A Bold and Ambitious Enterprise

The British campaign in the Low Countries in 1813-14 in support of the Dutch revolt against the French is one of the lesser-known campaigns of the Napoleonic Wars, but one, which the great historian of the British Army Sir John Fortescue wrote that it was impossible to understand the Waterloo campaign without a knowledge of. The book deals with all aspects of the campaign, from grand strategy, with the proposed marriage alliance between the House of Orange and the House of Hanover, to tactical analysis of the battles and sieges that took place, including the disastrous attack on Bergen-op-Zoom, where heroic British soldiers paid with their lives for their commanders’ failures. The problems of co-operation between the British and Prussians described here foreshadowed those, which would affect Wellington in 1815.

Illustrated with contemporary portraits, plans of the fortifications of Bergen and eight maps.