In June 2015 the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo was celebrated at a small village outside Brussels in Belgium called Waterloo – There was a re-enactment of the battle – or rather the most important of three battles. The first was at Ligny where the French had defeated the Prussians. The second was at Quatre-Bras where the British fought ferociously but couldn’t quite get the better of the French, and then there was the little village of Waterloo which gave its name to an allied victory over the French and that was mainly due to the late arrival of 74 year old Prince Gedhard von Blucher and his Prussians on the battlefield.
‘Waterloo’ is the first non fction work by Bernard Cornwell and he uses his skills to make the battle of Waterloo as exciting as any novel. Besides exciting accounts of skirmishes, attacks, routes and defeats Cornwell combines information from diaries and accounts from 1815 to make the battle of Waterloo personal and vivid.
If you want to read about the battle from the French Perspective try ‘Waterloo- The French Perspective’ by Andrew Field . Or for contemporary accounts ‘The Autobiography Of Sgt William Lawrencce – Hero of the Peninsular and Waterloo Campaigns. ; Or a ‘Voice from Waterloo – A history of the Battle on 18th June 1815 by Edward Cotton ( Late 7th Hussars) Cotton was an old soldier who ended up at Waterloo as a battlefield guide in the early 19th Century and opened a museum dedicated to the great battle
