A book (reference 3) written in Italian in 2005 by someone who, inter alia, trained in medieval history and which is brought to me in English via Atlantic Books. A book which has translated very well, into an informative and gripping account of the battle. Once again surprised at how one can get worked up about a story, the main outlines and the outcome of which one knows well already. But not so pleased to find stuff that I had blogged about last March had vanished from (accessible) memory.
So I am reminded that the British Cavalry, despite having engaged with the French for years, had not taken to lances, while the French lancers (a lot of whom were not actually French) did a lot of damage at Waterloo. Also that our cavalry was not very well led and was not very disciplined: far too many of our officers had bought their commissions and thought that it was enough to be able to be cool under fire; to be able to discuss their fox hounds while the cannon balls were crashing around. While the present story corroborates the impression given at reference 4, that a much higher proportion of French officers rose by virtue of service and merit.
On the other hand, while the Uxbridge charge fairly early on in the day resulted in the destruction of a good part of our heavy cavalry, the loss of which was felt later, it also saved the day in that our infantry line did not break. He had chosen his moment well.
Running out of men or horses were two problems. Running our of ammunition was another, compounded on our side by our having two sorts of ammunition, musket ammunition and rifle ammunition. Barbero notes that the French infantry could load their muskets faster than the British could load theirs, dispensing with ramrods, while the loading of the British rifles was even slower - although you could shoot further and straighter once you had loaded. Also that the French artillery, more numerous than the British and doing tremendous damage in the course of the day, eventually ran out of ammunition too. Sending in the Guard to attack the British line was the last throw of the dice.
Barbero makes a good deal of the practise of sending out large numbers of skirmishers in front of the more conventionally massed ranks of infantry. Something which the French were good at, but which had caught on in both the British and Prussian armies. Not much of a target for cannon, but a very good target for cavalry. More of Bernard Cornwell's scissors, paper and stone.
Barbero is also an Italian which means that while he makes use of the large amount of correspondence and memoirs available from British combatants, his story taken as a whole gives plenty of weight to the non-British contribution to the successful outcome of the battle, that is to say the Prussians closing in from the east and the large proportion of non-British troops under Wellington's command. He makes clear how close Wellington came to losing, reminding me of the comment about the Battle of Hastings to the effect that a long drawn out, hard fought battle was likely to end in rout and carnage. The winners might be exhausted and badly damaged, but while the losers were in a state of panic, the winners were worked up and more or less out of control. It did not take much to tip it one way or the other.
But a rout which did not destroy the French army. Napoleon's marshals were able to put a credible army back together in the days that followed - and could have fought on had Napoleon not lost the political battle in Paris. The French people had had enough.
At the end, after 400 pages of carnage, I was a bit surprised at what seemed like the relatively small number of casualties, with killed, wounded and missing adding up to a quarter of Wellington's army. The answer must be that the proportion varied hugely across the various units, with some reserve units taking few casualties and forward units taking a lot. And with some raw units breaking when they lost, say, 10% of their effectives, while crack units like the Old Guard were able to take much higher losses. In passing, the Middle Guard was not really that at all; it had been put together from all over the place after Napoleon returned from Elba.
One of the biggest battles every fought, in the sense that 200,000 or so combatants were concentrated in just two or three square miles. With this book, unlike most of the others that I have come across, concentrated on the day of the battle, with not much space given to before or after.
The 400 pages are broken down into 70 short chapters arranged in four parts. Pictures fine. But let down by the maps, which I did not find very helpful. Poking around last night, the best map that I found was in my biography of Wellington (noticed at reference 2), drawn not long after the battle, and covering, for me, just the right area. From Braine L'Allend in the west to the Bois de Paris in the east. From Mont St. Jean in the north to Caillou in the south. With furry shading for the topography, a touch confusing to those of us used to modern shading. A fold-out rather than a pull-out map, which meant that you could not have it and the text available at the same time, something which used to be reasonably common in such books, but is now a rare treat. While the maps that Napoleon and Wellington had to work with, one of which is reproduced in the present book, looked even more confusing. But I suppose they were used to it. Also that they had a good eye for the lie of the land, so did not need that much help.
Reference 1: http://psmv3.blogspot.com/2018/03/waterloo.html.
Reference 2: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/search?q=waterloo+battle&max-results=20&by-date=true.
Reference 3: The Battle: a history of the battle of Waterloo - Alessandro Barbero - 2005.
Reference 4: Souvenirs d'un Officier de la Grande Armée - Maurice Barrès - 1922. Last noticed in November, 2017.
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