1815:
THE WATERLOO CAMPAIGN
432 pages, 16 pages of b&w photographs, 36 maps. 1815: The Waterloo Campaign is a unique reassessment of the Hundred Days and a powerful analysis of the events of the epic confrontation at Waterloo. This study is the first of two volumes and is a thoroughly researched examination of the opening moves of the campaign from an entirely new perspective, and based on evidence never before presented to an English-speaking audience.
In addition to a gripping narrative of events, fundamental questions are raised about the Duke of Wellington and his relationship with his Prussian allies. It is in dealing with the controversial theory that Wellington deceived the Prussians, and subsequent historians of the campaign, that the most far-reaching conclusions are drawn.
Peter Hofschroer is an authority on the Napoleonic era and is the author of numerous books and articles, including: Prussian Line Infantry of the Napoleonic Wars 1792-1815, and The Hanoverian Army of the Napoleonic Wars.
"This is the most important book on the Waterloo campaign written in many years and is an intensely researched account of how Wellington came to be so bamboozled and of the almost fatal consquences thereof."
"Since 1815 it has been an article of faith among German historians that Wellington deceived Blucher during the opening phase of the campaign, promising quick support that was actually impossible because of the tardy concentration of the British forces. So assured, Blucher stood to fight at Ligny, got whipped and - except for D'Erlon's inexplicable meandering - undoubtedly would have been completely crushed, leaving Wellington with an unpleasant assortment of alternatives including a nineteenth-century Dunkirk."
"Almost all British historians have vehemently rejected such imputations, the Duke's immaculate omniscience being a basic article of their faith. American opinion has varied but some, at least, of us have believed that, whether inadvertently or intentionally, Wellington did mislead Blucher as to when and in what strength British reinforcements might reach him."
"Peter Hofschroer believes that this deception was intentional, that Wellington deliberately risked sacrificing Blucher in order to gain time for his own fumbled concentration. He traces this Anglo-Prussian friction back to the squabbling Congress of Vienna and Wellington's role in the British effort to restrain Prussian territorial rapacity, followed by - after Napoleon's return from Elba - the two nations' competition in getting the contingents of the smaller German states for their respective armies. Hofschroer does not whitewash Prussia: the arrogant stupidity with which Blucher and Gneisenau mishandled the Saxon troops, the sloppy Prussian staff functioning and the ramshackle state of the Prussian Army itself are presented in detail."
"The opening moves of the campaign are traced in depth, backed by exhaustive research and careful space-and-time studies. A good many myths and alibis bite the dust. It appears that the Allies were better informed of Napleon's concentration than has been previously realised, but that Wellington badly misjudged Napoleon's probable stategy and, though promptly warned of his advance, was slow to react. If this version of Wellington seems less than omniscient, remember that the Duke never was exactly a timidly soul, and that a commander who could devastate his Portuguese ally's territory to cover his retreat into the Lines of Torres Verdes just might have been capable of considering Blucher's army an expendable rear-guard."
"Serious students of the Hundred Days may disagree entirely or in part - but they should first read this book."
From The (London) Sunday Times, 25 January 1998:
Iron Duke 'left ally in lurch' at Waterloo
by Maurice Crittenden
UP GUARDS and at 'em! The Iron Duke is under attack from his own left
flank. Our Prussian allies have finally turned on the
victor of Waterloo, accusing him of sending 20,000 of their men
to their deaths.
In what is already being dubbed 'Waterloogate' by sabre-rattling publishers,
the Duke of Wellington is charged by a German
historian with duplicitous behaviour in tricking Blücher, the
Prussian marshal, to take to the field against Napoleon's French
army 48 hours before the British joined the fray.
This weekend a thin red line of British historians is all that stands between Wellington and the threat of ignominy.
Peter Hofschröer, an acknowledged authority on the Napoleonic era,
claims Wellington promised to provide rapid and
substantial aid at a crucial point in the battle, although he knew
he could not do so. The Duke allegedly risked sacrificing Blücher
in order to gain time for his own troops to fall into formation. Instead,
it was Blücher, who came to his
rescue in the final hour of the 1815 campaign.
Hofschröer, who spent eight years researching evidence in the Prussian
archives and in accounts by British, German and Dutch
officers present in the allied headquarters, said: "In his own lifetime,
the Duke of Wellington very carefully nurtured his
reputation. The whole truth was, at times, a casualty in this process.
From June 18, 1815, onwards, if not earlier, there has
been a deliberate effort by certain participants to deny their own
mistakes and for reasons of national pride and political
interests to falsify the record."
Waterloo was a series of battles rather than a single action. By the
evening of June 14, 1815, the French army had formed in
three great columns stretched out on the plains south of Brussels.
The French pushed forward at dawn the next day. Wellington dined in Brussels
at 3pm but did not react. At midnight, he attended a ball before retiring
to bed at about 3am.
He rode at 1pm the next day to the Prussian headquarters where he gave
Blücher promises of support. According to
Hofschröer, "as the Field Marshal had such a high regard for the
Duke, there can be little doubt that Blücher would believe whatever
he would be told." An hour later, the Duke left in order to, as he said,
give his troops the necessary orders for their
advance.
It was a stifling day. Battle began at 2.30pm when Napoleon ordered
a signal of three cannon shots to be fired. His III Corps
advanced to a band playing La Victoire en Chantant against the Prussian
positions around the village of Ligny. Fighting raged
for six hours, with the Prussians pushed back with heavy losses, until
a violent thunderstorm threw the battlefield into darkness.
Hofschröer speculates that Wellington, who was to defeat Napoleon
on June 18 when Blücher reinforced the British musket,
fife and drum in the final hour of the battle, may have delayed joining
the earlier engagements because he was awaiting news
from Paris, where he had sought information on Napoleon's plans of
campaign.
John Elting, a retired American army colonel whose own history of the
Napoleonic wars became a textbook at West Point
military academy, supports the German Hofschröer. He said: "I
knew this was going to produce howls of anguish. American
historians have always been suspicious why Wellington was so slow,"
he said.
However, Britain's own Napoleonic historians have ridden to Wellington's
defence. Lady Longford, author of a biography of
the Duke, said: "It is absolute rubbish. Wellington begged Blücher
to be more cautious. It would have been idiocy to throw the
Prussians in to save his own men."
Correlli Barnett, author of a biography of Bonaparte, said: "Wellington
admitted that Napoleon had stolen a march on both him
and Blücher by getting his army between them before they had got
their proper concentrations. They were wrong-footed which is why they fought
two separate battles. There is no question of Wellington leaving Blücher
in the lurch.
"They had simply been outwitted by Bonaparte."
From The (London) Daily Telegraph, 21 February, 1998:
Ducal deceptions in the field?
The Marquess of Anglesey welcomes a controversial study of 19th-century
conflict
'If a true history is written, what will become of the reputation of
half of those who have acquired reputation?" Thus Wellington
after Waterloo. Historians have ever since been slaving away to produce
the "true history". Peter Hofschroer in this highly
readable, erudite book, has spent years on the quest.
He begins with a masterly account of the situation before and after
Napoleon's escape from Elba, and ends with the defeat of
the Prussians under Marshal Blucher at Ligny and Wellington's holding
engagment at Quatre Bras, both on June 16. A second
volume will deal with the great battle which took place two days later.
In 1815 Hofschroer aims to counter the notion that the Prussians played
only a minor part in the campaign. This, although not
new, is salutary. This, although not new, is salutary. What is more
or less new is the contention that the Duke conspired to
deceive Blucher into fighting under adverse conditions at Ligny, so
as to give him time to concentrate his own army. This must
remain controversial. After Ligny, the Prussian generals blamed
Wellington for not coming to their aid. Yet he had promised to do
so only "so long as I was not attacked myself". Since he was attacked
-- at Quatre Bras -- this argument loses credence.
Further, the Duke did not know that, thanks to the insubordinate behaviour
of one corps commander, the Prussians had only
two-thirds of their troops on the field. With the missing corps
Blucher could well have held his own at Ligny.
Again, late at night on June 15, and long after Hofschroer maintains
that Wellington ought to have moved, Blucher himself was
writing: "Tomorrow will decide if Napoleon will turn against
me or Wellington."
It is arguable that the Duke's caution was extreme. He was surely
right, though, to delay the movement of his
Anglo-Dutch-Hanoverian army until assured that the main attack was
the one at Ligny, and that Napoleon was not
manoeuvring to cut him off from the Channel ports. He may well
have failed to make this clear to Blucher.
There were other problems, including the language difficulty and the
terrible heat, which slowed down all marching. Then there
were the long-standing differences between the two nations.
At the 1814 Congress of Vienna, Wellington had been as suspicious of
the Germans as they were of him. His abiding concern
was to maintain the European balance of power, thus first to over-throw
Napoleon and then to keep France strong. The
German object, on the other hand, as Hofschroer revealingly says, was
to seize Paris, make the French "pay for their
widespread destruction of Germany", and then "expand westwards".
In spite of these opposing interests, in accusing the Duke of intentional
deception, Hofschroer protests rather too much.
Nevertheless, by deploying numerous, mostly German, new sources, he
performs an important historical service.
Incidentally (and unwittingly) what he says of Wellington actually magnifies
his reputation. I look forward with glee to the
scholarly battles which must follow this book's publication.
The (London) Mail, 22 February 1998:
A review by Andrew Roberts
"German historian Peter Hofschroer believes that during the Waterloo
campaign of 1815, Wellington deceived his Prussian
allies, forced them into bruising engagements with Napoleon they could
not win, and belittled their efforts afterwards. Then he
grabbed all the glory for himself supported by dozens of sycophantic
British historians. After reading this deeply revisionist
tract, you will never again think of the Waterloo campaign as essentially
a Franco-British engagement, but you will appreciate
Wellington as a ruthless general concerned for his own men first, and
his allies very much second."
Greenhill Books ISBN 1-85367-304-8
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