All War Is Local
Today marks the day, 194 years ago, the stage was set for our world.
Napoleon, having escaped from Elba, had reclaimed power and his army in the period known as the Hundred Days. The British and their allies were ill-prepared and hastily cobbled together a force to oppose him. In several days of engagements, the British, Prussian, Dutch and Belgian allies were falling back through Belgium. Wellington, looking for a place to stop and face Napoleon, chose his ground on the ridge at Mont St. Jean before the village of Waterloo, where his army had stopped overnight in the pouring rain. On Sunday morning, June 18, 1815, the sun came up over the two armies, more than 200,000 men, facing each other over several miles of Belgian farmland and woods, with the Chateau Hougoumont and the farmhouse at La Haye Saint in between occupied as strong points by the British. By the end of the day, an estimated 20,000 or 1 in 10 were dead, and another 40,000 were missing or wounded. Napoleon was done, being chased down by Germans through the disordered fleeing remnants of his army.
In what Wellington famously called “a close-run thing,”* his lines of British regulars and Dutch and Belgian militia had held … with the encouragement of cavalry chargers at their backs nosing them forward at times, and cudgel-wielding sergeants to poke back into line or beat anyone who wavered. Wellington’s cavalry had broken French advances, though at terrible cost, as when Ponsonby’s cavalry sent forward to stop D’Erlon on the British left succeeded in that task, but overshot and were decimated in the process.
Bloody close-quarters combat raged for hours at the strongpoints of Hougoumont and La Haye Saint, and British reserve troops in formation just behind the ridge were ordered to lay down to limit the damage from superior French artillery that sent cannon balls bounding through their ranks all day. Then they formed the famous squares for an hours-long duel with French cavalry, which impotently swirled around and challenged them but were unable to break through the thickets of bayonets maintained by thinning rows of soldiers, their officers and NCOs walking upright behind them encouraging discipline and damning cowardice.
Luck, ground, timing, discipline, the Prussians and Napoleon’s miscalculations were on Wellington’s side. Blücher’s Prussians arrived on Napoleon’s right in the afternoon, a threat Napoleon failed to address seriously enough. And, mystery for the ages, Napoleon failed to send in his infantry in concert with his cavalry against the British squares, which could have stressed Wellington’s battle formations and created the chaos Napoleon needed. When he finally sent in his beloved Old Guard, it was too late, and the tough old veterans of the Little Emperor’s many campaigns were broken.
All war is local. The wars we care about are the ones that affect us directly. The ones that burn our houses or happen down the road from us, which drain our wallets and take our children away. The ones that threaten our own world and, to varying degrees politically, economically and historically, shape the world around us.
Waterloo, I learned late in life, was local for my family on a couple of levels. My old man in his 80s let drop that his mother’s great uncle had been there. Name of Matthews, nothing else known. None of the particulars which might fix a place on the field and throw some light on the experience of this earliest identified combat veteran. The old man’s people having mainly been interested in horses, pubs and other more immediate concerns, passing along ancient history had never been a priority. There is also the odd coincidence that Napoleon, fleeing in his carriage in the rout that followed the battle, was captured about 20 miles away in Charleroi, where my father’s brother is buried, dead in another great European war 126 years later.
But Waterloo and the Napoleonic Wars that it ended are local for everyone. The name “Waterloo” is among the best known in history, repeated tens of thousands of times daily because it has been stamped a London tube station and midwestern American towns, made the subject of a 1970s pop hit, and because it is the well-deserved metaphor for one’s ultimate downfall.
Which brings us to what makes Waterloo important to all of us. The final end of centuries-old regal and imperial rivalry between the British and the French, which intensified in the century preceding Waterloo. That rivalry shaped the New World, in the fierce combat of the French and Indian War that helped shape the American character and the political demarcations of North America, and also began the chain of events that would lead to the American War of Independence and the political revolution that accompanied it. The birth of modern democracy. That British-French rivalry also played a major role in the British-American War of 1812, which challenged the existence of the young republic, but from which emerged a stronger sense of nationhood and international legitimacy.
Though America was at odds with the British in those days, Wellington’s victory at Waterloo was not simply a victory for Britain and British imperialism … obstacles to British world dominance over the ensuing century having been removed … and not just a victory for Europeans, free of French domination to pursue their own patchwork fits and starts toward modern nationhood and democracy.
Waterloo’s final result cleared the way for English to become the world’s new lingua franca, for English Common Law, English education, English capitalism, and ironically enough, English notions of freedom and equality to become worldwide templates and ideals. It shaped our world. The English century paved the way for the American century, which saw Britain surrender her empire under duress, but which saw the evolution of English ideals, further developed in America, spreading as America with England and other Anglophone allies in the lead was not just a defender of freedom but its active proponent and inspiration in the world.
It is still the American century, though we’ve now spilled into the 21st, and remain in direct combat and political manuevers with multiple adversaries that would like to bring it to an end. It is the same battle that Wellington fought against autocratic tyranny at Waterloo. You can dicker about whether, as a British general at the opening of the 19th century, he represented freedom, but for Europe and ultimately the world he did. This is the battle that never ends, and that we still fight. It remains, like Waterloo, a close-run thing.
A Waterloo reading list begins with the source of a lot of the tactical information cited above. Alessandro Barbero’s magnificent work, The Battle, a standard not just of Waterloo but of military history in its examination of the critical minutiae that can turn a battle.
Barbero’s work, translated by John Cullen, takes us through each phase of the 10-hour battle, as experienced by the generals, the foot soldiers, the cavalry and the artillery, made immediate with graphic first-person accounts of the conditions and the action. As the day unfolds, each fateful action is revealed in the battle’s “slow burn,” from D’Erlon’s advance on the weak British left, to Ponsonby’s charge, through the drawn-out contests at La Haye Sainte and Hougoumont, and the prolonged battle of wills at the infantry squares. Barbero reviews the exhaustive scholarship on what ultimately remain elusive truths about Napoleon’s misjudgments about the Prussians and his failure to send infantry against the squares.
These standards of Waterloo history are clarified by detailed discussions of the massed-fire infantry and cavalry shock tactics of the time — not just of the Napoleonic Wars, but how they had evolved and were applied at the moment of the battle. Barbero also devotes significant attention to the specific weapons — muskets, rifles, sabres, artillery and lances — each unit employed, their likely rates, range and volume of fire, and the advantages and disadvantages that were the demonstrable result. Just as critical, and laid out in remarkable detail, is information on a unit-by-unit basis about the combat experience, level of training, terms of service, average age and morale of the British, French, German, Dutch and Belgian regulars and militia that took part in the battle.
Another detailed treatment of some of the same issues, John Keegan looks at the psychological, physical and tactical considerations of the foot solder in The Face of Battle: A Study of Agincourt, Waterloo, and the Somme.
More on the Battle of Waterloo:
Four Days in June: Waterloo: A Battle for Honour and Glory by Iain Gale
1815: The Waterloo Campaign-The German Victory by Peter Hofschroer
WATERLOO 1815: Quatre Bras and Ligny by Peter Hofschroer
Waterloo: A Near Run Thing by David Howarth
The Waterloo Companion: The Complete Guide to History’s Most Famous Land Battle by Mark Adkin
The Generals:
Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte by his private secretary, Louis Antoine Fauvelet De Bourrienne
The History Of Napoleon Bonaparte: A Man Of Genius, Vision And Power by John Lockhart
Wellington: The Iron Duke by Richard Holmes
Wellington At Waterloo by Jac Weller
Wellington’s Smallest Victory: The Duke, the Model Maker, and the Secret of Waterloo by Peter Hofschroer
The Hussar General: The Life of Blucher, Man of Waterloo by Roger Parkinson
The Big Picture:
Waterloo 1815: The Birth of Modern Europe by Geoff Wootten
The War of Wars: The Epic Struggle Between Britain and France: 1789-1815 by Robert Harvey
The Napoleonic Wars (Smithsonian History of Warfare) by Gunther Rothenberg
The War for All the Oceans: From Nelson at the Nile to Napoleon at Waterloo by Roy Adkins
The First Total War: Napoleon’s Europe and the Birth of Warfare as We Know It by David A. Bell
Fifteen Decisive Battles Of The World: From Marathon To Waterloo by Sir Edward Shepherd Creasy
The Age of Battles: The Quest for Decisive Warfare from Breitenfeld to Waterloo by Russell F. Weigley
Britain and the Defeat of Napoleon, 1807-1815 by Rory Muir
A Military History of the Western World (From the Defeat of the Spanish Armada to the Battle of Waterloo) by J.F.C. Fuller
Rites of Peace: The Fall of Napoleon and the Congress of Vienna by Adam Zamoyski
Line views:
Captain of the 95th (rifles) An officer of Wellington’s Sharpshooters during the Peninsular, South of France and Waterloo campaigns of the Napoleonic wars by Jonathan Leach
Rifleman Costello: The adventures of a soldier of the 95th (rifles) in the Peninsular & Waterloo Campaigns of the Napoleonic Wars by E. Costello
Captain Coignet - A Soldier of Napoleon’s Imperial Guard from the Italian Campaign to Waterloo by Jean-Roche Coignet
A WATERLOO HERO: The Adventures of Friedrich Lindau by Friedrich Lindau
Wellington’s Rifles: Six Years to Waterloo with England’s Legendary Sharpshooters by Mark Urban
Other Napoleonic Wars-related:
Dancing into Battle: A Social History of the Battle of Waterloo by Nick Foulkes
Armies of the Napoleonic Wars: An illustrated history by Chris McNab
Fighting Techniques of the Napoleonic Age 1792-1815: Equipment, Combat Skills, and Tactics by Robert B. Bruce
British Napoleonic Infantry Tactics 1792-1815 by Philip Haythornthwaite
French Napoleonic Infantry Tactics 1792-1815 by Paddy Griffith
Atlas for the Wars of Napoleon (West Point Military History) by Thomas E. Griess
Historical Atlas of the Napolenoic Era by Angus Konstam
The Illustrious Dead: The Terrifying Story of How Typhus Killed Napoleon’s Greatest Army by Stephan Talty
Mirage: Napoleon’s Scientists and the Unveiling of Egypt by Nina Burleigh
Napoleon’s Privates: 2,500 Years of History Unzipped by Tony Perrottet, at the suggestion in comment of reader Hsco6, that looks to be less Waterloo and more “For a good time, read …”
And while we’re at it, Napoleon For Dummies by J. David Markham
In the interest of the Frogness, I mean, Fairness Doctrine and another good time, here’s Napoleon as victim:
WARS AGAINST NAPOLEON, THE: Debunking the Myth of the Napoleonic Wars by General Michel Franceschi and Ben Weider, of which Publishers Weekly says:
Franceschi, a retired French army officer and special historical consultant to the International Napoleonic Society (INS), and Weider (The Murder of Napoleon), a businessman and founder of the INS, seek to recast Napoleon Bonaparte as a peaceful creative genius—even a pacifist—in this provocative apologia. The authors set out to debunk the myth that Napoleon’s inexhaustible ambition was responsible for the eponymous wars that marked his rule in France. Rather, the authors argue, Napoleon was not only the person least responsible but also the victim of Revolutionary France’s enemies. The authors’ favorite villain is the warmongering British, but they also apportion blame among Prussia, Spain, Austria and Russia. Napoleon’s only ambition was the great work of reconstructing France, and the unchanging foundation of his foreign policy was the principle of preventing war. They also excuse him for French battlefield losses and attribute the Waterloo defeat to the most inopportune of thunderstorms. Franceschi and Weider’s one-sided, revisionist defense of Bonaparte as a sensitive soul with a pacifist disposition promises to be controversial.
No kidding. Seems like a good place to throw in this one:
Blundering to Glory: Napoleon’s Military Campaigns by Owen Connelly, of which an unattributed Amazon review says:
Renowned for its accuracy, brevity, and readability, this book has long been the gold standard of concise histories of the Napoleonic Wars … it is unique in its portrayal of one of the world’s great generals as a scrambler who never had a plan, strategic or tactical, that did not break down or change of necessity in the field. Distinguished historian Owen Connelly argues that Napoleon was the master of the broken play, so confident of his ability to improvise, cover his own mistakes, and capitalize on those of the enemy that he repeatedly plunged his armies into uncertain, seemingly desperate situations, only to emerge victorious as he blundered to glory.
Except on those occasions when he blundered into ignominious defeat.
Meanwhile:
From the great historical novelist Bernard Cornwell, Sharpe’s Waterloo.
The Limits of Glory: A Novel of Waterloo by James R. McDonough gets the thumbs from reader Lt. Cdr. Joe D., who also recommends McDonough’s Platoon Leader: A Memoir of Command in Combat from his year in Vietnam.
Reader davidp adds An Infamous Army: A Novel of Wellington, Waterloo, Love and War by Georgette Heyer, reports it is “thoroughly researched and thoroughly readable.” Maybe, but not at the expense of some righteous bodice ripping, I hope.
Last but not least in Waterloo literature, William Thackeray’s Vanity Fair, which I’ve never read but it sounds like I need to, because apparently it is a biting satire on war, its causes and effects, that starts with and riffs heavily off Waterloo.
Hang on, we can’t get out of this list without one more classic. Waterloo veteran Carl von Clausewitz’s On War.
* Apparently some controversy over the quote, also quoted as “a near-run thing” and “the nearest run thing you every saw in your life.” Here’s your Wellington quote wiki with some other Waterloo utterances, including:
“Give me night or give me Blücher.”
“Up, Guards, and at ‘em again.”
“Hard pounding this, gentlemen; let’s see who will pound longest.”
And this exchange:
Uxbridge: “By God, sir, I’ve lost my leg!”
Wellington: “By God, sir, so you have!”
And in a letter after the battle.
“My heart is broken by the terrible loss I have sustained in my old friends and companions and my poor soldiers. Believe me, nothing except a battle lost can be half so melancholy as a battle won.”
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 9:23 am on Thursday, June 18, 2009
4 Responses to “All War Is Local”
Leave a Reply
Trackback URLYou must be logged in to post a comment.
June 18th, 2009 at 11:29 am
Jules, depending upon just how self-destructive you are, you may wish to consider adding to your list, Tony Perrottet’s “Napoleon’s Privates”, named due to its feature essay about the ultimate disposition of Napoleon’s unit. He chronicles the roundabout path taken by the emperor’s French Part, supposedly pilfered by a disgruntled doctor during autopsy, to its current location, of all places, New Jersey. The book also has another hundred or so other cheap, salacious party stories, such as “J. Edgar Hoover’s Favorite Party Dress”, stuff like that.
http://tonyperrottet.com/napoleonsprivates/
June 18th, 2009 at 5:33 pm
Very informative post Jules. Thanks.
June 18th, 2009 at 5:44 pm
If all wars are local, then you can’t get more local than this: America’s real war today (and by extension, Western civilization’s real war) is with itself, as demonstrated by the mindset that produces such books as WARS AGAINST NAPOLEON, THE: Debunking the Myth of the Napoleonic Wars.
June 19th, 2009 at 2:25 am
I’d add Georgette Heyer’s novel “An Infamous Army” - thouroughly researched and thoroughly readable. (but I haven’t read Sharpe’s Waterloo)