De Pavia July Rocroi Albi de la Cuesta
Balkan Publishers (1999)
The English Empire has always been one of the steps that have been more interest among readers interested in history. And from the beginning of the series of novels "The Adventures of Captain Alatriste 'by Arturo Perez-Reverte, the actions of the English armies during this time have gained new followers. This is one of the books can spend who was admitted for the first time in the history of 'The English infantry thirds of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. " It are treated from its origins to the Catholic Monarchs until the final dissolution of the English Habsburg dynasty in 1700, through its organization, armament, tactics, daily life, reputation, discipline, how to attack, besiege way in including their use as marine and amphibious troops.
Good history books even get to know people who might not be too interested in it, or those who prefer the story more as a backdrop for a novel. This is one that can be read with much delight as if it were a fictional story. Main characters may not have to claw (as long as great generals Spinola, Farnese or the House of Orange), and the female characters fall in palaces or ruling or trailing behind the troops or trying to escape them, but the tingling in real life and by conventions unsweetened novelero is constant in each page. The harshness of life at times was impressive (the things that came to eat in times of scarcity is not for sensitive stomachs, including the horse of a field marshal who came to leave him alone for a moment: to the chair ate the leather no longer animal). The tricks and stunts with the whole surrendering seats were accepted as part of the honor of a war, and the mere fact left to decide whether you play the drum or not to give up (with Case tempered or annealed) was the subject of much discussion.
The author, Julio Albi de la Cuesta (Burgos, 1948) is a English diplomat, who in the past four decades has represented Spain in Senegal, United States, Egypt, Italy, Honduras, Ecuador, Peru, and is currently ambassador in Syria. From the point of view of a historian or researcher career, but you can put the book appointments that are not identified and numbered (although there are a glossary, name index and extensive bibliography), and that chapters are not subsections or separations that facilitate reading. There are also no illustrations. And perhaps by origin the author is read. But once you had all this in mind, I must say that 350 pages are very well detailed and enjoyable to read. Taste is noted that the author has for its theme, and sometimes it is even contagious. To that help not only quotations from generals or princes, but also foot soldiers, some well-known as Captain Contreras and Jerome de Pasamonte. Sometimes even seems that we are reading a Alatriste:
"In their ranks were from Spain to Great Primero, from captains scarred young backpackers, composing a vast piece of Monipodio chaired by a fanatic sense of honor, which allowed them to suffer all unless they speak up. Always underpaid, always cursing under coletos crossed by a red cross thirds framed with gleaming pikes a period in the history of Spain to end up dying under their flags torn in a long agony that, contrary to legend, not ends but starts in Rocroi. It is strange that, nevertheless, have hardly received attention in their own country. It seems as if, contrary to El Cid, after death had lost all his battles. "
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