Sir John Fortescue's 'The Hardest Pounding'

The Waterloo Campaign by the British army's foremost historian



Among British Army historians the reputation of Sir John Fortescue stands virtually without equal. His comprehensive fourteen volume history is a work of unparalleled achievement in its field. Fortescue combines thorough source material research with insightful academic observation of the conduct of the campaigns he describes and of the decisions, errors and strategic and tactical options of their principal protagonists. The Leonaur editors have carefully selected passages from Fortescue's magnum opus to create a series of books, each focusing on a specific war or campaign.
This book deals with the activities of the British army from the time Napoleon escaped from the island of Elba to begin his desperate bid to regain the throne of France. It discusses, from a British perspective, the campaign of 1815 in its entirety-the battles of Quatre Bras and Waterloo and the pursuit of the defeated French army to its final capitulation. For the first time Fortescue's incisive history of the Waterloo campaign and its aftermath is available in a stand-alone volume and no Napoleonic library will be complete without his direct analysis and critically observed view of the events and personalities of this landmark period in European military history. This Leonaur exclusive volume has never been available before, and Fortescue's original text has here been enhanced by the inclusion of maps and diagrams not present in the original text.

Leonaur editions are newly typeset and are not facsimiles; each title is available in softcover and hardback with dustjacket; our hardbacks are cloth bound and feature gold foil lettering on their spines and fabric head and tail bands.