July 2015 Discussion: Waterloo (spoilers)
 

The time has come to discuss the July 2015 MobileRead Book Club selection, Waterloo: The History of Four Days, Three Armies and Three Battles by Bernard Cornwell. What did you think?

I'm getting there. I took some time out to polish off Go Set a Watchman first.

Generally speaking, I think the narration is highly entertaining, but as I suspected, my eyes glaze over a bit when it comes to the spatial dimensions of fighting a battle. My spatial sense stinks.

I'm enjoying this book, but it's not compelling me. I'm listening to the Audible version, which is well read, and I sometimes wish I had a map in front of me. OTOH, I don't actually _care_ about the details of who was on which road. What is more interesting, and well covered, is the logistical and tactical considerations that led to Wellington's victory. And the ways in which it could all have gone horribly wrong. (For example, why did Marshall Ney delay his attack on Quatre Bras.)

May I suggest that this thread be placed on the home page?

Can I say how much I dislike the shifts in tense, sometimes from sentence to sentence? It's jarring, taking me right out of the narrative.

Certainly you can. And just have. ;) I admit, it has annoyed me a couple of times, though not as much as you.

Anyone? Bueller?

This was a mixed bag for me. Starting with the good, as an idiot's (ie, moi) guide to the Battle of Waterloo, it was very good. Before reading it, all I knew about Waterloo, other than Wellington's winning it and Napoleon's being packed off to St. Helena, was dancing at the Duchess of Richmond's ball the night before and "The battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton." This was compact and for the most part, engagingly told. I now have a clear sense of the various battles, stands, and personalities, which is to the good.

Frankly, I expected something by a writer of Cornwell's stature to be better written. I've already mentioned the frequent shifts in tense, which drove me nuts. In addition, he repeated anecdotes and analyses (I remember it from the first time, thankyouverymuch) and had another writing tic of ending up a section with a one sentence (and sometimes a sentence fragment) paragraph. That staled quickly. His diction could have been improved. I do not think prevarication means what he thinks it means. I suspect Cornwell is one of those writers who is too big to be edited, alas.

As I've said, I've no basis on which to criticize his historiography. My gut reaction says that Napoleon and Ney couldn't have been quite so incompetent as Cornwell portrays them, nor Wellington so god-like; it was a near thing, after all. It's a matter of the defects of its virtues, I suppose. I like footnotes, but this was clearly mostly compiled from secondary sources and his own vast store of knowledge about the period. Geared to the general reader, so lacking any real historical rigor. I thought the best parts, as in the most evocative, were the quotations from first-person accounts and the pictures; the book was worth reading for those alone.

I had meant to read a biography of Napoleon this year, for the bicentenary of Waterloo, but that will probably be postponed until next year. Again, as I've said, I'm more a causes and effects person than a battle person, and I'm looking forward to reading about the Congress of Vienna and the new shape of Europe. This will do Waterloo for me.

One last reaction is that Cornwell is superb at protraying the carnage of war. As I get older, I find it harder and harder to understand why disagreements have to end in limbs flying and lives lost and ruined. Wouldn't tiddlywinks be a better choice? (I stole that from a Mad Magazine parody of Wellington and Napoleon remembered from my youth.)

I'm getting there, but it's a slow read for me. About a third of the way in now. I'm not much for the tense-shifting. I get why he thinks it might be useful, but it's not working so much for my brain.

I am enjoying the first-person accounts, but I am not a history reader in the slightest. This book is proving that to me.

I'm still enjoying it. The tense shifts should have been dealt with by the editor. That's one of the (many, many, many) things that editors are particularly good at. I know it's always a problem for my own writing, even when I know better. But very hard to keep track of when you're in the throws of trying to meet a deadline.

In reading some other works, Marshall Ney is treated about in the middle here. Some want to put all the blame on Napoleon, some all on Ney. Cornwell seems to fall somewhere in the middle, blaming both. What is fairly clear is that had Ney done what Napoleon thought he was doing, the battle might have been very different.

I'm still listening to this on Audible, so I won't likely finish before we get into next month's book, but my intent is definitely to finish it. I knew a certain amount about the battle, and the history of both Wellesley and Napoleon, but only from reading peripheral things

Oh, and I second the tiddlywinks suggestion.

I'm more of a fan of rock, paper, scissors which is alluded to in the book. We use that at work to solve life and death disagreements like who gets what muffin when selection is limited. :rofl:

Thanks for the input on Ney. I do think Cornwell does an excellent job of showing to what extent fortune, given factors that couldn't be controlled, or controlled or adjusted for imperfectly, could tip a battle either way. I'm reminded of how Eisenhower had two different messages prepared to announce the D-Day invasion.

For you, or for anyone else who might be listening to this, it would be worthwhile seeing if you could borrow a hard copy from the library, just to see the gorgeous color plates of contemporary and near contemporary depictions of the battle. I read the ebook, but opened it on my laptop so I could see the illustrations in full color and detail.

^The hard copy is quite nice, although the plates make for a pretty hefty book in the han.

Since the Kindle price and hardcover price are a wash at Amazon, in this case, assuming someone could handle reading print and straining wrists, I'd be tempted to go for the hard copy. I gather it's a gorgeous book, the illustrations are fantastic, and there's the residual value.

I really enjoyed the mention of Lady Butler's painting. Having been through many art history classes I really enjoyed that brief bit. I'll be wanting to go through all my art history books looking for battle pictures now.

I finished. Up late last night to do so. Not bad. I don't read history much so it's not something I have much to draw upon for comparison, but I enjoyed it. I could have done without the afterward section and the theories as to why one lost. It was in the pages for the reader to glean, although I did appreciate the information on the reliability of the information.

I enjoyed the audiobook. I felt the same about not seeing a map to visualize the positions but the story made up for it. Overall a good selection and I am glad to have read it.

P.S. Of late my attitude with history books has been to read them as semi-fiction stories unless there is something which interests me enough to research further.

Finished! And only a bit late to the ball. :D

This book reminded me of reading War and Peace so long ago, because it also deals with a Napoleonic battle and its deadly aftermath.

I enjoyed this book because of my almost utter lack of knowledge about battle specifics. From this book alone I think I've now gained a rudimentary knowledge of how battles then were fought and that alone was worth the price of admission. I've always wondered vaguely how armies can keep things in order and keep everyone on the same page in the intensity of the clash, and also not accidentally kill their own (especially from cannons firing on the enemy when their army is already attacking it). I knew disorder and friendly fire happened in some few instances, but thought it rare enough and that they must have ways I don't understand of preventing this. Now I see that my vague thoughts were more correct than I'd realised - that it is very hard in a large battle for things not to get confused all around and that they must all just do the best they can. I also learned about the differences between squares (never knew there was such a thing!), columns and lines, how different types of soldiers from skirmishers to cavalry are used, etc., etc. It was all very eye-opening for me and he painted a vivid picture of the battle.

I didn't, however, care for the repetitiveness at points, as has been mentioned by others. If anyone disagrees with me, we can certainly play a game of paper, scissors and stone to settle the matter. ;)

Also as others have said here, I felt there was a bias against Napoleon. From the way he painted the picture it just almost didn't seem plausible that Napoleon and his side could've really been that incompetent, you know? I understand that as close as the battle was, Napoleon and his top tier did make many mistakes that cost them the win, but I feel like something was left out of the book, something to better explain these mistakes. They were explained in the book and in single contexts they make sense but overall I just felt the writing was slightly too biased. For instance, I understand that Cornwell himself may not understand why Napoleon didn't send more of the reserve, and send it quicker, to help Ney near the end when he was having his success after La Haie Sainte, but Cornwell is content to leave it there making Napoleon looking like an idiot for not doing so.

Similarly, Cornwell seems to go out of his way to defend Wellington throughout. These criticisms of his writing aren't absolute - there are times, even many, when he writes understandingly about Napoleon and a few times even critically about Wellington (such as Wellington not giving the Prussians enough credit later in life) - but overall I think he let his own opinions in just enough to tarnish the book.

Here are two examples:

Both of those may be true but they both also seem overstated with bias.

Overall though, I do feel that he probably was trying to be even-handed and just couldn't help himself or didn't realise his bias, and the book was a fairly simple to read, engaging and enlightening breakdown of a very complex few days.