Featured battle : Belchite

Part of The French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars

Date : 18 June 1809

After the battle at Maria de Huerve Blake fell back on his supplies at Belchite. Suchet's reinforced French force followed up. The battle was fairly even until a Frech shot resulted in the explosion of a number of Spanish ammunition wagons. Many of the raw Spanish troops panicked, threw down their weapons and ran.

How the Navy Won the War

Jim Ring
To the general reader the idea of the Navy winning the First World war may appear odd. ‘Everyone’ knows of the mighty battles the army fought and that the Navy had only one major engagement. Reading this book will change their minds. As the author points out in the introduction ‘This story, by no means unfamiliar to naval and military historians, is one which has never captured the public’s imagination…’
Throughout this book the interesting premise is well developed. Jim Ring has done his research well and could have presented a dry academic exercise but the story flows from event to event at a pace to reflect the developing situations in a gripping and most readable way. The land story, the sea story, the political and the military are intertwined and have a cohesion which makes for easy understanding.
The book is not large, 232 pages, including a group of thirteen photographs. The content is, therefore, an overview with very little detail but the extensive seven page bibliography points the reader towards an extension of any of the events and persons they wish to follow up.
This is a book should capture the public’s attention and imagination, as the author intended, and we thoroughly recommend it. After reading it the First World war will never appear the same again.

Seaforth Publishing, 2018