Dear Mr. Cornwell, Please forgive me for the length of this message. There are so many things I have always wanted to ask you and I was a little enthusiastic! I had always wished to find a way of writing to you and I decided to type your name in to google and this website came up. I just wish to tell you how much your books have meant to me over the last few years. I had always been a great fan of Wellington (I even went to Wellington College) and the first time I came across your books was when I was 13. I confess I was sceptical at first, simply out of ignorance (forgive me, I was 13). I started with Sharpe's Tiger and read the whole series back to back. I am now 19 and have read the whole series 3 times. I find your narrative style incredibly exciting and engaging; yet it is not only your brilliant characterisation and plots that make these books unique - your research and passion for the subject rivals and exceeds many professional historians (many biographies I have read don't even mention Gawilghur!) I think Sharpe is a wonderful character; as Sean Bean says "He's a right tough bastard", but is also inspirational and empathetic. I love your portrayal of Wellington as well; you really bring out the cool intellect he is said to have had. There is a question I would appreciate you opinion on; I am a big fan of the Duke and I would like to know who you think was a better general - Wellington or Napoleon. It is something that I often think about. I believe that their characters reflect and enhanced their performance in the field. Napoleon, as the more 'romantic' of the two, often took huge gambles and fought great decisive battles. I feel many people think Wellington could not do this, but I believe them utterly wrong. As he himself said "England has but one army, so we had best take care of it." He entered Portugal with 30,000 men and defeated divided French armies time and again and pushed them out of Spain. He did not have the 675,000 men that Napoleon wasted in Russia, so he could not afford to be defeated even once. Thus the retreats back to Portugal, but does this not give him a quality over Napoleon? Planning and knowing when not to attack. As for his decisiveness (as you yourself show so wonderfully in your books), did he not show this at Assaye and Gawilghur (in which he took risks equal to any that Napoleon took) and Salamanca etc.? Also, Napoleon didn't take in to account any of the factors that his army would face (other than the Russians) in his 1812 campaign, whereas Wellington planned to the last detail his 600 mile crossing of the Deccan plains to Ahmednuggur and his army arrived in tact in a mere 2 months. I am currently reading "Who Won Waterloo?" by Barry Van Danzig. He has spent almost 30 years researching the battle, building his own model on the basis of Siborne's and replaying the battle to see how it was won (i.e. by failing health on Napoleon's part, or if the Prussians won the battle). Wellington positioned himself in such a way as Napoleon could not outmanoevre him (the 17,000 troops at Hal) and Napoleon's plan was very good, bearing this in mind. It annoys me when people belittle the Duke's achievement by saying that Napoleon was 'ailing'. I read a comparison of the 2 men by Major-General John Strawson (who speaks very highly of your Sharpe's Waterloo) who says "It cannot be doubted that Napoleon was the greater general..." and I do doubt this. I was just wondering what you thought as I hold your opinion in such high esteem. Thank you so much for being so patient with me and this 'essay' (sorry!). I wish you the best of health and success with your future books (all of which I will read). If it means anything coming from a complete stranger such as myself (who has probably bored you half to death with this message), then I believe that you are the greatest writer to write historical fiction (if this is what the genre is called). Yours sincerely, Tom Humphreys P.S. I didn't mention the Warlord Chronicles; these in my opinion excel even the Sharpe books - there is such a feeling of tragedy every time I read them. Even when things are going well you know that it can't last. Your re-interpretation of the Arthurian legend is so original - I feel like it is actually history, as they are so layered and detailed.
My vote would go to Wellington, but I'm dreadfully biased. Nevertheless it's a fact that W never lost a battle (his only defeat was the 1812 failure of the Siege of Burgos), and Napoleon lost several, including, of course, the final of the Napoleonic Wars. That said it's also true that Napoleon operated on a much greater canvas than Wellington, who was the servant of his political masters. Napoleon gambled with whole countries and, for most of his career, was his own political master. There's no doubt that Napoleon was a master strategist on a continental level, and Wellington never really operated at that level (and probably would not have wanted to). As tacticians there's probably not much between them; at their best they were both battlefield geniuses (Austerlitz and Salamanca). Where, I think, Wellington has the edge is in his understanding of the whole machinery of his army. He is an engineer of war, fighting a temperamental artist. Wellington, also, has a consistency that Napoleon lacks. My guess is that the question best answered with another question; which one would you rather serve? For me the answer is Wellington!