Wellington In The Peninsula 1808-1814 (Greenhill Military Paperbacks) [Paperback]

Jac Weller (Author)

Book Description

Series: Greenhill Military Paperbacks | Publication Date: January 31, 2006

This text demonstrates how a great commander finally achieved victory after six years of battle against Napoleon's army. The author covers all the battles against the French that Wellington was involved in.

Product Details

• Paperback: 400 pages
• Publisher: Greenhill Books; New Edition, 1st as such edition (January 31, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1853673811
• ISBN-13: 978-1853673818
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.4 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #704,303 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent one volume account of a long war, January 20, 2000

By 

Bruce Trinque (Amston, CT United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Wellington In The Peninsula 1808-1814 (Greenhill Military Paperbacks) (Paperback)

Weller's book is a genuine classic of military history, describing a long war in a clear, incisive narrative. The battles are described concisely while pointing out options, mistakes, and tactical aspects. But it is a book of more than just battle accounts. Weller also intelligently explores the strategic problems and opportunities faced by both sides during the Peninuslar War. Certainly Wellington is Weller's hero in this narrative, but he me makes a compelling case for why the man who would become known as the Iron Duke deserves his sterling reputation.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great Overview, August 29, 2000

By 

"limespider" (Littleton, CO USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Wellington In The Peninsula 1808-1814 (Greenhill Military Paperbacks) (Paperback)

As the title indicates, this is essentially a book about Wellington's engagements in the Peninsular War, not the Peninsular War as a whole. Keeping that in perspective, this is an excellent book which covers each of Wellington's battles and sieges, as well as his logistical and strategic decisions, in great detail. Weller uses abundant footnotes to document his sources and indicates any conflicting accounts in the source material. So while this is a view of the British involvement in the Peninsular War, it is an unbiased one. It is also light enough in scope that one can get a good feel for this conflict without having to read all seven volumes of Oman.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An old favorite returns, October 5, 2004

By 

Jeffrey F. Bell (Honolulu, HI United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Wellington In The Peninsula 1808-1814 (Greenhill Military Paperbacks) (Paperback)

This was the first serious book on land combat in the Napoleonic age that was available in my small boring home town. I actually read it covertly in my high school classes. Some of my friends claim I share some of the Iron Duke's annoying personality traits -- if so this book is the reason!

30 years later I would still rate it as the best general 1-vol study of Wellington's campaigns, and the single book I would carry if I were visiting the battlefields. But there are some problems with it that need to be recognised:

1) Weller was writing about Wellington, so other armies and generals fighting in Spain at the time tend to get ignored. Of course they were mostly getting whipped by the French, but David Gates in THE SPANISH ULCER managed to make them interesting in spite of this handicap. Also, the whole savage partisan war that made Wellington's operations possible is mostly ignored.

2) The book ignores or downplays some of Wellington's bad points. The man was clearly a genius, but that led him to be very unforgiving of the failures of normal people.

3) Weller followed Sir Charles Oman on the tactical details of Wellington's battles. Later research by Paddy Griffith in original documents has proven that Oman's ideas on line vs. column and British fire superiority were mostly wrong. The prolonged exchanges of musket volleys described by Weller mostly didn't take place; the redcoats usually won with ambush tactics on the defense and classic bayonet charges on the offense.