In the last attack of the Imperial Guard at Waterloo, as the five battalions selected Old Guard battalions attacked, “…Instead of striking straight ahead, along the short, relatively sheltered route into Wellington’s wrecked center, Ney led the five battalions northwestward along the same diagonal track where he had sent the cavalry. Anglo-Dutch guns behind Chateau Goumont enfiladed their advance. Ney moved with them on foot, losing all control of the action.”
“Raked front and flank by artillery fire, the first battalion attacked just west of the Brussels highway, routing the Brunswickers and driving Halkett’s battered troops. But Chasse, arriving with a Dutch-Belgian brigade and battery, overwhelmed it by a flank attack. Minutes later, the second battalion momentarily broke into Wellington’s center. The third column (two battalions, which had linked up during their advance) collided with Maitland’s brigade and was driven downhill after a savage fight. The fifth battalion, pushing through intense artillery fire, drove Maitland back, but was itself outflanked by Adam.”-Esposito and Elting Atlas, Map 167.
This short summary of the action is clearly supported by the narratives in William Siborne’s History of the Waterloo Campaign and Henry Houssaye’s Napoleon and the Campaign of 1815: Waterloo. Both narratives are extensively supported by evidence from both sides of the battle.
On page 383 of Nick Lipscombe’s Wellington’s Guns, the author states that ‘The withdrawal of the Imperial Guard was a controlled retreat rather than an ungraceful rout; nevertheless the allied artillery was so decimated that very few batteries were able to assist the infantry and cavalry in their pursuit of the French.
The sources, supported by primary source material as well as credible secondary sources, clearly indicate that, contrary to an ahistorical ‘idea’ posted earlier on this forum (“The Guard Surrenders, It Doesn’t Die”), the Imperial Guard incurred heavy losses at Waterloo, fighting hard not only in the last attack, but with the two battalions fighting in Plancenoit fighting their way out at the end of the battle saving their eagle and the two battalions of the 1st Grenadiers withdrawing intact and in perfect order at the end of the action.
-History of the Waterloo Campaign by William Siborne:
"Captain William Siborne became an ensign in the 9th Foot in 1813 and was sent to France in 1815 as part of a battalion despatched to reinforce Wellington s army. A notable topographer, after the events that year he was commissioned to create a scale model of the Battle of Waterloo, for which he carried out extensive research, writing to officers in the allied forces present to obtain information. The subsequent correspondence amounted to the largest single collection of primary source material on the subject ever assembled. After he had completed his model, which is today on public display in the National Army Museum in London, he used the mass of information he had gathered to produce his History of the Waterloo Campaign, which was at the time the most detailed account of the operations of 1815 and is still considered a classic work on the subject. Siborne s history of Waterloo, the latest addition to Frontline's growing Napoleonic Library, is essential and gripping reading for all those who are interested in how this famous battle was fought and won."
-Napoleon and the Campaign of 1815: Waterloo by Henry Houssaye
"Outstanding and authoritative works, which cover the events of the whole year, including the second restoration and the 'white terror.'
This comment includes Houssaye's other works on 1815, not only the volume on Waterloo.
NAPOLEON AND THE CAMPAIGN OF 1815: WATERLOO: Henry Houssaye: 9781847345097: Amazon.com: Books
Another outstanding work on 1815 is John Ropes' The Campaign of Waterloo, described as 'A careful and analytical study, thoroughly impartial.'
Mais qu’est alors cette vérité historique, la plupart du temps? Une fable convenue.
The truth of history, so much in request, to which every body eagerly appeals, is too often but a word. At the time of the events, during the heat of conflicting passions, it cannot exist; and if, at a later period, all parties are agreed respecting it, it is because those persons who were interested in the events, those who might be able to contradict what is asserted, are no more. What then is, generally speaking, the truth of history? A fable agreed upon. As it has been very ingeniously remarked, there are, in these matters, two essential points, very distinct from each other: the positive facts, and the moral intentions.
@Andrew Field I think those of us led by the data and following the excellent works of eyewitness testimony, such as your own, are part of a broad consensus. There are however those, as evidenced by the OP, who have an attachment to such romantic notions. It is perfectly possible using de Mauduit, Pelet, Marbot and others to maintain such notions. Particularly so when that are writing on incidents and subjects upon which they cannot been a direct witness of. Or as our legal friends all it, hearsay. They also repeat the ‘la Garde meurt mais….’ line while immediately disavowing it as apocryphal. A bit like the lawyer saying something they know will be overruled on, but also knowing that the jury may find it hard to un hear it. The romantics, with their attachment to the Armée du Nord as finest most veteran army theory and notions of Napoleon’s demi-God status amongst the guard, find such disconfirming evidence disturbing. Anything that does not fit their mental model is clearly an assault on the immortal memory and clearly sniping, mudslinging revisionist nonsense. What is apparent is that despite the hyperbole, they were men, not supermen. Their morale was evidently and understandably fragile in those circumstances. However, for the romantic storytellers that is a place we must never go.
@Andrew Field despite continually being accused of being in the ‘Wellington’ camp and a ‘Napoleon Hater’, I’m actually quite even-handed. I suppose it’s because I’m always disavowing some of the traditional romanticisms. In fact I’m more of a ‘Seven Men of Gascony’ type! I’m an empiricist at heart, with barely a romantic cell in my body (ask the present Mrs Tomlinson!). Almost all soldiers tell tall tales, especially in the bar, as I’m sure we both know well. Unless it’s their most intimate of diaries, few eyewitnesses are going to give us introspection. What I find tragic is that by the time French Waterloo veterans had returned from captivity, the ‘heroic last stand myth had already taken firm route. Believing that it must have happened without them, many hundreds of very brave men will have been denied their due measure of glory.
@Kevin F. Kiley I think we can safely put Paul L Dawson’s work firmly in the former (positive) revisionist category. His team has done their homework, consulted the archives, crunched the numbers and has drawn conclusions. I don’t necessarily buy into the ‘herded like sheep’ comment, but I can’t ignore the significant numbers of PoWs his analysis has uncovered. For me, the acid test is if any writer can produce positive as well as negative material. The old intellectual ploy of writing from the other point of view to test fair mindedness. If, when challenged someone refuses to do that, it tells me everything about where there true nature resides. It’s also worth noting that Napoleon, and all of his guard are long dead. In death all are equal. They will not be hurt by any of our words. They are are past caring. What I can’t therefore figure out is whose reputation you are getting so excised about? None of us have ever met a Waterloo veteran (although I have shaken the hand of a man who shook the hand of a man who shook the hand of the 1st Duke - it was an amusing anecdote if the 8th Duke when you met him). Finding that the truth is not quite as glorious as the post Napoleonic myths would allow us to believe hardly takes anything away from the men themselves.
I think the problem @Andrew Field is that we are assuming that PD is giving us a single datapoint. In his introduction he explains his rationale, by using not just returns but 80,000 crossed referenced data points from the MATs and Control Nominatif Troops. These are official documents, that stop pay and report deserters, provide pensions etc. So there tends to be a considerable administrative care taken over them. With respect to everyone else’s “rules of thumb” calculations, they might be great generally, but in this action, we are talking about an edge case. Always difficult to infer a specific from a general. We are relying of course in eyewitness testimony about others? Did you see the man fall? Did you see him get taken into captivity? Did you see him die? However, the Allies have documented 10k being transported, a large proportion of which claimed to be Guardsmen.
I find tracing and disavowing myths and misunderstandings. I’m always amazed that there are still people who believe Blücher had mental health problems because he had delusions about being pregnant with an elephant. It is, or course, a figure of speech meaning he had constipation! It’s embarrassing how many ‘respected’ historians fell for that one.
There is also the problem that many memoirs were written long after the event - apart from memory issues, they may well have been influenced by books published since the events occurred
Thank you @Andrew Field for this well informed and thoughtful piece. It is worth noting that much of the work of ‘Truth at Last’ got completed in ‘Napoleon’s Last Army’ and to my mind, they need to be read together. What is clear is that rather than just relying on one dataset, cross referencing allows confirmation of those who later popped up as returning prisoners. What all the numbers (including the British lists of returnees who give Guard regiments) do indicate is that’s the legend of dying rather than surrendering (whether like sheep or otherwise) simply cannot be true. There are just too many records for surviving PoWs. The allied and French numbers agree to with 10%. There is not enough wiggle room to support the romanticism of a last stand to the death. History, and historians, don’t exist in a bubble. As much as they flatter themselves on their impartiality, they write for their time. Napoleon is now, at best, a minor figure in European politics, but that was not so when many ‘standard’ histories were written. I agree with you, I don’t think we will ever have unanimity. But I think we can start placing some of the worst jingoistic myths of the past outside the Venn diagram of possible. The time is coming when we can reduce eyewitness statements to data points. Weight them based on factors like immediacy and before and after certain publications became well known. Add some time/distance calculations and feed it to some AI. It will then be able to find patterns and give percentage support to competing hypotheses. The technology and machine learning software already exists. We will then be able to argue from informed, rather than ill informed positions.
I have followed this thread with interest and until now have resisted the temptation to contribute. I suspect I am rather less partisan than some others and ever since I started writing have tried to be as open minded as possible. Indeed, I think that given the reliability of primary sources can never be 100%, perhaps even 90% or probably lower, I believe the true test is in each individuals' own interpretation of those sources. I have the greatest respect for the research that Paul Dawson has conducted and the data he has amassed from it. I have rather more problem with his interpretation of that information. Yet my own interpretation can be no more dependable than his; it is our own slant on that information, determined by our own level of knowledge our own personal experiences and our conscious bias (I don't want to get drawn into 'unconscious bias'!!!) that influences us.
The casualties of the guard as presented by Paul in his 'Truth at Last' is fascinating and food for thought, though I am intrigued that at no point does he state when those returns were completed. This is absolutely fundamental to their interpretation. If taken within two days of the battle, then how could anyone be so precise on the numbers taken prisoner? In the confusion, gathering darkness and smoke of the rout what percentages of killed, wounded, missing, PoW can be stated with any basis of confidence? If they were compiled much later, then wounded and separated may have returned, others may have deserted and it would not be any clearer whether a man was killed, seriously wounded, had deserted or gone missing unless actually witnessed by someone; was a falling man killed, wounded or feigning; was he subsequently taken prisoner?
Is it fair or reasonable to conclude that because there may have been a high number of PoW that they were 'herded up like sheep'? I don't doubt that many guardsmen were taken prisoner, overtaken by the forward rush of the allied cavalry at the end of the battle and am convinced of the poor quality of many of those in the more junior regiments, but that does not mean they acted like sheep. Don't forget that any man wounded enough to prevent him from moving, ended up a PoW. Presumably, those reported as wounded, were still present with their regiment; if not they were almost certainly wounded AND prisoner.
All we can hope to do is to read all the available information, make our own interpretations and be prepared to make our case in discussions of this sort, acknowledging that anyone's interpretation can be the right one.
Personally, I am most intrigued by the actual attack of the guard; sequence, formation etc, not least because British/allied and French accounts contradict each other so much and also because there is so much disagreement between those who were witnesses to it. There is so much discrepancy also between British accounts. I think I have now collected and translated as much eye witness testimony that has been published, but still cannot do better than be 50% confident that I know what actually happened, and even 50% is probably rather high! I feel sure that Gareth Glover's interpretation is not right, but I absolutely acknowledge that some of the evidence supports it, just as plenty of the evidence does not! And then what confidence can you have in tactical likelihood (square or column, long columns one behind the other, echelon etc) and what about the tactical competence of individual officers? I would love to sit down with all the evidence and discuss it with like-minded people but suspect the discussion would last a week and we would still not agree! Unfortunately, forums such as this will never be a satisfactory way of resolving such issues!
The question “have the ‘new’ books been vetted?” sheds doubt on their accuracy and is a gratuitous complication. The irony is, of course, that because the precise provenance of most of the material contained in the ‘old books’, cited here in support of the argument, is either vague or completely opaque, it is impossible to ‘vet’ them at all.
Because we cannot identify their original material precisely, it is impossible to know whether the conclusions of the authors of the ‘old books’ are based on multiple different sources, or whether they are all simply repeating the same single source, or even each other. We just don't know.
Their collective weaknesses in this context means that they do not strengthen the argument they are deployed here to support, they do not confirm anything and no conclusion based upon them has much value.
Kevin has referred to the wealth of information in the old Carnets de la Sabretache - he is right, they are superb. Here is a page from the website of La Sabretache, with links to an index of articles and digitised copies on Gallica:
the rest of the website is also well worth a look - some of it is available in English
I would also recommend joining the society to help to secure its future
"Ready, Fire, Aim!"
-Lachouque definitely did archival research for The Anatomy of Glory and it is clearly demonstrated in the Bibliography. And Lachouque provides numbers of the Guard after Waterloo.
-Scott Bowden, in Armies at Waterloo also conducted serious archival research.
-It is also evident that Houssaye did the same for his volume on Waterloo, although there is no bibliography, but it is evident in the many pages of notes (297-455).
-John Ropes apparently did some excellent archival work in his volume, The Campaign of Waterloo.
-William Siborne in his history of the Waterloo campaign provides what appears to be archival work.
-John Elting used the old La Sabretache volmes from 1893 to 1924, twenty-five volumes in all comprising thousands of pages of text that includes letters, after action reports, and other primary source material for Swords. Much of that is undoubtedly archival material.
Finally, just because a book is 'new' with heralded 'new' information does not necessarily make it better than trusted older works. My question is, have the 'new' books been vetted?
Citing authors and book titles, instead of their assertions contained therein, is indeed an intriguing development in historical discourse.