"French rewrite Battle of Waterloo to cast Napoleon as,,," Topic

…the victor.

"The French are seeking to rewrite history by claiming that Napoleon Bonaparte was a "political virtuoso" who all but won the Battle of Waterloo.

A large-scale re-enactment to mark this year's bicentenary of the conflict will paint Napoleon as a hero.

Frank Samson, an experienced Napoleon re-enactor who will reprise the role during the reconstruction, said: "The public will acclaim him and we have forgotten that he lost.

"In terms of public relations, in terms of his historical importance, it's clear that he won at Waterloo."…"
Full article here
link

Ha!Ha!…
Ce Français fou!

Amicalement
Armand

Not really surprised somehow.

Of course Napoleon won. I am sure that the relevant Wikipedia page will say so … and if it doesn't now, it soon will do!

I am mindful of the section in Monty Python's LIFE OF BRIAN when the Jewish rebels debate 'What have the Romans done for us?'. Should we be asking …

WHAT DID NAPOLEON DO FOR US?

Uh… brandy?

He gave us a complex too!

One of the men from UNCLE

Hate to be the one to bring up reality, but he is right. Everyone has heard of Napoleon. Wellington, not so much.

After all what do we call this period? Hint, it's not "Arthurian".

IF Napoleon is a "political virtuoso" then why was Austria, Prussia, England, Russia, Spain, Portugal and Sweden (run by one of his ex marshals no less) at war with France at the same time. I guess it was because Turkey wasn't at war with him.

Every one has heard about Hitler but he also succeeded in getting most of the major nations to fight him too.

He gave – The Napoleonic code of laws. Pretty good considering he probably didn't follow them to much.

Dave Crowell

Hate to be the one to bring up reality, but he is right. Everyone has heard of Napoleon. Wellington, not so much.

After all what do we call this period? Hint, it's not "Arthurian".

It's called the Georgian era, which lasted from 1714 to 1830. Then we have the Victorian and Edwardian.

Tyler326

He gave – The Napoleonic code of laws. Pretty good considering he probably didn't follow them to much.

More the 'nodder in' rather than the originator.

Paul :)

"Pass the popcorn" :-)

He got a psychological mind set named after him, which Hitler, Genghis or Alexander never did. Then again, he's not had the Great, the Mighty or something similar suffixed to his name so… it's a wash.

Well, this isn't the "Georgian Discussion" board. QED

After all what do we call this period?

In the USA, the Federalist Period, followed from 1801 by the Virginia Dynasty Period.
In Russia, loosely translating, the Reign of the Emperor Paul and then the Reign of the Emperor Alexander * (the campaigns are generally identitfied as Suvarov's Italian, 1805 or Austerlitz, 1807 or Polish, Patriotic War of 1812, with its Foreign Campaign in 1813-1814).
French tend to use Consulate, followed by First Empire, First Restoration, 100 Days and Second Resotration.
Spanish and German-speakers have their own names too, I think – such as War of Independence, War of Liberation

Wargamers call it "Napoleonic".

Art, dear Colleague, please do pass the popcorn.
:-)

- Sasha

* it's only two words in Russian, a direct translation would be like "Paul's Emperorship".

Hate to be the one to bring up reality, but he is right. Everyone has heard of Napoleon. Wellington, not so much.

Exactly. It is as pointless and silly to get upset about this as it is to want to debate the idiots on "Jaywalking" or "Watters' World".
link

Let's just hope they don't vote.

Another piece of scrap and of french bashing. French people don't give any importance to all the waterloo affair. With more than 5 millions of jobless people and under the threat of islamism, do you really think that our minds are focused on the past.

Tango, whom we we thank a lot for all his survey work, should have been more cautious this time. The poor webarticle from this paper never refers to any official or well known french historian.

Napoleon lost at Waterloo, period.

Gboue from Paris

As Sasha said: only wargamers call the period "Napoleonic Wars". Actually, between historians is more popular Hobsbawm's "Age of Revolution", which roughly covers the period 1776-1848 (Hobsbawm, as good Marxist, ignored the American Revolution in his periodization and gave 1789 as the start point, but it has been incorpored into the period by other historians).

Take it with some humor my friend! (smile)

Amicalement
Armand

My Old Friend And Dear Colleague Alexandre

Here is some popcorn…please pass it to Raul as well ;-)

Let's hope that ACT II is about to begin ;-)

Best Regards
Art

The bit I liked was the bit where the re-enactment was going to take place over two days with the first day "focusing on the charge of the French cavalry, which Napoleon won."

Excuse me? IIRC:

Hougoumont: French failure
D'Erlon's assault: French failure
Cavalry attacks: French failure
La Haye Sainte: French success! Wowza!
The Guard attacks: French failure
Plancenoit defence: French failure

They lost pretty well every round. Cinq-nul as they say at matches of le futbol.

Abba's account of the battle of Waterloo is more accurate, although I am slightly alarmed at the blonde one warbling that "At Waterloo Napoleon did surrender….and I have met my fate in quite a similar way."

Napoleon met his fate after of a day of what Wellington called "hard pounding" and was then smashed by 50,000 Prussians. If that's what Agnetha's been up to I'm a lot less keen on her than I was.

Can I have a vanilla ice cream tub please?

If you are totally ignorant of history and walk around Waterloo, you'd be hard pressed to imagine the guy in the funny bicorne depicted everywhere was the loser. He may not have lasted as emperor, but the sheer volume of books about him and his army outnumber the books on Blucher, Wellington and most other ennemy generals put together.

Napoleon may have been a failure in the end, but he still casts a long shadow.

"Napoleon met his fate after of a day of what Wellington called "hard pounding" and was then smashed by 50,000 Prussians. If that's what Agnetha's been up to I'm a lot less keen on her than I was."

ROFLMAO! :-)

O Lordy, this again?

ROFLMAO?

@ 4th Cuirassier:
That comment wins hands down. May explain why Agnetha has been so quiet in recent years…..

At the risk of being pedantic, perish the thought, given that the French won La Haye Sainte, should n't the score be Cinq-Un!!

:)

James

"Everyone has heard of Napoleon. Wellington, not so much"

… is a bit like saying "Everyone has heard of Hitler. Adenauer, not so much"… therefore Adolf was the greater of the two.

Chauvin would have been proud.

Henry Fielding identified rather well the fact that "great" and "greatness" (here given as "significance"), have been euphemisms for murderous tyranny throughout history.

The romance of Napoleonic France is undeniable, as was the Emperor's charisma, but I think we should not let the publicists and the patriots pull the wool over our eyes.

Leaving aside the asininity of the recent comments, Waterloo, the venue, has always been somewhat Boney-centric. Back in the '70s, when I visited as a child, it was rather presented as the finale of Napoleon's journey; nothing had changed, we were still subsumed by the pseudo-sacred Nineteenth Century personality cult, and it was all about Him.

The current event's publicists are evidently leading with their chins in perpetuating this view to the belittling and exclusion of other participants, no doubt trying to court controversy as a promo effort. If, by the by, people sneer at their more absurd statements, well, they only have themselves to blame.

I do admire much about Napoleon, though it is an admiration with much that exists to temper it. I retain, from childhood, an abiding love of the period.

Do I mind any of this Napoleon-centric treatment of Waterloo then, or now? Not at all. This, because I have long known that a sweetened French view of Napoleon always benefits from an Anglo-Saxon or Teutonic pinch of salt.

Being a wargamer on a wargame board asking what did Napoleon do for us is quite…original i should say.
I second Gboué: THE French are not seeking to rewrite history, some loony Frenchmen may do so, but i suspect by the 15th of June most of the French will be focused on their exams if they're under 21/22 or on their coming summer holidays.
Nonetheless a good article to lift spirit before the 2015 rugby six Nations tournament. Oh, and 5 000 reenactors and 100 guns, that's 1 gun for 5 lignards, Napoléon would have been very pleased.

Fanch between Paris and Brittany.

>Abba's account of the battle of Waterloo is more accurate, although I am slightly alarmed at the blonde one warbling that "At Waterloo Napoleon did surrender….and I have met my fate in quite a similar way."

>Napoleon met his fate after of a day of what Wellington called "hard pounding" and was then smashed by 50,000 Prussians. If that's what Agnetha's been up to I'm a lot less keen on her than I was.

Amazing – thanks for the laugh, 4th C!

Because "on deck of HMS Bellophon" is harder to scan into a song.

"Exactly. It is as pointless and silly to get upset about this as it is to want to debate the idiots on "Jaywalking" or "Watters' World".

Says the network that re-writes history to support their agenda.

Dear Ed.,

Could you cross-post this to the Fantasy Boards please ?

Micheal

you are cut off…no vanilla ice cream tub or popcorn ;-)

But I feel that both the French and Brits…need to take lessons on showmanship from the Yanks…Eddie loves popcorn to…and…well…he can explain it all ;-)

YouTube link

WARNING: Parental Guidance is needed to watch this video ;-)

I always enjoy the banter on here but we should remember that the bicentenary is a major shop window for our hobby and while there will be no shortage of sensation-mongers trying to grab a cheap headline, there will also be opportunities for some serious history.

Thanks Art,
I needed that!
My favourite stand-up comedian.
Mike.

Because "on deck of HMS Bellophon" is harder to scan into a song.

Besides, all the nice girls love a sailor.

Allegedly.

Nest round in Twickenham!

Does anyone have to even ASK what he did for us? !!!!

A plus 3 on die rolls for the Guard!!!

As we all know, the Duke called Waterloo " A near run thing".
Napoleon, indeed, could have won though in the long term any benefits accruing are debateable. A combination of bad luck & poor decisions cost him victory. Or put the spin on the other way: Allied good luck & sound decisions won them the battle. Either way it's full of a range of "what-ifs" for the wargamer.

This is what I find perennially fascinating about this battle: it was so close but ended in crushing defeat. The lottery that is warfare is no better illustrated.

Doesn't every wargame period suffer from some of the above? Was Frederick the Great so nice? Or is it just that Napoleon seems to create some "obsessed" fans and that makes it worse?

Personally, whilst I always enjoy these popcorn discussions, I never get that bothered by them, yet I see some people do. Why? It feels too long ago to me.

And I am with the French at this point – Je Suis Charlie. Modern threats are all too real, for me to worry about whether Napoleon was good or bad. But I do love the period for the uniforms and spectacle, and always gloss over when playing how many real people suffered and died – as they did/do in every war.

Now to finish off some gold lace on another ridiculously over the top hussar costumed ADC

I remember years ago Private Eye published a small cartoon in which Napoleon and his staff are shown retreating from Moscow in the snow. Napoleon is saying,"Yes, it's been a disastrous campaign, but one day it will make a great family boardgame."
Or as the Spirit Sinister puts it in Hardy's 'The Dynasts':
"War makes rattling good history, while peace is but poor reading. So I back Buonaparte because of the pleasure he will give posterity."
Sums the situation up admirably, IMHO.

Does anyone remember that cartoon of the Retreat with the infantryman who had left the column to build a snowman?

I agree that these debates can become sterile in content and high in temperature, but the thread is about what was reported as a deliberately polemical bit of marketing hype.

I am not sure that I would want to get into an argument as a result of a bit of silly publicity, but nor would I want to sneer at those who have tried to make sensible comments upon it.

Too preachy? Yes, probably.

I don't see that recent events in France, however outrageous and tragic, bear on an assessment of Napoleon or whether there should be one on a Napoleonic message board. Sorry to differ with Marc, again, as he is clearly a sensible chap. I think we can all show our sympathy and solidarity with the French, sincerely felt, just as we non-Americans did after 9/11, without self-limiting our freedom of speech in this particular way.

If contemporary events were allowed to colour our view of Napoleonic history, one might as well start feeling coy about fielding Russian armies right now. Fortunately, the 2 are unrelated, so I don't have to say anything judgmental about contemporary politics.

Back to painting I think….

Always happy to be disagreed with */3-,*

I guess I have just never understood the love/hate. I just know I prefer the French uniforms to paint. Guess I must be too shallow to understand the rest.

I'm with Marc on this. I think there is so much to learn from history but it can all get badly distorted when certain characters become idolised or villified. Also, there is no rule that only success should be recognised. We Brits still commemorate Dunkirk! I think it is remarkable to see how much was done by the French in the lead up to Waterloo in 1815 (notice how I avoided personalisng it there) The strategy for the campaign was exemplary and well worth applauding. But then in the end, it was all destroyed by a series of errors and ommisions and bad luck, any one of which could easily have tipped the balance the other way. I think the campaign reflects creditably on all sides.

I remember a Mad Magazine book called "Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions". It had one page with a picture of Napoleon retreating from Moscow (actually I think it was a picture from the 1813/14m winter campaign, but how would they know that?) and someone asked "Are we retreating from Moscow?" Napoleon retorts "No, we are advancing on Paris!"

I think the only distortion was in the original subject matter of the post; the rather provocative comments made to publicise the re-enactment.

People here, on the other-hand, seem to be sensible and to know their stuff; as one would hope and expect. Some are clearly bored, understandably, of what to them is a re-run of a hackneyed debate. On the other hand, I think if you model or wargame this period, you should be forgiven for expressing an interest in its history!

For the record, I do not think Napoleon should be either idolised or vilified.

It is a most attractive and exciting period. As Kenneth Clark observed, the glory of the Napoleonic period provides a contrast to the materialism of the modern age.

He also gave us Bill and Ted.

And beer, and Hush-puppies and pro-European policies