Προσθήκη στα αγαπημένα
Waterloo was the last battle fought by Napoleon and the one which finally ended his imperial dreams. It involved the deployment of huge armies and incurred heavy losses on both sides; for those who fought in it, Dutch and Belgians, Prussians and Hanoverians as well as British and French troops, it was a murderous struggle.
It was a battle that would be remembered very differently across Europe. In Britain it would be seen as an iconic battle whose memory would be enmeshed in British National identity across the following century. In London news of the victory unleashed an outburst of patriotic celebration and captured the imagination of the public. The Duke of Wellington would go on to build his political career on it, and towns and cities across Britain and the Empire raised staues and memorials to the victor.
In Prussia and Holland the memory of Waterloo was muted- in prussia overshadowed by the battle of the Nationsat Leipzig, in Holland a simple appendage to the prestige of the House of Orange. Perhaps most curiously of all, in France it would be portrayed as the very epitome of heroic defeat. Encapsulated in the bravery of General Cambronne and the last stand of the Old Guard., remembered movingly in the lines of Stendhal and Victor Hugo, the memory of Waterloo served to sustain the romantic legend of the Napoleonic Wars- amd contributed to the growing cult of Napoleon himself.
1:Introduction
2:The Genesis of the Waterloo Campaign
3:The Battle
4:The Return of Peace: First Responses to Waterloo
5:Eye-witness Accounts
6:Wellington, Waterloo, and British Identity
7:Waterloo and the Napoleonic Legend
8:Waterloo in German, Dutch and Belgian Memory
Further Reading
Notes
Index
Περιγραφή
Waterloo was the last battle fought by Napoleon and the one which finally ended his imperial dreams. It involved the deployment of huge armies and incurred heavy losses on both sides; for those who fought in it, Dutch and Belgians, Prussians and Hanoverians as well as British and French troops, it was a murderous struggle.
It was a battle that would be remembered very differently across Europe. In Britain it would be seen as an iconic battle whose memory would be enmeshed in British National identity across the following century. In London news of the victory unleashed an outburst of patriotic celebration and captured the imagination of the public. The Duke of Wellington would go on to build his political career on it, and towns and cities across Britain and the Empire raised staues and memorials to the victor.
In Prussia and Holland the memory of Waterloo was muted- in prussia overshadowed by the battle of the Nationsat Leipzig, in Holland a simple appendage to the prestige of the House of Orange. Perhaps most curiously of all, in France it would be portrayed as the very epitome of heroic defeat. Encapsulated in the bravery of General Cambronne and the last stand of the Old Guard., remembered movingly in the lines of Stendhal and Victor Hugo, the memory of Waterloo served to sustain the romantic legend of the Napoleonic Wars- amd contributed to the growing cult of Napoleon himself.
