Letters on: New Reader's Observations...;
More non-conformity;
Magnus on Otto and more;
Hamilton-Williams defends "New Perspectives";
Prussian March Rates;
Yet more angst on sources;
Unit profiles and show costs;
Uffindell responds to Hofschroer;
Grouchy uniform help needed;
British Generals--where are they now?;
New Reader's Observations...
Dear David,
I have only recently come across First Empire (I bought issues 17 - 20 in one go) and I must say I am very impressed so far. I would like to add my "two penneth" to the debate over some of Peter Hofschroer's comments in a recent book review and to some of the letters it seems to have provoked. In the review Peter expressed an opinion on books produced in a particular subject area by British and American authors. Whilst I have no wish to comment on the statement itself I do not feel it warranted inclusion in the review. It is irrelevant to the topic at hand which is a review of the particular book. If Peter wishes to express such a view the place for it is either in the letters page or in a separate article where the generalised statement can be expanded upon and backed by quoting examples.
I do not accept the argument that just because you cannot read a particular language that you cannot make use of material written in that language. I work in a research environment and whilst I cannot read any language other than English (to any useful degree) this does not stop me making use of research written in a variety of other languages. I read an English translation of the abstracts and then request a translated copy of the original material. The key to this system is having the English translation of the abstract. Might I suggest that a constructive idea may be for some of the multi-lingual readers to put together abstracts for those items which they consider to be particularly worthy of study. This would at least make those of us who only read English aware of what is available and perhaps in time the whole work may be translated (perhaps at the behest of the study groups).
Finally a point I think all writers of history should consider. There is no such thing as "truth" in the sense John Cook seems to imply in his letter in FE20. There are only opinions. Any two individuals present at the same battle are likely to give differing accounts. These will be based upon their previous experiences, location(s) during the battle, role in the battle, personal agenda/state of mind when writing their account and personal prejudices. Therefore any modem student, who is unlikely to have a full appreciation of these last two items, is going to have to be very selective in the material chosen on which to base their arguments. When you also add in the fact that the language in which eye witness accounts were written has evolved in the last 180 years, and therefore the precise meaning of words may have changed, the modem author faces a considerable problem.
Keep up the high standards you have clearly set in this excellent magazine.
Yours sincerely,
Neil Hepworth Malvern, Worcestershire
More Nonconformity Please...
Dear Dave,
In the DISPATCHES Column of Issue 21 of FIRST EMPIRE magazine, R.P. Needle asked several questions concerning the uniform wom by French troops on campaign and you stated, quite rightly, that different units wore different clothing etc depending upon their circumstances.
What I would like to know, though, is why so very few artists and film/television producers seem to realise this! Their view of a typical French Infantry Column (for the sake of example) consists of thousands of troops identically clad in blue uniforms, white trousers and facings black boots and shakos. Although this all looks very nice it is hardly realistic, is it?!
On campaign, a soldier did what he was told and hoped for the best. A whole unit, exposed to battle and the harsh conditions of living in a hostile environment (such as Spain) would soon deteriorate from the posh looking formation which we often see in films and paintings.
Equipment would become lost and had to be replaced, often by looting corpses of friend and foe alike, while anything which could aid an individuals chance of survival would be scrounged and collected. Thus soon the unit would take on a rag-tag appearance with numerous members wearing unauthorised clothes and equipment, some of which was of an earlier - and often even enemy design. (Just look how the British Infantry hated their packs so much that they discarded them in favour of captured French ones at the first opportunity!)
Shakos. bearskins and even the odd bicorne would still be worn by the combatants with constant disregard for authorised uniform issues - as long as the unit did its duty and fought well, the officers would be pleased despite its inadequate dress sense!
I hope that, after reading these comments, people take note and approach their wargaming / painting film producing in a more realistic way instead of following the popular standardized view of Napoleonic troops on campaign!
Yours faithfully,
David O'Conner, Dinnington, S. Yorks
Magnus on Otto, Pipes, Horse Holders and Coming out of the Closet
Dear David,
John Cook labours under an illusion if he believes that the "Otto Manuscript" is not a primary source. Granted, the ideal primary source is a positively identified coatee, but the illustration taken from life (as Guy C. Dempsey believes the "Otto Manuscript" to be) is generally considered to be a primary source. I would , however, concur that this is a book no to be missed; and if any publisher is reading this , we could use more of this sort of publication. While on the subject of uniforms, I feel obliged to point out that the Dillon regiment had black cuffs at Fontenoy (1745), thong this had changed to yellow by the time of the American Revolution.
Now let us turn to the subject of pipe music. The tune is in fact: "Cogadh no Sith" (meaning: War or Peace). Leon Parte appears to have been led astray by the pronunciation. Nevertheless, it was good to see a heterodox Peninsular battle, if one can so call a battle fought in the South of France.
The query about horse artillery manning brought to mind the story of an efficiency study carried out by the by then motorised Royal artillery. They had worked out the function of every member of the gun crew bar one, then it dawned on them: this man was the horse holder! I delved in my library and noted that every reference seemed to refer exclusively to foot batteries; thus unless they tied the horses up somewhere one of the horse giftmers must have been a horseholder, for the limber team belonged to the Train.
Now a few comments on the Sharpe series and the logistics of attending Napoleonic events. While I think we all recognise that actors have other engagements to go to, and we all trust Richard Moore to ensure the military accuracy; we might question the textual fidelity.
Some liberties with the text-are understandable and even excusable, but some are not and others are just plain perplexing. What is irritating is characters being regraded and sometimes killed off for no good reason. Now, to turn to the matter of the logistics of getting to a Napoleonic event. Let us assume, for the purpose of argument, that we are going to London. Let us assume we are going from Edinburgh, and for the purpose of this argument(and in the spirit of pure wickedness) the distance from Sheffield; since this about halfway.
You will agree that Sheffield is not exactly near to London, and when you think of the distance from Edinburgh-the distance seems almost North American. Look at it another way, if we assume that the party takes the train, assuming reasonable conditions (i.e. no wet leaves, the right sort of snow etc) the journey time is around two and half hours from Sheffield and around five hours from Edinburgh. Thus it will be seen that getting to Napoleonic events in the South of England is time-consuming and if you have to spend the night before the event, also expensive.
To end on a more positive note, a friend of mine told me that his mention of wargame rules also brought remarks about 'paintball'. I am away to dust off my French IV Corps(1805-7), and give my toy soldiers a proper airing. Yours kicking down the door of the Closet,
P.S. I am away to look into the matter of Bearskins and Colpacks.
Magnus Guild
Edinburgh, Scotland
Hamilton-Williams defends "New Perspectives"
Dear Sir,
Yet again Peter Hofschroer, has seen fit to attack my book Waterloo New Perspectives through the medium of a review of a third party, this time through Andrew Uffindell's book: The Eagle's Last Triumph - Napoleon's Victory at Ligny First Empire No 21, pp. 27-28.
On page 28 of this issue, Hofschruer states: "What is worse is he [Andrew Uffindell] refers to and even supports a new myth invented by Hamilton-Williams in his recent Waterloo New Perspectives, namely that communications between Ziethen and Wellington ran via Mons. Hamilton-Williams cites references to Wellington and Muffling that either do not exist or do not support the point."
Hofschroer here, is taking cheap shots at my work by implying inaccuracy - or even worse, without actually citing anything specific, merely to damage the creditability of my book. Could it be that as my Waterloo New Perspectives, which was shortlisted out of 50 books for the History Today Longman Award 1994, and was a commended runner up, and which was awarded the Souvenir Napoleonien Grand Prix Award, as the best book on original Napoleonic research for 1993; and has been both Military book Club choice of the month, in both Britain and the USA and has come before his own work " Waterloo - A German Victory", that he is piqued? That what we really see here is NOT a bona fide review, but an attack to injure my book and Uffindell's in a low attempt to promote his own by the method of falsely discrediting others.
As to the veracity of my own work, I can say that the system set up between Wellington and Ziethen DOES exist in - Wellington's Supplementary Despatches, Vol.XII. P.363. London 1838 - and fully examined in my footnote 35 page 374 of my book. General von Muffling confirms the Prussian arrangements in "Passages from my Life, London 1853, pp 214 -217. Perhaps though, not in Hotschroer's soon to be published version of the Battle!
Indeed, I can understand that due to Peter's lack of academic qualifications that he might not be able to obtain the necessary readers tickets to view these works, however I am sure that if he were to write to Philip Haythornthwaite, David Chandler, or The Marquess of Anglesey, they, having access to these works in their own collections would confirm the veracity of my version on this particular point. Further, Dr. John Pimlott, the Head of the Department of War Studies at Sandhurst, in his review of my book for the Academy in The Wish Stream Journal (Dec. 12.1994), States: In short, this ( Waterloo New Perspectives) is the best account of Waterloo currently available and should become the standard source."
So come off your pedestal Peter Hofschroer, own up to the fact that you have a vested interest and you are decrying all other works on Waterloo because by doing so, you hope to sell more of your own version due out shortly. In the last year you have to my knowledge faxed derogatory book reviews to all the prominent Napoleonic Magazines, not only about my own work, but those of Andrew Uffindell's, Dr. Albert Nofi's, and Dr. Alan Schom's.
In the latter's case, on page 2 of the above issue of First Empire, you refer to Dr. David Chandlers' version as "a third-hand source". For a writer whose only claim to prominence is a half dozen monographs about the Prussian army, aimed principally for the wargamer, with I add no citations to check, I think you have a monumental effrontery. Especially in reference to Dr. David Chandler. I suspect also that not having yourself a degree you hope by these multiple and unwarranted attacks on the above academics, to impress the readership in the hope that they might mistake you for one?
Incidentally, notwithstanding your diatribe, my Waterloo New Perspectives, has sold 93,345 hard back copies to-date, and goes paperback in May. When Waterloo - A Getman Victory! by Peter Hofschroer equals or surpasses that figure, please let me know, I think then, and only then, will the Napoleonic enthusiast have cast his vote as to which Waterloo version they prefer.
Yours Sincerely,
David C Hamilton-Williams, BSc, PhD, AHistS, FSA, INA.
Reply: Hofschroer's credentials
Prussian March Rates...
Dear Sir,
As an author and life long student of Napoleonic History, and the author o several papers and two books: Waterloo New Perspectives and the Fall of Napoleon, I was fascinated by a recent letter in First Empire no. 18 on page 39 by Peter Hofschroer. Peter stated in his letter how foot drill in the Prussian/ German army had not changed over the centuries, he said: "the Basic foot drill with which my father marched into France in 1940, which was the same as that used by his father when he marched into France in 1914, which was the same as his father when he marched in, in 1870, which was the same as his father when he marched in in 1815, and 1814, which was the same used by his father when he marched in in 1792..."
As Peter's family have had such a long tradition of marching 'in' with the Prussian and later German Armies, I'm hoping that he can with this handed down knowledge help me in my researches into that other unique Prussian/German phenomena - namely their much vaunted retreat? I have been unable to gather much data on this and I'm sure that Peter might be able to assist me through his family's oral tradition.
I do know that the speed of the Prussian army's retreat after Jena in 1806, not only surprised Napoleon's Marshals, who had a job to keep up with them, but Napoleon himself. At what rate did they manage this Peter? Likewise in 1814, Blucher's famous retreat from Chalons on Feb. 26 1814 to Soissons, Napoleon couldn't catch him and so depleted of equipment 'lost' in this epic retreat was Blucher, that von Bulow wrote to King William a description of Blucher's force: "All discipline and order are dissolved, and I confess to our shame that it looked like a band of robbers" (The Fall of Napoleon pp 77-78). Again how did they manage it? Napoleon had force marched his army to exhaustion to catch them.
Again in 1944, Montgomery couldn't advance into Holland and capture it quickly as he would have wished as his advance was unable to keep pace with the German retreat even his van and the German rearguards were 18 miles apart! Finally, and on a more personal note, Peter how fast did your relatives retreat in the face of die Russian Armies advancing on Prussian Potsdam in April 1945, to enable them to reach the British sector 155 mile away to surrender to the British Army one week later? I assume from the above that all your forbearers did this at slightly different speeds? Or has it always been at the same rate as at Jena? I hazard a guess, that as this was the best rate historically achieved, that Prussian efficiency deemed it the best speed to adopt up until 1945?
If you have this valuable information Peter please send it to me care of the editor, or if this part of your glorious military heritage has been forgotten perhaps some of the more informed readers can help me out?
Yours Sincerely,
David C. Hamilton-Williams,
And Yet More Angst...
Dear Sirs,
With reference to Magnus Guild's letter published in "First Empire" no. 21 that commented on a letter written by John Cook published in the previous issue, it would seem that, somewhat uncharacteristically, Mr Guild has misunderstood Mr Cook. Mr Cook's essential point was that "a significant proportion of English speaking writers who write professionally on Napoleonic military history are actually technically untrained monoglots, unable to exploit foreign sources and, therefore, in failing to interpret, in both the linguistic and analytical sense, all the information available to them, draw flawed conclusions and, furthermore, sometimes do not even set out the facts correctly." To precis John Cook's point, these English-speaking writers are neither trained historians nor do they possess sufficient linguistic skills to deal with their subject matter adequately.
Mr Guild's comment on that is: "While I am aware there is much excellent writing on the American Civil War, John Cook's comparison with the Napoleonic War is invidious; if only because of the increased literacy and willingness to commit their experiences to paper for posterity, the two not being synonymous."
Perhaps I have not understood Mr Guild, but he seems to be saying that it is unfair to criticise certain British writers for lacking the training and knowledge to refer to and use much of the material available on the Napoleonic Wars because he believes there is more material available on the American Civil War.
I must admit I have some difficulty in grasping the logic of this argument. Mr Guild's contention seems to be that it is wrong to say that a British historian is being one sided when, because of a lack of education and knowledge, he can refer to and properly analyse at the most 50% of the available source material on a battle or campaign in which his army was involved. He would also seem to be saying that it is unfair to compare such works to certain of those written by American historians on a battle or campaign that American forces were involved in when these works refer to and analyse 100% of the available source material. As a frequent buyer of military historical works, I can only say that I would much prefer to buy books that are 100% correct than those which are at the most 50% correct. Is that unfair?
Yours faithfully,
Peter Hofschroer, Rietberg, Germany
Unit Profiles and Show Costs...
Dear Dave
I found the article on the "21 eme de Ligne" in First Empire 21 fascinating - what are the chances of future articles on other N.A. Regiments, say the Hoch und Deutschmeister or the Austrian Jager?
However, I do have one question to the author of the article and that concerns the musicians shown in the photograph on the back cover. All are recreated as wearing the Imperial Dark Green coat but without the usual embellishment of the Imperial Livery lace. Is this omission due to the practicality of actually recreating the lace or is there some evidence for a dark green coat without lace the Imperial Livery Lace? Perhaps someone from the Regiment can enlighten me on this point.
I'd also take this opportunity to add my 'twopenneth' to the onrunning discussion on show costs. I actually don't usually feel aggrieved at a cost of around £ 2 for a good wargames show - it is, after all, only the price of a couple of 25mm cavalry (yes I'm old-fashioned enough to still use 25's) but since the point has been raised in FE I must say that I find the entrance fee of f4 at the Napoleonic Fair to be well and truly OTT.
Significantly the advertisements for the Fair (at least all of those that I saw, which included the one in FE) opportunistically omitted the admission price. The Fair was excellent but there was little there that I couldn't have found at one of the larger Wargames Shows such as Salute or Colours, both of which would also have offered me a lot more in the way of other traders, demonstration and participation games, and availability of food and drink refreshments. My feelings are definitely that the Fair is a godsend opportunity to make a lot of money for someone...
Regards
Stephen Ede-Borret. Cheshunt, Hertfordshire.
Editor: I'm sure the organisers will note your point. Funnily enough I was informed that cost of a military show in the north, one of the organisers of which chose to put pen to paper last issue, has allegedly reduced its stand prices from £ 165.00 for 12 feet to £ 100.00, this is unconfirmed of course, no doubt the organisers will be in touch to confirm or deny.
Uffindell's Response to Hofschroer...
Dear Sir,
I wish to comment on Peter Hofschroer's review of my 'The Eagle's Last Triumph: Napoleon's victory at Ligny, June 1815.' (Greenhill Books, 1994)
'The Eagle's Last Triumph' does indeed take a fresh approach to the 1815 campaign and Hofschroer himself admits in his review that this 'is the first work ever in the English language that is entirely devoted [to the Battle of Ligny].' It is the first to examine in detail the neglected early stages of the 1815 campaign, and thus to place the Battle of Waterloo in its proper perspective. It demonstrates Blucher's vital contribution to ultimate victory at Waterloo. It presents a fresh viewpoint on Wellington and Blucher's co-operation throughout the campaign. It traces Napoleon's road from victory at Ligny to utter defeat at Waterloo.
Hofschroer states that I 'used Napier's "Waterloo letter" as gospel.' In fact, on page 80 of The Eagle's Last Triumph I discount the accuracy of Napier's letter.
On the following page I write that Napier was confused and leffs in crificising Dornberg. Dornberg was merely doing his duty. PflugkHartrung is rightly devastating in his criticism of General Napier's reliability as a witness.'
Hofschroer accuses Wellington of being a liar who deliberately misled his Prussian allies. This is the argument of the nineteenth-century German historian Hans Delbruck. Hotschroer states that there is enough evidence to argue that Wellington deliberately misled his Prussian allies. Hofschroer may argue however he likes; nevertheless there is certainly not enough evidence to prove that Wellington deliberately misled Blucher.
I regret that Hofschroer spent so much time and space looking for small points to debate negatively rather than helping First Empire readers to understand the nature and content of the book, the first to examine the Battle of Ligny in detail. Other reviews, including that by the editor of 'First Empire' and those appearing in 'The British Army Review', 'Military Illustrated', 'The Waterloo Journal', "The Bulletin of the Napoleonic Society of America' and 'Military History' have all taken a very different view to Hofschroer's.
Yours faithfully,
Andrew Uffindell
Grouchy's Uniform help needed...
Dear Dave,
I am constructing a diorama using flats that features Grouchy leading his Dragoons in a charge. However, I am stuck on on particular aspect of uniform. Can any reader suggest what would be the most appropriate or likely uniform to have been worn by Grouchy in the field during the period 1807 - 1809? I hope some one can assist.
Yours Sincerely,
Geoff Blackburn, Kings Heath, Birmingham
British Generals... Where are they now?
Dear Dave,
I would be grateful if any of your readers could help me with the following questions.
1. General Archibald Maclaine (1773-1861) - this soldier took part in the Peninsular Wars and was the commander of a small force of British who defended Fort Matagorda near Cadiz against the French. He died in England at the age of 86 and is buried at highgate - Grave number 10943 does anyone have a photocopy of a picture of this soldiers grave please?
2. Lieutenant-colonel Alexander Gordon, ADC to the Duke of Wellington, who died 19th June 1815, the day after the battle of Waterloo. He was the third son of Lord Haddo and born in 1786. Can anyone tell me where he was born and his full birth date. He was buried in Belgium - does anyone know where, and is there a memorial or gravestone at that sight to be seen today?
3. Captain Thomas Cranford, killed at Hougoumont on 18th June 1815. There is a tablet on the wall at the farm. Was this General any relation to Robert "Black Bob" Crauford, and if so what was the relationship?
4. Charles Lennox, Duke of Richmond whose wife gave the dance on the 15th June 1815. He was born in 1764 but where and on what date please?
Any help would be appreciated and if I can help any readers with questions regarding French general officers, I am always willing to try and answer them.
Sincerely,
Terry Senior Marazion, Cornwall
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