Dr. Brian Kieran has shed more light on Sir John Moore and his heroic retreat during 1808 -1809 through the Galicia Mountains in the middle of Winter to Corunna in Spain. The tragic events of the retreat are graphically described leading to the sombre death of Sir John Moore at the moment of Victory. The one British Army of the time escaped through their evacuation from Corunna from Napoleon and ultimately his Marshals. Moore's skilful campaign caused Napoleon to return to Paris as he could not bear the thought of being defeated or outrun by the More's military skill. Moore's death occurred at the height of the battle at Corunna and he was aware of the victory before he died a painful death. More's death gave rise to the composition of a number of poem's yet the most famous was written by an Irishman; in England it became a children's Memorial to a Great Man. "But he lay like a warrior taking his rest, With his martial cloak around him." Moore could have been given no greater honour at that time when Soult ordered the firing of a salute of Cannon.

In the bitter winter of 1808, a small British force found itself outnumbered and outmanouevered by a French army led by none other than the emperor Napoleon. Faced with crushing defeat, the British, commanded by Sir John Moore, turned and began a legendary march through the snow and ice of northern Spain to freedom and escape. Napoleon, swearing that he would drive the British leopard into the sea, pursued and an epic was born.

A fully illustrated and detailed account of the retreat to Corunna, one of the epic campaigns of the Napoleonic Wars. Late in 1808 Sir John Moore found himself virtually alone with his small British army deep inside Spain. The armies of his Spanish allies had been overwhelmed and he faced a victorious French force under the Emperor Napoleon. He had little option but to order a retreat to the port of Corunna. This became the most arduous of trials with armies traversing mountainous terrain over appalling roads in the depths of winter. Somehow Moore held his outnumbered, exhausted men together as they struggled to reach safety. Philip Haythornthwaite recounts how, finally, at Corunna, Moore's army turned to face its tormentors.

A renowned historian captures the French experience of the Peninsular War through soldiers’ unpublished memoirs and eyewitness accounts. While much has been written about the British campaigns of the Peninsular War, surprisingly little has been published in English on their opponents, the French. Now, using previously unseen material from the French army archives in Paris, Paul Dawson tells the story of the early years of the Peninsular War as never before. Eyewitness accounts of the Siege of Zaragoza and the Spanish defeats at Medellin and Ocaña are interspersed with details of campaign life and of struggling through the Galician mountains in pursuit of the British army. Dawson captures the perspectives of ordinary French soldiers and their beliefs about the war they were fighting for their Emperor. Napoleon’s Peninsular War is a vital and unprecedented addition to our understanding of the war in Iberia.