"Has anyone read Waterloo: The Truth at Last yet?" Topic

I wish people would use a sensible heading for threads.
Has anyone read this yet?
Read What?
If the thread had been entitled Paul Dawson's Waterloo The Truth At Last.
I would have seen this thread much sooner!

I have had the book for the last 3 weeks.
I have not read it all, as I find it hard to resist skipping from chapter to chapter.
Paul does bring some new material.
But as usual he presents it very poorly.
It really is a hard read. But there is room for such detailed books to offset the many beginners or intro style books that there have been.
As regards the sealed (secret ) sources.
I wonder why other historians or visitors to the archives did not see them and ask for them to be opened!
Surely its the job of archivists to catalogue and detail what is in the archives!
I also did not like his statement that his is pro Napoleon and anti British!
What historian in their right mind would make such a statement,
As a British born ex-wargamer I am pro French, but also pro British.
I appreciate what all those brave men did in the Napoleonic wars and WWI and WWII
More to come…

Although its a great book and full of useful details, one could spend a few weeks finding fault with it.
Eg
Its a book about Waterloo – the battle not the campaign, and yet he spends 10 pages talking about the political situation in 1814 and 1815, then we jump to the French army taking up their positions on the morning of the 18th!
Chapter 16 is on Guyot's Cavalry Charge – great, but then it evolves in to the Young Guard at Smohain.
Chapter 19 is called D'Erlon' Offensive. Great we will find out about his massed infantry attack formations. But no its about D'Erlon's troops making another attack at the same time as the Imperial Guard. This is good as it explains what happened to D'Erlons corps after the British heavy cavalry charges. But then after 4 pages it goes into the attack of the Imperial Guard, which is also the subject of the next chapters.

It is a book that desperately needed an enthusiastic and analytical editor. I was prompted to buy it by HKW's brief comments elsewhere and I am very glad that I did.
I am convinced that the content will become essential reading for anyone wishing to fully round off their perceptions of the events of 18 June.
I understand that the regimental records for the remaining cavalry regiments are being restored. When they are available I hope to see a second, revised edition of this book including the updated information and, hopefully, benefiting from significantly better editing.

Just add a small point.

In Waterloo The Truth at Last, p. 497, the author claimed:

Thanks to the ground breaking work of Dr K. B. Linch, of the University of Leeds, he deduced that for the British army in the Hundred Days campaign, the average age of a private was twenty-nine years six months; these men having served on average for eight years six months, which was in some cases comparable to the best of Napoléon's army: the Imperial Guard.

Well, in Linch's The Recruitment of the British Army 1807-1815
p. 195, Table 12, Average age of NCOs and Privates;
p. 198, Table 14, Average Years Service of NCOs and Privates
The average length of service of privates is 8.6 years in 1815, their average age is 29.6, they are both close to Dawson's figures.

However, in p. 197, Linch said clearly:

This may simply reflect vagaries in the sample: although the data from the second half of the period includes some of the regiments in the Peninsula, the 1815 sample excludes the Waterloo regiments whilst including many of the old Peninsula corps still in North America.

@Wu Tian
Well spotted and thanks for the link – I have just downloaded it.

@Wu Tan and Allan its amazing how many people do their thesis on Napoleonic subjects.
And they are usually very detailed.

Dawson alas took this argument of older soldiers and those with more experience – on Wellington's army to construct an army of superior quality to the French. Even in case using his statistics were correct – which they weren't as Wu Tian points out, I cannot see that an army with an average of 29 years of age and about 8 years experience should be that much better than an army of about 24 years of average age of the soldier and 3 years experience.
As can be seen by his detailed biography of the French officers those had tremendos experience.
I agree with him that the Armée du Nord wasn't that good as usually pointed out – but it was by no means inferior to Wellington's Army or neither to Blüchers'.

Three years' combat experience would probably be more useful than eight years' garrison or militia experience.

the book is realy great to flesh out the French Army – an awfull amount of very interesting information.

On the battle, I ask myself – did the author reflect about the writings of the sources he used – like Lobaus corps were in the act of attacking Wellington's left flank, and most likley would have broke it, when all of a sudden they had to swing to the right because they were surprised by the Prussian.

Also Guyot admit the Prussian surprise attack at 16:00 – in stark contrast to the claim that Boney did know already at the morning of the battle that the Prussians will arrive and also he intercepted a Prussian messenger, but did not a fig to secure his right flank?

Herr von Winterfeldt, does any volume (in any language) cover Lobau's attack, and then subsequent redeployment to the east against von Bülow's Korps? I'm interested in investigating Plancenoit in more detail, so any advice would be appreciated. Danke viel mal!

I realy don't know so I sadly cannot give you any advice on that interesting topic.

I would recommend Hussey's recent two volume book (for many reasons)

The second volume discusses, in detail, the conflicting literature as evidence for what was originally intended for Lobau's small corps (pp 88-89) but obviously cannot make any definite conclusion, because it is all so contradictory.

The whole question is how much it was meant to contribute to d'Erlon's attack, rather than just sitting in reserve

Von Winterfeldt, what is some of the information on the French army that Dawson brings out? Does he expound on the strengths and losses that Bowden and Adkin provide? Does he provide useful sources beyond what's been seen so far (such as from Andrew Field), such as providing greater detail to what some of the French units were doing during the battle?

I probably don't need more analysis-type books, though Hussey's books look like they'll supplant Siborne and others. I'm more interested in hard data.

Thanks.

I did not buy Field who really brings nothing new whatsoever other than the ready available French sources (memoires etc.) – nor Bowden (after the Austerlitz failure I don't trust his experdice any longer) and neither Adkin.

Dawson is much exceeding Fields there he is looking into the small print, almost unit for unit – losses and lots of biography of those officers and NCOS who fought on the French side.
So yes, in my view he brings a lot of interesting and new aspects – due to his diligent research in the French archives.

Where he fails, is reading the battle and is still trapped in the post mortem cover up of Boney disastrous performance of that day.

I am not through with Hussey – I am just reading the 15th of June – let's see what he comes up with.

A good book about Plancenoit for Osterreicher, which I failed to mention is

Tondeur, Courcelle, Pattyn, Meganck : Plancenoit – Waterloo 1815 – Les Carnets de la Campagne No. 6

I indeed find that those Carnets are the best buys for the days of the battle compared to any other source in any other language and the Belgian authors show a superior understanding due to their broad approach and language skills to this topic, add to the the Mesonges of Bernard Coppens and you will understand how the battle is unfolding.

British authors are much stuck in pointing out the DoW superhuman performance compared to the dwarfs of Blücher's Army.

@Michael Westman
Dawson is worth buying for the data, though you will have to generate your own retrospective analysis to fully exploit what is printed. For example, there are many instances where Dawson cites recorded unit losses for Quatre Bras and Ligny and from that information it is possible to build a more accurate picture of French starting strength at Waterloo. I have started to do this.
Bowden and Adkin are next to useless for statements of losses, as you will know.

Von Winterfeldt and Allan, thank you very much for the info. I think I've read enough analysis and narrative on Waterloo, but I always appreciate new hard data information.

Danke viel mal, Herr Winterfeldt!

Here is the link to the book if anyone is interested:
link

Be interesting to read John Franklins new work on Hougoumont to see how they compare apparently Paul Dawson communicated quite a lot for his book

@Osterreicher

Bitte sehr, the Plancenoit book is also discussing the likley or unlikley early dedection of the Prussians.
I really think one has to read the Mesonges of Bernard Coppens first, as state of the art, to understand about the clever lies of Boney to cover up his incredible mistakes at Belle Alliance

An excellent series have all of them can highly recommend them

I'm almost through Paul Dawson's Waterloo (The Truth at Last). It's good to have some of the data he's dug up and he's added more French correspondence, though it might have been better if he had used some of the original French, specifically in regard to French tactical terms. His narrative of the battle does not flow smoothly at all, and I would definitely not recommend the book as a battle narrative. It also looks like someone used the "Replace" command to change all references of La Haye to La Haye Sainte. Paul seems to give equal footing to all the sources he quotes, including Napoleon and Gourgaud and Marbot. I don't agree with some of his interpretations because I don't think they are substantiated enough. One example is the 1e Legere's reported casualties. Paul uses the low number of casualties to propose that they were not heavily engaged at Hougoumont, but to me, the low number, along with the low number of casualties reported on June 16, might also mean that the observed/reported casualties are not the actual number. (The records that Paul used are based on personal observations from men in the unit so the figures are probably often less than the actual casualties. Some regiments though have a "missing" category.)

I wish Paul had included an Order of Battle. One thing that was confusing to me was that the number of battalions in each regiment in the book is about one higher than the standard orders of battle have in about 2/3 of the regiments. There are a couple of regiments where it is noted that battalions were combined, but not all. I read one primary source from the 93e regiment in Foy's division (not in this book) that said the 3rd Battalion joined in early June and the 4th Battalion was apparently on the field in reserve on June 18. The orders of battle don't mention a 4th Battalion. I was hoping that Paul's research would discover whether there were additional units still marching to join the army during the campaign.

My wish would be that Paul, Scott Bowden and John Franklin would get together and write something like Busey and Martin's Regimental Strengths and Losses at Gettysburg for the French army in the 1815 campaign.

@Michael
Some good comments on this book, and I agree with most of them.
I have not seen Busey and Martin's work, but I would just comment that Scott Bowden's book really needs a second edition as it is full of obvious flaws in his orders of Battle, but it was the best available at the time.
I don't think John Franklin has ever done any orders of battle and would add to your list Mark Adkin with his work in the Waterloo Companion.
I myself am working on a database trying to combine all the above sources for all the armies at Waterloo and the three other battles. (It is a big job)

Digby, I believe Mark's book is identical to Scott's for the French OOB, and he may have used his research/figures. I would love to see your database when you have that completed (as much as possible). The Allied and Prussian armies figures are pretty good for this period but the French are not of course. But I was surprised that Mike Robinson, in his Quatre Bras book, has some different figures than Wellington's Dispatches, which Bowden and Adkin used.

By the way, if anyone has Paul Dawson's Quatre Bras and/or Grouchy books, does he have some kind of order of battle/campaign for the French that would provide more info on the number of battalions in the different regiments?

@Michael
I have Paul's books on Ney and Grouchy, and neither of them has any orders of battle
A few regiments' casualties are discussed in detail.
I will comment on your first paragraph (26 April) in a bit more detail when I get a day off, as I am working very long hours at the moment.

@Michael
Scott Bowden says that he got his data from the original army returns preserved at the Archives du Service Historique, Chateau de Vincennes. (Waterloo Armies page 65)
Mark Adkin does indeed say that he based his Order of Battles on Scott Bowden. But he was able to add the names of the French battalion commanders with information from General A Bach, head of the Historcial Branch of the French Army at Vincennes (Companion Acknowledgements)But sadly Mark does not include the units at the Battle of Wavre in his book.
I have checked a few brigades, and as you say the numbers seen identical.