Featured battle : Tournai

Part of The War of the Spanish Succession

Date : 27 June 1709 - 03 September 1709

The blockade began on the 27 June and the trenches were opened on the night of the 7/8 July. 100 guns and 60 mortars were in use. Frequent brave and successful sorties by the defenders, as well as the exploding of a large mine under one of the batteries, disrupted the seige. After a series of assaults the French withdrew into the citadel on the 31st July. The citadel was a very hard nut to crack and with the defenders putting up a strong resistance allied progress was slow and costly. By the 31st August the allies were ready to storm the citadel. The Governor, de Surville, sued for terms, these were agreed on the 3rd September and on the 5th the garrison marched out on parole while the allies took possession of the fortress.

Yangtze Showdown. China and the ordeal of HMS Amethyst

Brian Izzard
Cover to cover a really good read. This is the story of the Yangtze incident in the round, the military and political machinations prior to, during and after the event. If you know the gung-ho 1957 film with hero Richard Todd then prepared to be shocked by the truth. There are action heroes a plenty but there are also ‘politicos’ who are anything but heroes.
The first sentence of the book is ‘A couple of shells whistled overhead and a group of sailors on board HMS Amethyst came to the same conclusion “They couldn’t hit a barn door”. The story goes on with the same engaging vitality. As for the Chinese hitting barn doors I remember newspaper photographs at the time rechristening HMS Amethyst as HMS Pepperpot.
Supporting the text are two useful maps and an informative set of photographs. Also the set of five appendices complete the information given in the story.
Well researched and beautifully written this book will be informative to military buffs and students of cold war politics. But more than those people we highly recommended it to the much wider audience of anyone who enjoy a good read.

Seaforth Publishing, 2020