Gareth Glover - Waterloo in 100 objects

To my long suffering but ever supportive wife Mary,
with love

Such a complicated publication requires the help and support of a great number of people and organisations to supply the huge number of high-quality images of the items required. I must therefore heartily thank the following for their inordinate patience and their advice so freely offered regarding the items in their collections. I must particularly thank the staff of the image department at the National Army Museum for the great help I received in obtaining images of the numerous items the museum holds despite the unfortunately timed major refurbishment of the museum now under way. Also to Anne-Catherine Biedermann and Christophe Mauberret, who helped me greatly in navigating the complicated permissions system at the Muse de lArme in Paris. To James Scott, deputy curator of the Royal Engineers Museum for the image of the Waterloo map and Richard Davies, the curator of the Regimental Museum of the Royal Welsh at Brecon for his help in arranging a photograph of the Colours of the 69th Foot to be taken. Andrew Lamb, who kindly allowed me to use the image of Bentincks serpent from the Bates Collection at Oxford. Olivia Stroud of the V&A Museum, who allowed me to use the images of Wellingtons messages written on the battlefield. I must not fail to thank my good friend Mick Crumplin, who unhesitatingly offered images of his personal collection now housed at Wrexham Museum. I must also thank Michael Leventhal and Jo de Vries at The History Press for entrusting such a wonderful project to me; their help and encouragement have been invaluable and greatly appreciated. Finally I must thank my wonderful wife Mary for her forbearance and unhesitating support during what has been both a frenetic and fraught period writing this book.

Gareth Glover

IN THE AVALANCHE of books to commemorate the Battle of Waterloo, the distinguished historian Gareth Glover has somehow managed to come up with an idea which differentiates itself from all the rest. By hitting on the brilliant concept of choosing 100 images and objects that bring the period surrounding the battle, as well as the battle itself, so vividly to life, he has made a real contribution to the events surrounding the bicentenary, and is to be congratulated on doing it in a way that is informative, entertaining and scholarly.

It is important even two centuries later that Waterloo is remembered as a crucial punctuation mark in British history, because it signalled not only the final full-stop for Napoleons ambitions to have hegemony over Western Europe for his French Empire, but also the start of Britains own nineteenth-century greatness, especially once the Congress of Vienna, which also took place in 1815, rewarded it for its long campaigns against Napoleonic France with vital nodal points around the world. Although it is debatable whether Napoleon could have defeated the enormous Russian and Austrian forces marching on France in 1815 even if he had won at Waterloo, it is certain that at the battle the Duke of Wellington punctured forever any hopes Napoleon might have had to resuscitate French greatness.

With far too many schools all too often teaching ever more specialised areas of history today, with seemingly arbitrary periods being highlighted for study, Mr Glover is doing a public service in drawing a new generations attention to the Battle of Waterloo in such an arresting and inspiring way.

To choose 100 objects from so wide a spectrum to illustrate what happened at Waterloo is a peculiarly effective way of making the battle come alive, even 200 years later. Gorgeous uniforms see Colonel Marbots of the French 7th Hussars, for instance cannon, bayonets, the famous Brown Bess musket and Baker rifle, maps, mausoleums, relics, medals, curiosities, orders written in Wellingtons handwriting, photographs of key buildings, even the dentures made from teeth pulled out of corpses mouths these are just some of the truly fascinating objects that Mr Glover has identified and documented for us. They all have the power of making this vital moment in history stand out, especially when explained by his succinct yet informative short essays on each.

The result is that the momentous events of those four days in mid-June 1815 are brought to life again, as the objects tell their stories and are fitted into the whole picture. When we see Alexander Gordons finely crafted magnifying glass, for example, we are drawn into the tale of Wellingtons brave aide-de-camp who died of his wounds the day after the battle, and hear of the tears the otherwise highly emotionally reserved British commander-in-chief shed for Gordon and his other friends who had perished. A medallion of HMS Bellerophon struck in 1820, to quote another example, allows Glover to tell us of the surrender of Napoleon to Captain Maitland a month after Waterloo.

The nearly 100,000 people of all sides who were killed or wounded during Napoleons 100-day adventure to try to recapture his throne in 1815 deserve a lasting memorial, and they are certainly being given one in these extensive bicentenary commemorations organised by the Waterloo 200 Committee, and this fine book is an excellent addition to its work. It is important to our sense of national identity that the more fragile of these fascinating and valuable objects be protected for posterity, so that they can be admired and reflected upon 100 years hence, on the tercentenary of the battle in 2115. This virtual collection, however, is the modern equivalent of Troop Sergeant Major Edward Cottons museum in 1909, and Gareth Glover should be congratulated on the excellent work he has done in bringing it together for us.

Andrew Roberts

I HAVE BEEN studying Waterloo, the final battle of the Great War, in great detail for some forty years. This opening statement will cause some bewilderment to many who have grown up with the appellation of the Great War firmly applied to the 191418 First World War. But to anyone living before 1918, the title of the Great War was applied to the Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars in which Britain fought France almost continuously for twenty-two years from 1793 to 1815.

The Battle of Waterloo, fought in Belgium on 18 June 1815, exactly 200 years ago, was completely decisive, ending Napoleons hopes forever. Nine hours of bitter fighting set the course of Europe and indeed the entire world for a century. However, it must be understood that the battle does not stand alone: it was the culmination of a rapid campaign in Belgium but the allies still had to march to Paris to end Napoleons reign again.

Despite such cataclysmic results, few people now know much about this short campaign. I have met many who thought that the battle occurred in London, assuming that the train station stands on the battle site; or they have assumed it was fought in France because they remember that Napoleon was defeated there, possibly basing their knowledge on the famous Abba song of that name. Few will know the generals who opposed him, although arguably Britains greatest ever general fought here, and they will almost certainly know nothing of the men of other countries who fought and died there: the Prussians, the Dutch, Belgians, Brunswickers, Nassauers and Poles, and even a couple of Americans.

History as taught in our schools has for many decades hopped straight from the Stuarts to the Industrial and Agrarian Revolutions and then again to the First and Second World Wars. This shameful negation of the entire Georgian period is deliberate: this allows for the avoidance of any reference to the rise of the British Empire, which we are now expected to feel only shame for. But we ignore the lessons of any period of history at our peril and the empire, both good and bad, very much formed this country we now live in, and without an understanding of that, we can understand nothing of our past.