THE WATERLOO CAMPAIGN IN 100 LOCATIONS
◗ John Grehan ◗ Frontline Books (2023) ◗ £25.00, ebook £9.98 ◗ 224 pages (hardback) ◗ ISBN:9781526746917 ◗ frontline-books.com
This is not another history of the campaign, but a collection of photographs of places and memorials relating to the Waterloo Campaign which ‘best tell the story of Napoleon’s last campaign,’ arranged in a broadly chronological sequence, with text accompanying each illustration ‘to place each location in its historical context.’ The dustjacket states: ‘From Napoleon’s landing … and back to power, is shown here in glorious full colour.’ That was the original intention, but John Grehan has informed me that the publishers decided colour would be too costly, so – apart from the dustjacket – all the illustrations are black and white. He has been told the ebook will be in colour.
Each location is identified by its address and its ‘Map Coordinates’ – actually its latitude and longitude in both traditional and decimal forms – and portrayed by at least one photograph or other illustration, often more than one, and a minimum of about a page of text. References to endnotes are given in the text.
Many of the locations will already be familiar, if only in name, to wargamers from their reading on the campaign, but some will not. I had not realised, for example that one can still visit the very tree – which has since become known as l’arbre de la Trahison – where General Louis-Auguste-Victor de Bourmont, commander of the 14th Infantry Division, decided to desert to the Prussians with his staff and information of Napoleon’s intended movements on 15th June 1815.
A few locations which are no longer standing, such as the Chateau de Fichermont, or have changed dramatically, like the hamlet of MontSaint-Jean, are represented by earlier photographs or reproductions of contemporary prints. There is a modern photograph of one of the suggested sites of the house where the Duchess of Richmond’s ball was held and a plan of the house from the biography of her daughter, Lady Georgina de Ros. The vast majority of the photographs of memorials are sufficiently clear for readers to see their inscriptions; in some other cases a transcription is provided. The last two locations are the Lion Mound and Napoleon’s tomb in Les Invalides; a photograph of Longwood House on Saint Helena also appears in the latter section.
Two pages are devoted to the merits of various Waterloo guidebooks, which will be very helpful for any readers who have been inspired to visit the campaign area for themselves. Three pages contain the sources for the endnotes in the text.
The book concludes with a three-page index of persons mentioned in the text, not always in strict alphabetic order; for example, Blucher precedes Blackman, Bourmont comes before Boreel and Bourgeois, and Halkett before Haines.
This book, provided it was accompanied by one of the recommended guidebooks, would be extremely useful to someone undertaking a self-guided tour by car or motorcycle of the theatre of operations and the battlefields of the Hundred Days campaign. As John Grehan states in his introduction, ‘it does not pretend to be in any way a full account of the Waterloo campaign,’ but the text contains much interesting historical information. The photographs of surviving buildings will also be useful for wargamers wishing to portray them on their miniature battlefields. Normally I prefer physical/ paper books, but in this case I would recommend the ebook version.