Talk:Battle of Waterloo/Archive 1

message: The conclusion should mention the decisivness of the battle and its impact on Europe over the next 50+ years. There should also be a link to the Congress of Vienna 
I am willing to make some of these changes but if anyone agrees with me I'd be happy to let someone else do them Philip Baird Shearer 00:27, 17 May 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with you (and TeunSpaans) that this article is inadequate.  I had been thinking that Waterloo would make an excellent signature article for WikiProject Battles; it's well known, well documented, relatively short, and shouldn't arouse too much argument (wishful thinking).  However, I've got zero knowledge on the subject so can't really contribute much (I can do a map of the movements leading up to the battle; Ligny, Wavre, Quatre Bras and Waterloo, but that's about it).  Anyway, you have my support if you want to make the necessary changes. Geoff/Gsl 04:40, 17 May 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  In the conclusion section 

message: There is a map of the battle, in the battle box on the German page de:Schlacht bei Waterloo. Could someone who knows how to do it, put it into the battle box on this page? Philip Baird Shearer 22:58, 23 May 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Map 

message: As about the quote, i think it can be moved to a seperate quotes section, where the 'merde' of the french imperial guards officer can also be included. No doubt old Nap also made a nice statement.
TeunSpaans 06:00, 19 Aug 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree on that last one... TeunSpaans 18:31, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  More on Quotes

message: Wellington's hodge-podge command consisted of British, German, Dutch and Belgian troops. Some of these were of very poor quality (some Belgian and Dutch had even fought in the French Army and were thus sympathetic towards Napoleon), and ran away before the conflict began.
Um, this bit is utter nonsense and very POV. Most Dutch and Belgians did not support the occupation and annexation of their country by Napoleon, and liked even less that their men-folk were rounded up to be used as cannon fodder for the Russian campaign. Many Dutch officers were indeed veterans from Dutch regiments in French service, but those same officers led their soldiers with distinction while holding off the French at Quatre Bras (though sadly the Battle of Quatre Bras article also suffers from the same Anglo-centric themes). As this site mentions, the Dutch-Belgian regiments at Waterloo were only forced to retreat after enduring an artillery bombardment and repelling several infantry assaults. No cavalry charge came to their rescue, unlike what happened when British regiments were similarly pressed.
While English-language popular history texts, movies and television programmes emphasise the British contribution, the British-born were in fact a minority of the total Allied forces at Waterloo - Germans and Belgian-Dutch made up the majority!  --kudz75 01:58, 10 Dec 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Wellington's hodge-podge command consisted of British, German, Dutch and Belgian troops. Some of these were of very poor quality and ran away before the conflict began. 
It does not specify which nation's troops ran and it only states that "some" did. However as it is a slur and the regiments (if any) that ran away ought to be named, or the paragraph ought to be removed.  I think perhapse thought, it would be a good idea if you would intergrate the text you have written into the Battle section and not have in in the Conclusion. Philip Baird Shearer 11:33, 10 Dec 2004 (UTC)

text: You're quite right, while I was re-writing the paragraph I had a nagging thought that it didn't seem to belong in the Conclusion anymore but since the running-away stuff was already there... I'll have a go at integrating it into the battle section. --kudz75 05:47, 11 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dutch-Belgians at Waterloo 

message: I have a 1902 history book with a color painting in it titled The Sunken Road at Waterloo, by Stanley Berkley. It shows a bunch of cavalry running off the edge of a hill above a road. If it seems like it might be useful, please give me a holler on my talk page, and I'll scan it in and post it. (Don't respond here, because the Waterloo article is not on my watchlist.) --Bcrowell 01:04, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Great picture, can someone put something in the article about the sunken road itself?  I keep hearing references to it, but I don't see anything about it here.  JHCC 21:32, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: painting

message: The article says: When Napoleon unexpectedly left the field in the early afternoon. This is new to me - are u certain of it? I always understood that he directed the battle from La belle alliance, leaving the operational issues to Ney, he himself feeling not well.
: He did leave the field for a time. This means that he handed over control not that he went by bus back to Paris! Philip Baird Shearer 17:48, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: question

message: The Waterloo Battlefield, Victor Hugo's "mournful plain", is a small farming valley set among rolling hills. The natural gentleness of the site makes little impression from above or from afar, and so offers the map-bearing bicyclist -- or foot-soldier -- unanticipated surprises. GoogleEarth barely notices Waterloo, although focusing close-in on the valley base and then "tilting" your screen can bring the contours out a bit. On the day of the battle Napoleon, tragically for the French, overlooked or simply could not see several things through his telescope, among them a Sunken Road...
The French approach, from the south, leads down a gentle slope to the little farm of <I>la Belle Alliance</I>, and the valley's base. But from there the land gradually rises toward the highest "rolling hill" in the immediate region, the Mont St. Jean, across the upper slopes of which the Allied forces were positioned, just beyond the farm of <I>la Haye Sainte</I>. The French plan was to charge uphill, but that night it poured rain: in <I>Les Misérables</I> Hugo describes the result -- "today one reaches this hillcrest 150 feet high and 500 feet round via an easy ascent; but on the day of the battle, above all on the Haye-Sainte side, it was a tough and abrupt climb. The slope there was so steep that the English cannons positioned at the top could not aim below, toward the farm in the bottom of the valley at the center of the combat. On June 18, 1815 the rains had dug into this even more: the mud complicated the ascent, so that one not only fell back but sank into the bog. And for the length of the plateau crest there ran a sort of ditch, which was impossible to see for any observer who was far away..."
Among the many things which went wrong for Napoleon at Waterloo was that ditch, known in later battle lore as <I>The Sunken Road</I>: "a pathway of about one and one half leagues' length... like a plowed furrow or deep groove, so that at various points this pathway becomes a ravine... sometimes a dozen feet wide... hidden in the earth, (it) was invisible, in other words it was terrifying..." On the day of the battle, as Hugo tells it,
"It was a terrible moment. There was the ravine, unexpected, gaping, immediately beneath the hooves of the horses, two fathoms deep between its two sides; the second rank pushed the first in, and then the third rank pushed the second in; the horses shying, and rearing, and falling, throwing their hooves into the air, crushing their riders, no way to escape, the entire mounted column at this point being a projectile, the force gathered to crush the English thereby crushing the French, the inexorable ravine unsatisfied until it filled with bodies, horsemen and horses rolling and grinding each against the other, melding into a single fleshy mass in this whirlpool, and, once this ditch was filled with living men, the rest marched over and passed on. Nearly a third of Dubois' brigade collapsed into this abyss. And here the loss of the battle began..."
: -- Hugo's view only, of course, that conclusion, but there are many theories as to what happened at Waterloo.
: --Kessler 21:51, 31 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Terrain

message: The article Napoleonic Wars has been listed to be improved on Wikipedia:This week's improvement drive. To support the article, you can add your vote there.--Fenice 08:03, 5 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Improvement Drive

message: Please note there is a glitch with the text to the left of the top of the main map box. It currently reads:
 Napoleon knew that,
 once his attempts at dissuading one or mor
 chance of remaining in power was to
In other words this text is not visible:
 e of the allies from invading France had failed, his only 
My revision as of 23:20, 7 September 2005 to insert a paragraph break brought back the missing text, but this has now been reverted.
This problem is on an 800 x 600 screen using IE.
Tyrenius 16:20, 10 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Glitch