Walking Waterloo: A Guide

by Charles J. Esdaile

Tour the Belgian battleground where Napoleon was defeated—with historical background, maps, archival images, and more.   In this book, the acclaimed author of Napoleon’s Wars provides a new guide to the Battle of Waterloo that presents the experience of the soldiers who took part in the battle in the most graphic and direct way possible—through their own words. In a series of walks, he describes in vivid detail what happened in each location on June 18, 1815 and quotes at length from eyewitness accounts of the men who were there.   Each phase of the action during that momentous day is covered, from the initial French attacks and the intense fighting at Hougoumont and La Haye Sainte to the charges of the French cavalry against the British squares and the final, doomed attack of Napoleon’s Imperial Guard. This innovative guide to this historic site is fully illustrated with a selection of archive images from the War Heritage Institute in Brussels, modern color photographs of the battlefield as it appears today, and specially commissioned maps that allow those who visit in person to follow the course of the battle on the ground.

Genres: History

320 pages, Kindle Edition

Published November 12, 2020

Reviews

[Rob Markley · Rating 3 out of 5]

It is hard to rate a book such as this: I purchased and read as a prelude to visiting Waterloo for the first time later this year. Most properly for the title, the book contains eight separate walking tours of the battle site. Each has walking directions, stopping points with a description of the event at that location accompanied with a short memoir and plenty of illustrations and photos. There is an overall tour of four hours walking - not including the time spent at any of the museums, lion hill or the panorama. Thus it would hardly be possible to do more than one tour unless one had multiple days. It seems rather unlikely someone would both be in need to such a tour guide and also dedicate more than a day to the visit, but perhaps there may be people with special interests that want to look into a particular aspect of the battle?

The tours aren't necessarily easy to read, giving directions and pointing out paths that you have to imagine. However there are copious photos which even in two dimensions add a great deal to appreciation of the battle - which I haven't found in any of the half dozen or so Waterloo books I've read over the years. Some of the controversies of the battle are glossed over to a modern conclusion; such as the formation of D'Erlon's corps, and how and by whom the guard were defeated. Other myths are quickly dismissed. Some of the points made in the obligatory intro to campaign and battle might also be arguable.

One of the tedious issues with reading this simply as a book are the repeats and overlaps between tours - where Esdaile makes the same point or even repeats the same memoir in different tours, however such is the nature of a guide. Against this it would have been helpful to have had more tourist information than the few pages at the end and occasional comment in the text, albeit that many such details change quickly - for example more on getting to Waterloo, more on the museums and restaurants there, more on times of year to visit and impact of seasons on what you'll see - for example crop status and daylight hours compared with 18 June.

Overall a useful book adding appreciation to the battlefield. Too heavy to add to luggage internationally, but it appears it can be downloaded as an app - so win win.