Julian Spilsbury (1955–2023) was a British author, military historian, journalist and television scriptwriter whose career ranged from thrillers to narrative military history. He worked as a military obituarist for the Daily Telegraph and wrote scripts for television programmes including The Bill, Taggart and Casualty. He also published fiction, including Captain Coranto and Night of the Bear. As a historian, Spilsbury specialised in presenting military campaigns through vivid narrative, eyewitness testimony and close attention to the decisions of commanders and the experiences of soldiers.
His principal historical works include The Thin Red Line: An Eyewitness History of the Crimean War, which reconstructs the Crimean conflict through contemporary accounts, and The Indian Mutiny, an account of the Indian Rebellion of 1857 and the military and political crisis that ultimately ended East India Company rule. He also wrote Great Military Disasters, later issued as Great Military Disasters: From Bannockburn to Stalingrad, examining major defeats from the ancient world through the twentieth century and analysing failures of command, tactics, technology and judgement. His historical writing ranged widely, but nineteenth-century imperial warfare—particularly the Crimean War and the Indian Rebellion—formed an important part of his work.
