Sharpes Fortress

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Wrapping up Sharpe's prequel India trilogy, and it did a very good job being engaging throughout and wrapping up the plots from the previous two books. It's worth noting that the female characters in this series (so far) are unbelievably bland and interchangeable and only exist so Sharpe can save them. Adventure novels, yada yada, but it could still be done better. Taking command of a regiment in driving off the advance of the French Imperial Guard at the Battle of Waterloo (the regiments who actually held off the Imperial Guard are in the novel as well); Struggling to come up with a name as distinctive as Horatio Hornblower, he used a placeholder based on the rugby union player Richard Sharp; eventually, he kept it, just adding an "e". [1] The author had intended to write 11 novels, the same number as in the Hornblower series, ending with Sharpe's Waterloo, but later changed his mind and continued writing. The read lives the battle at Gawilghur. You are made to feel the hopelessness of the task at hand and are treated to masterfully crafted detail of the planning of the assault all the way to the thrilling conclusion. From reading the afterwards, Cornwell gives the impression that the battle of Gawilghur was treated as a minor and insignificant event. This may simply have been a result of the manner in which the battle concluded. Restored to rank of captain in the South Essex Battalion after successfully leading an unofficial forlorn hope to take the third breach of Badajoz and the death of several captains in the Battalion.

As I have been devouring a Sharpe a week, it is perhaps time to comment, for after this third volume the hero of the series is at last leaving India…. His intelligence work for Wellesley brings him the long-lasting enmity of the fictional French spymaster Pierre Ducos, who conspires several times to destroy Sharpe's career, reputation or life. Major General Arthur Wellesley– commander of British and Indian Allied Forces in South Central IndiaPrior to the Battle of Waterloo, Sharpe is appointed aide to the Prince of Orange, with the rank of lieutenant colonel. Disgusted by the Prince's dangerous incompetence during the course of the battle, Sharpe deserts his post (making an attempt on the prince's life afterwards), but comes to the aid of his old regiment, steadying the line and preventing a French breakthrough. Wellesley then gives him command of the unit for the remainder of the battle ( Sharpe's Waterloo). Manu Bappoo, the younger brother of the Rajah of Berar, decides to turn around and fight the British again, with his best unit, composed of Arab mercenaries, leading the charge, but he is again routed. During the fighting, Sharpe is impressed by the bravery of a teenage Arab boy, Ahmed, and saves his life when the boy is surrounded. Ahmed becomes his servant. Hakeswill ambushes Sharpe and takes him prisoner. He steals all of the jewels Sharpe has hidden on his person, then hands him over to Jama. Fortunately, Ahmed witnesses Sharpe's kidnapping and gets away. By chance, he runs into Sharpe's friend, Syud Sevagee. Sevagee frees Sharpe. Sharpe decides to let his enemies believe he is dead. Using this ruse, he catches Captain Torrance alone and kills him. Sergeant Richard Sharpe and a small detachment arrive at an isolated East India Company fort to transport 80,000 recovered rounds of stolen ammunition to the armory at Seringapatam. While Sharpe and his men rest, a company of East India Company sepoys arrive under the command of Lieutenant William Dodd. Dodd abruptly has his men massacre the unsuspecting, outnumbered garrison. Sharpe is wounded and feigns death, allowing him to escape Dodd's determination to leave no witnesses.

Saving the Duke of Wellington from two assassination attempts in Paris (Cornwell explains that the first attempt happened, though the shooter simply missed, while the second is fictional and based on a likely deliberate fire that broke out in a house Wellington had been in days earlier). Killing Tipu Sultan and looting his corpse (the identity of the man who killed the sultan is unknown; like Sharpe, the soldier probably wished to remain anonymous because of the riches he acquired); If you ever get the chance to rent or buy SHARPE'S CHALLENGE on DVD, by all means take it! The story is a combination of all the adventures from SHARPE'S TIGER, SHARPE'S TRIUMPH, and SHARPE'S FORTRESS, plus they throw in a lot more romance and more interesting female characters who aren't in any of the novels. In the third installment in the series, Richard Sharpe struggles as a young officer in the Army. His heart still lies in the Frontline, a theme continually brought up to his detriment throughout the book. Forget the enemy in front of him, Sharpe is constantly put to the trash by his own peers before our old buddy Hakeswill and other officers cook up a plot and get him sold to the Indians and Colonel Dord inside of Gawilghur; A supposedly impregnable fortress. Cornwell is again masterful in his description of the action. The pace is brisk and siege is fully explored. I walked away from the book feeling as if I had a sense of what could have take place during the siege. The story unfold masterfully. This is HF action written at its best.

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Retrieving and restoring the Imperial Family's treasure (in his note, Cornwell notes that several chests of personal belongings and riches did get lost in the chaos of the French defeat of 1814, but how this happened and their final fate are unknown) Being promoted to Ensign is what Sharpe has been dreaming of. The reality is proving to be very different. He is trapped in no man's land. He has lost the friendship of enlisted soldiers and is not welcomed by the officers. So Sharpe now has a point to prove to both the enlisted men and the officers. Perhaps my four stars is because I just finished and hated The Amber Spyglass, elevating Sharpe's Fortress to something greater than it was, but I think it is a lot more likely that I am just a fan of a good old-fashioned yarn full of action, one ethically complicated character and one truly nasty and imbalanced villain. Sharpe's Fortress has all that and Bernard Cornwell's muscular prose to boot. As a child, Cornwell loved the novels of C.S. Forester, chronicling the adventures of fictional British naval officer Horatio Hornblower during the Napoleonic Wars, and was surprised to find there were no such novels following Lord Wellington's campaign on land. Motivated by the need to support himself in the U.S. through writing, Cornwell decided to write such a series. He named his chief protagonist Richard Sharpe, a rifleman involved in most major battles of the Peninsular War.

After making their way to Portugal, and taking part in the Battle of the Douro, Sharpe and his surviving 30 riflemen are attached to the Light Company of the South Essex Regiment (a fictional regiment) as part of Wellesley's Peninsula Army. Some of the men Sharpe commands in the South Essex are:The majority of the story takes place on an active battlefield and sex does not play a significant role. There are several references to prostitutes in the story but no graphic discussions or descriptions. One character has a penchant for lounging completely naked but again, there is nothing graphic. A sexual encounter is implied on one occasion without any detail save that the parties were unclothed. Sharpe's Fortress was published in 1998, and describes the first adventure of Richard Sharpe as an officer of the British Army.

Finding the boats that allowed Wellesley's forces to ambush Marshal Nicolas Soult's forces at the Second Battle of Porto (Cornwell notes that in reality a Portuguese barber approached the British forces of his own volition rather than being sent across by Sharpe); During the earliest (chronological) books Sharpe is a private and later sergeant, and so his uniform and weapons largely are in line with Army regulations. His first sword and officer's sash are taken from the dead in the wake of the Battle of Assaye, although no specifics are given on the weapon. Following Napoleon's defeat, Sharpe ends up in Paris with the occupying allied armies. There he uncovers and defeats a secret Bonapartist group ( Sharpe's Assassin). Afterwards, he retires from the army. During the early years of the Peninsula Campaign, Sharpe's affections are torn between a Portuguese courtesan, Josefina LaCosta, and the Spanish partisan leader Teresa Moreno ( Sharpe's Eagle, Sharpe's Gold). Teresa bears Sharpe a daughter, Antonia ( Sharpe's Company), in 1811, and marries Sharpe in 1812, but is murdered a year later by Sharpe's longtime enemy, deserter Obadiah Hakeswill ( Sharpe's Enemy). Sharpe leaves his daughter to be raised by Teresa's family, and, as far as is known, never sees her again. Over the same period, Sharpe also has affairs with an English governess, Sarah Fry ( Sharpe's Escape); Caterina Veronica Blazquez, a prostitute who has beguiled Henry Wellesley, Sir Arthur's brother ( Sharpe's Fury); and the French spy Hélène Leroux ( Sharpe's Sword, Sharpe's Honour). When two of Hakeswill's henchmen are killed, Hakeswill realises Sharpe is responsible, so he deserts and finds service with the renegade Englishman William Dodd in Gawilghur. It is said that whoever rules in Gawilghur, rules India, and Dodd intends for it to be him. When the Outer Fort falls, Dodd keeps the gates of the Inner Fort closed, trapping Manu Bappoo outside to be killed by the British. Dodd also has Hakeswill murder Beny Singh, the weak, pleasure-loving commander of Gawilghur.After being disappointed by the previous book in the series, Sharpe's Fortress does not leave you wanting. While it's predecessor fails to provide sufficient detail of a famous battle, this novels lets you live the pain, drama and excitement of what has been called by some as a mere footnote to history. If you read Sharpe's Triumph and considered putting the series aside, please read this one before making your final decision. urn:lcp:sharpesfortressr00corn:epub:605578e9-face-4978-bf2a-81bc76501358 Extramarc Brown University Library Foldoutcount 0 Identifier sharpesfortressr00corn Identifier-ark ark:/13960/t7tm9ph56 Invoice 11 Isbn 9780060194246