Customer Reviews

In the Peninsula with a French Hussar: Memoirs of the War of the French in Spain (Napoleonic Library)

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De Rocca's memoir of the war in Spain is far less well-known than that of his hussar colleague Jean Marbot but makes for excellent reading (& probably far less given to exaggeration). Greenhill should be thanked for adding this short work to their Napoleonic Library - an affordable addition to any Peninsular collection. De Rocca's description of the insurgency leaves little to the imagination and certainly makes understandable the French failure to conquer the Spanish people. Any student of the Peninsula should pick this up as should those studying counterinsurgency. De Rocca later went on to wed the formidable Madame de Stael in a love match. We're lucky to have such a memoir by an intelligent, thoughtful campaigner. See also Memoirs of Colonel Bugeaud and the thoroughly readable Recollections of Colonel de Gonneville.

It is really rare to find books specially on the peninsular war and the war in Spain from the French side, the books that you find in English are almost always from the English side or Spanish.

This is a great book that you would really enjoy, we can find not only of a brave and compassionate man(not normal in some french hussards), but of an intelligent and objective observer of the military situation that the French Army find in Spain with the noncommon style of war made by Spanish Guerrilla .

We follow for two years a hussar officer in Napoleon's army, De Rocca was sent to Spain in 1808 from Germany where the French found a very different kind of war; here they were fighting not only the disciplined troops of the English under Sir John Moore, and the Spanish army, but also a civilian population desperately fighting to regain their freedom against Napoleon whose brother Joseph ruled Spain as a puppet king. De Rocca gives vivid accounts of military operations such as the march to Madrid and Napoleon's entry into the city and the subsequent battles in which he took part, the pursuit of Sir John Moore's army to Corunna, the battle at Talavera, which took place while he was away from Spain for a few months, and the battles that followed against the English under General Sir Arthur Wellesley, now in command in the Iberian peninsula. He also describes the enormous personal dangers he faced in every Spanish village that the French army entered, where every man, woman and child was intent on their death, yet he still pays tribute to the character of their enemies even when his own life was at risk from them.

You will enjoy this book.