story I have not one of those stories of voyages and war stories that I like to remember from time to time. He also spent years without mentioning the mother of perfidious Albion, which as you know the veterans of this page, it was always my favorite historical enemy. If as a reader I enjoy books that have episodes sea or land, I enjoy much more when those palms are British. As English-born everyone he can, not where you want, I am sick of all historians and British novelists, sweeping back home, describing the sailors and soldiers here as incompetent and cowardly mob that smelled of garlic. So when I have occasion to remember a set where the subjects of Her Gracious broke their horns, I enjoy such as suckling pig in carrot patch. Others like football.
This week, of Albuera makes it easy for me. On Monday, May 16 marks the bicentennial exactly when, during the war of Independence, 34,000 English, English and Portuguese fought there for five hours with 23,000 French who were to relieve Badajoz, rejecting. Two British brigades were nearly annihilated the English troops, registering even the cartridge from the dead, held the line against French raids, and in the field was killed or wounded one in five soldiers. The Albuera was one of the bloodiest battles of the war in Spain. And of course from British historians of the period, Napier, Londonderry, Oman, until now, all agree in attributing to his troops the weight of the battle, leaving the English, as did the Battle of Chiclana, aseadito a modest background. These spaniards poor boys, you know. Simple employees and such.
However, the reality was different. Letters and eyewitness accounts, English included, can now establish what really happened in the Albuera. And was that the right flank corresponding to the English troops, situated on a hill in front of only 600 meters wide, there walked into the main French attack. Maintaining their position under fire recruits horrific-4 Guards Battalion fell in the same place where they were, without breaking the formation, "the English attacks rejected two gringos. To already be out of ammo when starting the third, the British brigade Colborne was a step to get in front line and support the third assault. But instead of staying on the hill, the British, eager to prove that for them, and really chulito always fought very well in the war of Spain advanced toward the enemy troops without realizing that imperial cavalry was stationed nearby. The British brigade was destroyed, as well as another that was about. Taking a tactical error that caliber, two brigades of His Majesty passed through the meat grinder blade, it was hard to swallow for Wellington. And when he read the part where the general Beresford told what happened, he demanded another where you omitted the disastrous maneuver, and the fact that resisted English alone the first two rounds. I wanted something that sounded more English tenacious and heroic resistance. And that second version, adapted to British national pride, was published by the press and officially adopted in the history books.
One of the most detailed current English military historians, José Manuel Guerrero Acosta, has taken in recent years the work of dusting all those parts of war, proving what I have just told. With great irritation, by the way, as the distinguished British colleagues Charles Esdaile, that during a recent conference in Warsaw rose, angry, to say that this review of what happened in the Albuera "offends the memory of British troops who fought in Spain. " Curious statement, indeed, a historian who does not seem to offend the memory of hundreds of English women raped when British troops entered Badajoz, Ciudad Rodrigo and San Sebastian, and his fellow historians and novelists who have two hundred years making sure that, in Peninsular War, Napoleon's troops were defeated only by Wellington, sometimes, yes, with the grudging cooperation, of course, English for the miserable mob, in the glorious and heroic battles always English, merely take the jug.
Arturo Perez-Reverte
XL Semanal
15 de mayo de 2011
***
This week, of Albuera makes it easy for me. On Monday, May 16 marks the bicentennial exactly when, during the war of Independence, 34,000 English, English and Portuguese fought there for five hours with 23,000 French who were to relieve Badajoz, rejecting. Two British brigades were nearly annihilated the English troops, registering even the cartridge from the dead, held the line against French raids, and in the field was killed or wounded one in five soldiers. The Albuera was one of the bloodiest battles of the war in Spain. And of course from British historians of the period, Napier, Londonderry, Oman, until now, all agree in attributing to his troops the weight of the battle, leaving the English, as did the Battle of Chiclana, aseadito a modest background. These spaniards poor boys, you know. Simple employees and such.
However, the reality was different. Letters and eyewitness accounts, English included, can now establish what really happened in the Albuera. And was that the right flank corresponding to the English troops, situated on a hill in front of only 600 meters wide, there walked into the main French attack. Maintaining their position under fire recruits horrific-4 Guards Battalion fell in the same place where they were, without breaking the formation, "the English attacks rejected two gringos. To already be out of ammo when starting the third, the British brigade Colborne was a step to get in front line and support the third assault. But instead of staying on the hill, the British, eager to prove that for them, and really chulito always fought very well in the war of Spain advanced toward the enemy troops without realizing that imperial cavalry was stationed nearby. The British brigade was destroyed, as well as another that was about. Taking a tactical error that caliber, two brigades of His Majesty passed through the meat grinder blade, it was hard to swallow for Wellington. And when he read the part where the general Beresford told what happened, he demanded another where you omitted the disastrous maneuver, and the fact that resisted English alone the first two rounds. I wanted something that sounded more English tenacious and heroic resistance. And that second version, adapted to British national pride, was published by the press and officially adopted in the history books.
One of the most detailed current English military historians, José Manuel Guerrero Acosta, has taken in recent years the work of dusting all those parts of war, proving what I have just told. With great irritation, by the way, as the distinguished British colleagues Charles Esdaile, that during a recent conference in Warsaw rose, angry, to say that this review of what happened in the Albuera "offends the memory of British troops who fought in Spain. " Curious statement, indeed, a historian who does not seem to offend the memory of hundreds of English women raped when British troops entered Badajoz, Ciudad Rodrigo and San Sebastian, and his fellow historians and novelists who have two hundred years making sure that, in Peninsular War, Napoleon's troops were defeated only by Wellington, sometimes, yes, with the grudging cooperation, of course, English for the miserable mob, in the glorious and heroic battles always English, merely take the jug.
Arturo Perez-Reverte
XL Semanal
15 de mayo de 2011
***
0 comments:
Post a Comment