Early chapters deal with his birth, which Fletcher ably establishes is wrongly stated in almost every reference to Craufurd, including the Dictionary of National Biography – he was not born in Scotland, but in the Southeast of England. This is followed by a brief summary of his childhood (necessarily so as there is little information available) and then a detailed account of his early career in the army in India and Ireland and the years he also spent observing the Austrian army and the Prussian army of Frederick the Great. Finally gaining a senior rank, Craufurd’s role in the infamous expedition to Buenos Aries is explored in extraordinary detail by Fletcher, as one would expect from the pen of the foremost authority on this military disaster.
The second half of the book deals in great detail with Craufurd’s relationship with the formation of the Light Brigade and its eventual transformation into a large division. Much here is well known already, but it is Craufurd’s relationship with all around him that dominates the book and the many aspects of his complicated personality. Fletcher has clearly shown that although too junior to command such a sizeable division, the Duke of Wellington found ways to retain him in charge despite the claims of many more senior officers sent out to Spain by Horse Guards. This clearly shows how much Wellington valued the abilities of Craufurd, but Fletcher does not hide the many occasions when Craufurd overstepped the mark or failed to carry out Wellington’s orders, showing that their relationship was often strained. Fletcher ably shows that Wellington had a similar relationship with other commanders, General Thomas Picton being an obvious example.
The subtitle to the book The Life and Times of Wellington’s Wayward Martinet, ably catches the conundrum that was Robert Craufurd. He held an unenviable reputation as an overbearing and over demanding commander, something that Fletcher links back to his time with Frederick the Great’s headquarters. However, the book argues that his iron will and stern discipline eventually honed his troops into a superb fighting force and claims that his much-vaunted Standing Orders prove his abilities as a commander.