n Joan Of Arc: A Military Leader by Kelly Devries (Sutton, £7.99)

THE career of the saviour of France lasted barely a year.

Betrayed by her countrymen and burned at the stake by the English invader, the story of The Maid is a legend that gains intensity, particularly in the French consciousness.

Jehanne D'Arc left few clues to the enigma that was her short life. Two of her letters exist and there is a piece of charred rib, said to belong to her, in a glass case in Chinon Castle. Transcripts from her interrogation also survive.

But despite countless books, several films and the periodical adoption by both the political Left and Right, the question remains: Just who was Joan of Arc?

There has also been much speculation regarding the voices she was supposed to have heard. Deluded adolescent, pubescent fantasist... or did she really hear the word of God in her ear that hot summer's day in her home village of Domremy?

Kelly Devries wisely avoids the speculation. Rather, she concentrates on the military career of the teenage phenomenon who single-handedly turned the tide of the Hundred Years War.

By the late 1420s, the French had been defeated time and time again by the numerically inferior, but tactically superior, English Army.

The high water mark of Gallic despair had been Agincourt when Henry V's archers cut down the flower of the French nobility.

But in the matter of a few months, despite the reluctant blessing of the Dauphin, Joan led her soldiers to victory after victory, culminating in the lifting of the siege of Orleans and the triumphant march to Reims.

How was this achieved? Ms Devries makes a fair fist by way of explanation.

Because it concentrates on seeking an answer to how all this was possible, this book is a welcome addition to an already crowded area of literary scholarship.

For it explains with great clarity how the English were to be eventually expelled from their first colonies. Joan of Arc will certainly appeal to both armchair general and Francophile alike.

John Phillpott