[.ca] Lake Peipus 1242: Battle of the ice (ISBN 1855325535)

Lake Peipus, 1242 or 1939?:
This is arguably the poorest of Osprey's Campaign series. The author is clearly not familiar with the subject area, and as a result the book is marred by a considerable number of errors, especially in references to matters peripheral to the battle. For instance, on the map on p.26 the Finnish 'tribes' (Suomi and Hame (Rus. Jem/'Em/Emi), who were, contrary to the book's information, farmers) are in the wrong areas of Finland, 'Murman' become a Finnish tribe when the Russian name meant 'Norwegian', and a mysterious people called the Ugri inhabit the Ural region near the Mansi and Khanty (both of which constituted the Ugrian-speaking group of Finno-Ugrian speakers). There was no such person as 'Earl Karl Birger': presumably this is an error for Birger (Jarl) Magnusson, who possibly led a Swedish crusade to Finland (for which the only evidence is Erik's Chronicle, a rhyme chronicle written 50-70 years after the event). As regards the battle of 1242 itself, the poor sources are interpreted very freely. There is no good evidence that there were horse archers there, or that Mongols were fighting in Russian armies as early as this. The reference to attacks by archers on the Danes (king's men) might equally refer to foot archery, yet the horse archers become the key to victory in this account. The account is in any case confusing and full of baseless speculation, such as the idea that Novgorod chronicle tales of intervention by angels and saints from the heavens may have been a memory of showers of arrows. The number of knights at the battle must have been very small, since the total number of Sword Brothers in 1230 was about 120, 49 had been killed at Saule in 1236, others must have been in garrisons and the Teutonic Knights had not yet exerted their control over Livonia. The epic tale presented here seems to derive as much from Eisenstein's propaganda film as anything else, with Alexander Nevsky the hero. There are, however, a lot of nice pictures in the book, and if it inspires interest in the area it has some value.

Very Good:
For any passionate about eastern crusades and 12th-13th century, this is a good overview on eastern/northern europe of the time. I recomend it.

A missed chance:
This book manages to bring a confrontation of potentially epic proportions down to a minor skirmish with no special dramatic qualities. The main combattants, their motifs and personalities are barely touched and so the whole affair stays relatively bloodless and antiseptic. Nevertheless, it is a solid history book with good illustrations - but it could have been so much more.

A detailed account of the battle written somewhat scholarly.:
This is a fine edition to the Osprey Campaign Series and typifies the attention to detail and excellent illustrations of the books. I almost gave this title four stars, however, there are some minor shortcomings in the book which lessened it's effect. To be fair to the author, the book itself is probably as well written as the subject will allow in the 96 page format used for the Osprey Campaign books. The problem is that the topic of Lake Peipus centers around a very confusing era of interlaced politics, religion, sociology, etc.. Unless the reader is already familiar with the scope of 12th century affairs, the book would almost need to be twice its size to properly explain the background to the campaign leading up to the battle. Despite this, David Nicolle attempts to devote a few pages to explaining the events leading up to the battle but does so in such a way as to leave the average reader confused. The author then goes on to address the campaign and actual battle of Lake Peipus with good detail. This book makes a great reference source or addition to the CS collection, but falls a bit short of conveying the big picture of the circumstances leading up to the battle. The wording tends to be a bit scholarly as well. With all of that said, I still enjoyed the book and recommend it to anyone interested in 12th century warfare. Osprey has better books in the series and this one gets only 3 stars because the other books have set such a high standard.