The Beastly Battles of Old England: The Misguided Manoeuvres of the British at War

An entertaining trawl through the darker side of English military history

Throughout history the English have been a warlike bunch. Often they fight among themselves—there have been a good few civil wars—and when not slaughtering each other, they practiced on their neighbors—the Scots, the Irish, the French. When that got too easy, they set off around the world to find other people to fight. This was usually done with a hubris that invited some ludicrous pratfall. Here, Nigel Cawthorne takes readers on a darkly humorous journey through some of his country's ill-advised military actions. From the war over a severed ear to a general seeking out his rival's mistresses to even the score, it is a miscellany of insufferable arrogance, reckless gallantry, stunning stupidity, massive misjudgements, and general beastliness.