Two Views of Waterloo

Further insights into the campaign of 1815

This book contains two pieces-one very short-which give the reader and student of military history further insights into the Battle of Waterloo. The first, 'Flying Sketches' is fascinating. It is the account of a British tourist who has landed at Ostend in time to be caught up in the momentous events of June, 1815. We are given insights into the court of Louis, the French monarch ever ready to flee before the advance of Napoleon. We are party to the conversations of British soldiers before the battle and witness the army as it marches from Brussels. The narrator visits the battlefields of Waterloo and Quatre Bras immediately after the termination of the battle and we discover it to be a lawless landscape where the wounded and dying still lay, where French stragglers still snipe at moving figures, where plunderers ply their deadly trade and where roaming Prussian troops, intimidating with threats and acts of violence, rob ally and enemy alike. The plight and care of the wounded in the aftermath of battle is also starkly described and several soldiers recount their battlefield experiences to the author. This is essential source material from a non-military author. It is accompanied here by a short work which, because of its length, would have been unlikely to receive re-publication in modern times. In it an anonymous sergeant of the Third Battalion, First Regiment of Foot Guards describes his experience of the great battle. Available in softcover and hardcover with dust jacket.