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Napoleonic Wars

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Margaret
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Interest in HF: I can't answer this in 100 characters. Sorry.
Favourite HF book: Checkmate, the final novel in the Lymond series
Preferred HF: Literary novels. Late medieval and Renaissance.
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Post by Margaret » Tue January 18th, 2011, 7:29 am

Elizabeth Hatzler was one- a remarkable Frenchwoman who went to war with her husband and took part in and survived Napoleon's disastrous Russian campaign, at one stage dragging her injured husband by sledge over frozen ground for nine weeks.
Her obituary makes fascinating reading
One tough woman. And she never even needed spectacles!
Browse over 5000 historical novel listings (probably well over 5000 by now, but I haven't re-counted lately) and over 700 reviews at www.HistoricalNovels.info

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Misfit
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Location: Seattle, WA

Post by Misfit » Wed October 12th, 2011, 3:26 pm

I'm about 2/3 of the way through The Last Love by Thomas Costain, which is about Napoleon's exile on the island of St. Helena and his friendship with young Betsy Balcombe (sp?). She later wrote about her experiences, and there's some interesting info here. There's also a YA version called Betsy and the Emperor and from googling there's been talk of making that into a movie.
At home with a good book and the cat...
...is the only place I want to be

njslater
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Joined: March 2013
Location: London

Women in Napoleonic Wars

Post by njslater » Sun April 14th, 2013, 4:52 pm

I am researching what will be my second and last Napoleonic Wars novel and it will feature women fighters of the Spanish guerrilla movement. From 1809 onwards the guerrillas caused havoc fro the French and a good number of them were women

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Antoine Vanner
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Location: South-East England

Post by Antoine Vanner » Mon April 15th, 2013, 3:20 pm

One of whom, code named "The Needle" (La Aguja) was involved with Richard Sharpe ane had a daughter by him - Bernard Cornwell covered the story
Last edited by Antoine Vanner on Thu April 18th, 2013, 10:31 pm, edited 1 time in total.

njslater
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Post by njslater » Sat April 20th, 2013, 1:54 pm

There were a good number of women guerrilla fighters who were capable of the most barbaric acts even worse than the men. That said the scale of uncivilised behaviour demonstrated on the Peninsular is quite astonishing and I am looking forward to getting it down in fictional words anytime soon

njslater
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The Peninsular

Post by njslater » Sun May 5th, 2013, 4:02 pm

If as I am doing, a writer tries to fictionalise the Peninsular war from another perspective than the usual "Sharpesque" re-telling of the major battles, the most striking thing is how little actually happened! From 1807 to 1813, just into 1814, most of the time the two armies were actively looking for each other or deliberately avoiding each other.

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