On 16 May 1811 a combined British, Portuguese and Spanish force commanded by the British general Beresford met the French army under Soult at Albuera in southern Spain. What followed was one of the bloodiest and most controversial battles of the Peninsular War. Yet despite the battle's significance in the wider campaign to expel Napoleon's armies from Spain, the story of Albuera has rarely received the coverage accorded to other battles of the war. In this ground-breaking book, Michael Oliver and Richard Partridge seek to set the historical record straight. They examine the carnage of Albuera in unprecedented detail, and they give a lucid account of the circumstances and the conflicting allied and French strategies that gave rise to this awful confrontation. They also offer vivid portraits of the personalities and military skills of the notable commanders who took part. AUTHORS: Michael Oliver sRichard Partridge are authorities on the military history of the Napoleonic era, in particular the organization of the French and British armies and the Peninsular campaigns. Their best known work is The Napoleonic Army Handbook. Their original research into the Battle of Albuera has taken them into the British, Spanish and French archives, and they have carried out extensive survey work on the surviving battlefield.
