-- Demonstrates the decisive German contribution to victory at Waterloo -- Unpublished German eyewitness accounts and regimental reports -- Covers the battles of Waterloo, Wavre and the taking of Paris Peter Hofschroer, in this second volume of his masterly study of 1815, challenges the accepted version of events at the battle of Waterloo. He demonstrates convincingly that Allied victory was due not to steadfast British infantry repelling the French, but to the timely arrival of Prussian troops who stole victory from Napoleon and sealed the fate of the last Grande Armee. Drawing on previously unpublished accounts, Hofschroer gives not only the Prussian perspective of their march to Waterloo and decisive attack on Napoleon's flank, but also details of the actions fought by some of the 25,000 Germans in Wellington's 'British' army -- more than a third of the Duke's force. A gripping narrative of astonishing detail captures such key episodes of Waterloo as La Haye Sainte, Papelotte, Hougoumont and the Prussian struggle with the Imperial Guard for Plancenoit. In addition, Hofschroer examines the battle at Wavre, the Allied offensive into France, the taking of Paris and the sieges across northern France. 1815: The Waterloo Campaign-The German Victory is a definitive work on an epic confrontation by one of today's leading military writers.

June 1815

This, the fourth volume in Andrew Field's highly praised study of the Waterloo campaign from the French perspective, depicts in vivid detail the often neglected final phase the rout and retreat of Napoleon's army. The text is based exclusively on French eyewitness accounts which give an inside view of the immediate aftermath of the battle and carry the story through to the army's disbandment in late 1815. Many French officers and soldiers wrote more about the retreat than they did about the catastrophe of Waterloo itself. Their recollections give a fascinating insight to the psyche of the French soldier. They also provide a firsthand record of their experiences and the range of their reactions, from those who deserted the colors and made their way home, to those who continued to serve faithfully when all was lost. Napoleons own flight from Waterloo is an essential part of the narrative, but the main emphasis is on the fate of the beaten French army as it was experienced by eyewitnesses who lived through the last days of the campaign.

The concluding volume of this work provides a fresh description of the climatic battle of Waterloo placed in the context of the whole campaign. It discusses several vexed questions: Blucher's intentions for the battle, Wellington's choice of site, his reasons for placing substantial forces at Hal, the placement of Napoleon's artillery, who authorized the French cavalry attacks, Grouchy's role on 18 and 19 June, Napoleon's own statements on the Garde's formation in the final attack, and the climactic moment when the Prussians reached Wellington's troops near la Belle Alliance. Close attention is paid to the negotiations that led to the capitulation of Paris, and subsequent French claims. The allegations of Las Cases and later historians that Napoleon's surrender to Captain Maitland of the Bellerophon amounted to entrapment are also examined. After a survey of the peace settlement of 1815, the book concludes with a masterly chapter reviewing the whole story of the 1815 campaign.

From the prizewinning author of Europe, a riveting account of the heroic Second Light Battalion, which held the line at Waterloo, defeating Napoleon and changing the course of history. In 1815, the deposed emperor Napoleon returned to France and threatened the already devastated and exhausted continent with yet another war. Near the small Belgian municipality of Waterloo, two large, hastily mobilized armies faced each other to decide the future of Europe-Napoleon's forces on one side, and the Duke of Wellington on the other. With so much at stake, neither commander could have predicted that the battle would be decided by the Second Light Battalion, King's German Legion, which was given the deceptively simple task of defending the Haye Sainte farmhouse, a crucial crossroads on the way to Brussels. In The Longest Afternoon, Brendan Simms captures the chaos of Waterloo in a minute-by-minute account that reveals how these 400-odd riflemen successfully beat back wave after wave of French infantry. The battalion suffered terrible casualties, but their fighting spirit and refusal to retreat ultimately decided the most influential battle in European history.