WATERLOO by Bernard Cornwell

Bernard Cornwell - Waterloo

Published by William Collins

Pages 352 plus covers

Many will know Bernard Cornwell as the author to the famous Sharpe novels that were published in 1981 (Sharpe’s Eagle and Sharpe’s Gold) and then made into a television series from 1993-1997 about a fictional officer played by Sean Bean who ended his career in the 95^th Rifles during the Napoleonic Wars. This is Bernard’s very first non-fictional history book and what a great book it is.

First Published in 2014 by British publishers William Collins, it contains twelve chapters of meticulously storytelling of the four days of the Battle of Waterloo. Starting with Napoleons escape from Elba it takes you through the smoke and gore of the three battlefields and their aftermath. Giving detailed accounts from letters and diaries from Emperor Napoleon, the Duke of Wellington, and from ordinary officers and soldiers of the three armies. Bernard has taken great pains to research the four days of battle to give a riveting account of every dramatic moments and bravery, heroism and tragedy on both sides.

The book is near full of wonderful colour pictures and maps of the battlefield at certain stages of the battles.

SELWG 15 Report

It was a nice sunny but crisp autumn day as I got ready to go to this year’s SELWG at the Crystal Palace National Sports Centre.

The car journey was a pleasant one with hardly any traffic on the roads, but there was a bit of a parking problem when we reached the car parking area. Still I managed to find somewhere to park and with a little walk to the centre we arrived just after 11 am.

There was no queue at all at the doors and the same price for a ticket as last year.

I usually first take a look around all the trade stands to see what’s new for this year but there did not seem much on offer. First I went to the Harfield stand and although lots of plastic figures here for sale, there was nothing I really wanted but I did by the Conflix-Guild Master’s House to build up my village/town. Great start to the show.

The Bring & Buy stall was not that bad and so a quick look at what’s on offer here before moving on. The concourse seemed then to be busy but when I looked at the main hall below, where were all the visitor’s gone? It now seems that each year there is less trade stands, less wargaming tables and less people and I think that SELWG could be in trouble here with future shows.

Still I had a look at the trade stands in the hall with ease and once again there were lots of 28 mm figures and laser buildings on sale. Here I brought some more laser bases from Products for Wargamers.

We had an early lunch before going around the wargaming tables for the second half of our visit.

Once again the tables were fantastic and it seems that each year the layouts are getting better and better.

The best participation game was by the Crawley Wargamers WWI game with their “Stretcher Bearer”. This had players from all different ages and it looked a very fun game to play. Each of the players had a pair of stretcher bearers and they had to get back to their lines across No-Mans-Land with their casualty. First one back to the Aid Station wins.

The best wargaming action was from a “Waterloo Game” but I forgot to get the clubs name. The layout consisted of the La Haye Sainte farm and lots of teddy bear fields.

This 28 mm game really did look the part and I give this game the best of the day.

Sorry about the pictures as my camera gave up on me and I had to use a mobile phone for these. Still the time at SELWG went really quick and we left about 2 pm.

Bristish Light Cavalry Sabre 1796 Pattern

Captain John Gaspard Le Marchant serving as a brigade major of the 2^nd Dragoon Guards came up with the idea of a light cavalry sabre after he noticed how clumsy the design of the heavy, over-long swords was being used by the British Army at the time of the French Revolution.

With the collaboration with the Birmingham sword cutler Henry Osborn, a new sabre was born. In 1796 the new Light Cavalry Sabre was adopted by the British Army in 1796 and was used by them until 1821.

The sabre was used by mainly by the British Light Dragoons, Hussars and the King’s German Legion light cavalry during the Napoleonic Wars. It was later also adopted by the Prussians (1811), Portuguese and Spanish cavalry and became the finest cutting sword ever manufactured in quantity.

The sword was made of steel with the blade between 32.5 and 33 inches in length measured in a straight line from the hilt to the tip of the sword. The sword had an average weight of 2lbs 2oz.

The handle was made of wood and covered with black leather. A single rivet joined the handle to the blade near the hilt. The hand was protected by a stirrup D shaped single bar knucklebow of iron.

The blade had a pronounced curve with a spear point tip being border from the tip than at the hilt and was very sharp from the last six inches of the blade, making it ideal for hacking and slashing.

The scabbard was also made of steel with wooden liners and had two loose suspension rings.

The mounted swordsmanship training of the British emphasised the cut, at the face for maiming or killing, or at the arms to disable. This left masses of mutilated/disabled troops, the French in contrast, favoured the thrust, which gave a cleaner kill.

Officers of the famous 95^th Rifles and other light infantry regiments and the flank companies of the line regiments adopted swords with an identical hilt to the 1796 light cavalry sabre, but with a lighter and shorter blade.

John Le Marchant introduced a series of reforms to the British cavalry but he sadly died leading a cavalry charge at Salamanca 22^nd July 1812.

The Film "Waterloo" 1970

The film “Waterloo” came out in 1970 when I was fifteen years old and I went to see this film on 2^nd December 1970 at the Odeon Theatre in Leicester Square, London.  (Price of a ticket, just 16/- or 80 pence)

Waterloo was a joint Soviet-Italian film directed by Sergei Bondarchuk and was produced by Dino De Laurentiis.

The film is all about the build up of the events to the battle and the Battle of Waterloo its-self. As the credits are still rolling we see Napoleons ship making his return to France and this is where the film really starts, with the build-up to one of the most famous battles in our history.

The film had quite a few famous actors playing the biggest parts with Rod Steiger as Emperor Napoleon and Christopher Plummer as Arthur Wellesley, the Duke of Wellington. Orson Welles played King Louis XVIII of France while Virginia McKenna played Charlotte Lennox, The Duchess of Richmond.

In uniform we had Jack Hawkins as Sir Thomas Picton, although at the time he had throat cancer and could not speak properly, so his part was voiced over when final editing was done to the film. Terence Alexander played the Earl of Uxbridge; Ian Ogilvy was De Lancey and Michael Wilding as Sir William Ponsonby.

Waterloo was originally over 4 hours long with an intermission half way through the film. The film begins with Napoleon in the Chateau de Fontainebleau in 1814 with Paris is besieged by the Austrian army. Napoleon is urged by his marshals to abdicate. He first refuses, but upon hearing of the surrender of his last army under Auguste Marmont with 30,000 men he realizes there is no hope and agrees. Napoleon is then banished to the island of Elba with a personal guard of 1,000 men, but he then manages to escape back to France in March 1815.

The first battle we see is a quick look at the battle at Quarte-Bras and then Ligny with the Prussians against the French and if I can remember correctly that we then see the British Army falling back to Waterloo after the battle for Quarte-Bras. Most of the film is taken up with the famous battle itself and what great battle scenes. I have seen many war films on the big screen but not as big as this. The number of men involved and the splendid colours of all the uniforms with their flags flying and the drums and bugles playing, we are then thrown into the world of war with Napoleons grand battery starting the bombardment, the screen is then filled with smoke and the shouts of dying men as the cannons find their targets. The film shows the hard fighting and defence around the two farmhouses of Hougourmont and La Haye Sainte. I will not do a blow by blow account of the battle or the film as you can see this for yourself.

With all its faults, I did and still do enjoy looking at the film although the film has been cut down to just 123 minutes for TV and that time has been transferred to Video’s and now DVD which is a great shame as the cut version does jump about the battlefield a bit. I think that it may be because, as I can remember, a lot of limbs where flying off when attacks started through cannon balls and cavalry attacks hacking the infantry to bits. The cut down version does not even show Wellington meeting up with Blucher after the battle which I think is an important part of the film.

The film was shown world-wide so there must be a copy of the full version of the film somewhere in the world? There has never been anything like it since to take away the great effort in making the film “Waterloo”.

Some film’s in the 70’s produced a colour booklet with their first showing and Waterloo was no exception. Columbia Pictures published a 28-page full-colour guide to the film which cost me about £2 and like my ticket, I still own. The booklet had many pictures of the battle scenes and how the film came to be made in Russia.

It states that to recreate the battlefield authentically, the Russians bulldozed away two hills, laid over five miles of roads, transplanted 5,000 trees, sowed fields of rye, barley and wildflowers and building the four historic buildings. To create the muddy fields more than six miles of underground irrigation pipes were specially laid.

The filming took just 28 weeks, which included 16 days of delay, due to bad weather. Most of the battle scenes were filmed a year earlier in the summer months in sweltering heat.

Before filming 16,000 Soviet troops, including 14,000 infantry and 2,000 cavalry troops were used and in addition there were 50 circus stunt riders from around the world. It was said that the director Sergei Bondarchuk was in command of the seventh largest army in the world.

With these troops they had to be trained in 1815 drill and battle formations as well as using sabres, bayonets and handling the cannons. 2,000 of the men were taught to load and fire muskets.

It was a family night out for me and after the film we even went and had a Wimpy meal after the showing at Leicester Square. (No McDonalds in them days)

This is the film that put me firmly into the wargaming world. Before the film “Waterloo” hit the big screen, Airfix had already started making the Waterloo series back in 1969 starting with the Highlanders and French Cuirassiers sets. No other plastic company made any Napoleonic sets then. More sets were to follow but then in 1979 it all came to an abrupt end, which was a great shame but today many plastic companies are making Napoleonic figures and may they continue to do so.

Happy Waterloo Day

Yes, Happy Waterloo 200 Day and whatever you are doing to mark this occasion I hope that it all goes well for you.

But what a shame that the plastic figure company’s never really made it all that special, after all it’s going to be a long time for 300 which none of us will be around to celebrate.

Airfix seem to be one of two that have achieved this. They have once again brought out the Famous Farm House with all of the Airfix figures that they made for the Waterloo series with more paints added to the set price £39.99. Next follows the Italeri – Anniversary Box “Battle at La Haye Sainte” Farm House with four boxes of figures to go with the first set No 6111 as seen in our last post. Revell could of done better as they have released their 1/72^nd Set Battle of Waterloo 1815 with 107 figures which contain the old British Life Guards, Prussian Infantry and the French Old Guard boxes priced at £17.99 I have found this in a toy shop for £15.99. No New figures at all from all three.

My hope had been on HaT Industries to come up with the goods with the figures that we needed to extend our armies. They had the French Elites in Greatcoats, plus French Infantry with commands sets already on their list to do and anything else that was in the pipe line, like the Belgian/Dutch Carabiniers although we have only seen the box artwork but no line drawings or roughs for this set.

So I feel that a great opportunity has been missed by these companies to celebrate one of our biggest battles in our history and I do feel a bit let down by them. Still we can only hope that they will appear sometime in the future.

What have I been up to? Well how time has flown by once again and I have still not finished off my French Carabiniers yet. I have done a bit of reading though. I have now brought a book by Tim Clayton called “WATERLOO” This was a bargain at only £4 reduced from £10.99 pence.
So time to celebrate the Battle that has kept me on the edge of my seat for a hell of a long time, as I do not have the room to set out a table to fight the great battle  in my house, it’s time to get the DVD out and watch the battle once again on my TV. (It’s a shame that they have not released this in its complete four hours as well)