It's got to be the cape. Music doesn't sound right without capes.
Posted on 06/17/2015 6:31:08 AM PDT by SES1066
... Waterloo lit the slow fuse of the horrifying force of German hypernationalism, the defeat of which required the sacrifice of the British Empire 130 years later. Although at the time the battle seemed merely like the last of a series of traditional dynastic and territorial struggles, in fact Waterloo ushered in the modern world. And as Winston Churchill predicted at the end of the 19th century: "The wars of peoples will be more terrible than the wars of kings."
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
German "hypernationalism" was simply a belated counterpart and reaction to the French "hypernationalism" that replaced Christianity as the cultural center of French life.
By "hypernationalism" I'm assuming he is referencing the blend of scientific racism, militarism, collectivism, and mystical sense of ethnic destiny that characterized National Socialism.
France had all of that and invented all of that: de Gobineau, the anti-Dreyfusards, Boulanger, the Communards, and Action Francais.
Nothing to do with Waterloo, really.
It is the battle too because it was the first time Wellington actually commanded an army in the field against Napoleon himself. In Spain, Wellington was opposed by Napoleon’s Marshalls. Many thought that the Duke of Wellington could not actually beat Napoleon in a battle one on one. And even now who can say, because it took the return of the Prussian Army under Blucher to defeat Napoleon at Waterloo. It wasn’t looking so good for Wellington at the time pre-Blucher.
I am so glad this didn’t turn out to be a thread about ABBA and disco.
France had other intentions too if and when they won the war. I read that they had planned to take the land back that they had sold to the US under the Louisiana Purchase.
Napoleon knew the Prussians were coming and could not beat Wellington in time to deal with them thus Wellington beat Napoleon. He was a better General and better man than Napoleon in my opinion. I’ve tried to read histories of Napoleon but the guy makes me sick. You can get some good histories of Wellington. Napoleon was a complete megalomaniac who didn’t give a damn about his soldiers. He had many close calls of his own and was lucky to have such a fiercely nationalistic army.
It's got to be the cape. Music doesn't sound right without capes.
I blame YOU, MrEdd, for provoking ‘snickering hound’ to sully this deeply thought and serious thread with that foul picture. As for you, ‘snickering hound’, I’m so going snidely on you, you mangy mutt!
Wellington's forces were positioned all along the line with HIS most trusted groups in strategic places to assure the line would hold.
The troops who were experienced and proved loyal had been with him in Portugal. They were placed in the line where their refusal to retreat would be an example and foil to others who might be tempted to back down.
Also, Wellington picked that low ridge because for miles around (in a very flat topography) it was the only terrain that resembled high ground ... AND which had trackless forest immediately behind. He felt this too would discourage retreat, as his troops would find NO easy way off that ridge, in their rear.
The British had been (even up to Waterloo) plagued with en masse, battlefield desertions of whole regiments which were made up of coalition, non British forces and were not to be trusted. The famous 'sunken road' or the Ohain Road right in front of, and nearly parallel TO the British line, was a nasty surprise for the French. It was something they SHOULD have scoped out way in advance of the fight... BUT Marshal Murat wasn't there, sooooo.....
Must rewatch my DVD of WATERLOO staring Christopher Plumber and Rod Steiger.
Great movie! Battle scenes filmed in Russia by Sergie Bondarchuk who made the eight hour epic WAR AND PEACE.
Then there was the Frenchman who applied for English citizenship to the horror of his friends.
He would not say why.
When he became an English citizen, he told them why.
“Yesterday, Waterloo was a defeat. TODAY, it is a victory!”
You couldn’t escape if you wanted to...
I always thought that the British informal word for toilet, “the loo” was named after the battle. Turns out that of all possible sources, it would be a different Waterloo;
http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/loo
Edna disagrees.
Excellent post. Thanks for the history lesson. Wellington was known as a master of terrain. I don’t know if he got that reputation from Spain or from Waterloo, but you look at some of those wonderful defensive positions he held in Spain and you wonder what the French Marshalls were thinking to even attack the British. Then there was all the infighting between them. I think Napoleon would have quickly rid Iberia of the British if Napoleon had stayed and taken personal command.
Every consideration of Napoleon ends with wondering if he could have held Europe indefinitely had he never invaded Russia. Britain would have opposed him forever, but if he just sat back and consolidated power on the Continent, only squelching whatever attacks were mustered against him, you have to wonder if he would have held that place forever making a defacto US of Europe and eliminating both world wars.
I will always wonder.
We will have to differ. IMO, Napoleon was a brilliant general. He knew every one of Julius Caesar’s land battles by heart. He never lost a battle until Waterloo. The weather beat him in Moscow and like 1941, it was a particularly historic cold year completely unexpected.
I will make you even sicker. I think Napoleon was a great man and a great statesman with a noble goal, even if his means were wrong.
The victors write history and it was incumbent on Great Britain to insure that everything written about Napoleon made him seem as evil as Adolph Hitler. Nothing could be further from the truth. He was not perfect. He was no saint. Call him an egomaniac but just about every ruler is on some level.
Napoleon was a product of the revolutionary times that formed him. He absolutely LOVED France and was uber Patriotic. He hated Monarchies and wanted them eliminated. I don’t know if he wanted democratic government or not because he crowned himself Emperor, but there is every evidence that he admired the US Republic and it was a model for what he wanted for Europe, and that being a dictator was just an interim means to an end. We do know that when given the choice, he instituted a Republic in France and wrote a Constitution based on the US constitution — one he kicked himself for making too unflexible to change, unlike ours.
As far as my saying he was a great statesman, like the Roman conquerers, in every nation he occupied he improved th quality of life of the local people by building roads, improving sanitation and the water supply, founding schools, supporting the arts, and other infrastructure and societal improvments. Spain is about the only place that did not occur, because the Spanish people never submitted to him.
In essence, I believe that Napoleon yearned for a United States of Europe under the French banner. His defeat certainly didn’t stop war on the continent and lead to the 2 worst wars this world has ever experienced. Had he been able to pull off a United States of Europe that held Prussia and Germany under its influence — while leaving them their national identities and pride — we might have seen only a fraction of death from war in the 20th century.
Who knows?
Americans are taught by our link to Britain to hate Napoleon and think of him as an evil megalomaniac dictator. The story is much different that that.
Everyone wonders.
I am sure the Empire was already rotting when Napoleon I lost power.
Anyway, Wellington did wonderfully well in Spain Portugal because HIS communication and supply lines WERE assured by the British navy. No one and nothing interfered with what he needed in the field. He was supplied totally by sea at secure Portuguese and Spanish ports.
Also, Spain (Iberia) was called Napoleon’s ‘ulcer’. He led then SENT a jaded and discordant force into that country and the population took full advantage of everything that kind of confusion and discord does to an army.
The Church was instrumental in organizing the population into destructive mobs and insanely courageous individuals. Even the women waged war. The people were your friends in the daytime and enemies after dark. Some of the worst atrocities ever known in modern fighting were begun in that fight. It was the first truly guerilla fight in recorded history.
Worse still, many of the Marshals sent there DID NOT want to be there, didn’t agree with or comprehend the politics, etc. Many were long-standing rivals and enemies to one another. They never got along and this was such a problem that some even outright sabotaged the plans and efforts of others.
I think it was Marshal Soult who even wanted to set up a separate kingdom for himself, there. Crazy!
The stand out Marshals and the real star performers in the French military, who were unlucky enough to be deployed there, got in and back out of that place with AT LEAST their reputations intact. Not so for most of them ... and in the end it was a disastrous failure.
Reading all that is better than any fake Hollywood drama!
BFL
I agree. Knowledgable post.
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