Week 9: Wednesday, March 22
Jan Willem Pienemen's 1824 depiction of the Battle of Waterloo shows the decisive moment of the struggle. As the battle rages in the background, Wellington sits on a horse in the center foreground with the sun beaming down on him. With hat in hand, he indicates a young, bareheaded British officer advancing toward him from the left of the canvas. The officer bears news that the Prussians have made it to the battlefield and appeared on Napoleon's right flank. The day is saved. Napoleon is doomed. This is not really how the battle looked, and not everyone on this canvas was actually together at this moment. For instance, Prince William (later William II of the Netherlands), who appears in the left foreground on a stretcher borne by four soldiers (and looking quite placid for someone who has just been shot in the shoulder), was certainly nowhere near Wellington when the Prussians appeared on the field. This painting is not a historical recreation, but rather a group portrait of various important British and Dutch officers who were present at the battle. It does some justice, however, to the drama of the moment. As Wellington apparently uttered at one point, Waterloo was a "damned near-run thing." Yet, in one of the most important battles of the 19th century, Napoleon was finally finished for good.
I have posted the midterm review. Keegan's chapter on Waterloo will appear on the exam, so you had better make a big effort to complete the reading.
1) What was Napoleon's overall objective in the war? What were the two strategies he could have employed to attain this objective? Which one did he choose?
2) Why would a frontal assault on Wellington's army be difficult? Why did Napoleon opt for it anyway? At the same time, what major disadvantage did Wellington labor under?
3) What didn't happen when cavalry charged cavalry? What did happen?
4) What generally happened when cavalry encountered artillery?
5) Could cavalry actually attack infantry? What usually happened when cavalry approached infantry? Under what circumstances could cavalry break infantry?
6) Artillery could be very dangerous to infantry, but when was artillery most effective?
7) Here comes a difficult but very important question. Keegan says it is easy for us to understand the ferocity of fighting in enclosed spaces that characterized the struggle for La Haye Sainte and Hougoumont. On the other hand, however, he thinks we have more trouble figuring out why soldiers would trade fire face-to-face in the open field at a range of only a few yards. He says (on page 168), "What makes episodes of this sort so difficult for the modern reader to visualize . . . is precisely their nakedly face-to-face quality, their offering and delivery of death over distances at which suburbanites swap neighbourly gardening hints, their letting of blood and infliction of pain in circumstances of human congestion we expect to experience only at cocktail parties. . . ." With that being said, what held the British together in the face of attacks? In other words, what allowed them to "stand"? And why was the British victory over the French a highly symbolic one?
Other Questions
1) Try to have a sense of what Keegan thinks the five major phases of the battle were.
2) What do the types of wounds suffered by the men tell us about what the most lethal weapons on the battlefield were?
3) How did this battle differ from Agincourt? What changes had taken place since Agincourt that made Waterloo different?
For questions,
comments, or suggestions about this website, please contact the webmaster.
Copyrighted by Hugh Dubrulle, 2006.