This ebook is purpose built and is proof-read and re-type set from the original to provide an outstanding experience of reflowing text for an ebook reader. Sir John Fortescue, widely known for his multi-volume history of the British Army was invited to give the Ford lecture in 1911, he choose for his subject the British political figures who guided Britain through the Napoleonic Period. The French revolutionary wars and the Napoleonic wars spanned more than twenty years of conflict, broken only by sporadic periods of peace, it was rightly known until the advent of the First World War as the Great War in the United Kingdom. However the biographies for these figures who sent the controlled the war effort were thin on the ground; although they sent expeditions, regulated the finances of the nation and decided which general would command the troops they remained somewhat shadowy figures. Sir John set out to shed some light on the men set the wheels in motion to enable the victory of British forces in 1814 and 1815; their diplomacy, their war aims, relations with each other and with their commanders in the field. Men such as Fox, Canning, Grenville, Dundas, Windham, Lord Rosebery, Lord Liverpool, Pitt, Lord Castlereagh are all brought to life with an eye for clarity, distilling years of research into a pithy summary of the characters of the age the political background. Sir John is even with his praise and condemnation of the action of the ministers and figures that he shines his spotlight on, so although the focus is on the British politicians, the heads of other competing states are given their due.
