Counterpoint to Trafalgar: the Anglo-Russian invasion of Naples, 1805-1806

Counterpoint to Trafalgar offers the first detailed account of the important land and sea campaign in the Napoleonic wars: the Anglo-Russian invasion of Naples, which prevented Napoleon from controlling the Mediterranean during the war of the third coalition. Flayhart recounts the exciting story of the chaotic efforts of the joint British and Russian military force during the invasion of southern Italy.  In 1805 Napoleonic France and Great Britain were locked in a naval duel for maritime supremacy. A British military expedition was sent to the Mediterranean to preserve the independence of Naples. Joining with a Russian Army troop nearby, the combined forces invaded southern Italy in order to place allied troops between the French in the north and Naples in the south. The two great convoys carrying more than 20,000 Russian and British troops was too great a prize for Napoleon to ignore, and the emperor ordered the French fleet to enter the Mediterranean and destroy the troopships. The ensuing battle became known as the Battle of Trafalgar.