Introduction

Summary

This book is the first major study of British soldiers’ violence and restraint towards enemy combatants and civilians in the siege warfare of the Napoleonic era. Using British soldiers’ letters, diaries and memoirs, Gavin Daly compares and contrasts military practices and attitudes across sieges spanning three continents, from the Peninsular War in Spain, to India and South America. He focuses on siege rituals and laws of war, storm and sack of towns. The book challenges conventional understandings of the place and nature of sieges in the Napoleonic Wars. It encourages a rethinking of the notorious reputations of the British sacks of this period, and their place within the long-term history of customary laws of war and siege violence. Storm and Sack reveals a multi-faceted story of not only rage, enmity, plunder and atrocity but also of mercy, honour, humanity and moral outrage.