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    Gibraltar: The Greatest Siege in British History
    Unavailable
    Gibraltar: The Greatest Siege in British History
    Unavailable
    Gibraltar: The Greatest Siege in British History
    Audiobook14 hours

    Gibraltar: The Greatest Siege in British History

    Written by Roy Adkins and Lesley Adkins

    Narrated by John Telfer

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    A rip-roaring account of the dramatic four-year siege of Britain's Mediterranean garrison by Spain and France—an overlooked key to the British loss in the American Revolution

    For more than three and a half years, from 1779 to 1783, the tiny territory of Gibraltar was besieged and blockaded, on land and at sea, by the overwhelming forces of Spain and France. It became the longest siege in British history, and the obsession with saving Gibraltar was blamed for the loss of the American colonies in the War of Independence.

    Located between the Mediterranean and Atlantic, on the very edge of Europe, Gibraltar was a place of varied nationalities, languages, religions, and social classes. During the siege, thousands of soldiers, civilians, and their families withstood terrifying bombardments, starvation, and disease. Very ordinary people lived through extraordinary events, from shipwrecks and naval battles to an attempted invasion of England and a daring sortie out of Gibraltar into Spain. Deadly innovations included red-hot shot, shrapnel shells, and a barrage from immense floating batteries.

    This is military and social history at its best, a story of soldiers, sailors, and civilians, with royalty and rank and file, workmen and engineers, priests, prisoners of war, spies, and surgeons, all caught up in a struggle for a fortress located on little more than two square miles of awe-inspiring rock. Gibraltar: The Greatest Siege in British History is an epic listen, rich in dramatic human detail—a tale of courage, endurance, intrigue, desperation, greed, and humanity. The everyday experiences of all those involved are brought vividly to life with eyewitness accounts and expert research.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateMar 13, 2018
    ISBN9780525589426
    Unavailable
    Gibraltar: The Greatest Siege in British History

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    Reviews for Gibraltar

    3.5/5

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    • 4/5
      Fascinating story of the longest siege in British history. From 1779-1783, while Britain was absorbed fighting pretty much everyone in the known world, the Rock was besieged by Spanish forces, who built impenetrable fortifications bristling with guns across the isthmus and attempted (unsuccessfully) to cut off all access by sea. The inhabitants of the Rock, officers and soldiers, their wives and families, Jewish merchants and local peasants suffered bombardment, starvation, scurvy, disease, attacks from the sea and the perceived indifference of London. Yet they remained unbroken, even seeing off an attack by massive floating batteries that the French and Spanish were convinced would end them. Very much a social history as much as a military history, the book relies on the words of the inhabitants themselves, as many wrote letters and kept diaries. Great piece of writing about a little-known piece of history.