Today is the official publication day for Burke and the Lines of Torres Vedras. It’s the seventh in the James Burke series. Lee Child says that it was the seventh Jack Reacher story that was his breakthrough novel, so I live in hope.
The Lines of Torres Vedras were a line (two lines if we’re going to be fussy) of forts designed to form an impregnable barrier from the Atlantic to the River Tagus, cutting off Lisbon from advancing French troops. They really existed and it was a visit to the remains of some of the forts that triggered the idea for the book.
Fort Saint Vicente
It’s also true that at the very end of 1810 four spies fled Lisbon to join the French.
These two facts provide the start and the finish of Burke’s latest adventure. In between we meet some real historical characters – General Beresford, who commanded Allied forces in Portugal and Colonel Fletcher who was responsible for building the forts – and a few fictional ones. There are new allies and some Portuguese traitors. The political background that led to the uncertain loyalties of Portuguese aristocrats is all true. The adventures of these characters in the world of espionage, however, come entirely from my imagination. Spying, by its nature, leaves few records. It means that this story, in particular, has allowed me free rein with a plot that combines the excitement of Fleming’s Bond stories with the more cerebral approach of Le Carré’s spies. Burke’s efforts involve forensic analysis of business accounts as well as kidnappings and murder.
Like all the Burke series, Burke and the Lines of Torres Vedras can be read without reading any of the others but the action follows on from Burke and the Pimpernel Affair with the book starting on his return to London after his adventures in Paris.
Burke and the Lines of Torres Vedras is available on Kindle at £3.99 or in paperback at a special launch price of £7.99. (All the other Burke books are now £8.99 in paperback.) I hope you will read it and, if you do, please review it on Amazon. Reviews make a huge difference.
I’ve long been fascinated by the way in which the British claimed Waterloo as a British, rather than an Allied, victory – particularly as only a minority of the troops under Wellington’s command were actually British. The insistence that the British essentially pulled off victory on their own accounts for the way that the Prussian contribution is regularly dismissed. Nowadays we often read that the Prussians arrived late at the battle and that they had no effect until the very end. Some accounts even suggest that the final advance by the British would have taken place successfully whether or not the Prussians had been there.
This rewriting of history started on the evening of the battle when Wellington rejected Blucher’s suggestion that it be called the battle of La Belle Alliance (after the inn where Blucher and Wellington met at the end of the day), insisting instead that it be called Waterloo, after the town (not on the battlefield) where Wellington had set up his headquarters the night before the fighting started.
The most blatant rewriting of the Prussian involvement centred on a model of the battlefield created by William Siborne, a young army officer who was commissioned by the government to produce a large scale model as a permanent commemoration of Wellington’s victory. Siborne took his commission seriously, corresponding with hundreds of the officers who were at Waterloo, including Prussian officers and, although many were reluctant to discuss it, the French. As a result he was able to produce a picture of the battlefield representing the situation at 7.00pm, just after the fall of La Haye Sainte. Siborne considered that this was the crisis of the battle.
At this point, Prussian troops were already attacking the French in Plancenoit while others had linked up with Wellington’s left, enabling him to strengthen his centre. Hundreds of detailed models of Prussian soldiers were placed to reflect that. Yet if you look at the model today (it’s on display in the National Army Museum) these soldiers aren’t there. At the crisis of the battle, just before the decisive charge by Wellington’s troops, the French are faced only by the British. The Prussians, as so many people still believe, weren’t there. They arrived too late to have any decisive impact on the battle.
There is Plancenoit in the distance, with a suspicious absence of attacking Prussians
I love that model and I’ve visited it several times. I knew it misrepresented the Prussian position and I understood the politics behind it. But this Christmas I was given a copy of Peter Hofschroer’s wonderful book, Wellington’s Smallest Victory and now I know how the model came to be so inaccurate.
It’s a story of a naïve young man who set out to produce something that was to be both the historical record of a famous victory and a significant work of art in its own right. The project ran out of control, taking over his life, and he became quite obsessive about its accuracy. What he did not realise was that he was taking on the Duke of Wellington himself, who had no intention of allowing Siborne’s model ever to see the light of day with the Prussians in place.
It’s a story of a powerful man using money and position to crush somebody who threatened the image he had created for himself. Wellington, it is fair to say, does not come out of the story well.
Hofschroer’s book is incredibly detailed. Very occasionally it even verges on the boring with its accounts of exactly who corresponded with whom as the government tried to deprive Siborne of money owing to him. The detail is important, though, as Hofschroer is presenting a version of the battle of Waterloo which many people, after 200 years of propaganda, will find difficult to accept. He is also attacking the reputation of Wellington, somebody who was practically a demigod while Siborne was working on this model and who is still seen as one of the Great Britons of the 19th century.
The meticulous descriptions of exactly which troops were where helps the reader visualise exactly what was going on and will probably provide new insights even for those already very familiar with Waterloo. Hofschroer also extends the scope of his book to cover Wellington’s response to Prussian setbacks at Charlesroi and Ligny. Again, his account is detailed and convincing and does not show Wellington in a good light. Given how much time I spend reading accounts of Napoleonic battles, it’s worrying how much I struggle with many of these books, but Wellingtons Smallest Victory reads like a crime thriller. It’s gripping.
A Word from our Sponsor
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I like to blog about interesting places I’ve been, especially if they have a historical connection. So Monday’s day out can’t pass without a mention.
My son’s brigade was responsible for providing a squadron to mount the guard at Buckingham Palace and he went along to represent brigade headquarters and to generally admire the performance of the squadron. I was invited to gawp through the railings at Buckingham Palace and then to join him and other guests for lunch at Saint James’s Palace.
Although I have lived in London all my adult life, I have never been to see the changing of the guard. It’s worth a visit, if only for the music. Both the Old Guard (the one being changed) and the New Guard bring their bands with them and, besides the marching to and fro and the occasional shouted order, much of the hour or so of the ceremony is spent listening to music – and very good music as the Army takes its music seriously.
The Old Guard and their band
I did wonder (along with most of the tourists watching the spectacle) why it took so long and why there was so much time was spent with apparently nothing happening except for the captain of the Old Guard and the captain of the New Guard pacing backwards and forwards across the Buckingham Palace forecourt. The reason, I was told over lunch, is that Buckingham Palace and Saint James’s Palace are guarded by the same squadron so people have to come and go from Saint James’s Palace which is a brisk walk halfway down the Mall. (American readers please note: the Mall is a wide road leading up to Buckingham Palace, not a place full of shops.) The pacing backwards and forwards is to give the captains of the guard an estimate of how long it will take for the sentries from St James’s Palace to arrive so the ceremony can run smoothly. Obviously, this way of time keeping predates the wrist watch but never let a technical advance get in the way of ritual. Anyway, the whole thing was terribly impressive and the uniforms most spectacular. The New Guard were Gurkhas, so they could not compete with the Old Guard and its busbies, but their drill was perfect. Gurkhas take their soldiering very seriously and I am confident that His Majesty was in safe hands. Actually, security at Buckingham Palace is handled by the Metropolitan police with the military just there as a backup, though at the Tower (technically an Army headquarters) the police aren’t involved.
94 Squadron Queen’s Own Gurkha Logistic Regiment (QOGLR) mount guard
Because it was the King’s birthday, we got a bonus on Monday, with the King’s Troop Royal Horse Artillery trotting past the palace on its way to fire the birthday salute in Green Park.
By a happy chance the changing of the guard ended just as the gun salute was starting, so we had the pleasure of seeing that as well. Watching the immaculately turned out gunners kneeling at attention (yes really) in straight lines while the guns fired one after another, it was strange to imagine that this drill was originally all about the very serious business of getting your gun into battle at speed and getting out again at speed if things went badly. I doubt any of Wellington’s gunners looked nearly as smart as these.
On to St James’s Palace, built by Henry VIII as a hunting lodge when this part of London was forest. It looks quite small from the front but it’s a large complex which includes Clarence House where the King is living. Most of the working royals have apartments there to provide a London base and soldiers on ceremonial duties at Buckingham Palace are based there too.
The Officers’ Mess is rather lovely. You realise it is not as other officers’ messes when you see the sword rack – and when you realise that it’s genuinely needed as otherwise where would officers park the swords they were wearing?
Officers’ messes will all have some sort of silverware or artworks that reflect the history of the regiment but this mess is used by a lot of different regiments so it has some especially lovely things in it. I was particularly excited by Marengo’s hoof. Marengo was Napoleon’s horse. (He was one of several but reportedly his favourite and Napoleon was riding him at Waterloo.) After Waterloo, Marengo was brought to England as spoils of war and when he died (aged 38) one of his hoofs was made into a snuff box.
It’s still in use. Did I take snuff from Marengo’s hoof? Of course I did.
There’s also hair from Marengo’s mane.
There’s a silver statuette of Wellington in pride of place on the table so here, at least, we celebrate the winner of Waterloo rather than (as, notably, at Waterloo itself) the man who lost.
It was the Napoleonic links that most excited me, but there are some other fascinating things there. The most precious, historically, is this portrait of Queen Victoria – unfortunately impossible to photograph without catching a reflection.
It is supposed to be one of only four that do not show her wearing black. Apparently on Albert’s death she had all the paintings she could lay her hands on retouched to show her in mourning. If true this would explain why so many modern representations of the young Victoria look uncannily like this one.
It was an excellent lunch and a special day. I hope you enjoyed sharing at least part of it.
I’ve mentioned once or twice lately that I was making (yet another) trip to the Historic Royal Dockyards in Portsmouth. I do love the ships there, though compared with a lot of people on Twitter I am not particularly interested in naval history. This time we made a side trip to Portchester Castle and I’m going to write a short blog on that because it does actually have a Napoleonic Wars link.
The Napoleonic Wars came very late in Portchester Castle’s life. The castle has an unusually long outer wall which is an almost perfect square. This is because that part of the construction is not a mediaeval defence at all – it’s the original walls of a Roman camp built on this site toward the end of the 3rd century. They are in surprisingly good condition so when the Normans decided to build a castle on the site, they simply tucked it into a corner of the old Roman camp.
For hundreds of years the fortunes of Portchester castle waxed and waned, largely according to our relationship with France. Portchester was a good place to gather together an army ready to go and attack the French in bad times and a convenient port of call for visitors from across the channel in good. In 1445 it was the landing place for Henry VI’s French bride, Margaret of Anjou, and it was often used as a royal palace until it was finally sold by Charles I. Since then it has been privately owned, but frequently leased by the crown, often for use as a prison which brings us to the Napoleonic connection.
During the wars with France it was used as a prisoner of war camp. Although it was crowded, it seems to have been (as prisoner of war camps at the time went) not a particularly bad place. Some prisoners were housed in the old keep, but many lived in huts erected inside the Roman walls. The governor seems to have been a reasonably humane man who made provision for keeping up the morale of his prisoners. They had a theatre in the base of the keep. You can see a photo of the restored theatre below.
In 1810 the prisoners included an entire theatrical troupe who had been captured in the Balearics and transferred to Portchester. The prison governor provided them with materials to build a stage, scenery and boxes and they put on professional quality performances. The standard was so high that local civilians used to pay to come and watch them – until the local theatre complained that it was destroying their business. After that only prisoners and the army garrison were allowed to attend. The theatre operated for three years, staging a variety of plays with scripts often sent over from Paris.
The last prisoners of war left the castle in 1814 and it was finally abandoned by the army in 1819. It stood as a ruin until 1926 when it was placed in the guardianship of the state. Since 1984 it has been managed by English Heritage who describe it as “one of the most outstanding surviving coastal fortifications in the country.” It’s an astonishing place to visit but it seems not nearly as well-known as it deserves to be – and I haven’t even mentioned the spectacularly beautiful Norman church within the Roman walls.
If you are in the area, I would really recommend a visit.
On 27 June 1806 Buenos Aires fell to the British. It’s one of the least well-known campaigns of the Napoleonic Wars but the first of the James Burke books, Burke in the Land of Silver, centres on the run-up to this battle (not that there was really a battle) and its aftermath (which was much more exciting).
Why did Argentina matter?
The British invasion of Buenos Aires is often overlooked, possibly because it does not reflect particularly well on British military prowess. Spain’s South American possessions were important primarily because of the silver that they produced. Britain was anxious that, with Spain about to join the war on Napoleon’s side, the French should not get their hands on South American bullion. South America was also felt to be a relatively soft target, because of the unrest amongst the population there who were growing increasingly unhappy with Spanish rule.
Enter Sir Home Popham
Enter the extraordinary Commodore Home Popham. Almost forgotten until recently, Popham has suddenly become fashionable with both historians and novelists, and keeps on popping up all over the place. He deserves this newfound interest because Sir Home Riggs Popham was an extraordinary character.
Sir Home Riggs Popham
Popham had been sent to the Cape of Good Hope carrying 6,000 men to capture the place, but the Cape fell unexpectedly easily, leaving him with a small army and no war to use it in. At this point, he decided that he’d head to Buenos Aires, taking 1,635 men with him (the rest being left to garrison the Cape). Deprived of a change for glory in South Africa, he would find it in South America. They sound pretty much the same, so why not?
Historians still argue about whether this decision was politically sanctioned or not. It was certainly never official, but there’s quite a lot of evidence that the government did encourage him to attack Buenos Aires.
Enter James Burke
Either way, Popham arrived in the River Plate in June 1806, where he sails into the story of Burke in the Land of Silver. The Plate is a difficult river to navigate. Popham was quoted at the time as saying, “It was a bit bumpy,” as his ships nearly grounded on sandbanks. According to some accounts Popham was helped to navigate the unfamiliar river by a British agent. If so, it’s quite likely that the real James Burke was involved. Was he really? The joy of writing about a secret agent is that what exactly he did do is a secret. He may genuinely have been there, but we can’t know for sure.
A square rigged ship on the Rio Plate. (It’s a very big river.)
Popham was in charge of the force while it was on the water, but once it landed control was handed over to Colonel William Beresford. The illegitimate son of the 2nd Earl of Tyrone, Beresford had served under Wellington and was held by many (though not Wellington himself) to have a less than perfect grasp of military strategy. He landed his troops at Quilmes, fifteen miles from Buenos Aires. The Spanish did not have enough troops to mount an adequate defence and, as Popham had predicted, Beresford had an easy march, brushing aside the meagre forces sent to oppose him. On the 27 June 1806, Buenos Aires surrendered.
Things end badly
James Burke had arrived in Buenos Aires with instructions to prepare the way for a British invasion. He could congratulate himself on a job well done. But with the military victory easily achieved, Beresford had to move from winning the war to winning the peace. He told the locals he had come to liberate them from Spain, but he proved no better at handling the aftermath of war than some more modern occupying powers. A series of missteps turned the population against the British and the locals rose in revolt. The British were driven out of Buenos Aires, their tails between their legs.
Aftermath
With the Spanish rising against the French, Napoleon never did get his hands on that silver. The Spanish colonists became our allies again. James Burke did return to Argentina where I like to think he contributed to the struggle of the locals to free themselves from Spanish rule. Whether he did or not, the population did rise against Spain and the independence of Argentina was declared on July 9, 1816 by the Congress of Tucumán.
Nobody is quite sure what happened to James Burke after his ventures in South America, but evidence from the Army rolls suggests that he remained in the Army with a pattern of movement between regiments and ranks that suggested continued to work in intelligence until well after the war with France was over.
Burke in the Land of Silver
Burke in the Land of Silver is the first of the stories I’ve written about James Burke. All my stories have a solid basis in historical fact, but this one is the closest to a true story. Burke’s adventures, including his improbable romantic entanglements with royalty, are pretty close to what actually happened. The story grew out of my love for Buenos Aires and I have visited many of the places featured in the book. It’s a rollicking good read, as well as an excellent introduction to a little-known bit of Britain’s military and political history. It’s available on Kindle at £2.99 (buy it quickly: this price won’t hold forever) and in paperback at £7.99.
Picture credit
‘The Glorious Conquest of Buenos Ayres by the British Forces, 27th June 1806’ Coloured woodcut, published by G Thompson, 1806. Copyright National Army Museum and reproduced with permission.
I’ve been talking a lot about Cawnporelately because I’ve just republished the book and I’d like you all to have a chance to read it, but this week I’m writing about James Burke and an incident from the very first of my books about him: Burke in the Land of Silver.
A bit of historical background
In 1808 Napoleon “invited” the Spanish king, Charles IV and his heir, Ferdinand VII to Bayonne in France. They never returned to Spain. Napoleon installed his brother, Joseph, as King.
The British had seen this coming. They had evacuated the Portuguese Royal Family ahead of the French invasion of Portugal, moving them to their colony in Brazil. They planned to do the same thing with the Spanish king and queen. In the run-up to the French invasion, Charles had left Madrid for Aranjuez, where he had a new palace. Significantly, Aranjuez was on the Tagus. The British idea was to evacuate Charles and his wife down river and then across the Atlantic to their South American colonies. The British agent charged with arranging this with the Spanish monarchy was James Burke.
James Burke’s role in fiction and history
In Burke in the Land of Silver I have my hero travelling across France and Spain where he approaches the queen and offers her British assistance. He is, however, just too late. Before he can get the king and queen out, the French mount their coup.
It’s a fictionalised account of a real historical event, but last week Rob Griffith, a brilliant military researcher, sent me a copy of a letter he had come across in the National Archives. It is from James Burke and it describes what really happened in 1808. He’s writing from HMS Alacrity off Cadiz. His handwriting is a great deal more legible than that of many other people of this period, but I can’t guarantee that there aren’t errors in my reading of it. All the plans have been made to get the king and queen to safety but before he can land to put them into effect a revolution (the first stage of the French coup) breaks out:
we were favoured with the timely lamentable intelligence of a most unhappy revolution having taken place in the government of Spain
The details clearly differ from the way I tell it in my book, but here we are at that critical point where Burke realises that nothing can be done to save the Spanish monarch and his wife. As in Burke in the Land of Silver he’s all too conscious that he was almost in time. In fact, he was even closer than in the book.
had I been dispatched immediately on my arrival in England I would have prevented that awfully disturbing catastrophe
For me, seeing this letter in his own hand has brought me closer to Burke. It was actually quite an emotional moment.
I do worry sometimes that my fictional Burke is painted as a more significant figure than he was. Actually, this letter suggests that he was heavily involved in diplomacy at the highest levels and was even more significant than my hero. He does seem to have been quite a remarkable man to be so overlooked by history. I hope that, with all their imaginative license, my books will still go some way to restoring this extraordinary figure back to us.
Rob Griffith – writing fact
Huge thanks to Rob Griffith for finding this letter and sending a copy to me. Rob is a remarkable military historian who has featured on my blog before. [https://tomwilliamsauthor.co.uk/riflemen/] I do recommend his book, Riflemen, to anybody interested in British light infantry of the Napoleonic era.
Me – writing fiction
Burke in the Land of Silver is the first of several books about James Burke. His adventures in that one are closely based on fact, while his later escapades are more the product of my fevered imagination, but the character is true to what we know of the real man. The next in the series will see him dallying with the Empress Josephine, which I thought was probably a stretch too far until I realised that they had almost certainly met. Yes, James Burke certainly knew how to live!
You may also be interested in my books about the fictional John Williamson, whose adventures in the mid-19th century are closely based on actual historical events.
