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Title: Waterloo: New Perspectives: The Great Battle Reappraised by David Hamilton-Williams ISBN: 0-471-05225-6 Publisher: Wiley Pub. Date: 20 October, 1994 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $27.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 3 (22 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: New Perspectives Indeed - An Invaluable Account of Waterloo
Comment: Having read everything I can on the Waterloo battle I still find this book to be absolutely essential. I've read the critics who fault the author on many levels but I must say that he answers several questions that literally no other author has thus far addressed.
1) Why did Picton die crying, "Rally the Highlanders?" Were not the British lines indestructable?
2) How did a few companies of British Guards hold Hougamont against most of a French corps? After all, didn't the German and Nassau troops flee in terror? (see Jac Weller et al)
3) Why did the French Army fall apart and flee for their lives when the Middle Guard was repulsed, yet most could not see farther than twenty feet on the smoke filled battle field? Could it have had something to do with Ziethen's advance, ignored even in the otherwise excellent 'Waterloo Companion'?
4) Did Napoleon really lie about Grouchy's arrival - or did the attack by the Prussians on the Nassau forces on Wellington's left make him think Grouchy truly had arrived?
Until at least one other author addresses these questions I submit that Hamilton Williams is the man to read. Not to mention the fact that his commentary reads like an adventure story and his account of the battle is quite simply the best so far written by anyone.
The attacks on H-W by Peter Hofshroyer should also be taken with a large grain of salt. I was shocked by that until I realized htat H-W stole a march on him by getting to print first with what was certainly the first English language account of the battle to give proper credit to the Dutch Belgians, Prussians and various Germans.
This book belongs in any serious military history collection and truly does offer a "new perspective".
Rating: 4
Summary: Justly Discredited or mere character assassination?
Comment: I purchased this book precisely because it is one one of the few volumes still in print with anything close to full coverage of the Waterloo campaign, and with more or less the least amount of identity politics. Despite all the author's plugging of his own books-to-come and his claims, which are a good deal too much for the dust jacket and all, the book collapses on simply being a reasonably accurate accurate account of (mostly) the battles of Quatre-Bras and Waterloo (among the French, British, and Dutch/German/Belgian allies). There simply isn't anything terribly new or controversial in his book and I disagree with Peter Hofschroer's remark about its content being thrown in doubt, all other issues with him notwithstanding. The content is too derivative, too close to common knowledge for that to be the case.
The interested reader is challenged to find another volume with the same amount of coverage of the Battle of Quatre-Bras, for example. The author, it appears in parts of the book, does not attempt as much coverage of those areas with which were not evidently well researched (The Prussian contibution, perhaps thus some of Mr Hofschroer's vitriolics). The author does indeed venture to make make his opinions and interpretations, some of which the reader has to take with a grain of salt, but that is his authorial prerogative. We see that Mr Hofschroer clearly enjoys his privilege as well. The author's account is, overall and despite the criticism, surprisingly balanced. The writing is usually good and entertaining. Hamilton-Williams account is by no means a "fiction." I still find his attempts a good deal more useful in guiding me a little closer to the truth than the massive omissions so common in other volumes which purport to cover the Waterloo campaign.
Personally I am tired of hearing all the petty squabbling among
historians, amateur and some (huh-hum) professional, over who really won Waterloo, and worse yet the endless bickering among pedantic source hunters. When the reader who has access to enough of the excellent volumes and materials on the subject becomes fairly expert enough, he or she can cross check the common stories, narratives, or sources of quotes, most often without having to be a source hunter.
There is criticism, even polemics, and then there is character
assassination. I have yet to find a reasonable published account
which proves D. H-W deliberately falsified his account anywhere of the Waterloo campaign, or deliberately falsified his sources. I will wait to hear the author defend himself first before I pass judgement.
Moreover, take with more than just a grain of salt the many
unprofessional reviews made by one "Michael La Vean" on this and
David Hamilton-Williams other page. They smack of cheap personal
vendetta and not anything resembling reasonable criticism. One
wonders if they were to research Mr La Vean's own claims (if that is his real name) as to his identity and credentials what would turn up, if anything. I do not believe that a fellow of the International Napoleonic society would engage in such juvenile ranting as he has done on this site, making such serious and unsupported claims of his own. Furthermore, his methods are of such a common variety internet persona that he almost seems as if to materialize again and again in the guise of a reader from West Point, or from Moscow, London, Brussels, or who knows what other place names with any relevence to
matters of Napoleonic military history.
Rating: 1
Summary: Fiction
Comment: Check the source material...
He quotes books of his own he hasn't written yet...boxes in archives that don't exist, etc.
Anyone who takes this book seriously doesn't know much about Napoleonic history and anyone who buys it is wating their money.
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Title: The Waterloo Companion: The Complete Guide to History's Most Famous Land Battle by Mark Adkin ISBN: 0811718549 Publisher: Stackpole Books Pub. Date: 01 January, 2002 List Price(USD): $59.95 |
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Title: A Military History and Atlas of the Napoleonic Wars by Vincent J. Esposito, John Elting ISBN: 1853673463 Publisher: Greenhill Books Pub. Date: 01 July, 1999 List Price(USD): $80.00 |
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Title: The CAMPAIGNS OF NAPOLEON REISSUE by David G. Chandler ISBN: 0025236601 Publisher: Scribner Pub. Date: 01 March, 1973 List Price(USD): $85.00 |
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Title: Wellington at Waterloo (Greenhill Military Paperbacks) by Jac Weller, Greenhill Books ISBN: 1853673390 Publisher: Greenhill Books Pub. Date: 01 October, 1998 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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Title: The Peloponnesian War by Donald Kagan ISBN: 0670032115 Publisher: Viking Books Pub. Date: 08 May, 2003 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
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