10 items formerly part of WO 78/1004 : relief maps showing stages in the retreat...

10 items formerly part of WO 78/1004: relief maps showing stages in the retreat of the French Army under Massena from Pombal to Sabugal in Portugal. Detailed descriptions are given at item level.

These maps were originally part of an accumulation of 47 maps which are now distributed among MPH 1/151, MPH 1/152, MPH 1/153, WO 78/1004/1 and WO 78/1004/2. Many of the maps are inscribed in pencil with the reference MR 650; this might be due to a change of mind or error that occurred when the maps underwent conservation work in 1929, since only those items now in WO 78/1004/1 and WO 78/1004/2 actually seem ever to have been transferred to this reference. The pencilled inscription 'MR 163' on items (6) and (8) is probably due to a similar error or change of mind; (see also MR 1/193 and WO 78/1006).

These maps were subsequently published by James Wyld in Maps & Plans Showing the Principal Movements, Battles & Sieges ... during the War from 1808 to 1814 ..., London, [1840]; in 1860 and 1868, they were printed at the Topographical Department of the War Office.

One or more item numbers are written in pencil on the face of most of the maps, but it is now very difficult, perhaps impossible, to reconstruct their original order. The item numbers used in these catalogue entries are those written on the dorse of each sheet in the form: 'MPH 1/153 [item]'

For copies of the printed versions of these maps, see WO 78/5800 WO 78/5813

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