The Books I Read In February

 Fiction

'Six of Crows' by Leigh Bardugo

This is a good grimdark novel set in a fantasy world with mid-19th Century technology (though tanks appear later on, so maybe it is intended, in part as Edwardian) and forms of magic that allow some people to control the tides or machinery or the human body. In some countries they are hunted down and executed. The world consists of a number of countries which unfortunately seem to have been lifted with little modification from our world, for example, Kerch where the novel starts makes use of a lot of Dutch names and styles, nearby Shu is clearly Chinese, The Wandering Isle is very Irish and Ravka has Russian influences. Setting that weakness aside, the book is a very gritty heist story about six criminals hired to recover a Shu scientist who has developed a drug which greatly heightens the abilities of magic users. They travel to the Nordic country of Fjerda to overcome all the security around the Ice Court to get their target out. There are naturally tensions between the six, especially Nina who can work body magic and Matthias previously her captor and a man she betrayed but may love.

There is a real grittiness to the street gang culture and you have a feel very much of  'Gangs of New York' (2002) and unsurprisingly some of 'Oliver Twist' (1837/38) to it. However, the characters and the world building are well developed and the story had real pace and tension to it. We move to see through the perspective of different characters throughout the book, but generally this is handled competently allowing us to see not only into their back stories but also different facets of the heist itself. I enjoyed the book and certainly would pick up more novels by Bardugo in this trilogy or other sequences.

'Blackout in Gretley' by J.B. Priestley

J.B. Priestley was a mid-20th Century author, playwright and broadcaster, perhaps best known now for the play 'An Inspector Calls' (1945). He wrote across genres including thrillers. This book published in 1942 is a kind of thriller, indeed it was one of those revived in the Classic Thrillers series republished by Everyman in the 1980s. However, while it does feature. Humphrey Netley, a Canadian widower and engineer employed by MI5 to carry out counter-espionage work in Gretley, a fictional industrial town in the northern Midlands, it is as much a study of the British Middle Class (and some Working Class but far fewer than I had expected given the picture of a factory on the front) and different characters within it. There seem to be a range of male and female characters especially around the nightclub 'The Queen of Clubs'. After Netley's contact at one of the town's two engineering factories is killed, Netley has to both identify the German agents and find who among the sometimes rather bizarre set of characters is the other main contact.

Priestley does not really manage to build up a sense of tension. I imagine readers of the time would have felt it more. His portrayal of an ordinary town, especially during the nightly blackout is atmospheric, but overall the novel is rather workerlike and and at times more a study of manners and behaviour than anything more tense. Some of the characters like the supposed nightclub owner, Mrs. Jesimond and a former art dealer, Mr. Perigo, are almost camp in their portrayal. I suppose in some ways Priestley was trying to show that impressions, especially of larger-than-life people can be misleading. Netley is a plodder and does work out who the culprits are but only after another killing. It terms of atmosphere and insight into the time and a type of place, the book works well, but it is more a curiosity than an engaging thriller.

'Stasi Wolf' by David Young

This is the sequel to 'Stasi Child' (2015) which I read last month: https://rooksmoor.blogspot.com/2025/01/the-books-i-read-in-january.html It picks up the story of Oberleutnant Karin Müller of the East German Vopo as a case takes her to Halle-Neustadt, a large new town built close to the city of Halle to provide workers for chemical factories. The disappearance of twins and then the discovery of a body of one of them, draws her and a couple of her staff from East Berlin, into a number of cases of murdered babies with no clarity of how they might or might not be connected. In addition to the continuation of Müller's story this case like that of 'Stasi Child' is hampered by the interference of the secret police, the Stasi. In addition as in that novel, we have flashbacks and perspectives from a woman who is involved in the crimes. This does not give the answers, but does indicate motives on the part of the perpetrators. 

In parallel, Müller now divorced, not only is quickly drawn into a rebound relationship but quickly gets pregnant largely because she believed an illegal abortion in her youth had prevented her conceiving. This combined with her finding out why her supposed mother showed no affection for her and another highly coincidental meeting with someone she knew as a child, is rather levering in a bit too much. It was not all necessary. There is a sense that Young did not believe he would be published again with this series so had to tie off every loose end by the end of this book. These incidents mean that the case is stretched out over many months, including the whole term of her pregnancy and more. Thus, while there are interesting investigations and deductions and are tense scenes with a dramatic conclusion like the first book, overall much tension is reduced by all that Young felt compelled to include.

'Darien' by C.F. Igguden

This is another fantasy novel which combines sort of early 19th Century technology with magic. There are revolvers firing brass-cartridge bullets but still a lot of swords in use.  There is a real 'Oliver Twist' (one main character is called Nancy and she is a thieving prostitute) with Tellius an elderly man from a kind of Russian like country, like Fagin running a band of street thieves but also training in the so-called Mazer moves which are a kind of fencing kata. There is also a Dutch references with characters being addressed as 'meneer'. For much of the book you believe the story is set on a fantasy world but towards the end there are clear references to Christianity which indicate it is actually Earth in the distant future.

There is magic in various devices including armoured battle suits, a golem in the shape of a 10-year old boy, 'Arthur Quick' (reminds me of the movie 'A.I. Artificial Intelligence' (2001)), dangerous wards around a tomb in the desert and the ability of one to cast fireballs. In addition to Tellius we see the story through the eyes of Elias a hunter with an ability to see a short way into the future which he uses to try to get medicine for his family but is forced to be an assassin for a general seeking to pull of a coup d'etat.

The world building is pretty good in what is clearly becoming a favoured fantasy approach rather than all knights, wizards and castles as it would have once been. The fact that the protagonists do not really know the skills they have and one is killed off in the middle of the book, with the others crossing paths in the chaos which ensues in the city of Darien, does make it engaging and the twists unexpected. The context of the Twelve Families who effectively rule the city is well set up for the next two books which follow. Elias, Nancy and Arthur are generally sympathetic well-intentioned, if misled characters which tempers the severity of the book and means it is a bit less grimdark. I have the other two books in the trilogy.

'The Levanter' by Eric Ambler

In contrast to 'Cause for Alarm' (1938): https://rooksmoor.blogspot.com/2022/12/the-books-i-read-in-december.html and 'The Mask of Dimitrios' (1939): https://rooksmoor.blogspot.com/2017/05/the-books-i-read-in-may.html this novel came much later, in 1972. Ambler does show by that fact that he moved with the times and was able to set thrillers which fitted the contemporary context. This gives a feel of authenticity to them. 'The Levanter' coming out just before the Yom Kippur War of 1973 is set in Syria and the Eastern Mediterranean of the time. It centres around Michael Howell, a partly British man who runs a family business now into its third generation, involved in manufacture in Syria and shipping across the Eastern Mediterranean. He is unfortunate to be forced to work for a Palestinian terrorist Salah Ghaled who heads a fictional breakaway group planning a large-scale outrage against Tel Aviv.

Ambler is know and admired for his attention to detail but in this novel almost goes too far. While the PAF that Ghaled leads is fictional, the reader is told a great deal about genuine Palestinian groups and their leaders from 1948 up to the 1970s. In addition as Howell is drawn in there is a lot of technical discussions around everything from metallurgy and ceramics, through triggers for bombs, to diesel engines and coastal navigation. I accept he had to inform the readers but at times in contrast to those other earlier novels, in this case this detail means the actual drama is lost sight of. There are a couple of other challenges. Not everything is shown from the perspective of Howell, at times we see from the viewpoint of a journalist. Lewis Prescott, writing at a time after the main story and in one chapter from the angle of Teresa Malandra, Howell's Italian assistant. This all rather takes some of the tension off.

 Perhaps the strength of this novel is Howell squirming in the face of a range of nasty or at least obstreperous characters, in addition to Ghaled, there is a Syrian secret police colonel, a Syrian government minister, an uncooperative Mossad agent and various stroppy staff in theory employed by Howell, but very much men (it is a very male dominated novel) of their own mind. This combined with the technical detail does make it very heavy going. While like Ambler's other books it provides a fictionalised feel for the time and actual people and events, in this one things go rather too far and at times despite being fiction it is more like a non-fiction book or magazine article from the time.

Non-Fiction

'The Robert Hall Diaries, 1947-1953' ed. by [Sir] Alec Cairncross

These are the edited first volume of the diaries of Robert Hall who was head of the Economic Section in this time period and then was Economic Adviser to the government until 1961. It looks at very difficult times for Britain following the Second World War, dealing with a lack of dollars, forced convertibility, the compelled collaboration with European partners, deciding what to do with the Sterling Area in this context and then the impact of the Korean War. There is a lot of repetition as there are repeated meetings with officials and ministers to tackle the various economic problems. Perhaps most fascinating is Hall's views on those people around him. He was a big fan of Sir Stafford Cripps (Chancellor of the Exchequer, 1947-50) and tended to see his successors as much lesser men. He does not hold back on his criticisms of Wilson, Gaitskell and Butler. He also gripes about much staff who are not well known, rating their capabilities and vanities. His relationship with Edwin Plowden, Chief Planning Officer, 1947-53 (who I met in the 1990s) was very productive despite Plowden's growing lack of confidence.

The heading off of 'Robot' the plan to make the pound convertible again in the 1950s following the grim previous attempt in 1947 and the backsliding from the Americans who promised aid to help Britain be involved with the Korean War provide interesting insight. Most striking however is somewhere beyond halfway through when Hall suddenly realises what power he actually wields and he revels in the fact that his words with ministers have really shaped British economic policy and saved it from the harm that Robot and some other reckless policies some ministers favoured, had been implemented. Though from a different era it does provide an interesting context in which to consider the power of civil servants in a democracy.

The Books I Read In December

 Fiction

'Cause for Alarm' by Eric Ambler

I only came to Ambler as a result of being given a couple of his books. This one was a green Penguin edition from when the book originally came out in 1938. Though writing adventure stories, Ambler was very good at making them realistic. This novel features unemployed British engineer Norman Marlow who desperate for work takes a job representing a British company which manufactures artillery shell casings in Italy. He is soon wrapped up in various conspiracies, typical of Ambler novels, pressed into providing information to a Yugoslav general who may be a German agent; an operative of the OVRA, the Italian secret police and an American who may be a Soviet agent, at a time when though there were concerns about Communists infiltrating the West, things such as the Cambridge Spies had not come to light. 

While it is fiction, it is well rooted in the realities of the time and interestingly plays on the tensions between Germany and Italy, who though allies retained a suspicion of each other. The second half of the book is an escape with Marlow aided by Andreas Zaleshoff as they make their way quite violently to Yugoslavia with the Italian authorities after them, in a way which is reminiscent of Buchan novels. Ambler does represent that bridge between Buchan and Deighton and gives an interesting and entertaining insight into what was going on in that period of the 20th Century. Some readers might find the 1930s manners unengaging but it is nice compared to some 'middle aged hero' books of today to find that the protagonist is flawed, uncertain and not superhuman.

'Trace' by Patricia Cornwell

This is the 13th of the 26 Dr. Kay Scarpetta novels that have been published since 1990. By this novel Scarpetta is the former Chief Medical Examiner for Virginia, now working as a private forensic specialist. In this novel she is called back to Richmond, Virginia to help into the investigation of the killing of a girl that initially looked like death from flu. Scarpetta's history in Richmond, including people she worked with and the building she worked in, all become mixed up in the story which turns out to be about a serial killer whose eyes we see through from early in the novel. Matters are confused by two parallel stories, about Scarpetta's niece Lucy Farinelli, a former FBI agent who runs a detective agency and training school in Florida and is investigating an assault against a trainee who was staying with her that she fancies. Lucy packs this woman off to stay with Wesley Benton, Scarpetta's current partner for psychological support. 

Jumping between the three strands, sometimes in chapters just two pages long does not add the pace that was presumably intended, but adds to a real sense of fragmentation. The connection between the three strands seems rather tenuous. It is difficult to invest in Lucy and Wesley but I guess that is because I was given this book alone without having seen those characters' histories develop across a series of books. This book is very much a procedural book and I guess it draws fans who are interested in all those details of process. I realised reading these books that I only engage with those when they supplement a mystery. I have spoken before about how I am not keen in seeing through the eyes of the killer which seems so popular these days. However, stripped of mystery, this seems to emphasise the plodding nature of the story working towards what feels like an inevitable conclusion.

I can understand why the Scarpetta books have proven to be popular, but this single one that I was given, has shown me that this is not the sort of writing that engages me in the slightest.

'Just One Damned Thing After Another' by Jodi Taylor

This is the first in what is now a 14 book series, with some extra sub-books listed, though I do not know what format they come in. It is set in St. Mary's Institute of Historical Research. Knowing both St. Mary's University and the Institute of Historical Research, maybe that was what drew me to the series. The novel is set in some undisclosed near future. The Institute is an offshoot of the fictional University of Thirsk on the edge of the North Yorkshire Moors. Holographic presentations are relatively easy to use, but cheques still seem to be around. The institute carries out its research using time machines though no details of how these function is given.

The novel is rather erratic. Taylor seems to have felt compelled to draw on a range of tropes. With a specialist unit working in relatively secrecy in a rural English setting I was reminded of the true stories of Bletchley Park, and of 'Enigma' (1995) by Robert Harris and 'The Small Back Room' (1943) by Nigel Balchin. Some reviewers have noted the almost old fashioned British behaviour, including lots of tea drinking. However, despite some modern swearing a lot of the relationships could be from a wartime novel. 

Perhaps unsurprisingly there is a real feel of a UK version of 'Timeless' (2016-18) though as that was shown three years after this novel was published, perhaps it informed that, rather than the other way around. The sub-plot of a devious antagonist who stole a time travelling pod, certainly seemed to ring bells. Similarly with the different units such as technicians, security, catering, etc. it also reminded me of 'Battlestar Galactica' (2004-09) especially with a love interest called 'Chief' for much of the time, I could not help envisage him as portrayed by Aaron Douglas who has a very similar role in that TV series.

The internal politics of the place seemed characteristic of the numerous 'school' novels that are common in Young Adult literature. In fact by effectively stripping Dr. Madeleine 'Max' Maxwell of her doctorate and rendering her 'Miss. Maxwell' and people using lots of surnames does give that 'boarding school' feel and makes Madeleine feel much younger than she is. Maybe this is because it is written in the first person so foregrounds her personal feelings a great deal, which do seem rather youthful. The novel covers five years and she must be in her late 20s or early 30s by the end and yet she feels more like Enola Holmes.

The story is adventurous with all the induction and training that is necessary in the first novel of someone coming to an institution. It gets through characters at an alarming rate. Many of those we are introduced to are either kicked out, leave or are killed. The title fits very well with the course of the book, but to a degree as one of the nastier characters argues, it almost becomes ridiculous. I know Taylor probably wanted there to be a genuine sense of jeopardy and thus to eliminate characters who we had invested in, but she does it a bit too much, reducing our investment in other characters. Keeping track of all the names, especially with the switches between title, surname and first name, does not help.

The book does, fortunately, take a feminist outlook. The handling of everyday misogyny is handled reasonably well; overcoming a miscarriage gets rather lost in the flashes and bangs. One twist revealing harassing behaviour is well done. There is a challenge because Taylor has a set-up which looks like 1943 but set in perhaps 2043. The 'cast' is not diverse, it is very much like an English boarding school. Maxwell, as she is usually called, does press back against some of the unacceptable attitudes, but in some ways because she is rather juvenilised, there is still a default to her 'elders'.

As you can probably tell I was ambivalent about this book. I felt it was almost weighed down by all that had gone before. At times Taylor shakes off that: both the fictional and the real life British (historical) culture. Her protagonist is in a difficult position as a mature, knowledgeable woman, yet who has to deal with incessant danger and it seems that the only acceptable mode for that is to face it as a kind of sparky teenager. There is enough in here to interest me and there were good twists I had not foreseen. I am interested to see how the story goes once the 'induction' period is done with and the characters settle down, assuming Taylor does not continue to burn through them at a rate. I do admire her willingness amongst all the tropeage to turn in different directions. While I feel Dr. Maxwell is reducing herself to fit in, she is an interesting character to follow.

Non-Fiction

'The Age of Capital. 1848-1875' by Eric Hobsbawm

As Hobsbawm identifies himself, in contrast to the previous volume in this series 'The Age of Revolution: Europe 1789–1848' (1962): http://rooksmoor.blogspot.com/2022/09/books-i-read-in-september.html  there is not the energy given to this survey that the concept of the Dual Revolution gave that book. The main theme is the success of liberalism in terms of pushing the capitalist economy not simply on in Europe but increasingly in other parts of the world. Like a 1st Year undergraduate, at times Hobsbawm gets rather dazzled by all the figures of coal and steel production or the length of railways laid. 

What leavens this is that he does try at times to see both sides of these developments. While not unique in 1975 when this book was published, especially with the rise of so-called 'subaltern history' (Hobsbawm uses the term 'subaltern' quite a bit), it was relatively rare of people especially in general histories to look at the downsides of the onward march of capitalism and industrialisation. However, Hobsbawm includes a chapter on the Losers of the process, including people outside Europe exploited by the advance of industry as well as those Europeans whose livelihoods were disrupted or destroyed and had to comply with the increasing authoritarianism in the workplace. He is particularly interesting in terms of patterns of migration both within and to outside Europe.

The prime flaw is one that we saw in The Age of Revolution'. As a Marxist, Hobsbawm seems compelled to sniff out even the tiniest sign of revolutionary potential. He is rather patronising towards those rebellions such as in Hungary or bringing about the unification of Italy, which lack that social revolutionary aspect. Given that this is a time when Karl Marx (1818-83) was particularly active, he feels obliged too, to reference any input that Marx had and to judge other thinkers as lesser than his hero. While Marx was important, this distortion in viewing the other inputs, which as the meagre evidence of revolution in this period he brings forward shows, had a far greater impact on the thinking and behaviour of people in this period, weakens his case.

Without the great dramatic events of the previous book, the thematic approach, making sure to investigate culture and science as well as industry and politics, works even better in this volume. Hobsbawm is good at countering the default assumption of too many that somehow all the 19th Century was pretty much the same and brings out effectively the differences between life at the start of this period and life 27 years later. In itself that does bring home that while one may not be able to speak of a revolution per se in this period, millions of people in many parts of the world saw radical change in their lives within a single generation. While Hobsbawm touches on this on occasion, I feel that actually the message you take away from this book, has that, rather than any seedlings of revolution, as its prime point and indeed a strength of what at times can be rather erratic analysis.

The Books I Read In May

Fiction
'The Mask of Dimitrios' by Eric Ambler
Ambler, publishing first before the Second World War, is seen as the precursor of post-war spy thriller novelists notably Len Deighton and John Le Carré. Having read a lot of Le Carré this year, I feel he needs to go back to his Ambler to get an idea of pacing and excitement. This book features a novelist, Charles Latimer, in late 1930s Turkey who becomes friends with Colonel Haki, head of Turkish secret police and is shown a body apparently of Dimitrios Makropoulous, a renowned criminal. He travels Eastern and Central Europe unearthing the career of the man before ending up in Paris to find out the final truth.

The book moves briskly. It shows an ordinary man being sucked into extraordinary situations, but ones which appear highly feasible. There are nasty, but believable people. It is a thriller, but one you can believe in. Though published in 1939, now that the Cold War is over and drug and people traffickers are back working the same kind of routes, it has a more contemporary appeal that, say back in the 1970s.

Much of the story is related by other characters, but it is Ambler's skill that this is engaging. Unusually for a British novel, almost every character is not Anglo-Saxon and the protagonist actually speaks fluent Greek and reasonable French; he has to enlist help with other languages, which he does in a credible way. The novel also highlights many historical developments in Eastern Europe of the 1920s which these days are often overlooked; the violence of the Greece-Turkey War 1919-22 is an notable example, but also unrest in Bulgaria and Yugoslavia feature.

In many ways the book is grim, but it is a good read and is a useful lesson for anyone wanting to write thrillers today about how to keep them taut and the reader engaged in a story which is intriguing but rooted in reality in a way some contemporary authors fail to achieve. Probably the best book I have read this year.

'The Mammoth Book of Historical Whodunnits' ed. by Mike Ashley
There is now a whole plethora of these 'Mammoth Books' but this one dates from 1993 and, like those others I have read has a very wide assortment of stories under the umbrella of a genre, one which was blossoming at the time but has expanded immensely since.  This book, stimulated by the writing of Ellis Peters who provides the foreword and one story, is a collection of 23 detective stories set historically to when the author was alive and runs from 2000 BCE up to 1910 in chronological order.  One of the authors, Herodotus, is a well-known historical figure in his own right but even he wrote a detective story set in Ancient Egypt, a thousand years before he lived.  I must say that there are far too many locked room (or even sealed tomb) mysteries that by the end you tire of this conceit.

As with collections of 'rivals' to Sherlock Holmes I have read, one thing is such collections tend to show you why the novelists you know best in the genre, in this case both the story by Peters featuring Brother Cadfael and one by Robert Van Gulik featuring Judge Dee, both of whose work I have read before, though not these stories, stand out from the others in terms of the crispness of the story and the language.  Though there are some half-decent Roman detectives and the stories John Maddox Roberts and Wallace Nichols show how Rome changed in going from Republican to Imperial rule, few stories were sufficiently engaging for me to want to find other work by these authors, saying that having a slave as detective as Nichols does, creates a fascinating dynamic.

There were some that I found interesting for the setting.  One was a Sister Fidelma story by Peter Tremayne set in 7th Century CE Ireland and it is fascinating in terms of the potential for a nun to play a part in the legal process of that time and what a High King needed to attain the throne.  Paul Harding's story has some of this in featuring a 14th Century coroner in London.  Another is 'Captain Nash and the Wroth Inheritance' a full length novel by Raymond Butler, set in 1771 in London and the English countryside though a little burdened by the sexual mores of the mid-1970s when it was published.  It is adventurous and intriguing and well conjures up the contrast between the squalor and decadence of the era.

Overall this is an interesting collection and may expose readers to some forgotten historical detective authors, especially from the mid-20th century who may now be pretty much neglected.  You feel a number of the characters have not been taken far enough and it would be nice to see them revived today in full-length novels, just as long as none of them feature a locked room murder or robbery!

Non-Fiction
'The Decisive Battles of the Western World 480BC - 1757' by J.F.C. Fuller; edited by John Terraine
This book was published in three volumes entitled 'The Decisive Battles of the Western World and Their Influence Upon History' from 1954-56.  In 1970 John Terraine was asked to edit them down to a two-volume set.  This book was from the 1981 edition of that set.  Abridging is always a challenge, but I think it was handled particularly poorly in this case.  As well as the particular battles, Fuller wrote connecting text taking the reader through the centuries between each set of conflicts, explaining developments in Europe and noting innovations in warfare.  What Terraine has done is cut this down to much briefer sections, clearly written in his own voice and at times referring to Fuller in the third person and even quoting him in what is supposed to be Fuller's book.  Thus, we end up with three types of chapters.  The chapters about the actual battles are the best, followed by the linking chapters by Fuller which precede them.  The worst are the forward linking chapters by Terraine which are a mess and cause confusion, plus a horrible jarring in voice.

Being a book of the 1950s, it assumes all readers can speak French and Latin as well as English and Terraine did nothing to alter this even in the 1980s.  So you may need to translate certain passages.  Especially in the early chapters about the Classical World, there is a tendency to rely on florid quotations from Victorian historians and some of these are overblown.  There are a reasonable number of line-drawn maps, my favourite and they do act to clarity.  Sometimes Fuller goes off on grandiloquent commentary, somehow seeing the conquest of Granada as unleashing global exploration but when focused on specific battles, he is very perceptive and many of his portrayals of the battles are more incisive than those by modern readers.  His commentary on the Battle of Hastings 1066 and the Siege of Constantinople in 1453 are excellent. He is also very good at showing how Gustavus Adolphus, Marlborough and Frederick the Great were revolutionary in how they carried out war.  Prejudices do creep in at times: he is incredibly hostile to Calvinists and Lutherans, seeing them as nastily political rather than religious movements.

I turned to this book as I was interested in potential counter-factual analysis and stories.  Though Fuller does not go into this in depth, he does show why he thinks the battles were decisive. Despite the title, he actually starts in 1479BCE. In some places it is surprising which battles he does not include, such as the Battle of Poltava 1709, but he does note these.  His writing on complex conflicts like the Thirty Years' War and Seven Years' War are sound, but can be breathless at times meaning you need to read back over to find out which general went where.  Though a densely written book (with small print in my edition - hence taking me 19 days to read), it sweeps along briskly and is thought provoking.  I have the second volume, which runs 1792-1944, to read later in the year.

You may be interested to know which battles Fuller feels were decisive in this context:

Battle of Megiddo - 1479BCE; Battle of Marathon - 491BCE; Defence of Thermopylae - 480BCE; Battle of Salamis - 480BCE; Battle of Plataea - 479BCE; Battle of Arbela - 331BCE; Battle of the Metaurus - 207BCE; Battle of Zama - 202 BCE; The Teutoburger Wald Campaign 9CE; Hunnish invasion of France 451; Muslim invasion of France 735; Battle of Hastings - 1066; Battle of Crecy 1346; Siege of Orleans 1428-9; Siege of Constantinople 1453; Conquest of Granada 1491-2; The Armada Campaign 1588; Battle of Breitenfeld 1631; Battle of Lützen 1632; Battle of Blenheim 1704; Battle of Rossbach 1757 and Battle of Leuthen 1757.