Tag: Resources

SOURCES – MASTER CRIMINAL CHARLES PEACE

2019-06-04 age-of-victoria SOURCES, William Habron & Charles Peace 0 Comments

Charlies Peace, Master of Disguise.

Charles Peace was notorious during his criminal career. He is a favourite of many historical true crime fans. There are a lot of events and anecdotes about him; too many to cover in one show.

For the outline I gave you, I used the following sources.

Enthusiasts can find plenty more about him as there are plenty of sources and he pops up everywhere. I even saw a photo of one of his violins on Twitter. It has been put in a museum.

100 Days campaign map 01/06/1815

2017-01-28 age-of-victoria MAPS 0 Comments

Nap16June1815

This is the map of the campaign as it opened on between 1st June 1815 and positions adopted by 07:00 on 16th June 1815. Napoleon was aiming to seize the Central Position between Wellington and Blucher. The Allies were spread out and had to work fast to concentrate their forces before Napoleon could isolate them and defeat them in detail. By moving from Charleroi as his point of concentration, Napoleon was perfectly poised to effect his strategy, whilst the strung out Allied forces risked a serious defeat or significant pushback. The crucial requirement for Marshal Ney to vigorously capture Quatre Bras and push on up the road is immediately apparent from this map. The opportunity for Ney to destroy the Prince of Orange’s force with an early assault before reinforcements could arrive is readily seen too.

Please note “Maps courtesy of the USMA, Department of History.” I’m very grateful for their kind permission to use them.

Sources on Napoleon & The 100 Days

2016-02-22 age-of-victoria SOURCES 0 Comments

In the first episodes of the Age of Victoria we’ve been covering Napoleon and the 100 days. There are a ton of great sources out there. I’ve used

  • Memoirs of Napoleon by Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne.
  • The 100 Days by Philip Guedalla.
  • Waterloo: A French Perspective by Andrew Field.
  • Prelude to Waterloo: Quatre Bras: The French Perspective by Andrew Field
  • Siborne’s 1815 Campaign Vol 1: The March to Waterloo.
  • The Ascendancy of Europe: 1815-1914 by MS Anderson.
  • French History since Napoleon edited by Martin S. Alexander.
  • Waterloo 1815: Quarte Bras (Waterloo campaign).
  • Redcoat by Richard Holmes.
  • With Napoleon’s Guns: The Military Memoirs of an Officer of the 1st Empire by Colonel Jean-Nicolas-Auguste Noel
  • Wellington’s Guns: The Untold Story of Wellington and his Artillery in the Peninsula and at Waterloo by Colonel Nick Lipscombe
  • Rifles: Six Years with Wellington’s Legendary Sharpshooters by Nick Urban
  • Swords Around a Throne: Napoleon’s Grande Armee by John Elting
  • Art of Warfare in the Age of Napoleon by Gunther Rothenburg
  • Marshal Louis Davout and the Art of Command by Major John M Keefe
  • Napoleon and his Marshalls by MacDonell
  • Waterloo: the aftermath by Paul O’Keeffe

French and British Sources will all contain some bias’s. Primary sources will naturally have limited views due to the confusion during battles, or the relative positions of the observers. Junior officers particularly tended to have a limited view point and overestimate the importance of their section of the conflict. After the restoration of the Bourbons, the writings of many senior French officers and key Bonapartists were necessarily constrained.

Other primary sources will be plagued by bias’s where people exaggerate their own importance (consciously or otherwise), or they will slander people they dislike or adopt national prejudices. Napoleon was habitually dishonest when it suited him and he was bad at accepting fault, preferring to shift the blame onto his subordinates albeit often deservedly. Still primary sources provide one of the best windows into events at the time and how contemporaries perceived them. Napoleon in particular has suffered at the hands of pro and anti Napoleon historians and writers, so especial care should be taken when reading Napoleonic sources. British sources are very prone to adopting a British=good guys, French=bad guys dichotomy.

This barely scratches the surface. There are reading materials covering everything from uniforms to supply wagons to cooking equipment to grand strategy. There are officers journals and accounts by private soldiers. Napoleon had an incredible career so it is well worth diving deeper into.