Download or read book Battle Story Waterloo 1815 written by Gregory Fremont-Barnes and published by The History Press. This book was released on 2012-01-31 with total page 181 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Battle of Waterloo is one of the most important moments in military history. As the might of the French Empire under the leadership of the Emperor Napoleon faced the Coalition army under Duke of Wellington and Gerhard von Blucher for one last time. The battle saw the culmination of a long campaign to destroy Napoleon's forces and halt the growth of the French Empire. Both sides fought bitterly and Wellington later remarked that 'it was the nearest-run thing you ever saw in your life'. Both armies lost over 20,000 men on the battlefield that day, but it was the coalition that emerged victorious in the end. Wellington's army counter-attacked and threw the French troops into disarray as they fled from the field. The coalition forces entered France and restored Louis XVIII to the throne and Napoleon was exiled to the island of Saint Helena, where he later died. Waterloo was a resounding victory for the British Army and changed the course of European history. This Battle Story tells you everything you need to know about his critical battle.

Download or read book Waterloo 1815 written by Gregory Fremont-Barnes and published by Dundurn. This book was released on 2016-02-20 with total page 160 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The story of one of Western history’s most significant battles and the moment of Napoleon’s final defeat is expertly related and explained by a leading historian, with detailed illustrations and supplementary facts.

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 Waterloo written by Andrew Roberts and published by Harper Perennial. This book was released on 2005-12-27 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: June 18, 1815, was one of the most momentous days in world history, marking the end of twenty-two years of French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. On the bloody battlefield of Waterloo, the Emperor Napoleon and his hastily formed legions clashed with the Anglo-Allied armies led by the Duke of Wellington -- the only time the two greatest military strategists of their age faced each other in combat. With precision and elegance, Andrew Roberts sets the political, strategic, and historical scene, providing a breathtaking account of each successive stage of the battle while also examining new evidence that reveals exactly how Napoleon was defeated. Illuminating, authoritative, and engrossing, Waterloo is a masterful work of history.

Download or read book Waterloo 1815 written by John Grehan and published by Frontline Books. This book was released on 2015-05-30 with total page 489 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For more than twenty years Europe had been torn apart by war. Dynasties had crumbled, new states had been created and a generation had lost its young men. When it seemed that peace might at last settle across Europe, terrible news was received Napoleon had escaped from exile and was marching upon Paris. Europe braced itself once again for war. The allied nations agreed to combine against Napoleon and in May 1815 they began to mass on France's frontiers. The scene was set for the greatest battle the world had yet seen.Composed of more than 300 eyewitness accounts, official documents, parliamentary debates and newspaper reports, Voices from the Past tells the story of Napoleon's last battles as they were experienced and reported by the men and women involved. Heroic cavalry charges, devastating artillery bombardments, terrible injuries, heart-breaking encounters, and amusing anecdotes, written by aristocratic officers and humble privates alike, fill the pages of this ambitious publication. Many of these reports have not been reproduced for almost 200 years.

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 1815 Quatre Bras written by Peter Hofschroer and published by Pen and Sword. This book was released on 2005-02-09 with total page 148 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Battles of Quatre Bras and Ligny are often overshadowed by the Battle of Waterloo that took place two days later. Yet the events of 16 June 1815 were crucial, as Napoleon missed his chance of achieving a decisive victory. Peter Hofschro[umlaut]er's authoritative guide to these two critical engagements tells the story of the campaign and investigates each battle in detail, and he takes the reader on a fascinating tour of the present-day battlefields. By skilful use of maps, photographs and diagrams, he describes the movements of the armies and analyses the thinking and actions of the commanders.

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 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 written by John Hussey and published by Pen & Sword Books. This book was released on 2017-12-19 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The concluding volume of this work provides a fresh description of the climatic battle of Waterloo placed in the context of the whole campaign. It discusses several vexed questions: Blucher's intentions for the battle, Wellington's choice of site, his reasons for placing substantial forces at Hal, the placement of Napoleon's artillery, who authorized the French cavalry attacks, Grouchy's role on 18 and 19 June, Napoleon's own statements on the Garde's formation in the final attack, and the climactic moment when the Prussians reached Wellington's troops near la Belle Alliance. Close attention is paid to the negotiations that led to the capitulation of Paris, and subsequent French claims. The allegations of Las Cases and later historians that Napoleon's surrender to Captain Maitland of the Bellerophon amounted to entrapment are also examined. After a survey of the peace settlement of 1815, the book concludes with a masterly chapter reviewing the whole story of the 1815 campaign.

Download or read book Waterloo 1815 The British Army s Day of Destiny written by Gregory Fremont-Barnes and published by The History Press. This book was released on 2014-11-03 with total page 594 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Writing to his mother the day after the fighting, Captain Thomas Wildman of the 7th Hussars described 'a victory so splendid & important that you may search the annals of history in vain for its parallel'. Little wonder, for Waterloo was widely recognised – even in its immediate wake – as one of the most decisive battles in history: after more than twenty years of uninterrupted conflict, this single day's encounter finally put paid to French aspirations for European hegemony. The culminating point of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, Waterloo also witnessed levels of determination and bravery by both sides which far exceeded anything experienced by the veterans of Wellington's recent campaigns in Spain and Portugal. Indeed, it was that unconquerable spirit which left over 50,000 men dead on the field of battle and tens of thousands of others wounded. This thoroughly researched and highly detailed account of one of history's greatest human dramas looks first at the wider strategic picture before focusing on the tactical roles played by individual British units – all meticulously examined with the benefit of an extensive array of hitherto unexploited primary sources which reveal the battlefield experience of officers and soldiers as never before. Refusing simply to repeat the same unchallenged accounts and to commit the same errors of previous historians, this work relies exclusively on hundreds of first-hand accounts, by men of all ranks and from practically every British regiment and corps present on that fateful day, to provide a fresh and revised perspective on one of the most pivotal events of modern times.

Download or read book Waterloo The Campaign of 1815 Volume 1 written by John Hussey and published by Casemate Publishers. This book was released on 2017-06-12 with total page 745 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This, the fourth volume in Andrew Field's highly praised study of the Waterloo campaign from the French perspective, depicts in vivid detail the often neglected final phase the rout and retreat of Napoleon's army. The text is based exclusively on French eyewitness accounts which give an inside view of the immediate aftermath of the battle and carry the story through to the army's disbandment in late 1815. Many French officers and soldiers wrote more about the retreat than they did about the catastrophe of Waterloo itself. Their recollections give a fascinating insight to the psyche of the French soldier. They also provide a firsthand record of their experiences and the range of their reactions, from those who deserted the colors and made their way home, to those who continued to serve faithfully when all was lost. Napoleons own flight from Waterloo is an essential part of the narrative, but the main emphasis is on the fate of the beaten French army as it was experienced by eyewitnesses who lived through the last days of the campaign.

Download or read book 1815 the Waterloo Campaign the German Victory written by Peter Hofschröer and published by . This book was released on 1999 with total page 408 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: -- Demonstrates the decisive German contribution to victory at Waterloo -- Unpublished German eyewitness accounts and regimental reports -- Covers the battles of Waterloo, Wavre and the taking of Paris Peter Hofschroer, in this second volume of his masterly study of 1815, challenges the accepted version of events at the battle of Waterloo. He demonstrates convincingly that Allied victory was due not to steadfast British infantry repelling the French, but to the timely arrival of Prussian troops who stole victory from Napoleon and sealed the fate of the last Grande Armee. Drawing on previously unpublished accounts, Hofschroer gives not only the Prussian perspective of their march to Waterloo and decisive attack on Napoleon's flank, but also details of the actions fought by some of the 25,000 Germans in Wellington's 'British' army -- more than a third of the Duke's force. A gripping narrative of astonishing detail captures such key episodes of Waterloo as La Haye Sainte, Papelotte, Hougoumont and the Prussian struggle with the Imperial Guard for Plancenoit. In addition, Hofschroer examines the battle at Wavre, the Allied offensive into France, the taking of Paris and the sieges across northern France. 1815: The Waterloo Campaign-The German Victory is a definitive work on an epic confrontation by one of today's leading military writers.

Download or read book The Great Waterloo Controversy written by Gareth Glover and published by Frontline Books. This book was released on 2020-12-02 with total page 335 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This groundbreaking historical study resolves a hotly debated conundrum with a newly uncovered firsthand account of the Battle of Waterloo. As the battle reached its momentous climax, Napoleon’s Imperial Guard marched towards the Duke of Wellington’s thinning red line. Having never before tasted defeat, it was now sent reeling back in disorder. The British 1st Foot Guards were honored for this historic victory by being renamed the Grenadier Guards. But while the 52nd Foot also contributed to the defeat of the Imperial Guard, it received no comparable recognition. The ensuing controversy has continued down the decades and remains a highly contentious subject. But now, thanks to the previously unpublished journal of Charles Holman of the 52nd Foot, Gareth Glover sheds vital new light on those final, fatal moments. Using these journals and other firsthand accounts, Glover pieces together the most likely sequence of events as well as their immediate aftermath. Who did Wellington honor at the time? How did the Foot Guards gain much of the credit in London? Was there an establishment cover-up? Were the 52nd robbed of their glory? The Great Waterloo Controversy is the definitive answer to these questions.

Download or read book Waterloo 1815 Wavre to Plancenoit written by Peter Hofschröer and published by Casemate Publishers. This book was released on 2006-06-19 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The acclaimed historian sheds new light on the Battle of Waterloo and the defeat of Napoleon with a focus on the Prussian Army’s critical contribution. Histories of the Waterloo campaign that brought an end to the Napoleonic Wars generally concentrate on the battle between the armies of Napoleon Bonaparte and the Duke of Wellington, giving Field Marshal Blücher's Prussian forces only passing attention. But in this fascinating historical analysis of the conflict, Peter Hofschröer provides a full account of the Prussians and their critical but often neglected side of the battle. Hofschröer vividly recounts the grueling Prussian advance towards the battlefield and the ferocious and decisive fight that broke out when they arrived. At every stage, he allows the reader to follow in the footsteps of the Prussian soldiers as they struggled across the Belgian countryside on that fateful day in 1815.

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 Napoleon Victorious written by Peter G Tsouras and published by . This book was released on 2017-09-30 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It is June 1815 and an Anglo-led Allied army under the Duke of Wellington’s command and Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher is set to face Napoleon Boneparte near Waterloo in present-day Belgium. What happens next is well known to any student of history: the two armies of the Seventh Coalition defeated Bonaparte in a battle that resulted in the end of his reign and of the First French Empire. But the outcome could have been very different, as Peter Tsouras demonstrates in this thought-provoking and highly readable alternate history of the fateful battle. By introducing minor – but realistic – adjustments, Tsouras presents a scenario in which the course of the battle runs quite differently, which in turn sets in motion new and unexpected possibilities. Cleverly conceived and expertly executed, this is alternate history at its best.