On the news I viewed the sea of poppies, which commemorate members of the armed forces who gave their lives, around The Tower of London.
While writing Monday's Child, the follow on novel from Sunday's Child, I have read widely about the Napoleonic Wars. I wonder how many people realise that in proportion to the number of people alive at that time more lives were lost then than in the First World War. A very sobering thought. It's also sobering to wonder what would have happened if the Battle of Waterloo had been lost.
Showing posts with label Napoleonic Wars. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Napoleonic Wars. Show all posts
Saturday, 8 November 2014
Friday, 19 July 2013
Regency - Research - The Years of Endurance 1793 - 1802
Regency - Research - The Years of Endurance 1793 - 1802 by Arthur Bryant, the first of a trilogy.
"For twenty-two years this country fought against aggression and despotism to restore the law of nations and the liberties of mankind. She went to war in 1793 because the tyrants who had turned the French Revolution to violent and despotic ends had invaded Holland on the pretext of establishing the "natural frontiers".
As well as tracing the war against France this book also examines the social history and much more."
"For twenty-two years this country fought against aggression and despotism to restore the law of nations and the liberties of mankind. She went to war in 1793 because the tyrants who had turned the French Revolution to violent and despotic ends had invaded Holland on the pretext of establishing the "natural frontiers".
As well as tracing the war against France this book also examines the social history and much more."
Sunday, 14 April 2013
Regency Snippets - Bazaar
John Trotter, an army contractor, became rich during the Napoleonic Wars. Afte the war ended he turned his warehouse in Soho Square, London, into a bazaar, which opened in 1816. He intended the bazaar to provide a space in which the wives and daughters of army officers could sell their handiwork. The bazaar was entirely encolsed. The stalls were for hire fore three pence a foot.
Tuesday, 18 September 2012
Final Prelude to War between France & England 1790-1793
Novels set during the French Revolution, the Napoleonic Wars and The Regency are very popular, so I am sharing my research with this group.
Those Englishmen, who considered the French Revolution was a disaster, regarded the massacres in September not only as a vindication of their predictions but as a prelude to war. However, the Prime Minister, William Pitt, dreaded war and preferred the path of appeasement.
The influx of thousands of penniless refugees, each with a tragic tale about the cruelty of the French Revolution, touched the hearts of kind-natured English men and women. The horror of events in France brought to mind the massacre of St. Bartholomew and the persecution of French Huguenots. Almost hereditary hatred of the French swept the country.
Pitt remained calm in spite of war mongers, and refused to deport representatives of a government which sanctioned the massacre at the Tuileries.
In England, after the wettest summer anyone could remember the harvest failed. Hunger spread throughout the land and peopled rioted in the north. Those in support of the revolution across the English Channel were blind to the facts. They envisaged the prospect of the happy, free life that French politicians promised. Pitt faced confrontation from those in favour of revolution who threatened stability at home. He was afraid of hungry men angered by a rise in the price of bread who believed French propaganda.
At this crucial period in English history news that General Custine had captured Mainz, had terrorised the Rhineland and then marched to Frankfurt arrived. Four days later Dumouriez, with a horde of skirmishers and ragged fanatics chanting ‘the Marseillaise’ swept the Austrians from their northern fortresses, and then marched on to Brussels.
The French politicians were delighted. They issued edicts which gave permission for their generals to follow the fleeing foe into neutral territory, and to flout the international agreements not to invade the Scheldt estuary in Holland. Soon, French gunboats sailed along the river to attack Antwerp.
Britain, the main guarantor of the Scheldt treaties, could only agree to the Dutch Ambassador’s request for Britain to honour the pledge if France invaded Holland. Pitt, who knew European peace was dependent on respect of international agreements, consented. Nevertheless, he hoped for the chance to settle the differences between European nations, thus concluding the war and leaving France to sort out her internal affairs. This became almost impossible because, after Antwerp fell, the French demanded free passage for their troops through the frontier fort of Maestricht, and the Dutch requested a British squadron to assist them.
It was essential for British trade to retain control of the Dutch coastline and the anchorages in the Scheldt. The Dutch alliance was one of the keystones of Pitt’s foreign policy which he could not risk. In a friendly conversation with Maret, a French diplomat on a private visit to England, Pitt warned him that an attack on Holland would lead to war.
The revolutionary leaders in France wanted conquest, an instrument of the revolution. They also wanted Holland’s international banks and gold reserves.
French criticism of Britain and her institutions, which the British were proud of, had turned the public opinion against France. English men united to preserve their rights and liberties and were determined to:-
‘Stand by the Church and the King and Laws;
The old Lion still has his teeth and claws.
Let Britain still rule in the midst of her waves,
And chastise all those foes who dare call her sons slaves.”
Sure that Britain would intervene Dumouriez was ordered not to invade Holland. In the British parliament Whigs and Tories united and sanctioned recruiting 17,000 more soldiers and 9,000 sailors.
Pitt’s pursuit of peace failed, but the French were forced to reconsider although they believed Britain’s strength depended on trade, and that if they could cut it off Britain would collapse. In their opinion, the British people would then revolt and welcome a French invasion, which would “regulate the destiny of nations and found the liberty of the world.”
On January 10th, 1793, the French Executive Council sanctioned the invasion of the United Netherlands. Immediately the British government issued orders to ban grain, which might be used by the invasion.
War was inevitable. After five years on half-pay, Captain Horatio Nelson rejoiced when offered a ship. He wrote: “everything indicates war, one of our ships looking into Brest has been fired into.” On the 20th of January, Britain negotiated with Austria and Prussia to act against France. When news of the French king’s execution reached London the response was hysterical fury. On the 1st of February the Republic of France declared war on Holland and Britain.
In Parliament Pitt declared: “Unless we wish to stand by, and to suffer State after State to be subverted under the power of France, we must now declare our firm resolution effectually to oppose those principles of ambition and aggrandisement which have for their object the destruction of England, of Europe and the world….whatever may be our wishes for peace, the final issue must be war.”
One can only imagine the Prime Minister’s despair after his strenuous efforts to maintain peace at home and abroad.
www.rosemarymorris.co.uk
http://rosemarymorris.blogspot.com
Available from museituppublighing.com/bookstore2Tangled Love
Sunday's Child
New release in October False Pretences
Those Englishmen, who considered the French Revolution was a disaster, regarded the massacres in September not only as a vindication of their predictions but as a prelude to war. However, the Prime Minister, William Pitt, dreaded war and preferred the path of appeasement.
The influx of thousands of penniless refugees, each with a tragic tale about the cruelty of the French Revolution, touched the hearts of kind-natured English men and women. The horror of events in France brought to mind the massacre of St. Bartholomew and the persecution of French Huguenots. Almost hereditary hatred of the French swept the country.
Pitt remained calm in spite of war mongers, and refused to deport representatives of a government which sanctioned the massacre at the Tuileries.
In England, after the wettest summer anyone could remember the harvest failed. Hunger spread throughout the land and peopled rioted in the north. Those in support of the revolution across the English Channel were blind to the facts. They envisaged the prospect of the happy, free life that French politicians promised. Pitt faced confrontation from those in favour of revolution who threatened stability at home. He was afraid of hungry men angered by a rise in the price of bread who believed French propaganda.
At this crucial period in English history news that General Custine had captured Mainz, had terrorised the Rhineland and then marched to Frankfurt arrived. Four days later Dumouriez, with a horde of skirmishers and ragged fanatics chanting ‘the Marseillaise’ swept the Austrians from their northern fortresses, and then marched on to Brussels.
The French politicians were delighted. They issued edicts which gave permission for their generals to follow the fleeing foe into neutral territory, and to flout the international agreements not to invade the Scheldt estuary in Holland. Soon, French gunboats sailed along the river to attack Antwerp.
Britain, the main guarantor of the Scheldt treaties, could only agree to the Dutch Ambassador’s request for Britain to honour the pledge if France invaded Holland. Pitt, who knew European peace was dependent on respect of international agreements, consented. Nevertheless, he hoped for the chance to settle the differences between European nations, thus concluding the war and leaving France to sort out her internal affairs. This became almost impossible because, after Antwerp fell, the French demanded free passage for their troops through the frontier fort of Maestricht, and the Dutch requested a British squadron to assist them.
It was essential for British trade to retain control of the Dutch coastline and the anchorages in the Scheldt. The Dutch alliance was one of the keystones of Pitt’s foreign policy which he could not risk. In a friendly conversation with Maret, a French diplomat on a private visit to England, Pitt warned him that an attack on Holland would lead to war.
The revolutionary leaders in France wanted conquest, an instrument of the revolution. They also wanted Holland’s international banks and gold reserves.
French criticism of Britain and her institutions, which the British were proud of, had turned the public opinion against France. English men united to preserve their rights and liberties and were determined to:-
‘Stand by the Church and the King and Laws;
The old Lion still has his teeth and claws.
Let Britain still rule in the midst of her waves,
And chastise all those foes who dare call her sons slaves.”
Sure that Britain would intervene Dumouriez was ordered not to invade Holland. In the British parliament Whigs and Tories united and sanctioned recruiting 17,000 more soldiers and 9,000 sailors.
Pitt’s pursuit of peace failed, but the French were forced to reconsider although they believed Britain’s strength depended on trade, and that if they could cut it off Britain would collapse. In their opinion, the British people would then revolt and welcome a French invasion, which would “regulate the destiny of nations and found the liberty of the world.”
On January 10th, 1793, the French Executive Council sanctioned the invasion of the United Netherlands. Immediately the British government issued orders to ban grain, which might be used by the invasion.
War was inevitable. After five years on half-pay, Captain Horatio Nelson rejoiced when offered a ship. He wrote: “everything indicates war, one of our ships looking into Brest has been fired into.” On the 20th of January, Britain negotiated with Austria and Prussia to act against France. When news of the French king’s execution reached London the response was hysterical fury. On the 1st of February the Republic of France declared war on Holland and Britain.
In Parliament Pitt declared: “Unless we wish to stand by, and to suffer State after State to be subverted under the power of France, we must now declare our firm resolution effectually to oppose those principles of ambition and aggrandisement which have for their object the destruction of England, of Europe and the world….whatever may be our wishes for peace, the final issue must be war.”
One can only imagine the Prime Minister’s despair after his strenuous efforts to maintain peace at home and abroad.
www.rosemarymorris.co.uk
http://rosemarymorris.blogspot.com
Available from museituppublighing.com/bookstore2Tangled Love
Sunday's Child
New release in October False Pretences
Saturday, 4 August 2012
The Napoleonic Wars - The Long Struggle
When I think of the French Revolution, the reign of George III and Regency, so many authors spring to mind. Dickens, Thackery, Jane Austin, Georgette Heyer, Bernard Cornwell’s Sharpe, and many others.
At the moment I am studying the late 18th century and the early 19th century.
For twenty-two years, from 1793 to 1815, France tried to dominate the world. At the beginning of this period, some men and women who had seen the Protector Richard Cromwell were still alive. At the end of it those who would live until Adolf Hitler was young had been born. On a personal note my grandfather remembered my long-lived great grandfather speaking about the Battle of Waterloo.
During those years of struggle the French wanted to overturn the old order, however the British did not accept a government not based on the rule of law. At one time Britain fought nearly the whole of Europe with little hope of victory. To make matters worse, when Britain was on the verge of bankruptcy, revolutionary France benefitted from Napoleon Bonaparte, considered by many to be the greatest military genius in the history of the world.
Until Sir John Moore fought Napoleon in Spain, only the Russians triumphed over Napoleon for a few months between 1806 and 1807.
Trafalgar and the battle of Waterloo are so well-known that the first ten years of struggle, which William Pitt called ‘the virtues of adversity endured and adversity resisted, of adversity encountered and adversity surmounted, which ended in the Peace of Amiens, are often forgotten.
The peace did not last but it did give Britain the breathing space necessary for the war to continue until 1815.
Available from https;//museituppublishing.com/bookstore2, Amazon kindle,Good Reads, Kobo and elsewhere
Sunday's Child a Regency Novel. Despite quixotic Major Tarrant's experience of brutality, honour,loss and past love, experience of brutality will it be possible for him to find happiness?
Tangled Love set in England in 1706. The tale of two great estates and their owners, duty, betrayal, despair and hope.
New Release. 27th October. False Pretences a Regency Novel. Will Annabelle escape an arranged marriage and discover who her parents are?
At the moment I am studying the late 18th century and the early 19th century.
For twenty-two years, from 1793 to 1815, France tried to dominate the world. At the beginning of this period, some men and women who had seen the Protector Richard Cromwell were still alive. At the end of it those who would live until Adolf Hitler was young had been born. On a personal note my grandfather remembered my long-lived great grandfather speaking about the Battle of Waterloo.
During those years of struggle the French wanted to overturn the old order, however the British did not accept a government not based on the rule of law. At one time Britain fought nearly the whole of Europe with little hope of victory. To make matters worse, when Britain was on the verge of bankruptcy, revolutionary France benefitted from Napoleon Bonaparte, considered by many to be the greatest military genius in the history of the world.
Until Sir John Moore fought Napoleon in Spain, only the Russians triumphed over Napoleon for a few months between 1806 and 1807.
Trafalgar and the battle of Waterloo are so well-known that the first ten years of struggle, which William Pitt called ‘the virtues of adversity endured and adversity resisted, of adversity encountered and adversity surmounted, which ended in the Peace of Amiens, are often forgotten.
The peace did not last but it did give Britain the breathing space necessary for the war to continue until 1815.
Available from https;//museituppublishing.com/bookstore2, Amazon kindle,Good Reads, Kobo and elsewhere
Sunday's Child a Regency Novel. Despite quixotic Major Tarrant's experience of brutality, honour,loss and past love, experience of brutality will it be possible for him to find happiness?
Tangled Love set in England in 1706. The tale of two great estates and their owners, duty, betrayal, despair and hope.
New Release. 27th October. False Pretences a Regency Novel. Will Annabelle escape an arranged marriage and discover who her parents are?
Sunday, 1 July 2012
Bariness Orczy
Baroness Orczy
Best remembered for her hero, Percy Blakeney, the elusive scarlet pimpernel, Baroness Orczy was born in Tarna Ors, Hungary, on September twenty-third, eighteen hundred and sixty-five to Countess Emma Wass and her husband Baron Felix Orczy. Her parents frequented the magnificent court of the Austrian Hungarian Empire where the baron was well known as a composer, conductor and friend of famous composers such as Liszt and Wagner.
Until the age of five, when a mob of peasants fired the barn, stables and fields destroying the crops, Emma Magdolna Rozália Mária Jozefa Borbála “Emmuska” Orczy, enjoyed every luxury in her father’s magnificent, ancestral chateaux, which she later described as a rambling farmhouse on the banks of the River Tarna. The baron and his family lived there in magnificent ‘medieval style’. Throughout her life; the exuberant parties, the dancing and the haunting gypsy music lived on in Emmuska’s memory.
After leaving Tarna Ors forever, the Orczys went to Budapest. Subsequently, in fear of a national uprising, the baron moved his family from Hungary to Belgium. Emmuska attended convent schools in Brussels and Paris until, in 1880, the baron settled his family in Wimpole Street, London.
At fifteen years of age, Emmuska not only learned English within six months, but also won a special prize for doing so. Later, she first attended the West London School of Art and then Heatherby’s School of Art, where she met her future husband, Montague Barstow, an illustrator.
Emmuska fell in love with England and regarded it as her spiritual birthplace, her true home. When people referred to her as a foreigner, and said there was nothing English about her, she replied her love was all English, for she loved the country.
Baron Orczy tried hard to develop his daughter’s musical talent but Emmuska chose art, and had the satisfaction of her work being exhibited at The Royal Academy.
Later, she turned to writing.
In 1894 Emmuska married Montague and, in her own words, the marriage was ‘happy and joyful’.
The newly weds enjoyed opera, art exhibitions, concerts and the theatre. Emmuska’s bridegroom was supportive of her and encouraged her to write. In 1895 her translations of Old Hungarian Fairy Tales: The Enchanted Cat, Fairyland’s Beauty and Uletka and The White Lizard, edited with Montague’s help, were published.
Inspired by thrillers she watched on stage, Emmuska wrote mystery and detective stories. The first featured The Old Man in the Corner. For the generous payment of sixty pounds the Royal Magazine published it in 1901. Her stories were an instant hit. Yet, although the public could not get enough of them, she remained dissatisfied.
In her autobiography Emmuska wrote: ‘I felt inside my heart a kind of stirring that the writing of sensational stuff for magazines would not and should not, be the end and aim of my ambition. I wanted to do something more than that. Something big.’
Montague and Emmuska spent 1900 in Paris that, in her ears, echoed with the violence of the French Revolution. Surely she had found the setting for a magnificent hero to champion the victims of “The Terror”.
Unexpectedly, after she and her husband returned to England, it was while waiting for the train that Emmuska saw her most famous hero, Sir Percival Blakeney, dressed in exquisite clothes. She noted the monocle held up in his slender hand, heard both his lazy drawl and his quaint laugh. Emmuska told her husband about the incident and within five weeks had written The Scarlet Pimpernel. Very often, although the first did not apply to Emmuska and Montague, it is as difficult to find true love as it is to get published. A dozen publishers or more rejected The Scarlet Pimpernel. The publishing houses wanted modern, true-life novels. The Scarlet Pimpernel was rejected. Undeterred Emmuska and Montague turned the novel into a play.
The critics did not care for the play, which opened at the New Theatre, London in 1904, but the audiences loved it and it ran for 2,000 performances. As a result, The Scarlet Pimpernel was published as a novel and became the blockbuster of its era making it possible for Emmuska and Montague to live in an estate in Kent, have a bustling London home and buy a luxurious villa in Monte Carlo.
During the next thirty-five years, Emmuska wrote not only sequels to The Scarlet Pimpernel such as, Lord Tony’s Wife, 1917, The League of The Scarlet Pimpernel 1919, but other historical and crime novels. Her loyal fans repaid her by flocking to the first of several films about her gallant hero. Released in 1935, it was produced by her compatriot, Alexander Korda, starred Lesley Howard as Percy, and Merle Oberon as Marguerite.
Emmuska and Montague moved to Monte Carlo in the late 1910’s where they remained during Nazi occupation in the Second World War.
Montague died in 1943 leaving Emmuska bereft. She lived with her only son and divided her time between London and Monte Carlo. Her last novel Will-O’theWisp and her autobiography, Links in the Chain of Life were both published in 1947 shortly before her death at the age of eight-two on November the twelfth, in the same year.
A lasting tribute to the baroness is the enduring affection the public has for her brave, romantic hero, Sir Percival Blakeney, master of disguise.
First published Spring 2011
Volume 1Vintage Script
The writing magazine for all things #
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www.vintagescript.co.uk
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