Waterloo: Napoleon's Last Gamble

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Andrew Roberts. Waterloo: Napoleon's Last Gamble

Waterloo

Andrew Roberts

Table of Contents

FOREWORD

INTRODUCTION

THE CAMPAIGN

Maps

1 The First Phase

2 The Second Phase

3 The Third Phase

4 The Fourth Phase

5 The Fifth Phase

CONCLUSION

APPENDIX I Major Robert Dick’s Letter from Brussels

APPENDIX II Captain Fortuné de Brack’s Letter of 1835

APPENDIX III The Duke of Wellington’s Waterloo Despatch

NOTES. INTRODUCTION

THE CAMPAIGN

THE FIRST PHASE

THE SECOND PHASE

THE THIRD PHASE

THE FOURTH PHASE

THE FIFTH PHASE

CONCLUSION

CONCISE BIBLIOGRAPHY AND GUIDE TO FURTHER READING

INDEX

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Praise

By the same author

Copyright

About the Publisher

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Napoleon’s Last Gamble

MAKING HISTORY SERIES

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The Duke of Richmond later told the tale that in his study Wellington had admitted that he would not be able to stop Napoleon at Quatre Bras, adding, ‘And if so we must fight him here,’ passing his thumbnail over the map and allowing Richmond to mark in pencil a village called Waterloo. To this author at least, the story sounds like a case of esprit d’escalier, a serviceable French phrase whose English translations smack too harshly of deliberate falsehood. Unfortunately the map that might have authenticated the tale was lost in Canada when Richmond was Governor-General there three years later.11

At 8 a.m. on Friday, 16 June Napoleon was informed that the whole of the Prussian army seemed to have assembled at Sombreffe, so he left for the extreme right flank of his forces to check for himself, arriving at Fleurus at 11 a.m. Sure enough, the Prussians were there, so he ordered Marshal Ney, who he assumed would take the Quatre Bras crossroads with relative ease, to despatch a large body of his force to him to help rout the Prussians.

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