The problem with this approach to apportioning glory is that the defenders of La Haye Sainte, stupendously brave though they undoubtedly were, were supported by Wellington's artillery and infantry across part of the Anglo-Allied front. With the Prussians arriving in force on the battlefield after 4.30pm, Napoleon had to send increasing forces eastwards to check them, and a major contribution was also made by the troops holding the other farmhouse, Hougoumont. Not one of the 13 Anglo-Allied squares broke under French cavalry attacks, so those men can also be credited with having "decided" Waterloo by saving Wellington's line. Moreover, as Glover points out, if one adds the men who reinforced La Haye Sainte during the day, from the 1st Light and the 5th Line battalions of the KGL and the 1st battalion of the 2nd Nassau Regiment, the total number of defenders was 871 rather than 378. The total number killed, wounded and missing was 323 out of the 871, which is very high but not the 90 per cent of popular legend.
"It is clear that all the nations involved played their full part in the defeat of Napoleon on that fateful day," is Glover's judicious summing-up. "Wellington would not have stood against Napoleon had he not received solid assurances that [the Prussian commander Field Marshal Gebhard von] Blücher would join him that day. During the campaign many German and Dutch/Belgian units fought equally bravely alongside their British allies and played significant roles." There's more than enough glory to go around, he therefore argues. For all that the defence of La Haye Sainte equates with Rorke's Drift in its desperate heroism, it didn't actually "decide" the battle.
In one area alone do both Glover and Simms fall into a common error, and that is in their absurd demonology of Napoleon himself. Simms believes that in 1815 Napoleon "threatened another generation of fighting", whereas in fact he sent out genuine peace offers to the Allied governments at their Congress in Vienna, desperately hoping to avoid a conflict that he knew he was unlikely to win in the long term as hundreds of thousands of Russians and Austrians marched to the support of the Prussian and Anglo-Allied armies in Belgium.
Glover meanwhile states that "to the vast majority of Europeans in 1815, Napoleon was an insatiable warmonger, a despot, a criminal, a monster or an ogre; in many respects he was the Idi Amin or Saddam Hussein of his day."
Since far more wars had been declared on Napoleon by the Allies than he had declared on them, the charge of warmonger simply does not hold good unless William Pitt the Younger and Metternich can also be described as such, and the equations with Amin and Saddam amount to little more than vulgar abuse of a giant of European history whose monumental achievements can still be seen in the Civil Code, the lycées, the Légion d'Honneur, the Banque de France, the Empire style of art, the Conseil d'État, as well as French architecture, culture and society to this day.
"It is clear that all the nations involved played their full part in the defeat of Napoleon on that fateful day," is Glover's judicious summing-up. "Wellington would not have stood against Napoleon had he not received solid assurances that [the Prussian commander Field Marshal Gebhard von] Blücher would join him that day. During the campaign many German and Dutch/Belgian units fought equally bravely alongside their British allies and played significant roles." There's more than enough glory to go around, he therefore argues. For all that the defence of La Haye Sainte equates with Rorke's Drift in its desperate heroism, it didn't actually "decide" the battle.
In one area alone do both Glover and Simms fall into a common error, and that is in their absurd demonology of Napoleon himself. Simms believes that in 1815 Napoleon "threatened another generation of fighting", whereas in fact he sent out genuine peace offers to the Allied governments at their Congress in Vienna, desperately hoping to avoid a conflict that he knew he was unlikely to win in the long term as hundreds of thousands of Russians and Austrians marched to the support of the Prussian and Anglo-Allied armies in Belgium.
Glover meanwhile states that "to the vast majority of Europeans in 1815, Napoleon was an insatiable warmonger, a despot, a criminal, a monster or an ogre; in many respects he was the Idi Amin or Saddam Hussein of his day."
Since far more wars had been declared on Napoleon by the Allies than he had declared on them, the charge of warmonger simply does not hold good unless William Pitt the Younger and Metternich can also be described as such, and the equations with Amin and Saddam amount to little more than vulgar abuse of a giant of European history whose monumental achievements can still be seen in the Civil Code, the lycées, the Légion d'Honneur, the Banque de France, the Empire style of art, the Conseil d'État, as well as French architecture, culture and society to this day.
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