Wolves of Winter
The Hundred Years’ War garnered the kings of England a crop of astonishing victories, but they never seemed decisive, and the war dragged on until at the end the King of England retained only Calais on the southern side of the Channel. In Dan Jones’ earlier book, Essex Dogs, he covers the campaign that led to the first great English victory at Crecy (1346); in the sequel, Wolves of Winter, he covers the long, bloody, muddy anti-climax of the winter siege of Calais.
This series is Jones’ first foray into fiction. As a prolific popular historian, not only is his research impeccable, but he is eager to share it with his readers. So we learn about the early development of artillery, the ransom system, the technicalities of siege warfare, and much more. Yet this never weighs down the narrative. He weaves a fast-moving, human story, following the fortunes of a company of ordinary English soldiers. This is very much a worm’s eye view of history, seen by the people who do the hard work and bear the discomforts and the suffering.
My only problem with the book is that mediaeval siege warfare was so filthy and awful that I could only take it in short stretches. I am sure it is very authentic.
