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.

 

Lieutenant-General Charles Alten

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.

The Prussian Memorial

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.

Waterloo 2022: Wellington Napoleon and Mont Saint Jean

The Wellington Museum

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.

 

Mont Saint Jean today

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.

The Malvern Festival of Military History: my review

I have just got back from a great weekend at the Malvern Festival of Military History. It was a fantastic event, featuring a wide selection of historians, novelists and enthusiasts and I highly recommend it to anybody interested in the field who didn’t make it this year. I met some amazing people and have come away with some good memories and a whole host of new ideas which I am never going to have time to write. I also spent a small fortune on books…

The festival was a full-on weekend, with so many talks and discussion panels that it was genuinely difficult to get time to eat. It took place in several marquees in the grounds of Severn End in Hanley Castle and the excellent coffee van and crepe van kept a few of us going through the weekend. Having to travel from the Isle of Man meant that I missed most of the first day although having attended this year, I am going to make sure that next year I’m able to be there for the full event.

I arrived in time to hear Sir Max Hastings’ talk on Vietnam which was excellent. Vietnam is one of those conflicts, like the Northern Ireland troubles, which was part of the backdrop to my childhood. My parents were daily news watchers and allowed us to watch with them from a very early age so I always knew about the war although I never learned about the causes until I reached university in the early eighties. I genuinely want to read this book.

Wellington enthusiasts let loose without supervision…

On the following day I attended panels on the English Civil Wars and 1815-1914 – A Century of Peace? Contrasting talks were given by Nicholas Shakespeare on how Churchill unexpectedly became Prime Minister and Andrew Roberts on Churchill: walking with destiny. I was sorry that the evening concert had to be cancelled but I thoroughly enjoyed the speakers’ reception which gave an opportunity to meet people informally. I’m indebted to my husband for managing to find a very suitable pub for dinner afterwards; the Wellington Inn. Jacqueline Reiter and I were so excited that I’m surprised they let us in, they probably thought we were lunatics, but I’m glad they did, the food was excellent.

 

A Close Run Thing? Waterloo with Charles Esdaile, Alan Forrest, John Hussey, Robert Pocock and Jacqueline Reiter

Sunday was they day very much dedicated to the period I write about and I enjoyed every single one of the talks on that day. Adam Zamoyski on Napoleon was interesting and I enjoyed his exchange of views with Charles Esdaile. Probably my favourite panel was the one on Waterloo ably chaired by Robert Pocock. Charles Esdaile, Jacqueline Reiter, John Hussey and Alan Forrest discussed a number of questions covering both the military and political aspects of the battle and an alarming number of books have been added to my ‘to read’ list.

A Fine Line – Turning historical fact into fiction with David Donachie, Iain Gale, Adrian Goldsworthy, Tom Williams and Lynn Bryant

My own panel was the last of the day, consisting of myself along with Adrian Goldsworthy, Tom Williams, David Donachie and Iain Gale, all fantastic authors. David was a great chair, and we talked about some of the challenges of creating believable historical fiction at the same time as spinning a story that readers will enjoy. I loved it and would have been happy to sit down afterwards to carry on the discussion.

Nein! Standing up to Hitler, 1935-44 by Lord Ashdown

The last talk was given by Lord Ashdown about his book “Nein! Standing up to Hitler 1935-44” which blows away the commonly held belief that there was little resistance to Hitler among his own people. It was a story of lost opportunities which led to tragedy and I bought that one on the day.

In the outer marquee were book stalls, an exhibition of war art and a variety of information stands and endless opportunities to talk. I spent most of the weekend talking and listening; it isn’t often I get the chance to spend time with a group of people who are just as passionate about history as I am and I loved every minute of it.

There are probably one or two things to be learned for next year. Food was genuinely a bit of a problem; the programme was very intensive and it was difficult to leave to get food. This was fine on the first day where there seemed to be a variety of food stands but on the Saturday and Sunday there was only the crepe van, who heroically fed the entire event. I suspect the weather, which was cold, and on Saturday very wet, kept them away but I wonder if it caused some people to leave to get lunch and perhaps not to come back or to miss some of the talks because of it.

It was a pity that the two evening concerts were not a success. I wasn’t able to get to the first one as it coincided with Richard’s train arriving and I had to pick him up, but I gather it was so poorly attended that the second one, on the Saturday, was cancelled. This was a real shame but I suspect it was a combination of the cold, wet weather and the problem of food once again; once people leave a venue to find dinner it is hard to get them back again. I’m hoping that it doesn’t put the organisers off the idea of the evening concerts, I think it’s a great one, it’s just the timing that needs looking at.  

None of these minor blips detracted from my enjoyment of the event. The speakers were excellent, the discussions lively and everybody I met was friendly. I had been a bit concerned that my mathematician husband would be bored but he had a great time and is definitely keen to come back next year.

I met so many great people it’s impossible to list them all although a few stood out. Carl and Gail Christie (who travelled all the way from Canada for the event), Charles Esdaile, Sinead Allen, Robert Pocock, Andrew Lacey (a fellow undergraduate with me back in the early eighties), Ian Blance (whose organisational skills are astonishing) all the great writers on my panel but especially Tom Williams (read his books, they’re awesome) and of course Jacqueline Reiter. Thanks to everybody we met for being friendly, welcoming and really interesting. In the end, it’s the people who make events like this such a success.

I sincerely hope that the Malvern Festival of Military History goes from strength to strength. I intend to be a regular visitor and want to extend my thanks and congratulations to Ian Blance and Enlightenment Events for a marvellous weekend. Well done.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

Sir Arthur Wellesley, later the Duke of Wellington

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…