Скачать книгу - Sharpe’s Trafalgar

The Battle of Trafalgar can claim to be one of the most known of the great human events. In Men of Honour, Adam Nicolson takes one of the greatest identifiable heroes in British history, Horatio Nelson, and examines the broader themes of heroism, violence and virtue.Trafalgar gripped the nineteenth century imagination like no other battle: it was a moment of both transcendent fulfilment and unmatched despair. It was a drama of such violence and sacrifice that the concept of total war may be argued to start from there. It finished the global ambitions of a European tyrant but culminated in the death of Admiral Horatio Nelson, the greatest hero of the era.This book fuses the immediate intensity of the battle with the deeper currents that were running at the time. It has a three-part framework: the long, slow six hour morning before the battle; the afternoon itself of terror, death and destruction; and the shocked, exultant and sobered aftermath, which finds its climax at Nelson's funeral in a snowy London the following January.Adam Nicolson examines the concept of heroes and heroism, both then and now, using Nelson as one of the greatest examples. A man of complexity and contradiction, he was a supreme administrator of ships and men; overflowing with humanity, charm and love but also capable of astonishing ruthlessness and ferocity. Nelson's own courage, vanity, ruthlessness and sweetness made him one of the great identifiable heroes of English history.In Men of Honour, Adam Nicolson also traces the stories of many unknown people of the day. He tackles the grand theme of heroism; the move from the age of reason to the age of romanticism; and examines a battle that was not only a uniquely well-documented crisis in human affairs but also a lens on its own time. Adam Nicolson does not approach Trafalgar as a military historian. His book gives a wonderfully immediate recreation of both the battle itself and its aftermath in a rich, concrete and intellectually engaging style.

Three classic Richard Sharpe adventures.Richard Sharpe and the Siege of Seringapatam, 1799When a senior British officer is captured by the Tippoo of Mysore’s forces, Sharpe is offered a chance to attempt a rescue, which in turn offers an escape from the tyrannical Sergeant Obadiah Hakeswill.Richard Sharpe and the battle of Assaye, September 1803Sergeant Richard Sharpe witnesses a murderous act of treachery by an English officer who has defected from the East India Company to join the Mahratta Confederation. In the hunt for the renegade Englishman, Sharpe penetrates deep into enemy territory where he is followed relentlessly by his worst enemy, Sergeant Obadiah Hakeswill.Richard Sharpe and the Siege of Gawilghur, December 1803Sir Arthur Wellesley's army is closing on the retreating Mahrattas in western India. Marching with the British is Ensign Richard Sharpe, newly made an officer, wishing he had stayed a sergeant.

Three classic Richard Sharpe adventuresRichard Sharpe and the campaign in northern Portugal, spring 1809A small British army is stranded when the French invade northern Portugal. Sharpe is cut off and his attempts to fight his way back to the British lines fail until he is joined by the future Duke of Wellington.Richard Sharpe and the Talavera Campaign, July 1809In Portugal, Richard Sharpe is ordered to accompany a newly arrived, inexperienced regiment. But Sharpe, a veteran, quickly clashes with the incompetent colonel after they start to lose men.Richard Sharpe and the Destruction of Almeida, August 1810Sharpe is delighted when, after long months of patrolling duties, he and his regiment are summoned north by Wellington. But his new mission is desperate and dangerous: to go behind enemy lines to recover the gold, vital to the success of the war.

Three classic Richard Sharpe adventures.Richard Sharpe and the Battle of Trafalgar, 21 October 1805Ensign Richard Sharpe is on his way home from India. He is sailing with the Royal Navy, who are hunting a formidable French warship, the ‘Revenant’, carrying a secret treaty that may prove lethal to the British.Richard Sharpe and the Expedition to Copenhagen, 1807Lieutenant Richard Sharpe, newly returned to England, is offered a new job: go to Copenhagen, help deliver a bribe, and stop a war. To him, it seems easy. But the bribe is to stop the Danes allowing the French to possess their battle fleet, big enough to replace every warship lost at Trafalgar.Richard Sharpe and the French Invasion of Galicia, January 1809Britains’s forces are retreating towards Corunna during a bitter winter, with Napoleon’s victorious armies in pursuit. Lieutenant Richard Sharpe and a detachment of Riflemen are cut off from the rest of the army and surrounded.