Death to the French is a 1932 novel of the Peninsular War during the Napoleonic Wars, written by C. S. Forester, the author of the Horatio Hornblower novels. It was also published in the United States under the title Rifleman Dodd. Overview The novel relates the adventures of a British rifleman of the 95th Regiment of Foot who is cut off from his regiment when the Allied army retreats behind the Lines of Torres Vedras. He is forced to survive for several months in territory that has been devastated by the Allies and occupied by the French. With some help from a few local Portuguese, Dodd wages guerrilla warfare against the French. The story is told from both the perspective of Dodd and the Frenchmen he is fighting. Its picture of the hero's resolution and devotion to duty in dangerous circumstances caused it to be put on the official reading list endorsed by the Commandant of the United States Marine Corps. Plot summary The hero is Matthew Dodd, a rifleman in the 95th Regiment of Foot of the British Army. The novel takes place in Portugal early in the Peninsular War. The British had sent a small force of about 10,000 men to the aid of her ally, Portugal. Rather than face the overwhelming numbers of the opposing French forces under Marshal André Masséna, the British commander, Lord Wellington, secretly constructed the Lines of Torres Vedras and withdrew behind them, leaving the French force no options but to lay siege to the lines, or retreat. For three months the French encamped outside the lines, waiting for reinforcements from the other side of the Tagus River, but in the end hunger and disease forced them to retreat. During the British withdrawal, Dodd becomes separated from his regiment and is cut off from the British forces, with the entire French army between him and the lines at Torres Vedras. In an attempt to get around the French, he heads for the Tagus River, hoping to follow it to Lisbon. However, the French are there ahead of him, and he has no option but to live off the land and try to survive. He joins a group of Portuguese guerrillas and spends two months with them, harassing the encamped French army, killing sentries and laying ambushes for scouting parties and supply animals. After two months of guerrilla fighting, Dodd hears artillery fire from