XBradTC

XBradTC: We’re slowly recruiting Pave Low John as a guest author. Here’s his first effort.

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   Today marks the 200th year anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo, the culminating event of the Napoleonic Wars and widely considered, at the time, to be the greatest battle in history.  Napoleon Bonaparte, the Corsican military genius who had terrified Europe for almost two decades, was soundly defeated by a combined force of British and Prussian armies led respectively by Arthur Wellesley, the Duke of Wellington, and General Friedrich Von Bulow.  This battle was the first and only time that Napoleon and the Duke of Wellington faced each other across a battlefield.  It was Napoleon’s arrogant dismissal of the British commander that probably attributed the most to his defeat. “Because you have been beaten by Wellington you consider him a good general,” Napoleon snapped at one of his Marshals, “but I tell you that Wellington is a bad general and the English are bad troops.  The whole affair will not be more serious than swallowing one’s breakfast.”*  Even during his exile at St. Helena, Napoleon refused to admit that he had been beaten by a better commander and insisted on placing the blame on “incompetent subordinates.” 

     Waterloo, in a way, set the template for the “great battle,” the clash of armies that would determine the winner and loser of a grand struggle.  For the next century and a half, military commanders around the world would imagine themselves as a potential Wellington, riding across the battlefield to encourage their troops in the face of potential defeat.  In Europe, Waterloo occupies the same place as Gettysburg in the popular imagination of Americans, the last great battle to decide the fate of nations. 

      Here in the present day, Waterloo looks almost quaint.  A neat, set-piece battle between clearly delineated forces wearing uniforms and marching in formation.  The messiness of modern warfare stands in stark contrast to what seems to be a much simpler way of war.  The reality is a bit different.  The Napoleonic Wars included the vicious “guerilla” wars of the Spanish Peninsula and the ill-fated invasion of Russia.  After Waterloo, Europe almost starved to death during 1816, the infamous “Year Without A Summer.”  Later on, at the end of this era of “total war,” European rulers and diplomats would craft the “Concert of Europe,” a balance of power mechanism that would ultimately break down during the summer of 1914 and re-introduce Europe to the awful reality of total warfare, only this time backed by the full power of the Industrial Revolution. 

      Waterloo also reminds us that large battles can spring up with little warning and escape the notice of even experienced observers (on June 15th, three days before the great battle, Wellington was attending a cricket match with a “fair companion” and seemingly unaware of the mobilized French forces headed for his location in Belgium.)   Great events can suddenly erupt in a matter of days, leaving experts stumbling and stammering to explain how something so obvious could have escaped notice until the last minute. 

      Finally, Waterloo is a cautionary tale for those military forces with a “world-class” reputation.  In 1815, the French Army was still the most feared force on the planet, a military juggernaut that had dominated Europe for two decades.  Now, two hundred years later, even civilians tell jokes about the French military tradition, complete with white flags, rifles that have never been fired and only dropped once, tanks with five gears in reverse, and on and on.  Will that be our fate in 150 years?  Will the citizens of some future nation tell jokes about us?  I, for one, can only hope that our reputation will survive intact, kind of like the Roman legions.  But after Waterloo, it was all downhill for France’s martial reputation.  I suppose only time will tell with regards to ours.

*To refresh my memory, I pulled down my old copy of David Chandler’s The Campaigns of Napoleon, usually considered the best one-volume source for the Napoleonic Wars.  In my opinion, the best introduction to that time period is still the Sharpe series by Bernard Cornwell.  Outstanding historical fiction.  The first 11 books that were published are still the best, with the last book, Waterloo, covering all the events of June 16th through the final day on June 18th.