Waterloo: The Campaign of 1815, Volume 2

From Waterloo to the Restoration of Peace in Europe

John Hussey

• Editore: Greenhill Books
• Anno: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781784382025
• Argomento: Historia
• Categoria: Guerras napoleónicas

Winner of the 2019 RUSI Duke of Wellington Medal for Military HistoryWinner of the 2017 Society for Army Historical Research Templer MedalShortlisted for Military History Monthly's "Book of the Year" AwardThe first of two groundbreaking volumes on the Waterloo campaign, this book is based upon a detailed analysis of sources old and new in four languages. It highlights the political stresses between the Allies, and their resolution; it studies the problems of feeding and paying for 250, 000 Allied forces assembling in Belgium during the undeclared war, and how a strategy was thrashed out. It studies the neglected topic of how the slow and discordant Allies beyond the Rhine hampered the plans of Blcher and Wellington, thus allowing Napoleon to snatch the initiative from them. Napoleons operational plan is analyzed (and Soult's mistakes in executing it). Accounts from both sides help provide a vivid impression of the fighting on the first day, 15 June, and the volume ends with the joint battles of Ligny and Quatre Bras the next day.

Orders of Battle

I have compiled orders of battle for the three contending armies, as they were assembled in early June before the start of operations. I have used mainly the works of Houssaye, 1898, Couderc, 1902, and De Bas and T’Serclaes de Wommersom (DBTS), 1908, for Napoleon’s army; Lettow-Vorbeck, 1904, and DBTS for Blücher’s army; Siborne, 1848, and DBTS for Wellington’s army. None of them is without slips and uncertainties: Fortescue in 1920 remarked that Siborne’s Waterloo order of battle ‘seems from internal evidence to be imperfect’, and various returns given in WD and WSD also show variations. Fortescue relied principally on Lt.-Colonel W. H. James’s book on the campaign, 1908, which distilled the figures from the above and other sources. A recent and extensive set of orders of battle can be found in Adkin’s Waterloo Companion, 2001, but even that has some small slips, e.g. the King’s Dragoon Guards, and a misprint over Grouchy’s strength at Wavre.

Given these disparities between good authorities, it would be foolish to pretend that my listings are without errors and omissions, and I submit them with due diffidence.

Orders of Battle 1

Anglo-Allied Army

...

Commander-in-Chief	Field Marshal The Duke of Wellington
Military Secretary	Lt.-Col. Lord F. Somerset
5 ADCs; 3 Extra ADCs,
Adjutant-General	Maj.-Gen. Sir E. Barnes
11 AAGs; 10 DAAGs
Deputy QMG	Col. Sir W. H. De Lancey
17 AQMGs; 12 DAQMGs
Commandant, Headquarters	Col. Sir C. Campbell
Commanding Artillery	Col. Sir G. Wood
Commanding RHA	Lt.-Col. Sir A. S. Fraser
Commanding Train	Lt.-Col. Sir A. Dickson
I Corps	Gen. The Prince 0f Orange	25,233 men and 56 guns
1st Division	Maj.-Gen. Cooke
1st British Brigade	Maj.-Gen. Maitland
2/1st Guards		976
3/1st Guards		1,021
2nd British Brigade	Maj.-Gen. Sir J. Byng
2/Coldstream Guards		1,003
2/Scots Guards		1,061
Artillery	Lt.-Col. Adye
Capt. Sandham’s British FB		5 x 9-pdr, 1 x 5.5 inch how.
Maj. Kuhlmann’s HB, KGL		5 x 9-pdr, 1 x 5.5 inch how.
3rd Division	Lt.-Gen. Sir C. Alten
5th British Brigade	Maj.-Gen. Sir Colin Halkett
2/30th Foot		615
33rd Foot		561
2/69th Foot		516
2/73rd Foot		562
2nd Brigade, KGL	Col. von Ompteda
1/Light, KGL		423
2/Light, KGL		337
5/Line, KGL		379
8/Line, KGL		388
1st Hanoverian Brigade	Maj.-Gen. Count Kielmansegge
Field Battalion Bremen		512
Field Battalion Verden		533
Field Battalion York		507
Field Battalion Lüneburg