Dan Snow's History Hit - How and Why History: The Battle of Waterloo

Episode Date: June 18, 2020

The Battle of Waterloo brought a generation of terrible warfare to a close, decisively ending the career of Napoleon Bonaparte. How did the Duke of Wellington defeat Napoleon? Why did Napoleon make a fatal blunder? And how did Waterloo shape convictions about Britain’s future role in the world? Rob Weinberg asks the big questions about this momentous battle to Dr Michael Rowe of Kings College London.Subscribe to History Hit and you'll get access to hundreds of history documentaries, as well as every single episode of this podcast from the beginning (400 extra episodes). We're running live podcasts on Zoom, we've got weekly quizzes where you can win prizes, and exclusive subscriber only articles. It's the ultimate history package. Just go to historyhit.tv to subscribe. Use code 'pod1' at checkout for your first month free and the following month for just £/€/$1.

Hi everybody, we have launched an exciting new series of podcasts on History Hit called How and Why History. We're exploring history's big how and why questions for top historians, writers and academics, ranging from the ancient world right up to recent times. It's a one-stop overview of history's most famous names and the big world-changing events. Have a listen to this one about the Battle of Waterloo, which took place 205 years ago this week. If you like it, search for How and Why History wherever you get your podcasts and subscribe. There's a new episode every Tuesday and Friday. You'll find fascinating ones already there about Attila the Hun and Pearl Harbour, and coming this Friday, the Renaissance.

And if you just can't get enough How and Why History, there's 20 brand new episodes over on History Hit TV. In the meantime, let's head back to the 18th of June, 1815, and the Duke of Wellington's finest hour. It was one of history's biggest and bloodiest battles. A titanic clash that brought a generation of terrible warfare to a close. Decisively ending the career of Napoleon Bonaparte, it was the Battle of Waterloo. Not a man present who survived could have forgotten in afterlife the awful grandeur of that charge.

He discovered at a distance what appeared to be an overwhelming, long-moving line, which, ever advancing, glittered like a stormy wave of the sea when it catches the sunlight. On they came until they got near enough. Whilst the very earth seemed to vibrate beneath the thundering tramp of the mounted host, one might suppose that nothing could have resisted the shock of this terrible moving mass. So how did the Duke of Wellington defeat Napoleon at Waterloo? What was Napoleon's fatal blunder? How did the weather impact upon the battle? And how did it shape convictions about Britain's future role in the world? To answer the big questions about this momentous battle, History Hits

Rob Weinberg met Dr Michael Rowe of King's College London. This is How and Why History. Michael, thanks for joining us. Thank you. Why is the Battle of Waterloo significant? Well, it's the last battle of the Revolutionary Napoleonic War, so it's the last major military engagement in a whole cycle of conflicts which had started in 1792, they end in 1815. There isn't going to be a major

battle on European soil now until the 1850s and 60s and Germans and British and French aren't going to be fighting in Belgium until 1914. So it's the end of an era. Who were the main protagonists in the battle? Well there are three main protagonists. You have the French army led by Napoleon, a Prussian army led by General Blucher and a British stroke German stroke army made up of a contingent from the Netherlands under the Duke of Wellington. And what were the circumstances then that led up to this battle? It's part of what is known as the Hundred Days episode. This is when Napoleon

escapes from exile in Elba at the beginning of March 1815, and he immediately confronts a coalition of all the other great European powers, Austria and Britain and Prussia and Russia, and Napoleon's strategy is to strike at those who are closest to France at that point, and that's the British and the Prussians who are stationed in what today is Belgium, then part of the Kingdom of the United Netherlands, stationed in what today is Belgium, then part of the Kingdom of the United Netherlands, and he wants to knock them out. And he does this, or he tries to do this, in a campaign which gets going on the 15th of June. His forces cross into Belgium, the Netherlands, but they get defeated at Waterloo three days later on the 18th of June. Was it a fair battle? What were the comparative sizes of Napoleon's troops and the Duke of Wellington's?

Well, Napoleon is outnumbered if you add the Prussians and the British dominated forces together. But on the actual battlefield of Waterloo for most of the day of the 18th of June, he isn't confronting the Prussians, he's confronting Wellington's army. And there Napoleon has a slight numerical advantage. Not a large one, but a slight advantage. He's possibly also got an advantage in that he's just leading a French army. Well, it's Wellington, of course, his army is made up of these three main units. There's the British army, which is only about a third of a total, and then you've got various German contingents, especially from Hanover, and then you've got Dutch stroke Belgium troops, some of whom had actually fought with Napoleon earlier on in the Napoleonic Wars. So you'd

have to doubt their loyalty if you're Wellington. So how does the battle play out? Well it is a very bloody battle. It's something of a slogging match. What Wellington does is to occupy a ridge, an escarpment, which blocks Napoleon's route to Brussels, which is his target. And Napoleon spends a large part of the 18th of June trying to bludgeon the British forces out of position from that escarpment. Wellington is hanging on. He realises he can't hang on forever and he's waiting for the Prussians to arrive on the battlefield and they do that towards the end of the day, later than Wellington had expected, but they fulfil their promise,

Blucher does, which is to be present at Waterloo. So was the victory dependent on the help of the Prussians? Yes, I think that's fair. It's very difficult to see Wellington having survived in that position without Prussian support. He does very well, Wellington, but the Prussian intervention is crucial. It's also crucial in a different sense. I mean, one talks about victory or defeat, but of course there are different ways of winning, different ways of losing. Now, I think had the Prussians not arrived, it's difficult to see. I think, you know, Napoleon's forces were exhausted.

I'm not sure if they would have completely crushed, if you like, Wellington. They would have pushed him out of position. The thing is, the Prussian troops are relatively fresh, so they arrive and they swing the balance decisively. So it means that not only is Napoleon defeated, but he's utterly defeated. He's completely crushed. It means that he's not going to rebound from Waterloo.

Did Napoleon make a fatal blunder at any point? I think there are two mistakes you can look at. One mistake that he's been criticised for is not attacking early on the 18th of June. Now the reason for that is that the ground is sodden, it's been raining, he can't move his artillery as early as he would have liked to, he has to wait for the ground to dry out. So it means that he isn't giving himself as much time to dislodge Wellington before the Prussians arrive. I'm not utterly convinced by that argument, partly because of the bad weather. It doesn't really hinder the British so much. They don't have to move. They have to hold their position. But of course the Prussians

need to move. The ground is equally sodden for them as it is for the French. I think Napoleon's bigger mistake happens the day before. So remember the campaign itself starts on the 15th of June, it ends with Waterloo on the 18th of June. On the 16th of June, so one day in, Napoleon defeats the Prussians at a battle called Ligny. He pushes them into retreat. Now, where I think one can criticise Napoleon is that he doesn't follow up on that victory. He doesn't pursue the Prussians with the kind of vigour he might have done in his younger years, as he would have done, I think, in his 1796-1797 campaigns in Italy. So it means that the Prussians can retreat in good order and they can regroup and they can make sure that they retreat in a direction which keeps them in touch with Wellington's forces.

So I think the 17th of June, that's where Napoleon really blunders. So he sets things up for Waterloo in such a way that it's unlikely, or much less likely, that he will score a win. You said that rain had made the ground very soggy. So did the weather impact on the outcome of the battle? Yes, it does. I mean, Napoleon is the one who needs to win fairly fast. Time isn't on his side. It's on the side of not only the British and the Prussians, but the other great powers who are mobilising. Now, if you need to move fast, bad weather isn't good news in this period. You know, you haven't got many good roads, so they are turned into quagmires

and of course you haven't got the internal combustion engine, artillery needs to be pulled by horses or by men. So the sudden bad ground is an advantage for the defenders, Wellington, it's a disadvantage for those who are on the offence and that's Napoleon. Was it all plain sailing for Wellington's troops? No it isn't and I think if you just look at the casualty figures that makes it plain, the kind of hammering that the British take. About a quarter of those who engaged on both sides, on the French and on Wellington Army's side,

are casualties. So that means killed or wounded. Now that's incredibly high. So Waterloo is one of the bloodiest days in the Napoleonic Wars. The sight was too horrible to behold. I felt sick in the stomach and was obliged to return. The multitude of carcasses, the heaps of wounded men with mangled limbs, unable to move, and perishing from not having had their wounds dressed or from hunger, as the Anglo allies were, of course, obliged to take their surgeons and wagons with them. It formed a spectacle I shall never forget. The wounded, both of the Anglo allies and the French, remain in an equally deplorable state.

So the British troops and their allies take a real hammering. There are various points in the battle where the British come close to losing, especially just before the Prussians arrive. There are various farmhouses and structures on the battlefield. There's a place called La Haye Sainte, which is a farmhouse which has been occupied by elements of the King's German Legion, their troops affiliated to the British Army. And they are knocked out of position in the late afternoon by a French offensive on that part of the battlefield. That means that the French can start to bring in artillery and rain down fire on Wellington's main position and he's taking casualties. So had the

Prussians not arrived at that point I think one can credibly say that Napoleon would have pushed through and would have wrecked Wellington's defensive position. So can it be said that it wasn't down to Wellington's leadership, there were a whole set of circumstances which led to the victory? Well it's not an either or, I mean I think it's a bit like if somebody were pointing towards a car and saying which of those wheels is kind of crucial, I mean all the bits are there and Wellington's leadership is crucial. He brings various things to the table. He is a good defensive general. He's proved himself in various campaigns in Spain, in the Napoleonic Wars.

He respects Napoleon, but he isn't intimidated by him. So I think psychologically Wellington's in the right place. He also understands the wider political picture. He's a very political general. He knows how to operate within coalitions, how to lead forces which are not primarily or overwhelmingly British. He's also calm in the way that he deploys his troops when various parts of a British position are weakened and it looks as if Napoleon's going to break through. He manages to plug them so he's brilliant in how he deploys his kind of reserves. So Wellington has built up this relationship of trust with Blucher and vice versa so they operate properly as part of a coalition. A lot of that is

down to Wellington. So I think when Wellington says, you know, it couldn't be done without me, that sounds like, you know, boastfulness, but I think it's actually true. How did the battle end? It ends with the Prussians arriving and rolling up Napoleon's right flank. Napoleon realises that he has to weaken his centre, so his offensive against Wellington's forces, that ends, and Napoleon has to start worrying about his own line of retreat and his own supply lines. So much of a French army actually collapses into disarray and chaos. The old guards sort of hold their nerve.

Napoleon gets away, but he gets away to a political crisis. His regime can't really withstand this defeat, not a defeat of this decisive magnitude. And so he ends up abdicating a few days later. He abdicates, but then he leaves the country in the hands of his son. That's right. I mean, the reason he abdicates is that he abdicates in favour of his son, known as the King of Rome, he who becomes briefly, I suppose, Napoleon II, although opponents of the regime wouldn't recognise the validity of that rule. Napoleon II, is it plausible that he might have been accepted? It really depends on

the other great European powers. I think Napoleon, I don't think his hopes would have been high, but I think his calculation would have been that it had been shown by the rapid collapse of the previous regime, the Bourbon monarchy, when Napoleon returns from exile in Elba, after all the French army goes over to Napoleon, that the Bourbons are simply not very popular, that this is a regime which can only be imposed by force. So Napoleon might think that the Allies would calculate why not have a regime which can only be imposed by force. So Napoleon might think that the Allies would calculate why not have a regime which is popular, doesn't need to be imposed by force. It won't be Napoleon I who's a threat and a menace. It'll be his son who's only about four years old under a regency,

a regency which would possibly be under his wife, under Napoleon's wife, Marie-Louise of Austria, who's related to the Austrian emperor, is indeed the Austrian emperor's daughter. So that might be palatable. It proves not to be so. The Bourbons are reinstalled. Louis XVIII comes back, as it's said, in the baggage train of the Allied powers. And that regime will last through the 1820s.

Napoleon's fallen from grace, he's fallen from power. After his exile in St Helena, he's buried in extraordinary grandeur in Paris. So what changed? This is where we have to kind of follow French history through a bit. So, as I mentioned, you get the restoration of the Bourbon monarchy in 1815. Now that monarchy itself is overthrown in a revolution in 1830 and it brings in another form of monarchy, the Orleanists. These are a junior branch of a Bourbon family. Now they're much more liberal, they are much more

willing not to condemn the Bonapartist, the Napoleonic past, but rather to rehabilitate that past. And they start to talk about these victories of Napoleon as being French victories. And this regime, the Orleanists, it tries to bask in the reflected glory of Napoleon. And as part of that effort, they do various things. They complete the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, and they also reinter Napoleon. they complete the Arc de Triomphe in Paris and they also re-intern Napoleon, they bring his body back from St Helena and he gets re-buried in this grandiose ceremony in Paris in 1814, Les Invalides. So Wellington has this marvellous victory, how did Britain react to it? Britain goes wild, you know, it's a great victory. Wellington, of course, his prestige is huge.

He's, you know, the greatest British general really since Marlborough. Wellington's, of course, image then takes a bit of a knock later on because he's also a politician, he becomes a Tory Prime Minister, and that regime is not necessarily such a glorious one. So one thinks, you know, had Wellington died on the battlefield, rather like Nelson did at Trafalgar, then he would have become almost entered a kind of pantheon of godlike figures. But for Britain's prestige, this is an immense boost. Britain had always been known as a naval power, but of course this is a victory for the British army. So the actual prestige of the British army increases greatly as a result of Waterloo. Did the victory at Waterloo have significance for Wellington's later political career?

Yes, it boosts his prestige. He is seen as this kind of guardian, if you like, of Britain, indeed of Britishness. I think Lawrence's portrait of Wellington wielding the sword of state, which you can see in the Waterloo Gallery of Windsor Castle, sort of epitomises that. You've got Wellington there in his full uniform as a British general holding the sword of state with St Paul's Cathedral in the background. So he embodies not only somebody who defends Britain, but somebody who defends British values, very conservative values. And that's, of course, part of a problem that Wellington becomes a contested political figure in the 1820s.

How did the Battle of Waterloo shape convictions about Britain's future role in the world? convictions about Britain's future role in the world? Well, it does crown what had been a very creditable performance by Britain during the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. As I'd already mentioned, Britain had asserted itself as a naval power, the preeminent naval power. The Duke of Wellington himself earlier on had helped expand British power in India. So Britain really sees itself at the top of its game in 1815. It's possibly comparable to the United States in 1945. So it gives Britain the self-confidence to take a leading issue on things such as the abolition of the slave trade, for example, to push this kind of almost moral Christian agenda that is very powerful, as well as things like empire, things like free trade.

And we get a major railway station named Waterloo. We get that. We get, of course, Waterloo churches, as they're called. There's a large church building programme in the first half of the 19th century. It's not only technology that Britain celebrates, but also this kind of idea that Britain is, if you like, a kind of Christian imperial power. That's perhaps a little bit forgotten these days, but that's very powerful in 1815 as well.

Dr Michael Rowe, thank you for joining us. Thank you. How and why history? How and why history?