Waterloo: June 18, 1815: The Battle for Modern Europe (Making History) [Hardcover]

Andrew Roberts (Author)

Book Description

Series: Making History | Publication Date: March 15, 2005

Part of the ‘Making History Series’ – ‘Waterloo’ is an exciting retelling of one of the moments that shook the world – Waterloo, one of the truly decisive battles of history.The illustrious ‘Making History Series’, edited by Lisa Jardine and Amanda Foreman, explores an eclectic mix of history's tipping points.In ‘Waterloo’, Roberts provides not only a fizzing account of one of the most significant forty-eight hour periods of all time, but also a startling interrogation into the methodology of history – is it possible to create an accurate picture from a single standpoint? What we can say for certain about the battle is that it ended forever one of the great personal epics. The career of Napoleon was brought to a shuddering halt on the evening of 18 June 1815. Interwoven in the clear-cut narrative are exciting revelations brought to light by recent research: accident rather than design led to the crucial cavalry debacle that lost the battle. Amongst the all-too-human explanation for the blunder that cost Napoleon his throne, Roberts sets the political, strategic and historical scene, and finally shows why Waterloo was such an important historical punctuation mark.The generation after Waterloo saw the birth of the modern era: ghastly as the carnage here was, henceforth the wars of the future were fought with infinitely more ghastly methods of trenches, machine-guns, directed starvation, concentration camps, and aerial bombardment. By the time of the Great War, chivalry was utterly dead. The honour of bright uniform and tangible spirit of élan met their final dance at Waterloo.

--This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

This summary narrative supplies basic data about Waterloo and evaluates mistakes by both Wellington and Napoleon that make the historic battle one of the most worked-over topics for speculation in military history. A Saturday Night Live skit once parodied the phenomenon by wondering, What if Napoleon had a B-52 at the Battle of Waterloo? Roberts' original contribution to historical contingency--for such an exhaustively studied battle, his research, amazingly enough, turned up new evidence--is that a cavalry charge by Marshal Ney, possibly the gravest error the French made during the battle, was a spontaneous assault rather than an intended one. Smoothly integrating the what-ifs into the chronology, Roberts joins the essential facts about Waterloo, such as its area and relief, to the morale of individual units involved. Emphasizing the courage and fear that rippled over the battlefield during its daylong course, Roberts instills an appreciation for Waterloo as a horrific experience saturated with alternative possible outcomes. A must for the military shelf. Gilbert Taylor
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review

“A small masterpiece. Waterloo is a military history of a high order.” (John Lukacs, author of Five Days in London )

“Andrew Roberts has produced the most convincing description of that fearsome day I have ever read.” (Paul Johnson, author of Modern Times )

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 144 pages
• Publisher: Harper; First Edition edition (March 15, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060088664
• ISBN-13: 978-0060088668
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.6 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,551,063 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great Overview, March 17, 2006

By 

R. W. Levesque (Colorado) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Waterloo: June 18, 1815: The Battle for Modern Europe (Making History) (Hardcover)

What other reviewers cite as a deficiency is what makes this book worth buying -- it is a short, easy-to-read summary of Waterloo. If you don't have the desire to read longer works or you just need a quick understanding of what happened that day, this is the book for you. It's up-to-date with current arguments and does an excellent job of summarizing the days' major events and phases. If you're a diehard Napoleonic Wars fan, or if you've read other books on Waterloo, you probably won't find much new here.

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A competent brief of the battle, January 29, 2006

By 

A. McDonald (New York) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Waterloo: June 18, 1815: The Battle for Modern Europe (Making History) (Hardcover)

This book is an Anglophile summary of the named battle. It might be useful as an introduction, as it was intended, and I think Roberts' strength is in making the simultaneous actions of the campaign comprehensible.

There's much here that's good. The motives behind the main players are plausibly sketched. The book is a reasonable summary of the action of battle itself, especially describing the struggle of the British holding Hougoumont farm, and an interesting discussion of the cavalry charge by Ney. It is also a reasonable description of Napoleonic era tactics and scissor-paper-stone relationship between field artillery, cavalry, and infantry squares.

But I wonder why British military historians feel the need to generate such dire speculations on what would have happen had Napoleon's Guard's charge succeeded - they seem to think the inevitable next step would be Napoleon hanging the tricolor from Windsor Castle, and the French army parading down Pall Mall. This book is proof that the battle continues to be a touchstone, a source of myth and historical speculation. That its importance is overemphasized is perhaps a minor fault of a brief summary as this.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars "He had his Waterloo...", November 14, 2008

By 

M. G Watson "Miles Watson" (Los Angeles) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Waterloo: June 18, 1815: The Battle for Modern Europe (Making History) (Paperback)

WATERLOO is one of the finer single-subject books I've ever read. A terse 122 page account of the battle which simultaneously triggered the golden age of the British Empire, the fall of Napoleon, and the end of the 19th century, it is the sort of book which can be read in a day or two, but which leaves a lasting impression on the reader's mind. It was worth every penny of the pittance I paid for it at Borders, where I discovered it in the discount bin - an undeserved fate for a work of this class, or a subject this important.

Now, I admit I know sod-all about the Napoleonic era, and oddly enough, I can't say this book much improved my knowledge, because author Andrew Roberts isn't interested in discussing much about the events which preceded the battle. It may be that he assumes the reader knows the history of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars; it may be he was simply trying to save space. It makes little difference. Roberts seems to feel the battle's inherent drama obviates the need for a lot of backstory, and he's bloody well right. In this corner (he seems to be saying) you have the Duke of Wellington, who was undefeated against the French even after years of fighting them in the brutal Peninsular Wars; in the opposite corner, the Emperor Napoleon, winner of seventy battles and undefeated against the British. Now, let's get it on and see who wins...

WATERLOO covers a lot of ground for such a short book, but its main emphasis is on reconstructing the battle in its particulars - the blood-and-guts realities of advancing in close-packed ranks under heavy fire, the confusion of a smoke-wreathed battlefield, the agony of hauling heavy guns through deep mud. In other words, it's more about what the battle was like for the privates, sergeants and captains than for the major-generals trying to direct it. And this is what makes the book so entertaining, and such a refreshing departure from most military literature: at no time does Roberts let the reader forget what a horrible, chaotic, error-ridden mess a battle is, particularly in the era before telegraph, radio or observation baloon. The Soviet military axiom, "Wars are not won by the most competent army; they are won by the least incompetent army" is more or less affirmed here, but the point is made without too much Monday-morning quarterbacking. Roberts understands the staggering burdens the generals of this era were saddled with, and emphasizes instead the enormous courage required of the participants.

No book is perfect, and WATERLOO has its brown spots. Roberts comes off as just a bit too partisan in favor of the British, and in his conclusion he finally succumbs to the temptation of telling the French (i.e. Napoleon) what they "should have done" in the battle, which is a bit of a conceit - no historian, however brilliant, can ever reconstruct in his own mind the chaos and uncertainty of a command headquarters in the midst of a great battle. But these are minor quibbles. When the book really sings - as it does when Roberts depicts the savage fighting between Marshal Ney's cavalry and the British infantry squares, certainly one of the epic duels in all of warfare, and one fought with equal gallantry and courage on both sides - it sings loud. Furthermore, he also does a fine job of explaining just why Waterloo was (and is) so important - how it put an end to the 127 year period known as the "long 18th century" and shaped the development of modern Europe to this very hour.

I have a rule of thumb: any time you know the outcome of a tale, but still get sweaty-palmed during the telling of it, you know the storyteller has done his job. In WATERLOO, Andrew Roberts spins an old and familiar yarn, but damn, does he spin it well.