Spying for Wellington

Traditionally, the Napoleonic Wars have been remembered for the scale of their military operations, the panoply of their uniforms and the genius of their leading military commanders, not to mention the drama of such battles as Austerlitz, Borodino and Waterloo. This, however, was but the surface of the conflict: behind the scenes, there was another war, namely one of espionage and counter-espionage, propaganda and counter-propaganda and plot and counter-plot. All the belligerent powers engaged in this more-or-less shadowy struggle, but to this day we have no work that examines it in a pan-European context, and the first duty of this reviewer cannot but be to highlight this lack and express the hope that some bright young scholar will recognise the possibilities that it offers them. For the time being, however, we have no such volume, and, indeed, Robert Holtman’s very dated Napoleonic Propaganda (1950) excepted, little treatment of the subject

Archaeology · Art · Art history · Context (archaeology · Counterintelligence · Drama · Espionage · Genius · Literature · Memoir · Plot (graphics · Political science · History · Intelligence, Security, War Strategy · Law · Military History and Strategy