Customer Reviews

Waterloo 1815: The Birth of Modern Europe (Campaign)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I enjoyed this book. I dont think it is overly Pro-Brit - the author gives plenty of credit to both French and Prussians where it is due. He also clearly states that without Blucher Wellington could not have won. Its a very good blow-by-blow text of the battle. However, it is also more than that. You get the bonus of the lead up battles prior to Waterloo itself, all done in detail, and an excellent set of battlefield tours at the end. I was really glad I took the book with me when I walked the battlefield some time ago. This must be one of Ospreys biggest offerings in the series, and for the money it really cant get any better than this!! The author goes into a lot of tactical and other precise details that I havent found in other texts, and I thought the 3D terrain map illustrations were superb. You can really see how the battle shaped up. The only thing I would like to have seen was some new uniform plates. The ones here come directly from their men at arms series. That said, there is lots of excellent stuff here, it's very nicely written, and well worthy of inclusion in a collection. I have several titles in the Campaign series, and Waterloo is definitely my favourite so far.

I found this a great book, it not only told about Waterloo, but battles leading up to it, which other books don't have. It is filled with lots of colorful pictures of all armies, French , British, Prussians, and Germans. It goes through in define detail on the battle. I LOVE THIS BOOK.

The Campaign Series books are on the whole outstanding, and the Waterloo book does not disappoint. There is detailed information on the commanders involved and a nice summary on what happened to the key combatants after the battle. The maps and pictures were great as always in this series. The information detailing the prelude to Waterloo was also outstanding.

My only complaint is that the role of the Prussians in this battle was really down played. Historians in general have given Wellington a disproportional amount of the credit for the allied success in this battle and this book goes down the same road. It would be great if Osprey would come out with an expanded addition of this book that allows the author to go into greater detail on the Prussian's actions.

The book provides a fair introduction to this battle in about an hour to an hour and a half's time of reading. The beginning provides a good introduction and context to the battle followed by a discussion of the main armies involved, their strengths and weaknesses along with a similar discussion of Wellington, Napoleon and Blucher. The main strengths and weaknesses (staff work for the Prussians, Napoleon's leadership and lack of good subordinates for the French) leading to victory and defeat are hit on the head.

Then the battle is discussed in decent detail but the prelude to the battle (especially Ney's inability to block Blucher) is not. Of course in a 90 some page book this would not be very feasible.

The book also beautifully illustrates how each armies looked, has good mapes but has limited discussion of weapon/doctrine differences.

Waterloo, in June 1815, was one of the key battles in European history in its long-term effects, but it didn't take place in isolation. It was the culmination of a campaign that began with Napoleon's return from exile on the island of Elba the previous March -- the Hundred Days -- and the battles at Quatre Bras, Vigny, and Wavre also are covered in detail. Caught off-guard, the Allies under Wellington and a few senior allied commanders hurriedly gathered their forces. Numerically, they outnumbered the 128,000 men who flocked to the Emperor's standard, but they were divided in command and many of the men and officers were lacking in experience -- and that situation almost certainly favored the French, so the final outcome was destined to be a near thing whichever side finally won. As an historian, I find the "Campaign" series to include some of the most useful of the many Osprey titles; the volumes run to twice the length of the earlier series and there's much more tactical detail, as well as strategic background. In this case, the 19th century was filled with both romantic and realistic artists who took the Napoleonic Wars as their subject, so there are numerous nearly contemporary visions of what happened, and many of them appear in this volume. Moreover, Wootten is careful to distinguish between Romanticism and accuracy in the depictions. In addition, there are a number of the extremely accurate color plates for which Osprey is renowned, depicting uniforms and equipage of British, French, Prussian, and Brunswickian units. In addition to a description of "The Battlefield Today," a chronology, and a brief but useful bibliography, there's also a short chapter for gamers.

The campaign title that concerns Waterloo is prefunctory in its explanation of the battle and the events leading up to it. It includes a nice section on the battlefield today etc... While the book is heavily illustrated it relies on rather imprecise old paintings rather than what would have been better in my view, namely uniform plates coinciding with the different French and Allied units that faced off on the battlefield.

I don't know much about the Battle of Waterloo. I bought this book to help me learn a little about it. It really wasn't much help. The pictures were good but that's about it. Osprey has many excellent books but this isn't one of them.

No battle has been more written about than Waterloo or studied by military historians. Nevertheless I enjoyed this book as it was very clear , but as in the case of some of the other reviewers, I agree that there is a strong British bias. The British were close to defeat and it is the Prussian General Blucher who could be called the real victor of Waterloo. I enjoyed the part of the book which described Napoleon's charismatic personality .

Really nothing new, just repeat of many tall-tales.
By the way, why "Birth of Modern Europe" ? What is so modern about Europe shortly after 1815 ? Kings and emperors divide Euorope in the old way. Russia, England and Prussia again enlarged their territories.

A fairly average book with nothing new on the subject. One can see immediately that the author is British - much of the text consists of the usual litany of myths and half-truths. Of course the Brits did nothing wrong, it was all forgeiners. Yawn.