areas tie together.

After that is a major section on the consolidation of Castile and Aragon, and of course the conquest of Granada. That section in particular was eye-opening, as it was logistically extremely difficult country, and the war was quite extended by the difficulties in campaigning there. The book then finishes up with further campaigning in Italy at the end of the Fifteenth Century.

This is much more of a ‘pocket history’ than the examination of the armies that the Men-At-Arms series is technically supposed to be. As such, it’s well-written and informative, but doesn’t really give much idea of what these campaigns might have looked like. Similarly, Gary Embleton’s color plates are decent, but nothing special. That said the plate descriptions are good, and there’s the usual plethora of photos of period artifacts, and art (all black-and-white this time, which is becoming less common in the series).

Bennett’s book on Trafalgar is fairly typical of such books. As a popular history book, it wisely starts with a couple chapters of background, including how naval combat worked in the Age of Sail, and after that he moves on to more direct backgroud, with one chapter dedicated to discussing the personalities and careers of the various commanding officers involved.

Bennett occasionally takes time out to present important dispatches; for instance, between chapters 6 and 7 he inserts Nelson’s (abridged) memorandum to his fleet as they crossed the Atlantic in pursuit of Villeneuve, and then gives an important paragraph of Villeneuve’s instructions as a comparison. Near the end, he gives Collingwood’s two main dispatches after the Battle of Trafalgar. I found the latter to be bit much, but it is certainly good to have them available in the book, which also quotes from a variety of sources throughout the main text.

For anyone familiar with the battle, all the main elements you expect are here, and told quite lucidly. This isn’t a book to discover new insights with, but that isn’t what’s needed for the intended audience. If you only know the highlights of the battle (spoiler: Nelson dies), this is a good telling of the entire battle. I would recommend Alan Shom’s Trafalgar: Countdown to Battle instead of this book, as it is more comprehensive than this, and Bennett doesn’t gain anything with his slightly tighter focus, though this is a shorter read.

My version of this book is no longer available (dead ASIN), but there is still a Kindle version with the same cover (and I believe, publisher) currently available. Hopefully, it’s a cleaned up copy of my version, which is already in fairly good shape, though there are some notable OCR goofs (one nonsense sentence becomes clearer if you substitute “15” for “is”, and a ‘go-gun’ ship is… startling). If the current version got another pass through edit, it should be in good shape.

Alan Schom’s book is supposedly as much on the campaigns leading up to the famous battle as on the battle itself (thus the subtitle). And it generally succeeds at that. Better, it presents a lot of the French side of what was happening, and takes a real look at Napoleon’s plans to invade England.

Since that never got attempted, there have been doubts about how serious Napoleon was about the attempt, starting with some of his own propaganda. However, Schom lays out his reasons for treating it as very much a real and pressing project of his, and traces it through way too many changes and contradictory orders. More interesting to me, is his descriptions of the naval flotilla built to support the invasion.

This is Schom’s main reason for discounting any claims that the invasion was in the end a feint. Way too much effort, materials, and manpower were spent on all the little craft that were to protect and support the transports for a mere distraction. And they were, in a word, useless. Even the largest of the three classes was not really rated for service in the rough seas of the Atlantic, the cannons they mounted were too small to be any use against regular military ships, and those same cannons dangerously overloaded the vessels.

The British efforts to blockade the French fleet in ports gets more attention elsewhere, but the presentation here is good, and concentrates a bit more on William Cornwallis’ (brother of the more famous Charles Cornwallis of Yorktown fame) command of the Channel Fleet. I do think this side could have been presented a bit better, with more of a look at the administration of the naval effort, and how the various demands for ships in different posts were met over time. A true detailed look would be too much for a more popular book such as this, but keeping an eye on policy development would have been a good addition.

Overall, the book does it’s job quite well, and my main actual complaint is that it’s nearly impossible to keep track of all the changes in French plans over time despite Schom paying attention to that aspect. Of course, those changes were numerous and frequent enough that I doubt anyone at the time could really keep track of it all.