Digby Smith Digby Smith is a British military historian . The son of a British career soldier , he was born in Hampshire , England , but spent several years in India and Pakistan as a child and youth . As a " boy soldier , " he entered training in the British Army at the age of 16 . He was later commissioned in the Royal Corps of Signals , and held several postings with the British Army of the Rhine . After a career in the British Army Signal Corps , he retired and with a friend started a company selling body armour , followed by several years working in the telecommunications industry . After his second retirement , he lived for a while in Hanau , Germany , but has moved back to Britain . Originally writing under the pen name , Otto von Pivka , since his retirement from the military he has written another dozen books , venturing into narrative history with his " 1813 : Leipzig : Napoleon and the Battle of the Nations " in 2001 and " Charge ! : Great Cavalry Charges of the Napoleonic Wars " in 2003 . His " Greenhill Napoleonic Wars Data Book : Actions and Losses in Personnel , Colours , Standards and Artillery , 1792 – 1815 " ( 1998 ) is considered a standard for French Revolutionary War and Napoleonic War historians , re - enactors , and hobbyists . Family . Smith was born 15 January 1935 , at the Louise Margaret Military Hospital in Aldershot , Hampshire . His father , George Frederick Smith , was a corporal in the 2nd Infantry Division Signals regiment . In 1937 , he posted to India in the 9th Infantry Division ( India ) Signals Regiment on the Afghan border in Quetta , Baluchistan . A 1935 earthquake had devastated the area , and the family lived in a tent . At the outbreak of war in 1939 , his father was commissioned and posted to Malaya , where , in 1941 , he took part in the fighting near Kota Baru . Eventually he was captured at Singapore , and was one of the 60 , 000 Allied POW s who built the Burma - Siam railway . Returning in 1942 to Aldershot , Digby Smith was sent , first , to East End Primary School , where he won a Scholarship to Farnborough Grammar School . After the war , in another stint in India and Pakistan , the family journeyed to Rawalpindi , Pakistan . George Smith , now a major , was seconded to the Pakistan Signal Corps . In the absence of adequate schools , 13 - year - old Digby attended the Pakistan School of Signals near the Lalkurti Bazaar , where he received his first training in electronics . Military career . In 1950 , he returned to England and school , but left Farnborough Grammar School at the age of 16 to the army as an apprentice telecommunications technician . He received additional training at Minden in 1954 as a Technician III Class . After a six - month stint at the Pintsch Electro Radio Factory in Constance , and Smith returned to Duisburg , where he met his wife . In 1960 the war office selection board sent him to Mons Officer Cadet School at Aldershot , and he received his commission as a Lieutenant in 10th Signal Regiment , posted in Krefeld , in North Rhine - Westphalia , Germany . Here he was a Troop Commander using the same Pintch equipment he had studied in Constance . In 1961 , he received a commission into the Royal Corps of Signals , and served in the British Army of the Rhine . While in service there , he studied German , and explored his growing interest in the military history of the old German states of the Holy Roman Empire . Smith ' s first foray into the realm of Napoleonic history occurred by chance at Bradbury Barracks in Krefeld . As a qualified linguist , he was asked to research the history of the Barrack ' s original German regiment , part of the Signal ' s 20th anniversary at the location . His research led him to the 2nd Westphalian Hussars , who in turn were descended from the green - and purple - clad Cheaveau Legers Uhlanen of Duchy of Berg . This colourful regiment had as its founder the equally colourful Joachim Murat , King of Naples and a Marshal of France under Napoleon . In 1965 , he transferred to the Royal Army Ordnance Corps , where he worked in computers and logistics and the study of work . From 1970 – 1972 , he had a stint at the German Armed Forces Command and Staff College , located at Blankenese , near Hamburg . Post - military . After serving a brief stint at the Ministry of Defense , Whitehall , he retired from the military to start a new career , selling body armour to the German police , who were at that time combating the Baader Meinhof and other urban terrorist groups . In 1981 , high tech logistics and customer services markets drew him into international computer and telecommunications companies located in Germany , Saudi Arabia and Moscow . During his assignment to Moscow , where he spent four years , he made several trips to the battlefield at Borodino , and continued developing the material for his compendium , " Napoleonic Wars Data Book . " Since 1995 , he has concentrated full - time on the writing of military history , some of which he wrote for Osprey Military Publishing under the " nom de plume " of Otto von Pivka . Personal life . He married Rita Prime in 1961 , and they had three sons . He divorced in 1984 , and married a second time to a nurse , Edna Bluck he had met in Saudi Arabia . Publications by Digby Smith . Smith ' s work in the Osprey series , " Men at War " , already had received considerable interest from Napoleonic war enthusiasts , hobbyists and re - enactors when Greenhill published " Napoleonic Wars Data Book " . It was a 20 year project , about which Smith commented , " This is the largest and most complex book that I have produced to date and without having committed the last few years to full time , solid research and presentation this work would never have been written . " In this massive volume ( 582 pages , large format , 264 x 204mm – nearly A4 size ) , Smith compiled the available statistics of nearly every exchange of gunfire of the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars , close to 2000 engagements , including those in Europe , Egypt , Palestine , and Syria . The result was a highly specialised reference book that listed , in chronological order , the battles , skirmishes and actions of nearly 25 years of worldwide warfare , making it a standard starting place for Napoleonic War battle research . It also includes the forces involved , the commanders , ranks , names and types of units , and the occasional comment on the battle . The " Data Book " cemented Smith ' s reputation as a Napoleonic enthusiast , although not necessarily as a scholar . His first foray into narrative historical writing , " 1813 Leipzig " , met with mixed reviews . On the one hand , Smith included interesting first - person narrative accounts of the four - day battle at Leipzig , and this was considered the main strength of his work . On the other hand , however , the contextualising of the first - person accounts was less accurate , and in particular the first two chapters were marred by frequent factual errors . Filled with absorbing accounts of the battle and people ' s responses to it , Smith ' s book was considered an interesting read for students of military history , but not necessarily a scholarly contribution to Napoleonic studies . Smith ' s more recent " Charge " adopted some of the same stylistic elements . After explaining how mounted units formed , trained , and operated , Smith focuses on 13 specific battles to illustrate how cavalry could and did turn the tide in several engagements such as Austerlitz , Eylau , Borodino , Albuera , Marengo , and Waterloo , Liebertwolkwitz and Mockern , and the Allied raids on France in 1813 . Drawing heavily on first - hand accounts , Smith explained why the cavalry charge was the " blitzkrieg " of its day , " exhilarating , unstoppable punches that could decide the fate of campaigns and kingdoms . "