Rifles: Six Years with Wellington's Legendary Sharpshooters

I read the hardcover edition while on deployment overseas and could not put it down. I became interested with the soldiers and tactics of the 95th Rifles after watching "Sharpes Rifles" on PBS. Urban's research and writing style superbly captures the life and campaigns of the British Rifleman during the Napoleonic Wars. As a career soldier, I saw many similiarities with the trials and dangers faced by these soldiers and those of today. The weapons have changed, but many of the the hardships remain. Their tactical deployment and experiences have become the foundations of today's modern infantry. I highly recommend this book to historians, military buffs, Sharpe's series fans and anyone who wants to read a true "ripping good yarn".

Mark Urban's excellent "Wellington's Rifles" is an innovative history of the 95th Rifle Regiment and especially of its first battalion duirng 1809-1814 in the Peninsular War. Urban's comprehensive research into the memoires, diaries, and letters of members of the regiment during its time in Portugal and Spain has produced an account told from the point of view of the riflemen themselves. This account is very much analogous to Stephen Ambrose's "Band of Brothers" in exploring not only the battle history of the unit but also its internal chemistry and why it was consistently such an effective unit. Urban paints an honest, warts and all picture of the First Battalion of the 95th. We meet its officers and soldiers under the best and worst of conditions, and find that the Rifles were composed of very normal human beings made into a nearly unbreakable unit by tough but effective training, good leadership, and a well-founded sense that they were special. At the same time, they were prone to the same challenges and temptations as other units. The 95th suffered hunger and cold at the distant end of supply lines, endured incredible marches over the primitive roads of Iberia, survived sometimes horrific wounds on the battlefield, and participated in less than honorable events such as the pillaging that followed the storming of Badajoz in 1812. Urban focuses on several individuals who served for extended periods in the Peninsular War, providing a thread of continuity through the account. The 95th represented a departure from the standard tactics of the era, of units maneuvering and firing in mass. The Rifles were trained to fight in extended order as light infantry and were issued the Baker Rifle, which made them deadly effective individual sharpshooters at much greater range than their infantry counterparts. As Urban makes clear in his epilogue, the Rifles were the precusor to the modern infantry units of the British and American armies. This book is very highly recommended to students of the history of the British Army and to students of the military art.

I freely admit that I'm not some Napoleonic expert who keeps a sabre next to my desk & a shako on my mantle. I've been a fan of Bernard Cornwell's Sharpe series for years. I kept meaning to start reading books on the actual Peninsula Campaign and it just so happens this is the first book. That was great luck because this book is wonderful. Mark Urban keeps the focus extremely narrow. He talks about the Rifle's involvement in the Peninsula and Waterloo and not much else. Huge battles and huge sections of battles are ignored because the 95th just wasn't there. This almost obessive focus results in undiluted information. You get a sense of what it was really like to serve & fight based on great research and fantastic writing. The way he tracked certain personalities across the years gave the book a "story" to hang it's information from. It all worked out to be an enjoyable read that was just dripping with good information. The reality of the 95th's existence was as interesting, if not more so, than Cornwell's Sharpe. If you're a fan, you need to read this.

Urban does fine work here. Like many other reviewers, I have come to this work by way of several different fiction series' about the Napoleonic period. My particular interests in the famed Riflemen of the 95th comes directly from my exposure to Cornwell's "Richard Sharpe" novels. My wife gave this book to me as a Christmas gift, and amply demonstrated just one of the many reasons I love her so much. This book was a great read! Plain and simple. It has it all... cowardice, humor, bravery under fire, soldierly comradeship, human failings, honorable (and despicable) behavior, and plenty of action. Best of all, it's all true! If you have an interst in the period, particularly about the penninsular campaign, you will be doing yourself a favor by reading this book.

I'm a serious devotee of the Peninsular Campaign of the Duke of Wellington and, as such, read widely on the period and have travelled to Spain, Portugal, France and Belgium on a number of battlefield tours. So, it's always refreshing to pick up a new book in the field and find you've got an outstandingly entertaining read. Mark Urban's history of the 1st Battalion of the 95th Regiment of Rifles is the first modern work to be published and his copious and in-depth research shines through. However, his scholarship is lightly worn; drawing on previous research, some newly unearthed materials and original sources - particularly the diaries of serving Riflemen in the 95th - he makes his subject come to life. You feel you are marching alongside those wonderful characters like Pte Joseph Almond, Maj Alexander Cameron, Cpl Robert Fairford and many others. His battlefield descriptions, explanations of deployment, discussions of sieges and strategic thinking are excellent but thoroughly entertaining. Interspersed with chapters devoted to individual battles like Barba del Puerco, Fuentes d'Onoro or the Nive, are chapters more of a social historical nature covering topics like Gentlemen Volunteers, the Wounded or the Regimental Mess. I found this an excellent and thoroughly entertaining book and recommend it highly to readers of social and military history.