Adventures of a Soldier

For over twenty years France and Napoleon had been at war with the rest of Europe. The only thing that stood in their way were the forces of Great Britain. By 1815 peace had returned, France had been restrained, and Napoleon was in exile.

From his prison island on St. Helena, the once great Napoleon would write that the ‘Spanish Ulcer’ was the main reason for the downfall of his empire. The backbone of that ulcer was Lord Wellington’s peninsular army.

At times Wellington would describe them as the ‘scum of the earth’, but in truth he knew them to be the premier fighting force in the whole of Europe. And the cream of the crop in Wellington’s army were the 95th Rifles.

Born in Ireland, Edward Costello enlisted as a private and rose through the ranks to become an officer in the British Legion. Witnessing much of the war for the Iberian peninsula and taking part in the Waterloo campaign in Belgium, Costello observed and survived some of the bloodiest battles of the war.

This is the story of the army that brought low the greatest military genius in European history as told through the eyes of a ranker of the 95th Rifles, Edward Costello.