Salamanca and Corunna battlefield tours

No doubt keenness to avoid the Olympics has been a reason why our Salamanca Anniversary and Retreat to Corunna battlefield tours have proved so popular. Or it could be that the inimitable Major Gordon Corrigan is our expert?

The Keep Military Museum, Dorchester

I took some holiday last week and found myself in Dorchester where I spent an enjoyable couple of hours in the Keep Military Museum.  Whilst the museum has been partly seduced by the modern methods of presentation, it is pleasing to see that traditional presentation has not been abandoned either.  Some of the exhibits which took my attention were a 25 pdr, a map plotting all the bombs, by device, dropped in Dorset during WW2, and a magnificent diorama of the battle of Plassey.  And do you know where the last British mounted charge took place?  Well if you have been on our War in the Desert tour to Egypt, the chances are that you drove right past the site en-route to Sidi Barrani.  On 26 February 1916, three squadrons of the Dorset Yeomanry and one of the Bucks Yeomanry charged a Turkish rearguard (armed with Maxim machine guns).  At a cost of only 32 killed and 26 wounded, they inflicted nearly a thousand casualties and captured the enemy general. Find out more about the battle of Agagia at http://www.keepmilitarymuseum.org/middleeast/outline.php? . Better still, why not visit this superb museum. I think that future tours to Egypt might incorporate an additional stop, once we have figured out exactly where the battle took place.

War and Peace

Just finished Dominic Leiven's superb 'Russia vs Napoleon'. It is a truly seminal work with much original research. And concurently I watched the 20 episodes of BBC's 1972 adaption of Tolstoy's 'War and Peace' with Anthony Hopkins. Its very dated and probably percevied as 'slow' by today's standards, but the Austerlitz, Borodino and Retreat episodes are particularly worthwhile - real snow and frozen breath - no Snowworks in those days.
Its all good prep for The Cultural Experience's bicentenneray battlefield tour to Russia in September 2012 - see http://www.theculturalexperience.com/battlefield_tours/napoleon_1812.php and www.theculturalexperience.com