Rethinking Waterloo from Multiple Perspectives by FRANCESCO SCATIGNA

EUROCLIO presents Teaching 1815 Rethinking Waterloo from Multiple Perspectives by FRANCESCO SCATIGNA with the high patronage of JUNE 2015: bicentenary of the Battle of Waterloo Copyright This publication is published under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0) — Unless indicated otherwise, the images used in this publication are in the public domain Published by EUROCLIO - European Association of History Education Under the patronage of Layout & Graphics IMERICA Giovanni Collot, Nicolas Lozito and Federico Petroni www.imerica.it Printed in June 2015 Acknowledgements his publication has been developed for EUROCLIO – European Association of History Educators Tby Francesco Scatigna (Historiana Editor) with the support of Joke van der Leeuw-Roord (EUROCLIO Founder and Special Advisor). The publication makes use of contributions of participants to and partners (Waterloo200 and the Waterloo Belgium Committee) in the international Seminar “Teaching 1815. Rethinking the Battle of Waterloo from Multiple Perspectives”. The publication is made possible thanks to the support of the Province of the Brabant Walloon. EUROCLIO would like to thank all contributors to this publication and its partners in the organisation of the seminar. The work of EUROCLIO is made possible through the support of the Europe for Citizens programme of the European Union. TEACHING 1815: Rethinking Waterloo from Multiple Perspectives | 3 table of chapter 1 chapter 2 Introduction Remembering Waterloo and the Napoleonic wars page page 6 8 4 | TEACHING 1815: Rethinking Waterloo from Multiple Perspectives contents chapter 3 chapter 4 How to make Conclusions teaching & about it Endnotes attractive page page 16 28 TEACHING 1815: Rethinking Waterloo from Multiple Perspectives | 5 introduction “The history of a battle is not unlike the history of a ball. Some individuals may recollect all the little events of which the great result is the battle won or lost; but no individual can recollect the order in which, or the exact moment at which, they occurred, which makes all the difference as to their value or importance.”1 — Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington 6 | TEACHING 1815: Rethinking Waterloo from Multiple Perspectives why a conference - and a publication - about waterloo? 015 marks the bicentenary occupy the centre of the stage, lea- of the Battle of Waterloo, ving little space for a democratic a milestone in Europe’s narrative - and consequently no 2th 19 -century history, a defining room for a full understanding of moment in European history the great changes in history. which marked the end of the Re- volutionary and then Napoleonic Finally, EUROCLIO, and therefore wars (1792-1815), and drew the this publication, tries and speak to curtains over the first phase of the a wide audience; in fact, we hope to revolutionary years. reach the widest possible audience, and to seed in the reader’s mind Many initiatives are taking place some of the principles EUROCLIO is to commemorate the anniversary, committed to: innovation in his- such as official commemorations tory education, multiperspectivity, on the battlefield and academic the concept of responsible history events. It is high time, then, for teaching, and development of cri- history education organisations tical thinking. and educators to seize the moment Young people, young students, and develop cross-border, enga- are therefore at the centre of our ging educational initiatives. In this concerns. During the Seminar in framework, EUROCLIO, the Euro- Braine L’Alleud emerged a feeling, pean Association of History Edu- among educators, that Waterloo cators, together with Waterloo200, is an important event which had a the city of Braine L’Alleud, and the huge impact on European history, Province of the Brabant Walloon, and yet not enough time is dedica- organised an international Semi- ted to it in schools. nar for history educators, titled “Teaching 1815. Rethinking the Battle While trying to reach a gene- of Waterloo from Multiple Perspec- ral audience, this publication was tives”, which took place in Braine primarily written with teachers L’Alleud on 12-15 February 2015. and teachers’ needs in mind; its Stemming from this successful ini- primary mission, so to say, is to tiative, this publication tries and support high quality teaching of gives an idea of the complexity of Waterloo. the event ‘Waterloo’, the multiple The Battle has enjoyed quite an angles it can be approached from, amount of attention from a mi- and the intellectual richness it can litary point of view. But Water- provide students with, if taught loo is not only a battle between with passion, innovation, and cul- Napoleon and Wellington, nor is tural awareness. it a mere military confrontation. Waterloo is a defining moment in This publication aims at overco- European history; Waterloo is one ming the classic military reading of of those fine tipping points that de- the battle, by including the views cided on the course of history. In and opinions of a larger variety sum, Waterloo is much more than of characters (civilians, common a battle: it is a metaphor of both the soldiers, public opinion at large...). preceding and the successive years, Besides, it aims at countering the and as such it is also an extremely classic ‘great men history’, who useful event for history teaching. TEACHING 1815: Rethinking Waterloo from Multiple Perspectives | 7 Remembering Waterloo and the napoleonic wars 8 | TEACHING 1815: Rethinking Waterloo from Multiple Perspectives WATERLOO IN waterloo 2.1HISTORIOGRAPHY - in - historiography ow have historians remem- the 1830s and 1840s historians and bered Waterloo until now? military experts who did not par- HThe interest in Waterloo ticipate to the battle started publi- has changed over time, and it may shing new accounts; among them, PUBLIC be worth, here, briefly summarise Dutch and Prussian texts are parti- REMEMBRANCE how and why it did so. cularly notable: the Dutch account, 2.2 As per many historical events, written by a former aide-de-camp IN WATERLOO this battle has changed status when of Frederick of the Netherlands national narrative and national in- (whose division was in Waterloo terest required to2. but did not see action) focuses on The very first accounts of the ba- the positioning and on the events ttle came from the actors themsel- concerning Dutch troops - thus ves: Napoleon himself published concentrating on building a na- his first account of the battle in the tional memory of the battle. The Moniteur (17, 18 and 21 June 1815); Prussian accounts, among which he dictated a second one while on one written by von Clausewitz and his journey to St. Helena, which ac- published in 18353, are all more te- THE ROLE OF cused Marshall Ney and Grouchy of chnical and focused on the way the 2.3PERSPECTIVES fatal mistakes that led to the defeat. battle developed. In Britain, discus- From the British side, Wellington’s sion revolved around Wellington’s party responded to critics as early performance, and the role Prussian as thirteen years after Waterloo (Sir troops had, rather than on the batt- Napier’s account of the Peninsular le itself; Britain was at the apex of Wars dates from 1828). its world power, and victory at Wa- The first post-Waterloo years terloo was a non contentious sub- were thus characterised by pam- ject: British troops, alone, had won phlets and contrasting accounts. In the battle, as consensus went. TODAY’S 2.4 RELEVANCE Portrait of Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington – 1814 TEACHING 1815: Rethinking Waterloo from Multiple Perspectives | 9 The second half of the XIXth century and its nationalism affected the way Waterloo was studied, especially in the Continent, where French historians felt the need of reassessing the defeat (a glorious defeat4) and their Prusso-German colleagues worked for a definitive recognition of the essential role of Prussian troops on the field. The rising of tensions towards the end of the century and the change in the traditional diplomatic assets applied pressure upon the classic perspectives on Waterloo. In 1915, the British government downpla- yed celebrations of the centenary: in the middle of an equally devas- tating war, the old enemy was now London’s best ally5. However, the XXth century marked also a new change in the way information was collected: authors started feeding from multiple ar- chives - while until then the usual research concerned one archive and foreign, published sources at times. The First World War, which su- perseded the Napoleonic Wars as the new Great War, prompted new reflections among French historians, who started wondering about the reasons of Napoleon’s defeat. Until the Second World War, historians had focused on the high commands’ perspectives on the battle, with very few mentions to the soldiers - let alone to the civilians, or the social repercussions of the Battle and the campaign in general. In the aftermath of the war, finally, new perspectives started being taken into account and ego-docu- ments from common soldiers be- “Our ally is today came the core of some new works6 - coming especially from Engli- our sworn enemy!” sh-speaking historians. Waterloo studies followed in the new trends in history writing, and turned to a A cartoon depicting King George V sweeping away his German less classic, more ‘democratic’ kind titles in 1917. During the First World War the Royal House changed of presentation. Bruno Colson calls its name from ‘Saxe-Coburg and Gotha’ to the more British it ‘Cultural History’, and adds: ‘Windsor’. “Historians are now concerned by the cultural repercussions of the event A Good Riddance – L. Raven Hill 1917 itself and its memorialising.7” 10 | TEACHING 1815: Rethinking Waterloo from Multiple Perspectives public remembrance - and - Waterloo he scale of the battle of community with a sense of what Waterloo was huge - even the nation was and of what it stood in modern terms: its almost for, thus creating the bases for T 10 50.000 deaths within a single day common public remembrance .

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