"Waterloo: A New History of the Battle and its Armies " Topic

By Gordon Corrigan.

""Fought on Sunday 18 June 1815 by some 220,000 men over rain-sodden ground in what is now Belgium, the Battle of Waterloo brought an end to twenty-three years of almost continual war between revolutionary and later imperial France and her enemies. A decisive defeat for Napoleon and a hard-won victory for the Allied armies of the Duke of Wellington and the Prussians led by the stalwart Blucher, it brought about the French emperor's final exile to St Helena and cleared the way for Britain to become the dominant world power. A former soldier, Gordon Corrigan is the author of an acclaimed military biography of Wellington and has walked the battlefields of the Napoleonic era many times. He is perfectly placed to offer a robust, clear and gripping account of the campaign that surveys the wider military scene before moving on to the actions at Quatre Bras and Ligny and then the final, set-piece confrontation at Waterloo itself. He is also well qualified to explore, often in fascinating detail, the relative strengths and frailties of the very different armies involved – French, British, Dutch, Prussian and German – of their various arms – infantry, artillery and cavalry – and of their men, officers and, above all, their commanders. Wellington remarked that the Waterloo was 'a damned nice thing', 'nice' meaning uncertain or finely balanced. He was right. For his part, Napoleon reckoned 'the English are bad troops and this affair is nothing more than eating breakfast'. He was wrong, and this splendid book proves just how wrong."

See here.
link

Hope you enjoy!.

Amicalement
Armand

Thanks Armand for the heads up.

I'm suspicious of all the new works on Waterloo and 1815 that are bound to attempt to cash in on the 200th, however Gordon Corrigan's background and military history antecedents seem impeccable:

"Gordon Corrigan was commissioned from the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst in 1962. He was awarded the MBE (military) in 1996 and retired from the Royal Gurkha Rifles in 1998. He is a member of the British Commission for Military History, a Fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society and a Liveryman of the Worshipful Company of Farriers. He is the author of a number of books of military history including Sepoys in the Trenches; Mud, Blood and Poppycock; Blood, Sweat and Arrogance; The Second World War; and A Great and Glorious Adventure. "

Not only is the book not available until June, the blurb offers no reason to think it will bring anything of interest.

Could you please stop posting like a , Armand?

[Actually Sparker, from reading the oft scathing negative reviews of his books on Amazon, one learns he has no academic credentials, seems to be in the "everything you know is wrong" tradition of British histo-tainers, and, most troubling, is this quote about "The Second World War: A Military History" – The book has a grand total of 93 footnotes and a short bibliography of all-English language sources that has more cites to the discredited books of David Irving than to any other sources; !! ]

And who's acting the prat?

<Sigh> One does wonder whether there can be anything new to be discovered about Waterloo that has not already been done to death in the hundreds of existing works on this particular battle?

If Mr Corrigan has indeed unearthed new source material hitherto unknown, or offers a startlingly new, original and justifiable interpretation of the existing sources then his work would be welcome BUT … otherwise I am compelled to say that there are surely other campaigns and actions not so well covered in English that also deserve to be analyzed and evaluated.

Yes, I get the fact that the 200th Anniversary is fast approaching and represents a rare commercial opportunity for authors and publishers alike. However I dread the likely avalanche of re-prints with glossy covers and re-hashed picture books with which we will be bombarded over the coming months.

Ns99, I concur.

Well Hew's vociferous objections to the book, coupled with his offensive remark to Armand, only serve to confirm my interest in this work!

None of the /BBC 'more offended than thou' liberal set have actually ever produced any academic reasons to ban or denigrate the value of David Irvings' work, BTW, only an objection to his admittedly rather extreme current political views.

And if we used that measure to silence historians, we would have lost all of JFC Fuller's brilliant work…

This has inspired me to purchase Siborne's history of the campaign for my Kindle. Well worth it just for the casualty lists alone.

No idea about the new book or the fuss about it.

Mr. Irving may indeed be a proper historian but he is an awful fellow. At the very least I would wonder about anything he wrote about the holocaust since he denies it.

Happy you enjoyed the news my friends. (smile).

Hew… was it necessary?.

Amicalement
Armand

Sparker, the comment 'None of the /BBC 'more offended than thou' liberal set ' Is that a rather badly disguised dig at the Jewish community?

None of the /BBC 'more offended than thou' liberal set have actually ever produced any academic reasons to ban or denigrate the value of David Irvings' work, BTW, only an objection to his admittedly rather extreme current political views.

Wrong.
I would not think there are any 'academic reasons' to ban books, but there are certainly many academic reasons to denigrate the value of Irving's 'historical' works.

The testimony of Richard J Evans (a trained historian unlike Irving – a physicist turned professional writer) in the Deborah Lipstadt case in 2000 pointed to many errors in Irving's works and Irving's reliance on, at best, dubious documents in his various books. Evan's interpretation was held not to be libellous in the English High Court.

Lest you think this is yet another example of current ' liberalism' (whatever that is) it is worth pointing out that Irving's earlier book on the PQ17 convoy was libelous towards Commander Jack Broome and following another court case the book had to be withdrawn and damages paid.

No-one needs to mention Irving's politics to point out that his 'history' is suspect.

Sparker, the comment 'None of the /BBC 'more offended than thou' liberal set ' Is that a rather badly disguised dig at the Jewish community?

No it absolutely is not, and even by today's celebration of victimhood and seizing upon and cherishing even the most remote and disingenuous excuse to be offended I think your inference that I am anti-Semitic sets a new low!

For the record when a student I was a member of 'Conservative Friends of Israel' society and I have always defended both the contribution the Jewish community has made to the UK, and Israel's right to self defence.

As you probably know full well, references to and the BBC refer to that cosy and probably unconstitutionally close tribe of BBC journalists and Labour politicians who all live in the leafy suburbs of NW1 – the epicentre of 'the Chattering Classes'. What Gwydion refers to, albeit in inverted commas, as Liberalism.

Talking about Holocaust Deniers is always fraught, and rightly so, given both the pain of survivors and their relatives, and its espousal by extremist politicians. We have already seen on this thread at least one person who is ready to seize upon the most inconsequential comments to make accusations of anti-Semitism.

Again, for the record, I don't doubt for a moment the horrific truth that Hitler and the Nazis murdered over 6 million Jews, using gas chambers and then ovens to cremate the remains.

I don't know if its true that, on liberating Treblinka, and finding the Gas Chamber ovens already destroyed, the Red Army forced the captured guards to rebuild them to the original spec.

It may be that those documents reporting the rebuild are forged, I think its a shame that it is now illegal to have them forensically examined. And frankly, even if those Red Army men did do that, I can fully understand their motives, much as it has unfortunately subsequently muddied the waters.

And of course the rebuilding of one set of ovens at one of the entire gulag of death camps does not provide evidence that the entire Holocaust didn't occur!

However, I also defend the right of a historian to report this rebuilding if he has found evidence to support the story, and find it disturbing, in a Western society, that he should then be imprisoned for doing so.

I will repeat, for the hard of thinking, that:

a. I am not a holocaust denier
b. I am not anti semitic
c. I am not a supporter of David Irving, only of his right to express his opinions in print

As Deborah Lipstadt, who first investigated Irving's work, herself said

"I am not happy when censorship wins, and I don't believe in winning battles via censorship … The way of fighting Holocaust deniers is with history and with truth."

Not quite sure how we got so far off topic, and apologies for the extent it was my fault!

I would however be very grateful for any further opinions on this book by anyone who actually reads it!

Sparker I wasn't commenting on Irving's political position.

As far as I can see no-one has suggested banning anything – just wondering whether a book that cites Irving with approval deserves to be taken very seriously?
I'm very content Irving should be judged by history and truth. It shows exactly what his line of argument is worth.

Treblinka?
I have never heard any suggestion it was rebuilt by anyone – the Germans closed it down and put a farm on top of it to hide it well before the end of the war.

You may be thinking of the denier film that splices bits of interview together to suggest the remaining gas chamber at Auschwitz is a hoax – it isn't, the film is the hoax.

As others have said, we will get a lot of new Waterloo books, and doubtless some out of print books will be reprinted when we get to the bi-centennial. I'm grateful to Tango for alerting us to them as they start to pop up, but I'll make decisions on actual purchases the way I do for all history books: by starting at the bibliography to see what sources have been consulted. That'll let me know what original research (primary sources) have been used, and which 'same old suspects' (secondary sources) are being recycled.
I doubt there is anything really new in this approach to historical works, but amongst other things it meant that I completely missed the whole Hamilton-Williams schemozzle since the bibliography was scheduled to be printed in the third volume which was never published. From what I can tell, that saved me some money :)
Personally I hope that Tango will continue his ways as thanks to him and others like him, I pretty much only have to check TMP to keep up with what is going on in the wargames world.

Thanks for your support my friend! (smile)

Amicalement
Armand

I doubt there is anything really new in this approach to historical works, but amongst other things it meant that I completely missed the whole Hamilton-Williams schemozzle since the bibliography was scheduled to be printed in the third volume which was never published. From what I can tell, that saved me some money :)

Yes I continually question whether mine justifies its place in my library. However it was interesting to read the author of 'Waterloo The French Perspective' write that it was useful in places…

If any one is interested in what the content of the snipped dialogue is, it is two words, the first being the opposite of 'South', the second being the proper Noun describing England's capital city. Fairly innocuous, political short hand for the liberal leaning suburbs occupied by the media/liberal politician nexus centered around Islington…possibly equivalent to Greenwich Village NYC – which by the way is a lovely district!

Hew Johns has somehow persuaded the editors that it is an offensive term, hence the snipping. I have been informed he tried to enlist help over on the 'frothers' website that it was actually a racist term, but was given short shrift, so I guess this is second best for him. He refers to TMP as PMT over there by the way, so you know what kind of guy he is!

link

Pathetic really, but you may as well know the background…

Thank heavens I didn't refer to Millwall!

@ Gwdyion,

Treblinka?
I have never heard any suggestion it was rebuilt by anyone – the Germans closed it down and put a farm on top of it to hide it well before the end of the war.

You may be thinking of the denier film that splices bits of interview together to suggest the remaining gas chamber at Auschwitz is a hoax – it isn't, the film is the hoax.

Thanks for the correction, I'm sure you're right, I haven't seen the film, just remember reading about the court case in the papers a long while ago, so I stand corrected.

No worries Sparker.

I was bemused by the sudden banning of the term for north of the river myself.
Bizarre.

Disgraceful.

In 1996 David Irving took Penguin books and an American historian to court in Britain claiming he was libeled by being called a Holocaust denier, falsifier, and bigot. The defense effectively deconstructed his historical methodology and the court found for the defendents.

Thus None of the … 'more offended than thou' liberal set have actually ever produced any academic reasons to ban or denigrate the value of David Irvings' work,… is as proven false as we can get in a question of judgment.

So why does Sparker still stand behind this? Perhaps he simply disagrees with the courts decision – no – I [Sparker] am not a supporter of David Irving. Maybe he was unaware of the trial? No – he can …remember reading about the court case in the papers a long while ago,…. A simple mistake? We make supported assertions every day in the Napoleonic forum and we all learn together. But whether from malevalence, compulsion, pride, or functional incompetence, Sparker has not retracted his statement, despite ample opportunity. The untruth becomes a lie.

I don't think I'm stating anything that isn't obvious to aware members. I would be prepared to hold my nose and move on.

But Sparker can't seem to help himself. He abruptly starts talking about Holocaust deniers and their particularly vile twaddle about the gas chambers – which has nothing to do with the Irving trial. He can't get the simple names right, he didn't see the movie, he fecklessly refuses to admit whether he thinks it's true or not, he suggests it is irrelevant to the reality of the Holocaust, and realizes that it's far off topic, and yet, and yet it's really important that the Napoleonic forum not whitewash this Holocaust denying lunacy.

I broke my principles and asked the Editor to delete this garbage. The Editor believes it would be better for the members to take this on themselves. I am not altogether unsympathetic to this. The Editor cannot monitor every discussion for dishonesty and lies. But it does mean some get punished for saying (something like) "Christ on a bike" while posting perverse Holocaust denial garbage is seemingly tolerated. This wildly disproportionate response drives the contempt for TMP found in certain circles.

Instead, Sparker, let me speak to you directly. Since I can't ask you to shut up – it's against the rules – would you be willing to volutarily shut up yourself? You already understand how painful this subject is, and whatever it was that so impressed you, you can't remember it correctly and didn't bother to even see the movie. Perhaps it would be best to move on and never mention this again, ever?

Hew Johns

Sparker has not retracted his statement, despite ample opportunity. The untruth becomes a lie.

Hew Johns 09 Mar 1:28 pm

Thanks for the correction, I'm sure you're right, I haven't seen the film, just remember reading about the court case in the papers a long while ago, so I stand corrected

Sparker 09 Mar 1:05 pm

So, once again, for the hard of thinking, or those who don't bother to read what others post:

I retract my statement about the academic validity of David Irvings work, I stand corrected.

I still believe he had a right to express his opinions, no matter how odious and offensive, or at least should not have been imprisoned for expressing them.

I trust my second retraction closes this little diversion, perhaps anyone still wanting to fulminate about how offended they are can continue to do so over on Frothers…

'No it absolutely is not, and even by today's celebration of victimhood and seizing upon and cherishing even the most remote and disingenuous excuse to be offended I think your inference that I am anti-Semitic sets a new low!'

It was a question that was all,the only time I'd heard north London picked out like that was for the Jewish community so wasn't sure, apologies offered.

Thanks mate.

No, I meant Islington which is shorthand for a left wing/liberal media nexus.

There is a large Jewish community around Golders Green, but
as it happens that is East London – and unfortunately the scene of facist rabble rousing and bully boys in the 1930's but fortunately nothing since…

We seem to be a long way away from Waterloo now which is where I would rather be.

"It was a question that was all,the only time I'd heard north London picked out like that was for the Jewish community so wasn't sure, apologies offered."

Some confusion here I think let me try and clear it up.

No one equates north London with Jews, Golders Green yes because of ex East End Jews, Stamford Hill is home to Hassidic Jews, Tottenham FC hence their self proclaimed nickname but not north London.

Nor is north London used to sneer at 'hypocritical liberals' bbc or otherwise. Islington is the favoured prefix.

South Londoners dislike north Londoners and vice versa but not for ethnic or religious reasons. I've lived and worked in both. Being a foreigner I disliked south London when I lived north and vice versa. Thus achieving among locals the status of discerning outsider.

As Historians go Irving has been discredited by his fellow historians in court and out of it.

Sparker, at least you did not "refer to Millwall", as you said.

As for the book, not impressed by the cover, clearly part of the series of pics, from well after 1815.

Cannot be easy to add anything. Prussians have been done to death by Herr Hofsch, Adkin is the last word as a reference book, Dutch Belgians finally getting what is long overdue, French view is a good read but nothing new at all, Barbero is the best beginner's account, Glover has surely produced whatever little is left unpublished, Robinson picked up on QBras and even Ligny is finally properly documented.

I'd love to see more on Mt St J but suspect there is little new to say. Uffindell and Corum on walking the fields proved the most novel thing I have seen in years. Was I the only one disappointed by "Wellington's Guns"? I thought the one tale still to be told, but felt it missed out…..

Nor is north London used to sneer at 'hypocritical liberals' bbc or otherwise. Islington is the favoured prefix.

True – If only I'd referred to Islington! (Its name had temporarily escaped my memory…)

I'm ashamed to say 'Wellington's Guns' has been sitting on my shelf unread for months, so can't comment. I did think Nick Lipscombe's Peninsular Atlas was very well written though, so I remain optimistic.

Completely agree about the Barbero though, a very good and well balanced account.

There's nowt so illiberal as an outraged liberal.

"Come on you lilywhites!"

Former Balham Boy…

Golders Green in East London? Funny then that its on the Northern Line and postcode is NW11……..may well be East End Jewish community gradually went up market and moved north and west….but Norf London it is….

All got a bit heavy above. Trouble with Irving is he is actually an entertaining writer, if no historian. Two Volumes of Hitler's War, I thought unputdownable, never did find the third. Free speech and all that, tricky. There is a line to be drawn somewhere but no one said it has to be a straight line.

Funny thing history. Did anyone read the Sunday Telegraph article on Jewish Finns who fought in the Continuation War? Some were awarded German decorations for bravery, but most refused them….a propos absolutely nothing from above, I admit, but fascinating…….peace and love to all (man)

Yeh I was a bit confused by that too deadhead. I recall going to my Uncles in Stamford hill when I was a kid and it was a very Jewish area then iirc, and it certainly used to be around Tottenham, although I'd say the area now was more a mix of ethnicities.

@ Ben Waterhouse '"Come on you lilywhites!"' There is a man of taste and distinction, boy I've not heard them called that for a long time :-) COYS

Come on you irons…………..

@ alien BH Surfer, my time at White Heart Lane was the era of Ozzy Ardiles and Ricky Villa, 2 FA Cups and the UEFA cup! Happy days.