A Message About
Siborne and Clausewitz
Waterloo Controversy Continued
by Gary Cousins, Germany
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My article “A Belle Alliance” (in FE 67) contrasted the tone of Siborne Sr.’s “History” with the “1815” books of Mr. Peter Hofschröer, and in a letter to FE 68 Mr.
Hofschröer suggested that I had missed some of the material in his “1815” books. Mr. Hofschröer also emailed me privately, and I took the opportunity to ask exactly which material he feared I had missed.
He replied: “...Suggest you look at the sections on Clausewitz and Siborne in my “1815” for background information….”; and I would like to look at this suggestion in this piece.
Both Siborne Sr. and Clausewitz wrote accounts of the 1815 campaign: o Siborne Sr.’s “History” was published in 1844, with a second edition later in 1844, and a third edition in 1848. Whatever the differences between Siborne Sr. and Wellington, “History” was uncritical of Wellington’s conduct during the 1815 campaign, yet some of the controversy about Wellington dealt with by Mr. Hofschröer arose while Siborne Sr. (and Clausewitz) were still alive. o Clausewitz’s “Feldzug” was published posthumously - he died in 1831 - in 1835.
At the time of writing his “1815” books, Mr. Hofschröer pointed out that no English version of “Feldzug” had been published. An English translation was made by the Earl of Liverpool in the late 1830s / early 1840s, and was brought to the attention of Wellington, who asked his friend the Earl of Ellesmere for an assessment, and that although the translation was pronounced to be accurate, it had since lain forgotten among Wellington’s papers. Criticisms and points made by Clausewitz (and others) prompted Wellington to write his “Memorandum on the Battle of Waterloo” which was completed in September 1842, and was published after Wellington’s death by his son. It is in contrasting some of Wellington’s statements made in the Memorandum (and elsewhere) with Clausewitz (and others) that Mr. Hofschröer derives much of his case against Wellington. Recently, Christopher Bassford of the National War College, Washington DC, USA told me that an English language version, “Clausewitz: On Waterloo”, translated and edited by himself and Gregory Pedlow, will be published in 2003 by Westview Press, Boulder, Colorado USA..
I tried to decide what Mr. Hofschröer means by this reference to Clausewitz and Siborne Sr., in order to make the set task sensible and manageable in terms of my brief and available time. Both “History” and “Feldzug” are cited in Mr. Hofschröer’s bibliographies, so he must have absorbed them both into his “1815” works in general – as must many other writers about the 1815 campaign. Assuming that Mr. Hofschröer does not want to bring Clausewitz into the picture in isolation, but in connection with Siborne Sr., there are enough potential points of comparison between the accounts of Clausewitz and Siborne Sr. to fill a book.
So, the task I undertook was to use the footnotes and indices of Mr. Hofschröer’s “1815” books to find citations of Siborne Sr., and then look for where Mr. Hofschröer also cites Clausewitz as having something significant to say on those issues, so that a direct comparison could be made. The one significant issue in which Siborne Sr. features in Mr. Hofschröer’s “1815” books, and on which Clausewitz has something to say, is: at what time did Wellington receive news about the outbreak of hostilities on 15th June? It is strictly beyond my original brief, which concerned events on the 18th June, but no matter, because the limited investigation of this issue led me to look in more detail at the work of a historian who was previously relatively unknown to me, and in fact the pursuit of this avenue was arguably more illuminating than
the comparison of Siborne Sr. and Clausewitz which I originally set out to make. The message to Wellington about the outbreak of hostilities on 15th June
When the French army advanced and attacked the outposts of the Prussian I Corps in the early hours of 15th June 1815, at what time did Wellington receive news about the outbreak of hostilities? Controversy over this question arose well before either Siborne Sr.’s or Clausewitz’s account was published, and Mr. Hofschröer has given a lot of space to it - in his “1815” books, and in several articles and letters… Part of Mr. Hofschröer’s case is that Ziethen, commander of I Corps, immediately sent news of this to Wellington in Brussels, which reached him at 9 a.m. on the 15th June. Yet Wellington, despite receiving this news and other messages from Prussians and others during the day, did nothing until the early evening of 15th June, when he issued orders to concentrate his forces, followed later by movement orders, which meant that his troops would not begin their march to the front until the next day.
Thus on the 15th June, while Ziethen resisted the French advance, and Blücher ordered the assembly of his other three corps to give battle, Wellington lost many valuable hours, and was unable to adequately support the Prussians on the 16th June. It is alleged that Wellington did not want to admit to such a major error of judgement, so he tried to cover it up, both by falsely and deliberately continuing to maintain that
he would and could meet his supposed commit-ments right up until just before the battles of Ligny and Quatre Bras on the 16th June 1815, and later, as the truth was exposed, by claiming that he heard the news later than was actually the case:
In the “Waterloo Despatch” Wellington says:
In his “Memorandum on the Battle of Waterloo” of 1842, written in reply to criticisms by Clausewitz (and others), Wellington mentions the timing three times:
Mr. Hofschröer argues that, since by 1842 several accounts of the campaign had been published, Wellington may have considered the false statement in his “Despatch” untenable, and since both the Prince of Orange and Müffling had witnessed the events at 3 p.m., Wellington retimed the receipt of the news to then, and claimed to have received it from the Prince of Orange, and blamed the Prussians for failing to communicate the news, to cover up his error of judgement. Mr. Hofschröer says that many British historians followed this version of events in their accounts.
Earlier than 3pm?
Mr. Hofschröer says that German historians generally have always considered that Ziethen's news arrived in Brussels much earlier than 3 p.m. When fighting began between the Prussians and the French in the hours just before dawn on the 15th June, the account of Ziethen, the commander of the Prussian I corps, tells how he was woken by the noise and sent off the news to Blücher and Wellington between 4.30 a.m. and 5 a.m. The message to Blücher (at Namur - 30 km away) arrived at around 8.30 a.m. The message to Wellington (at Brussels - roughly 50 km away) should have arrived by 9 a.m. Mr. Hofschröer says that there is evidence that this news was sent. He suggests that when Wellington received the news at 9 a.m., he kept it to himself. Further news was received between 3 p.m. and 6 p.m., and became public, yet still, perhaps not attaching much importance to reports from Prussians and Netherlanders, Wellington waited for confirmation from elsewhere, and from an Englishman, which came at around 6 p.m., before he reacted.
Mr. Hofschröer insists that Wellington acknowledged that he received Ziethen’s news at 9 a.m. in a letter he wrote in French to the Duc de Feltre at 10 p.m. on the 15th June:
“I have received news that the enemy attacked the Prussian posts at Thuin on the Sambre this morning and appeared to menace Charleroi. I have received nothing since 9 o’clock in the morning from Charleroi…” (“WD”, p. 143, translated in “What Time?”, p.105). I compared what Clausewitz and Siborne Sr. have to say on this matter.
Mr. Hofschröer quotes Clausewitz's description of events immediately before the outbreak of hostilities on 15th June, and the responses of the two allied commanders, in the following translation:
Mr. Hofschröer says that Clausewitz supports the viewpoint of German historians in general that Wellington was ill-prepared before the opening of hostilities and too slow to react afterwards, although Clausewitz did not labour the point: and indeed he does. But Clausewitz does not support the view of German historians in general, that Wellington received Ziethen’s news of the outbreak of hostilities at 9 a.m. Clausewitz talks of reports received overnight on the 14th to 15th, but then skips to the reports received on the evening of the 15th June. Given that “Feldzug” is strategic and fairly high level in approach, one might not expect it to deal with the minutiae of every message sent between the commanders during the campaign.
But the issue of this first message is crucial to the Prussian case against Wellington - if it was sent and received as stated, it is vital evidence that Wellington failed to act, and thus lost almost the entire day of the 15th June, and was not in a position to mobilise his troops sufficiently quickly to meet the events of the 16th June. It was serious enough to merit enquiry within the Prussian army in 1819. Moreover, during this period Clausewitz was close to the prime movers and to the centre of events in the Prussian army (see “Reception”): in 1815 he served as chief of staff to Thielemann’s Prussian III Corps; between 1816 and 1818 he served on Gneisenau's staff in Koblenz; in 1818 he was promoted to general and made director of the General War College in Berlin, a non-teaching administrative post which gave him plenty of spare time to write studies of various campaigns and do the research which eventually became “Vom Kriege”; until in 1830 he returned to active service in eastern Prussia and was appointed as Gneisenau’s chief of staff. One might expect him to be aware of the issue and its importance. Yet he does not mention it in “Feldzug”.
Perhaps the most interesting aspect is Siborne Sr.’s version of this issue. In the first (1844) edition of “History”, (which, letters in the Siborne Correspondence BL Add. MS 34708 show, was well-received by the King of Prussia, among others), Siborne Sr. said:
Thus Siborne Sr. at first followed the line of many British historians that this news arrived at 3 p.m. However, according to Mr. Hofschröer, Siborne Sr. was one of the few British Waterloo historians who tried to establish the facts; contacted the leading participants who were still alive; could and did read German sources; and later conducted a thorough investigation of the issue. (Perhaps he also read the reviews of the first edition in the Prussian “Militair-Wochenblatt”, which praised “History“ compared to previous British works on the campaign, but proposed a German translation which would incorporate corrections and additional information from the Prussian side).
So in the preface to “History” ‘s third edition (1848), Siborne Sr. says that, since previous editions:
Mr. Hofschröer notes approvingly that Siborne Sr. now espoused the version of events supported by German historians in general - that Wellington received the news of the outbreak of hostilities from Ziethen at 9 a.m. on the 15th June - six hours earlier than the time of 3 p.m. given in the first edition:
The "Evidence"
I would make a few points about the “evidence” which led to Siborne Sr.’s revised third edition: The evidence is provided by sources, none of which were independent of the Prussian army. The correspondence happened in 1847-1848 and is kept in BL Add. MS 34708. Bunsen, the Prussian Ambassador to England, forwarded to Siborne Sr. information from Major Gerwien of the Prussian General Staff in Berlin, who drew his material from the Prussian War Archives and from works by historians, notably Prussian army officers Oberstleutnant Wagner (whose 1815 volume of “Plane der Schlachten und Treffen” - a Prussian General Staff history of the Wars of Liberation based upon reports in the Prussian archives - was published in 1825) and Major von Damitz (whose two-volume “Geschichte des Feldzuges von 1815 in den Niederlanden und Frankreich”, published in 1837-1838, was heavily influenced by General Grolman, one of Blücher's senior staff officers in the 1815 campaign and a noted Wellington-sceptic).
Siborne Sr. was asked to accept as fact (and so are we) the statements of these writers, or “historians”, who were serving officers in the Prussian army when they wrote.
The Prussian evidence is slight. It includes the testimony of Ziethen himself. In fact there are two versions of events attributed to Ziethen: one from an exchange with General Grolman in 1818-1819, and one from his “Journal”, extracts from which were published in 1896. They are different in their details, including the timings. In 1819, Grolman wrote to Ziethen that he had heard the story about the message and that the news arrived in Brussels at 9 a.m., (not stating his source), and asked for confirmation. Ziethen insisted that he had sent the message at 3.45 a.m., although he had neglected to make a copy (Mr. Hofschröer treats the fact that there is no copy among the papers in the Wellington Archive with suspicion – not allowing that, if it was not actually sent or received, there would not be a copy in any archive), and did not state at what time his news allegedly arrived in Brussels, nor could he recall the name of the messenger. In the “Journal” version, Ziethen not only gives a different time - 2.15 a.m. - for the sending of the news, but also now gives the name of the messenger - detail which he apparently could not recollect in 1819. Why Ziethen told very different versions of the story is not explained but simply accepted by Mr. Hofschröer,
(in contrast with the judgement on Wellington for supposedly changing his story). (See Mr. Hofschröer’s essays “Outbreak”, “Message”, “Hostilities”, etc. for his interpretation of this evidence).
In seeking to resolve this discrepancy to Siborne Sr.’s satisfaction, Gerwien mentions that in the version given in Damitz’s work, the time of the receipt of the news is given as 11 a.m., but Gerwien proposed a despatch time of “at about 4 a.m.”, (based upon Ziethen’s journal recollection), and then (in a second submission in response to Siborne Sr.’s objections – see below) “at around 5 a.m.”, and then “perhaps at 4.45 a.m.” – the last was the time eventually settled upon and is followed by Mr. Hofschröer. Gerwien’s other evi-dence for this timing includes Wellington’s letter to the Duc de Feltre of the evening of 15th June,
mentioned earlier: yet this is not unambiguous, because the second sentence of the quoted passage could be interpreted “having no news from Charleroi since that received in Brussels at 9 a.m.” or as “having received in Brussels no news from Charleroi since that sent at 9 a.m.” (“What Time?”, p. 105).
Gerwien takes the first interpretation, as does Mr. Hofschröer. Finally Gerwien adds a British account (to which Mr Hofschröer adds others), as further corroboration, which actually offers no support for this conclusion. A more recent article (perhaps easier to locate than Pflugk-Harttung’s work) examined the “primary” material, and rejected the Prussian evidence presented to Siborne Sr. as “…scarcely a convincing case to put against the contemporary evidence…” (“What Time”, p.116; also “Deceit”, “Reply” and “Chronology” from the same debate). Further, Siborne Sr. does not seem to have checked the evidence particularly thoroughly.
As Mr. Hofschröer says elsewhere in his “1815” books: “Before accepting primary source material and eyewitness statements at face value, the historian should cross-reference such accounts with the record and other such material to establish its accuracy and veracity.” (“Victory” p.325). Now as said earlier, and to his credit, Siborne Sr. makes telling objections to certain points of the Prussian evidence, but on receiving
Gerwien’s reply to those he accepts the Prussians’ arguments. It is not clear from Mr. Hofschröer’s “1815” books - nor from the Siborne Correspondence - that Siborne Sr. cross-checked this Prussian “evidence” against his other living, and particularly non-Prussian, sources – for example, by seeking the views of surviving members of Wellington’s staff, such as Fitzroy Somerset, who might have been expected to have something to say about this issue. It is of course possible that he did such checks verbally, but if so he left no record of them among the private memoranda in the Correspondence. If he did not do such checks, that would not imply a very thorough and impartial investigation of the issue.
One might speculate that if evidence of this quality were to be presented in a courtroom, the witnesses would be called unreliable, and the evidence ruled inadmissible – and in fact, under some judicial systems, whether the method by which the evidence was assembled might be reviewed at the pre-trial stage, and the case stopped from going to court. Siborne Sr. does not highlight the significance of the change of timing of receipt of the news for the reputation of Wellington. Indeed he writes uncritically - one might almost say approvingly - about the effect on Wellington of the news, now supposedly received at 9 a.m., which :
Siborne Sr. also exonerates Ziethen of charges of poor communication, made by previous British accounts: he had already given enough information, especially on the 13th and 14th June, and had communicated news of the advance early on the 15th June to Wellington. He had done his duty, and no more could be expected from him: further communication was down to Blücher at Namur, to whom Ziethen would address further reports, and Wellington’s Netherlands outposts, especially the negligent Prince of Orange and General van Merlen Netherlanders, whom Siborne Sr. blames for subsequent poor communication (see footnote, p. 36-38 of “History”).
So on this issue, Clausewitz raises the general issue of Wellington’s inactivity, but mentions explicitly only news received on the evening of the 15th; while Siborne Sr. is more explicit and revises his original view that the news was received at 3 p.m. to accept the Prussians’ side of events that an early morning message was sent which arrived at 9 a.m.: they reach different conclusions.
Then I looked at the findings of the German historian, Pflugk-Harttung, of which Mr. Hofschröer writes: “Pflugk-Harttung conducted a more detailed investigation of the issue in his Vorgeschichte der Schlacht bei Belle-Alliance – Wellington, published in 1903. Pflugk-Harttung examined all the available evidence and tried to make sense of conflicting accounts. He concluded that Wellington received Zieten’s message by 9 a.m., but did not react until confirmation of its contents was received from elsewhere.” (“Victory”, p.334).
Pflugk-Harttung says that:
“It [Wellington assembling his army within 22 hours of the first cannon-shot] would have depended upon Zieten, immediately after the firing of the alarm guns, thus already at half past 4 o’clock, sending his
best rider to Brussels with the announcement, and possibly repeating this message every hour, depending on the advance of the enemy. If this had happened, certainly something would have been achieved in Brussels. Instead of which, however, Zieten’s news only arrived in Brussels at 6 o’clock in the evening, therefore 14 hours after the opening of hostilities. Wellington actually first learned of this event not through the Prussians, but through [the Prince of] Orange. He must have said to himself, if the Prussians are in so little hurry, then the matter cannot be particularly serious…” (“Vorgeschichte”, p. 236: see also p.50). As late as 1913, Pflugk-Harttung wrote, in his great celebratory work on the German Wars of Liberation:
So what about the message which Ziethen says he sent at the outset of hostilities? Pflugk-Harttung is again quite clear – the only message Wellington received was sent from Charleroi at around 8-9 a.m., and reached Brussels at 6-7 p.m.:
“Zieten sent only one despatch to Wellington (Müffling) on the morning of 15th June, which left Charleroi between 8 and 9 o’clock [in the morning] and arrived in Brussels between 6 and 7 o’clock [in the evening].” (“Berichterstattung”, p. 57).
“…it may be taken as certain, that Wellington received no report from Zieten in the morning [of the 15th June]…” (“Berichterstattung”, p. 55).
“However, if an early letter from Zieten did not arrive, so one must ask, whether one was actually sent...” (“Berichterstattung”, p. 56). Pflugk-Harttung criticises the Prussian communication on 15th June, and says that the consequence for Wellington was that he was delayed unnecessarily:
“If one considers everything, then one will have to admit that the English commander was scarcely able to act during the day.” (“Vorgeschichte”, p. 73).
“…Wellington did not receive sufficient news from the Prussians…so he remained uninformed from the Prussian side of all that had proceeded on the Sambre after 9 o’clock [a.m.]." (“Vorgeschichte”, p. 64).
“…At 10 o’clock in the evening he [Wellington] still believed Charleroi to be in Prussian hands, when Ney already stood at Quatre Bras.” (“Vorgeschichte”, p. 67). And at 10 p.m. Wellington related his ignorance of events at Charleroi in the letter to the Duc de Feltre, although nevertheless Pflugk-Harttung says:
“As a matter of fact, both of Wellington’s orders – the opening orders and the after-orders - were deeply thought through. However, they were based on inadequate news, and thereby on false assumptions, which with greater energy from Ney could have had the most serious consequences.” (“Vorgeschichte”, p. 76). Pflugk-Harttung’s view of the issue is absolutely clear: Ziethen did not send a message to Wellington immediately after the opening of hostilities; only later, between 8 and 9 a.m., did he send news to Wellington, who received it later that day, and acted accordingly; and this is the message referred to by Wellington in his 10 p.m. letter to the Duc de Feltre. This contradicts Mr Hofschröer’s claim that Pflugk-Harttung “…concluded that Wellington received Zieten’s message by 9 a.m., but did not react until confirmation of its contents was received from elsewhere.” (“Victory”, p.334).
A century after Pflugk-Harttung was writing, Hussey (“What Time?”, “Chronology”) examined the “primary evidence” on this issue, and also concluded that there was no earlier letter, and that the first news of the French attack came to Brussels not through the Prussians - from whom no news reached Brussels in the morning - but instead that Wellington first heard while entertaining the Prince of Orange to dinner, probably around 4.45 to 5 p.m., and only later did Wellington, through Müffling, receive Ziethen’s first news, which told of the situation at around 9 a.m.
The evidence considered by Pflugk-Harttung in the early 1900s, and by Hussey recently, was far greater, and sourced from all sides, than that available to Siborne Sr. in the 1840s, whose material was largely provided by the Prussians (although one might have expected a historian to source some other views). It is hard to see what further archive sources have become available to illuminate this issue since Pflugk-Harttung wrote, and what more can be done, barring any discoveries in archives, other than to reach a balance on the existing accounts. Pflugk-Harttung: Truth without partiality and prejudice?
Mr. Hofschröer’s “1815” books make extensive use of the works of Julius von Pflugk-Harttung (1848-1919): it is worth hunting for them (and Mr. Hofschröer always give citations for the interested reader to follow up his original sources). They were published in German some 100 years ago, but are not available in English. Pflugk-Harttung openly sought – for what it is worth, rightly in my view - to bring back into the spotlight the contribution of German troops to the 1815 campaign; not in a contrived manner, but rather as a natural consequence of striving to establish the truth without partiality and prejudice. He said that he would not shrink from difficulties in his research, but on the contrary sought them out – almost a Popperian approach to history - to test his hypothesis and conclusions by looking for contradictions. He used the 19th century works and archive material of the several countries involved in the campaign. Pflugk-Harttung drew conclusions critical of all sides in the 1815 campaign where appropriate: not only of Wellington and the Prussians, but also, like Siborne Sr.’s “History”, “Vorgeschichte” is at times scathing of the role of the Netherlanders - both leaders and led - in the campaign. One feels more inclined to trust his judgement, because he is not obviously supporting one side or the other.
As Mr. Hofschröer says:
and that he “…had written the most thoroughly researched works on the campaign of 1815, and its political background. Without the information provided by Pflugk-Harttung, particularly as to source material, then this book would not have been anywhere near as informative as I hope it is.” (“Allies”, Preface, pp.17-18). Mr. Hofschröer regards Pflugk-Harttung as a chief influence and source, citing many of Pflugk-Harttung’s books and articles in the bibliography of his “1815” books, indeed saying that “Much of my current work is based on the research carried out by Pflugk-Harttung. It can, in part, be regarded as an
extension of the research he conducted, using archive materials to which he did not have access.” (“Allies”, Preface, p. 18).
Pflugk-Harttung’s works examined many of those Prussian accusations made against Wellington which are at the core of Mr. Hofschröer’s case, including the issues dealt with above. He wrote that, perhaps understandably, the Prussians were disappointed with their spoils from the political negotiations at Vienna in 1814-15, and when hostilities opened on the 15th June, the Prussians attempted to seize the military initiative to bolster their political claims. The Prussians had already committed to, and given orders for, a battle at Ligny by around noon on the 15th June, before Wellington was told of the outbreak of hostilities.
At this time the Prussians believed that their four army corps could be united in time for battle against the French. Had Bülow’s Prussian IV Corps arrived in time, the battle and the campaign might well have been won by the Prussians alone. Only later did it dawn on the Prussian leadership that the IV Corps would not reach the battlefield in time to take part in the fighting, due to their own errors.
Pflugk-Harttung says that although Wellington received insufficient news from the Prussians, nevertheless, his orders to his troops on the 15th June were in accordance with the Prussians’ requests on that day (although they arguably still lacked energy – so it was fortunate that Ney did not show more energy either). However, until he rode over to meet Blücher near Ligny on the 16th June, Wellington had no idea that the main French force was facing and preparing to attack the Prussians - which is why he went to look for himself - or that Bülow’s IV Corps would not reach the battlefield in time.
At this time, as far as direct intervention by Wellington was concerned, the Prussians had made no such request, could have no such expectation, and had received no such promise. Pflugk-Harttung believes that this was because the Prussians had determined to take on the battle themselves and alone, and did not at first want Wellington’s direct support, only the reassurance that his forces were in the vicinity in case the battle went against them – which in the end of course is what happened. Pflugk-Harttung says that at the meeting before Ligny, a number of plans were discussed, but the final agreement was that Wellington would
come to the direct support of the Prussians only if not attacked himself. Such direct support was in the event impossible, because of the French attack at Quatre Bras, a battle which Pflugk-Harttung, unlike some Prussian authors who saw it as an insignificant “side-show”, saw as very significant.
In tying down 45,000 French troops, Wellington gave the Prussians the opportunity to win at Ligny, and in the event saved the Prussians from the extremely heavy defeat which must have followed if those
French troops had been free to join the main French army at Ligny. Yet at Ligny on 16th June, the Prussians still enjoyed numerical superiority - 65,000 French (although the “Blücher / Gneisenau Report”
claimed 130,000) faced 85,000 Prussians (even excluding Bülow’s IV Corps) - and a previously-reconnoitred and (according to Mr. Hofschröer in “Allies” pp. 248-253) well-chosen and strong defensive position. The battle was nevertheless lost, and Prussian plans frustrated - and regrets and the search for excuses followed almost immediately. The Prussians – Pflugk-Harttung particularly singles out Gneisenau, whose pride was deeply wounded by the defeat at Ligny – found a scapegoat in Wellington, blaming him for the defeat. Pflugk-Harttung also says that most, but not all, of the subsequent Prussian literature followed and amplified this line of thought. Pflugk-Harttung disagreed with this view, and considered that such Prussian accusations against Wellington after Ligny (and after the 1815 campaign) were an attempt at ex post rationalisation.
If the Prussians had not failed at Ligny, or to gain the political spoils they felt were deserved in and after 1814-15, they would not have thought to accuse Wellington of such failings and betrayals.
This piece began with a suggestion from Mr. Hofschröer to look at Siborne Sr. and Clausewitz, a comparison which was inconclusive on this issue. I cannot say that Pflugk-Harttung’s conclusions about this specific issue, or his overall view of the origin and value of the Prussian accusations, are right or wrong, true or false – he said himself that he did not regard his own work as the final word and that there was still research to be done. I do not flatter myself that I can achieve a level and breadth of scholarship that he (and lately Hussey) have done, to try to resolve the matter.
But in general it is hard to reconcile Mr. Hofschröer’s positive statements about Pflugk-Harttung’s works with the fact that few of the conclusions which Pflugk-Harttung drew on several issues – often conflicting significantly with Mr. Hofschröer’s case - are acknowledged by Mr. Hofschröer in his “1815” books, and on this particular issue, Pflugk-Harttung’s views appear for some reason to have been misstated. I
am surprised that, to my knowledge, no-one has pointed this out before.
1815: The Waterloo Campaign: Wellington, his German Allies and the Battles of Ligny and Quatre Bras. P. Hofschröer. Greenhill Books. London, 1998. (“Allies”).
Mr. Peter Hofschröer for “inspiring” this article and for permission to use picture [1] of Siborne Sr.
Mr. Christopher Bassford, National War College, Washington DC, USA and co-editor of the Clausewitz Homepage at www.clausewitz.com, for permission to use picture [2] of Clausewitz.
Herr Jürgen Ritter and colleagues at the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek München for efficiently and speedily locating books and articles.
Any errors and bad bits are the fault of others – and any good bits were always mine in the first place.
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Captain William Siborne [1]
General Carl von Clausewitz [2]