>>"The historical headlines," writes Knight, "have been usurped by Napoleon and Wellington, the drama of Waterloo and the Congress of Vienna." But the foundations of British victory were the expertise and diligence of craftsmen – makers of arms, of ships, ropes, uniforms; the contractors responsible for the ever-increasing capacity of the defence industry, public and private; the farmers and farmworkers who ensured the growth and efficiency of agricultural production; the merchant seamen who transported food and raw materials and many, many others. The co-ordination of the efforts of all these men and women depended in turn on "the men who signed and passed contracts across tables in government departments, the civil servants who drafted documents and did sums in the backrooms and basements of Whitehall, and the international merchants and dealers who traded in the city. They were all needed as much as the tens of thousands of young soldiers and seamen." It was, above everything else, Knight argues, the superior management of resources, the greater efficiency of supply and logistics, that enabled Britain to defeat an enemy much larger and more potentially powerful than itself.<<

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/dec/14/britain-against-napoleon-roger-knight-review