Wellington: the Bidassoa and Nivelle

This book forms part of General Beatson’s trilogy dealing with the campaigns in and around the Pyrenees during late 1813 and 1814 and they are rightly acknowledged as the standard works on these campaigns. This volume deals with the Allied armies’ struggle to gain a foothold in France itself in the late summer months of 1813. Following the repulse of the last French offensive in 1813, Wellington began to take the fight into France; what faced him and his men was an unenviable position to attack: