Sharpe’s Battle: The Battle of Fuentes de Oñoro, May 1811

Written by Bernard Cornwell

Narrated by Paul McGann

The thirteenth novel in the popular Sharpe series. Once more Sharpe’s career is on the line, following a disastrous attack by an elite French unit. To save his honour Sharpe must lead his men to glory in one of the bitterest battles of the Peninsular War.

In the spring of 1811, while quartered in the crumbling Portuguese fort of San Isidro, Richard Sharpe and his men are attacked by an elite French unit commanded by the formidable Brigadier Loup, and suffer heavy losses. Sharpe has already clashed once with Loup, and the Frenchman has sworn to have his revenge.

After the attack, Sharpe is faced with the ruin of his career and reputation, as the army’s high command tries to blame him for the disaster. With thousands of French troops massing at a tiny village nearby, Sharpe’s only hope is to redeem himself on the battlefield. To save his honour, Sharpe must lead his men to glory in the narrow streets of Fuentes de Oñoro.

The Complete Sharpe Collection
with a new introduction by the author

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Release date: Jun 15, 2005
• ISBN: 9780007218134

Bernard Cornwell

BERNARD CORNWELL is the author of over fifty novels, including the acclaimed New York Times bestselling Saxon Tales, which serve as the basis for the hit Netflix series The Last Kingdom. He lives with his wife on Cape Cod and in Charleston, South Carolina.

Reviews for Sharpe’s Battle

[ecw0647 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Sharpe is a captain who has come up through the ranks and is now attached to the" green jackets," riflemen attached to the Light Division.

Reviewers have lauded Cornwell's realistic portrayal of the period. I am in no position to judge, but it certainly seems real enough. The characters are well-developed, humorous, and likeable. Cornwell's description of Wellington' s defense at Fuentes de Orono, a battle that if lost might have spelled doom for the British, is marvelous. I never really understood the power of the "square," how it moved and was used successfully as an almost impenetrable barrier to cavalry, until I read Cornwell's narrative.

The square could form almost instantly through a series of intricate maneuvers from a marching column. Its power against cavalry came from the massive firepower its leaders coordinated. It was susceptible to mounted artillery so it was protected by sharpshooters who picked off the horses and artillerymen who tried to venture close enough to deliver the lethal canister. When the cavalry withdrew in frustration after a futile charge, the square would reform into columns and continue marching until again threatened by the cavalry's charge. It took months of practice and steady commanders to perform the intricate maneuvers while loading muskets, a complicated process itself
The story revolves around Sharpe's encounter with some of the French General Loup's troops, who have raped some Spanish villagers. Loup rides up under a flag of truce demanding his men back. Sharpe, backed up by his riflemen, refuse s and has two summarily shot. Loup swears revenge, a retaliation that leads to the death of 400 Portugue se allies, for which Sharpe is perhaps correctly picked to take the blame. The story has everything: traitors, a beautiful spy, dunderheaded leaders and brilliant generals. It's a ripping good read that vividly brings home the horror of warfare in the early nineteenth century.

[pjh1984_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This was the book that caused me to read the whole series. I was wandering around the public library searching for something I haven't read. Regency and Napoleonic Wars are always of interest to me. Why I have no clue so I'll just claim I must have been there in a previous reincarnation. Lots of the books go straight back on the shelf but the first chapter caught my attention and held it. It starts out with a conversation that 99% of all Military have had in some form no matter what country or era they are from: Sharpe and his men are lost. And true to form, when you are lost it is usually when you run into the enemy who know exactly where they are.

Sharpe swore. Then, in desperation, he turned the map upside down. "Might as well not have a bloody map," he said, "for all the bloody use it is."

"We could light a fire with it," Sergeant Harper suggested. "Good kindling's hard to come by in these hills."

In short order, I did read the book, I also read the other 21 books in the series in correct order and straight thru with no break for another book. Then I went and bought the series.

It is not a easy book to read. There is a realism that is very disturbing. It would cure many a teen of the thought that Military and War is glory, adventure and excitement. But that being said, it is good.

[abvr_2 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Sharpe’s Battle—a mid-series installment in Bernard Cornwell’s long-running series—is a long series of vignettes culminating in a thunderous battle scene that, with its preliminaries, occupies nearly a third of the book. It is easy to believe that dramatizing the battle was Cornwell’s reason for writing the book in the first place, and that everything else is there to make what would otherwise be a novella into a novel. If so, I forgive him: the Battle of Fuentes de Oñoro is among the most vivid and gripping narratives of nineteenth-century combat I’ve ever read. Napoleonic-era combat was a complicated business, but Cornwell makes the flow of events crystal clear without ever losing track of the smaller story (of Sharpe and his enemy du jour, Brigadier Guy de Loup) within the larger one.The other two-thirds of the book has its share of action—a duel, a night reconnaissance of a walled town, and a second (fictitious) full-scale battle—but it is driven by plotlines involving French espionage and Anglo-Spanish politics. Threaded through all of these preliminaries are the consequences of Sharpe’s order to (carried out in the first pages) to summarily execute two captured French soldiers. Cornwell, staying true to the book’s 1811 setting, makes Sharpe’s impulsive act—amply justified by, and, to modern readers, not only justified but righteous—a source of never-ending trouble for him with the French and his own army alike. The book has (perhaps inevitably, given its structure) a slightly baggy quality. The concluding battle resolves all the threads put into play in the first two-thirds of the book, but it does so less by bringing them to a head than by simply wiping the slate clean. Teachers of good novel-writing practices will, doubtless, be affronted. Fans of historical military fiction will have a good time nonetheless.

[wispywillow · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I couldn't really get into this one. And I'm still waiting for a decent female character in these books. Every one of Cornwell's women are either pathetic or whores or pathetic whores. *le sigh* At least the BBC did a great Teresa!Still, I'm looking forward to the next book.

[joycepa_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

No. 12 in the Richard Sharpe series.In May 1911, Sharpe and his company are still in Spain. Thanks to international politics, Sharpe is given the responsibility of training a mostly ceremonial battalion of the Spanish King’s Household Guards made up of Irishmen or descendants of Irishmen. But first Sharpe and his south Essex company encounter an unusual French brigade, led by Brigadier General Guy Loup, designed to fight the partisan’s with the utmost savagery. Encountering two of the French brigade’s soldiers in the act of raping a young Spanish woman, and after seeing the rape and mutilation of children and other inhabitants of a Spanish village, Sharpe decides to execute the two soldiers. This, of course, is against the rules of war, since they were prisoners. Worse, Sharpe ha in the most insulting way possible, denied Loup’s demand that he release the soldiers; instead, he executes them in front of Loup’s eyes, making him Sharpe’s mortal enemy.Sharpe and the Household Guards, along with the south Essex Light Company, encamp in the old and crumbling fort of San Isidro, where they are attacked, at night, by Loup’s brigade. After a desperate defense, Sharpe and the troops escape. Sharpe, however, and the indomitable Sergeant Harper, find themselves participating almost by accident in the Battle of Fuentes de Oñoro, a horrendous three-day slaughter marked by one of Wellington’s rare tactical mistakes.Again, this is one of my favorites in the Sharpe series. It has all the outstanding qualities of the series, as well as an interesting subplot. The Battle of Fuentes de Oñoro as the climax of the story is a real thriller. The reader knows perfectly well that Sharpe will get out of it alive; the only suspense is how, and that’s sufficient to keep you up late at night reading on.There is a brief Historical Note on the battle, and a good if somewhat unnecessary diagram of the area in which it took place.One of the best of the series. highly recommended.

[devenish_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

In which our hero encounters one of his most deadly enemies,Loup 'the wolf '. He also very nearly gets himself killed several times,but then that is nothing new is it ?The battle of Fuentes de Onoro although exciting,does go on for an extremely long time,in fact most of the book is devoted to it.Not I think one of Cornwell's best efforts.

[5hrdrive · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The bloodiest, nastiest battle Sharpe's encountered since Sharpe's Fortress, maybe ever. From the carnage of San Isidro Fort to the magnificent retreat from Poco Velha and the frantic final struggle in Fuentes de Orono, the action never lets up. And Sharpe faces perhaps his most dangerous adversary yet, the grotesque Brigadier Loup. This is one great story and I can't recommend it enough.

[dinadansfriend · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Another good Sharpe, the research here relating to the battle of Fuentes de Onoro (sic!), and the depth of politicking the Peninsula could bring out.

[quibee · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The usual fast-paced offering from Bernard Cornwall.
Sharpe makes a deadly enemy by offending a ruthless French officer and then finds himself facing British authorities and possible disgrace. All this is going on against the backdrop of Napoleon's attempt to regain control of Spain and Portugal in 1811. Great read.