Satire, Military, Engineering, Military Sciences 

Few fields of human Endeavour have inspired so much memorable Anedotage as warfare, from the bible and Livy through Gibbon and Froissart, to the marvelous 6ales of Wellingtone’s army in the peninsula, the imperial wars of the nineteenth century, and the world conflicts of the twentieth. Max Hastings’s collection is principally British and American with, as he says, ‘occasional forays among the ranks of foreign armies’-notably the Greeks, the Romans, and Napoleon’s veterans. Hastings has sought stories that illustrate the military condition through the ages both on the battle fields and in barracks: comic, eccentric, heroic, tragic. Here are Caesar at the Rubicon and the revolt of the Praetorian Guard; Alexander’s horse and Prince Rupert’s dog; Osbert Sitwell as a reluctant Edwardian Guards officer; John Masters in a Gurkha mess between the two world wars; Evelyn Waugh as the least plausible of commandos. Some of the stories are familiar to every student of history: much beloved legends such as the Prince of Wales winning his spurs at Crecy, Beau Brummell resisting as posting to Birmingham, Wellington at the Duchess of Richmond’s ball. Others are less familiar, such as Marbot’s enchanting reminiscences of the peninsula, and the wartime imprisonment in the tower of Colonel A. D. Wintle. If anecdotes are marginal notes on the pages of history, this will delight any reader who has ever been moved or entertained by the condition of the soldier. 

Packed with tales of the heroic, comic, eccentric, and tragic, this superb collection fully captures the flavour of barrack life and enlists the reader on campaigns as distant in time as Caesar's Gallic wars and the siege of Port Stanley during the Falklands conflict. This book is intended for collectors of anthologies, books on military history; buyers of gifts. - from Amzon 

CONTENTS
1. Military Anecdotes (384 extracts) …………………….....……..P. 1

2. Sources and Acknowledgements ……………………………….…P. 495

3. Index of Principal Names and Places …………………………...P. 507