A Thirst for Glory: The Life of Admiral Sir Sidney Smith

By Tom Pocock

Admiral Sir Sidney Smith liked to think of himself as a second Nelson, and there were remarkable parallels between the two: dash, ambition, originality, vanity, a tendency to disregard orders, an eye for an attractive woman and charismatic leadership in war.

Always rivals, Smith and Nelson came to know each other well as both enemy and friend. Smith planned to snatch Nelson’s laurels by destroying the French and Spanish fleets with newly invented rockets and torpedoes before Nelson fought them at sea off Cape Trafalgar. But while Nelson is a national hero, Smith has been almost forgotten. Yet had his advice been followed, campaigns and expeditions in the Middle East would have been unnecessary and thousands of lives saved. 

Sir Sidney Smith was an adventurer as much as a strategist. Imprisoned as a spy in Paris and at risk of execution, his attempts to escape were worthy of the Scarlet Pimpernel. As a diplomat he was a forerunner of Lawrence of Arabia and, with comparable theatricality, he returned to London in Arab robes. It was characteristic that, having spent most of his life fighting the French, he should choose to spend the last years of his life in Paris.

In telling his story, Tom Pocock has made use of unpublished and unfamiliar material to illuminate one of the most extraordinary and eccentric characters in the great age of individualistic heroes.