Battle of Waterloo A History From Beginning to End eBook Hourly History
Download As PDF : Battle of Waterloo A History From Beginning to End eBook Hourly History 
Waterloo
The Battle of Waterloo has become synonymous with the word “defeat” but who lost, and why was it important?
In 1815, Napoleon Bonaparte left the island of Elba, and in a space of 100 days took power, and challenged the entire world to meet him on his terms. When that failed, he offered them a fight, one that would end at Waterloo, and left repercussions which can still be felt, even now, centuries later.
Inside you will read about...
✓ Beginnings
✓ Discord and Discontent
✓ The World Rearranged
✓ The Prisoner
✓ The Journey to Waterloo Begins
✓ One Hundred Days
✓ Quatre Bras & Ligny
And much more!
Who was this man, and what happened on the battlefield that made this fight in particular, so important? What was the lesson of Waterloo?
Battle of Waterloo A History From Beginning to End eBook Hourly History
I looked forward to reading this book on the Battle of Waterloo, and thought it would be a matching read to the Hourly History book on Napoleon Bonaparte. I couldn’t have been more wrong.The sales page for “Battle of Waterloo” asks the question “Who was this man?” In the book’s Introduction, the author decides allow other books to describe Napoleon’s character and determines instead to “…look at one single moment in his career – a snapshot if you will. At Waterloo, where he met his greatest defeat…a battle that changed the world.” The author then proceeds to spend more than half the book relating the events from Napoleon’s exile on Elba until Waterloo. The next 20% of the book finally discusses the battle. To limit the amount of time spent on what the author declares to be the focus of the book is frustrating. The Battle of Waterloo is reduced to a few pages of text.
I cannot explain why the author didn’t take a few paragraphs in the Introduction to set up the armies who would fight the battle, and begin Chapter 1 with the battle itself. This would have allowed much more detail instead of what amounted to as a brief outline. For those with a genuine interest about this historical battle, I suggest you look elsewhere. Two stars.
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Battle of Waterloo A History From Beginning to End eBook Hourly History Reviews
A good concise historical account of the battle Napoleons French army fought against the Allied forces of Great Britain, Austria, Prussia and Russia in 1815. I enjoyed the read and the history of the time. I would recommend it to those interested in history.
Napoleon and the Battle of Waterloo, although over 200 years in our historic past maintain a legendary status. This book provides the reader with an exceptional and string account of the Battle, with an analysis of both the outcome of the battle, as well as the long term impacts on the modern world. I commend the author for this contribution to the historical record! Every reader should take the opportunity to read this book!
An interesting brief (51pp or 56min), insight into the factors most important to the conclusion of the Napoleonic Wars. It begins with a brief summary of Napoleon's military education and rise to power culminating in exile, followed by release and formation of a new fighting force and allies. Then comes a gathering of negative influences such as the weather, poor communication, false information, exhaustion of the troops on both sides, poor decisions by others, and the physical problems of Napoleon himself. It's a good review for military students and historians without being of text book length.
Jimmy Kieffer is excellent as narrator!
I am pleased that I bought both the ebook and Audio on sale
The Hourly History Books Company sells the American, French and Russian Revolutions as one collection (or series), but that would be better if they collected the “French Revolution”, “Napoleon”, “Battle of Waterloo” and “Horatio Nelson” as one.
Separately the books miss real important points, but interestingly those points missing in one book are explained in another book among the four as I've pointed out several times in this and previous reviews of Henry Freeman's "French Revolution" and "Napoleon.”
( Ed., p. 13)
He’d arrived on Elba on May 3, 1814. Only days before, the citizenry had been burning him in effigy for being a dictator, responsible for the deaths of thousands. But the thought that he might be bringing his millions to spend on the island served well to change people’s opinions overnight. They welcomed him with open arms and great celebrations. They certainly had reason to think he was going to be a one-man boost to their economy. He’d felt strongly that the image makes the man, and so, of course, he showed up with all the pomp and majesty of a king surveying his kingdom. This meant all the guards, servants, horses and carriages as would befit his station.
So THERE WAS the French people’s sentiment against Napoleon’s failure of 1812 in Russia. Again, the author put the point he missed in the previous book here. All together, his entire series would make up one great history book. Still the importance of the period between his Russian campaign in 1812 and his abdication in 1814 hasn’t really been explained enough.
The explanation's not enough So how bad was the French people’s sentiment? Why not openly talking about it? If he still had enough support from the people who were willing to fight for him against the foreign powers, why did he have to leave his throne leaving the country to the mercy of the British-led Congress of Vienna?
( Ed., p. 6)
...This, Napoleon could not recover from. On March 30, 1814, Napoleon surrendered to the allied forces that faced him. His only option was to go into exile on the island of Elba...
Clearly the book, again, skips far from Russia to Elba without enough explanation. It is only covered by one line This, [his failure in Russia,] Napoleon could not recover from.
Then how were his grand forces of Waterloo possibly gathered just in a month after his return? The book specifically mentions about the "300,000-massive" troops gathered for Napoleon as soon as he came back from his exile.
Nonetheless, this book, though it is really short, at least talks about the French people’s sentiment towards Napoleon's failure in Russia unlike the previous ones, and above all, it describes the main topic, the Battle of Waterloo, quite well.
( Ed., pp. 36-37)
This mistake would prove to be a deadly one. Napoleon gave no orders for what happened next. In fact, there’s some thought that he’d left the field at this time, which was highly likely given his physical health. He might have gone back to take a break; he might have just been somewhere else. The point is, somehow Ney took the initiative to lead a cavalry charge right around the back of the ridge and into the thick of Wellington’s men. The whole thing calls into question the character of Ney. He was said to have a violent temper; had he finally had enough? He had been in difficult and stressful situations for a long time, so was he suffering battle fatigue? Was he just a poor tactician from the start? Whatever the case, he left behind the one thing that would have made this a successful attack his guns. The allied forces responded to the threat on horseback in the way they’d been trained to – they formed up in squares. Men with bayonets would face out from all sides of the square and fire, then retreat to the center of the square to reload, then move forward to fire again. In this formation, they were nearly impregnable. The horses were not going to throw themselves into the bayonets, the men with spent rifles were well protected while they reloaded, and the sides of the squares were always solid, a mass of men firing over and over again...The guns that Ney so desperately needed were right behind him, in exactly the wrong position to be of any help. The French cannons were forced to cease fire to avoid hitting their own men...Typically, there should have been two lines of cavalry, one to protect the guns, and one to attack while the guns fired into the squares. With no guns, the charge lost its effectiveness completely...
They were just like the huge spikes and the longbow archers against the charging cavalry in Agincourt (1415), a battle between France and England, which changed the world forever The same old tactics France failed with 4 centuries before was re-employed by the French, and they failed due to that very tactics once again.
Funny that the French gunners under Napoleon used the same British tactics of Waterloo against the Ottoman and Mamlouk riders in Egypt back in 1798, and the victory was theirs. Why this mistake in Waterloo 16 years later?
Napoleon was genius with artillery. His expertise in munitions was to dominate Europe with the century-old hegemon France’s advanced military hardware.
So I wonder what would have happened to the world, despite his physical illness and miscommunication with his field officers, if it hadn't rained, so he could at least mobilize his overwhelming French artillery more flexibly as he planned.
This hi-story teaches us that weather could be an important factor after all, a game changer indeed. And what I like best about this book is it makes clear that the Battle of Waterloo, along with the Napoleonic War, was one of those world wars that changed our world the way it is today.
( Ed., p. 1)
To others, he was seen as a dictator, a brilliant strategist creating wars to stroke his own ego. Those wars would result in the deaths of nearly 5 million people, leaving a certain anger and resentment that can be felt even now, 200 years later...More than that, we will discover a battle that changed the world.
( Ed., p. 6)
When Napoleon Bonaparte rose to Emperor Napoleon, his military tactics took a sudden shift. He moved from a defense of France to an offensive takeover of much of Europe. Several other European and Prussian powers joined forces to mitigate the threat they saw coming from France.
When he decided to become the Emperor, he had already wanted to conquer the world; despite his defeat in the ocean by Lord-Admiral Horatio Nelson in 1805 he just didn't give up, but sought another passage to reach all the way to the other side of the world, through the old Eurasian Continent. And he knew if any country could do that it was France, the century-old hegemon of Europe since the Peace of Westphalia.
( Ed., p. 8)
After Napoleon had abdicated, he was subsequently exiled to the small island of Elba on April of 1814. Finally, Louis XVIII could come home and claim his title as King. Since 1795, the dispossessed monarch had wandered throughout Europe looking for both a safe haven and the opportunity to take back (what he felt to be) his rightful throne. He’d gone from Germany to Russia, from Russia to Poland, from Poland back to Russia, then finally off to England. Finally, it was his turn to take the throne...
It sounds a lot like a civil war-like inner conflict in France, which played the key role helping Great Britain rise by destroying the French hegemony after all.
( Ed., p. 8)
The church wanted the power it had enjoyed back before the Revolution, and the King seemed inclined to give it to them. Suddenly there was an enforced Sabbath, with stores not allowed to open. Religious freedom wasn’t to even be imagined, with actual danger to those who weren’t Catholic. What’s more, the church wanted back the property they’d lost in the last fifteen years – regardless of the fact that by this point this was owned by individual Frenchmen who were expected to give up everything they had – with no compensation whatsoever.
And this works perfectly for my claim that the First Global War of Global Hegemony and Powershift, a.k.a. the Thirty Years' War, wasn't about the French fighting for the Protestant cause, but for sheer secular power that Catholic-Bourbon wanted to take away from the old hegemon Catholic-Habsburg (Spain).
After more than a century under the French-led European order of Peace of Westphalia, now it was British turn.
( Ed., p. 45)
At the same time, there was a specific impact on other nations of the world, and their position regarding being a world power. England came out on top, ending the rivalry with France, which had marked the 18th century. Truly the age of the colonial empire was well-founded from this point onward, an effect that would be felt all the way into the 20th century.
We’ve just read the Conclusion where the author explained who'd lead a new order replacing the old Peace of Westphalia, led by French Bourbon Dynasty. For all that new world with leadership and power in its hands, Great Britain first had to overcome its predecessor that had been holding the power as the last global hegemon France.
( Ed., p.9)
...the economy was still suffering as the country was opened up to the importation of British goods so that even those of the merchant class were suffering under the new regime.
Great Britain was the winner of the conflict in 1814, so it was the British economy to take advantage of the French defeat. Ironically for the British, this was the reason for the French countrymen’s sentiment against the new government in Paris, which brought Napoleon back in the throne.
( Ed., p. 10)
The Congress of Vienna met in September of 1814...
( Ed., p. 12)
At this point, the delegates went home, though they would not declare the Congress completed until June 19th, one day after Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo.
France in March 1815 had two separate substances 1) one was the restored dynasty that would accept the new order of Vienna Congress with Great Britain as its leader to keep the old balance of power in Europe; 2) the other was French Empire, the one-century old European hegemon whose full power, accumulated since the Peace of Westphalia, was finally unleashed by the ambitious leader Napoleon.
The British-led new order was designed in 1814, but with Napoleon back in power in Paris, the new order of Vienna Congress wasn’t to be final yet; no matter what official conclusion they had reached by March 1815, the Congress and the new order weren't to be real until Napoleon and his French Empire was taken care of.
It had to wait until the Battle of Waterloo ended, and that’s how significant this great battle really was.
( Ed., p. 15)
FRENCHMAN I have heard, in my exile, your lamentations and your prayers you long for the government that you chose, and which alone is lawful. I have crossed the sea, and am coming to reclaim my rights which are yours. To the Army your possessions, your rank, your glory, the property, rank and glory of your children, have no greater enemies than those princes whom foreigners have imposed upon you….Victory will march at full speed; the eagle, with the national colors, will fly from steeple to steeple, even to the towers of Notre-Dame. You will be the liberators of your country. —Proclamation written by Napoleon, en route to France
This is why the idea of Revolution spread throughout Europe and elsewhere by Napoleon; it was for his own power after all.
Anyway because of this idea, all other European powers gathered together to stop Napoleon’s French Empire, and the newly-born United States of America was the only nation at the time where the idea was welcome.
The biggest mistake the historians make in their interpretation is that the rise of the revolutionary idea and the rise of Napoleon meant the rise of French power. However, it was the decline of French power because the French hegemony started to decay with the decline of Bourbon Dynasty by the Revolution.
( Ed., p. 22)
The next step was to create the army he would need for the coming war. The former King had left this in disarray (remember he’d dismantled a good portion of it). By June he was able to pull together 300,000 troops, an impressive feat given that not everyone was interested in getting involved in another of Napoleon’s campaigns...
It was only possible because of then-old hegemon France's great population number with the newly-born citizen-forces recruit system. Austria and even Great Britain couldn't gather that many men as fast as France could at the time; although they were inter-national coalition forces, they were outnumbered throughout the Napoleonic War because they didn't have the citizen-forces yet like France had since the Revolution.
( Ed., p. 39)
In the meantime, Ney did the best with what he had to work with. The allied forces were still in squares; the French artillery and muskets did some serious damage. What was left of the Allied cavalry tried to regroup, but everyone was just too tired and had nothing left to give. Wellington rode up and down, encouraging the troops, with the solid belief that the Prussians were coming...
Without the allied reinforcement, Great Britain would have certainly lost the Battle of Waterloo despite the mistakes of French General Ney with his cavalry charge. French grand armée was definitely prevailing over the British-led coalition forces.
( Ed., p. 42)
Aftermath “Waterloo is not a battle; it is the changing face of the universe.” —Victor Hugo
Victor Hugo was a French writer. For the French people the French dominion and the world order under it has just ended; A new power, France's long-year challenger and rival, rose to take it over and establish a new world with new rules different than the old ones under their lead.
For the French, it wasn’t easy to accept the change at once since they were the losers, and it is quite understandable.
Seriously, still today many French people think France is the center of the world. She really was the center of the world a couple of centuries ago like the United States today or Great Britain a century ago.
Lastly, I found some typos for editing
( Ed., p. 3)
...wars ready to right…
“…wars ready to fight…”
( Ed., p. 21)
...there were very clear that...
"…they were very clear that…"
( Ed., pp. 32-33)
...Napoleon’s brother, Jerome, instead attempted to capture the farms were Wellington’s troops were dug in...
“…Napoleon’s brother, Jerome, instead attempted to capture the farms where Wellington’s troops were dug in…”
( Ed., p. 45)
...The French were had not been happy under the current rule.
Either “…The French were not happy under the current rule…” or “…The French had not been happy under the current rule…”
Although I have raead about Napoleon and Wellington, and this historic confrontation, I did not know the logistics until now. I am surprised to read that it was such a combination of poor planning and poor execution on the part of the Napoleonic forces. As is said in this book, it could have happened for many reasons, but that it happened this way at all suprises me. It is no wonder that Wellington won. This book may lead me to read more on the subject, to explore what other historians are saying about the reasons for the disorganization and lack of structure on the part of the French. This is not to say that I doubt what is written here. I have come to expect a great summation of events in these books. I was not disappointed this time. The fact that I want to know more is also something I have come to expect. This series provides those who love history with a taste of the events surrounding a historical person or event such as the battle of Waterloo. I'm sure I'm not the only one who is spurrred on to do more reading and more study. This is why these books continue to be read and enjoyed. They act as a springboard for those who love history to delve deeper and learn more.
I looked forward to reading this book on the Battle of Waterloo, and thought it would be a matching read to the Hourly History book on Napoleon Bonaparte. I couldn’t have been more wrong.
The sales page for “Battle of Waterloo” asks the question “Who was this man?” In the book’s Introduction, the author decides allow other books to describe Napoleon’s character and determines instead to “…look at one single moment in his career – a snapshot if you will. At Waterloo, where he met his greatest defeat…a battle that changed the world.” The author then proceeds to spend more than half the book relating the events from Napoleon’s exile on Elba until Waterloo. The next 20% of the book finally discusses the battle. To limit the amount of time spent on what the author declares to be the focus of the book is frustrating. The Battle of Waterloo is reduced to a few pages of text.
I cannot explain why the author didn’t take a few paragraphs in the Introduction to set up the armies who would fight the battle, and begin Chapter 1 with the battle itself. This would have allowed much more detail instead of what amounted to as a brief outline. For those with a genuine interest about this historical battle, I suggest you look elsewhere. Two stars.
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