Hidden in a pine forest on the island of Cabrera near Majorca, a “stubby obelisque” pays silent homage to the memory of the thousands of Frenchmen who died there. The monument is dated 1847 but the events it commemorates took place between 1809 and 1814, when the island became a prison camp for thousands of Napoleon’s elite soldiers, guarded by British and Spanish gunboats.

Cabrera was a desert island measuring two by three miles, and its only structure was a miserable little fort. One prisoner called the place a “horrible solitude … populated only by lizards.” The prisoners (there were approximately 5,400 on the island at any one time) moved from stoicism through misanthropy to suicide. Eventually the prisoners formed several communities. There were makeshift huts, cottage industries, a hospital, a much-needed cemetery, a theatre. There were also occasional acts of cannibalism. A series of bilateral, local armistices and military orders finally freed the remaining soldiers. Of the nearly 12,000 sent there, 40% died on the island.

Historian Denis Smith sees their fate as a “prelude to the indiscriminate brutalities for 20th century conflict … an emblem of two callous centuries of war.” But this thesis is soon abandoned in favour of a drier historical survey of the events and the historical documents available. Smith’s documents regarding the matter include – for the first time – materials from the British historical archives.

Though his research is impeccable and much of the material interesting, the prisoners’ personal stories are too often forsaken for a forest of historical facts. The human drama of the prisoners’ plight is also often overshadowed by the bureaucratese of government orders and documentation, leaving the reader wishing that Smith had exploited some of the story-telling potential in his material.