Reprinted by Greenhill Books £25 Bearing in mind the position Waterloo holds in the British imagination, we have, after all, a railway station named after it, it is remarkable that no account published in the English language this century adds much, if anything, to three works published between 1848 and 1892. Happily, together with the American historian John Codman Rope's 1892 account The Campaign of Waterloo, recently reprinted by Worley Publications, two of these classic 19th Century works are available again to mark the 180th anniversary. The third is Colonel Charles Chesney's Waterloo Lectures of 1874, a reprint of which is well overdue. I doubt that there are many readers who are not familiar with the name Siborne in the context of Waterloo. This latest volume from Greenhill under the title History of the Waterloo Campaign, last reprinted in 1990, is a reprint of the 1848 third edition of History of the War in France and Belgium in 1815 and the work of Captain William Siborne, the father of the collator and editor of the equally well known Waterloo Letters. It is also the remaining, and earliest, of the three works alluded to above. The work under review here is clearly no stranger to controversy, witnessed by Siborne's opening comments about "cheap literature" in his complaint of plagiarism against a rival's work, by one Rev G.R. Gleig. Who? Who indeed. Today, some 147 years later, Siborne's work is again at the centre of controversy. This time doubt has been cast upon Siborne's honesty in what has been received in some quarters as latter-day "cheap literature" where, furthermore, it has also been said, to the effect, that numbers of subsequent historians have based their accounts upon Siborne's and, therefore, are, presumably, equally slanted. As it is unlikely that any Continental historian would base an account, good, bad or indifferent, on Siborne, one must assume that the criticism is levelled at English speaking authors. A cursory glance at John Rope's work, mentioned above, shows that in at least one subsequent 19th Century example this is nonsense. A similar examination of three diverse 20th Century accounts, Becke's Napoleon and Waterloo (1914), Jac Weller's Wellington at Waterloo (1967), probably the most readable written this century if nothing else, both of which, incidentally, are also recent Greenhill reprints, and David Chandler's Waterloo, The Hundred Days (1980), confirms one in the inevitable conclusion that, in these three well known works at least, the charge is rubbish. Who was William Siborne? Well, he was an officer in the British army, commissioned in 1813, who served in France in 1815. He is probably best known as the author of two models of Waterloo, which for the purpose of construction he solicited, with the authority of Lord Hill, statements from numerous surviving officers. The basis for his History was also the letters alluded to above, together with other correspondence with Allied officers and agencies, including the Prussian General Staff. His History, nevertheless, is written principally from the Allied, and essentially British, point of view. The credentials of his sources are impeccable. Nevertheless, there exist certain caveats, the first being that the letters were written some 25 to 30 years after the events they describe. The problem of memory has sometimes been raised and the danger of a mistaken impression of events is always a possibility, regardless of how fresh in the mind or recent they might be. Whilst allowing the concession, I don't consider it a serious issue. As a young soldier, the events I witnessed at a similar distance in Northern Ireland and in the southern Oman province of Dhofar, are as fresh in my memory as if they were yesterday. The more recent and important question is that of the personal agenda, a plot; damned lies in other words. There are two simple factors that militate against this in my view. The circle of conspirators would have been large and the likelihood of a compromise almost certain. The evidence for the conspiracy theory is not convincing. The letters are either authored by eye witnesses, and are primary sources regardless of when they were written, or are contemporaneous secondary sources where the individual is reporting the words of others. Until proven to be mistaken one simply has to accept them for what they are. The provenance of Siborne's History, therefore, can only be considered of the first order. It is military history, pure and simple, covering the campaign from the moment Napoleon landed in France until its close, by way of all the principal engagements, and the lesser ones including some the reader may never have heard of, together with very useful Annexes containing the texts of contemporary documents, orders of battle and other statistical information. Waterloo, of course, occupies the lion's share of the account which, although written in the style of the 19th century, is nonetheless readable, enthralling and packed full of detail. If a study such as this was to be written today, it would undoubtedly be received as the definitive work of the 20th Century. So, here we have a history written by an officer who served in the army during the period, albeit not at Waterloo, a priceless qualification I would say, based on the recollections of scores of eyewitnesses and other reliable sources. This is simply a mother lode, a veritable answer to the legendary virgin's prayer, in terms of information anyway. Is it flawed? Of course it is. The book has yet to be written that is error free and there are certainly details that do not correspond with French accounts. General Petit's description of the attack of the Imperial Guard, for example, does not correspond entirely with Siborne's or his correspondents'. Is this evidence of foul play? Not in my view, merely a witness reporting what he saw. Has it been bettered? This is arguable, but I would say certainly not this century. Although their role is given due prominence, one will find little of real substance on the part played by the Prussians. As I said before this is principally a British account. It is probably fair to say that Siborne's History is a little passé in places now but, make no mistake about it, this is an important and unique historical document in its own right, to the extent that it has become almost part of the history of the campaign itself. It is one that has stood the test of time rather better than most English language works written on the subject this century have much hope of doing. Anyone who does not already own a copy of Siborne's History should take the opportunity to acquire one now. Greenhill have done yet another service in making an otherwise obscure and important work available again. 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