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This series includes accounts of sea and land campaigns by eye-witnesses and contemporaries, as well as landmark studies of their social, political and economic impacts. The series focuses mainly on the period from the Renaissance to the end of the Victorian era. It includes major concentrations of material on the American and French revolutions, the British campaigns in South Asia and nineteenth-century conflicts in Europe, such as the Peninsular and Crimean Wars. Although many of the accounts are semi-official narratives by senior officers and their relatives, the series also includes alternative viewpoints from dissenting leaders, servicemen in the lower ranks and military wives and civilians caught up in the theatre of war.

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172 results in Cambridge Library Collection - Naval and Military History

Page 2 of 9

The Naval History of Great Britain
  • A New Edition, with Additions and Notes, and an Account of the Burmese War and the Battle of Navarino
  • Volume 1
  • William James
  • Edited by Frederick Chamier
  • Published online:
    05 March 2014
    Print publication:
    17 February 2011
    First published in:
    1859
  • William James (1780–1827) was a lawyer and naval historian best known for this magisterial history of the Royal Navy between 1793 and 1827. James began to research the role of the Royal Navy in the Revolutionary Wars, publishing five volumes between 1822 and 1824. This was expanded up to 1827 in later editions. In one of the most comprehensive histories of the Navy in the Napoleonic Wars ever published, James' rigorous research methodology using various contemporary sources provides detailed descriptions of the operations of the Royal Navy in the period. Fleet campaigns and minor engagements are discussed, with technical and tactical details of ships and battles also provided. These volumes (here reissued from the 1859 edition) remain an invaluable source of information for the history of the Royal Navy during this fascinating period. Volume 1 covers 1793–1796 and includes the Siege of Toulon.

The British Navy
  • Its Strength, Resources, and Administration
  • Volume 3
  • Thomas Brassey
  • Published online:
    05 March 2014
    Print publication:
    16 December 2010
    First published in:
    1882
  • Sir Thomas Brassey (1836–1918), later Earl Brassey, was a politician with a particular interest in maritime affairs. He was a keen sailor, and his wife's accounts of their many voyages (also reissued in this series) were bestsellers. He subsequently became a Lord of the Admiralty and Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports, and Brassey's Naval Annual was for many years the authoritative survey of worldwide navies. This five-volume survey of the state of the British Navy was published between 1882 and 1883. Brassey was much involved with questions of the modernisation and reform of the Navy, at a time when international relations were marked by a maritime arms race. The books provide much technical detail about the different types of ship and weapons available to the Navy. Volume 3 includes discussions of naval policy and ship design, and Brassey's parliamentary papers.

History of the War in the Peninsula and in the South of France
  • From the Year 1807 to the Year 1814
  • Volume 1
  • William Francis Patrick Napier
  • Published online:
    05 March 2014
    Print publication:
    17 February 2011
    First published in:
    1828
  • Published between 1828 and 1840, Napier's History of the War in the Peninsula was a tremendously influential, if controversial, work. Napier had been actively involved in the campaigns, turning to history in peacetime, in part to refute Southey's account of Sir John Moore. The first volume had a mixed reception, getting both high praise and bitter criticism from participants in the wars. He published several works rebutting his critics while producing the later volumes. Because of his obvious lack of impartiality, modern military historians treat the work with caution, but it remains widely read in the many editions and abridgements which were subsequently produced. Volume 1 covers the period from the Treaty of Tilsit in 1807, which ended war on the eastern front and so left Napoleon free to turn his attention to Iberia, to the aftermath of the death of Sir John Moore, Napier's mentor, at Coruña.

Heresies of Sea Power
  • Fred T. Jane
  • Published online:
    05 March 2014
    Print publication:
    13 June 2013
    First published in:
    1906
  • An influential work on naval strategy, The Influence of Sea Power on History (1890) by Alfred Mahan, an American naval officer, had been instrumental in reshaping military tactics in navies all around the world. Its central idea was that a nation's success was determined by its 'sea power' - its ability to command the oceans with a large fleet. Frederick Thomas Jane (1865–1916), the founding editor of All the World's Fighting Ships and All the World's Airships (which continue to this day), here recounts historical battles to argue that other factors were as crucial, if not more, in determining military outcomes. In this daring and astute critique of Mahan's work, Jane proposes that 'fitness to win' played an essential role in securing victory. First published in 1906, this work is a thought-provoking contribution to the debate that influenced the naval arms race in the period before the First World War.

Journal Kept during the Russian War
  • From the Departure of the Army from England in April, 1854, to the Fall of Sebastopol
  • Frances Isabella Duberly
  • Published online:
    05 March 2014
    Print publication:
    22 August 2013
    First published in:
    1855
  • Frances Isabella Duberly (1829–1902) accompanied her officer husband to the Crimea as the only woman on the front line. Her letters home to her sister, highlighting the incompetence and negligence of the generals, and describing the appalling conditions in which the men were fighting, appeared anonymously in the press and, along with W. H. Russell's reports, helped stir public opinion against the prosecution of the war. This reaction persuaded Duberly to ask her brother-in-law to edit her diary, and it provoked a sensation when published in 1855. Although she occasionally conveys some of the elation of victory, the journal is more often a stark and disturbing document: following the battle of Balaclava she writes that 'even my closed eyelids were filled with the ruddy glare of blood'. No history of this brutal campaign can ignore this journal, and it stands comparison with any account of the horrors of war.

Adventures in the Rifle Brigade in the Peninsula, France and the Netherlands, from 1809 to 1815
  • John Kincaid
  • Published online:
    18 December 2013
    Print publication:
    22 August 2013
    First published in:
    1830
  • Adventures in the Rifle Brigade is probably the best-known and most popular of the many memoirs written by the men who served under Wellington in the Peninsular War and Waterloo Campaign. The author, John Kincaid (1787–1862), served as an officer in what was then the 95th Foot, the most famous of Wellington's regiments, which was 'first in the field and last out'. Kincaid fought in most of the great campaigns in the Iberian peninsula between 1809 and 1814 and at Waterloo in 1815. Originally published in 1830, this book is history at its best: informative, enlightening and perceptive, hard fact mixed with humour, a vivid description of life on campaign with one of the most famous regiments in the British army. It is, furthermore, highly readable and engaging: a contemporary review noted that Kincaid's book 'has one fault, the rarest fault in books, it is too short'.

History of the King's German Legion
  • Volume 1
  • North Ludlow Beamish
  • Published online:
    05 October 2013
    Print publication:
    11 October 2012
    First published in:
    1832
  • This two-volume work, published between 1832 and 1837 by the officer and antiquary North Ludlow Beamish (1797–1872), is the definitive account of what was effectively the Hanoverian army in exile. With their country overrun by Napoleon in 1803, thousands of officers and men made their way to England to form the King's German Legion (KGL), which consisted of several regiments of cavalry and infantry, as well as artillery and engineers. The KGL was a superb fighting force that saw widespread service as part of the British Army from 1804 until 1815. It provided Wellington with arguably his finest cavalry during the Peninsular War and Waterloo Campaign. Based upon eyewitness accounts and written records of the KGL's officers and men, this work remains of enduring value to military historians. Volume 1 traces the legion's progress from its formation in 1803 through to May 1811.

Naval Warfare with Steam
  • Howard Douglas
  • Published online:
    05 October 2013
    Print publication:
    13 December 2012
    First published in:
    1858
  • Sir Howard Douglas (1776–1861) fought in the Napoleonic wars in Spain, taught at the Royal Military College, served as lieutenant-governor of New Brunswick, lord high commissioner of the Ionian Islands, and as a Conservative MP for Liverpool. A military scholar, fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and Royal Society and associate of the Institution of Naval Architects, he wrote widely on bridges, systems of defence and attack, and on Britain's North American provinces. Written in retirement, when Douglas became an unofficial advisor to a succession of prime ministers, this work addresses the use of steam to propel ships, with detailed analysis of design, steering, propeller and paddle engineering and considerations of speed and manoeuvrability. The book goes on to examine tactics, including breaking the line, fuel economy and fleet arrangement. Built upon by others, this important work, first published in 1858, remains of interest to military historians.

An Account of the War in Portugal between Don Pedro and Don Miguel
  • Volume 2
  • Charles Napier
  • Published online:
    05 October 2013
    Print publication:
    06 May 2013
    First published in:
    1836
  • Charles Napier (1786–1860) served in the Royal Navy for sixty years. A brave yet controversial commander, he became one of the most popular naval officers in Britain for his role in many battles during the Napoleonic, Anglo-American, Syrian and Crimean wars. He also served as an MP in Parliament. In this two-volume work, originally published in 1836, Napier gives a first-hand account of the Portuguese Civil War, in which he was a key participant. Between 1828 and 1834, a conflict of succession occurred between two brothers, the progressive constitutionalist Don Pedro and the authoritarian absolutist Don Miguel. In 1833, Napier led the Liberal fleet which defeated Don Miguel. In Volume 2, Napier recalls his post-victory campaign to defeat pockets of Miguelite resistance in the north of the country.

History of the King's German Legion
  • Volume 2
  • North Ludlow Beamish
  • Published online:
    05 October 2013
    Print publication:
    11 October 2012
    First published in:
    1837
  • This two-volume work, published between 1832 and 1837 by the officer and antiquary North Ludlow Beamish (1797–1872), is the definitive account of what was effectively the Hanoverian army in exile. With their country overrun by Napoleon in 1803, thousands of officers and men made their way to England to form the King's German Legion (KGL), which consisted of several regiments of cavalry and infantry, as well as artillery and engineers. The KGL was a superb fighting force that saw widespread service as part of the British Army from 1804 until 1815. It provided Wellington with arguably his finest cavalry during the Peninsular War and Waterloo Campaign. Based upon eyewitness accounts and written records of the KGL's officers and men, this work remains of enduring value to military historians. Volume 2 continues the narrative from May 1811, via the Battle of Waterloo, to the legion's disbandment in February 1816.

General Todleben's History of the Defence of Sebastopol, 1854–5
  • A Review
  • William Howard Russell
  • Published online:
    05 September 2013
    Print publication:
    22 March 2012
    First published in:
    1865
  • The journalist William Howard Russell (1820–1907) is sometimes regarded as being the first war correspondent, and his reports from the conflict in the Crimea are also credited with being a cause of reforms made to the British military system. This 1865 book began as a review in The Times of the five-volume work of General Eduard Todleben (or Totleben), the military engineer and Russian Army General, whose work in creating and continually adapting the land defences of Sevastopol in 1854–5 made him a hero and enabled the fortress to hold out against British bombardment for a whole year. Russell added extracts from the original book to his review, and enlarged his commentary on the Russian text, producing a thorough and accurate synthesis, but always highlighting the central importance of the Russian work to any student of the history of the Sevastopol siege.

Historical Record of the Royal Marine Forces
  • Volume 2
  • Paul Harris Nicolas
  • Published online:
    05 August 2013
    Print publication:
    11 October 2012
    First published in:
    1845
  • Paul Harris Nicolas (1790–1860) served as a second lieutenant in the Royal Marines at the Battle of Trafalgar. Promoted to first lieutenant in 1808, he took part in the Battle of the Basque Roads in 1809. For these actions he would later be awarded the Naval General Service Medal with two clasps. After effectively retiring from military life in 1814, he picked up both paintbrush and pen, producing a notable watercolour of the scene at Trafalgar, and publishing an engaging account of the battle in 1829. His most important work, however, is this comprehensive two-volume history of the Royal Marines, based on diligent research and first published in 1845. Volume 2 continues the narrative of the Battle of Trafalgar and mainly covers the period of the Napoleonic Wars. The rest of the volume takes the story through to the end of the First Opium War in 1842.

A British Rifle Man
  • The Journals and Correspondence of Major George Simmons, Rifle Brigade, during the Peninsular War and the Campaign of Waterloo
  • George Simmons
  • Edited by William Willoughby Cole Verner
  • Published online:
    05 August 2013
    Print publication:
    11 October 2012
    First published in:
    1899
  • Originally published in 1899, these writings by George Simmons (1785–1858) complement the work of other officers who served in the famous 95th Rifles between 1809 and 1815. Extremely descriptive and informative, the book covers all of the major battles and sieges of the Peninsular War and Waterloo Campaign in which Simmons' regiment was engaged during this period. Simmons himself was badly wounded at the Battle of the Côa in July 1810, but he recovered and played his part in the final years of the Peninsular War. He was also present at Waterloo in June 1815. Edited with an introduction by fellow Rifleman William Willoughby Cole Verner (1852–1922), Simmons' letters and diaries, written at the time and without the benefit of hindsight, have a tremendous immediacy. They remain of interest and relevance to military historians and students of the Napoleonic wars.

Historical Record of the Royal Marine Forces
  • Volume 1
  • Paul Harris Nicolas
  • Published online:
    05 August 2013
    Print publication:
    11 October 2012
    First published in:
    1845
  • Paul Harris Nicolas (1790–1860) served as a second lieutenant in the Royal Marines at the Battle of Trafalgar. Promoted to first lieutenant in 1808, he took part in the Battle of the Basque Roads in 1809. For these actions he would later be awarded the Naval General Service Medal with two clasps. After effectively retiring from military life in 1814, he picked up both paintbrush and pen, producing a notable watercolour of the scene at Trafalgar, and publishing an engaging account of the battle in 1829. His most important work, however, is this comprehensive two-volume history of the Royal Marines, based on diligent research and first published in 1845. Volume 1 begins with the genesis of the corps in the late seventeenth century. The bulk of the volume covers the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic period, concluding with the opening phase of the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805.

An Account of the War in Portugal between Don Pedro and Don Miguel
  • Volume 1
  • Charles Napier
  • Published online:
    05 August 2013
    Print publication:
    06 May 2013
    First published in:
    1836
  • Charles Napier (1786–1860) served in the Royal Navy for sixty years. A brave yet controversial commander, he became one of the most popular naval officers in Britain for his role in many battles during the Napoleonic, Anglo-American, Syrian and Crimean wars. He also served as an MP in Parliament. In this two-volume work, originally published in 1836, Napier gives a first-hand account of the Portuguese Civil War, in which he was a key participant. Between 1828 and 1834, a conflict of succession occurred between two brothers, the progressive constitutionalist Don Pedro and the authoritarian absolutist Don Miguel. In 1833, Napier led the Liberal fleet which defeated Don Miguel. He remained in Portugal for some time after the surrender to fight pockets of Miguelite resistance. In Volume 1, Napier explains the origins of the war and takes the story through to the victory of Don Pedro.

History of the War in France and Belgium, in 1815
  • Containing Minute Details of the Battles of Quatre-Bras, Ligny, Wavre, and Waterloo
  • Volume 2
  • William Siborne
  • Published online:
    05 June 2013
    Print publication:
    16 August 2012
    First published in:
    1844
  • Originally published in 1844, this two-volume work by William Siborne (1797–1830) represented the first major history of the Waterloo Campaign that was based on eyewitness accounts. Although Siborne, an infantry officer, had not served in the campaign himself, he did write to scores of officers who had, and their replies provided him with information he later used to construct the famous but controversial model of the field at Waterloo, which earned him the enmity of the Duke of Wellington (largely because Siborne's view of events conflicted with the Duke's). Siborne used much of the material for this book, which covers the entire campaign from Napoleon's escape from Elba in February 1815, through the battles of Ligny, Quatre Bras and Waterloo, right up to the Allies' entry into Paris in July. The maps published in a third volume can be viewed online. Volume 2 covers the greater part of the Battle of Waterloo and its aftermath.

Jane Austen's Sailor Brothers
  • Being the Adventures of Sir Francis Austen, G.C.B., Admiral of the Fleet and Rear-Admiral Charles Austen
  • John H. Hubback, Edith C. Hubback
  • Published online:
    05 May 2013
    Print publication:
    14 June 2012
    First published in:
    1906
  • Two of Jane Austen's brothers made successful careers in the Navy: Francis (1774–1865) rose to the rank of Admiral; Charles (1779–1852) to Rear-Admiral. Jane's naval heroes, most notably Captain Wentworth in Persuasion, as well as much of her knowledge of naval life and contemporary affairs during the Napoleonic Wars, owe much to the stories and letters of her brothers. Written by Francis Austen's grandson John Hubback and his daughter Edith, this double biography is informed by family tradition as well as research into contemporary documents. The Hubbacks, with their unique insight, suggest many family anecdotes and characteristics as possible sources for Jane's novels. Beyond its interest as a record of how her brothers' naval careers influenced her work, this book, first published in 1906, also remains of great interest to historians of the Navy in the first half of the nineteenth century.

James Outram: A Biography
  • Volume 2
  • F. J. Goldsmid
  • Published online:
    05 May 2013
    Print publication:
    14 June 2012
    First published in:
    1880
  • James Outram (1803–63) was a British East India Company Army officer who became a national hero after his successful campaign at Lucknow during the Indian Rebellion of 1857. Outram, who was called the 'Bayard of India' for his military exploits, had spent most of his career in India and Afghanistan, where he was involved in numerous armed conflicts. He also worked as a political agent and had much success negotiating on behalf of the British with the Princely States. This two-volume biography of Outram, published in 1880, was written by Frederic John Goldsmid (1818–1908), a British Army officer and civil servant who also spent much of his career in India, and was involved in overseeing the construction of an Indo-European telegraph line before writing about Outram. Volume 2 covers Outram's involvement in the Anglo-Persian War, his role in the Indian Rebellion, and his final years.

James Outram: A Biography
  • Volume 1
  • F. J. Goldsmid
  • Published online:
    05 May 2013
    Print publication:
    14 June 2012
    First published in:
    1880
  • James Outram (1803–63) was a British East India Company Army officer who became a national hero after his successful campaign at Lucknow during the Indian Rebellion of 1857. Outram, who was called the 'Bayard of India' for his military exploits, had spent most of his career in India and Afghanistan, where he was involved in numerous armed conflicts. He also worked as a political agent and had much success negotiating on behalf of the British with the Princely States. This two-volume biography of Outram, published in 1880, was written by Frederic John Goldsmid (1818–1908), a British Army officer and civil servant who also spent much of his career in India, and was involved in overseeing the construction of an Indo-European telegraph line before writing about Outram. Volume 1 covers Outram's childhood and his early years in the army in India, up to 1845.

Conquest of Scinde
  • A Commentary
  • James Outram
  • Published online:
    05 May 2013
    Print publication:
    28 June 2012
    First published in:
    1846
  • This work by Sir James Outram (1803–63), subtitled A Commentary and originally published in two parts in 1846, is an attempt by the author to vindicate his reputation which, he believes, was sullied by Sir William Napier's book The Conquest of Scinde (1845; also reissued in this series), in which he is represented as devoid alike of military and diplomatic skill. (William Napier was the brother of Sir Charles Napier, the British Commander-in-Chief in India, and his account is not unbiased.) In Part 1, Outram declares his intention to expose these misrepresentations and to vindicate a reputation which for a quarter of a century he had 'maintained unimpeached'. He claims to corroborate his version of events using personal correspondence, describing in detail and in the first person the political and diplomatic intrigues and the military actions which led to the conquest of the Province of Sindh by the British.

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