The riveting and previously unknown story of the British government’s determination to destroy Napoleon Bonaparte by any means possible. Between two assassination attempts—in 1800 and 1804—on Napoleon Bonaparte, the British government launched a propaganda campaign of unprecedented scope and intensity to persuade George III’s reluctant subjects to fight the Napoleonic War, a war to the death against one man: the Corsican usurper and tyrant. The Secret War Against Napoleon tells the story of the British government’s determination to destroy the French Emperor by any means possible. We have been taught to think of Napoleon as the aggressor—a man with an unquenchable thirst for war and glory— but what if this story masked the real truth: that the British refusal to make peace, either with revolutionary France or with the man who claimed to personify the revolution, was the reason this epic conflict continued for more than twenty years? At this pivotal moment when it wanted to consolidate its place as the premier world power, Britain was uncompromising. This dynamic historical narrative plunges the reader into the hidden underworld of Georgian politics where, faced with the terrifying prospect of revolution, the British government used bribery and coercion in an effort to kill the French leader.

Between two attempts in 1800 and 1804 to assassinate Napoleon Bonaparte, the British government launched a campaign of black propaganda of unprecedented scope and intensity to persuade George III's reluctant subjects to fight the Napoleonic War, a war to the death against one man: the Corsican usurper and tyrant. This Dark Business tells the story of the British government's determination to destroy Napoleon Bonaparte by any means possible. We have been taught to think of Napoleon as the aggressor - a man with an unquenchable thirst for war and glory - but what if this story masked the real truth: that the British refusal to make peace either with revolutionary France or with the man who claimed to personify the revolution was the reason this Great War continued for more than twenty years? At this pivotal moment when it consolidated its place as number one world power Britain was uncompromising. To secure the continuing rule of Church and King, the British invented an evil enemy, the perpetrator of any number of dark deeds; and having blackened Napoleon's name, with the help of networks of French royalist spies and hitmen, they also tried to assassinate him. This Dark Business plunges the reader into the hidden underworld of Georgian politics in which, faced with the terrifying prospect of revolution, bribery and coercion are the normal means to secure compliance, a ruthless world of spies, plots and lies.

Between two assassination attempts—in 1800 and 1804—on Napoleon Bonaparte, the British government launched a propaganda campaign of unprecedented scope and intensity to persuade George III’s reluctant subjects to fight the Napoleonic War, a war to the death against one man: the Corsican usurper and tyrant. The Secret War Against Napoleon tells the story of the British government’s determination to destroy the French Emperor by any means possible. We have been taught to think of Napoleon as the aggressor—a man with an unquenchable thirst for war and glory— but what if this story masked the real truth: that the British refusal to make peace, either with revolutionary France or with the man who claimed to personify the revolution, was the reason this epic conflict continued for more than twenty years? At this pivotal moment when it wanted to consolidate its place as the premier world power, Britain was uncompromising. This dynamic historical narrative plunges the reader into the hidden underworld of Georgian politics where, faced with the terrifying prospect of revolution, the British government used bribery and coercion in an effort to kill the French leader.

'A fascinating insight into French ambition and amity in Australia, bursting with joie de vivre' – David Hunt, bestselling author of Girt In the northern winter of 1814, a French armada set sail for New South Wales. The armada’s mission was the invasion of Sydney, and its inspiration and its fate were interwoven with one of history’s greatest love stories – that of Napoleon and Josephine. The Empress Josephine was fascinated by all things Australian. In the gardens of her grand estate, Malmaison, she kept kangaroos, emus, black swans and other Australian animals, along with hundreds of native plants brought back by French explorers in peacetime. And even when war raged between France and Britain, ships known to be carrying Australian flora and fauna for ‘Josephine’s Ark’ were given safe passage. Napoleon, too, had an abiding interest in Australia, but for quite different reasons. What Britain and its Australian colonies did not know was that French explorers visiting these shores, purporting to be naturalists on scientific expeditions, were in fact spies, gathering vital information on the colony’s defences. It was ripe for the picking. The conquest of Australia was on Bonaparte’s agenda for world domination, and detailed plans had been made for the invasion, and for how French Australia would be governed. How it all came together and how it fell apart is a remarkable tale – history with an element of the ‘What if?’ No less remarkable is how the tempestuous relationship between Napoleon and his empress affected the fate of the Great Southern Land.

In 1812 two mighty armies manoeuvred across the Spanish plains. They were finely balanced, under skilful leaders. Each struggled to gain an advantage. Wellington knew that if he defeated the French, he could turn the tide of the war. Good intelligence was paramount, but the French were using a code of unrivalled complexity - the 'Great Paris Cipher'. It was an unprecedented challenge, and Wellington looked to one man to break the code: Major George Scovell. Using a network of Spanish guerrillas, Scovell amassed a stack of coded French messages, and set to work decrypting them. As a man of low birth, Scovell - even with his genius for languages, and bravery on a dozen battlefields - struggled for advancement amongst Wellington's inner circle of wealthier, better connected officers. Mark Urban draws on a wealth of original sources, including many cyphers and code-tables, to restore Scovell to his rightful place in history as the man who was the brains behind the intelligence battle against Napoleon's army and a forerunner of the great code-breakers of the 20th Century.

From Roger Knight, established by his multi-award winning book The Pursuit of Victory as 'an authority ... none of his rivals can match' (N.A.M. Rodger), Britain Against Napoleon is the first book to explain how the British state successfully organised itself to overcome Napoleon - and how very close it came to defeat. For more than twenty years after 1793, the French army was supreme in continental Europe, and the British population lived in fear of French invasion. How was it that despite multiple changes of government and the assassination of a Prime Minister, Britain survived and won a generation-long war against a regime which at its peak in 1807 commanded many times the resources and manpower? This book looks beyond the familiar exploits of the army and navy to the politicians and civil servants, and examines how they made it possible to continue the war at all. It shows the degree to which, as the demands of the war remorselessly grew, the whole British population had to play its part. The intelligence war was also central. Yet no participants were more important, Roger Knight argues, than the bankers and traders of the City of London, without whose financing the armies of Britain's allies could not have taken the field. The Duke of Wellington famously said that the battle which finally defeated Napoleon was 'the nearest run thing you ever saw in your life': this book shows how true that was for the Napoleonic War as a whole. Roger Knight was Deputy Director of the National Maritime Museum until 2000, and now teaches at the Greenwich Maritime Institute at the University of Greenwich. In 2005 he published, with Allen Lane/Penguin, The Pursuit of Victory: The Life and Achievement of Horatio Nelson, which won the Duke of Westminster's Medal for Military History, the Mountbatten Award and the Anderson Medal of the Society for Nautical Research. The present book is a culmination of his life-long interest in the workings of the late 18th-century British state.

Discover why Napoleon really lost Waterloo, the campaign that ended it all. This is the inside story of the deceit that brought down an Emperor and an era, and how the fate of the battle was written months before it ever began. This masterful plot has stood hiding in plain sight for two hundred years. No more. Now, for the first time, the suspicions of many of Napoleon's veterans and inner circle are proved by citing the hundreds of documents that only came to light after their deaths. A behind-the-scenes tour of Waterloo like you've never seen before.Presented here in luminous detail, with:* Over 100 pieces of correspondence in both the original French and translated English, many entirely unknown to the English-speaking world, alone making the book an invaluable resource. * English Translations of rarely referenced but key primary sources, conclusively demonstrating that which anti-Napoleon historians have negligently dismissed.* Hundreds of contemporaneously unavailable documents cited.Think you know Waterloo? This is the book that rewrites the campaign.

“A good overview of the forces, their tactics, mistakes (and lies in official reports)” of the two pivotal campaigns that cemented Napoleon’s dictatorship (Paper Wars). In a tense, crowded thirty-three days in the autumn of 1799, Napoleon Bonaparte organized a coup and made himself dictator of France. Yet his position was precarious. He knew that France would accept his rule only if he gained military victories that brought peace. James Arnold, in this detailed and compelling account, describes the extraordinary campaigns that followed. At Marengo, Bonaparte defeated the Austrians and his fellow general Jean Moreau beat the combined Austrian and Bavarian armies at Hohenlinden. These twin campaigns proved decisive. Bonaparte’s dictatorship was secure and his enemies across Europe were forced in a 15-year struggle to overthrow him.

More than 3,000 prisoners in the war on terrorism have been captured, held, and interrogated in Afghanistan alone. But no one knows what transpired in those interactions between prisoner and interrogator -- until now. In The Interrogators, Chris Mackey, the senior interrogator at Bagram Air Base and in Kandahar, where al-Qaeda and Taliban prisoners were first detained and questioned, lifts the curtain. Soldiers specially trained in the art of interrogation went face-to-face with the enemy. These mental and psychological battles were as grueling, dramatic, and important as any in the war on terrorism. We learn how, under Mackey's command, his small group of "soldier spies" engineered a breakthrough in interrogation strategy, rewriting techniques and tactics grounded in the Cold War. Mackey reveals the tricks of the trade, and we see how his team -- four men and one woman -- responded to the pressure and the prisoners. By the time Mackey's group was finished, virtually no prisoner went unbroken.

This book is suitable for children age 9 and above. Napoleon Bonaparte was the first emperor of France. He was a very successful military general and he led his army into many victorious battles. This is the story of how a lawyer's son rose to become a powerful emperor.