A Belle Alliance
The Battle About Books
About the Battle
Hofschröer Admiration
by Gary Cousins, Germany
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I admire Mr. Hofschröer. He has achieved a great deal with the resources of an amateur (still?) and has given a kick up the backside to lazy authors and publishers (researchers?). I am grateful to him for rescuing from obscurity the operations of the Norddeutsche Bundes-Korps in the 1815 Campaign, and for his citations, which have given leads to works (e.g. von Plotho’s volumes on the years 1813-15) long forgotten; and of course his books on the 1815 campaign have many other plus points for those interested in the pre-campaign diplomacy, the allied advance on Paris, etc. He has been subjected to a lot of criticism, some personal, which has no place in the study of the subject, and from people who should know better. I am not an Anglo-centric apologist for Wellington, who is not a personal hero of mine, merely an amateur who tries to read as widely and open-mindedly as time and expense will allow. But even my enjoyment of large parts of his work is diminished by the axe-grinding of the rest: the main meal is spoiled by the side-dish, which I feel would be better served as a separate course. And I feel that perhaps sometimes Mr. Hofschröer wears blinkers as vision-impairing as those of the Wellington / British fanatics.
A: Two - one to fit the new one that colours everything blue, and one to go on and on about how good the old red one was….] He is selecting or interpreting material, including that laundered through the Prussian General Staff machine, or found in Prussian archives, which supports his case, and overlooking anything which does not. In subscribing to Siborne Sr.’s "very careful research" and his "balanced history", and taking his side in the model-building controversy, insofar as it gives some support for some of his case, Mr. Hofschröer is surely giving credence to some views in "History" (and Siborne Jr.’s "Letters") that decidedly do not, such as those on the Prussian involvement. It is also giving credibility to views which may not deserve any support at all, if recent research is to be believed, such as those on the Netherlanders’ involvement. Siborne Sr. felt strongly that the contribution of the Netherlanders was negligible, and that by and large they were purely making up the numbers, justifying it by reference to his research. For the 18th June, the point is made quite literally - for in "History" when calculating the "effectives" in Wellington’s army that day, the figures for the Netherlanders are dismissed as being not worth counting. Siborne Sr.’s view is that the alleged numerical superiority of Wellington over Napoleon, caused by the latter’s diversion of troops to face the Prussians, was more than cancelled out by the fact that the Netherlanders were effectively "ineffective". Now the action of the 2nd Netherlands Infantry Division on the 15th and early 16th June around Frasnes and Quatre Bras was surely one of the most effective operations of the campaign, in which a small force of inexperienced troops, who did not have to march as far as their British and Prussian companions-at-arms, held up the French advance, and saved Wellington’s wing of the allies, and perhaps also his reputation and more. But as for the 18th June, only the 2nd Brigade of the 2nd Netherlands Infantry Division (Nassauers in Netherlands service) and the "many honourable exceptions", particularly among the officers, in the Netherlands army, avoid the general accusation of "lukewarmness" and "supineness" levelled at the Netherlanders ("History", pp.389-392). This is a viewpoint challenged by Dutch, Belgian and other historians and in recent articles and publications [13]. I suggest we want balance, not bias;
perspective and not prejudice: otherwise it is like frying pan and fire, with the truth
getting burned both ways…The Prussians wanted to call Waterloo "Belle Alliance", and the Blücher / Gneisenau Report says why: "…There, too, it was, that, by a happy chance, Field-marshal Blücher and Lord Wellington met in the dark, and mutually saluted each other as victors. In commemoration of the alliance which now subsists between the English and Prussian
nations, of the union of the two armies, and their reciprocal confidence, the Field-marshal
desired, that this battle should bear the name of La Belle Alliance". (In one famous image of this supposed meeting the background is full of troops from Britain and Prussia, with the Netherlanders and other Germans un-represented...).
No doubt the British establishment ensured it became and remained better known as Waterloo to enhance the attribution of the victory to Wellington and Britain. The case for a balanced appraisal is made by Chesney ([14]). This work was reprinted with an introduction by Mr. Hofschröer, who describes the present as "… a time when most Europeans are endeavouring to put the national rivalries of the previous century or so behind them…" ("Lectures", Intro. p. vi) and suggests that a part of the healing process must be "…to go back to the scrupulous methods Siborne and Chesney [used] when writing on the events of 1815, and to endeavour to establish the facts free from any national bias..." ("Lectures", Intro. p. vi).
But it is clear that Chesney regards Siborne Sr. as one of what Mr. Hofschröer calls a "…`my country right or wrong´ historian" ("Lectures", Intro. p. v). In Chesney’s own words, "…No other [campaign] has exercised so much ingenuity and industry on the part of writers striving
to obscure or to bring out the truth…" ("Lectures", p.13), and that "…The skill with which the great national writer uses every point of evidence which bears in favour of his view, and hides from sight such as conflict with it, proves him the most valuable of advocates whilst the most
dangerous of historians" ("Lectures", p.32).
On Siborne Sr.’s "History" specifically, Chesney says: "…it has the essential faults of a national history written soon after a great war. Much that is in it would never have been inserted had the work not been largely dependent for support at its publication on the British army…", and as to Siborne Sr.’s view of Wellington, it is that of "… an advocate who believes that his hero was incapable of mistakes, and
cannot suffer him to be charged with any. The book is thoroughly British, no doubt, but hardly suited for general use…".
Chesney describes the campaign in summary as "…the noble concert of operations between the Allies… The great victory was no chance issue, as French vanity would make it; nor the mere spoil, as some of our countrymen have thought, of dogged, unaided courage. To those who
look fairly at its history, it stands proved the fairly won prize of a combination of valour,
skill, and mutual support, such as the world had never witnessed before in allied armies
led by independent generals" ("Lectures", p. 208).
Summary
And in summary: "Those who have regarded them [actual events as opposed to possibilities] with us dispassionately, and in their aspect as a whole, will perceive in this great drama of war a completeness which many writers on the campaign have missed. Stripped of superfluous ornament, and of the mass of fiction wherewith national vanity has obscured it, the story of Waterloo becomes clear and simple enough" ("Lectures", p.247-251). "Belle Alliance" is
the most appropriate name, not perhaps for the battle of 18th June (perhaps some things
are just too ingrained) but for the campaign, in commemoration of its’ success, and
perhaps to remind us that, like the meeting at La Belle Alliance itself, the events great
and small are legendary and controversial.
Furthermore I have a suggestion -- the "Belle Alliance" Project -- for the furtherance of integration and harmony in Europe, (and among Napoleonic enthusiasts!), and to promote the usage of "Belle Alliance" as the name for the campaign. Let the EC provide the funding
for a project, to be up and running at the latest by the 200th anniversary in 2015; re-fit
one of the buildings currently marring on the site of the battle of Waterloo to the
highest standards as an archive (perhaps with other facilities as well); invite all
interested persons and nations to deposit therein originals or certified copies of all documents and publications connected with the 1815 campaign; fund a team of researchers to work on producing the definitive account of the campaign and of all the contingents involved: and make the "work-in-progress" available on the internet as a kind of rolling, on-line "Companion", evolving as information is assessed and assimilated, if possible, and with a "forum" facility for anyone to make appropriately structured contributions. Any MEP
candidate who puts this in his manifesto will get my vote. It might put a few authors
and publishers out of work -- but then, even if it was able to finally establish the
quantitative facts about the campaign of 1815, I doubt whether it would ever settle the qualitative issues, ensuring that the final word on the 1815 campaign will never be written…
No scanners were used during the production of this piece: quotes reproduced and cited were lifted by the old-fashioned method of reading the book and typing the words, using a device called a brain between source and the piece - to the occasional failure thereof I attribute any errors. Where a source is referred to several times in the text, it is by a short name, indicated after the full reference below.
[1] David. G. Chandler, in Introduction to:
"Waterloo". Commandant Henry Lachouque. Arms and Armour Press. London. 1975. See also: Captain
William Siborne and his Waterloo Models. David G. Chandler. In: The Road to Waterloo. London,
1990. pp. 184-196.
[2] Peer Pressure! Wellington, Siborne and the
Waterloo Model. P. Hofschröer. First Empire Issue 65 2002 - a revised version of [2a] The Model of the Battle and the Battle of the Model: Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research no. 79, 2001. See also by the same author [2b] Siborne’s Waterloo Models: Osprey Military Journal vol.4 issue 4, 2002.
[3] Wellington, his German Allies and the Battles
of Ligny and Quatre Bras. P. Hofschröer. Greenhill Books. London, 1998.
[4] The German Victory. P. Hofschröer. Greenhill
Books. London, 1999. ("Victory").
[5] History of the Waterloo Campaign. Captain
W. Siborne. 1848. Reprinted by Greenhill Books, London, 1990. ("History").
[6] Waterloo Letters. Edited by Major-General
H.T. Siborne. 1891. Reprinted by Greenhill Books, London, 1993. ("Letters").
[7] The Blücher / Gneisenau Report of the
Waterloo Campaign "…written by the order of field marshal Blücher [by] General Gneisenau". at:
www.napoleonic-literature.com/WE/PrussianAccount.html . ("The Blücher /Gneisenau Report").
[8] Der Krieg des verbündeten Europa gegen
Frankreich im Jahre 1815. C. von Plotho. Amelang. Berlin, 1818. ("Verbund"). The author of this article thanks the Staats- und Stadtbibliothek Augsburg for the loan of this work.
[9] The Waterloo Companion. Mark Adkin.
Aurum Press, London 2001. ("Companion").
[10] Wellington’s Waterloo Despatch: as a
transcription at: www.wtj.com/archives/wellington/1815_06f.htm ("Despatch").
[11] Writing the despatch: Wellington and
official communication. Essay by Dr. C.M.Woolgar, University of Southampton, at:
www.archives.lib.soton.ac.uk/wellington/
[12] Wellington's Dispatches and their editor,
Colonel Gurwood. Essay by Dr C.M.Woolgar, University of Southampton: at:
www.archives.lib.soton.ac.uk/wellington/pdfsforall/theman_woolgar_ed.pdf
[13] See for example: Cowards at Waterloo? A.
Dellevoet. Napoleon no. 16, 2001; Bylandt’s Brigade at Waterloo. D. Brown. Age of Napoleon
no. 25, 1998; The Netherlands Victory. P. Hofschröer. First Empire no. 60, 2001; Wellington’s
Dutch Allies 1815 and Wellington’s Belgian Allies 1815. both by Ronald Pawly. Osprey Publishing, Oxford, 2002.
[14] Waterloo Lectures. Colonel C. Chesney. 1907.
Reprinted by Greenhill Books, 1997. ("Lectures")
A Belle Alliance The Battle About Books About the Battle
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