The Battle of Talavera of July 1809 was one of the battles that made the reputation of Arthur Wellesley - soon-to-be Duke of Wellington - in the peninsular campaign of the Napoleonic Wars. The allied force of 55,000 British Portuguese and Spanish faced 46,000 French troops commanded by Joseph Bonaparte and Marshals Jourdan and Victor and claimed victory after a fierce engagement over two days. Peter Edward's book is the first detailed modern study of one of Wellesley's great victories. It examines the battle in the context of earlier British action at Vimiero, Rolica and Corunna and gives the reader a blow-by-blow account of the action based on many little-known first-hand sources.