1815: The Waterloo Campaign. Volume 1: Wellington, His German Allies and the Battles of Ligny and Quatre Bras

click here for more details, find new or used items	Peter Hofschroer New from £47.95 Used from £24.99 Pages: 416 (Hardcover) ISBN: 1853673048 Pub: Greenhill Books Pub date: 1998-02-27 Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 356939

Reader Reviews:

Destroys the Myth that was peddled for so long (6/12 people found this helpful)

Readers of Mark Urban's book "The Man Who Broke Napoleon's Codes" will not be surprised to learn that the mythological character peddled to us by the history teachers of our youth, was in fact flawed, just like the rest of.

The Wellington portrayed by Urban is an inveterate snob, anxious to deprive Scovell of his deserved place in the history of the Peninsular Campaign.

So too, it would seem, was he anxious to downplay the part played by Blucher and his Prussian troops at Waterloo.

This has recently been confirmed by another 5 star work of Peter Hofschroer's - "Wellington's Smallest Victory" - in which he has documented that fact that Siborne's carefully researched model of the battle was tampered with at Wellington's instigation, and the display of Prussian troops reduced to insignificance to denigrate their role.

Solid Research, New Material, Intelligent Comment (11/16 people found this helpful)

This book is typical Hofschroer material. The research is exhaustive, the footnoting meticulous, the new information most useful. It makes a great change to see so much material brought to light from obscure sources, particularly archive material never before used. For the resolutely monolingual, there is just so much there that he will never have seen before. New material inevitably leads to new conclusions if intelligently used, as is clearly the case here.

Those used to the constant regurgitation of the accepted wisdom and constant repetition of a litany of myths may well have a problem accepting Hofschroer's conclusions. I would point such people in the direction of Cornwell's Sharpe series. That is more likely to be their taste.

Flawed Criticism (9/14 people found this helpful)

It is interesting to note that not a single one of Hofschröer's critics have been able to come up with an error of fact in his book nor with a plausible counter-argument. Instead, there has been constant sniping and comments like "oh no, his interpretations are flawed", but where are these flaws? I've not found any and find these comments innane.

Granted, Wellington's apologists have interpreted various documents in a different way to Hofschröer, but are any of these interpretations plausible? The main plank of the defence is the so-called De Lancey Disposition supposedly written by De Lancey at 7 a.m. on 16 June 1815 and handed to Wellington just before he wrote the misleading Frasnes Letter to Blücher. As Hofschröer points out, Wellington had not ordered a single man to Quatre Bras by 7 a.m., so how could De Lancey have written a disposition showing a substantial part of Wellington's army marching to Quatre Bras and how could Wellington have based his Frasnes Letter on it when he had not ordered a single man there? This defence is clearly nonsense and Hofschröer has totally demolished it. No reasonable, intelligent person could regard this document as genuine. However, there are those who see things differently ...

A New Classic (6/8 people found this helpful)

Hofschroer's work is of the highest standards. He has used previously unpublished archive material to produce a history of the Waterloo Campaign of a standard only reached previously by Siborne. As such, it is a new classic. All future Waterloo books will have to attain this standard. It is unlikely that any will.

Much comment has been made about Hofschroer's accusations against Wellington. These comments have ranged from the hysterical to the implausible. Nobody has been able to refure his case. The documentary evidence he brings to light is devastating. One can understand that hysteria is about all that Wellington apologists can come out with.

Excellent maps compliment what is becoming a standard work on the campaign. I look forward to the second volume.

A very well researched book! (2/4 people found this helpful)

This is the most well researched book on the war of 1815. The author successfully challenges the typically British (but not European) point of view on this war. He describes the war in detail. (Although it is neither the biggest nor the greatest of Napoleonic wars, it is popular in some circles.)

While Napoleon and Blucher are not the only ones who defeated Napoleon (Charles won at Aspern-Essling without assistance from any allied army, and Kutusov won a whole war in 1812) , they are popular commanders in the English-speaking world. The author focuses on them, giving detailed descriptions of their decisions and actions.

Similar Products

1815: The Waterloo Campaign - The German Victory (Greenhill Military Paperback)

Waterloo 1815: Quatre Bras and Ligny

The Waterloo Companion: The Complete Guide to History's Most Famous Land Battle

Categories

Amazon.co.uk places this book into the following categories: