NetNews Usenet Archive 1993 #3/NN_1993_3.iso/spool/sci/military/12816

Internet Message Format | 1993-01-24 | 19.8 KB

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From: [e-mail] (Kunal N Taravade)
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: Waterloo account in Les Miserables - A Survey
Keywords: Waterloo, Napoleon, Les Miserables
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date: 24 Jan 93 15:59:48 GMT
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From Kunal N Taravade <[e-mail]>


Some time back I had requested the views of netters on the
account of the battle of Waterloo in Hugo's Les Miserables
with regard to his description about the main cause of the
defeat of Bonaparte. I recieved several email responses and
I am posting them here. I would like to thank all the
respondents for having taken the time to reply.


Contributions by
Neal Smith, Bruce Hulse, Pat Loney, Mike Campbell ,  Aggelos Keromyths  ,
JAN HAMIER  and Peter King.

    >From [e-mail] Thu Jan  7 15:19:52 1993
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    Date: Thu, 7 Jan 1993 15:07:35 -0500
    From: Neal Smith <[e-mail]>
    Message-Id: <[e-mail]>
    To: [e-mail] (Kunal N Taravade)
    Subject: Re: Is the Waterloo account in Les Miserables accurate?
    Status: OR


In article <[e-mail]>, you write:
|>
|> From [e-mail] (Kunal N Taravade)
|>
|>
|>
|> In Victor Hugo's classic work Les Miserables there appears a
|> rather fascinating and dramatic acccount of the fateful
|> battle of Waterloo, to which several pages are devoted. What
|> happens here on the battlefield has immense influence on the
|> incidents that occur later in the book.
|> According to this description, briefly, Napoleon lost because
|> of a tragic accident involving a large battalion which fell,
|> both men and horses, into a ditch which the strategists had
|> failed to identify as a possible source of danger. There were
|> also some tactical misjudgements and of course, as is well known,
|> nature played no small part in sealing Napoleon's fate.
|>
|> However, it appears from Hugo's portrayal of the battle that this
|> incident involving the fall of several men into the ditch was the
|> deciding factor in the battle.
|>
|> Would anyone like to make any comments regarding the above? Is this
|> how it is perceived by most historians?
  I'm not an expert on Waterloo, but I hadn't heard of that event.  Also,
the natural event you are referring to is the "tornado"?  I believe
that this occurred towards the end of the battle and didn't have too
much effect anyway.  I could be wrong.

  My views of why Nappy lost are the following:

    1)  Ney screwed up the use of the Cavalry Reserve.
    2)  Nappy wasn't feeling too well and was thus a little slower
        to react than usual.  He also didn't take tactical control
        of the battle, like he usually did.
    3)  The Brits were tough.
    4)  The Prussians showed up.
    5)  Grouchy(?) was out wandering the countryside with a whole
        corps that was sent out to hold up the Prussians.  They
        obviously didn't find them and were absent from the battle.

Later
Neal Smith
[e-mail]

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    >From [e-mail] Thu Jan  7 16:49:57 1993
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    Date:         Thu, 07 Jan 93 16:42:25 EST
    From: [e-mail]
    Organization: The American University
    Subject:      Re: Is the Waterloo account in Les Miserables accurate?
    To: [e-mail]
    Status: OR

Haven't read Les Miserables, but sounds like baloney to me. I have read some
detailed accounts of Waterloo and never heard any mention of such an event
(which begs the question of whether enough men could have fallen into a
ditch to have effected the outcome of a battle involving tens of thousands
in the first place...).

What may have inspired this account was an actual event during the Peninsular
campaign in which a squadron of Wellington's cavalry (not the French) fell int\
o
a gully while charging at full speed (apparently the gully was so well screene\
d
by some low lying brush that neither the men nor the horses saw it until too
late). It sort of ruined the cavalrymen's day....

I should also note while I'm at it that cavalry were rarely the decisive facto\
r
in Napoleonic battles. Normally it came down to the infantry....

Bruce Hulse
[e-mail]
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    >From [e-mail] Fri Jan  8 08:34:42 1993
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    Date:    Fri, 8 Jan 1993 8:34:32 -0500 (EST)
    From: [e-mail]
    Message-Id: <[e-mail]>
    Subject: Re: Is the Waterloo account in Les Miserables accurate?
    To: [e-mail]


Kunal,
     Although I am not a real expert on the Napoleanic era nor on Waterloo,
I have seen how the battle was set up.  The Prussian's and British outnumbered
the French and were set up in a defensive posture.  Napolean, due to the
stratigic military situation, and not the tactical situation, was forced to
attack.  His setup and attack could not have played better into Wellington's
hands.  Napolean never had a chance.
     As a couple of side notes, Napolean had some type of gasto-intestinal
bug that day and spent most of the battle in a field latrine coming out
occasionally to see how things were going.  Also, most of the French troops
were not even wearing their formal dress uniforms.  Elite, veteran, gaurd, etc
units always wear their dress uniforms on the field during battle.  It lets
the other side know that the best is about to come down on them.  This gives
the other side a litte bit more of a reason to break earlier.  But in Waterloo
the French troops were so confidant that they would win, they did not want to
get their uniforms dirty for the victory parade the next day.

Pat Loney

BTW, if you are looking for one single battlefield event that really changed
Napolean's fate (for the worse) look at Borodeno (sp), the famous battle of
1812.  In theory a draw and Kutasov had to withdraw from Moscow.  But his
army was intact.  During the battle (in November I believe) 10,000 French
troops (out of about 70-80,000 I think) got lost in a snow squall in the middl\
e
of the battle.  When the snow squall cleared, the French found themselves at
the bottom of a hill.  At the top was a Russian Grand Battery (175+ cannon).
The French commander knew he was commanding 10,000 soon to be dead men so he
charged the battery.  The Russians trained their guns on them and opened up
with cannister.  So within 3 minutes, 10,000 good French troops were eliminate\
d.
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    >From [e-mail] Sat Jan  9 18:48:27 1993
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    Organization: Me?  Organized?
    From: "Mike Campbell" <[e-mail]>
    To: [e-mail]
    Subject: Re: Is the Waterloo account in Les Miserables accurate?
    Status: OR


In article <[e-mail]> you write:

  > According to this description, briefly, Napoleon lost because
  > of a tragic accident involving a large battalion which fell,
  > both men and horses, into a ditch which the strategists had
  > failed to identify as a possible source of danger. There were
  > also some tactical misjudgements and of course, as is well known,
  > nature played no small part in sealing Napoleon's fate.
  >
  > However, it appears from Hugo's portrayal of the battle that this
  > incident involving the fall of several men into the ditch was the
  > deciding factor in the battle.
  >
  > Would anyone like to make any comments regarding the above? Is this
  > how it is perceived by most historians?

Um...Rubbish springs immediately to mind :-)

At Waterloo:
1. The British (mostly) hid behind a crest, making themselves less
vulnerable to artillery.

2. The French Cavalry attacking the British for most of the day
received little fire support from infantry or artillery, and made
little progress.

3. With the arrival of the Prussian army on the flank of the French
Napoleon launched the Imperial Guard at what he thought was the
weakest point of the British line (but remember he couldn't see most
of the British army), and they came upon the British Guards plus some
line units and were defeated.  For an excellent account of this action
see John Keegan's "The Face of Battle", which may be in your local
library.

There was, of course, plenty more to Waterloo, but those are 3 of the
more important features leading directly to Napoleon's defeat (IMHO).

  > I would appreciate email responses.

Not a problem :-)
--
Mike Campbell, Christchurch, New Zealand
[e-mail]
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    >From [e-mail] Sat Jan  9 17:47:19 1993
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    From: [e-mail] (Aggelos Keromyths)
    Message-Id: <[e-mail]>
    To: [e-mail]
    Status: OR


To: [e-mail] (Kunal N Taravade)
Subject: Re: Is the Waterloo account in Les Miserables accurate?
Newsgroups: sci.military

Yes, i have read this myself and if this what really happened, then
 Napoleon had a disadvantage later on.However, i have not read about this
 anywhere else.Moreover,even if this happened, the purpose of that particular
 attack was to capture St. John's Hill,and despite the heavy losses and the
 hidden English artillery there, the heavy cavalry made it.So, that was not
 the real problem.In reality, the events that lead to Napoleon's defeat were
 the rain early that morning and Grussy's failure to stop Blycher (you know,
 that Prussian general..dunno how to write his name correctly).
Aggelos

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| existance. It is a fight of  | Heraclion, Greece        | within the fire   \
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| great interests, and in this | Tel. [phone]        | Twisted, warped   \
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| only does it differ from the | E-mail:                  | deranged i see    \
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| other conflicts."            | [e-mail] |  the world's      \
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|   Karl von Klausewitz        | [e-mail]  | corrupt insanity. \
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    >From [e-mail] Sun Jan 10 16:11:17 1993
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    Date: Mon, 11 Jan 93 08:11:07 EST
    From: [e-mail] (Peter King)
    Message-Id: <[e-mail]>
    To: [e-mail] (Kunal N Taravade)
    Subject: Re: Is the Waterloo account in Les Miserables accurate?
    Status: OR


> In Victor Hugo's classic work Les Miserables there appears a
> rather fascinating and dramatic acccount of the fateful
> battle of Waterloo, to which several pages are devoted. What
> happens here on the battlefield has immense influence on the
> incidents that occur later in the book.
> According to this description, briefly, Napoleon lost because
> of a tragic accident involving a large battalion which fell,
> both men and horses, into a ditch which the strategists had
> failed to identify as a possible source of danger. There were
> also some tactical misjudgements and of course, as is well known,
> nature played no small part in sealing Napoleon's fate.

> However, it appears from Hugo's portrayal of the battle that this
> incident involving the fall of several men into the ditch was the
> deciding factor in the battle.

> Would anyone like to make any comments regarding the above? Is this
> how it is perceived by most historians?
--

        I've read of this event somewhere else too.  From memory it was an
account of the Battle of Waterloo by Stendholm (sp?), which I had gathered to
be factual rather than a collection of fond memories.  It's been over 5 years
since I've read the essay but I seem to recall that Stendholm mentions that
some cavalry charged over a gully and the gully was quite deep.  Anyway, the
cavalry kept going and the gully was eventually filled up with dead horses and
riders, over the top of which the remaining cavalry charged over.


        I'll look up the essay tonight and get back to you if you're intereste\
d.


                                Peter


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Peter King                               *         The home of TORTUS.
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University of Sydney, NSW 2006           *   O
AUSTRALIA                                *   Roid of
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    >From [e-mail] Mon Jan 11 08:38:04 1993
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    Date:           Monday, 11 January 1993, 08:22:36 EST
    From: JAN HAMIER <[e-mail]>
    To: <[e-mail]>
    Subject:        RE: Victor Hugo and Waterloo.
    Status: OR


Dear Mr. Taravade,

        In reply to your request regarding the accuracy of Victor Hogo's
description of the battle of Waterloo, i forward you the following
information found in the "Waterloo Committee Official Battlefield Guide":

        Yes indeed, the French cavalery suffered heavy losses due to the
so-called "chemin creux" except that in reality, it was not as deep as
Victor Hugo described it. The "chemin creux" is west of the
Brussels-Charleroi road, near the lion monument. The french cavalery never
saw it because a) it was deep and b) the whole battlefield was (and still
is) covered with rye high enough to hide mens. Today, the "chemin creux"
is no longer "creux" (a mere 50 cm at most) because it was levelled out,
the soil been used to erect the huge cone on which the lion sits.

        I hope the information provided is satisfactory.

        Regards.
                                                        J. Hamier.

Acknowledge-To: <[e-mail]>

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    >From sci.military Mon Jan 11 15:21:29 1993
    Newsgroups: sci.military
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    h!hubcap!ncrcae!ncrhub2!ciss!law7!military
    From: [e-mail] (Michael White)
    Subject: Re:  Waterloo account in Les Miserables
    Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
    Followup-To: sci.military
    Sender: [e-mail] (Sci.Military Login)
    Organization: The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
    Date: Mon, 11 Jan 1993 04:26:30 GMT
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>From [e-mail] (Michael White)

In 24800 Kunal Taravade writes:

--> Napoleon lost because of a tragic accident involving a large battalion
which --> fell, both men and horses, into a ditch which the strategists had
--> failed to identify as a possible source of danger. There were
--> also some tactical misjudgements and of course, as is well known,
--> nature played no small part in sealing Napoleon's fate.

--> However, it appears from Hugo's portrayal of the battle that this
--> incident involving the fall of several men into the ditch was the
--> deciding factor in the battle.

Hugo's account of the battle of Waterloo in Les Miserables is one of the
better known fictional accounts of Napoleon's final defeat.  However, it
does contain
several innaccuracies, the "myth of the ditch" being most prominent.

The battlefield was clear of major terrain obstacles.  There were hedgerows
along some of the roads and paths and parts of the Nivelles road which
ran just behind and parallel to the Anglo-Dutch lines was partially sunken.
This offered the allied forces some protection against bombardment.
However,
However,
it was not deep enough to disrupt cavalry.

During the Waterloo campaign, Napoleon had many opportunities to defeat the
Prussian-Anglo-Allied forces.  Numerous mistakes and incompetent
leadership undid every success.  If nature had anything to do with the
French defeat it was the torrential rains of the 17th which slowed the
French pursuit of Wellington's army and turned the battlefield into a
muddy mess on the morning of the 18th.

Hugo (and others) seized on the myth of the ditch as an excuse for the
defeat.  However, Napoleon once stated that the failure of the campaign
was due to the fact that no one, from colonel on up, did their job
properly.


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Thank You

*********************************************
Kunal N Taravade
School of Electrical Engineering
Purdue University
[e-mail]
*********************************************