NAPOLEON AND WATERLOO: The Emperor’s Campaign with the Armee du Nord 1815: A Strategical and Tactical Study

A two-volume account of Napoleon’s last campaign by Britain’s pre-eminent military historian of the early 20th century. Writing a century after Waterloo, Becke claims that previous British authors have been too Anglocentric and biased against Bonaparte in their consideration of the campaign. As a result, he alleges, they have not appreciated the Emperor’s brilliant tactics in his ‘masterly yet simple’ battle plan. So Becke’s book is written very much from Napoleon’s point of view, and the Allied armies only appear in order to help the reader appreciate Napoleon’s manoevres. An unashamed fan of Napoleon, – (he even dedicates his book, in French, to ‘the Emperor of battles’) – Becke calls Bonaparte ‘ the greatest of all the Great Captains..the most famous of all Artillerymen’ and refers to ‘the splendour of his world-wide fame.’ Becke cautions against hindsignt history in judging Napoleon, and explains his hero’s downfall as being a result of the combined strength of the superior Allied forces ranged against him, and the treachery of Fouche, his Minister of Police, rather than his own shortcomings. ‘Ere he fell’ writes Becke, ‘Napoleon once more showed that he could handle his troops like an artist’.
This first volume takes the story of the Hundred Days from the Emperor’s return from exile in Elba up to his despatch of the incompetent Marshal Grouchy to head off the Prussians while he faced Wellington at Waterloo. The book looks at Napoleon’s strategy and tactics as well as his disposition of his ‘Armee du Nord’ and the battles of Quatre Bras and Ligny. The second volume looks at the climactic confrontation between Napoleon and Wellington at Waterloo itself and has a number of appendices relating to the great battle, including orders of battle of the French, British, Dutch and Prussian forces engaged and correspondence between Napoleon and Marshals Soult, Davout, Ney and Grouchy. Both volumes are illustrated with four superbly reproduced colour maps. These two handsome books are a must for anyone interested in the Napoleonic wars, especially for those seeking an antidote to Wellington-worship and the denigration of his enemy.