Eagles over the Alps

Christopher Duffy was the ‘acclaimed and highly-regarded doyen of eighteenth-century military history’ (The Herald). His works are grounded on unpublished sources and physical realities, and are characterized by the attention that is given to the visual presentation – and not least the maps, which he drew himself. Dr Duffy was born in 1936. He was a contemporary and friend of John Keegan at Balliol College, Oxford – gaining a first-class degree in Modern History in 1958 and his doctorate in 1961. In that year he joined the Department of Military History at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, and retired from there in 1996 as Senior Lecturer in War Studies. After a research professorship at De Monfort University (1996–2001), he became involved in a variety of voluntary work – taking in historical advice and fundraising for the National Trust for Scotland’s center at Culloden. As such, he was heavily engaged in the effort to save this and other ‘Jacobite’ battlefields from the threat of development, which has now become acute. He was a founder member of the British Commission for Military History and the Scottish Battlefields Trust, and was Vice-President of the Military History Society of Ireland and Chairman of the 1745 Association. Sadly, Christopher passed away in 2022.