The next few years will see an impressive programme of books from the major publishers of Napoleonic literature, and no doubt this will continue in earnest until 2015, a year in which we will be celebrating the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo, and a year in which I shall start drawing my pension (I wonder if Book Publishers will be giving Senior Citizens a discount on book purchases by then!).

One book recently published by Arms and Armour Press is Waterloo: New Perspectives: The Great Battle Reappraised by David Hamilton-Williams (1993), price 19.99. This is a very controversial book, and combined with its readability and wealth of information contained within its pages, it is a book worth buying.

The Publishers describe the work as reassessing the battle '. . . to reveal new intrigue, mystery, deceit, lies and error compounded over 175 years'. This it certainly does. The basis for this assertion is that when Captain William Siborne decided to create his model of the battle, he wrote to the surviving British officers and obtained their accounts of the role of each of their units in the engagement. To fund his model, he sought and obtained financial sponsorship from many of these officers. From that moment, his model became influenced by those who provided funds. When the Siborne letters were published, only 180 were used, and these were the ones supporting the layout of the model, and only those from British officers. These published letters have formed the basis of research on Waterloo ever since.

This book from David HamiltonWilliams has sought to redress this imbalance, using the remaining unpublished correspondence, and including accounts from the Dutch, Belgian, Brunswick and Hanoverian contingents. This has resulted in a very detailed account of the campaign from all sides of the conflict, including the complex (and deceitful) political machinations that went on. Each stage of the campaign is examined in great detail, and makes for some very thought-provoking reading.

For example, when d'Erlon's attack was repulsed by the Allies (British infantry and cavalry, Dutch infantry) his troops took time to rally and reassemble for further use. To maintain the pressure on the Allied position, Napoleon ordered a massed cavalry attack to buy time until he had enough infantry available to resume the attack on the ridge of Mont St. Jean. While these mounted troops hammered themselves against the Allied squares, this maintained the pressure on Wellington (and caused ever-increasing casualties amongst his Army), while the French regrouped their shattered infantry. A different angle to this aspect of the battle.

The book is full of such interesting (and different) views of the various stages of the conflict, and relates how the foreign elements of Wellington's Army played a full and decisive part in the campaign.

The book was one that I found difficult to put down, being as it is a readable and refreshingly different study of the Waterloo campaign. While I would not hold up any book and say that this is the definitive work on the subject, this one will make you think very carefully about all that you have read in the past on Napoleon's last great gamble.

This author will be producing two more works looking at the last years of Napoleon. These will be titled 'The Fall of Napoleon' and 'The Last Battles'.

Arms and Armour have reprinted the book Napoleon's War in Spain by Commandant Henry Lachouque (1993, price £ 20.00). This looks at the French Peninsular campaigns between 1807 and 1814. It is a very generously illustrated volume, and very biased towards the French side of things. Nevertheless, it covers the war in great detail, and is worth buying for the illustrations alone (both colour and black & white).

The Osprey Campaign Series have included Leipzig 1813 by Peter Ho&chroer amongst their number, price £ 9.99, and the following review was submitted by Cohn Ablett.

This book successfully attempts to cover the whole of the campaign of 1813 up to and including the climactic Battle of the Nations. Each engagement is summarised succinctly, but with enough detail to whet the appetite and send one to the list of sources for more information.

The chapters on the opposing armies are necessarily brief, whilst that on the training of the French Army contains some interesting details on the problems confronting Napoleon in rebuilding his army after the disastrous Russian campaign. The orders of battle are sufficiently detailed for the wargamer to recreate the great engagement.

Peter Hofschroer is well known for his intimate knowledge of the Prussian Army of the Napoleonic period and this is clearly displayed in the choice of illustrations, which emphasise the contribution of the Prussians. A more balanced representation of the other allied armies would have been useful. Again, Peter's enthusiasm for all things Prussian creeps through in the descriptions of the engagements which do not always give a balanced view of the contribution of the other allies in 1813. Brief chapters on the battlefield today and on wargaming Leipzig complete this useful addition to the wargamer's library.

The Dusty Archive

Introduction
Public Records Office
National Art Library
Musee de l'Armee, Paris
Future Museum Reports and Conference
Books
Memorials
Napoleonic Old Wives' Tale: Buttons