Download or read book 24 Hours at Waterloo written by Robert Kershaw and published by Random House. This book was released on 2014-08-28 with total page 448 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: ‘One of the lancers rode by, and stabbed me in the back with his lance. I then turned, and lay with my face upward, and a foot soldier stabbed me with his sword as he walked by. Immediately after, another, with his firelock and bayonet, gave me a terrible plunge, and while doing it with all his might, exclaimed, “Sacré nom de Dieu!” ’ The truly epic and brutal battle of Waterloo was a pivotal moment in history – a single day, one 24-hour period, defined the course of Europe’s future. In March 1815, the Allies declared war on Napoleon in response to his escape from exile and the renewed threat to imperial European rule. Three months later, on 18 June 1815, having suffered considerable losses at Quatre-Bras, Wellington’s army fell back on Waterloo, some ten miles south of Brussels. Halting on the ridge, they awaited Napoleon’s army, blocking their entry to the capital. This would become the Allies’ final stand, the infamous battle of Waterloo. In this intimate, hour-by-hour account, acclaimed military historian Robert Kershaw resurrects the human stories at the centre of the fighting, creating an authoritative single-volume biography of this landmark battle. Drawing on his profound insight and a field knowledge of military strategy, Kershaw takes the reader to where the impact of the orders was felt, straight into the heart of the battle, shoulder to shoulder with the soldiers on the mud-splattered ground. Masterfully weaving together painstakingly researched eyewitness accounts, diaries and letters – many never before seen or published – this gripping portrayal of Waterloo offers unparalleled authenticity. Extraordinary images of the men and women emerge in full colour; the voices of the sergeants, the exhausted foot-soldiers, the boy ensigns, the captains and the cavalry troopers, from both sides, rise from the page in vivid and telling detail, as the fate of Europe hangs by a thread.
Download or read book Waterloo written by Bernard Cornwell and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2015-05-05 with total page 245 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: #1 Bestseller in the U.K. From the New York Times bestselling author and master of martial fiction comes the definitive, illustrated history of one of the greatest battles ever fought—a riveting nonfiction chronicle published to commemorate the 200th anniversary of Napoleon’s last stand. On June 18, 1815 the armies of France, Britain and Prussia descended upon a quiet valley south of Brussels. In the previous three days, the French army had beaten the Prussians at Ligny and fought the British to a standstill at Quatre-Bras. The Allies were in retreat. The little village north of where they turned to fight the French army was called Waterloo. The blood-soaked battle to which it gave its name would become a landmark in European history. In his first work of nonfiction, Bernard Cornwell combines his storytelling skills with a meticulously researched history to give a riveting chronicle of every dramatic moment, from Napoleon’s daring escape from Elba to the smoke and gore of the three battlefields and their aftermath. Through quotes from the letters and diaries of Emperor Napoleon, the Duke of Wellington, and the ordinary officers and soldiers, he brings to life how it actually felt to fight those famous battles—as well as the moments of amazing bravery on both sides that left the actual outcome hanging in the balance until the bitter end. Published to coincide with the battle’s bicentennial in 2015, Waterloo is a tense and gripping story of heroism and tragedy—and of the final battle that determined the fate of nineteenth-century Europe.
Download or read book Waterloo written by Paul O'Keeffe and published by Abrams. This book was released on 2017-01-24 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The consequences of Napoleon’s most famous defeat are explored in this “highly readable, richly anecdotal retelling of the battle’s devastating results” (Kirkus). In the early morning hours of June 19, 1815, more than 50,000 men and 7,000 horses lay dead and wounded on a battlefield just south of Brussels. In the hours, days, weeks, and months that followed, news of the battle would begin to shape the consciousness of an age; the battlegrounds would be looted and cleared, its dead buried or burned, its ground and ruins overrun by tourists; the victorious British and Prussian armies would invade France and occupy Paris. And for Napoleon, there was no avenue ahead but surrender, exile and captivity. In this dramatic account of the aftermath of the Battle of Waterloo, Paul O'Keeffe employs a multiplicity of contemporary sources and viewpoints to create a reading experience that brings into focus as never before the sights, sounds, and smells of the battlefield, of conquest and defeat, of celebration and riot.
Download or read book Witnessing Waterloo written by David Crane and published by William Collins. This book was released on 2016-02-22 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: [Previously published as 'Went The Day Well'] 'Of all the books marking the bicentenary Waterloo, this has to be the best' Spectator 'A book to die for' Evening Standard From Samuel Johnson Prize shortlisted author David Crane, this is a breathtaking portrait of the Britain that fought the battle of Waterloo. As Wellington's rain-sodden army retreated towards an obscure valley called Waterloo, the men and women of Britain were still going to the theatre and science lectures, working in the fields and the factories, reading and writing books and sermons, painting their pictures and sitting in front of Lord Elgin's marbles. David Crane's stunning freeze-frame of Britain on this day of momentous change shifts hour by hour between Britain and Belgium. The Britain that fought Waterloo - its radicals and patriots, artisans and aristocrats, prisoners and poets - appears through the smoke of battle and the mythology of Waterloo in this magnificent and original tracing of the endless, overlapping connections between people's lives.
Download or read book The Longest Afternoon written by Brendan Simms and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2015-02-10 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the prizewinning author of Europe, a riveting account of the heroic Second Light Battalion, which held the line at Waterloo, defeating Napoleon and changing the course of history. In 1815, the deposed emperor Napoleon returned to France and threatened the already devastated and exhausted continent with yet another war. Near the small Belgian municipality of Waterloo, two large, hastily mobilized armies faced each other to decide the future of Europe-Napoleon's forces on one side, and the Duke of Wellington on the other. With so much at stake, neither commander could have predicted that the battle would be decided by the Second Light Battalion, King's German Legion, which was given the deceptively simple task of defending the Haye Sainte farmhouse, a crucial crossroads on the way to Brussels. In The Longest Afternoon, Brendan Simms captures the chaos of Waterloo in a minute-by-minute account that reveals how these 400-odd riflemen successfully beat back wave after wave of French infantry. The battalion suffered terrible casualties, but their fighting spirit and refusal to retreat ultimately decided the most influential battle in European history.
Download or read book Waterloo Letters written by Herbert Taylor Siborne and published by . This book was released on 1891 with total page 470 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Øjenvidneskildringer af slaget ved Waterloo, juni 1815, hvor de engelsk-allierede styrker under Wellington endeligt besejrede Napoleon og den franske armee. Beskrevet ud fra breve, hidtil ikke offentliggjorte, som er samlet og udvalgt af Major-General H.T. Siborne og "illustrated with numerous maps and plans". OBS Bogen udkom i 1895. Der er siden kommet nyt materiale frem, som kaster nogen tvivl om de først publiserede Siborne-letters - ikke om ægtheden men om selve udvælgelsen - og undertrykkelsen - af nogle af brevene.
Download or read book Waterloo Trafalgar written by Olivier Tallec and published by . This book was released on 2012 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Portrays two soldiers separated by two walls who spy on each other day and night until one day they finally meet face-to-face.
Download or read book The Waterloo Roll Call written by Charles Dalton and published by . This book was released on 1890 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Went the Day Well written by David Crane and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2015-04-28 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In these pages, acclaimed historian David Crane gives us an astonishing, intimate snapshot of the people and places surrounding the battle that changed the course of world history. Switching perspectives between Britain and Belgium, prison and palace, poet and pauper, husband and wife, Went the Day Well? offers a highly original view of Waterloo, showing how the battle was not only a military landmark, but also a cultural watershed that drew the line between the rural, reactionary age of the past and the urban, innovative era to come. Lyrically rendered in Crane’s signature prose style, this essential account freeze-frames the ordinary men and women of 1815 who went about their business, attended lectures, worked in fields and factories—all on the cusp of a new, unforeseeable age.
Download or read book One of the 28th written by George Alfred Henty and published by . This book was released on 1894 with total page 404 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Wellington at Waterloo written by Jac Weller and published by Frontline Books. This book was released on 2010-10-18 with total page 314 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jac Weller studies every move and counter-move of the battle, recreating not only the actions and tactics of the two great leaders but the epic engagements and clashes between the troops themselves that were pivotal for the victory or defeat. The author also studies the related battles of Quatre Bras and Ligny. He takes the reader with him onto the battlefield of Waterloo, a terrain whose features are still recongnisable today, and which is bought to life for the reader by detailed maps and by the authors vivid and riveting descriptions of the progress of the fighting.This completely original approach, appreciated by the Times Literary Supplement on the books first publication, strikes as fresh today, and this new edition, with an introduction specially written for it by the author, will be eagerly read by military enthusiasts and general reader alike.
Download or read book Waterloo written by Tim Clayton and published by Hachette UK. This book was released on 2014-09-09 with total page 406 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'A fabulous story, superbly told' Max Hastings The bloodbath at Waterloo ended a war that had engulfed the world for over twenty years. It also finished the career of the charismatic Napoleon Bonaparte. It ensured the final liberation of Germany and the restoration of the old European monarchies, and it represented one of very few defeats for the glorious French army, most of whose soldiers remained devoted to their Emperor until the very end. Extraordinary though it may seem much about the Battle of Waterloo has remained uncertain, with many major features of the campaign hotly debated. Most histories have depended heavily on the evidence of British officers that were gathered about twenty years after the battle. But the recent publication of an abundance of fresh first-hand accounts from soldiers of all the participating armies has illuminated important episodes and enabled radical reappraisal of the course of the campaign. What emerges is a darker, muddier story, no longer biased by notions of regimental honour, but a tapestry of irony, accident, courage, horror and human frailty. An epic page turner, rich in dramatic human detail and grounded in first-class scholarly research, Waterloo is the real inside story of the greatest land battle in British history, the defining showdown of the age of muskets, bayonets, cavalry and cannon.
Download or read book The Battle of Waterloo Experience written by Peter Snow and published by . This book was released on 2015 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: After Napoleon's defeat and exile on Elba in 1814, it looked as if his extraordinary military career had come to an end. But then the Emperor escaped and made a last stand, which climaxed on June 18, 1815, when almost 200,000 Prussian, British, and French soldiers clashed at Waterloo. Published to mark the 200th anniversary, The Battle of Waterloo Experience is a compelling new treatment of the Hundred Days campaign, beautifully illustrated and including reproductions of contemporary letters and documents that graphically portray the background to Napoleon's final overthrow.
Download or read book Battle for Paris 1815 written by Paul L. Dawson and published by Pen and Sword. This book was released on 2019-12-19 with total page 417 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “For anyone seeking a full understanding of the end of the Napoleonic era this book is a must read . . . [a] tour de force of research.” —Clash of Steel On the morning of 3 July 1815, the French General Rémi Joseph Isidore Exelmans, at the head of a brigade of dragoons, fired the last shots in the defense of Paris until the Franco-Prussian War sixty-five years later. Why did he do so? Traditional stories of 1815 end with Waterloo, that fateful day of 18 June, when Napoleon Bonaparte fought and lost his last battle, abdicating his throne on 22 June. But Waterloo was not the end; it was the beginning of a new and untold story. Seldom studied in French histories and virtually ignored by English writers, the French Army fought on after Waterloo. Many commanders sought to reverse that defeat—at Versailles, Sevres, Rocquencourt, and La Souffel, the last great battle and the last French victory of the Napoleonic Wars. Marshal Grouchy, much maligned, fought his army back to Paris by 29 June, with the Prussians hard on his heels. On 1 July, Vandamme, Exelmans and Marshal Davout began the defense of Paris. Davout took to the field in the north-eastern suburbs of Paris along with regiments of the Imperial Guard and battalions of National Guards. For the first time ever, using the wealth of material held in the French Army archives in Paris, along with eyewitness testimonies from those who were there, Paul Dawson brings alive the bitter and desperate fighting in defense of the French capital. The 100 Days Campaign did not end at Waterloo, it ended under the walls of Paris fifteen days later.
Download or read book 24 Hours at the Somme written by Robert Kershaw and published by Random House. This book was released on 2016-06-16 with total page 448 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first day of the Somme has had more of a widespread emotional impact on the psyche of the British public than any other battle in history. Now, 100 years later, Robert Kershaw attempts to understand the carnage, using the voices of the British and German soldiers who lived through that awful day. In the early hours of 1 July 1916, the British General staff placed its faith in patriotism and guts, believing that one ‘Big Push’ would bring on the end of the Great War. By sunset, there were 57,470 men – more than half the size of the present-day British Army – who lay dead, missing or wounded. On that day hope died. Juxtaposing the British trench view against that from the German parapet, Kershaw draws on eyewitness accounts, memories and letters to expose the true horror of that day. Amongst the mud, gore and stench of death, there are also stories of humanity and resilience, of all-embracing comradeship and gritty patriotic British spirit. However it was this very emotion which ultimately caused thousands of young men to sacrifice themselves on the Somme.
Download or read book Waterloo 1815 3 written by John Franklin and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2015-06-20 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Waterloo is one of the defining campaigns of European history. The name conjures up images of the terrible scale and grandeur of the Napoleonic Wars and the incredible combined effort that finally ended Napoleon's aspirations of power in Europe. Drawn from unpublished first-hand accounts, and using detailed illustrations, this comprehensive volume is the ideal resource for studying the intense fighting at the battles of Waterloo and Wavre, the final, decisive engagements of the Waterloo campaign. Those two battles are at the heart of this study, which explores the action at Mont St Jean where Wellington managed to hold the French at bay until the arrival of the Prussians under Blücher saw the Allies secure a hard-fought victory at the dramatic climax of the 'Hundred days'.
Download or read book Battlesaurus Rampage at Waterloo written by Brian Falkner and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR). This book was released on 2015-07-14 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What if the power to control the most terrifying animals in history fell into the hands of one of the most brilliant and ferocious military leaders of all time? Battlesaurus reimagines the 1815 Battle of Waterloo as something other than a crushing defeat for the French emperor Napoléon Bonaparte, when he unleashes a terrible secret weapon—giant carnivorous survivors from pre-history—on his unsuspecting British and Prussian adversaries. In this world, smaller “saurs” are an everyday danger in the forests of Europe, and the Americas are a forbidden zone roamed by the largest and most deadly animals ever to walk the earth. But in his quest for power, Napoléon has found a way to turn these giant dinosaurs into nineteenth-century weapons of mass destruction. Only Willem Verheyen, an outsider living in hiding in the tiny village of Gaillemarde, has the power to ruin the tyrant’s plans. And Napoléon will stop at nothing to find him. War is coming, and young Willem is no longer safe, for Gaillemarde is just a stone’s throw from the fields of Waterloo—fields which will soon run red with blood. Battlesaurus: Rampage at Waterloo by Brian Falkner is the first in a thrilling alternate historical fantasy duology, which concludes with the sequel, Battlesaurus: Clash of Empires. “Part historical fiction, part dinosaur fantasy mash-up, this book will appeal to history buffs and dinosaur fanatics alike. The battle scenes between Napoléon's army and the British are depicted in incredible detail, making readers feel as if they are right in the midst of the fight . . . The first of a promising duology that readers will find thrilling and positively addicting.” —School Library Journal “This alternative history asks, what if Napoléon won the battle at Waterloo . . . The novel quickly ramps up to suspense, immersing the reader in the swiftly moving plot. Characters are very well drawn, capturing the reader's sympathy. With an ending wide open for a sequel, complete with a plot-thickening cliff-hanger, one can only hope that Falkner is a swift writer.” —Booklist
