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The historiography of command of amphibious operations during the early modern era is typically addressed in one of two ways. One explanation discounts the treatment of command, suggesting that army—navy discord was inevitable and, in the absence of systemic amelioration of this friction, command as an operational variable always had a negative impact upon operational progress. The other approach more subtly reduces the emphasis placed upon the impact of command in joint operations and argues that its operational exercise through an executive council of war meant that it was largely a settled issue for contemporaries. By drawing upon the evidence of an amphibious campaign undertaken first in the Caribbean and then off the north-eastern American seaboard during the Nine Years War, 1688—97, this article rejuvenates another understanding of combined operational command, which harks back to the views of the principal eighteenth-century author on amphibious warfare, Thomas More Molyneaux. In this analysis, combined operational command is shown to be a negotiated operational construct between the service commanders and the government, as a result of which disagreements related to the command structure and the subsequent dilution of authority through an executive council of war significantly impacted upon operational success.

Oliver Hazard Perry was born into a naval family on August 23, 1785 at South Kingston, Rhode Island. His father was Captain Christopher Perry, a militiaman and latterly a privateer during the American War of Independence (1775–1783), who, in 1799, was appointed captain and commander of the USS General Greene, a vessel which he had helped build and in which he served until retirement in 1801. Following a childhood education at Newport, it was perhaps unsurprising therefore that Oliver Perry would, like his four brothers, seek service in the United States navy and, although cut tragically short by an early death at the age of 34, his career in many ways set a benchmark for resoluteness and resourcefulness among the officer corps of the young US navy. Keywords: nineteenth century; biography; maritime history; Northern America

It is surely appropriate for a conflict which was simultaneously provincial and global in its origin and scope that the War of the League of Augsburg is variously called the War of the Grand Alliance, the Palatinate extend French control throughout the duke's lands in the duchy of Savoy, a point underlined by the capture of Susa in early November. Keywords: seventeeth century; diplomacy and international relations; europe; military history; war

Born in Paris the fifth of eight children to Eugene Maurice, prince of Savoy-Carignan (subsequently count of Soissons) and Olympia Mancini (one of Cardinal Mazarin's three nieces), Eugene of Savoy was destined for the church but instead rose to supreme military command in the Holy Roman Empire. Aged 19 Eugene sought a career in the armies of Louis XIV but the king rejected his request for a commission. Undoubtedly Eugene's unprepossessing physique influenced Louis's decision, but it was mainly attributable to the loss of the king's favor by Eugene's mother, one of Louis's former mistresses, and her subsequent flight from the country when she became embroiled in the allegations of poisoning within the French court, the so-called affaire de poisons. Thus spurned, Eugene left France and presented his military ambitions to the emperor, Leopold I, who, as with one of Eugene's elder brothers, recognized the diplomatic potential in commissioning a second cousin of the duke of Savoy. Keywords: seventeeth century; eighteenth century; biography; Europe; military history; war