19th Century History

The First Carlist War broke out after the death of King Ferdinand VII, the king restored at the end of the Peninsular War thanks to Wellington's victory. The crown was claimed by both his daughter Isabella, backed by the Liberal party and his brother Don Carlos, at the head of northern ultra-conservatives centred in the Basque provinces and Navarre. The Liberals or 'Cristinos' were supported by a 10,000-strong British Legion of volunteers led by a former aide to Wellington as well as the British Royal Navy, a Portuguese division, and the French Foreign Legion. With both armies still using Napoleonic weapons and tactics, early victories were won by the Basque general Zumalacarregui. After his death in 1835 a see-saw series of campaigns followed, fought by conventional armies of horse, foot and guns, supported by many irregulars and guerrillas.

The War of the Triple Alliance is the largest single conflict in the history of South America. Drawing Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay and Paraguay into conflict the war was characterized by extraordinarily high casualty rates, and was to shape the future of an entire continent – depopulating Paraguay and establishing Brazil as the predominant military power. Despite the importance of the war, little information is available in English about the armies that fought it. This book analyzes the combatants of the four nations caught up in the war, telling the story of the men who fought on each side, illustrated with contemporary paintings, prints, and early photographs.

At the time of the Second Empire, under Napoleon III, the French army, elevated from tactful obscurity, was re-modelled on Napoleonic lines. This army first fought in the Crimea, and then against Austria. Later, In Mexico, they had a disastrous adventure while in Europe Prussia was fast emerging as a challenge to France's military pre-eminence. Together with Austria, Bismarck first crushed Denmark before turning on Austria herself. The victory at Sadowa in 1866 stunned Europe, and in Paris Napoleon and his advisers set to thinking of a way to counter this new threat. In this first of two volumes looking at the French Army of the Franco-Prussian War, Stephen Shann and Louis Delperier examine the history, organisation and weapons of the French Imperial troops.

The capitulation of Napoleon and his army at Sedan in September 1870 shook Paris to its foundations. The Second Empire was swept from power, and a Government of National Defence hastily put in its place. To replace the weakened professional army the French called for a 'war of the people'. A companion volume to Men-at-Arms 233: The French Army 1870-71 Franco-Prussian War (1) Imperial Troops, this book covers the forces that participated in the second half of the campaign, including the regular army, l' Armeé d' Afrique, la Garde Mobile, la Garde Nationale and the naval forces. The text is accompanied by contemporary photographs and detailed colour plates.

This book looks closely at the life, military experiences and key battlefield exploits of Giuseppe Garibaldi. Born on 4 July 1807 in the city of Nice, the turning point in his life occurred in April 1833 when he met Giovanni Battista Cuneo, a member of the secret movement known as 'Young Italy'. Joining this society, Garibaldi took an oath dedicating his life to the struggle for the liberation of his homeland from Austrian dominance. The subsequent years would see him fighting in Brazil, in the Uruguayan Civil War, and on the Italian peninsula. Between 1848 and 1870, Garibaldi and his men were involved in a prolonged struggle that eventually led to the final unification of Italy in 1870.

The crushing victory by Prussia and her German allies in the Franco-Prussian War, 1870–71, destroyed one empire and created another. It finally unified the German states into an empire under Prussian leadership – an empire proclaimed in the very halls of captured Versailles. In 1870 Prussia's reformed mobilization system put enormous armies into the field with unprecedented efficiency. The confidence which the victory encouraged among German militarists, and the intolerable humiliation it inflicted upon France, ensured that an even more destructive war was soon inevitable. This, the first of two titles, lists and illustrates the units of Prussia and her North German Confederation, the powerhouse of a formidable military machine.

Although the war of 1870–71 has gone down in history as the 'Franco-Prussian War', nearly half of the German troops sent to the frontier were from other German states – both the willing members of the North German Confederation and the southern states who were in some cases more hesitant about accepting Prussian domination. Some contingents had only one or two regiments – though these might be of high quality, like the 'Black Brunswickers'; others provided whole army corps, like Bavaria and Saxony. This book lists and illustrates the organization and varied uniforms of all these allied contingents, most of which fought well when it came to the test of battle.

This book describes and illustrates the armies of the embattled Ottoman Turkish Empire involved in 19th-century wars during the Empire's long spiral of decline.

During the so called 'long 19th century', between the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815 and the outbreak of World War I in 1914, the difficulties faced by the Ottoman Turkish Empire were a recurrent factor in international geopolitics. Against a background of Russian–Ottoman rivalry, France and Britain supported the Empire during the Crimean War (1854–56), but not in the Russo–Turkish War (1877–78).

Portraying the uniforms, arms and appearance of Ottoman troops during this period, this book traces the history of the Ottoman Empire throughout this period, when no fewer than ten wars of regional insurgency and foreign expansion against the Empire were fought in territories in south-eastern Europe, the Middle East and North Africa.

Using rare photos and illustrations from Turkish, Balkan and other sources, author, Gabriele Esposito details the history of the multi-ethnic Ottoman armies periodic attempts to modernize which enabled them to win some victories at a tactical level. But the Empire – 'the sick man of Europe' – lacked a coherent strategy or sufficient resources, and failed attempts to crush regional uprisings and to defend borders, saw the steady loss of territories. Due to misgovernment and economic failure, unrest finally boiled over in 1908–09, reducing the sultan's court to a largely ceremonial role, and installing a military government by the 'Young Turks' led by the general Enver Pasha.

This book is a vivid description of the organization, operations, uniforms and equipment of one of the most active and varied armies of the 'long 19th century' and paints a detailed picture of the Ottoman Empire's struggle to maintain control of its territories.

Fully illustrated with specially commissioned artwork and mapping plus carefully chosen archive illustrations, many in color, this lively study investigates the Mexican soldiers and Texian volunteers who fought one another in three key battles during the Texas Revolution.

In the mid-19th century, Austria comprised a heterogeneous, multi-ethnic empire consisting of the Austrian or 'German' area; the Hungarian area; the Military Border; and the Kingdom of Lombardy-Venetia. The diverse nature of the empire made it difficult to create a unified and up-to-date military system, especially with remnants of feudalism still strong in some provinces. This book examines the Line infantry, Grenz infantry (Border troops) and Jägers (riflemen) that formed the Austrian infantry. Numerous illustrations and photographs of uniforms, rank insignia and regiments complement the text, as well as eight full colour plates.

The huge, multi-national Austro-Hungarian army was a major factor in mid-19th century European politics. Sharing borders with ramshackle Ottoman Turkey and volatile Italy, the Empire was threatened both internally – by growing nationalist esentments – and externally by the ambitions of France and Prussia. The Imperial and Royal Army was representative of the Empire, its composition and gorgeously complex uniforms echoing the historical traditions of both German-speaking Middle Europe and the East-facing Hungarian borderlands. This detailed analysis of its cavalry arm – Kurassiers, Dragoons, Chevauxlegers, Hussars and Uhlans – follows the author/artist's similar treatment of the Austro-Hungarian infantry in Men-at-Arms 323, and includes detailed tables of regimental distinctions.

The Pacific War was the greatest and bloodiest war ever fought in the Andean region, and is one of the most important conflicts in South American history. It is also known as the 'Saltpeter War' or the 'Guano War' because the possession of these two highly profitable nitrates was the main cause of the conflict.
By the 1870s Chilean military superiority and expansionist policies exploded into full scale conflict. This book examines the troops, uniforms and equipment used by the Chilean, Peruvian and Bolivian forces and traces the events of the war from the early naval blockades, through major pitched battles, to the final guerilla campaign in occupied Peru. The war ended in total victory for Chile, and that country's military emergence thereafter as 'the Prussia of South America', while it cost Peru some lucrative provinces, and Bolivia its outlet to the Pacific coast.

Between 1845 and 1872, various groups of Maori were involved in a series of wars of resistance against British settlers. The Maori had a fierce and long-established warrior tradition and subduing them took a lengthy British Army commitment, only surpassed in the Victorian period by that on the North-West Frontier of India. Warfare had been endemic in pre-colonial New Zealand and Maori groups maintained fortified villages or pas. The small early British coastal settlements were tolerated, and in the 1820s a chief named Hongi Hika travelled to Britain with a missionary and returned laden with gifts. He promptly exchanged these for muskets, and began an aggressive 15-year expansion. By the 1860s many Maori had acquired firearms and had perfected their bush-warfare tactics. In the last phase of the wars a religious movement, Pai Maarire ('Hau Hau'), inspired remarkable guerrilla leaders such as Te Kooti Arikirangi to renewed resistance. This final phase saw a reduction in British Army forces. European victory was not total, but led to a negotiated peace that preserved some of the Maori people's territories and freedoms.

The Taiping movement began as the Pai Shang-ti Hui (the Society of God-Worshippers), founded in Kwangsi province in 1846 by Hung Hsiu-ch'uan. A sickly individual of questionable sanity. Hung had become subject to visions which interpreted as demonstrating that he was Jesus Christ's 'Divine Younger Brother', with God's mandate to govern China. This fascinating work by Ian Heath examines the organisation, dress and weapons of forces on both sides of the Taiping Rebellion – a conflict which saw the involvement of around 10 million troops during 15 years of conflict; as many as 600 cities change hands time and time again; and 20-30 million deaths.

This book details the uniforms and weapons of the American, Spanish, Cuban and Filipino forces involved in the United States Army's first overseas war. In 1898 the USA took the decision to intervene in the Cuban war of independence against Spain, and to expel the last vestige of European colonial rule from the Americas. This also led to the US acquiring rule over the Philippine Islands; and there, US troops were sent into the jungle to fight a “colonial” war of their own, against Filipino insurgents unwilling to exchange one master for another. The text is illustrated with rare early photographs and color plates.

Describes how newly modernized Japan waged war against China in its first overseas campaign, marking its rapid transition into Asia's leading military power only 30 years after emerging from centuries of feudalism.

A highly illustrated introduction to some of the greatest battles in world history, from the iconic encounters of the Ancient World such as Thermopylae and Cannae, through to the major clashes of the 20th century epitomized by Stalingrad and Khe Sanh.

This concise study by renowned military historian Angus Konstam examines one hundred of the most famous battles from world history. It includes great naval engagements such as Salamis, Trafalgar, Jutland and Midway; pivotal land battles that decided the fate of nations, such as Hastings, Yorktown, Gettysburg and the Somme; and the impact of the new dimension of aerial warfare in the 20th century at Pearl Harbor, in the Battle of Britain and in the skies over Hiroshima.

This highly illustrated book features 100 full-colour battlescene artworks from Osprey's comprehensive archive and is the ideal introduction to the battles that changed the course of history.