STUDIES IN THE NAPOLEONIC WARS 001
Preface
PREFACE
The first of the thirteen papers included in this volume differs in character from the rest, being a general summary of the views on the history of the world held by various historians from Herodotus and Orosius down to the Whigs of the XIXth century, with my own modest conclusions subjoined.
The other twelve papers are by-products from much work on the Napoleonic period on which I have been engaged for the last twenty years. The four stories of Secret Service will, I think, be new to most readers: they illustrate in different fashions the underworld of political and military intrigue which escapes notice in general histories. All the four heroes of these tales are personages well worthy of inspection; all were bold and ready-witted; two of them—Robertson and Colquhoun Grant—show a delightful fund of humour in their narratives of their doings. The papers on Maida and on “Column and Line” are the results of study of British tactics before the Peninsular War, necessary for a comprehension of Wellington’s methods of warfare. The discussion of Napoleon’s system of using his cavalry is a generalization from the whole period of the campaigns of 1800–15, into which I was led while endeavouring to discover the basic ideas which lay below the handling of cavalry by his generals in the Spanish War.
Seven of these papers have never been in print before For the others I have to acknowledge the kind permission of the Editor of Blackwood to use again “General Brock” and “A Prisoner of Albuera”, of Messrs. Macmillan for the reprinting of “Wellington as Prime Minister”, of the Editors of the Royal Artillery Journal for the reproduction of “Maida”, and of the Council of the British Academy for that of “Column and Line”. “Historical Perspective” was a Creighton Lecture delivered before the University of London, and “A Defence of Military History” was written at the request of Sir George Aston for a Congress at the Institute of Historical Research.
C. OMAN
OXFORD
January 28, 1929
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