battle of waterloo Archives - Lynn Bryant’s Writing with Labradors

23rd September 2022

Waterloo 2022: the Battlefield Tour

Waterloo 2022: the Battlefield Tour

It’s taken me a few weeks to put together a description of the full day’s tour of the Waterloo Battlefield, partly because events rather took over once I got back to the UK but mostly because I needed a bit of distance before trying to describe the day.

Once again I’m not going to attempt to put together a battlefield guide of my own, based on Gareth’s incredible tour. He’s written so much about the battle himself that it would be utterly superfluous. My recommendation is that people who want to know more go away and find his books. I’ve recently read his Waterloo: myth and reality which is a brilliant overview of the campaign, pointing out some of the enduring myths and stories over the years and sifting through the evidence to suggest what the truth might be. It’s very readable and is a great place to start.

Number One London Tours did an excellent job of managing the various walking abilities of its tour members and the bus moved around the battlefield with us to enable those needing a rest to hop on and off. Some of us walked the whole way. One of the first things I really noticed, being on the ground at Waterloo is that the battlefield is far more undulating than it looks from photographs or from the top of the Lion’s Mound. Crossing from the left to the right of Wellington’s lines before walking down to do the same with the French lines, it’s very clear that commanders, officers and men really couldn’t see what was happening in different parts of the battlefield.

Features of the landscape like the covered way which is still partly visible, waist and head-high crops and surprisingly steep ridges help the story of the battle unfold far more easily than looking at maps. Gareth had maps a plenty though, to demonstrate each stage of the fighting as we reached it, starting from Papelotte and moving around the various parts of the field. He had also brought a copy of his fantastic Waterloo Archive Map Book which includes a large collection of contemporary sketches and maps but also artists impressions of the battlefield and surrounding countryside. I probably don’t need to tell you that I’ve already ordered a copy.

Interspersed with clear, easy to understand descriptions of troop movements and the various attacks at different stages of the battle, were the individual stories from both Gareth and Kristine about the men who fought, suffered and died at Waterloo. I’ve seen many of these accounts before but hearing them read out on the ground where the action took place gave them a whole new meaning.

Despite a lot of development on and around the battlefield, Waterloo reminds me of Salamanca in that it’s still very easy to get a sense of the countryside as it must have been on that wet morning in June 1815 when Wellington deployed his mismatched army along the ridge at Mont St Jean and hoped that the Prussians would arrive. We walked over the same fields as the British, the Dutch and Belgian, the French and Prussians. It was a beautiful sunny day, not at all the right atmosphere for ghosts, but it was surprisingly easy to imagine the crash of guns, the squeal of terrified horses and the tramping of thousands of feet.

It was also horribly easy to imagine the aftermath, with dead and wounded strewn across the field. Injured men staggered towards anywhere they might find help and too many of them fell by the wayside. The memorials to the different armies and regiments as well as to a few individuals which are scattered around the battlefield highlight the poignant truth that most men who died at Waterloo had no marked grave, no memorial and quite possibly may not even have been buried at all.

I’ve not reached the Battle of Waterloo with my fictional regiment yet, but throughout this tour names have been mentioned of men I know about, have read about and have written about as real people. Picton’s death, Charles Alten’s serious injuries and poor Juana Smith’s mistaken belief that her beloved Harry lay dead on that grisly field somehow have a new meaning now. Entwined with them will be the fate of my fictional characters, who over the past five years have become utterly real to me. I still don’t know myself what happens to them all on the bloody field of Waterloo but whether they live or die, I don’t suppose any of them will be the same afterwards.

We ended our tour of the battlefield with a walk up to the Prussian memorial at Plancenoit and with a drink at Le Gros Velo, sitting in the sunshine opposite the church. It isn’t the same church that was there in 1815. That one was destroyed during the battle but it has been rebuilt on the same site and there are several memorial plaques on the walls. I can remember going to Badajoz back in 2017 and discovering that sometimes, in a place where great tragedy and suffering occurred, it’s what isn’t left behind that affects me more powerfully than what is.

For our last evening we had a farewell dinner at Les Deux Sil, the Italian restaurant on the edge of the battlefield. It was a lovely meal and a lovely evening with a real sense of camaraderie. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed getting to know these people and hope to meet some of them on future trips.

When we emerged, it was dark. Kristine had bought some flowers and a few of us walked up towards the Lion’s Mound which is lit up at night. It looked spectacular and despite all the jokes about it spoiling the battlefield, it felt like a fitting memorial that night, not to the Prince of Orange or Wellington or to any of the other individual commanders but to the thousands of anonymous men and animals who died on that field two hundred and seven years ago.

We placed the flowers on the edge of the field, not on any particular monument but just on a spot where any man might have fallen and stood quietly, listening on a phone to John Tams singing Spanish Ladies, a haunting folk song. A version of that song existed in 1815 and might have been sung by the campfires by men who did not survive that day. It seemed an appropriate memorial to the ordinary soldiers and the perfect way to end Waterloo 2022: the Battlefield Tour.

The house used by the Duke of Wellington in Brussels in the run up to the Battle of Waterloo

I’d like to thank Gareth Glover and Kristine Hughes Patrone from Number One London Tours as well as all my fellow tourists for making this a fascinating but also very moving experience. I’ve come home with pages of notes and loads of ideas about how the 110th infantry might fit in to the battle on the day. It would be so tempting to jump ahead, but I’m not going to. My lads had to go all the way through that war, so I’m going with them every step of the way.

23rd September 202223rd September 2022

Waterloo 2022: Wellington Napoleon and Mont Saint Jean

Waterloo 2022: Wellington Napoleon and Mont St Jean

Today’s tour started at the Wellington Museum which is housed in Wellington’s Headquarters in Waterloo itself. I’m going to digress from being a tour guide here now and mention the fact that having been round the various museums here, I am quite grateful that there is in fact a Wellington Museum at all.

I’ve seen various commentaries online about the huge local concentration here on Napoleon rather than the Allied commanders. People who complain about this are generally mocked for being Wellington groupies and undoubtedly in some cases that’s true, but it is striking, particularly in the various gift shops. I think it might have improved very slightly since I came four years ago in that it is now possible to buy one Wellington item in the main gift shop but that is completely overwhelmed by the vast amount of Napoleon memorabilia. Personally I don’t really need any more souvenirs but the difference is striking.

I have no idea whether there’s something political about this, whether it’s considered Napoleon was the most important person at Waterloo given that he was an Emperor or whether they just don’t think Wellington or Blucher memorabilia will sell. I do think it should probably be redressed, but if it’s a marketing decision then I guess that’s a good enough reason. All the same, Napoleon as a dog was a bit much for me.

Not the best likeness, but it gets the point across…

The Wellington museum is a poignant reminder of the human cost of battle. Wellington’s staff had done surprisingly well through the long years of the Peninsular War but his luck ran out at Waterloo. This was where Kristine’s knowledge of the people came into its own and the excerpts from Wellington’s letters were very emotional. During the years I’ve been writing the Peninsular War Saga, I’ve got to know some of these young men as if they were my own fictional characters and it was surprisingly painful to think of Alexander Gordon’s death and Fitzroy Somerset’s agonising operation to amputate his arm. There’s a lot of information about Wellington through the various sites, but in this house I found it much easier to imagine Wellington the man, struggling to write the early part of his Waterloo dispatch while receiving news of the death and wounding of his friends.

Across the busy road from the Wellington Museum is the elaborate church which was there at the time of the battle and used, like many churches, as a hospital to receive wounded men. Those of you who have followed me for a while know that I have a thing about old churches and this one was particularly peaceful, with a number of memorials to the men who fought and died during the Waterloo campaign. Memorials at this time tended to be paid for either by the family of the dead man or by subscription through the various battalions and regiments, so not surprisingly more of them relate to the wealthier regiments. Very few of the memorials even mention the NCOs and enlisted men apart from this one in the church, which may well be the first of its kind.

After lunch we moved on to Napoleon’s Headquarters in the farmhouse of Le Caillou, where Napoleon and his staff spent the night of June 17, 1815. The museum collection is spread over five rooms and tells the story of the Emperor’s actions in the hours before Waterloo. There are a number of artefacts relating to Napoleon, though Gareth queried whether some of the furniture was authentic given that the Prussians reputedly set fire to everything on their way through after Napoleon’s departure. Still, it gives a good sense of how the farm might have looked at the time.

In the garden outside the farmhouse are one or two memorials. There is also an ossuary, which is a small building intended to serve as the final resting place of human bones. Ossuaries are often used where burial space is scarce but in this case it has become a depository for bones found on the battlefield over the years. I’ve seen photos of this but found the real thing unexpectedly moving.

The final stop of the day was the medical museum, located at Mont Saint Jean, which was situated at the back of Wellington’s lines and became the main field hospital. We hit a slight problem here as it turned out the museum and attached bar had just moved over to winter opening hours and were closed. Fortunately Gareth’s local knowledge saved the day and after a short wait we were allowed to go in to the museum for a brief tour.

Mont Saint Jean is not for the faint hearted. The suffering of the wounded of both armies must have been indescribable, and Gareth read a distressing description of bloody bodies and severed limbs covering the ground outside the farm. There are vivid descriptions of the various wounds and operations performed and information about individual surgeons and their experience of the campaign.

There are also exhibits of medicine and surgical kits from the era and the uniforms worn by the medical staff. One or two models give an idea of the state of Mont Saint Jean as the wounded continued to pour in. I’ve always thought that the astonishing thing about surgery and medicine in the army at this time is how many of the operations actually succeeded and how many men survived their wounds. Survival would not have been improved by the invariable practice of bleeding a wounded man. It has sometimes occurred to me that once the initial operation was over, a shortage of surgeons might well have meant that a man would be bled less often which could improve his chances of survival…

After one of the shorter days with Waterloo 2022: Wellington Napoleon and Mont Saint Jean we went back to the hotel early for dinner and drinks, as we needed to get ready for the next day and our battlefield tour. For me this was going to be the highlight of the week and the main reason I came on this tour. This week has gone so quickly and I’ve learned so much, it’s been a joy. I should also mention that the group were fantastic and really good company.

9th September 2022

Waterloo 2022 – Quatre Bras and Ligny

Waterloo 2022 – Quatre Bras and Ligny was one of the days I was most looking forward to. I’ve previously done a whistle stop tour of some of the Waterloo museums, but I’ve never been to either of these sites. I’ve also read nothing about them other than a brief mention at the beginning of many books on Waterloo. I was well aware of the significance of both of these actions in the rest of the campaign but other than that, I knew very little.

At some later stage, when I get to it, I’ll do a proper post on the whole campaign. These posts aren’t designed to tell you what happened on those days in 1815 but to describe my own experience of touring the battle sites with Number One London Tours led by Gareth Glover and Kristine Hughes Patrone.

Our tour today began in Fleurus, a town to the south-west of Ligny. Napoleon arrived at Fleurus with his staff and escort on the morning of the battle and reached the Fleurus windmill. He apparently ordered his engineers to build an observation platform by knocking out part of the roof and climbed up to survey the situation for himself. Throughout the tour, Gareth returned regularly to the issue of how much of the battlefields could actually be seen by the various army commanders. Napoleon remained well-back from the fighting for most of the day, while Wellington was positioned further forward, and in his usual manner, moved around the battlefield at different times.

We next moved on to the Chateau de la Paix, which is now used as local government offices. After his victory over the Prussians at Ligny on 16th June, Napoleon retired that evening to the Chateau in Fleurus, while his troops camped in the surrounding area. During the night Napoleon shut himself off from the outside world for as long as he could. He was inactive for almost eleven hours while the Prussians escaped. They were bloodied and much depleted but still effective enough to march to support Wellington at Waterloo.

The Napoleon room in the Chateau de la Paix

The room occupied by Napoleon in the Chateau has been reconstructed with period furniture. Our local guide Laurent was an excellent storyteller with a great sense of humour and he talked about the battle, the aftermath and what might have gone wrong for Napoleon. He and Gareth agreed with the possibility that treatment for a severe case of haemorrhoids might well have affected Napoleon’s behaviour that night and could possibly have affected some of his decisions. For anybody wanting to visit the Chateau, you have to book in advance and details are on their website. If all the guides are this good, I strongly recommend it.

Our next visit was to the small but very good museum in Ligny. It covers both Ligny and Quatre Bras and gave a very good sense of what happened on 16th June in these small villages and towns as the French inflicted a bloody defeat on Blucher’s Prussians and fought to a stalemate against Wellington’s Allied army. I was shocked at the extent of the casualties at both battles. Somehow I’d always had the vague impression that these were just skirmishes ahead of the main battle, but they clearly weren’t. All three armies were weakened by what happened on this day and it must have had an effect on what happened at Waterloo.

French ambulance wagon, much coveted by Anne van Daan…

From my own perspective, I was delighted to find a French flying ambulance wagon in the courtyard outside the museum. Anybody who has read the Peninsular War Saga will know that Anne van Daan has been persecuting Wellington about ambulance provision for three books now and if he wasn’t so fond of her he’d probably have strangled her. I’ve read about these and seen pictures but it was great to meet the real thing.

Memorial to the Duke of Brunswick, killed at Quatre Bras

We made our way up to Quatre Bras. There’s very little to see there, as the original farmhouse has been pulled down and there’s a lot of building in the area. Gareth did a good job, pointing out those sites and memorials around both battlefields which can still be seen. Even with limited access he managed to give a clear picture of what happened in both battles and had a wealth of personal accounts to read of what happened to individuals on the day.

We drove through Genappe, looking at the routes taken by the various armies and stopped for a photo opportunity at the Auberge du Roy d’Espagne. This former inn was used at different times by the Duke of Wellington, Prince Jérôme Bonaparte and Marshal Blücher, who stayed at the inn after Waterloo and reputedly left it in Napoleon’s sedan. There is a picture of the Prussian generals celebrating their victory at Waterloo, but the inn also housed the wounded French General Guillaume Philibert Duhesme who died there on June 20, two days after the battle, probably while the Prussians were still celebrating in the next room.

Blucher’s window at the Auberge du Roy d’Espagne from the outside…

And a painting of the same window from the inside. Though it doesn’t look the same, I suspect some artist’s license here…

Another long day on the tour, with moving accounts from both Gareth and Kristine about the battles and their aftermath. Tomorrow is museum day, with visits to the Wellington and Napoleon museums, the church in Waterloo and the Mont St Jean medical museum.

2nd November 20202nd November 2020

Wellington and Worsley

This blog post was written in response to a very silly article in the Mail Online.

At any given moment, it is possible to find dozens, possibly hundreds of historians who will frantically argue any given point of history. Some of them become very angry about it. Some of them are rude and abusive and call each other rude names. The ones I mix with are lovely and argue like grown-ups.

I’m a historical novelist, not a historian, and certainly not a massively popular BBC TV presenter like Lucy Worsley, but this article made me cross. I don’t have access to her original article in History Revealed without paying for it, and I’m not going to do that, because whatever this article really said, I strongly suspect that Lucy Worsley has written something that’s trying to be controversial about Waterloo and Wellington that isn’t particularly scholarly or particularly accurate.

However, I’m also well aware of how badly things can be misrepresented. I honestly don’t think Lucy Worsley said everything she seems to have said in this article. I do think she was probably paid to write something that would stir people up.

In the novels that I write, the Duke of Wellington, or Lord Wellington as he is in my current place in time, is a major secondary character and I love to write him. When I first saw this article, I thought how funny it would be to write a typically scathing Wellington response to it, something I often do.

The trouble with getting to know a character, is that you can’t unknow them. I couldn’t write the piece I wanted to write, because once I began, my Wellington was angry and also hurt. He remembers sitting down writing the Waterloo Despatch, while news of the death and injury of his friends was still coming in. He remembers the letters he had to write to the family of men who were killed and maimed. He remembers that afterwards, he wishes he’d said things differently, given more praise, listed more men and more regiments of all nationalities who were extraordinary on that day. He remembers that sometimes, he wrote what he knew the politicians in London wanted to hear. He worries about why he did that. He worries that he was human.

I originally started this post just as a laugh for my friends. I’m sorry it wasn’t as funny as I meant it to be. Today, my Wellington did what my characters sometimes do and displayed his humanity when you least expect them to. It’s lucky that I’m only a novelist, and not a serious historian, so very few people are going to read it.

For those that do, know that Wellington is really, really pissed off…

Dear Madam

With regard to your recent comments on the victory at Waterloo which were quoted in a publication apparently entitled MailOnline, there appear to be a number of errors which I feel it is my duty to correct!

Let me begin with the headline, which claims, if I have correctly interpreted the somewhat garbled wording, that Waterloo was not a British victory because I made little of the contribution of my allies on the Continent. Nobody should be surprised that I am accused of failing to give due credit in one of my despatches home, since my officers spent the years of the war in the Peninsula complaining about it, but why that should have any effect on the British part in the battle is baffling to me. Of course, it was a British victory! It was also a victory for the Prussians, the Dutch, the Hanoverians, the Brunswickers and any number of other nationalities, including a lone Spaniard, who as usual spent any quiet interval complaining that his stomach was growling and asking about dinner! Every one of the men who risked their lives on that battlefield can claim this victory as their own and I consider it damned impertinent that a tabloid journalist and a popular historian should suggest otherwise!!

You claim that I glossed over the role played by the Prussian army. To quote the article: “Worsley said that Wellington’s first cable back to London all but whitewashed their involvement.” I sincerely hope that the ‘journalist’ (a Mr Elsom, I believe) has misquoted you on this occasion. It is shocking that a man writing for a national newspaper is unaware that the first cable was not laid until 1850, but it would be frankly appalling if a person claiming to be a historian made the same schoolroom error!

As to the claim itself, I refer you to the following direct quotations from the despatch I sent to London immediately following the battle. Unfortunately, I was unable to send it by cable, as it had not yet been invented, but my ADC, the Honourable Henry Percy carried it, along with the captured French eagles. He must have been exhausted, poor fellow, I would not have wished to make that journey myself at that moment and at such speed.

“The Prussian army maintained their position with their usual gallantry and perseverance against a great disparity of numbers, as the 4th corps of their army, under General Bülow, had not joined; and I was not able to assist them as I wished, as I was attacked myself, and the troops, the cavalry in particular, which had a long distance to march, had not arrived.”

“I should not do justice to my own feelings, or to Marshal Blücher and the Prussian army, if I did not attribute the successful result of this arduous day to the cordial and timely assistance, I received from them. The operation of General Bülow upon the enemy’s flank was a most decisive one; and, even if I had not found myself in a situation to make the attack which produced the final result, it would have forced the enemy to retire if his attacks should have failed, and would have prevented him from taking advantage of them if they should unfortunately have succeeded.”

In the same letter, I believe I made reference to many of the other leaders of our Allies. I am also very sure there were many I left out. I felt that it was urgent to send the news of our victory to London, but had not yet even comprehended the manner of it myself. There were many names, many regiments and parts of the army, British and Continental, who might have had cause to complain that they had not received the praise they so richly deserved. At that time, the news of those I had lost to death and serious injury was still coming in, and if I was at all capable of writing all that had happened with any degree of accuracy, I would be very surprised!

Still, there is one point in the ‘article’ which is indisputable. The Battle of Waterloo is called the Battle of Waterloo because I wished it so. Several representations were made from our allies that it should be named “La Belle Alliance” after one of the other villages in the area, and I declined. I spoke of it then, as I speak of it now, as Waterloo, and since I was there at the head of my army – an Allied army, it is true, but still at that moment, my army – I ask no permission to call it whatever I like! I also urge those who dislike it to do the same. Why should they not? If you visit the site of my great victory at Salamanca, you will find that my Spanish allies refer to is as Los Arapiles, after a small village in the area, and I applaud their choice! If you do not like the name I give to something, do not carp and complain about it, call it something else, we are not sheep!

With regard to the appallingly inaccurate statement that Britain was “badly bruised during the Napoleonic Wars and badly needed a national victory” I have very little to say. The British Army, firstly under Sir John Moore and then myself, fought in Spain and Portugal from 1808 onwards, alongside our Spanish and Portuguese allies, pushing forwards with victory after victory until we crossed the French border. Elsewhere, Bonaparte was opposed by Austria, Russia and Prussia at different times, but it is not arrogance to point out that Britain was never invaded. We were no more bruised than anybody else and far less than some poor souls!

I can barely bring myself to comment upon Siborne’s ridiculous model of the battle in 1830. He tried to depict every stage of the battle at once, it was overcrowded, badly conceived and made no sense. There were indeed too many Prussians on the battlefield, there was too much of everything on the battlefield. Utter nonsense!

The final sentence in this article is almost too dreadful to write.

“His downfall signalled the end of the hundred years war between the English and the French.”

The Hundred Years War between England and France took place between 1337 and 1453. I am unable to comment further on this, as neither Bonaparte or myself were present.

In conclusion, Ms Worsley, without access to your original article, I hope that this appalling piece of nonsense does not actually reflect either your views or your knowledge of the Battle of Waterloo.

I personally was always willing to sacrifice popularity for my personal beliefs, however wrong-headed they may seem to later generations. While I did not always get things right, and hindsight and history are both marvellous things, I maintained my sense of personal integrity to the end of my days. I sincerely hope, when you are grey-haired and your grandchildren are reading or watching those things you put your name to, you will feel no embarrassment.

And if you have been wholly misquoted and misrepresented by this charlatan, you have my sympathy, it happened to me often, and has continued down the years. I have an immense respect for intelligent women and recommend you follow my example and tell these fools to publish and be damned!!!!!!!!!

Yours

Wellington

Quietly, the door opens.

“Sir, are you all right?”

“I am perfectly well, General van Daan. Why?”

“You were shouting, sir, and you’re alone in the room.”

“My dog is here.”

“She’s asleep.”

“Yes. I was temporarily angry.”

“What about?”

“Nothing of importance. An opinion, from somebody I do not know, and who does not know me.”

“About what?”

“Waterloo. They look at the politics and I see the dead.”

“We all see the dead, sir. Those of us who were there. Leave it alone, they’re entitled to their opinions.”

“They complain about the letter I wrote. To London.”

“They’re complaining about the Waterloo despatch?”

“Yes.”

“Bloody hell, sir, they can’t have read the rest of your letters. Do you remember the one you wrote to the officers after Burgos?”

“Now that was wholly necessary.”

“What about the one you wrote to the Spanish government in 1812?”

“I needed to make my position clear!”

“Sir, I’ve even got a letter from you complaining about a delay in laundering your shirts.”

“Get out of here, General. I will see you at dinner.”

No actual history was harmed during the writing of this post…

18th June 201918th June 2019

A letter from Lord Wellington

On the anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo, there will be thousands of posts and articles about the battle and about the Duke of Wellington, many of them excellent, so instead to celebrate the occasion I thought I would share a letter from Lord Wellington from a different time period.

This is an excerpt from the final chapter of An Untrustworthy Army, book five of the Peninsular War Saga, in the aftermath of the horrendous retreat from Burgos. As such, it does contain some spoilers as to who survives, so if you’re halfway through the books you may not want to read it.

The reason I’ve published it today, is because it includes a section of a memorandum sent out to the commanders of divisions and brigades by Lord Wellington on 28 November 1812. Lord Wellington, who features very prominently in my books, doesn’t actually feature in this scene, but his voice can be heard loud and clear across 207 years. The text I’ve used here is quoted directly from the published memorandum. The comments of Colonel van Daan and Colonel Wheeler are all their own, and their language has not been censored.

The Quinta de Santo Antonio was quiet, with both officers and men taking refuge from the appalling weather, as the creaking, ancient carriage pulled up beside the door to the main house. Gardens, pastures and barns were barely visible through torrential rain and Simon Carlyon scrambled down and helped Johnny out. They went directly into the main hall, dripping water onto the cracked tiled floor, and a familiar limping figure emerged from the kitchen region at the back.

“Colonel Wheeler. Good to see you back, sir. I’ll get a couple of the lads to unload your baggage and take it up, you’ll be in your old room.”

“Thank you, Jenson. It’s good to be back. Where have you put Mr Carlyon?”

“I’ll show him; he’s sharing with Mr Witham. Most of the officers of the 115^th are in one of the estate cottages, but Mrs van Daan wanted Mr Carlyon in the main house. Come this way, sir. Colonel, why don’t you go through to the office, Colonel van Daan is in there enjoying Lord Wellington’s latest. If you’re lucky, he’ll read it to you. He’s read it to everybody else he ever met, so it’ll be nice for him to have a new audience.”

Johnny grinned, allowing Jenson to take his wet coat. Walking was still painful but becoming easier with the use of a stick and he limped through an archway and found his way to the warm panelled room which had been used last winter as Paul’s brigade office.

He found his commanding officer seated at the big table he used at his desk. Across the room, at a smaller table, was his wife, her dark head bent over a large book which appeared to contain medical notes. She was putting the finishing touches to a sketch of what looked like a spidery creature of some kind but what Johnny had a horrible suspicion might be some part of the human anatomy. He did not want to enquire which part. Anne sat back and surveyed her work with a critical eye, then nodded in satisfaction and added an annotation to the diagram.

Paul got up and came forward as Johnny saluted. “Come and sit down,” he said, pulling out a chair as Anne got up and came to kiss Johnny. “You look a hell of a lot better than you did the last time I saw you.”

“So do both of you,” Johnny said, embracing Anne then lowering himself into the chair. “Nan, you have the most incredible powers of recovery; should you even be out of bed?”

“I would like to see somebody try to confine my lass to her chamber over something as trivial as childbirth,” Paul said with obvious pride. “She does look better, doesn’t she? Wait there.”

He crossed the room and picked up a large wicker basket which had been beside Anne’s desk and which Johnny had thought contained laundry. He was amused to see a tiny pink face, crowned by a few sparse tufts of fair hair, nestling among the linen.

“She is very pretty,” he said, reaching out to touch the little fingers. “Georgiana, I understand? Wasn’t she very early?”

“We think so,” Anne said. “She gave us a bit of a fright to tell you the truth, I wasn’t at all ready for this and I’ve never seen a child this small. But she seems very healthy. You may greet her properly once she’s been fed; she’s worse than her father for hunger, Will was nothing like it. How are you, Johnny, we’ve been so worried about you?”

“I’m very well now,” Johnny said, watching as his commander returned the basket to its warm corner near the fire. “Glad it’s winter quarters, though, there’s no way I could fight like this, I’m limping like a greybeard.”

“You’ll recover quickly with rest and care,” Anne said. “I’m going to take Her Ladyship upstairs for her feed and leave you two to talk. Is Simon with you?”

“Yes, I’ve sent him off with Jenson to unpack. Thank you for leaving him with me, he’s been a blessing.”

“I doubt I could have got him away, short of cashiering or shooting him,” Paul said, going to bring brandy as Anne scooped up her child and left the room. “It’s good to have you back, I’ve missed you.”

“How’s Lord Wellington?” Johnny asked innocently and Paul set the glass on the table with an unnecessary clink and looked at him suspiciously.

“Did Jenson tell you?” he asked and Johnny laughed aloud.

“Not much, only that he’d managed to piss you off again.”

His commander sat down at his desk and picked up his glass. “I am over it,” he said with great dignity. “After a few hours of complete fury, I have begun to see the funny side. Sadly, I suspect that is not a view which is going to be shared by every other officer in this army.”

“What’s he done?” Johnny asked.

Paul reached across the table and picked up a letter. “Settle back and enjoy,” he said. “This is a memorandum which has been circulated to the officers of this army. Needless to say it is not going to stay within the officers of this army. I confidently predict it will be in every newspaper in London within the month and His Lordship’s gallant officers are foaming at the mouth in sheer rage at the slur cast upon them. I won’t read the first part, it concerns putting the army into cantonments for the winter and isn’t that interesting. But it gets funnier.” Paul drank some brandy, set the glass down, and began to read.

“I must draw your attention in a very particular manner to the state of discipline of the troops. The discipline of every army, after a long and active campaign, becomes in some degree relaxed, and requires the utmost attention on the part of the general and other officers to bring it back to the state in which it ought to be for service; but I am concerned to have to observe that the army under my command has fallen off in this respect in the late campaign to a greater degree than any army with which I have ever served, or of which I have ever read.”

“Oh Jesus,” Johnny said, setting down his glass. “Doesn’t he know what happened on the retreat to Corunna?”

“Well he wasn’t there,” Paul said fair-mindedly. “But I can’t see how he could have missed Badajoz. But it goes on.

“Yet this army has met with no disaster; it has suffered no privations which but trifling attention on the part of the officers could not have prevented, and for which there existed no reason whatever in the nature of the service; nor has it suffered any hardships excepting those resulting from the necessity of being exposed to the inclemencies of the weather at a moment when they were most secure.”

Johnny picked up his glass and drank, thinking about the bodies he had seen lying by the roadside, pulled apart by animals and birds, often naked after looting by both the locals and their own soldiers. “Should I hear the rest of this?”

“Actually, you’re obliged to; as your brigade commander – this is addressed to me, by the way – I am requested to share it with you.”

“You don’t have to enjoy it this much. My leg is aching again.”

“Put it up,” Paul said, shoving a wooden bench towards him. “Here, take this cushion and sit in respectful silence while I share the rest.

“It must be obvious, however, to every officer, that from the moment the troops commenced their retreat from the neighbourhood of Burgos on the one hand, and from Madrid on the other, the officers lost all command over their men. Irregularities and outrages of all descriptions were committed with impunity, and losses have been sustained which ought never to have occurred. Yet the necessity for retreat existing, none was ever made on which the troops had such short marches; none on which they made such long and repeated halts’ and none on which the retreating armies were so little pressed on their rear by the enemy.”

Johnny looked down at his injured leg, now supported on the bench on an elaborately embroidered cushion and said nothing as eloquently as he could manage.

“We must look therefore for the existing evils, and for the situation in which we now find the army, to some cause besides those resulting from the operations in which we have been engaged. I have no hesitation in attributing these evils to the habitual inattention of the Officers of the regiments to their duty, as prescribed by the standing regulations of the Service, and by the order of this army.”

Johnny felt an unexpected wave of sheer fury sweeping through him. He wanted to get up and leave but it was too difficult to stand. Instead he said:

“Stop reading this fucking letter, Paul, before I thump you with this stick, I’ve heard enough. How dare he sit there pontificating about my officers, it’s a good thing he’s hiding behind his fucking desk in the village because I’d like to shoot the arrogant Irish bastard right through his thick skull.”

Paul got up and went for more brandy. “You’re really not right yet, lad, are you?” he said sympathetically. “I’m sorry, I should have waited, you can hear the rest another time. Have another drink.”

“I don’t want a drink. Do we get any right to respond to this bollocks? I lost five good officers in the almighty fuck up that he created because he was too lazy or too arrogant to make proper provisions for a siege and a fair few good men besides. And I lost Pat Corrigan, who was a friend. The fact that, to my knowledge, none of our men died of exposure or hunger on that hellish march is due entirely to the care and attention of my junior officers who kept discipline, kept the line, managed their men and shared their last morsel with the sick and wounded. As did, may I say, most of General Alten’s light division. It’s a bloody disgrace.”

Paul put his hand gently on Johnny’s shoulder and refilled his glass. “Johnny, calm down. I thought I was bad when I first read it, but this isn’t like you. Don’t take it personally, he isn’t talking to you or me or any one of our officers and when I read this to them, because I’ll have to, I’m going to make it very clear that they all understand that. He knows what we did. He wrote this in a temper without thinking it through and it’s been sent to all of us because that’s how it works. It’s not aimed at you or me.”

“It’s still addressed to us though, isn’t it?” Johnny said.

Paul nodded. “At some point, when he’s calmed down, I’m going to point that out,” he said. “He’ll never back down or apologise, but he should at least be told the effect it’s going to have on morale, the stiff-rumped, bad-tempered, long-nosed Irish bastard.”

The tone of his commander’s voice inexplicably calmed Johnny’s fury. He drank more brandy and studied Paul. “Over it?” he queried and Paul laughed aloud.

“Getting over it,” he said. “Gradually. Nan forbade me to go over there until I could read it from start to finish without one single expletive. Clearly I’m not quite there yet. Want to hear the rest or shall we leave it there?”

“You might as well finish it,” Johnny said and Paul picked up the letter again and struck an oratorial pose.

“I am far from questioning the zeal, still less the gallantry and spirit of the Officers of the army, and I am quite certain that if their minds can be convinced of the necessity of minute and constant attention to understand, recollect, and carry into execution the orders which have been issued for the performance of their duty, and that the strict performance of this duty is necessary to enable the army to serve the country as it ought to be served, they will in future give their attention to these points.

“Unfortunately the inexperience of the Officers of the army has induced many to consider that the period during which an army is on service is one of relaxation from all rule, instead of being, as it is, the period during which of all others every rule for the regulation and control of the conduct of the soldier, for the inspection and care of his arms, ammunition, accoutrements, necessaries and field equipments, and his horse and horse appointments, for the receipt and issue and care of his provisions’ and the regulation of all that belongs to his food and forage for his horse, must be most strictly attended to by the officers of his company or troop, if it is intended that an army, a British army in particular, shall be brought into the field of battle in a state of efficiency to meet the enemy on the day of trial.

“These are the points then to which I most earnestly entreat you to turn your attention and the attention of the officers of the regiments under your command, Portuguese as well as English, during the period which it may be in my power to leave the troops in their cantonments. The commanding officers of regiments must enforce the orders of the army regarding the constant inspection and superintendence of the officers over the conduct of the men of their companies in their cantonments; and they must endeavour to inspire the non-commissioned officers with a sense of their situation and authority; and the non-commissioned officers must be forced to do their duty by being constantly under the view and superintendence of the officers.”

“Where is Carter just now, by the way?” Johnny interrupted. Suddenly he was beginning to be amused.

“No idea. Taking a holiday with his wife, according to Lord Wellington,” Paul said. “We’re going to need to draw lots to decide who is going to undertake the duty of constantly superintending Sergeant-Major Carter, by the way, because I am telling you now, it’s not going to be me. Maybe Manson could do it, he likes a challenge.”

“Get Michael to do it,” Johnny said. “He used to be an NCO, he’ll know all the tricks.”

“He taught Carter all the tricks,” Paul said. “But there’s more.”

“Jesus, what is this, a memorandum or a three volume autobiography? I’ll be drunk by the end of it.”

“You’ll certainly wish you were,” Paul said. “By these means the frequent and discreditable recourse to the authority of the provost and to punishment by the sentence of courts martial, will be prevented and the soldiers will not dare to commit the offences and outrages of which there are too many complaints when they well know the their officers and non-commissioned officers have their eyes and attention turned towards them.”

Suddenly Johnny was laughing. “Well that definitely wasn’t aimed at us,” he said. “The last court martial for any member of the 110th that I can remember attending was yours.”

“Shut up, or I’ll damage your other leg,” Paul said cheerfully. “The commanding officers of regiments must likewise enforce the orders of the army regarding the constant, real inspection of the soldiers’ arms, ammunition, accoutrements and necessaries, in order to prevent at all times the shameful waste of ammunition and the sale of that article and of the soldiers’ necessaries. With this view both should be inspected daily.

“In regard to the food of the soldier, I have frequently observed and lamented in the late campaign, the facility and celerity with which the French soldiers cooked in comparison with those of our army.” Paul had begun to laugh as well, now. “Mind, they use far too much garlic in it, you can smell them for miles when they’re trying to skirmish unobtrusively.”

Johnny was leaning back in his chair, tears of laughter running down his face. “George Kelly,” he croaked. “Can I be there when you tell him he can’t light a fire and get a meal cooked fast enough?”

“Once again, that duty is not mine. I’m delegating all of this to my officers and as my second-in-command, you get Kelly all to yourself. Stop it, you’re going to choke yourself.”

“I can’t help it,” Johnny said. “Is there much more?”

“Of course there is. Given Hookey’s attention to detail, you cannot think that he doesn’t go on to explain exactly what the men are supposed to do to improve the speed of their cooking; he’s an expert, you see him out there all the time with a mess kettle and a pound of beef in his hands. Do I need to read that part? He also explains how we should run field exercises and march ten to twelve miles a week to keep them fit.”

“Is that all?” Johnny wheezed. “It’s a holiday he’s offering them.”

“I’ll skip to the end; I’m worried about your health, here,” Paul said. “But I repeat that the great object of the attention of the General and Field Officers must be to get the Captains and Subalterns of the regiments to understand and perform the duties required from them as the only mode by which the discipline and efficiency of the army can be restored and maintained during the next campaign.”

Paul put the letter down, picked up his brandy glass and raised it. “I give you the Commander-in-Chief, Colonel Wheeler, in all his wisdom.”

Johnny drank the toast. “Thank God that’s over,” he said. “But seriously, Paul, this is going to send morale into the dust.”

“Morale is already in the dust after Burgos. This is just going to trample on it a bit. But they’ll get over it.” Paul set his glass down. “And of course, he’s right.”

Johnny studied him, thinking about it for a long time. “Yes, he is,” he said. “Just not in your brigade.”

“Our brigade, Johnny. Which is why we train all the way through winter quarters, keep them fit and healthy and teach the new recruits to throw up a camp, light a fire and cook a meal in half an hour. And since Alten took over, the rest of the light division is fast catching up, he’s an obsessive German perfectionist and he rides the lines as often as I do, which I love about him. Hill is very good. But a lot of the others don’t do it and because they don’t, it filters down. Wellington has been a complete arse about this, he should never have done it this way, especially after what they’ve just been through, but he is right about some of it.”

“This wasn’t the way to get them to listen,” Johnny said.

“No. And I think by now he knows it, he’ll have calmed down. He won’t retract a word of it but he’ll probably find some other poor bastard to do the pretty with them and jolly them along and try to get the officers to understand what he’s really trying to say in the middle of all that scathing invective.”

There was another silence. “So when has he asked to see you about that, then, Colonel?” Johnny said.

“Thursday,” Paul said in hollow tones. “He has written with orders for me to speak at a general meeting of divisional and brigade commanders to explain how we do what we do and what they should do to achieve the same. The letter came earlier.”

“Oh bloody hell,” Johnny said. He was trying not to laugh. “You are about to be the least popular officer from here to South America. He’s going to stand you up there, wave that letter and point and by the end of it they’ll be thinking he wrote that with your enthusiastic support and encouragement.”

Paul picked up his glass. “And once again they will be referring to me as Wellington’s Mastiff, and dreaming up ways to get the French to shoot me,” he said. “Pass the brandy again, will you, Colonel?”

The Peninsular War Saga is available on Kindle and will be available in paperback later this year.

18th June 20176th October 2017

The Battle of Waterloo – the battle that changed the face of Europe – Part 2

Sir Arthur Wellesley, later the Duke of Wellington

The Battle of Waterloo – the battle that changed the face of Europe – was fought in what is now Belgium on July 18th in 1815. It started to rain on the afternoon of 17 June and this continued into the night but the morning of the 18th was sunny and bright.

On the plateaus to the south of the village of Waterloo, near Mont St. Jean, the two armies were camped some 1500 yards apart, the French with 72000 men and the Anglo-Dutch with 68000 men. Although the ridge was not high there were hollows and ravines where forces could be hidden until an enemy drew close and troops could rise up completely unexpectedly. This was land which Wellington knew how to exploit.

Wellington located his reserves and some of his main force behind the slopes of the plateau he had chosen to make his stand on; they would be concealed from view and largely protected from artillery. To the west, forward of his right flank, he sent troops to Hougemont, which was a brick-and-stone redoubt, fully enclosed and further protected by ditches, an orchard and hedges. Directly to his front he sent another force to a similar mini-fortress, La Haye Sainte. No similar fortifications existed on his left, or eastern flank, though there were smaller strongholds scattered about. This was the direction from which he hoped the Prussians would be arriving to reinforce him so he was less concerned about it.

Bonaparte’s favourite tactic was envelopment, swinging around his enemy’s flanks, but the heavy rains had left the low ground muddy between the plateau where his forces waited and the plateau where the Anglo-Dutch had their line. The mud would slow his cavalry and artillery in any envelopment attempt. He chose, therefore, to make a direct attack on Wellington’s centre. The poor weather also caused him to delay his main attack from 9:00 a.m. to noon, to allow the ground more time to dry.

Defending Hougemont at the Battle of Waterloo — The fight for Hougemont at the Battle of Waterloo

Bonaparte ordered General Reille to make an attack in the direction of Hougemont. It was intended to be a diversionary attack launched a half-hour before the main effort, but the commander of Reille’s lead division, after driving the enemy from some woods around the chateau, decided to attack the chateau itself. Both sides reinforced, and the fight drew in nearly half of Reille’s corps in a battle for a position of doubtful value to the French.

South of where the fighting was taking place, Grouchy had been ordered to seize Wavre and block the Prussians, but he moved slowly, and two corps had already passed through the town by the time his Frenchmen arrived. However, the same mud that had caused Napoleon to favor a direct assault over an enveloping maneuver also slowed the Prussian march to reinforce the Anglo-Dutch at Waterloo. Blucher pushed his men on, desperate to reinforce Wellington.

Knowing that the two forces would soon unite, Napoleon either had to withdraw to fight another day on better ground, or commit the rest of his force and hope to break Wellington’s line before Blücher’s full force arrived. Weighing against a retreat was the knowledge that an army of 250,000 Austrians were advancing toward Paris, and Napoleon was concerned that retreating would cost him support of the French people. He chose to decide the issue there and then.

For a half an hour he bombarded his enemy with 80 guns, but because Wellington had positioned much of his force on the downside of slopes away from the French artillery, the bombardment was not very effective.

Wellington reinforced La Haye Sainte and at around 4:00 p.m. both sides began heavy artillery bombardments. By now, Wellington’s centre began to disintegrate under the repeated French attacks and started to fall back. Marshal Ney, believing the Anglo-Dutch line was faltering, ordered a cavalry attack unsupported by infantry or artillery. The horsemen thundered forward, the ground shaking beneath the hooves of their mounts, crested a hill, and were greeted by British infantry formed in a patchwork of squares, the most effective defensive formation against cavalry. The French swept around the squares, trying to find a way to penetrate them, but momentum was broken. A counterattack by British cavalry drove the Frenchmen back, but reinforced, they came on again. Four times they charged, and four times they were repulsed.

By 6pm La Haye Sainte had fallen at last; Reille’s men had Hougomont surrounded, and a powerful attack against Wellington’s centre might have broken through, but the Prussians had begun arriving around 4pm and threatened the French rear by assaulting Plancenoit, a sizeable village with a stone church and stone-walled cemetery that could serve as strongpoints for either side. Napoleon directed a counterattack that gradually forced the Prussians back, but it took 10,000 French away from the central battle area, where they could have been used to break through Wellington’s weakened centre.

While Napoleon’s attention was focused on the Prussian threat to his rear, Ney took command of the rest of the Guard—some of the finest infantry in the world at the time—and led them in a futile attack against the strongest point of Wellington’s line. Finally, the French right flank caved, taking any remaining hope that Napoleon could avoid defeat. Napoleon ordered what was left of the Old Guard to form squares across the road south of La Haye Sainte while he withdrew his battered army.

Wellington and Blucher’s meeting at the Battle of Waterloo — Wellington and Blucher meet on the field at the Battle of Waterloo

Wellington and Blucher met on the battlefield with little sense of triumph. The allies had lost about 23,000 men killed and wounded while the French had lost 25,000 with an additional 9,000 captured. Napoleon retreated to Paris, pursued first by the Prussians and then by the British, and on the 22 June abdicated for the second time. He had hoped to escape to America but realising that he could not evade the Royal Navy, surrendered to them and was sent into exile on St Helena.

Whatever the significance of the actual battle, Waterloo is a watershed in the history of Europe. After many years of war, the nations were to enjoy an extended period of peace which gave time for the development of trade and industry and the fast changes of the industrial revolution. Had Napoleon been able to see the Europe of 1860 he would have found it very different.

The Battle of Waterloo changes everything for the characters of my books. It was the Duke of Wellington’s last major battle although he remained in France for the next three years in command of the Army of Occupation. After that he returned to England and moved into the political arena and for Paul van Daan the close relationship with his commanding officer which had begun on a hillside in India slightly more than fifteen years earlier is going to change forever. Whatever his future relations with Wellington he will no longer be serving under his command.

For now, that day in 1815 is a long way off and the men of the 110th have a long war ahead of them. But since I know it is coming, the date of the Battle of Waterloo still feels like a landmark.

16th June 20179th October 2017

The Battle of Waterloo – the battle that changed the face of Europe – Part 1

The Battle of Waterloo changed everything.

I’ve just made that statement with a snigger, knowing that dozens of historians out there will take a deep breath, their eyes gleaming as they get ready to launch themselves into the fray with the enthusiasm of a pack of hounds who’ve been cooped up during a twelve year ban on fox hunting. Some of them will argue that the Battle of Waterloo was of no real significance since Europe was in transition anyway. Others will say that while the campaign was important, the battle itself made no significant difference as even if Napoleon had defeated Wellington and Blucher he would then have had to face the Austrians and Russians. Some will say that the battle should never have happened, that the European powers could have negotiated with Bonaparte whose power was much reduced, and that Europe would have done better with him left in charge of France than the Bourbons. Others will get so excited arguing whether the battle was actually won by Wellington or Blucher and how many of each nationality were involved in the various armies, that they’ll forget what the original question was about.

I’d love to be in the middle of that argument; far more so than any of the current spiteful squabbling about Theresa May, Jeremy Corbyn, Brexit and who actually won the election (count the votes, it gives an enormous clue regardless of who we might have wanted to win). There is something about a good historical scrap which I thoroughly enjoy.

The Battle of Waterloo was fought on Sunday, 18 June 1815 in Belgium which was then part of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands. A French army under the command of Napoleon Bonaparte was defeated by two of the armies of the Seventh Coalition: an English-led Allied army under the command of the Duke of Wellington, and a Prussian army under the command of Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher, Prince of Wahlstatt.

Upon Napoleon’s return to power in March 1815, many states that had opposed him formed the Seventh Coalition, and began to mobilize armies. Wellington and Blücher’s armies were situated close to the north-eastern border of France and Bonaparte needed to attack and attack fast before the rest of the coalition could join them. The days of the Grande Army were long gone. Bonaparte had landed from Elba with a tiny force although he was picking up troops far more quickly than anybody had expected. Still many of his men were new recruits without the training and discipline of his armies of old, and he needed to buy time to bring them up to scratch. If he could defeat the English and Prussian armies he might be able to negotiate a temporary peace which would give him some time.

Realistically it was a faint hope. There had been so many attempts to make peace with Bonaparte, it is hard to believe that the powers of Europe seriously considered it. Wellington certainly did not. He wanted to fight and he wanted to fight on his terms and on his ground. Scrabbling together an army was not easy. His veteran Peninsular troops were scattered, some having been sent to America. Many of the European troops under his command were raw and untrained and he had little time. But he had already scouted his battlefield while on a tour of defences and he was hoping he could make the best use of it.

Napoleon successfully attacked the bulk of the Prussian army at the Battle of Ligny with his main force, while at the same time a portion of the French army attacked an Allied army at the Battle of Quatre Bras. Despite holding his ground at Quatre Bras, the defeat of the Prussians forced Wellington to withdraw to Waterloo. Napoleon sent a third of his forces to pursue the Prussians, who had withdrawn parallel to Wellington. This resulted in the Battle of Wavre with the Prussian rear-guard.

Upon learning that the Prussian army was able to support him, Wellington decided to offer battle on the Mont-Saint-Jean escarpment, across the Brussels road, the terrain he had already scouted previously. There had been no reason for Wellington to be searching out battle sites; his tour of the defences of the low countries was actually probably a way of getting him away from Paris for a time given his enormous unpopularity there. There were threats of assassination and Wellington was refusing to run away, so his timely visit to Belgium was a way to remove him from danger. But for a general whose eye for terrain was one of his greatest assets, the low ridge of Mont-Saint-Jean, south of the village of Waterloo and the Sonian Forest, with it’s selection of farms acting as bastions along the wall of the ridge, the advantages of the site were hard to miss.

Bonaparte was outnumbered in Europe; 250,000 Frenchmen faced a coalition of about 850,000 soldiers on four fronts. Napoleon was forced to leave 20,000 men in Western France to reduce a royalist insurrection. Six days before Napoleon reached Paris, the powers at the Congress of Vienna had declared him an outlaw and the United Kingdom, Russia, Austria, and Prussia mobilised armies against him. Napoleon knew that his only chance of remaining in power was to attack before the coalition had time to mobilise.

Had Napoleon succeeded in destroying the existing coalition forces south of Brussels before they were reinforced, he might have been able to drive the British back to the sea and knock the Prussians out of the war. Crucially, this would have bought him time to recruit and train more men before turning his armies against the Austrians and Russians. He also hoped that a French victory might cause French speaking sympathisers in Belgium to launch a revolution. In addition, coalition troops in Belgium were largely second-line, as many units were of dubious quality and loyalty, and most of the British veterans of the Peninsular War had been sent to North America to fight in the War of 1812.

His strategy was simple; to isolate the Allied and Prussian armies and annihilate each one separately. Wellington hoped to counter the threat by moving through Mons to the south-west of Brussels, bringing him closer to Blücher, but there was a risk of cutting communications with his base at Ostend, and Wellington’s Peninsular experience had taught him the importance of supply lines.

By June, Napoleon had raised an army of about 300,000 men. The force at his disposal at Waterloo was less than one third that size, but the rank and file were nearly all loyal and experienced soldiers unlike Wellington’s army which was cobbled together. Bonaparte divided his army into a left wing commanded by Marshal Ney, a right wing commanded by Marshal Grouchy and a reserve under his command. Crossing the frontier near Charleroi before dawn on 15 June, the French rapidly overran Coalition outposts, securing a central position between Wellington’s and Blücher’s lines.. He hoped this would prevent them from combining, and he would be able to destroy first Blucher’s army, then Wellington’s.

In the early hours of 16 June, at the Duchess of Richmond’s ball in Brussels, Wellington received a dispatch from the Prince of Orange confirming that the Charleroi approach was to be Bonaparte’s main thrust and he was shocked by the speed of Napoleon’s advance. He hastily ordered his army to concentrate on Quatre Bras, where the Prince of Orange was holding a tenuous position against the soldiers of Ney’s left wing.

Ney’s orders were to secure the crossroads of Quatre Bras, so that he could later swing east and reinforce Napoleon if necessary. Ney found the crossroads of Quatre Bras held by the Prince of Orange, who repelled Ney’s initial attacks but was gradually driven back by overwhelming numbers of French troops. First reinforcements, and then Wellington arrived. He took command and drove Ney back, securing the crossroads too late to send help to the Prussians, who had already been defeated by Napoleon at the Battle of Ligny using part of the reserve and the right wing of his army. The Prussian centre gave way under heavy French assaults, but the flanks held their ground and the Prussians managed to retreat from Ligny uninterrupted by the French.

Crucially, the Prussians did not retreat to the east, along their own lines of communication. Instead, they, too, fell back northwards—parallel to Wellington’s line of march but still within communication with the English commander. The Prussians rallied on Bülow’s IV Corps, which had not been engaged at Ligny and was in a strong position south of Wavre and Blucher, although wounded, held himself ready to go in support of Wellington.

With the Prussian retreat from Ligny, Wellington’s position at Quatre Bras was impossible and he withdrew northwards, to the defensive position he had reconnoitred the previous year—the low ridge of Mont-Saint-Jean just south of Waterloo. On 17th June the armies prepared to give battle.

My series of novels set during the Peninsular War is well underway with the first four books published. I am halfway through the fifth and I have the rest planned out so I know where my characters are going to be at the Battle of Waterloo and I know roughly what is going to happen to them. It’s going to be emotional when I finally get there.

For the men of Wellington’s army who did fight at the Battle of Waterloo, it must have felt very much like a life changing event whatever the historians might say. The battle itself was bloody with enormous losses to death and injury on both sides, but more than that, these men had believed it was all over. The officers of the 110th had gone home to friends and family after five or six long years in the field. The powers of Europe had celebrated for weeks in London and the Bourbons had been restored.

Suddenly it must have seemed as though they had it all to do again. Men who thought they had made it, with their friends and comrades through the long years of war had to fight again and some of them would probably die.

For the men of the 110th light infantry and the women who loved them it probably would have seemed like a nightmare. For a historical novelist in search of a dramatic plot line, it’s a bit of a gift.

Back soon with the rest of the story of the Battle of Waterloo…