Britain Against Napoleon by Roger Knight, review Everywhere throughout impoverished Europe, the commerce of England seemed to recede before our victorious banners. We imagined that Great Britain, exhausted, was on the brink of ruin. So wrote one of Napoleon's officers in 1816. For many inside and outside Britain, the country had seemed ready to buckle under the strain of two decades of conflict. Between 1793, when the wars against France began, and the final defeat of Napoleon in 1815, the government created £578million of debt. The people were asked to carry a heavy burden. In 1793 some £18million was raised in tax; every year following £12million was exacted from taxpayers. To add to the woe, Napoleon set out to destroy his enemy's economy by excluding British exporters from European markets. He nearly succeeded. Britain suffered economic crisis for two years after 1810. Unemployment rose, food became scarce and discontent spread. Between Trafalgar in 1805 and Wellington's successes in Spain in 1812 the public was starved of victories save a few measly crumbs. Each side aimed to grind the other down in unremitting economic warfare which called upon states to devour their resources. "Although the Napoleonic War was many kinds of conflicts," observes Roger Knight, "it was not least a conflict between competing economies." Napoleon's insatiable appetite for glory took him way beyond the capacity of France to wage war. Britain, by contrast, invested the stupendous sums raised from taxes in the domestic economy and opened markets around the world. While continental Europe was ravaged by war, Britain laid the foundations for economic dominance in the peace that followed. In 1814, to mark the first defeat of Napoleon, the victorious European monarchs visited the block mills at Portsmouth. This was where blocks used in the rigging of ships were manufactured. Not a very glamorous excursion for a royal party, one might have thought. However, the mills were a marvel of the age. The navy needed vast numbers of blocks - a 74-gun ship required 922 for its rigging and 450 for its guns. The mills housed intricate woodcutting machinery driven by leather belts which were powered by a state-of-the-art steam engine. It was an inordinately complex operation and the first example of mass, standardised production in history. The block mills are one example among many of the ways in which industrialists, contractors and farmers sought to cut costs, innovate and improve quality as Britain struggled for survival. In Britain Against Napoleon Roger Knight charts those epic attempts to direct and maximise the capabilities of the country in a conflict which was of "a far greater scale than anything that had gone before." He describes the "quiet labour" of politicians, bankers and contractors who strove to overcome institutional weaknesses and corruption to pay, feed and arm hundreds of thousands of men in uniform serving around the globe. Knight is the author of a celebrated biography of Nelson, and he is particularly strong in his analysis of some of the amphibious operations undertaken during these wars. Until 1810 the ability to coordinate army and navy, victuallers and merchant ships on the scale needed to tackle Napoleon was beyond the means of the state, frustrating British efforts to secure a foothold on the continent. The bridgehead was eventually secured in Portugal, at considerable cost. The campaign was sustained by 13,500 ship voyages in 400 convoys. When Wellington's army reached its peak it was chomping through 44 tons of biscuit a day. No war had ever been conducted on this scale and it took years to get it right. The progress to victory was by no means inevitable. As Knight says, echoing Wellington's words at Waterloo, it was a close-run thing. This is a story of false dawns and miserable debacles, of gradual innovation and reform. Knight's cast of characters includes civil servants, politicians and officers who possessed the stamina to take on the task of gearing the country to total war when everything seemed futile. This is a book which examines military operations, finance, logistics and intelligence. It is an enormous canvas, yet Knight manages not only to convey the magnitude of the war but make this an absorbing book and an essential addition to the history of the Napoleonic Wars. Above all this book is about the forging of modern Britain. The government machine and private sector were forced under the pressure of war to become more efficient and to work together. As Knight argues, "Britain never favoured the monopoly of individuals or of the state" as did its antagonists. A "competitive market-based system" dovetailed with "open and fairly administered contract tendering by government" to nurture a dynamic economy which gave Britain the edge over France and the spoils of victory after a long, grim struggle. Britain Against Napoleon: The Organisation of Victory, 1793-1815 Roger Knight Allen Lane, 720pp, Telegraph offer price: £26 plus £1.35 p&p (RRP £30).