Tag: new book

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Social Distancing With Labradors

Generally speaking, my posts tend to be related to history, historical novels or dogs, but given that the world around us has changed so much, so quickly over the past weeks, I thought I’d welcome you all to Social Distancing with Labradors, as Oscar has very definite views on what is going on around here.

To bring you all up to date, the Isle of Man now has twenty cases of Covid-19 on the island, and at least one of them appears to have been passed from person to person on the island. We are not yet in total lockdown, as the UK is, but schools, pubs, restaurants and all public places are closed, all events have been cancelled and supermarket shelves are often bare. 

In the house, we have five adults working at home. Two of us are used to it. It’s a new experience for my 21 year old son, who is able to work remotely, while his girlfriend and my daughter are both home from university, struggling to finish work without the use of libraries or looking forward to online teaching. Nothing like this has ever happened to any of us before, and it’s weird.

It has also taken over our lives far too much every slight cough is a cause for temporary alarm. Three of us were in the UK fairly recently which makes us worry more. Most conversations centre around the crisis and we follow news updates with unhealthy enthusiasm. I’ve got a feeling that it’s time to put a stop to that. There’s not much we can do now, and although I know we need to pay attention to any changes in the new laws, it’s not useful to read the opinions of 85,000 armchair experts and then rehash them around the dinner table. Today, at dinner, we’re going to talk about something else.

And then there is Oscar. Walks are still happening, but we’re staying local and well away from other dog walkers and their pooches. We’re lucky enough to have very large gardens at front and back, so we can play fetch and chasing games. More importantly, there are five people here all the time, to play with him and sit with him and cuddle him. Oscar is doing all right.

“So what is going on, Mum?”

“It’s called a virus, Oscar. It can make people very ill, so we’re all staying at home for a while to avoid catching it.”

“Can dogs get it?”

“No.”

“Can you get it?”

“I could.”

“Don’t.”

“I’ll do my best, Oscar.”

“You know what, Mum? It’s not all bad.”

“You think?”

“For me, I mean. I know you all like to go out or go away. But I like it best when you’re all here, with me. The girls haven’t got to go back to that University place for ages, and I get to sit outside with Anya every morning and curl up on the sofa next to Rachael every afternoon. I’m helping her with her work.”

“I bet you are.”

“She says I am. How long will it be like this, Mum?”

“I don’t know, Oscar. We’ll have to wait and see. But you’re right. As a family, so far, we’re doing okay.”

“I love my family, Mum.

“We love you back, Oscar.”

“Even when I’m naughty?”

“Even then.”

“Even when I steal food?”

“Yep.”

“Even when I dig up the lawn?”

“Yep.”

“Even when I sit on your head?”

“Even then.”

“What about when I eat your books?”

“Just about. Don’t do it though.”

Oscar is right, though. There have been positive things about this crisis. My three young people are doing so well, without moaning or complaining. They’re cooking a lot, vying with each other to make great meals and yummy desserts #dietinglater. And we’re all finding that being thrown together for a long time without being able to go out with friends is a lot better than we thought it would be. It turns out that we all get on quite well.

We’re worried of course, not just about our own health, but about friends and family all over the world, and we’re looking forward to better times. In the meantime, I’ve a book and a short story to write, and another project that I’m considering, and Oscar is looking at me with those big “take me for a walk” eyes. so there’s no time to be bored or miserable here at Writing with Labradors.

I can’t help thinking of all the people who read my books and stories and follow the adventures of Oscar online. I really hope you’re all safe and keeping well out there, and like me, looking forward to a return to at least partial normality. I’m working on the new book as fast as I can, and I also have a couple of freebies in the pipeline to keep you entertained. And I’ll keep you up to date on Oscar, who literally just managed to get himself stuck down the side of the garden shed for no logical reason whatsoever.

Keep safe and keep well, everybody. Oscar sends virtual hugs from all of us here at Social Distancing with Labradors.

 

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Christmas 2019 #OscarWalks

Christmas 2019 #OscarWalks is a special edition to give Oscar the opportunity to with you all a Merry Christmas from everybody at Writing with Labradors. This is a special festive edition of #Oscar Walks. A combination of the weather and the Christmas season has meant that walks have been short and sweet for a few days, but that doesn’t mean Oscar hasn’t been having an adventurous life and I know he has a few things to say.

 

 

It’s been a very different Christmas for me in one way; the first one in thirteen years where I’ve not had Joey walking behind me. Toby was never very interested in Christmas until the turkey appeared, but Joey was a big fan. He loved having loads of people around to make a fuss of him and was always prepared to let us dress him up for the occasion. I missed him very much this year.

Luckily, Oscar seems to share Joey’s enthusiasm for the season and has been full of the Christmas spirit over the past week, so I’ll hand over to him to tell you what’s been going on.

What’s been going on? What’s been going on? I’ll tell you what’s been going on. Persecution, that’s what! Persecution, false accusations and fake news!

You sound like a combination of Sir Home Popham and Donald Trump, Oscar. What’s upset you?

You know very well what’s upset me, Mum. That man. That person. That individual who came into the house on Monday.

You mean the dog trainer, Oscar.

Yes.

I’m sorry you’re offended, but I did explain that I need a bit of help with teaching you to walk nicely on the lead. And to come back when I call you.

I am very good on the lead. I always respond when you say heel.

You do. It’s just that I have to say it four thousand times in a ten minute walk, it’s exhausting.

Exaggeration. And defamation of character. I could sue.

Anyway, you liked the dog trainer. He gave you loads of treats and played with you and you’re already getting better.

You told me I was already perfect.

You are, Oscar. I just need you to be a little more obedient. And to come when I call you.

I already do that.

Except when you see another dog.

Well, obviously, I have to be civil to them.

Or when you’ve found an interesting smell.

That can be very distracting. It might be food.

Or when you see anything new or interesting.

Except sheep. I always come back if there’s a sheep.

That’s true, you’re the opposite of most dogs. Still, a bit of extra training will benefit both of us.

Bah.

Anyway, this was supposed to be about Christmas. Your second Christmas, Oscar. How’s it been so far?

Fantastic. Excellent. Wonderful. Know what I like about Christmas? 

No.

Everybody’s here. None of this going off to work, or school, or University nonsense. Everyone’s here, mostly in the same room, we all get to eat really good food at weird hours of the day and night, watch TV, play some silly games and snuggle up by the fire.

Yes, that pretty much sums up Christmas.

And visitors. Loads of people in and out of the house all the time. They bring cards and presents and most of them give me cuddles and feed me treats. And some bring dogs. I met Roy. I liked Roy. He reminded me a bit of Toby only much smaller and different colours and different fur.

So not that much like Toby at all?

Well he was grumpy with me and growled at me a few times but didn’t really seem to mind when I teased him. Toby was like that to start with but then he got used to me and would let me play with him. Of course Joey let me climb all over him from day one.

He was soft with you. Like the rest of us.

That’s what the dog trainer said. And I got presents. Loads of treats and two new toys. Three, if you count the reindeer you gave me on Christmas Eve. No FOUR if you count the duck that Rachael brought home for me. I LOVE my new toys. And there are lots of pretty lights around, and indoor trees with things hanging off them that I’m not allowed to touch. But they look nice. And the fire’s always lit, which is my favourite.

I’m glad you approve of Christmas. 

Mind you, it’s a bit tiring. What’s happening next, Mum?

Well, next week is New Year and Jon and Anya are having a party, so there’ll be lots of your favourite people here that evening. And after that it’s back to work and Anya and Rachael will go back to University.

Boo. Don’t like that.

I know, Oscar, but they’ll be back. And I’ve got lots of exciting walks planned so you can practice what you’ve been learning from the dog trainer before we see him again.

Can I show him my new toys?

You’ve showed them to everyone else, Oscar, so I expect so. Right, say Happy Christmas to your fans, and we’ll brave the rain for a quick walk now.

Happy Christmas and a Merry New Year, everybody! Is that right, Mum?

Close enough, Oscar. Merry Christmas, baby boy.

Merry Christmas, Mum.

Christmas photo of Oscar on his hind legs getting cuddles, in direct contravention to Dog Trainer’s instructions #ahwellitsChristmas #willdobetter

 

Next week it’s back to work on book 6 of the Peninsular War Saga with Oscar’s expert help and advice from his sofa in my study. For more history, humour, fiction and Labradors why not follow me on Twitter, Facebook and Medium.

 

 

 

 

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Walcheren 1809 A Blighted Expedition

Today on Blogging with Labradors, I am delighted to welcome back  Jacqueline Reiter with a guest post on the Walcheren campaign of 1809. Jacqueline is a historian and the author of a biography entitled The Late Lord: the life of John Pitt, 2nd Earl of Chatham and also a novel called Earl of Shadows which covers Chatham’s life up to the death of his brother, William Pitt, in 1806.

Jacqueline is currently researching the life of Sir Home Riggs Popham, the controversial navy officer who plays a key role in both An Unwilling Alliance and This Blighted Expedition.

This Blighted Expedition  follows the story of the navy, the army and the local population during the Walcheren campaign of 1809 and in this post, Jacqueline explains the background to one of Britain’s greatest military disasters.

Walcheren 1809: A ‘Blighted Expedition’

The British leaving Walcheren

The expedition to Walcheren in 1809 overshadowed all Britain’s prior wartime preparations, including those for the Peninsula. Consisting of 40,000 men and over 600 ships, ‘it was incomparably the greatest armament that had ever left the shores of England’. [1] It was also one of Britain’s greatest military disasters. Within six weeks of leaving the shores of Great Britain, more than one in four soldiers were ill. At least one in ten died.

 

 

Why Walcheren?

The campaign represented Britain’s commitment to an alliance with Austria as part of the War of the Fifth Coalition. Austria received £2 million and a subsidy of £400,000 a month to fight Napoleon in central Europe, and the British government pledged to provide a military diversion in a sphere of their own choosing.

The plan was to capture the island of Walcheren in the Kingdom of Holland – currently a French satellite state ruled by Napoleon’s brother Louis – and destroy the French fleet and dockyards at Flushing and Antwerp. Antwerp was the second largest French naval base after Toulon, and the British had been receiving reports for some time that the French had a fleet of men of war fitting out there. One of Britain’s worst nightmares was that Napoleon would rebuild the fleet he had lost after the battle of Trafalgar and invade Britain (or worse, Ireland).

The dockyards at Antwerp

The attack on Walcheren and Antwerp was not intended to lead to any long-term continental military commitment. It was effectively a raid – in the words of Lord Castlereagh, the Secretary of State for War, ‘a Coup de Main.’ [2] Speed and near-perfect military and naval cooperation would be crucial to get an enormous army and huge numbers of ships down the complicated navigation of the Scheldt River (and bring them back again)

John Pitt, 2ndEarl of Chatham, studio of John Hoppner (1799, courtesy of the Commando Forces Officers’ Mess, Royal Marines Barracks, Plymouth)

An unfortunate choice of commanders

For the military command, Lord Castlereagh chose Lieutenant General John Pitt, 2nd Earl of Chatham. Chatham was more a politician than a soldier; there were rumours that he had only been appointed because he was close to King George III. This was probably untrue, but Chatham was almost totally inexperienced and notoriously lazy. His nickname was ‘the late Lord Chatham’, because he nearly always was.

 

 

 

The naval command went to Rear Admiral Sir Richard Strachan. Strachan’s most famous exploit was off Cape Ortegal when he captured several French vessels that had escaped after Trafalgar, but he had never participated in an amphibious operation. ‘Mad Dick’, as he was known, was impatient, impulsive, and difficult to work with.

The expedition sails (… eventually)

The plan had been for the expedition to leave before the end of June, but preparations were not complete until mid-July, and contrary winds delayed the departure still further. At this point, bad news arrived: on 6 July, Napoleon had defeated the Austrians at Wagram. This tremendous blow removed one of the main strategic reasons for the expedition, but it was not called off on the grounds that victory might keep Britain’s only ally in the war.

The expedition finally sailed on 28 July and immediately ran into trouble. The fleet reached the Stone Deep off Walcheren as intended, but a gale blew up, dismasting two ships and running a third aground. This led to a significant change of plan.

The Walcheren Expedition, 1809 (map drawn by Martin Brown)

The Scheldt River basin was divided into the East and West Scheldt by Walcheren and the nearby island of South Beveland. Only half the fleet should have entered the East Scheldt to land 12,000 men on Walcheren and 8,000 men on South Beveland. The other half of the fleet should have waited for the narrow channel into the West Scheldt to be secured, then carried the remaining 20,000 men directly to the designated landing place at Sandvliet.

The 29 July storm, however, forced almost all the fleet to enter the East Scheldt and shelter in a protected anchorage known as the Roompot. This meant the army now had to wait for the fleet to dash past Flushing into the West Scheldt, or funnel the siege resources for Antwerp through the Sloe Passage (the narrow channel between Walcheren and South Beveland). Both options would be difficult and potentially time-consuming.

Breezand, Walcheren (photo by Jacqueline Reiter)

Keep calm and carry on

For now, the British landed at Breezand on Walcheren and Welmedinge on South Beveland and initially made rapid progress. By 3 August, South Beveland and almost all Walcheren was in British hands, and the army laid siege to Flushing.

 

At this point, however, the expedition became bogged down. An intended landing to disable the French battery at Cadzand failed. With both Cadzand and Flushing in French hands, the fleet could not easily enter the West Scheldt to carry Chatham’s army and siege equipment to Sandvliet. Worse, Strachan was struggling against contrary winds and could not blockade Flushing from the sea until 8 August. The same winds helped hundreds of French troops sail into Flushing every day.

The bombardment of Flushing

Flushing now had to fall, and fast, so the British decided to attack Flushing the same way they had assaulted Copenhagen in 1807: by bombardment. But constructing the batteries was delayed by the dreadful weather, by lack of leadership among the engineers, and by the enemy, who cut the dykes on 10 August to flood the British lines.

The batteries finally opened on 13 August at 1 pm. Five of the six British batteries (the sixth was not fully ready until the following day) poured fire on the town from 52 pieces of ordnance. The bombardment was supported by several gunboats from the sea and, on 14 August, by seven ships of the line that Strachan had daringly brought through the channel between Flushing and Cadzand.

The bombardment of Flushing, from British Battles on Land and Sea(vol. 3), by James Grant, 1873.

The bombardment went on almost continuously for 36 hours. By 2:30 am on the 15th, however, the French could clearly resist no longer. They surrendered unconditionally, and at 3:30 am the land batteries and men of war fell silent.

 

 

 

Flushing’s garrison of 5,000–6,000 men went to Britain as prisoners of war, and the British finally entered the ruined town. Even seasoned campaigners were horrified at the destruction that had taken place: ‘I beheld the most deplorable picture that can be conceived. Scarcely one single house in it, that has not received some shots, but the greater part of them … altogether destroyed. Many houses are burnt to the ground, and among them is the handsome stadthuis, and one large church. A more complete ruin cannot be fancied. [3]

On to Antwerp! (… or maybe not)

The first stage of British operations was now complete. The second stage – Antwerp – was still to come. Chatham, however, took his time. He did not set out until 21 August on a stately three-day journey to Fort Batz, the southernmost point on South Beveland, preceded ‘by a column of eight waggons, in the first of which was a live turtle.’ [4] (Chatham’s fondness for turtle soup, combined with his habit of sleeping in till past noon, earned him the sobriquet ‘Turtle Chatham’.)

Chatham’s lack of hurry also mystified the French, who nicknamed him ‘MilordJ’Attends’ (‘My Lord I-Am-Waiting’), [5] but Chatham probably considered Antwerp out of reach: 30,000 French troops were in the area, 11,000 in Antwerp alone, under the command of Marshal Bernadotte.

In any case, Chatham had other things on his mind. ‘Walcheren fever’ – probably a combination of malaria, typhoid, typhus, and dysentery – had struck.

Walcheren fever

The fever was sudden, sharp, and devastating, and by the time Chatham reached Fort Batz, it was spreading at a terrifying rate. Of 37,727 men, 2,702 were in hospital, and 14 had already died. By 3 September, only 11 days after first records of the epidemic, 8,194 men were sick – nearly a quarter of the whole army. [6]

On 26 August, Chatham called a meeting of his lieutenants general to discuss proceeding to Antwerp. The next day, the generals submitted their unanimous recommendation: with so many sick and so many French reinforcements round Antwerp, the only viable option was to suspend the campaign.

The evacuation of Walcheren (public domain)

The British now began a hellish retreat to Walcheren. Sick men were left lying on the ground without shelter for as long as two hours because the available spaces on the transports were soon outstripped by the spread of disease. The doctors themselves were also falling ill, and medical supplies – particularly bark (quinine) – were running low.

By 4 September, the British had fully evacuated South Beveland. The next day, the French took possession of the island again.

Things fall apart

On 7 September, Chatham was recalled – but ordered to hold onto Walcheren at all costs, as the government hoped to use the island as a military base. By now there were nearly 11,000 sick, close to a third of the entire army. Chatham sailed home on 14 September, leaving a garrison of 16,000 men under Lieutenant General Sir Eyre Coote.

Sir Eyre Coote (public domain)

Coote was (to put it mildly) not happy. On 23 September, with more than 9,000 men in hospital and 300 new cases of sickness a day, Coote wrote home: ‘The alarming progress hourly made by this fatal disease, is such that if it should continue in the same proportion for three weeks longer … our possession of this island must become very precarious … [as] it is scarcely to be supposed that he [Napoleon] will lose so favourable an opportunity of attacking.’ [7]

 

Miraculously, the French held back, but the British government was in no state to make quick decisions. The Walcheren failure had blown the cabinet spectacularly apart; Lord Castlereagh even fought a duel with Foreign Secretary George Canning. When the government finally turned its thoughts to the Scheldt at the end of October, it decided nothing more could be done and sent Lieutenant General George Don to evacuate what was left of the army.

After destroying the dockyards at Flushing, the last British troops left Walcheren on 23 December. Four days later the island was again in French hands.

Satire on Lord Chatham’s disgrace by George Cruickshank

Walcheren’s long shadow

The campaign left a bitter legacy. Parliament held an inquiry into the disaster in 1810. Chatham did not help his cause by submitting a narrative to the King exculpating himself and blaming all delays on Strachan and the navy; his reputation was destroyed and he was forced to resign his government post. Strachan got off more lightly, but neither he nor Chatham was actively employed again.

Despite this, the inquiry was something of a whitewash. The government’s decision to keep Walcheren until December was even approved by a parliamentary majority.

The real victims were the sick. By February 1810, nearly 4,000 men were already dead of Walcheren fever. The final number of dead was probably closer to 8,000. [8] Of the survivors, many never fully recovered. In 1812, Wellington complained that many units under his command in the Peninsula had been ‘so much shaken by Walcheren’ that they were near-useless. [9] As late as 1824, a doctor commented on a regiment that had served at Walcheren: ‘So many years afterwards, the disease is even at this period occasioned by relapses.’ [10]

Further Reading

Gordon Bond, The Grand Expedition (Athens, GA, 1971)

Martin R. Howard, Walcheren 1809 (Barnsley, 2011)

Jacqueline Reiter, The Late Lord: The Life of John Pitt, 2nd Earl of Chatham (Barnsley, 2017)

Notes

[1] Sir John Fortescue, History of the British Army (London, 1899–1930), vol. VII, p. 56.

[2] Lord Castlereagh to Lord Chatham, July 1809, Correspondence, despatches, and other papers of Viscount Castlereagh… (London: William Shoberl, 1851), vol. 6, p. 292.

[3] Jacqueline Reiter, ‘“Day after day adds to our miseries”: the private diary of a staff officer on the Walcheren Expedition, 1809, Part 2’, Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research 96 (2019), pp. 231–250, p. 239.

[4] Diary of Sir Frederick Trench, National Army Museum 1968-07-261, ff. 65–66.

[5] Théo Fleischman, L’Éxpédition Anglaise sur le continent en 1809 (Mouscron, 1973), p. 70 n. 7.

[6] Journal of the Proceedings of the Army under the Command of Lieutenant General the Earl of Chatham, The National Archives, WO 190.

[7] Sir Eyre Coote to Lord Castlereagh, 23 September 1809, A Collection of Papers relating to the expedition to the Scheldt presented to Parliament in 1810 (London, 1811), pp. 147–149.

[8] Martin R. Howard, Walcheren 1809 (Barnsley, 2011), p. 201.

[9 ]Quoted in Howard, Walcheren 1809, p. 215.

[10] House of Commons, Report from the Select Committee on the Penitentiary at Milbank (London, 1824), p. 74.

This Blighted Expedition (The Manxman Book 2)  is due to be published on 31st October 2019 and is currently available for pre-order on Amazon.

 

 

 

 

 

An Unwilling Alliance (The Manxman Book 1) has been shortlisted for the Society for Army Historical Research Fiction Prize and is available on Kindle and paperback from Amazon.

 

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John Pitt, 2nd Earl of Chatham: ‘the Late Lord’

Today on Blogging with Labradors, I am delighted to welcome Jacqueline Reiter with a guest post on John Pitt, 2nd Earl of Chatham: ‘the Late Lord’. Jacqueline is a historian and an expert on Chatham. She has written a biography entitled The Late Lord: the life of John Pitt, 2nd Earl of Chatham and also a novel called Earl of Shadows which covers Chatham’s life up to the death of his brother, William Pitt, in 1806. Both are meticulously researched and very readable and I highly recommend them.

Jacqueline is currently researching the life of Sir Home Riggs Popham, the controversial navy officer who plays a key role in both An Unwilling Alliance and This Blighted Expedition, evidence that she doesn’t shy away from a challenge…

Chatham was the commander of the Walcheren campaign in 1809 and an important secondary character in This Blighted Expedition. Jacqueline has given me an enormous amount of help and advice while I have been researching this book for which I am very grateful. It’s a privilege to host her today, talking about a relatively unknown but highly complex historical figure.

‘The Late Lord Chatham’: John Pitt, 2nd Earl of Chatham (1756-1835)

John Pitt, 2ndEarl of Chatham, studio of John Hoppner (1799, courtesy of the Commando Forces Officers’ Mess, Royal Marines Barracks, Plymouth]

John Pitt, 2nd Earl of Chatham was the eldest son of William Pitt the Elder (created 1st Earl of Chatham in 1766), one of Britain’s most famous prime ministers who had helped turn the tide in Britain’s favour during the Seven Years’ War. He was also the elder brother of William Pitt the Younger (born 1759). John’s family and political connections were thus impeccable, and he benefited from them throughout his life, although he never really managed to emerge from the shadows cast by his father and younger brother.

 

 

 

Childhood and Early Life

John was born on 9 October 1756 at Hayes Place in Kent and was educated at home. This ‘singular’ arrangement may have contributed to John’s shy, reserved nature – he ‘had a very private Education, & has some Timidity in Consequence of it’ – but his upbringing was a happy one. (1) He was a bright child but needed constant encouragement, and he suffered from the painfully obvious fact that his younger brother William was his father’s favourite: ‘Being the first-born of their illustrious father … as too often happens with persons in similar circumstances, his understanding and talents had not been as assiduously cultivated.’ (2)

In 1774 John entered the Army as an ensign in the 47th Regiment and went to Canada as aide-de-camp to the governor of Quebec, Guy Carleton. He was still in Quebec in 1775 when hostilities broke out between Britain and the American colonies. John’s father was well known as an American sympathiser; John was thus prudently sent home with dispatches and shortly after resigned his commission in protest against the war.

The death of the Earl of Chatham engraved by Francesco Bartolozzi, after John Singleton Copley (1788, Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection)

When France and Spain declared war against Britain in 1778 John returned to military service, first as a gentleman volunteer and then as a lieutenant in the 39th Foot. He was about to go out to Gibraltar when his father had a seizure in the House of Lords and died shortly after. The new Earl of Chatham stayed a year in Gibraltar and transferred in 1780 to a captaincy in the 86th Foot. He served briefly with his new regiment in the Leeward Isles before transferring to the 3rd Foot Guards, a prestigious London-based regiment.

In 1783 Chatham married Mary Elizabeth Townshend, daughter of Lord Sydney. They were childhood sweethearts: the Pitt and Townshend children had grown up together, and Chatham’s name had been paired with Mary Townshend’s for four years before they finally wed. The marriage was happy but childless.

First Lord of the Admiralty

William Pitt the Younger, studio of Thomas Gainsborough (1787-9, Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection)

Shortly after Chatham’s marriage, his brother William was asked by the King to form a government aged only 24 (thus becoming Britain’s youngest prime minister). Although nobody really expected William Pitt’s minority government to survive, he triumphed over the odds and romped home with a huge majority in the 1784 General Election

Chatham’s support for his brother at this time paid off. It took Pitt four years to find a suitable opening, but in 1788 Chatham joined the cabinet as First Lord of the Admiralty, responsible for the maintenance and deployment of Britain’s considerable naval power.

The First Lord of the Admiralty was one of the most powerful men in the government, and Pitt fully expected his brother to put in the work. Unfortunately Chatham had always favoured the path of least resistance, and it was soon clear he wasn’t going to change: ‘An intimate friend of Lord Chatham has spoken to him on the inconvenience attending his laying in bed till the day is advanced, as officers etc. were kept waiting. Lord Chatham said it did not signify, it was an indulgence he could not give up.’ (3) Because of his late rising and lackadaisical approach he quickly earned the nickname ‘the late Lord Chatham’.

Demotion from the Admiralty

When war broke out with France in 1793 Chatham did his best, but his reputation for laziness was by now well established and when things started to go wrong it was far too easy for his department to attract most of the blame. As tensions mounted, Chatham – whose pride and stubbornness could equal his laziness – quarrelled with colleagues over strategic priorities.

The Admiralty

As a result of these enmities, but also because of the navy’s failure to strike a decisive blow against France, Chatham was removed from the Admiralty in December 1794. Pitt kept him in the cabinet as Lord Privy Seal, but the episode destroyed what was left of Chatham’s public reputation and his relationship with Pitt never recovered. ‘The mischief done me is irreparable,’ he complained, ‘and though my brother, whenever he gives himself time to reflect, must … regret the step into which he was surprised, he can never make it right.’ (4)

In 1796 Pitt promoted Chatham to Lord President of the Privy Council, but his political career was going nowhere; nor was his military career, which resumed in 1798 after a 12-year hiatus. Although Chatham commanded a brigade during the Helder expedition in 1799 under the Duke of York, this failed, and Chatham was not allowed to serve abroad again for fear he would die and propel Pitt (who stood to inherit the title) into the Lords.

But in 1801 Chatham finally got a chance to step out of his brother’s shadow. Pitt resigned over a dispute regarding whether to extend the rights of Catholics (legally barred from voting or holding high office). Chatham stood by the King, George III – who opposed Pitt’s Catholic policy – and stayed on as Lord President of the Council under the new prime minister. This earned Chatham the King’s gratitude and underlined how far he and his brother had grown.

Mortar bearing Chatham’s cypher as Master-General of the Ordnance, Tower of London

Master-General of the Ordnance

 In autumn 1801 Chatham became Master-General of the Ordnance, responsible for overseeing the country’s firepower and fortifications while acting as military adviser in the cabinet. He remained in this post when Pitt returned to office in 1804. In January 1806, however, Pitt became seriously ill. Relations between the brothers were still not good, but when Pitt died on 23 January, Chatham was grief-stricken. For the first time since 1788 he was also out of office, although only until March 1807 when he returned as Master-General of the Ordnance in a new Pittite ministry headed by the Duke of Portland.

Over the next two years Chatham played a minor political role, even though his name came up repeatedly as a possible successor to the old and ailing Portland. He spent much of his time away from London as military commander of the Eastern District and turned down several opportunities to serve abroad. Partly this was because Chatham’s wife, Mary, was seriously ill from 1807 to 1809 with a mental disorder. In May 1809, however, the Secretary of State for War, Lord Castlereagh, offered Chatham the military command of an amphibious expedition to destroy the French fleet and dockyards in the Scheldt River.

Walcheren

Chatham clearly thought about declining the proposal: ‘I can only say that I should be very anxious to have some further conversation with you on the subject before I venture to give any decided answer to it.’ (5) He had, however, turned down too many opportunities already. His dual role as cabinet member and expedition commander became highly embarrassing over the next few months.

Map of the Walcheren campaign from France Militaire: histoire des armées Françaises de terre et de mer … by A. Hugo (1837)

The Walcheren expedition set sail at the end of July 1809 and struggled against adverse winds, lack of leadership, and phenomenally poor luck for the next six weeks. Chatham commanded 40,000 troops; his naval counterpart was Sir Richard Strachan with over 600 vessels. Chatham was especially ill-suited for a swift dash up the Scheldt to take the Dutch island of Walcheren and destroy the ships and defences at Antwerp. He had no imagination to formulate alternatives when things went wrong; he spent much of his time at headquarters rather than going out among the men, which did nothing for morale; and he was not decisive enough to take advantage of any openings that did occur. Nor did he make any change to his habits: he rose ‘between twelve and one, not receiving officers till two o’clock’, a lack of urgency that did not bode well for a swift advance. (6)

More seriously, he rapidly fell out with Strachan, and by the end of the campaign the two men were barely speaking. The army advanced far too slowly, the navy could not cooperate properly because of adverse winds, and the French managed to rush 35,000 reinforcements to Antwerp before the British could even get close. By the end of August, also, sickness was tearing through the army – ‘Walcheren fever’. With over a quarter of his army on the sick list, Chatham called off the assault on Antwerp and retreated to Walcheren.

A Reputation Ruined

Chatham was recalled to England to account for his actions. The Portland government had imploded as a result of the disaster, and the new prime minister, Spencer Perceval, was not on Chatham’s side. When the King requested a narrative explaining what had happened on Walcheren, therefore, Chatham jumped at the chance to secure a favourable hearing, blaming Strachan and the navy for everything: ‘Why the Army was not brought up sooner to the destination from whence its ulterior operations were to commence is purely a naval consideration, and … the delay did in no shape rest with me, or depend upon any arrangements in which the Army was concerned.’ (7)

Cover page for Lord Chatham’s narrative of his proceedings during the Walcheren expedition, 1809

This was a mistake. The House of Commons held an inquiry into Walcheren in 1810, and Chatham’s narrative ignited a constitutional crisis. The government disclaimed all knowledge of the document, which made it look as though Chatham had gone secretly to the King and abused his trust as a privy counsellor to slander Strachan. This was not entirely the truth, but it gave the Perceval government an excuse to get rid of Chatham without appearing to scapegoat him for Walcheren. Chatham was forced to resign as Master-General of the Ordnance in March 1810; he never held political office again.

 

‘Secret Influence, or a Peep Behind the Screen’ by Charles Williams (1810, Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, Washington DC)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After Walcheren

After a brief attempt to set the record straight over his narrative, Chatham seems to have decided to grit his teeth and bear the shame. He remained Commander of the Eastern District until 1815, following which he disappeared almost entirely from public life. His wife’s mental illness returned in 1818, and until her death in 1821 he was mostly concerned with nursing her.

Gibraltar in 1849 by Charles Dyce (Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection)

In 1820 he was offered the Governorship of Gibraltar by King George IV. Chatham accepted this public sign of the King’s support on the understanding that he would not actually have to go out. Unfortunately, awkward questions were immediately asked in Parliament and the government ordered Chatham to take up his governorship.

Chatham went to Gibraltar a few months after his wife’s death and remained there four years. He coped well with the crises that cropped up (mostly to do with the unsettled political situation in Spain), but he spent most of his time depressed and homesick – in his words ‘chained to the Rock instead … of being among my friends.’ He left at the first opportunity, arguing that his health had suffered considerably from the climate. As he was now nearly 70, he was not forced to return.

He spent his last 10 years as an invalid, dividing his time between London and Brighton. By the time of his death from a stroke on 24 September 1835, two weeks off his 79th birthday, he had mostly been forgotten. When he was noticed, it was as a minor celebrity who represented a last living connection with the grand politics of the mid- to late-18th century.

Laziness and Loyalty

Chatham spent his life being compared to his brilliant father and brother: as one source observed, it was his ‘ill fate … to be the son of the great Lord [Chatham] and the brother of the great Mr [Pitt], which lays him open to observations, trite but true, of all kinds and in all languages, to his disadvantage.’ (8) Chatham has slipped into obscurity despite occupying such a central political position for 22 years. His reputation for sloth was deserved, and he did not shine militarily on either of the occasions he served abroad.

He was, however, capable of inspiring profound loyalty. Thomas Carey, who served Chatham in the Eastern District for eight years and was his military secretary at Walcheren, undertook a pretty much one-man campaign to clear his superior’s name after Chatham’s disgrace in 1810. He wrote: ‘I have now lived on terms of the closest friendship with him for the last six years of my life, and the more I see of him, the more I am convinced that in understanding few equal him, and in honour or integrity he cannot be excelled.’ (9)

This, with Chatham at the nadir of his personal and political fortunes, is especially remarkable. It is a sign that Chatham is worth examining more closely, and that he was far more than a two-dimensional caricature of sloth and failure.

Notes

(1) Lord Grantham to Anne Robinson, 2 April 1779, Bedford Archives, Wrest Park (Lucas) MSS L30/17/4/245a.

(2) Horace Twiss, Life of Lord Eldon(London, 1844), vol. 2, pp. 559-60.

(3) James Greig (ed.), The Farington Diary(London, 1922), vol. 1, p. 54.

(4) Chatham to Lord Camden, 7 August 1796, Kent Archives, U840/C254/4.

(5) Chatham to Lord Castlereagh, 18 May 1809, PRONI D3030/3087.

(6) Greig, Farington Diary, vol. 5, p. 224.

(7) Chatham’s Narrative, 15 October 1809, TNA PRO 30/8/260, f. 20.

(8) ‘Thomas Brown the Elder’, Bath: A Satirical Novel(London, 1818), vol. 3, p. 51.

(9) Carey to William Huskisson, 3 May 1810, BL Add MS 38738, f. 26.

This Blighted Expedition is the second book in The Manxman series, featuring Captain Hugh Kelly and Lieutenant Alfred Durrell during the Walcheren Campaign of 1809. It is currently available for pre-order on Amazon kindle and will be released on October 31st 2019.

 

 

 

 

The first book in the series, An Unwilling Alliance, set during the Copenhagen Campaign of 1807 has recently been shortlisted for the Society for Army Historical Research fiction prize.

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Private Correspondence: Walcheren 1809

Private Correspondence: Walcheren 1809 is from a series of letters found in the papers of Captain Hugh Kelly RN and in the Van Daan collection. Experts on the period have often commented on how much correspondence appears to be missing from the well-known Peninsular War officer. It is known that General van Daan corresponded regularly with the Duke of Wellington over the years, but sadly few of these letters have been discovered and by a strange omission, none were included in the Duke’s edited correspondence.

In 1809,  Major van Daan was serving in Portugal and Spain with the first battalion of the 110th under Sir Arthur Wellesley while Captain Hugh Kelly RN commanded the Iris during the expedition to the Scheldt.

Extract of a letter from Captain Hugh Kelly, RN to Major Paul van Daan, August 1809

As if this expedition wasn’t bad enough, I seem to have lost young Durrell, who has been temporarily seconded to the flagship by the particular request of Captain Sir Home Riggs Popham. I am assured by Sir Richard Strachan that this is only temporary, but I’m worried about the lad, I don’t like the company he’s keeping.

Popham, by the way, is more insufferable than ever. I’ve not the least idea what his job actually is, although I’m reliably informed he was instrumental in the planning of this expedition, which might explain why nobody is going anywhere. He behaves as though he were Captain of the Fleet, but he isn’t; we don’t seem to have one of those. Whatever he is supposed to be doing, he is all over the place as usual, you’d be hard put to know if he’s army or navy, since he’s forever on shore. From Durrell’s letters, he’s an alarmingly regular visitor to headquarters, which cannot be easy for Durrell who would rather be nowhere near the place.

I hope things are going better for you.

Yours, with esteem

Captain Hugh Kelly, RN

An Unconventional OfficerExtract of letter from Major Paul van Daan to Captain Hugh Kelly, August 1809

I’ll be honest, Captain, you might still be having a better time than I’ve been this past month. I am about to embark upon a painful retreat back from Spain, made worse by a hole in my chest which I acquired at a place called Talavera. I’m told we won, which I’d no way of knowing as I was carried off the field half dead. Thankfully, I’m on the mend now, thanks to the efforts of a rather unusual young female who is married to an officer of the quartermasters’ department and who is our new and wholly unofficial surgeon’s assistant.

I hope your campaign is over quickly, that it’s less miserable than Copenhagen, and that you get through it without shooting that arsehole Popham. Sorry I can’t be there to do it for you. I hope the lad’s all right, he doesn’t need to be spending his time with that smug bastard.

By the way, why is Durrell dodging army headquarters? I thought he liked Lord Chatham.

I hope your reply will find me safe in Lisbon. Or anywhere but here, it’s a hell hole, we’re short of supplies and Sir Arthur Wellesley is in the foulest temper I’ve ever seen, made worse by the fact that I’ve been too ill for him to take it out on me.

Yours affectionately, Major Paul van Daan

Extract of a letter from Captain Hugh Kelly, RN to Major Paul van Daan, September 1809

I hope you’re still recovering well. Take a tip from an older man, Major, and duck next time.

Poor Durrell is trying to avoid his brother who has taken up some nameless and pointless post at headquarters. I’ve no idea what he’s doing there and I suspect Lord Chatham has even less idea, the poor man seems permanently surrounded by a pack of hangers-on and holiday-makers. They say that he seldom emerges from his bedroom before noon; if I had that lot, on top of this campaign, to contend with, I’d stay there all day.

Don’t even talk to me about bombarding a city. Flushing was a horror, I’m not likely to forget it in a hurry.

I’ve no idea how long we’ll be here; I don’t think we’ve a cat in hell’s chance of getting anywhere near Antwerp now, and on top of that, there are reports of sickness among the troops. I hope your second battalion isn’t affected, I’ve met one or two of them. Have you friends there?

Extract of a letter from Major Paul van Daan to Captain Hugh Kelly, September 1809

I’ve received a letter from a friend in the second battalion. Captain, what the hell is going on over there? Are you and your crew all right? Is it true the expedition is pulling out?

Is Durrell back with you? It doesn’t sound as though you’d want him on shore just now.

Headquarters has moved to Viseu and Wellington is planning how to stop another invasion, but it’s fairly quiet here. I’m hoping that the stories I’m hearing are exaggerated,  but get that boy back with you, if Popham is still strutting around the army lines and gets him killed with some bloody Dutch fever, I am going to catch up with that bastard and shoot him in the head. It’s high time somebody did it, I’d be doing the world a favour.

I really don’t like what I’m hearing about what’s happening on Walcheren. For God’s sake, write to me, sir, I want to know you’re both all right…

 

Evacuating the sick from South Beveland, 1809

 

This Blighted Expedition: a novel of the Walcheren Campaign of 1809 (Book Two in the Manxman series).  Due for publication on 31st October 2019.

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Our Walcheren Expedition Day 3

Our Walcheren Expedition Day 3 was dedicated to museums. This turned out to be a good thing because it rained all morning.

I was woken at around 2am by a spectacular thunderstorm. I’m not scared of storms, but I do find it difficult to sleep through them, so while the man I married snoozed on happily, I sat by the long windows in the living room and watched the sky light up, thinking about the reported thunderstorms in the days leading up to the bombardment of Vlissingen in 1809.

The storm rumbled on until about nine, but the rain continued. We hovered, unable to decide, and then got bored with waiting and set off for Middelburg Abbey. It’s about ten minutes walk and the rain had stopped by the time we got there. Nothing was going to stop our Walcheren Expedition day 3.

Middelburg Abbey originated in the twelfth century. Monks from Antwerp established a large religious foundation with two churches and extensive lands on Walcheren and in other parts of Zeeland. Many of the surviving buildings from the monastic period  are Medieval Gothic, and date from the late sixteenth century.

Monastic life came to an end in 1574 when the Spanish surrendered to the Protestant Dutch separatists at the end of the two year Siege of Middelburg. William of Orange had given guarantees that the clergy would be left alone, but both the abbey and Roman Catholicism in Middelburg were nevertheless forcibly terminated.

The abbey was taken over for use in the secular administration of the province. Initially it was used as the seat of the district assembly and for other administrative functions including the admiralty, a mint, and a court chamber. Following reforms during the Napoleonic occupation, in 1812 the former abbey complex became known as the Province Building.

The abbey church was badly damaged in May 1940 by German aerial bombers targeting Middelburg in order to persuade the Dutch army not to hold out against German invasion and rebuilding was not completed till 1965. Other abbey buildings continued to accommodate government activities till the end of the twentieth century, such as the land registry and state archive.  Part of the complex now houses the Zeeuws Museum and the Roosevelt Study Centre.

The two Protestant churches are still referred to as Abbey Churches, reflecting their monastic origins. The Choir church or Koorkerk was built around 1300 and comprises a tall chancel of seven arches in length, with a five sided apse to the east of the choir stalls  with elaborate roof vaulting. On the south side is the church tower known as Lange Jan.

The New church  features a double nave and dates from the rebuilding that followed the fire of 1558. It replaced an earlier church built around 1300 which also featured a twin nave. The eastern wall of the New church is also the western wall of the Choir church, and the two interiors were originally connected through an arch, but this was subsequently blocked up. After 1833 the New church became the only parish church for the central walled area of Middelburg.

Both churches are beautiful, although in the middle of the tourist season it was hard to get the sense of peace that I love about old churches. I found this in the old Abbey cloisters, cool and dim, with sunlight peeping through and a gloriously tangled herb garden in the centre; my favourite part of the Abbey.

There is a big, open square in the middle of the Abbey buildings, with trees and seats and a couple of cannon which look rather as though they had been carelessly abandoned by some negligent commissary officer. There is also the entrance to the museum and cafe.

This part of the building has been thoroughly modernised inside, giving little sense of the original abbey. The museum has exhibitions over a number of floors. It is very well designed and put together with very modern themes, but I will be honest and admit that I was a little disappointed. While I wasn’t expecting to find anything about the campaign of 1809 which was not especially significant in Dutch history, apart from the people who died in Vlissingen and Veere, I was very much hoping for some information about the history of Middelburg and Walcheren and that was very much lacking. The one exhibition which dealt with history, was an amazing selection of tapestries telling the story of the rebellion against Spain. I loved that section. Much of the rest of the museum was beautifully put together but gave very little actual information about the town or its history. Given that there is no other museum in Middelburg to do that job, I thought it a shame, although I did pick up some useful information about historic costume.

We climbed Lange Jan to see the fabulous views over the town, following in the footsteps of my fictional Lieutenant Durrell who found it a quiet haven away from the chaos of the campaign in 1809. After coffee and cake outside a local cafe, dodging another rain shower, we went back to Veere to the two museums there. The Veere Museums consist of the City Hall and the Scottish Houses on the quay, both fabulous historic buildings.

There is a unique collection of 16th century statues which once adorned the façade of the City Hall and are on display in the ‘Statue hall’. The ‘Scottish attic’ tells the story of the long lasting trade relationship between Scotland and the city of Veere. Veere was once the centre of the profitable wool trade between Scotland and the Low Countries; the town won staple-rights on Scottish wool in 1541, meaning that the goods had to be made available for purchase there for a set time before being allowed to go on sale elsewhere. This important and profitable trade right encouraged Scottish merchants to establish themselves in Veere permanently and for a period of time, the small Scottish community was ruled by Scottish law and their own leader within the Dutch town.

The museums in Veere were far more interesting in terms of history, although I have to say that there was still more art than history in both of them. I really enjoy art, and I loved the story of the English family who set up an artists’ community in Veere before the second world war. I still felt a slight sense of frustration, however. These towns have so much history and I came away knowing very little about the people, the development of the town, their economy and agriculture and what shaped them. Perhaps there’s a museum somewhere else in this area that I’ve not found which offers that.

Having said that, I had a fabulous day. The museums were great at what they did, even if it wasn’t what I wanted, and I thoroughly enjoyed myself. I also found, in a rather more modern painting of a woman in traditional Dutch costume, my perfect Katja de Groot. Honestly, I couldn’t stop staring at her. Isn’t she beautiful?

Tomorrow is Vlissingen, and the nautical museum. I really like this part of the world; it’s very relaxed and we’re having a great week. Even if my husband dreams of hills he could cycle up…

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Our Walcheren Expedition day 2

Our Walcheren Expedition, day 2, could be sub-titled “What I learned about cycling.”

One of the things well known to our friends and family is that Richard cycles, and I don’t. That sounds like a simple fact of life, but it’s a lot more extreme than it sounds. Richard’s cycling involves owning about six bikes and more gadgets than you would believe. His gadgets measure everything. An entire community of online cyclists share information from these gadgets and congratulate each other on their prowess. Also there is lycra. A lot of lycra.

I did not own a bike as a child and was at university when I first learned to ride one. My mother had lost a cousin of some kind who was run over while cycling in London and refused to budge on the bike issue. Both my sister and I learned as young adults, but while she took to it, I didn’t. Travelling on two wheels seemed to make no sense to me. I did it, from time to time, but remained wobbly and uncomfortable.

Over the past 25 years, I have made fairly regular attempts to improve. There were rides round the Hertfordshire countryside and cycling weekends where I wondered if divorce was a rational option. Eventually, we moved to the Isle of Man which is basically a large hill and I pretty much gave up. I cycled around Lake Kielder on the Scottish borders with the kids about seven years ago, falling off all the way. Two years ago I chickened out of a cycle tour of Berlin. My cycling career was officially over.

I don’t know what made me decide that on Walcheren, I wanted to try again. Perhaps it was just because I knew it was incredibly flat. I’ve also been looking for exercises to help with my hip arthritis and have been told that cycling could be good. Whatever the reason, a couple of months ago I hauled my daughter’s old mountain bike out of retirement and took it down to the prom, probably the only flat area nearby, and wobbled up and down. By the time we arrived in Middelburg, I felt confident enough to give it a try. So on our Walcheren Expedition day 2, we rented bikes and set off into the unknown.

Things I learned about cycling…

  1. You never forget how to swim or how to ride a bike. Only one of those is true for me.
  2. In the Netherlands, the bike is king and road users take care not to endanger them. Tell that to the b*****d in the black van who forced me onto the pavement.
  3. Cycling is easier than walking. No. It’s really not.
  4. Every other cyclist on the road / cycle path is better than I am. Including the four year olds. Especially the four year olds.
  5. “Don’t worry, I’ll keep an eye on you” means “I will cycle off into the distance painfully slowly to make a point and not even glance behind me at your yell of pain.”
  6. Cycling on cobble stones is an experience.
  7. Nobody wears a cycle helmet in the Netherlands. This is WAY much more fun.
  8. Hardly anybody wears lycra to cycle. Also, much better. I feel normal.
  9. You can get to most places on cycle paths. This is AMAZING.
  10. I can cycle 28.3 kilometres in a day and still walk / go out to dinner / drink wine. I’m fitter than I thought.
  11. Cycling doesn’t hurt my arthritic hips at all.
  12. My shoulders would hurt less if I didn’t grip the bike in sheer terror.
  13. Renting a city bike from Cycle Hub in Middelburg is a great leveller and my super-cyclist husband was in more pain than I was at the end of the day because the bike was the wrong shape / height / age / type / colour.
  14. Nobody cares that I’m a clumsy oik on a bike here. Because cycling is just normal.
  15. I want to do more of this.

Perhaps it’s time to venture off the prom and try a few gentle hills at home…

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Writing about Writing

Writing about writing is something I rarely do. Most of my blog posts are either historical or centre around life with Labradors on the Isle of Man. I’ve read some fantastic posts about the writing process from other authors, but I’d rather come to the conclusion that I’m not particularly introspective when it comes to my own work. I love what I do, but I don’t spend a lot of time analysing it and I dread the interview question “what made you become a writer?”. The best answer I could give to that is “I couldn’t help it.”

Recently, however, something has happened to change my outlook on this. I was asked to teach a creative writing course as an evening class at the University College Isle of Man. This was a new experience for me, although I’ve done training and work in schools, but the idea of designing a course was irresistible. It was a short course, really just to test the water, four weeks on writing fiction, but it has made me think about my writing in a way that I don’t think I have before.

The course ended this week and seems to have been a great success; I really enjoyed it and I think the participants did too. I’ve been astonished at how much I’ve learned from working with them and watching their process as they began their stories, met their characters and studied themes and plot and dialogue. But best of all, it has made me go back and revisit some of my books, thinking again about how and why I do what I do.

The Reluctant DebutanteIn order to teach something, you have to be able to break it down and I’ve found it easier to do this, as I’ve recently been working on revising one of my earliest books. The Reluctant Debutante was a Regency romance which I originally wrote when I was trying the traditional publishing route, and it was designed for the Mills and Boon historical market. I was unsuccessful with it, although it did get some very positive feedback.

When I decided to try self-publishing, I had no idea what I was doing, so I chose to publish my three standalone novels first, using them to test the waters before publishing the Peninsular War Saga. I wasn’t expecting much in the way of sales and did no real publicity. The first two books bombed as much as I had expected, but the third, my Regency romance, began to sell. I tried a free promotion and the uptake was huge. A few reviews trickled in and a few Goodreads ratings. Off the back of that, I began to get some sales of the other two books. Surprisingly, although never a bestseller, The Reluctant Debutante was my most popular book for a long time; a tribute to the enduring popularity of the Regency genre.

I’ve explained elsewhere why I was never really happy with that book. Occasionally I would get another review, many of them good and one or two absolutely terrible. Like all authors, I hate bad reviews, but I’ve learned to take them philosophically. My problem with this book, was that I kind of agreed with them.

After the publication of An Untrustworthy Army and before really getting stuck in to writing This Blighted Expedition I finally decided to do something about The Reluctant Debutante. I’d not read it through since I published it, and doing so was something of a shock to my system. It wasn’t that there was anything fundamentally wrong with the plot, it’s just that it really wasn’t very well written. The dialogue, always my strong point, was the best part although I don’t think it represented the characters as it should have. But the point of view was all over the place, the structure was messy and there was no clue as to the theme, even though I knew what it was in my head.

I’ve been revising this book along with teaching my course, and doing so has been incredibly useful, as it enabled me to break down the book and look at it in the way I was encouraging my students to do with their own writing. In the end, I didn’t need to change as much as I thought I would. I let the characters tell their story, but I was far clearer about the story they were telling. I gave them a voice, not just in the words they spoke but also in the thoughts they had, the internal dialogue which is so clear in some of my later books but which I seemed to have missed out entirely in this early effort.

I’m cautiously pleased with the result, and given that Giles is a minor character in the Peninsular War Saga and has a major role to play in my current book, I’m happy now, with the way he’s turned out. Part way through the first draft of This Blighted Expedition, I’m conscious of how much I’m applying some of the lessons I’ve learned to my new story.

You can write a very good book without reading a thing about crafting fiction. But personally, I think the work I’ve done in the classroom with my students, has made me a better writer. Certainly it has made me a more self-aware writer. I’m deeply grateful to them for their questions and contributions and endless curiosity about the writing process, both mine and theirs. I hope they all come back for another course and I really hope they all carry on writing. Every one of them has a different style and a different sphere of interest, but I think they have talent. I’m so grateful to University College Isle of Man for giving me the opportunity to teach this course and I hope to do more in the future.

“When one teaches, two learn.” (Robert Heinlein)

 

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The Peninsular War Saga

General Robert Craufurd fought the battle of the Coa on this bridge

I began writing the Peninsular War Saga some years ago. At the time, I was attempting to find an agent or a publisher for one of my standalone historical romances, without much success. I had a lot of very positive feedback about my writing, my plots and my characterisation but everybody was saying the same thing; we’re sorry, but there is no market for traditional historical romance any more.

More than one agent urged me to try to write a contemporary romance. I made several attempts and hated all of them. Many people told me that with just a little adjustment, I could write for Mills and Boon historical. Once again, I made the attempt, and the people at Mills and Boon were lovely, gave great feedback, but were just not sure that my characterisation was quite right for them. I was getting nowhere.

To cheer myself up, I decided to scrap all my dreams of writing a marketable historical romance and just write something that I really wanted to do. There was definitely no market for a new series about the Peninsular War, since it had been done to death in the years following the runaway success of the Sharpe books and TV series. Still, it’s what I wanted to write, and since it was clear that nobody was going to read it anyway, I felt very liberated. I decided I could write it just for me, about a collection of people who didn’t always feel heroic or brave or even that patriotic. A lot of them joined because they had no option, or because they needed a job. They fought and they died and a lot of them became heroes. They also got wet, got grumpy when they were hungry, got sore feet and developed a bad head cold from time to time.

I wanted to explore areas of the war that I’d not really seen a lot about. What about the medical services? How did the commissariat work and who was responsible for ordnance and transport and prisoners of war? And what about the women and children who followed the army? What was it like in camp and on the long marches and all the boring hours between battles and skirmishes? What were relationships like between officers and men, away from the parade ground and the tidy regulations which governed army life?

Out of all these questions was born the Peninsular War Saga. Finally tired of trying to persuade an agent or a publisher to read one of the books, I decided to publish independently, without really thinking I’d sell more than a dozen copies, let alone develop an enthusiastic following. With book five doing well and book six in the early planning stages, I consider I’ve been incredibly lucky.

The Peninsular War Saga tells the story of the men and women of the fictional 110th Infantry during the wars against Napoleon; in particular, a young officer called  Paul van Daan who joins the regiment in 1802 as it is about to go to India to fight under General Arthur Wellesley.

An Unconventional Officer - love and war in Wellington’s army
Book 1 in the Peninsular War Saga

An Unconventional Officer: the Peninsular War Saga Book 1 (1802 – 1810) 

From the battle of Assaye, through Italy, Copenhagen and Portugal, we follow the early career of Lieutenant Paul van Daan, the most unusual officer ever to join the 110th as he attempts to find his place in the regiment.  Along the way he makes both friends and enemies, discovers a talent for leadership and shares his life with two very different women.

An Unconventional Officer is slightly different to the other books, as it covers a longer time period, almost eight years. I wanted it to be a full introduction to Paul’s story and to get him to the point where he was well-established in Wellington’s army. While it introduces many of the main characters, the heart of this novel is the love story between Paul and Anne and its theme is Paul’s gradual development from a young officer willing to break all the rules, to a slightly more mature officer who is beginning to learn to fit in a little better.

An Unwilling Alliance: The Manxman, Book 1 and the Peninsular War Saga Book 1.5 (1806-07)

This book is really a spin-off from the Peninsular War Saga, but it fits very securely within the series as well. It takes place halfway through the action of An Unconventional Officer, during the Copenhagen campaign, which is mentioned, but not explored in book one. I adore this book, partly because the navy theme enabled me to set part of it on the island which is my home and which I love, and partly because it is a real coming-of-age book for Major van Daan as well as a key point in his developing friendship with Sir Arthur Wellesley.

It is 1806 and Captain Hugh Kelly RN returns to the Isle of Mann after fifteen years with a few months leave and a small fortune in prize money to find himself a sensible Manx wife. He pays court to Roseen Crellin, who is determined to resist her father’s efforts to find her a husband. Still dreaming of the young English soldier who sailed away and broke her heart, she has no intention of encouraging Captain Kelly’s courtship and certainly no intention of developing feelings for the man.

Major Paul van Daan is newly promoted and just back from Ireland, sailing with his battalion to Copenhagen under the command of Sir Arthur Wellesley.  Paul’s courage and talent are unquestioned but his diplomatic skills need some work and in a joint operation with the navy there are many ways for a man of Paul’s temperament to get things wrong.

As Britain hovers on the brink of war with neutral Denmark and the diplomats and politicians negotiate to keep the Danish fleet out of Bonaparte’s hands, a more personal drama plays out on the decks of the Royal Navy and in the lines of Lord Cathcart’s army which could change the lives of Hugh, Roseen and Paul forever.

An Irregular Regiment

An Irregular Regiment: the Peninsular War Saga Book 2 (September 1810 – April 1811 )

This book covers an area of the war that I knew very little about. The building and manning of the lines of Torres Vedras are absolutely fascinating and worth a lot more time than I was able to give them. It is also the story of a young couple learning to be married, and sets the tone for Paul and Anne’s relationship throughout the series. If you don’t leave your hero and heroine at the church door, you have to work out what their marriage is going to be like, and I loved the challenge of that.

On the heights of Bussaco Ridge, Paul van Daan leads his battalion into action under Lord Wellington in his defeat of the French under Marshal Massena.  The book explores Paul’s developing career, and the happiness of his marriage to the lovely young widow of a fellow officer.  As Wellington prepares to chase Massena out of Portugal, Paul is serving under the worst general in the army and must find a way to keep his regiment safe and protect his reputation.

An Uncommon Campaign, 110th at the Battle of Fuentes d'OnoroAn Uncommon Campaign: the Peninsular War Saga Book 3 (April – June 1811)  

In addition to the battles and the personal stories of my characters, I wanted to introduce something about army politics during this book. I particularly love finding an interesting, funny or even a very sad story from history and trying to work it into the lives of my characters.

Lord Wellington has led his army to the Spanish border where the French occupy their last stronghold in Portugal at Almeida.  As the two armies face each other in the village of Fuentes de Onoro, Colonel Paul van Daan is becoming accustomed to his new responsibilities in command of a brigade and managing the resentment of other officers at his promotion over older and longer serving men.  His young wife is carrying their first child and showing no signs of allowing her delicate situation to get in the way of her normal activities.  And if that was not enough, Paul encounters a French colonel during the days of the battle who seems to have taken their rivalry personally, with potentially lethal consequences for the 110th and the rest of the third brigade of the light division.

A Redoubtable Citadel: the Peninsular War Saga Book 4 (January – June 1812) 

This was definitely the most emotional book for me to write. I wanted to highlight the plight of women in wartime, and I’m proud of this book, but it was extremely painful for me.

In the freezing January of 1812, Lord Wellington pushes his army on to the fortress town of Ciudad Rodrigo and a bloody siege with tragic consequences.  Colonel Paul van Daan and his wife Anne have a baby son and in the aftermath of the storming, take a brief trip to Lisbon to allow Paul’s family to take little William back to England.  With his career flourishing and his marriage happy, Paul has never felt so secure.  But his world is shattered when his young wife is taken prisoner by a French colonel with a personal grudge against Paul.  As Wellington’s army begins the siege of Badajoz, the other great Spanish border fortress, his scouts and agents conduct a frantic search for the colonel’s wife.  Meanwhile Anne van Daan is in the worst danger of her life and needs to call on all her considerable resources to survive, with no idea if help is on the way. 

An Untrustworthy Army: the Peninsular War Saga book 5 (June – December 1812)

This book covers both triumph and miserable retreat and was a wonderful opportunity both to introduce some new characters and to revisit one of the major storylines from the first book. It turned out to be more emotional than I expected and I loved being able to highlight one of my favourite characters whom I felt I’d neglected a little. The story of the retreat from Burgos was impossible to glamorise and highlighted both the best and the worst of Wellington’s army.

It is June 1812 and back with her husband and his brigade, Anne van Daan is beginning to recover from her ordeal at the hands of Colonel Dupres as Lord Wellington marches his army into Spain and up to Salamanca. In a spectacularly successful action, Wellington drives the French back although not without some damage to the Third Brigade of the Light Division.

Still recovering from their losses at Ciudad Rodrigo and Badajoz earlier in the year, the Light Division remains in Madrid while Wellington lays siege to Burgos but some of Paul’s brigade have troubles of their own.

Lieutenant Simon Carlyon is determined not to allow his dead brother’s shameful reputation to blight his career in the army but finds it harder than expected to serve under the man who killed him. Colonel Johnny Wheeler is finding the lie he told to protect others difficult to live with, faced with the unrelenting hostility of a young officer. And Captain Michael O’Reilly’s life becomes complicated through a casual act of kindness.

The end of the campaigning season is not going as well for the Allied army and triumph turns to an undignified and dangerous retreat.  At a time when the discipline of Wellington’s army seems to have broken down, Van Daan’s brigade need to set personal matters aside and concentrate on staying alive long enough to reach safety.

Future Books

That’s as far as I’ve got with the novels. My next book is intended to be the sequel to An Unwilling Alliance, covering the disastrous Walcheren campaign of 1809. I’ve not been able to find a novel covering this campaign before so it feels like uncharted territory. I intend to pick up Hugh Kelly’s story, but as the campaign once again involved both army and navy, I will be joining the men of the 110th second battalion, who, while Major van Daan was leading the first battalion to glory in the Peninsula, were unlucky enough to be sent to Walcheren. The working title is An Inauspicious Expedition.

The other books in the Peninsular War Saga, as planned so far are as follows:

An Unrelenting Enmity: set during winter quarters from December 1812 to April 1813

An Auspicious Action: the story of the battle of Vitoria

An Uncivilised Storming: the Pyrenees and San Sebastian

An Inexorable Invasion: the invasion of France

An Improbable Abdication: Toulouse and the return to England

An Unmerciful Engagement: Waterloo

An Amicable Occupation: the Army of Occupation

Looking at that list, I feel a combination of excitement and sheer terror. At present I seem to be able to manage two books a year, but some of these will take more research than others, so I don’t promise that. There will also be more in the Manxman series, since I hope at some point to be able to reunite Hugh Kelly and Paul van Daan.

Currently, I’m beginning the research for the book about Walcheren, which will be published some time next year; I can’t give a date yet until I have a better idea of how long the research will take. I’m also making notes about book 6 in the main saga, which may be quicker to write, given that it is set outside of the main battles and campaigns, although obviously, given that this is the 110th, there will be some action.

So far, most of the books have been published only as e-books, but I am working at changing that. Early next year I am hoping to have all the books in paperback on Amazon, and then to get them into some bookshops or for sale on my website later in the year.

I’ve come a very long way from believing that nobody wants to read another series about the Peninsular War, and I’m so grateful to all my readers, especially those who follow me on facebook and twitter and visit my website regularly. Some of you have left fabulous reviews as well, and every good review is like a gift, even if it’s only a couple of lines.

It has been a good year in many ways at Writing with Labradors, despite losing our beloved Toby. We’re so grateful we have Oscar to step into his paw prints, and we’re looking forward to an even better 2019. In the meantime, remember to look out for book giveaways on Amazon on Christmas Eve, in honour of the Jolabokaflod or Christmas Book Flood. And for future giveaways and updates, please click on the link to subscribe to the newsletter.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year from all of us at Writing with Labradors.

 

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An Untrustworthy Army

An Untrustworthy Army is book 5 in the Peninsular War Saga and is published on Kindle today. It covers a period of around seven months in 1812, during which Wellington led his army into Spain, achieved a spectacular victory at Salamanca and entered the Spanish capital of Madrid, which had been in French hands for four years. He then marched on to invest the fortress city of Burgos, but Burgos proved too much for Wellington’s army, and he was obliged to make a difficult retreat, with the French at his heels, back to the border. It was a miserable end to a triumphant year but it did not nullify Wellington’s achievements. He had given the Allied army an ascendency over the French which it had not had before, and the next campaigning season had a new purpose to it.

For anybody new to the books, the Peninsular War Saga follows the fortunes of a fictional regiment of infantry through the long wars of the early nineteenth century and the man who rose to command it.

An Unconventional Officer
Book 1 of the Peninsular War Saga

Paul van Daan is 21 when we first meet him, the younger son of a wealthy shipping merchant, who purchases a commission in time to join the regiment on its way to India. On paper, he is a fairly typical young officer, but Paul has an unusual past which sets him apart from many of his privileged contemporaries. He finds his home in the army, and discovers a talent for leadership which will bring him early success and which also brings him to the attention of General Arthur Wellesley.

Writing a historical fiction series based around real events is an interesting challenge. On the one hand, there is no need to spend much time thinking up a plot line; I always know where my characters ought to be. On the other hand, it isn’t enough just to put them down on a battlefield and write about nothing else. These people had lives; they ate and drank, went to parties, fell in love, got sick, got wounded. Sometimes, far too often, they died.

I have tried to populate my series with a collection of believable characters who sometimes do unbelievable things. Most of the unbelievable things really happened; I do a lot of research, and if I find a fascinating story or incident, I love to weave it into the fabric of my novel. The trick is to try to make it as seamless as possible. By now, for me, the fictional characters of Paul van Daan and his redoubtable wife, Anne, are so real, it is faintly surprising to look at the order of battle for Fuentes d’Onoro and find the 110th not there.

Sir Arthur Wellesley, later the Duke of WellingtonAlongside the story of the regiment and the love story of Paul and Anne is the story of a friendship. Arthur Wellesley, later Lord Wellington, is not known for having good relationships with all of his officers, and is often described as distant and difficult, but he had a few close friends, whom he valued, and Paul van Daan is one of them. The growing friendship between two men who are, in many ways, very different and yet also very similar, is possibly my favourite element of writing the books. Lord Wellington is a fantastic character to write; I’ve spent endless hours reading his letters and they bring him alive for me.

There have been many novels set during the Peninsular War ever since Bernard Cornwell made it so popular with his fabulous Sharpe series. I’ve read a good few of them, before I decided to make my own foray into Portugal and Spain, and each author has a different take. My books are rooted very firmly in the army, and the battles it fought, but they give equal weight to characterisation and relationships and the daily life of the men and women who marched with Wellington.

By the beginning of book 5, the fiery young lieutenant we first meet at the beginning of An Unconventional Officer has begun to settle down. He has risen to command a brigade of the elite light division, is on excellent terms with its commanding officer, Lieutenant-General Charles Alten, and is happy in his second marriage, with his children back in England being cared for by his family. He even has a dog. There is something very enjoyable in depicting Paul trying to deal with a young officer getting himself into trouble; it feels like karma. Paul has come a long way from the impetuous young officer who got himself court-martialled in An Unwilling Alliance, although in some ways he really hasn’t changed that much at all.

History dictates the plots of my books, and in An Untrustworthy Army, history let me down. The famous Light Division, generally at the forefront of any action, got some time off. They were barely engaged at Salamanca and when Wellington marched on to invest Burgos, he left the Light Division in Madrid. If I stuck strictly to history, this would have been a very quiet book. Needless to say, I have cheated a little, allowing one of my new characters to temporarily join another regiment, to give at least a flavour of the battle, and sending my fictitious third brigade of the Light Division off to get themselves into trouble elsewhere.

The end of 1812 was a miserable time for Wellington’s army, and both I and the stalwarts of the 110th infantry are relieved that it’s over, although not without some sadness. Book 6, An Unrelenting Enmity, will be published at the end of next year, and will spend some time in winter quarters, as well as following a group of the 110th on a dangerous mission to locate a missing British diplomat.

The next book, however, will take a different direction. I’m going to be picking up the story of Captain Hugh Kelly RN, the Royal Navy and the Second Battalion of the 110th who have the misfortune to be bound for Walcheren. The working title is An Insalubrious Island, although that may change.

Thanks to everybody who has been reading and enjoying my books. I hope you enjoy this one, and I look forward to taking Christmas off and then getting back to work in the New Year.

Who am I kidding…?