Piers Mackesy

Piers Gerald Mackesy (15 September 1924 – 30 June 2014) while his Irish grandfather, William Mackesy, was a Lieutenant General.

Growing up in an army family, Mackesy followed his father's assignments, living on a number of army camps, including Quetta, Pakistan; Chatham, England, and Borden to the south-west of Guildford. Mackesy was educated at Wellington College in Crowthorne and was commissioned into the Royal Scots Greys in 1944, serving until 1947. Then he became a scholar of Christ Church, Oxford, obtaining his bachelor's degree in 1950. As a graduate student, Mackesy studied for a D.Phil. degree at Oriel College, Oxford, where he wrote his thesis on British Strategy in the Mediterranean, 1803–1810.

Mackesy's daughter is the novelist Serena Mackesy.

Academic career After completing his doctorate, Mackesy was appointed Harkness Fellow at Harvard University, and a year later he was appointed a tutor in modern history and Fellow of Pembroke College, Oxford in 1954, remaining there until he retired in 1988. While at Pembroke, he became senior tutor and vicegerent of the College. For many years, he taught the special subject in military history at Oxford with Professor N. H. Gibbs. The course of study involved using the War of the Second Coalition as a case study for examining the theories of Carl von Clausewitz, a Prussian general. He was an Emeritus Fellow of Pembroke College from 1988 until his death in 2014.

Mackesy was visiting fellow, Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton (1961–62); visiting professor, California Institute of Technology (1966); Bland-Lee Lecturer at Clark University. He taught at the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island; the United States Military Academy in West Point, New York; and Northeastern University in Boston. He was the Lees Knowles Lecturer at Cambridge University in 1972, and served as a member of Council, Institute of Early American History and Culture in Williamsburg, Virginia, 1970–73.

In 1978 the University of Oxford awarded Mackesy the degree of D.Litt. In 1988 he was elected a Fellow of the British Academy.

Publications The War in the Mediterranean, 1803–1810 (1957) The War for America, 1775–1783 (1964, 1992) Statesmen at War: The Strategy of Overthrow, 1798–1799 (1974) Could the British have Won the War of Independence?: Bland-Lee lecture, September 1975 (1976) The Coward of Minden: the Affair of Lord George Sackville (1979) War without Victory: The Downfall of Pitt, 1799–1802 (1984) British Victory in Egypt, 1801: the End of Napoleon's Conquest (1995); ; awarded the Templer Medal

Contributor to:

Michael Howard, ed, Wellingtonian Studies (1959) David L. Jacobson, ed., Essays on the American Revolution (1970) William M. Fowler, Jr. and Wallace Coyle, eds., The American Revolution: Changing Perspectives (1979) John B. Hattendorf and Malcolm H. Murfett, eds, The Limitations of Military Power: Essays Presented to Professor Norman Gibbs on His Eightieth Birthday (1990)