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The Battle of Maida was a battle in the Napoleonic Wars between the United Kingdom and First French Empire fought on 4 July 1806 outside the town of San Pietro di Maida in Calabria, Italy, then a part of the Kingdom of Naples.

The British, 5,100-strong and commanded by Major-General Sir John Stuart defeated the French, 7,000-strong and commanded by General Reynier (or Regnier) in a day of skirmishes. It is traditionally thought that the British deployed in a line while the French attacked in columns, allowing the British to fire full strength volleys into the French columns, while only the first two ranks of the French could fire, similar to Crossing the T in naval combat. However, modern historians dispute this claim. The British fired volleys then charged with the bayonet, and the French, though veterans, failing to withstand the onslaught, broke and fled, losing heavily in the rout.

The names Maida Hill and Maida Vale in London are derived from this battle. A table top re-enactment of the battle was to have been held in Maida Vale Library to mark its 200th anniversary.

The military historian James R. Arnold argues that:

The writings of Sir Charles Oman and Sir John Fortescue dominated subsequent English-language Napoleonic history. Their views [that the French infantry used heavy columns to attack lines of infantry] became very much the received wisdom. ... By 1998 a new paradigm seemed to have set in with the publication of two books devoted to Napoleonic battle tactics. Both claimed that the French fought in line at Maida and both fully explored French tactical variety. The 2002 publication of The Battle of Maida 1806: Fifteen Minutes of Glory, appeared to have brought the issue of column versus line to a satisfactory conclusion: "The contemporary sources are...the best evidence and their conclusion is clear: General Compère's brigade formed into line to attack Kempt's Light Battalion." The decisive action at Maida took place in less than fifteen minutes. It had taken 72 years to rectify a great historian's error about what transpired during those minutes.^[1][2]

• http://www.btinternet.com/~the35thfootproject/maida.html

1. ^ Arnold, James R. "A Reappraisal of Column Versus Line in the Peninsular War Oman and Historiography", The Napoleon Series, August 2004.
2. ^ James R. Arnold, "A Reappraisal of Column Versus Line in the Napoleonic Wars" Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research LX no. 244 (Winter 1982): pp. 196-208.

• War Monthly Issue 12

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