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A Model Victory
A vivid retelling of the Battle of Waterloo, based on unpublished soldiers' written accounts. When a patriotic model-maker recorded the days' events for posterity he left us with a glorified version of an English victory. Malcolm Balen brings us the muddy truth. More than fifty thousand died or were wounded on the single bloody day of the Battle of Waterloo. This was killing on the scale of the First World War, and yet the glory of the British victory soon came to overshadow any notion of its gore. In this electrifying account of the day itself, Malcolm Balen combines extraordinary first-hand accounts of the battle with the story of William Siborne, a model-maker who, in the wake of the battle, wanted to leave to posterity a perfect and accurate representation of the crucial moment in the battle. The question Who won it? Was it Wellington's forces or Blucher's Prussians, or a combination of the two? The accounts Siborne used to piece the muddy truth together read as if Waterloo had been fought yesterday. But the accuracy he relentlessly pursued came up against the British establishment and the Duke of Wellington's desire to control the narrative of the day. In this fascinating and refreshing account of one of the bloodiest days in history, Malcolm Balen interweaves two battles one in the muddy fields of Belgium, and the other over history itself.
- GenresHistory
Hardcover
First published August 1, 2005
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
August 28, 2012
While its structure is not the most easy-to-follow (jumps around in time in several places, which makes it difficult for anyone not versed in Waterloo history to follow), the writing is very vivid and the book "flows" very well - especially when recounting/reconstructing the events on the field of battle.
I also read "Wellington's Smallest Victory" (covering the same topic), and while the writing was a bit more stilted and personal ("I believe", etc.), the structure of the book followed events in a more-or-less chronological order. It also very expressly highlighted Wellington's POV (to which "A Model Victory" only alluded without fully laying out in detail) - context that I found enlightening. However, that book did not cover the events at Waterloo and assumes the reader has read in-depth accounts of the battle. The two books also varied in where they gave details about the construction of the model - reading both gives a much clearer account of Siborne's travails than either book does alone, and the books would be excellent as a one-volume, all-inclusive tome. If I were recommending the books, I would say that one should read "Wellington's Smallest Victory" first in order to fully appreciate the timeline of events following the battle, with 'A Model Victory' adding some very interesting and vivid details about the battle itself and aspects of Siborne's struggles that "Wellingtons Smallest Victory" glosses."
I also read "Wellington's Smallest Victory" (covering the same topic), and while the writing was a bit more stilted and personal ("I believe", etc.), the structure of the book followed events in a more-or-less chronological order. It also very expressly highlighted Wellington's POV (to which "A Model Victory" only alluded without fully laying out in detail) - context that I found enlightening. However, that book did not cover the events at Waterloo and assumes the reader has read in-depth accounts of the battle. The two books also varied in where they gave details about the construction of the model - reading both gives a much clearer account of Siborne's travails than either book does alone, and the books would be excellent as a one-volume, all-inclusive tome. If I were recommending the books, I would say that one should read "Wellington's Smallest Victory" first in order to fully appreciate the timeline of events following the battle, with 'A Model Victory' adding some very interesting and vivid details about the battle itself and aspects of Siborne's struggles that "Wellingtons Smallest Victory" glosses."
February 23, 2022
The Battle for Waterloo's History: AKA what to do with those pesky Prussians?
Capt. William Siborne is, as Balen succinctly and correctly observes, ‘still struggling to be heard'. This is a story of heroic and bloody-minded obduracy, both on the fields of Belgium, and afterwards.
Siborne's is a rather sad tale, but a sufficiently engrossing one that, amidst the mountains of Waterloo themed literature, we now have two books in English telling of his travails in researching and building an unprecedented battlefield diorama, depicting the Crisis point of 18 June 1815, aka The Great Model.
This incredible creation - obsessively detailed, covering an areas over 240 square feet, and featuring tens of thousands of minute figures - is now housed in the National Army Museum (henceforward NAM), exactly the kind of place it was originally intended to reside, and where, tragically, the military establishment continues to perpetrate upon its heroic maker the most inexcusable calumnies (this is a fact neither Balen nor Hofschröer mention in their books on this subject).
In an ironic twist to this convoluted tale, the 8th Duke of Wellington inaugurated the current Waterloo display, in which Siborne's model is the centrepiece, this apparent reconciliation - Arthur Wellesley himself scrupulously avoided either visiting or publicly endorsing Siborne's creation - leading Balen to observe that 'With time history learns to forgive.'
But actually, if one listens to the audio presentation which accompanies the model, and specifically that part dealing with Siborne and the making of his masterpiece, one will be grossly misinformed: the first bit of misinformation concerns the models origin, with the commentary implying that Siborne undertook the project of his own volition, when in fact, as Balen says 'He was invited ... [by] Lord Rowland Hill, a Waterloo veteran, to map the ground, and from this to create a scale model, with the work paid for by public funds.'
Having set Siborne up as an obsessive outsider (the National Army Museum audio commentary, that is, not Balen), when in fact he was being commissioned by both government and armed forces representatives, the commentary then lays the charge of historical inaccuracy - regarding the absence of the Prussians in greater force - at Siborne's door, when this aspect of the Model's current state in fact represents his eventual capitulation to the campaign of the military establishment against his original dispositions (he removed approximately 40,000 Prussian figures in the end!).
And it doesn't end there, several further factual errors are made which compound the calumny and lend the whole thing the air of a continued conspiracy to defame the poor man! This aspect of Siborne's story is something both Balen and Hofschröer address.
It's not only alleged, by the NAM, that Siborne is the one responsible for this inaccuracy, but that further, and with a grotesquely unjust twist, that he made his error because he didn't bother to consult French or German sources! I personally think it's shocking and beyond comprehension that a national institution should so blatantly malign the creator of an object it so proudly displays when the facts are so clearly otherwise than it suggests*.
Actually his troubles were a direct result of his 'overly' thorough investigation, and more particularly the nature of that investigation, or what Balen refers to as the 'unwelcome democracy of it's evidence-gathering...' which was 'far too democratic for its times'! This resulted in 'the military establishment's growing opposition to the exercise in historical democracy it had unwittingly unleashed.'
It was precisely because Siborne had gathered such vast amounts of data, which also formed the basis of his book (History of the War in France and Belgium), and very definitely included material from both French and Prussian sources, that he ran into the troubles this book (and Hofschröer's) relates.
Personally I prefer Hofschröer's book on the subject (Wellington's Smallest Victory), which is simply, for me, the better written and more engaging of the two, and is also more focussed upon the history of the model and its maker. Balen's account, which it has to be said is also a very compelling and enjoyable read, spends more than the first two-thirds of the book following the battle itself, only alluding very briefly here and there to Siborne's travails.
It's not until chapter XII that the focus shifts decisively from the battle to the model. Whilst yet another re-telling of Waterloo is okay with me, this isn't the best account of that sanguinary day that I've read, and for me the book is most interesting in its final three chapters, when addressing the issue of Siborne's building and exhibiting of the model, and his struggles first to pay for it, after the government backs out quite early on, and secondly to find a home for it.
Balen's use of letters from Siborne's correspondence as headers to each chapter, along with small but regular references here and there, is a rather tenuous way of dealing with the diorama thread. Whilst it allows the author to combine the two themes of the battle itself and the model depicting it, it does also result in some unwelcome repetition (particularly by harping on about the continued absence of the Prussians and Siborne's choice of the moment to be depicted), and even some rather misleading 'teasing', with Balen appearing to come down on Wellington's side at various points.
I won't spoil it for you by giving too much away, but suffice it to say that such toying with the reader may be a little disingenuous. In the end Balen concludes that whilst Siborne was 'a man before his time', 'To look at the battleground he created is to marvel at a man who tried to turn the history of a war into a model of the truth.'
This is a fascinating adjunct to the story of the battle of Waterloo itself, and with the bicentennial of that famous and conclusive chapter of Napoleonic history rapidly approaching, this is, like Hofschröer's book on the subject, both interesting and illuminating in itself, and a salutary reminder of the political aspects of history.
* It would be wonderful if, for 2015, the 200th anniversary of Waterloo, the NAM could correct this, and, as they're currently closed for a refit, the opportunity to do so seems perfect. [NB - Review written c. 2013!]
Capt. William Siborne is, as Balen succinctly and correctly observes, ‘still struggling to be heard'. This is a story of heroic and bloody-minded obduracy, both on the fields of Belgium, and afterwards.
Siborne's is a rather sad tale, but a sufficiently engrossing one that, amidst the mountains of Waterloo themed literature, we now have two books in English telling of his travails in researching and building an unprecedented battlefield diorama, depicting the Crisis point of 18 June 1815, aka The Great Model.
This incredible creation - obsessively detailed, covering an areas over 240 square feet, and featuring tens of thousands of minute figures - is now housed in the National Army Museum (henceforward NAM), exactly the kind of place it was originally intended to reside, and where, tragically, the military establishment continues to perpetrate upon its heroic maker the most inexcusable calumnies (this is a fact neither Balen nor Hofschröer mention in their books on this subject).
In an ironic twist to this convoluted tale, the 8th Duke of Wellington inaugurated the current Waterloo display, in which Siborne's model is the centrepiece, this apparent reconciliation - Arthur Wellesley himself scrupulously avoided either visiting or publicly endorsing Siborne's creation - leading Balen to observe that 'With time history learns to forgive.'
But actually, if one listens to the audio presentation which accompanies the model, and specifically that part dealing with Siborne and the making of his masterpiece, one will be grossly misinformed: the first bit of misinformation concerns the models origin, with the commentary implying that Siborne undertook the project of his own volition, when in fact, as Balen says 'He was invited ... [by] Lord Rowland Hill, a Waterloo veteran, to map the ground, and from this to create a scale model, with the work paid for by public funds.'
Having set Siborne up as an obsessive outsider (the National Army Museum audio commentary, that is, not Balen), when in fact he was being commissioned by both government and armed forces representatives, the commentary then lays the charge of historical inaccuracy - regarding the absence of the Prussians in greater force - at Siborne's door, when this aspect of the Model's current state in fact represents his eventual capitulation to the campaign of the military establishment against his original dispositions (he removed approximately 40,000 Prussian figures in the end!).
And it doesn't end there, several further factual errors are made which compound the calumny and lend the whole thing the air of a continued conspiracy to defame the poor man! This aspect of Siborne's story is something both Balen and Hofschröer address.
It's not only alleged, by the NAM, that Siborne is the one responsible for this inaccuracy, but that further, and with a grotesquely unjust twist, that he made his error because he didn't bother to consult French or German sources! I personally think it's shocking and beyond comprehension that a national institution should so blatantly malign the creator of an object it so proudly displays when the facts are so clearly otherwise than it suggests*.
Actually his troubles were a direct result of his 'overly' thorough investigation, and more particularly the nature of that investigation, or what Balen refers to as the 'unwelcome democracy of it's evidence-gathering...' which was 'far too democratic for its times'! This resulted in 'the military establishment's growing opposition to the exercise in historical democracy it had unwittingly unleashed.'
It was precisely because Siborne had gathered such vast amounts of data, which also formed the basis of his book (History of the War in France and Belgium), and very definitely included material from both French and Prussian sources, that he ran into the troubles this book (and Hofschröer's) relates.
Personally I prefer Hofschröer's book on the subject (Wellington's Smallest Victory), which is simply, for me, the better written and more engaging of the two, and is also more focussed upon the history of the model and its maker. Balen's account, which it has to be said is also a very compelling and enjoyable read, spends more than the first two-thirds of the book following the battle itself, only alluding very briefly here and there to Siborne's travails.
It's not until chapter XII that the focus shifts decisively from the battle to the model. Whilst yet another re-telling of Waterloo is okay with me, this isn't the best account of that sanguinary day that I've read, and for me the book is most interesting in its final three chapters, when addressing the issue of Siborne's building and exhibiting of the model, and his struggles first to pay for it, after the government backs out quite early on, and secondly to find a home for it.
Balen's use of letters from Siborne's correspondence as headers to each chapter, along with small but regular references here and there, is a rather tenuous way of dealing with the diorama thread. Whilst it allows the author to combine the two themes of the battle itself and the model depicting it, it does also result in some unwelcome repetition (particularly by harping on about the continued absence of the Prussians and Siborne's choice of the moment to be depicted), and even some rather misleading 'teasing', with Balen appearing to come down on Wellington's side at various points.
I won't spoil it for you by giving too much away, but suffice it to say that such toying with the reader may be a little disingenuous. In the end Balen concludes that whilst Siborne was 'a man before his time', 'To look at the battleground he created is to marvel at a man who tried to turn the history of a war into a model of the truth.'
This is a fascinating adjunct to the story of the battle of Waterloo itself, and with the bicentennial of that famous and conclusive chapter of Napoleonic history rapidly approaching, this is, like Hofschröer's book on the subject, both interesting and illuminating in itself, and a salutary reminder of the political aspects of history.
* It would be wonderful if, for 2015, the 200th anniversary of Waterloo, the NAM could correct this, and, as they're currently closed for a refit, the opportunity to do so seems perfect. [NB - Review written c. 2013!]
November 12, 2013
The Model Victory, while certainly educational and informative, was rather hard to get through at times. Though the prose was stellar and actually inspired to finish it, my lack of knowledge about this subject is quite detrimental to the reading experience--so, despite the fact that the author managed to introduce certain concepts without it being boring, I was simply too bogged down by the military terms and the significance of this attack or that siege into the final turn of events.
And, seeing as that fault is completely mine, and not the author's, this book is still a solid four stars because it was still quite enjoyable to read.
And, seeing as that fault is completely mine, and not the author's, this book is still a solid four stars because it was still quite enjoyable to read.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews