A Brief View of Waterloo
Visiting the Battlefield
by David Commerford, UK
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Top: La Haie Sainte from the Allied right showing how it tucks into the folds in the ground
Well now I too can say “been there, done that!”
It may have been a long while coming but now I have joined the ranks of those millions (it must be millions, if you count tourists) who have to varying degrees ‘experienced’ Waterloo. If fact Quatre Bras and Ligny too if it comes to that but more of them later. So what’s all the fuss about? What does a Napoleonic ‘veteran’ of thirty years standing (at Bars and Wargames tables, generally) get out of this
apart from a hole in the wallet and mud on his boots? Well, quite a bit actually, so I thought I would just share a flavour of it here with you.
The Travelling
Let me start with an unashamed plug for Eurostar. It won’t mean much to mainland European readers, or anyone not using the UK as a jumping off point but for someone used to the ‘joy’ of Britain’s railway system and for those like me who consider flying as the work of Beelzebub, its bloody brilliant! Fast, smooth and bang on time in both directions. Someday all rail travel will be like this (providing I move to France, I suspect). No doubt it has off days but ‘speak as you find’ is my motto.
Lesson 1.
On arrival at Brussels Midi if you plan to hire a car don’t try and do it on a Sunday! Three out four outlets were closed and the fourth had no cars! Here’s a tip, should this happen you can jump on the local train service (for the comic cost of E2.50 per head) to the Airport and hire one there, they have hundreds!
Lesson 2.
Unless you absolutely have too, don’t return the car to Brussels, take it back to the Airport. OK, it will cost you a little time and another E2.50 but the drop off surcharge is fifty times that!
On to Waterloo!
Being one of the most famous sites in any country usually means a place is easy to find and Waterloo is no exception. The fact that many years ago the government was kind enough to place a large navigation point on the battlefield site only makes a simple task even easier!
OK, I suppose I had better get this bit out of the way now. There’s no ignoring (in any sense) one of the most impressive pieces of state sponsored vandalism you are likely to see, nor I suspect can you fail to have a view on (or from) the Lion Mound. I suspect you have already guessed mine! Now, it cannot be de-nied the vista, once you have staggered up the 226 steps, is worth it. Although it does flatten the perspective of the battlefield. A friend of mine, who once made a lighting visit to the site and really only had time to assault the summit, was convinced that Sibourne’s battlefield model over emphasised the contours, until he had chance to return and see them at ground level!
Personally, I so wish they had left things alone, so we could have experienced the true strength of the Allied position before the top of the ridge and the sunken road were given ‘the treatment’. It’s impressive to the first time viewer as it is but God, what it must have been like to the average Frenchman slogging up towards it in 1815?
As an aside, I could not resist an ironic chuckle to myself on spotting a piece of graffiti on one of the stone blocks supporting the aforementioned Lion. Carved out in Gothic script and dated 1943, it had me wondering how welcome that particular ‘Prussian’ was at the time. Such is history and particularly that of Belgium!
The Battlefield Itself, Ligny, and Quatre Bras
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Now I need to warn you all before we start, that this is not in the mode of some of the impressively academic work we have seen in First Empire of late and that the this is the only time you will see the words Pflugk-Harttung in the article. Everyone should try to get ‘there’ once in their life, or so I was told. Assuming everyone in this context to mean Napoleonic enthusiasts and ‘there’ being that few square kilometres of Belgium that continues to hold such people in its thrall.
The Southside of Hougomont