Unavailable
Unavailable
Unavailable
Audiobook14 hours
Gibraltar: The Greatest Siege in British History
Written by Roy Adkins and Lesley Adkins
Narrated by John Telfer
Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
3.5/5
()
Currently unavailable
Currently unavailable
About this audiobook
For over three and a half years, from 1779 to 1783, the tiny territory of Gibraltar was besieged and blockaded, on land and at sea, by the overwhelming forces of Spain and France. It became the longest siege in British history, and the obsession with saving Gibraltar was blamed for the loss of the American colonies in the War of Independence.
Located between the Mediterranean and Atlantic, on the very edge of Europe, Gibraltar was a place of varied nationalities, languages, religions and social classes. During the siege, thousands of soldiers, civilians and their families withstood terrifying bombardments, starvation and diseases. Very ordinary people lived through extraordinary events, from shipwrecks and naval battles to an attempted invasion of England and a daring sortie out of Gibraltar into Spain. Deadly innovations included red-hot shot, shrapnel shells and a barrage from immense floating batteries.
This is military and social history at its best, a story of soldiers, sailors and civilians, with royalty and rank-and-file, workmen and engineers, priests, prisoners-of-war, spies and surgeons, all caught up in a struggle for a fortress located on little more than two square miles of awe-inspiring rock. Gibraltar: The Greatest Siege in British History is an epic page-turner, rich in dramatic human detail - a tale of courage, endurance, intrigue, desperation, greed and humanity. The everyday experiences of all those involved are brought vividly to life with eyewitness accounts and expert research.
Located between the Mediterranean and Atlantic, on the very edge of Europe, Gibraltar was a place of varied nationalities, languages, religions and social classes. During the siege, thousands of soldiers, civilians and their families withstood terrifying bombardments, starvation and diseases. Very ordinary people lived through extraordinary events, from shipwrecks and naval battles to an attempted invasion of England and a daring sortie out of Gibraltar into Spain. Deadly innovations included red-hot shot, shrapnel shells and a barrage from immense floating batteries.
This is military and social history at its best, a story of soldiers, sailors and civilians, with royalty and rank-and-file, workmen and engineers, priests, prisoners-of-war, spies and surgeons, all caught up in a struggle for a fortress located on little more than two square miles of awe-inspiring rock. Gibraltar: The Greatest Siege in British History is an epic page-turner, rich in dramatic human detail - a tale of courage, endurance, intrigue, desperation, greed and humanity. The everyday experiences of all those involved are brought vividly to life with eyewitness accounts and expert research.
Unavailable
More audiobooks from Roy Adkins
Nelson's Trafalgar: The Battle That Changed the World Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The War for All the Oceans: From Nelson at the Nile to Napoleon at Waterloo Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5When There Were Birds: The Forgotten History of our Connections Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Related to Gibraltar
Related audiobooks
The British Are Coming: The War for America, Lexington to Princeton, 1775-1777 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Struggle for Sea Power: Naval History of the American Revolution Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Long Ships Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Scottish Clearances: A History of the Dispossessed, 1600-1900 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Times Great Scottish Lives: Obituaries of Scotland’s Finest Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5All Brave Sailors: The Sinking of the Anglo Saxon, 1940 Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5American Heritage History of the American Revolution Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Island that Disappeared: The Lost History of the Mayflower's Sister Ship and Its Rival Puritan Colony Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The English and Their History Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lusitania: Triumph, Tragedy, and the End of the Edwardian Age Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Leviathan: The History of Whaling in America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Heaven's Command Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A History of the World in Twelve Shipwrecks Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Victor!: The Final Battle of Ulysses S. Grant Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsStoryland: A New Mythology of Britain Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5War at Sea: A Shipwrecked History from Antiquity to the Twentieth Century Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Nazi Titanic: The Incredible Untold Story of a Doomed Ship in World War II Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Pemulwuy Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Idea of Europe and the Origins of the American Revolution Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5King Philip's War: The History and Legacy of America's Forgotten Conflict Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Edge of the Plain: How Borders Make and Break Our World Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMayflower Lives: Pilgrims in a New World and the Early American Experience Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Soldiers: Great Stories of War and Peace Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Contested Boundaries: A New Pacific Northwest History Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsShort Stories (Household Words 1850-53) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSweet Land of Liberty: Old Times in the Colonies Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Patriot Pirates: The Privateer War for Freedom and Fortune in the American Revolution Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Atlantic Wars: From the Fifteenth Century to the Age of Revolution Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsUnsettled: Lord Selkirk's Scottish Colonists and the Battle for Canada's West, 1813-1816 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Man Most Driven Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
European History For You
The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Our Hideous Progeny: A Novel Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The War on the West Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Mysterious Case of Rudolf Diesel: Genius, Power, and Deception on the Eve of World War I Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Iron, Fire and Ice: The Real History that Inspired Game of Thrones Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Finding Freedom: Harry and Meghan and the Making of a Modern Royal Family Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: with Pearl and Sir Orfeo Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sovietistan: Travels in Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Diana: Her True Story in Her Own Words Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Royal Witches: Witchcraft and the Nobility in Fifteenth-Century England Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Professor and The Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Wars of the Roses: The Fall of the Plantagenets and the Rise of the Tudors Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Over My Dead Body: Unearthing the Hidden History of American Cemeteries Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Teutonic Knights: A Military History Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Templars: The History and the Myth: From Solomon's Temple to the Freemasons Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Killing England: The Brutal Struggle for American Independence Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Anglo-Saxons: A History of the Beginnings of England: 400 – 1066 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Short Stories Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Immortal Irishman: The Irish Revolutionary Who Became an American Hero Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Women in White Coats: How the First Women Doctors Changed the World of Medicine Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Black Ghost of Empire: The Long Death of Slavery and the Failure of Emancipation Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Ripper: The Secret Life of Walter Sickert Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Reformation: A History Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Ghost Map Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Royal Art of Poison: Filthy Palaces, Fatal Cosmetics, Deadly Medicine, and Murder Most Foul Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Catherine de Medici: Renaissance Queen of France Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for Gibraltar
Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
3.5/5
6 ratings1 review
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Fascinating story of the longest siege in British history. From 1779-1783, while Britain was absorbed fighting pretty much everyone in the known world, the Rock was besieged by Spanish forces, who built impenetrable fortifications bristling with guns across the isthmus and attempted (unsuccessfully) to cut off all access by sea. The inhabitants of the Rock, officers and soldiers, their wives and families, Jewish merchants and local peasants suffered bombardment, starvation, scurvy, disease, attacks from the sea and the perceived indifference of London. Yet they remained unbroken, even seeing off an attack by massive floating batteries that the French and Spanish were convinced would end them. Very much a social history as much as a military history, the book relies on the words of the inhabitants themselves, as many wrote letters and kept diaries. Great piece of writing about a little-known piece of history.