1932-08-19
0
After an abrupt and violent encounter with a French warship inflicts severe damage upon his ship, a captain of the British Royal Navy begins a chase over two oceans to capture or destroy the enemy, though he must weigh his commitment to duty and ferocious pursuit of glory against the safety of his devoted crew, including the ship's thoughtful surgeon, his best friend.
The love story of young Countess Natasha Rostova and Count Pierre Bezukhov is interwoven with the Great Patriotic War of 1812 against Napoleon's invading army.
Captain Horatio Hornblower leads his ship HMS Lydia on a perilous transatlantic voyage, during which his faithful crew battle both a Spanish warship and a ragged band of Central American rebels.
During the Napoleonic Wars, when the French have occupied Spain, some Spanish guerrilla soldiers are going to move a big cannon across Spain in order to help the British defeat the French. A British officer is there to accompany the Spanish and along the way, he falls in love with the leader's girl.
Anne Elliot, the daughter of a financially troubled aristocratic family, is persuaded to break her engagement to Frederick Wentworth, a young sea captain of meager means. Years later, money troubles force Anne's father to rent out the family estate to Admiral Croft, and Anne is again thrown into company with Frederick -- who is now rich, successful, and perhaps still in love with Anne.
France, 1809. Captain Neuville is called to the front, leaving his future bride heartbroken. Her sister decides to write letters on his behalf to cheer her up.
Hornblower and his comrades come under the command of a revered but mentally unstable captain and are forced to mutiny in order to save their ship, the HMS Renown.
May 5, 1821. Napoleon Bonaparte, deposed emperor exiled on the island of St. Helena, is about to take his last breath. The son of a Corsican family, he has been close to death on many occasions since, as a young captain in the revolutionary army, he seized Toulon from the royalists in 1793.
Paris, France, early 19th century. The legendary convict François Vidocq lives in disguise trying to escape from a tragic past that torments him. When, after an unfortunate event, he crosses paths with the police chief, he makes a bold decision that will turn the ruthless mastermind of the Parisian underworld against him.
Defiant's crew is part of a fleet-wide movement to present a petition of grievances to the Admiralty. Violence must be no part of it. The continual sadism of Defiant's first officer makes this difficult, and when the captain is disabled, the chance for violence increases.
The story of courtesan and dance-hall girl Emma Hamilton, including her relationships with Sir William Hamilton and Admiral Horatio Nelson and her rise and fall, set during the Napoleonic Wars.
In 1800, as Napoleon Bonaparte rises to power in France, a rivalry erupts between Armand and Gabriel, two lieutenants in the French Army, over a perceived insult. For over a decade, they engage in a series of duels amidst larger conflicts, including the failed French invasion of Russia in 1812, and shifts in the political and social systems of Europe.
The romanticized gallant adventures of Pauline Bonaparte, Napoleon's sister. First "engaged" to the Conventionnel Fréron, then separated from him by her brother for political reasons, Pauline joined Napoleon in the Italian army, where she fell in love with the comté de Canouville. But the First Consul married her to his friend, General Leclerc, whom she followed on the expedition to Saint-Domingue. Unconcerned about fidelity, she began to love her husband just as he was about to die of yellow fever. Back in France, she was soon consoled by other gallants. Napoleon, now emperor, hastened to marry her off to Prince Borghese, but he was unable to make her love him. She soon returned to Paris to lead the life of a gallant woman, incognito, and again met Canouville, whom the emperor tried in vain to separate from her. But soon the Russian campaign begins, and her lover is killed. All that remains for Pauline, this time disconsolate, is to reconcile with her brother on the road to exile.
Portsmouth, 1794. Under thundery skies and in lashing rain, 17-year-old midshipman Horatio Hornblower takes the first tentative steps of his naval career, but a feud with a shipmate causes complications.
Devon, 1815. In the dying days of the Napoleonic Wars, a Danish-American lieutenant, Cecil Stark, is captured attempting to run supplies to the French. Imprisoned at Dartmoor, he and his fellow captives make a desperate escape attempt, in which Stark is shot. He is found by Grace Malherb, and the two fall in love while he convalesces on her family estate. But Grace's father is heavily indebted to the boorish Peter Norcot, whose price for forgiving the loan is Grace's hand in marriage....
A grand and patriotic tale of Poland's struggle for freedom just before Napoleon's war with Russia. Written in poetic style by Adam Mickiewicz, this story follows two feuding Polish families as they overcome their old conflicts and petty lives. However, they are able to unite as one with their patriotic and rebellious efforts to free the country they deeply love from Russian control.
Based on the novel by Bernard Cornwell, "Sharpe's Waterloo" brings maverick British officer Lt. Col. Richard Sharpe to his last fight against the French, in June of 1815.
Portugal 1813. A band of deserters, including Sharpe's old enemy, Obadiah Hakeswill, have captured two women, one the wife of a high-ranking English officer, and are holding them hostage for ransom. Sharpe is given the 60th Rifles and a Rocket troop, as well as his majority to rescue the women. But while Sharpe may be able to deal with his old enemy, he has yet to face a newer threat, the French Major Pierre Ducos.
1813. Major Sharpe's old enemy, Major Ducos manipulates a beautiful young marquesa into falsely accusing Sharpe of rape. Her husband calls Sharpe out in a duel. But when the husband is found dead the next morning, Sharpe is arrested and brought before a court martial, and it seems not even Patrick Harper and the Chosen Men can save Sharpe from a hanging, or rescue his honour
Sharpe is sent on a mission to exchange rifles for deserters with a strange band of Spanish guerillas. He also has to chaperone two women looking for their missing husband.