This interesting conflation of social and military history details how Britain's ruling elite reacted to Napoleon's rise to power.
Andress covers all the usual battles, from Nelson's early victories at Aboukir Bay in 1798 to Trafalgar, and Wellington's victory at Waterloo. He also includes an interesting account of Wellington's campaign on the Spanish Frontier, fought whilst Napoleon was defeating himself in Russia. At home, the British establishment was battling the radical politics inspired by Tom Paine's Rights of Man. William Pitt's government quelled the "corresponding societies" set up to campaign for manhood suffrage, and did the same to the British naval mutineers of 1797. The parliamentary stushies between Tories and Whigs, under the leadership of Charles James Fox, are carefully drawn, as is his portrait of the sinister Spencer Perceval's campaign against the Luddite uprisings. A vivid picture of how the British Empire not only had to defeat Napoleon to survive but also had to defeat some of its own people.
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