The Battle of Waterloo: Bernard Cornwell (1815)
Bernard Cornwell by Felix Clay
Sunday 18 June 1815 is a date of enormous consequence in western history. It was the day when the two pre-eminent military commanders of their time – Napoleon Bonaparte and the Duke of Wellington – came face to face in battle.
In today’s brilliantly analysed episode, the much-loved novelist Bernard Cornwell takes us back to that fierce, bloody, epoch-defining event: the Battle of Waterloo.
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After a generation of conflict between Great Britain and France, many on the European continent greeted 1815 in more optimistic spirit. Napoleon, the brilliant military leader whose astonishing career had convulsed and reshaped the map of Europe, had been forced to abdicate. Following the Treaty of Fontainebleau, Napoleon was exiled to the little island of Elba off the Italian coast. His vast forces had been diminished to a small personal guard of six hundred men and a small navy.
Few foresaw the staggering sequence of events that lay ahead. In late February Napoleon slipped away from his island prison. Within a month he was back in Paris, King Louis XVIII had fled and he was busily recruiting a new army. This army, as Bernard Cornwell explains, in today’s episode, was one of the finest that Napoleon ever led. It was disciplined, determined and full of veteran troops.
Within weeks the restored king, Louis XVIII, had fled Paris and one of Napoleon’s most trusted commanders, Marshall Ney, had returned to fight alongside him. Nevertheless the situation Napoleon faced was daunting. He was encircled by enemies. He knew his only hope of survival was to quickly confront and defeat the British and Prussian armies that were close at hand.
Napoleon addresses the Old Guard as it prepares to attack the Anglo-allied centre at Waterloo (Wiki Commons)
By mid-June Napoleon’s army was equipped and marching north east, towards the Netherlands. After Marshal Ney confronted Wellington at the Battle of Quatre Bras and Napoleon defeated the Prussian General Blücher at the Battle of Ligny, the stage was set for the ultimate confrontation near the little town of Waterloo.
For a battle so monumental in its importance, several details of the Battle of Waterloo remain elusive. No one knows for certain just when it started. The exact position of units continues to be a source of debate. The action was too dispersed to be easily interpreted and those who could explain it best – Wellington being a notable example – often refused to discuss it in later years. Wellington’s most memorable remark has long remained that Waterloo was, ‘the nearest-run thing you ever saw in your life.’
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Taking us back to this extraordinary day in history is one of the world’s finest historical novelists. For forty years, since the publication of Sharpe’s Eagle, Bernard Cornwell has been producing thrilling, dramatic works of fiction. At the centre of his longest-running series is the rifleman Richard Sharpe, whose tangled path led – like so many of those of his time – to the battlefield at Waterloo.
In this brilliantly analytical episode Cornwell takes us back to Waterloo himself. Standing by an elm tree on a ridge, we watch Wellington at a defining moment in his career. We see Napoleon, the master tactician, as he plays his final hand. And we learn about the human cost of this enormous battle in its dreadful aftermath.
Bernard Cornwell’s new novel, Sharpe’s Assassin, is set in the weeks immediately after Waterloo, as Napoleon’s most loyal followers take their fight to the very end.
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Click here to order Bernard Cornwell’s book from John Sandoe’s who, we are delighted to say, are supplying books for the podcast.
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Show notes
Scene One: Sunday June 18th, 11.10 am. Napoleon orders his grand battery to start firing.
Scene Two: Sunday June 18th, 8.00 pm. Napoleon sends the Imperial Guard to save the battle.
Scene Three: Sunday June 18th, 10.00 pm. Wellington weeps over the casualties.
Memento: A heavy cavalry sword, carried in an attack at Waterloo.
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Presenter: Peter Moore
Guest: Bernard Cornwell
Production: Maria Nolan
Podcast partner: Colorgraph
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About Bernard Cornwell
Bernard Cornwell was born in London and worked in television until he met his American wife and moved to the US. Denied a work permit, he wrote a novel and has been writing ever since.
A master storyteller with a passion for history, his current bestselling series, The Last Kingdom, is centred around the creation of England. It is also a major TV series on Netflix, with Bernard playing a cameo role in season three. The fourth season is currently being filmed.
He is also the author of The Grail Quest series, set in the Hundred Years’ War, The Warlord chronicles, set in Arthurian Britain, a number of standalone novels, one non-fiction work on Waterloo and the series with which he began, the Sharpe series.
The Battlefield
Source: Library of Congress
The 100 Days
The period of Napoleon’s escape from the island of Elba to the battlefield at Waterloo is often described as ‘The 100 Days’. Here are some of the milestones in that time.
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26 February 1815: Napoleon and a small accompanying force (around 600 grenadiers of the Old Guard, a hundred Polish Lancers, 300 Corsicans and fifty Elite Gendarmes), escape from Elba aboard the French brig Inconstant.
1 March: Napoleon lands at Golfe-Juan on the Côte d'Azur at sunset. The spend the night on the beach at Cannes before commencing a march to Grenoble.
7 March: Napoleon covers the 200 miles to Grenoble in just six days. Members of the 5th Regiment join him and his growing army moves towards Paris.
13 March: Settled by the news, the Allied forces declare Napoleon an outlaw at the Congress of Vienna.
14 March: Marshal Ney, who had been dispatched to confront and arrest Napoleon, instead deserts. One of Napoleon’s most trusted and devoted followers re-joins the former emperor with his 6,000 men.
Mid March: All Europe is alarmed at the reports of Napoleon’s growing army. A general mobilisation is put in place with the objective of quickly defeating him.
19 March: King Louis XVIII releases a proclamation and flees Paris.
20 March: Napoleon reaches Paris.
15 June: Having constructed an army of almost quarter of a million men, Napoleon begins to march. His plan is to drive a wedge between the British and Prussian armies to the north east of Paris and to defeat them separately.
16 June: Napoleon defeats the Prussian commander Blücher at the Battle of Ligny. Meanwhile Marshal Ney confronts elements of Wellington’s army at the Battle of Quatre Bras.
18 June: Napoleon and Wellington meet at the Battle of Waterloo.
European royals marvel at the sight of the defeated Napoleon Bonaparte trapped in a glass bottle, 1815
(Wellcome Collection)
The Battle of Waterloo, Jan Willem Pieneman (1824)
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