"The Cavalry that Broke Napoleon" Topic

By Richard Goldsbrough…

"The best-selling author of The Battle, Alessandro Barbero, was asked which action saved Wellington at Waterloo prior to the arrival of the Prussians. He replied: ‘If I should indulge in that game, I'd say the cavalry charge which effectively broke d'Erlon's attack.' In terms of regiments the greatest contributor to that charge, made by the British heavy cavalry, was the King's Dragoon Guards (KDG), which fielded nearly half of the Household Brigade's sabres. This book tells the remarkable story of the KDG before, during and after the battle of Waterloo, drawing on private, unpublished archive material. It concludes by describing the KDGs link to their descendant regiment, 1st Queen's Dragoon Guards, of which HRH The Prince of Wales is Colonel-in-Chief"

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See here
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Amicalement
Armand

Hang on!

The KDG and/in the Household Brigade made the greatest contribution to the charge on d'Erlon's attack, this is telling us……….

Hardly. I do wonder if KDG is confused with 1st Royal Dragoons and their Union Brigade.

Household did their bit of course, but far more about clearing the cavalry screening the Corps' assault, than direct attack on infantry.

That title is a bit daft also. This may be a great book, but what absolute nonsense is the immediate impression created by that claim.

I initially dismissed "The Lie at the Heart of Waterloo" for just that reason, but finally bought a copy. Much better than expected…..

(smile)

Amicalement
Armand

Is it the new, know-nothing breed of "historical" publisher who is insisting on these hyperbolic titles, or is it the authors themselves? Either way, they are – as Deadhead points out – becoming self-defeating.

"Wellington's Hidden Heroes"…another daft title for what was a nicely done book. What was one about LHS suggesting the 400 there (sic) singlehandedly won the battle?…there I did draw the line.

Got it. The Longest Afternoon……..with John Wayne playing Baring I guess

Mind you, look what Wayne did to the Alamo "story"!

Billy Bob wotsit, in the brilliant later film, made me read more about the true story.

The more I read, the more respect I have for the real guys who defended the Alamo, but were totally amateurs, who were sound asleep when attacked, who never stood a chance, who took more casualties than the attackers, let's not mention slavery.

They held in a La Haye Sainte situation, but with no hope of nearby relief, with no hope of escape to any nearby ridge, with no chance of surrender to a generous enemy. Maybe more like Rorke's Drift, but the Alamo folk did get the chance to leave earlier….( even if the "Travis Line" was invented by Donovan)

Apologies. I do this.

I digress and will get Dawhawsed (is that the US spelling?)

The KDG did not significantly turn back d'Erlon's Corps. Bylandt's lot did that. Or was it those lads in kilts? Maybe the Union Brigade did, capturing between two and three eagles (funny how many accounts do claim the latter).

This is the worst title, of any, that recalls the 200th anniversary of the significant battle of the Napoleonic Wars. I mean THE and it was actually fought in 28mm scale at the time

Well it is over two years on and I finally bought the book. I was painting up the Brigade Games Miniatures Dragoons as KDG and thought I might learn a bit more.

Gauntlet cuffs I knew. Red collar patches, still no wiser as to whether still worn at Waterloo. The book is much better than the title suggests, however.

OK, "the" claim seems to be based on the fact that there was a lot of KDG. So in the two Heavy Brigades' attack on d'Erlon and his cavalry support they must have had an impact…OK. Probably more than the pretty Scots Greys even.

I do now accept that they crossed the road and may have mixed it with the infantry, after all. There is a forensic discussion as to quite which French cavalry units slaughtered them. It is indeed thorough…..

Inevitably there is not enough from Waterloo alone for a single regiment however big, to fill a book. So we get the history of the regt, details of those who served, how they joined, where they joined, their former occupations, where they got their horses etc etc.

But here is the funny thing. I enjoyed it immensely. This is filled with the minutiae that we also recently saw in Wellington's Foot Guards (at least there the mad claim was a subtitle….The Men Who Saved the Day etc) but I read it in one enjoyable afternoon.

I've read Alessandro Barbero's the battle.
A ripping read. But he doesn't appear to understand napoleonic warfare at all.
And he miss interprets Clausewitz.
And talks about tried pop culture ideas about napoleonic combat. (I think he makes a claim that the Anglo allied light cavalry was impotent against the French cuirassier because the cuirassiers had longer sword and metal on their chest. )

At the time it came out, there was so much hype around that book…'it must be impartial, cos the author is Italian'.

15 years on it's a little difficult to see what all the fuss was about…it's just a nice Waterloo book, nothing groundbreaking, a few errors…just 'nice', really.

I don't really blame the authors if they've even concurred with the titles; it's their income so they have to be sales people also. The bad part for me is that these are individual books. What would be great for Waterloo is if there was something similar to the "Gettysburg Magazine" that is put out twice a year on that battle and campaign. It is a no-advertisement "magazine" printed on good paper that contains scholarly articles on individual soldiers, regiments or actions. Of course the authors wouldn't be making much money, but it could be a great vehicle for everything Waterloo.

What a brilliant idea…..

These days it would be unlikely to appear in paper, printed academic/scientific journals are increasingly feeling their days are numbered.

So much information appears on this forum, often as part of a discussion that has gone way off topic (which is fine, the best conversations do just that). But it is then promptly lost forever to any reasonable search engine