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  • 1815 . . . Waterloo! ‘morne plaine!’ by François Pernot
  • Francesco Manzini
1815... Waterloo! ‘morne plaine!’ Par François Pernot. (Champion histoire, 3). Paris: Honoré Champion, 144pp.

François Pernot argues that the story of Waterloo is not very well known, citing as proof a claim made in The Times that both the train station and Abba’s song are by now more famous among young adults than the battle from which they take their name. This might be — so Pernot claims — because the story of Waterloo is in fact almost impossibly diffi-cult to grasp, as demonstrated by Stendhal’s famous non-account of it. The aim of this short book is, however, precisely to tell Waterloo’s untellable story, first briefly and circumspectly, then at length and more boldly, though still far from conclusively. The battle’s outcome appears clear, but the reasons behind it remain obscure. Did Napoleon lose the battle of Waterloo because his haemorrhoids prevented him from staying in his saddle long enough to develop a proper sense of what was going on, or because his maps were wrong on a crucial point of detail, causing him to confuse two different farms, or because he had become apathetic and fatalistic? Did he lose the battle because he was, simply, far superior to Wellington (Napoleon’s own theory)? Did Wellington obdurately refuse to do what might have been expected of a competent general because he was freakishly good at game theory, or because he was extremely stupid, or because he thought he could hold out for an entire day in his defensive positions? Did Ney lose the battle for Napoleon by attacking too soon with his cavalry, perhaps because he misinterpreted a cavalry manoeuvre from the rear (conducted while Napoleon was enjoying a quiet think indoors) as the [End Page 447] emperor’s signal to attack? Did Grouchy lose the battle for Napoleon by himself losing Blücher, or by not joining a battle he must have heard taking place not that far away, even though he could never have arrived in time, choosing instead to sit and eat strawberries? Did both of them lose the battle for Napoleon by neither of them being Murat? Did Cambronne ever say ‘la Garde meurt et ne se rend pas’ (no), ‘merde’ (often, and possibly even on this occasion), or something else equally forthright, or nothing at all? What is certain is that lots of high-sounding words were soon being strung together by all sorts of people, and especially by Victor Hugo, to indicate the epic quality of this baffling struggle. What is also seemingly beyond doubt is that the French cavalry and the Vieille Garde attacked resolutely through deep mud and continued to do so even after they had realized that their sacrifice would be in vain, and that the British, Hanoverian, and Nassauvian infantries resisted stoutly until the decisive arrival of the Prussians. The book is oddly organized, reminiscent of those television documentaries that tell you something before telling it to you again much more slowly. It is nevertheless engagingly written. Pernot has all the genuine enthusiasm of a military historian being given the chance to tell a story that he himself finds exciting. His own style compares very favourably to that of Hugo.

Francesco Manzini
Oriel College, Oxford
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