Peninsular War

[Nikel]

Reference site on the Peninsular War, with details on the battles commanders,... Still in progress though


http://www.peninsular-resource.com/history/main.asp

 

[Marshal Lannes]

Siege of Zaragoza 1808.

During the defence of the city by the 2nd Spanish infantry regiment which lasted for 3 months. a woman called Manuela Sancho seeking revenge on the French for the death of her fiancee; made her way with a small group of rebels to help in the defence. She helped to crew a gun and her heioism became legendary and inspired the morale of others totake up arms against the French. She was also present at the battle of Vittoria and the siege of Tortosa.

Agustina- " Maid of Saragossa ".

 

[Marshal Lannes]

Hey Nikel - I was just wondering if you would be considering doing a Peninsular War AAR when the game eventually comes out, maybe before Christmas !
It's your territory, so I would not dream of doing one...............you can do it in Spanish. Maps and diagrams convey most stuff .

 

[Xaver]

Peninsular war??? game??? Christmas??? dont play with my little heart of course one day we can see this but one day i can see Spain winning a world cup....... WAIT!!!!! :laugh:

 

[Marshal Lannes]

They are still adding lots of scenarios, and of course a company level treatment of the Battle of Talavera 1809. Drool ! Plus , with all the whingeing about graphics, it has to be up to spec, so realistically speaking, the end of January is highly probable. I bet the music treatment is causing a bit of a delay too. The good ting about these games is that they take a lot of time to play so waiting for a new one is not too bad. I will probably get Austerlitz for Christmas, so that will keep me busy until Easter, at least. When I retire in about 30 years , I will have enough time to play the entire 1809 campaign in my expensive Spanish villa on the Costa del sol. Lovely ! That is if I am not too distracted by pretty young spanish signoritas but I am afraid by then, that looking will be all I can do. I wonder what the Spanish is for "Viagra". :laugh: I will settle for whipping the Austrians. I might need viagra for that too. Doh !

 

[Xaver]

But is your darkest wet dream or is a real thing??? i know that in December are a high % to see a release... what game or games??? i dont know but Tiller in his page talk about "Panzer Battles" a game with a scale between SB and PzC wiht special emphasis in armor and somebody talk about a new PzC title... Kiev 41 maybe.

Well, if is possible see a first part of the Peninsular war (i think that 3 titles cover this very well) great and ALELUYA but i think that first we can see other titles (Leipzig, 1814, Napoleon in Italy...) because if they are going to do a trilogy is better as with Eckmhul+Wagram both without a title in the middle.

Your villa in Costa del Sol??? i think that the villa is a bank property and be carefull, here banks take your home, your money and your soul MUHAHAHA!!!! but dont be happy, they dont want your wife if has more than 25 years old hehehe.

PD: the spanish "señoritas" are to dangerous for you, better try search "hot moments" with a cossack is less dangerous ;-)

PD2: for company battles i prefer scens covering battle episodes or command a division/brigade all the battles.

 

[Marshal Lannes]

Ay Carumba ! Dangerous women and all of Napoleon's Campaigns on computer. I can die a happy man. Napoleon had a French girlfriend , a Polish girlfriend, a Italian girlfriend, a Austrian girlfriend but no Spanish girlfriend, so perhaps you are right or maybe you do not want to share your goodies. Hmmmm ! No goodies = no fishy fishy for Spanish people in English territorial waters . Fair is fair.

Now there would be a role for Penelope to play - Manuela Aranjuez, ( Agustina). A film set in Napoleonic Spain. A story of War ! Love ! Betrayal ! Revenge ! A sharing of goodies ! Muchas Bueno ! Film sponsored by Santander............:crosseye:

 

[Marshal Lannes]

A new Peninsular War book has just hit the bookshelves. Do not get too excited. It is called - "The Peninsular War Atlas" by Nick Lipscombe. It is a chunky book with a thick folio type cover which basically means that once you take it out, it takes you about 6 minutes to shove it back in without damaging it and there is always a ribbon sticking out in the process. I must admit that I was excited for the briefest of moments to see an embossed lettered front showing the name - Colonel Nick Lipscombe. Obviously being a colonel does not make him an authority on the Napoleonic wars, but you live in hope. Taking the book out , you immediately see an impressive battle scene picture, so far so good, and then your curiosity is heightened and you flick trhrough the numerous maps, (all 160 of them), until you reach the end. Nice thick paper - let's have a closer look. Well, it has maps of all the major battles and sieges and a no- nonsense description of events. But where is the detail - where are the battalion and regimental troop numbers. A few photoshop drawn lines showing attack movements does not stir the loins. An attempt at sort of 3-D map sectioning a la Osprey is attempted but with extremely limited annotation which leaves you wondering whether this book has been a rush job to hit the Christmas market in time. Who exactly is this book aimed at ? Serious Napoleonic enthusiasts will not be enthused. Napoleonic wargamers will be uninterested because of lack of detail and a sense of seen it all before, yawn -yawn mentality. That leaves the casual historical browser, but even they will be uninterested because when you look at the back , you will see a price tag of 45 Pounds, 58 ( sell your country to unelected Brussels eurocrats) Euros or 88 bucks. Who is going to buy this book. It looks like Colonels and Generals who no doubt are already busy beavering away in their sheds in the egotistical belief that they are experts on War because of their rank: another mediocrity of compiled information fancily dressed up to rival the Xmas turkey. Turkey being the right word ! What could have been a ultra-detailed treatment of the Peninsular War a la - "Maps of Chickamauga", is instead a wannabe addition to a already heaving sackload of Santa , overpriced Peninsular War tat ! A 12 year old Napoleonics fan would find it edifying, so maybe it should have been promo-ed with a free plastic figure of Wellington, in which case , the price could be bumped up an extra 5 pounds.
Overall Verdict - Yawn Yawn Yawn ! Buy Hps Simulations Peninsular War Camapaign game instead and learn the real application of movement and strategy by practicality ). :clap:

 

[Marshal Lannes]

I have deleted my initial posting for the following reason.
Beauty in art , architecture, music or women inspires the human spirit, whereas foulness degrades it. To appreciate beauty, one has to be reminded of the beast, preferably, in small doses, or not at all. Vraiment !

 

[Marshal Lannes]

Now, if you must buy a Peninsular War Atlas. Then this is the very thing for you. You do not even have to employ a small romanian boy to carry it home for you because it is too heavy.
You get enough maps of all the major battles and the unit battlemaps are more detailed and informative and more intuitive to read than the Lipscombe book. Robertson also includes some great pictures and also has pictures of the battlefields so you do not have to erroneously visualise them in your head. You can see the quality in this book. Naturally, because it is smaller, the narrative is shorter, but all the essential points are there.
I personally do not like atlases but this one stands out for its commerciality and eyecatching interest and of course, it is only £25, so you do not get "happy shopper", until I get it home; "sad shopper" withdrawal syptoms", at an expensive impulse buy.
Got money to burn - Buy it ! or give to a romanian orphanage, your choice.

Overall verdict : Nice Price, Nice read. Narrative , a bit short !

Ian Robertson - Yale University Press.

 

[Nikel]

Thanks for the reviews


The prize of Ospreys's seems to have dropped

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Peninsular-War-Atlas-General-Military/dp/1849083649/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1291653158&sr=8-1


Pity there is no preview of a few pages

 

[Sgt_Rock]

Not to be confused with:

http://www.amazon.com/Atlas-Peninsular-War-Historical/dp/0300148690/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1291753443&sr=8-2

 

[Nikel]

Yes, ML already commented it. Look at the last post in the previous page of the thread

 

[Marshal Lannes]

 

[Nikel]

Regarding Osprey Atlas here is a sample map in high resolution, Coruña 1809

http://peninsularwar200.org/corunamap.pdf


More in pictures

http://www.ospreypublishing.com/blog/hidden_gems_the_peninsular_war_atlas/


The only critic I read is that apparently for spanish side they chose black outline, very similar to french dark blue :crosseye:

Example, spanish units in the box and the french below surrounding Lérida

And the good is that is not the usual partisan pro british (Wellesley was God) but balanced.


These are not my opinions, but what I read

 

[Sgt_Rock]

I also tire of pro-British viewpoint. While the Portuguese and Spanish can be very thankful that Great Britain intervened on their behalf we also must remember that GB was also watching to protect their own commercial interests in the Med. Had Napoleon gained Gibraltar it would have closed off the Med to the British. Other than those ships which were already there.

And it would be nice to see more books in ENGLISH on the more obscure areas of the Napoleonic and Revolutionary Wars. For instance there was a book put out by James Arnold on Hohenlinden and Marengo. That was a good start to getting us away from another Waterloo book or another treatment of the Peninsular Wars.

I have Paget's book on the Pen Wars. First he goes over the campaigns from the operational view and then from the grand tactical view. That is ALL I need to read on the Peninsular Wars which frankly were a sideshow and not the huge main theater that the British would have us believe it was. While there were many French that died there the loss of Spain did not mean the loss of France. However, go to 1813-14 and see that the loss of Paris DID mean the loss of France. The main theater was always in Germany or the Po River Valley and not Spain.

 

[Nikel]

IMO the two great strategic errors of Napoleon were to invade Spain and Russia, in 1813 Napoleon was already defeated.

I do not know the alternative to Russia invasion, but for the case of Spain I have always wondered why he chose his brother instead of the spanish king Ferdinand VII (by the way, considered as one of the worst kings in the history of Spain). It was very easy as he already was in conflict with his father, give the throne to him and gain him as a puppet king with the resources and army of Spain on your side.

But for some reason Napoleon had to put a member of his family...

 

[Sgt_Rock]

Actually in the German campaign if Napoleon had agreed to AUSTRIA's plan the entire Allied effort would have fallen apart and he could have turned on Wellington coming out of Spain. Instead he got afraid of losing his German allies which were a mixed batch, some VERY loyal to the end while others ready to desert if the prevailing wind blew in the opposite direction.

It will always be one of those what-if situations if Napoleon had accepted "natural borders" and just regrouped for a future war. Russia and Austria were never the best of Allies. Or if Napoleon had given Austria something to keep them out of the war in the first place.

 

[Marshal Lannes]

Thank Spain's lucky stars that Napoleon did not put Jerome in charge. The country would be bankrupted in less than a year. Louis would have been ideal but I read somewhere that he would have refused. I think that Napoleon, (being mortal ,) off the battlefield anyhow, is allowed some errors of diplomatic judgement as even the great Hannibal Barca was pretty useless in the diplomatic arm, which towards the end of his campaigning days, was fatal.

I am always surprised to read about the Spanish army at the time being second rate, and Napoleon was a bit lucky in having to face a Spain which had it's treasury and army and to an extent fleet, allowed to slip into a coma as Spanish might at the beginning of the eighteenth century was still impressive. If Wellington had not taken the pains of re-organising the British army - Soult and Massena would have been more impressive. I am always surprised at Napoleon indulging Soult - I think he should only have been a General. Victor understood Wellington much better.

Financially , it was a bad move to invade Spain, but you would definitely not want a resurgent Spanish fleet funded by British money harassing your sea trade routes. I think that Napoleon was thinking a lot forward to the day that he could pile money into building a huge french fleet allied to a Spanish one and redress the loss at Trafalgar. Nelson was dead and who knows who would be the victor a second time round. English paranoia over a credible threat to their fleet, I think played its part in concentrating Napoleon's finances and attention on land rather than at sea.

It all adds to the overall flavour of Napoleonic campaigning as french forces fought in sand , mud, snow, steppes, mountains, plains, forests, swamps etc. Got to see the capitals of Europe for free and sample the food etc- the original tourist nation. Fly Napoleon Eagle Airways - the only way to fly........

As for books, I do not know what the situation is in the States or Spain, but the " recession" has decimatrd the number of second-hand bookshops and whereas a decade ago, you could find amazing and cheap stuff on the Napoleonic period- you cannot now- yes there is E-bay but even tat sells for quite a bit. There is only one remainder bookshop I know of now whereas before there were lots, and they used to be great at selling American Civil War books at crazy prices, as well as the generalised Peninsular war books.
I bought a hardback on Chancellorsville for £4 in a charity shop over Xmas - but no Napoleonics.

Napoleon's " natural border " is what he deemed it to be in his mind, which unfortunately does not conform to national but international boundaries. :laugh:

 

[Nikel]

Just in case somebody is interested the atlases of the PW have been reviewed in the Napoleon Series

http://www.napoleon-series.org/reviews/military/c_PeninsularAtlases.html