I am looking for answers and better sources related to the War of Spanish Succession. I have read the following books on John Churchill and I find them to be somewhat inadequate in the following ways.
Winston Churchill's Marlborough: His Life and Times Books 1-4. These books are good in many ways and contain more detail than many other biographies. However Winston Churchill is very biased in favor of John Churchill and the abridged version that I possess doesn't cite his sources.
*Winston Churchill makes numerous references to Napoleon's historian and attributes certain quotes to him but never mentions his name.
*There was a period in the campaign of 1710 where the Duke was proposing bypassing the French fortress barrier by taking the town of Abbeville. The significance of this is that Winston Churchill states that in Claude Louis Hector de Villars memoirs that this was the plan that Marshal Villars dreaded most. This is important because it is essentially France's ablest Marshal stating that the course the Duke wanted to pursue was the course he dreaded most.
Is there an english translation of Claude Louis Hector de Villars's memoirs that I can read or can someone translate this particular passage?
Other books I have read include Marlborough as Military Commander by David Chandler (which is too short) and Marlborough by Corelli Barnett (which is a good book but also too short). I have also read The First Churchill although I can't remember who the author is.
Throughout the war there is a struggle being waged in the English parliament. Marlborough is eventually sacked because of this struggle between the Whigs (who are for a land war against france) and the tories (who are for a sea war against france). This is how the struggle is framed in all of the books I have read even though I think that the reason the tories were against the war were more deep seated. According to Winston Churchill 1/2 of the money for the war had to be raised through taxation and that burden was levied primarily on the landed gentry. Winston churchill also makes mention of the ever increasing indebtedness of the landed gentry to the money power of the whigs who controlled the bank of england. I believe this to be the true reason for all of the animosity between the two faction and would therefore like any sources related to the subject that would reveal the political and financial struggle between the two parties with greater clarity. This can be tax figures during the war or a history of the bank of england.
To be honest I find all of the books I have read on Marlborough to be wholly inadequate. There has to be a greater analysis out there and I am hoping that someone can provide me with some more scientific sources. The ones that I have read are decades out of date (Chandlers was written in 1973 and Winstons in 1933). There must be a more recent, in depth, fact based, historically motivated analysis of the time period.
The historian commonly referred to as "Napoleon's historian" in French is Jean Tulard, there is some overlap with Churchill but he is far younger than Churchill so I doubt he would be the man referenced.
Another possible person who could be called "Napoleon's Historian" could be Louis Rossel. He was charged with publishing large troves of the notes, correspondences and writings of Napoleon I by Napoleon III. He is by far the most likely person to receive the title "Napoleon's historian". But he is also the one who discovered that many of the already published writings of Napoleon I could not have been written by the man, so not by French sources... However, since Rossel was a Communard, and given the links some of the Communards held with maintained with London, I wouldn't be surprised that Churchill might refer to him as "Napoleon's historian".