For about five hours on the fateful afternoon of July 18th, 1815, a band of brothers of 400 soldiers forming the 2nd Light Battalion of the King’s German Legion – a unit of the British Army – thwarted Napoleon’s plan of breaking up the center of the Duke of Wellington’s lines at Waterloo. Stoically, “these men, and their reinforcements, held off Napoleon for long enough to change the course of the battle.”
When I lived in Scotland and in the aftermath of my visit on the battlefield of Waterloo few months prior to these fantastic months, I was curious to read more about the iconic battle and those who took part in it. And I still am. I was therefore captivated by the publication of The Longest Afternoon: The Four Hundred Men who Decided the Battle of Waterloo (Penguin Books) by renowned Cambridge Professor and author Brendan Simms.
Even though the book was published 7 years ago, it remains one of my favorites. I am always lukewarm to embrace the notion that one specific battle definitively changed the course of a war or that a single event sealed victory or defeat. I came to understand that wars and battles are much more complex than that. But the story brough forward by Brendan Simms doesn’t fail to convince that a small group of men (400 out of more than 74 000 under the orders of the Iron Duke) could make a difference on the battlefield. When dusk fell after the battle, only 42 out of the initial 400 remained. That’s a survival rate of 10%.
Continue reading “Waterloo’s Band of Brothers”
L’été 2014 fut le plus beau de ma vie, en ce qu’il m’a offert le privilège de visiter une multitude de champs de bataille et lieux historiques sur le continent européen. De ceux-ci, Waterloo figurait en tête de liste. Ayant toujours nourri un vif intérêt envers le Duc de Wellington, j’étais fasciné de passer une bonne heure dans ce que fut son quartier général à l’époque (et qui porte maintenant le nom de Musée Wellington).
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