Waterloo

The History of Four Days, Three Armies, and Three Battles

By: Bernard Cornwell

Narrated by: Bernard Cornwell, Dugald Bruce Lockhart

Length: 8 hrs and 55 mins

Publisher's summary

From the New York Times best-selling author comes the definitive history of one of the greatest battles ever fought - a riveting nonfiction chronicle published to commemorate the two-hundredth anniversary of Napoleon's last stand.

On June 18, 1815, the armies of France, Britain, and Prussia descended upon a quiet valley south of Brussels. In the previous three days, the French army had beaten the Prussians at Ligny and fought the British to a standstill at Quatre-Bras. The Allies were in retreat. The little village north of where they turned to fight the French army was called Waterloo. The blood-soaked battle to which the town gave its name would become a landmark in European history.

In his first work of nonfiction, Bernard Cornwell combines his storytelling skills with a meticulously researched history to give a riveting chronicle of every dramatic moment from Napoleon's daring escape from Elba to the smoke and gore of the three battlefields and their aftermath. Through quotes from the letters and diaries of Emperor Napoleon, the Duke of Wellington, and the ordinary officers and soldiers, Cornwell brings to life how it actually felt to fight those famous battles as well as the moments of amazing bravery on both sides that left the outcome hanging in the balance until the bitter end.

Published to coincide with the battle's bicentennial in 2015, Waterloo is a tense and gripping story of heroism and tragedy - and of the final battle that determined the fate of nineteenth-century Europe.

©2015 Bernard Cornwell (P)2015 HarperCollins Publishers

A Concise, Vivid, Absorbing, & Suspenseful Account

At the start of his Preface to Waterloo: The History of Four Days, Three Armies, and Three Battles (2014), Bernard Cornwell asks, "Why another book about Waterloo?" It is, as he says, a good question. His answer is that, in addition to being "a cliffhanger of a battle," it was "the deciding event" or "turning point" of the 19th century that led to French decline and British domination. Furthermore, the battle was so complex, and there were so many firsthand accounts of it, and there have been so many different (often contradictory) histories written about it, that Cornwell would like “To give an impression of what it was like to be on that field on that confusing day," and, though he doesn't say so, I think to synthesize the best available evidence so as to clarify some of the confusion.

Cornwell begins by recounting Napoleon's escape from exile on Elba to stunningly resume his interrupted rule of France as "Emperor" in March, 1815, causing the French king to flee France. Rather than wait for Great Britain, Prussia, Russia, and Austria to attack him on French soil, Napoleon decided to preemptively strike north in Belgium against the two closest allied armies, those of Great Britain and Prussia, planning to divide and conquer them one by one. The action begins with the simultaneous battles on June 16 at Quatre Bras (the French fighting the British-Dutch to prevent them from joining the Prussians) and at Ligny (the French fighting the Prussians to destroy them).

Cornwell then turns his attention to June 18 and Waterloo. He establishes the layout of the three-square-mile battlefield (fields of man-high rye, commanding ridge, and strategically situated ad hoc "fortresses" made of two farms and a small village) and the objectives of both sides: the British-Dutch had to defend their positions in the fortresses and atop the ridge (or on its reverse slope) long enough for the Prussians to join them, while the French had to punch through the British-Dutch line before the Prussians could arrive. There follows a day of appalling carnage as the French repeatedly attack, always wastefully avoiding basic 19th-century combined arms tactics by which infantry, cavalry, and artillery were to support each other.

Throughout the book Cornwell provides interesting details on early 19th-century armies and warfare. In addition to explaining the paper-scissors-rock strengths and weaknesses of lines, columns, squares, cavalry, artillery, and skirmishers, he compares French and British cavalry, surgeons, muskets, artillery, and so on. He incorporates vivid eyewitness accounts. "One officer described the air as 'undulating' from the passage of the shells and roundshot," and soldiers said the great guns heated the air like an oven. One man wrote of a French cannon ball speeding right at him, hitting men beside him, and then flying off overhead. Cornwell highlights some mini-stories, like a British cavalry officer who survived despite being saber-gashed on the head, lanced in the arms and chest, trampled by horses, used as a gun rest, and pillaged and left for dead, and an anonymous, beautiful woman found in a French cavalry officer's uniform lying dead beneath a pile of British corpses. He convinces us that "Waterloo was such a vast battle, so overwhelming in its intensity and drama."

Cornwell introduces dramatic figures like Marshal von Blucher, the 74-year old Prussian commander ever trusting in Wellington, "Slender Billy," the Prince of Orange, ever "a thorn in Wellington's side," and Marshal Ney, "the bravest of the brave," a man capable of stunning errors in judgment while leading Napoleon's army. And he contrasts the Duke of Wellington and Napoleon, both 46, both brilliant and charismatic war leaders, but while Wellington disliked war and tried to fight defensively in order to spare his limited numbers of British soldiers, Napoleon loved the glory of war and didn't care how many of his soldiers he lost as long as they achieved his objectives. Cornwell's account feels unbiased, but he may quote more British eyewitnesses, and he portrays Wellington as the superior general, riding about the battlefield to raise the morale of men at crisis points and writing clear battle orders, while Napoleon remained out of the action writing contradictory and confusing orders for the marshals who led his army.

It was a "dreadful day" of "slaughter" leaving 12,000 dead: blood spouting, bowels spilling, brains spattering, bodies being cut in half, heads and limbs being blown off, lances penetrating through eyes into jaws, swords whacking, bayonets impaling, musket butts bashing, artillery deafening, smoke obscuring, canister shot spraying, shrapnel flying, howitzers immolating, horses trampling. . . Many of the 30-40,000 wounded lay suffering on the battlefield for days. Local peasants stripped corpses naked and yanked out their teeth to sell for dentures. It took ten days to burn all the French corpses in pyres fueled by human fat. The allied dead were buried in shallow mass graves, enabling tourists to pick through them for souvenirs. Wellington said afterwards, "Next to a battle lost, the greatest misery is a battle gained." And "I always feel wretched after. . . there is no glory." Although Cornwell details the horrific nature of war, however, he does it as a novelist story-teller, making us admire heroism and scorn incompetence more than see the whole thing as human folly.

The reader Dugald Bruce Lockhart is fine. But Cornwell is also an excellent reader, and it's his book, so I almost wish he'd read the whole thing, instead of only the Foreword, Preface, Aftermath, and Afterword.

Readers interested in the Napoleonic Wars or gripping accounts of turning point battles full of heroism, cowardice, brilliance, and folly in any period should like this book, though in my ignorance (not having read other accounts) I suspect that readers familiar with Waterloo may not find too much new here.

Informative but not very entertaining

Really a 3.5 score would be more appropriate considering the fact that I struggled to finish it.

Great Cornwell narrative!

No one weaves a battle narrative as well as Cornwell! He does a great job a blending the movements of the battle with personal narratives.

Why another book on Waterloo indeed.

I always found Cornwell a bit of a chauvinist. His views in this book seem a bit more balanced than usual. Well done. However, it still is very focussed on the British version of history. I doubt the autor read much of the French, German and Dutch accounts. He consistently downplays Wellington’s mistakes while elaborating on those of others. His personal grudge against the Prince of Orange is petty and annoying. I feel that historians should generally refrain from assessing the qualities of soldiers and generals (but rather describe events or quote experts), for lack of military qualifications and experience. This is especially true for Cornwell. He probable is a better novelist than hostorian.

Genuinely Thrilling

If you are looking for a history that you will be excited to pick up every day, this is it. Cornwell's account is masterfully paced. He manages to create some of the battle's tension through his writing even while remaining very informative. Including personal accounts where applicable helps greatly both to enliven the story and illustrate the nature of specific battlefield events.

One of Cornwell's biggest strengths may lie in describing the movements of units on the field. While it is best to reference maps periodically as you listen, it is not impossible to follow the flow of events if you are unable to do so.

Come And See How A Marshal of France Dies!

Any additional comments?

It seems like the Battle of Waterloo has had more books written about it than just about any other battle, save perhaps Gettysburg. I enjoyed this one a bit more than some of the others though. Perhaps it is because I am predisposed to like anything Cornwell writes as I am a huge fan of his Sharpe series. That said, I do think this is a really good book. It has enough detail to interest true Napoleonic enthusiasts yet at the same time, I could easily recommend it as a first book on Waterloo to someone just beginning to study the battle. The narration is interesting as Cornwell does the first bit and the last bit himself. I kind of wish he'd have done the whole thing. Still, it is an excellent book that I listened to in one day which is something I've done only a handful of times.

A concise and descriptive account

I found the retelling of the famous battle most informative. it distills the essence of the battle without getting bogged down in confusing details.

Reader-friendly account

Evocative and clear account of a famous battle I knew little about. Cornwell is a military historian with empathy for his readers. He reinforces participant identity and geography and military details so you don’t feel like you need a PDF cast of characters or map. He reminds you of the last time you heard that name (the soldier who put gunpowder in his food, the cavalryman who was cut and stabbed multiple times as he lay helpless) so you always feel oriented. And his descriptions of battle are quite moving. What a story.

Great history lesson

I really enjoyed the history lesson, but the narrator were not very consistent in the volume of the voice throughout the story. I also had a hard time really getting into it, but I still enjoyed the history and story of waterloo.

Excellent work!

A well written and informative. I really enjoyed the tidbits of side information about soldiers, tactics and arms in order to give more insight to daily lives. As a story it was very entertaining and as far adding to the history of the battle I don’t know that anything new was brought out. However, I did like that Cornwell did address some of the myths from the battle.