Talk:Battle of Waterloo/Archive 12

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Page views "Battle_of_Waterloo has been viewed 198133 times in the last 30 days." The views for 18 June were 46,107. (to find links like this for any page to to the left hand column click on "Page information" and then at the bottom of that page click on "Page view statistics") -- PBS (talk) 20:03, 20 June 2015 (UTC)

Duke of Wellington and Wellesley

Why does not this article identify the "Duke of Wellington" in its opening paragraph as "Arthur Wellesley?" The second paragraph notes that the British forces were under the command of "Wellesley," without identifying that person with the "Duke of Wellington." If the reader is not a historian, or some sort of historical Anglophile, or a connoisseur of historical battles (and if so, why read this article?), s/he won't know who that is, and will have to infer the connection. Why make it hard on the reader? MaxwellPerkins (talk) 19:10, 26 June 2015 (UTC)

Agreed: I have just read the page for the first time, and was also confused by the Wellesley/Wellington confusion. There was information on the page that allowed the link to be inferred (e.g. the box, the link to Wellington/Wellesley), but I've made the link explicit in the first paragraph. Colin Rowat (talk) 10:01, 28 June 2015 (UTC)
The change that introduced this confusion was made by an IP edit at 14:20, 22 June 2015. I am going to revert it because Wellington is the near universal name used for this man during this campaign. -- PBS (talk) 12:36, 28 June 2015 (UTC)

Tambora

I read an (unsourced) article that stated that some have hypothesized that the 1815 eruption of Mount Tambora some months before could have caused the heavy rain (unusual in June) that covered the battlefield in mud. --Error (talk) 02:13, 3 August 2015 (UTC)

Trimming the article

The article stands at 150k. I have trimmed the lead section by removing some sentences that do not relate to the topic directly, but which address events thereafter. The sections for "Prelude", "Armies" and "Aftermath' all have articles of their own, and could be trimmed back a bit further as well. Any objections? Wdford (talk) 11:58, 3 August 2015 (UTC)

Prussians arrive in force

From the history of the article:

@user:Wdford, as I have made a number of adjustments to your recent edits I think it a good idea if we start to discuss changes here (rather than just in the history of the article). The reason why I revert the addition of:

The first units to arrive were rushed immediately into the battle, and the Prussians opened fire on the French for the first time at about 4:20pm.

Is because a general reader may infer from that sentence that the Prussians sent forces in pell mell as they arrived. All the major protagonists after generation of war were far too experienced to do this. The Prussians assembled the necessary forces in the Wood of Paris first and launched an ordered combined arms attack. In Selborn's words copied into the article Waterloo Campaign: Ligny through Wavre to Waterloo (see the sections: "Prussians occupy the Wood of Paris in strength" and "Advance of the Prussians from the Wood of Paris (16:30)"):

As the troops reached the Wood of Paris, they were disposed, with a considerable front, and in a close compact order, on each side of the road leading from Lasne towards Plancenoit. The artillery kept to the road itself; and the cavalry was drawn up in rear of the Wood, ready to follow the infantry. ...

It was when the 15th and 16th brigades debouched from the Wood of Paris; the former on the right, the latter on the left; and each in the usual brigade formation for advance peculiar to Prussian tactics. The direction of the attack was perpendicular to the right flank of the French Army; and consequently, also, to the Charleroi road, which constituted the French main line of operation

-- PBS (talk) 07:50, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

I am happy with your edits, by and large, and I agree with all the article says about the attack on Plancenoit. However the source I quoted (Parkinson) says that Bulow's advance units "were rushed forward in almost immediate attack" and that they opened fire at 4:20pm, much to Wellington's relief. I'm sure that most of the Prussians did regroup in the woods first, before attacking the town, but seemingly Blucher's first objective was actually to support Wellington's left flank so as to avoid a collapse - "night or the Prussians must come", said the Duke. While Ziethen played this role later to great effect and broke the right of the French attack on Wellington's position, the first of Blucher's troops to arrive at the battle were actually members of Bulow's corps, so Blucher threw them right on in to prop up Wellington's left. On the map it also shows that part of Bulow's corps was active at Wellington's left flank while the bulk of them went further down, attacked the town of Plancenoit through the woods and opened a second front in the French rear as per Blucher's original plan, supported later by Pirch.
While some books use the title Anglo-allied army, others use the title Anglo-Dutch, and it is widely agreed that most of the troops were actually German. I'm not sure why you considered the title Anglo-Dutch-German to be inaccurate? However I would be happy to use simpler terms like Allied or Coalition instead.
From my reading, it seems that Napoleon specifically wanted to keep the two Coalition armies from linking up - he went to a lot of trouble to keep them apart, he sent a big part of his army under Grouchy to keep the Prussians away until he was finished with Wellington, he only engaged at Waterloo because he thought Blucher was out of the game, and he was looking good to win at Waterloo until the Prussian army arrived and forced him to split his forces. You seem to feel differently? Wdford (talk) 12:13, 2 August 2015 (UTC)
"I'm sure that most of the Prussians did regroup in the woods first, before attacking the town, but seemingly Blucher's first objective was actually to support Wellington's left flank so as to avoid a collapse". After debouching from the Wood of Paris a detachment consisting of the 2nd Battalion of the 18th Regiment, and the 3rd Battalion of the 3rd Silesian Landwehr, followed by the 1st Battalion of the 18th Regiment attacked towards Frischermont and Smohain. The attack by this detachment was quite slow and they did not reach the area near the villages until around 17:30. However the main Prussian thrust was initially towards La Belle Alliance (which was clearly visible to Blücher from the edge of the Wood of Paris) and then later towards Plancenoit. There is a detailed account of this in this link, unfortunately it is part of Pierre de Wit's a self published account, so it is best that it is not used as a source in this article. However De Whit tends to support Siborne account (Siborne 1814, pp. 490 ff.) as does Hofschröer in Waterloo 1815 Wavre to Plancenoit & the Race to Paris (but the text of that book is not online). Zieten dithered between going to Wellington's aid and following his orders to assist Bülow in attacking Plancenoit. It is summed up in Hofschröer in a section called "Zieten's crucial decision" (Hofschröer 2006. p. 50.) Siborne details Ziten's attack down the left flank of the Anglo-allies including the friendly fire incident around Smohain (Siborne 1848, pp. 538–542). [there was another friendly fire or in this case sabring between Vivian's brigade and Prussian cavalry on the road between La Belle Alliance and Rossemme before Wellington and Blucher road up together to Rossome from near La Belle Alliance] (see Vivian, Hussey (1833), "Reply to Major Gawler on his 'Crisis of Waterloo", The United Service Magazine, pp. 310–324) -- PBS (talk) 00:02, 3 August 2015 (UTC)
The source I quoted (Parkinson) says that some of Bulow's men engaged on Wellington's left long before then - at 4.20pm specifically, although everyone agrees that this was not Blucher's main thrust. Zieten did not "dither", he followed his orders until he got new information from Muffling. In the days before portable radios, this was not a simple matter. Blucher was Zieten's boss, not Wellington, but Parkinson says that when Zieten himself was informed that Wellington was on the verge of retreating he decided "immediately". Wdford (talk) 10:23, 3 August 2015 (UTC)
The details of the engagements before 4:30 are described in detail in Waterloo Campaign: Ligny through Wavre to Waterloo. In the section "Domon's cavalry attack" it is mentioned that Blücher ordered a cannonade sometime between 4:30 and 5:30 to inform the Anglo-allies that he was near by and in the hope of drawing more French reserves against himself (Siborne 1848, 494). -- PBS (talk) 17:19, 3 August 2015 (UTC)
I have posted the relevant text from Hofschröer's book to your talk page in "Zieten's crucial decision" (see § Zieten dithering). I think you will have to conclude that Hofschröer describes Zieten dithering. It does not mean he did just that Hofschröer describes him as doing so. -- PBS (talk) 17:08, 3 August 2015 (UTC)
Anglo-allied is the simplest and least confusing name. Allied and Coalition are confusing because there was a Prussian army there as well. The Prussians were both allies and a member of the Coalition. Anglo-allied is better than the other choices because adding names in place of allied, mean the Belgians are missing. If the Belgians are missing because it is argued they were in units attached to the Netherlands state (and were therefore Dutch units) then German is misleading as that means ethnic origin not state. So to get out of that morass it is simpler to us the term allied. -- PBS (talk) 00:02, 3 August 2015 (UTC)
"Anglo-allied" is a very Anglocentric term, considering that only a third of the troops involved were actually "Anglo". The even simpler "Allied army" would be fine, or even "multinational". Wdford (talk) 10:23, 3 August 2015 (UTC)
WP:ENGVAR -- PBS (talk) 16:33, 3 August 2015 (UTC)
"From my reading, it seems that Napoleon..." yes and no. If he had been on the top of his game then he would have attacked Wellington early on the 17th before Wellington had a change to withdraw his army through the defile of Genappe. At dawn on 17th neither Wellington of Ney knew what had happened at Ligny! Both Siborne and Hofschröer argue that it was inaction by Napoleon on the morning of the 17th that lost him the campaign. However that does not get away from the fact that on both the 16th and the 18th Napoleon engaged both armies with large detachments which he hoped would stop the combining, so to use the word "individually" in the lead of this article is misleading. It would take much more than a sentence in the lead of this battle article to describe his strategy and tactics which. The lead of this battle article is becoming far to large, a lot of the stuff in it would be better placed in the Campaign article(Waterloo Campaign) or in the case of his initial strategy the more detailed starter article Waterloo Campaign: Start of hostilities (15 June). -- PBS (talk) 00:02, 3 August 2015 (UTC)
Meatgrinder

In regards to the morning of the 17th, if Marshal Ney had launched a holding operation and Napoleon had launched an attack before 10:00 with those corpse not heavily involved the day before, then to paraphrase Patton, Napoleon could have said "this time Wellington's stuck his head in the meatgrinder and i've got hold of the handle". But that day Napoleon was not the old Napoleon, nor was he a Patton. --PBS (talk) 00:51, 3 August 2015 (UTC)

Yes - hindsight is a wonderful tool. Patton had the advantage of radio communication, air-superiority and a huge US army backing him up, plus an even huger Russian army squeezing his foe from the other side and pulling away most of their resources. Napoleon had primitive communications, and had to rely on what stood and slept around him, with all his eggs in one pan. Wellington was more in the Patton position than Napoleon - a huge Prussian army just over the hill to back him up, and a Russian army plus an Austrian army closing in on the enemy capital, which was not itself united behind Napoleon to begin with. And what did Wellington do? Unlike Patton, Wellington clung to the ridge and waited for "night or the Prussians" - not very Pattonesque. (Not that I'm a fan of Patton.) Mind you, British generals got much more Pattonesque at Balaclava, and look how that turned out. Wdford (talk) 10:23, 3 August 2015 (UTC)
I thought that "individually" was a good one-word summary for "stop them combining", but OK. I agree that the lead of the article is getting very big - para 4 is not really on point, and we can delete all of it save the sentence "Napoleon abdicated 4 days later", with the blue link as per current. I am also concerned that there is a lot of duplication across many separate Waterloo-related articles - much of it directly cut-and-pasted. Wdford (talk) 10:23, 3 August 2015 (UTC)
There is a reason for the duplication. Until 16 August 2014‎ there was not campaign article other than the Hundred Days. For this reason the four main battle articles were stand alone rather than being detailed articles of a summary style campaign article. To get a lot more text available for the other days of the campaign, I did not have time to modify the content of these four battle articles now that a campaign article existed. The area at the moment were a lot more work needs to be done in the Hundred Days article, particularly the sections "Invasion of France (18 June – 7 July)", "Napoleon abdicates" and "Prussians enter Paris". The sections in this article before and after the main battle section need to be reviewed given the existence of the Waterloo campaign article, some of the text probably needs moving into that article -- the campaign article is badly balanced at the moment and needs work, not so much pruning large sections as expanding some sections as the article is only 63k in size. Serious consideration needs to be given to turning this article into a summary style article, for example the details of key elements of this battle such as the battle of Hougoumont (a battle within a battle) could be moved out summery style, although I know that some regular editors here such as user:Urselius have recently expressed strong reservations about doing this, I hope that they can be persuaded in the future. -- PBS (talk) 17:45, 3 August 2015 (UTC)
Re Talk Page Guidelines – noted, thank you.
Re Ziethen: - Thanks for the text. However I don’t see any mention of dithering at all. From the sequence we see that Ziethen arrived to find a lot of Wellington’s men in retreat. He grew concerned and, rather than flip a coin, he sent out scouts to find out what was actually happening. This is not dithering, its best practice. He receives a plea for help from Wellington’s army, plus contrary orders from Blucher (his boss). He obeys his orders. However Muffling – himself a very high-ranking Prussian – then comes on the scene. Muffling is not to be taken lightly. One can presume that he pointed out the danger that would fall upon Blucher if Wellington collapsed, how Pirch was already supporting Bulow, and how Ziethen’s assistance was essential to the outcome of the battle. Ziethen accepted this new information and changed his decision (just that one time). That is open-minded and intelligent behaviour, not dithering. It was also very brave - if he ignored a direct order and it went badly, Blucher would not have been gentle with him. One thinks of the many cases in British military history where a lack of open-mindedness had tragic consequences – Balaclava again, for instance.
Re Domon’s cavalry attack – the sequence and timing is unclear – this may have been a completely separate incident. Siborne’s objectivity has been questioned, and he apparently has been cited for down-playing any non-British contribution, although many of these articles rely heavily on his version of events. Parkinson states that Blucher engaged the French at 4.20pm “from the edge of the wood”, whereas Siborne seems to imply that Blucher was nowhere near the scene when he first opened fire, and was just making a noise. Are these two separate incidents, or do we need to choose whom to believe?
Re WP:ENGVAR – I don’t quite follow the point here? Are you agreeing to use the term “Allied army” going forward?
Re the duplication – I understand the history here, but something must be done sometime. I think the best is to first do a proper job of the “micro-articles”, such as Battle of Waterloo and Battle of Wavre and Battle of Ligny etc. Then we look at the “higher” articles, such as Waterloo Campaign: Ligny through Wavre to Waterloo, and we remove all the excess detail where a “micro-article” is being replicated. A summary such as “This lead to the Battle of Ligny, after which Blucher moved his men north to Wavre where the Battle of Wavre subsequently took place.” Then we look at the “even higher” articles, such as Waterloo Campaign, and eliminate unneeded replication again, until we reach the top. We also need to clean up articles such as Duke of Wellington, where the whole thing is regurgitated yet again (and the article runs to 124k in consequence).
Wdford (talk) 20:29, 3 August 2015 (UTC)

I think I made by view about the name of Wellington's army clear See the paragraph that starts "Anglo-allied is the simplest..." To add to that paragraph: Anglo is a synonym for British in this context and should include the Germans in the KLG (integrated into the British Army) as were the Hanoverians were to all intense and purposes. To separate these from the British is (without explaining this relationship is presenting a misleading POV). It is like saying that Nepalese soldiers fought in the Falklands War -- True in a literal sense, but misleading without explaining the context. Hence the suitability of Anglo-allied which is a common name in British histories (WP:ENGVAR).

The Waterloo Campaign: Ligny through Wavre to Waterloo is not a higher level, it is a detailed article describing what happened between the end of the battle of Ligney and the start of Prussian engagement in the battles of Wavre and Waterloo. There is a small amount of overlap but I deliberately ended the Ligny to Waterloo article where I did (Prussians advancing out of the Wood of Paris), because that is were this article picks up the story. So at the moment we have four levels:

1.Hundred Days--- Top level (at the moment War of the Seventh Coalition is a redirect to Hundred Days)
2.Waterloo Campaign, Minor campaigns of 1815, Abdication of Napoleon (1815), French Provisional Government of 1815, Treaty of Paris (1815) etc
3. The four major battles Ligny, Quatre Bras, Waterloo and Wavre, detailed articles about 15, 17 and 19 June and the days through to 7 July (and articles such as minor battles Battle of Issy and Reduction of the French fortresses in 1815 -- although these just as easily fit into level 4)
4. Details of the battles and days eg Order of battle of the Waterloo Campaign, Hougoumont, the Malplaquet proclamation and Waterloo Campaign: peace negotiations.

I do not think you should be too hung up on 16:20 or 16:30. That authors/historians of all four articles agree on the time to within 10 minutes is remarkable given the disagreement as to the time of the start of the Battle of Waterloo (see Battle of Waterloo, footnote d for why this happens). De Whit list his sources for 4:30, there are about 20 of them with a range of times, you will find them in footnote 13 pages 14-15 in his web page.

I think you are misunderstanding what Siborne writes. His history is one of the most detailed there is available in English (it is a pity he did not cite his sources) and on the Prussian movements between Ligny and Waterloo his details and analysis of those details are similar to Hofschröer's. De Wit gives similar details and he cites primary sources. Where Siborne has been criticised is for his treatment of the Dutch and Belgian forces, but he does reflect the prejudices of the largely British sources he used. However one can not read his book without drawing the conclusion that he give a detailed account of the Prussian contribution to the campaign. I do not understand how you come to the conclusion "whereas Siborne seems to imply that Blucher was nowhere near the scene" Siborne places Blücher in the Wood of Paris (presumably near the edge as he could see the battlefield) and that a cannonade was directed at cavalry too far way to be much hurt by the fusillade. Hofschröer's states that "next around 5pm, came the mudcaked [reserve] artillery" although later he mentions that the Prussians did have horse artillery available when the attack started. De Whit gives a similar account to Siborne of the start of the action (although is artillery fires canister as does the horse artillery mentioned by Hofschröer):

Opposite the Prussian forces gathering in the Bois de Paris were the 2200 horsemen and 12 guns of the divisions of Domon and Subervie, in position between the complex of Fichermont and the Bois de Ranson.page 1

So the section "Domon's cavalry attack" is in the correct chronological place, but it was most likely either side of 4:30 because French and Prussian cavalry patrols were already skirmishing before the Prussian infantry debouched from the Wood of Paris. I read what the preview of Parkinson says on 237 it is a much briefer account than the others, but I do not think it contradicts the much more detailed accounts. For example while I can understand how you drew from that account "The first units to arrive were rushed immediately into the battle" (when you did not have access to a more detailed account), but what it actually says is "Troops from Bülow corps were rushed forward in almost immediate attack..." which given the two more detailed online accounts I have provide here, I think ought to be interpreted slightly differently. As he does not mention units at whom the guns were trained, one could infer units from Lobau's VI Corps from his text but in fact they initially fired at Domon's cavalry. The engagement with units of Lobau's Corps came a little later. -- PBS (talk) 11:52, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

Image overload

The first sections of the article are overloaded with images, particularly maps and topographical photos. The panorama, on my view at least, is overlapping an image of an old map. I think that some sort of rationalisation is required. This seems to have been made worse as the result of recent text trimming, see above. Urselius (talk) 19:39, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

I tried to rectify the difficulty with the panorama overlapping other images by removing one rather marginally useful image, but this has been restored. We therefore have the original problem. I think that the panorama is more useful than the other image (it is a an engraving showing the Lion Mound and is therefore no improvement on modern photographs in showing the original topography), however, something needs to be done to rectify the situation. Perhaps restoring the text removed earlier might fix it! Urselius (talk) 20:39, 23 September 2015 (UTC)

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Splitting section for ease of editing - continuation of 'A few comments on the article' from above

Wdford, there was a very simple test of who won a battle in Ancient and Medieval times - the army who "kept the place of slaughter", was the victor. If you ended the day in control of the battlefield, you had won. This was underlined by the defeated having to sue for access to the battlefield in order to retrieve and bury their dead. The Prussians were defeated at Ligny; the overwhelming weight of scholarship is firmly in support of this assertion. As on so many occasions, your views are entirely irrelevant. Yes, the Irish count as British as they were in an entity known as the British Army, Wellington was Anglo-Irish himself. There is a large monument to him in Phoenix Park in Dublin, I have seen it myself. Slán anois. Urselius (talk) 07:42, 5 August 2016 (UTC)

The Napoleonic Wars did not take place in "Ancient and Medieval times", they were fought in a specific context and to achieve specific strategic objectives. The objective of Napoleon was to destroy the Prussians and the Allies separately before the Russians and the Austrians arrived - in this he failed, starting at Ligny. Nobody on any side was interested in holding Ligny, Quatre Bras, Wavre or Waterloo itself. The "place of slaughter" had no inherent value to either side - as is clearly demonstrated when Wellington sneaked out of Quatre Bras the very next morning once he learned that Blucher no longer had his back. PS: Wellington vehemently denied being Irish while he was still alive, despite being born there - he clearly didn't consider the Irish to be British. Cheerio to you too. Wdford (talk) 18:28, 6 August 2016 (UTC)

Supposed Prussian 48hr recovery - spurious?

After Ligny, the Prussian army, although defeated, was able to realign its supply train, reorganise itself, and intervene decisively on the Waterloo battlefield within 48 hours.[30] Two and a half Prussian army corps, or 48,000 men, were engaged at Waterloo; two brigades under Bülow, commander of IV Corps, attacked Lobau at 16:30, while Zieten's I Corps and parts of Pirch I's II Corps engaged at about 18:00.

I am not sure this article text reflects events correctly. It is passim in the article that the defeated Prussians rallied miraculously and intervened at Waterloo. To some extent this is fair enough in that it's also part of the Prussian myth of Waterloo, and could hence be said to be the consensus. But in actual fact, it wasn't the defeated Prussians who made the decisive intervention. It was the undefeated component of the Prussian army, in the shape of Bulow's Corps, that did so. There were eventually 48,000 Prussians on the field, but the majority was the ~33,000 men of Bulow's Corps, the one that had not been mauled at Ligny, and that had the critical mission of attacking Plancenoit. The other later-arriving 15,000 of the 48,000 were Ligny survivors in I and II Corps. I Corps went to Wellington's flank, which unfortunately they attacked and whose benefit was mainly that Wellington was enabled to reinforce his centre from his left to meet the next French attack. The only troops defeated at Ligny who fought significantly at Waterloo were those of Pirch's men, who came up after and in support of Bulow's, so in terms of who spent longest in action and made the biggest difference, it's clear that it was not defeated-but-recovered Prussian troops.

We can look at the history to gauge how recovered and recuperated these men actually were. Bulow's Corps was chosen to lead the flank march even though, starting from the far side of Wavre while the other three were at, or even west of Wavre, it was worst-positioned of the four corps to do so. Blucher and Gneisenau chose Bulow's Corps precisely because although in the worst place, it was in the best shape despite being almost wholly made up of militia - because it had not been defeated at Ligny. They preferred to have the green IV Corps turn up footsore at Waterloo hours after the better-positioned but previously-defeated I, II or III Corps could have got there. They trusted Thielmann's Corps only to hold off Grouchy (rather than try to defeat Napoleon) because although highly likely to be defeated again, it didn't matter as long as they kept Grouchy busy 8 miles away from the important battle. They trusted I and II Corps only to follow IV Corps to Waterloo.

This speaks volumes to how recovered or reorganised the three Corps mauled at Ligny really were in the opinion of their own commanders (you don't lose 24,000 out of 84,000 lightly, even if you are one of Hofschroer's fanciful Prussian supermen). Napoleon's prediction that the Prussians would not be ready to fight again so soon after Ligny was quite accurate. Those that fought so effectively at Plancenoit had not had to recover from Ligny. Those that fought again at Wavre on the 18th who had been at Ligny on the 16th were not recovered and were duly pasted again.

Set out this way, the idea that the Prussian army miraculously recovered from defeat inside 48 hours starts to look like the rather lazy and unreflected-on cliché that it is. The facts are that the main intervention was by the force that was not recovering, and that had been hand-picked to take point, because although mostly green Landwehr, even though furthest away, they were militarily a better bet on the 18th than Ligny survivors. Those Ligny survivors who did fight on the 18th were not obviously a recovered army.

So it is IMO pretty misleading to say that "the Prussian army, although defeated, was able to realign its supply train, reorganise itself, and intervene". It implies that the defeated part of the army bounced back and did this. It would be more accurate to say something like: "Bulow's Corps - inexperienced, but the only one absent from and thus undamaged at Ligny - was sent with the support of elements of II Corps to attack the French flank, while part of I Corps marched to support Wellington directly."

Thoughts anyone? No trolls, thanks. Tirailleur (talk) 11:50, 4 August 2016 (UTC)

Perhaps something on the lines of: "the Prussian army, although defeated, was able to rally upon its previously unengaged III Corps , realign its supply train, reorganise itself, and intervene"? Urselius (talk) 14:07, 4 August 2016 (UTC)
That would be better, yes. The point is that when Napoleon dismissed the risk of Prussian intervention because they were unfit to fight, he was right, and Blucher agreed with him. I and I Corps comprised 2/3rds regular infantry and 1/3 militia and Bulow's was the reverse, so a greener formation overall that would arrive later and more tired out. Yet militarily Blucher thought these men would provide a more effective contribution. Tirailleur (talk) 09:55, 6 August 2016 (UTC)
This point would actually make much more sense – and be much more accurate – if we gave the readers a more complete and less biased understanding of the use of the word “defeated”. The Prussians were not thrashed at Ligny as Wellington (dishonestly) alleged – rather Pirch was outflanked and driven backward a mile or so in the center just as night fell, Ziethen and Thielmann actually held their ground, Gneisenau could have kept them in place overnight and tried to pincer Napoleon at dawn, but instead he stuck to the strategic plan – avoid being separated from Wellington while keeping Napoleon busy until the rest of the coalition armies arrived. Bulow’s corps was sent to Waterloo first because they were better rested, in good order and already fully supplied, not because the other corps were unable. Pirch made an important contribution although he arrived late, and Ziethen actually made the breakthrough that started the French rout, and caused the Imperial Guard to withdraw when on the cusp of victory.
It is often glossed over by British authors that the final attack was not merely made by six battalions of the Guard against the British army, but was in fact made in concert with the multiple divisions of D’Erlon and Reille against the entire Allied front (Field, pg 194). The Guard units constituted only a small percentage of the total attack, but this small element of the battle is greatly magnified by British authors because it was the small part where the entire British army managed to score a “mini-victory” against six battalions all by themselves (helped only by the Dutch and the German Legion etc). The divisions of D’Erlon went up against Ziethen on the French right flank, who defeated them and started the rout (Field pg 206). The corresponding section of the article needs to be expanded to properly reflect the actual facts in context.
Thielmann's Corps was only slightly affected at Ligny, and was actually in the best shape of the three corps that were engaged there. They were not “pasted” at Wavre – that is just more provocative biased ranting – they were heavily outnumbered but achieved their objectives while actually taking fewer casualties than Wellington did at Quatre Bras.
The Dutch were briefly engaged on his arrival by Ziethen because they were still wearing their old French uniforms. The British similarly shot at Dutch troops at Quatre Bras, and Cornwell reports that during the rout, Colborne’s 52nd regiment shot at and killed “British light cavalry” because they mistook them for the French. One wonders if these “British” cavalry were once again the unfortunate Dutch, in their old French uniforms? Wdford (talk) 20:16, 4 August 2016 (UTC)
Wdford, I quote: "The Prussians were not thrashed at Ligny as Wellington (dishonestly) alleged – rather Pirch was outflanked and driven backward a mile or so in the center just as night fell, Ziethen and Thielmann actually held their ground, Gneisenau could have kept them in place overnight and tried to pincer Napoleon at dawn, but instead he stuck to the strategic plan – avoid being separated from Wellington while keeping Napoleon busy until the rest of the coalition armies arrived."
What total rot! Gneisenau wanted to keep retreating all the way to Louvain, which would have left Wellington no option but to retreat on Brussels itself. So little had the Prussians suffered at Ligny that their acting commander wanted to place as much distance between himself and the French as he possibly could. Only Bluecher's re-appearance stopped this from happening and ensured that Wellington could make a stand at Waterloo. Urselius (talk) 08:12, 6 August 2016 (UTC)
To assist some editors to transcend their seriously biased misperceptions and to save the time they might otherwise continue to spend on jingoistic WP:OR, here are some direct quotes from a range of actual WP:RS sources:
  • From: On Waterloo: Clausewitz, Wellington, and the Campaign of 1815. Ed./trans. Christopher Bassford, Daniel Moran, and Gregory W. Pedlow., at [2]
  • From Clausewitz Chapter 33 - “Under the circumstances, the overall results of Ligny cannot appear out of the ordinary. It is a battle which 78,000 men lost to 75,000 by a very slight tipping of the scales, after a long struggle, and without any truly glorious results for the victor, since his trophies consisted of only 21 guns and perhaps a few thousand prisoners.”
  • From Clausewitz Chapter 37 - “This decision by Blücher is unquestionably worthy of the highest praise. Ignoring all the false courses of action that traditional practices and misplaced prudence might have suggested in such a case, he followed his common sense and decided to turn toward Wellington on the 18th, preferring to abandon his own line of communications rather than adopt half-measures. The battle he had lost had not been a rout. It had reduced the size of his force by only about one-sixth, and with nearly 100,000 men he could undoubtedly turn the battle that the Duke of Wellington was confronting into a victory.”
  • From Clausewitz Chapter 36 - “But since Ney's appearance near Frasnes prevented Wellington from going to the assistance of the Prussians via the Namur highway in any case, Ney's failure to capture the crossroads was of no consequence. … Ney completely accomplished his objective of preventing Wellington from providing assistance [to Blücher]. The idea that Ney could contribute to the battle of Ligny occurred to Bonaparte only much later, namely after he had reconnoitered Blücher's position, and when he had not yet heard from Ney about a considerable enemy force. But by then it was too late to do anything.”
  • From: Waterloo Lectures: A Study of the Campaign of 1815, By Charles Cornwallis Chesney, pg 142, at [3] - “Gneisenau, coming into temporary command after the fall of Blucher at the end of the battle, and finding the struggle for the present hopelessly decided, chose at all risk of inconvenience to abstain from the notion of a retreat to the east, and to keep as near as might be to the English army.”
  • From: Waterloo: Myth and Reality, By Gareth Glover, pg 89, at [4] - “A retreat on Gembloux by the entire army would be the obvious course of action, except that this would lead to a complete break of contact with Wellington. Gneisenau therefore initially ordered a retreat directly north on Tilly, which would maintain that contact.” {Note: Tilly is about 3 miles from Ligny – about half way back toward Quatre Bras.}
  • From: The Waterloo Campaign, 1815, By William Siborne, pg 251, at [5] - “[Gneisenau], having undertaken the direction of affairs, ordered the retreat of the First and Second Corps upon Tilly, and despatched Colonel Thile with directions to Thielemann, that if he could not effect a direct retreat upon Tilly, he was to retire upon Gembloux, there to unite with Bulow, and then effect a junction with the rest of the army.”
  • From: Stories of Waterloo, Volume 1, By William Hamilton Maxwell , pg 213, at [6] - “At 10 o’clock the order to fall back was given, and the center and right retrograded in perfect order. Forming again within a quarter of a league of the field of battle, they recommenced their retreat; and, unmolested by the enemy, retired upon Wavre.”
  • From: A Sketch of the Battle of Waterloo: etc By Friedrich Carl Ferdinand von Mueffling (Baron.), at [7] - Page lxxiv: “Our infantry, posted behind Ligny, though forced to retreat, did not suffer itself to be discouraged … Formed in masses, it coolly repulsed all the attacks of the cavalry, and retreated in good order upon the height, whence it continued its retrograde movement upon Tilly. … At the distance of a quarter of a league from the field of battle, the army formed again. The enemy did not venture to pursue it. The village of Brie remained in our possession during the night, as well as Sombref, where General Thielemann had fought with the 3rd Corps”. Further at Page lxxvii: “The Field Marshall promised to come with his whole army; he even proposed, in case Napoleon should not attack, that the Allies themselves, with their whole united force, should attack him the next day. This may serve to show how little the battle of the 16th had disorganised the Prussian army, or weakened its moral strength.”
  • A Detailed Account of the Battles of Quatre Bras, Ligny and Waterloo, By Nicolson BAIN, pg 107, at [8] - “During the night, the Prussians occupied the villages of Brie and Sombref, evacuated them early on the following morning, and retreated to Gembloux.”
Hopefully these extracts from reliable sources will help to put the article back on the correct path. Wdford (talk) 18:44, 6 August 2016 (UTC)

@Wdford: There are four traditional indicators of a victory of a battle.

  1. Who holds the battlefield at the end of the battle.
  2. Was the enemy commander killed/captured -- For example the Duke of Marlborough's famous note on a the back of a tavern receipt after the Battle of Blenheim (1704) "...Marshal Tallard and two other generals are in my coach, and I am following the rest..." .
  3. How many colours were captured. One of the interesting facts about the French rout at the end of Waterloo was that no infantry colours were captured.
  4. The number of guns captured -- which is something you mention above "his trophies consisted of only 21 guns and perhaps a few thousand prisoners." Wellington's army captured 160 French guns the Prussians 60 (most on the road into Genappe), which means that the French managed to extradite about 30. (See Glover, Gareth (2015). Waterloo in 100 Objects. History Press. p. ~96. ISBN 978-0-7509-6448-7.

-- PBS (talk) 12:48, 7 August 2016 (UTC)

@Wdford: It would help your case if you at least got some of the facts correct. The Battle of Wavre started within a couple of hours after Waterloo began. It did not finish until 1030 Hours the next day when Grouchy received news of the utter defeat at Waterloo. The battle was fought for one reason only, to keep 33,000 plus French troops off the battlefield of Waterloo. In every sense of the word it was very successful. Some 17,500 Prussian forces stopped twice the number of French forces so yes it was a blocking action. Since both sides were still on the same battlefield in the morning they did not retreat at night.

There was not a commander on any of the three armies that didn't make serious mistakes. Both Blucher and Wellington made a serious error in having the Dyle river between their cantonments. The only good road between them was exactly where Napoleon 1st moved and it was to effect everything about the battle from that moment on. Wellington seriously misjudged the speed of Armee de Nord's advance and ignored good intelligence, this is the cause of his lack of support of Blucher not malicious intent. There are not many Generals of note that would say: Gee I got caught with my pants down and I over promised and under delivered. Asking a politician years after the event is going to get you a spun answer every time. leaving 30,000 troops at Mons was... dumb. The Prussians made a multitude of mistakes, many before the army was deployed. The force itself was in the throws of reorganization. Equipment was still arriving from Prussia. Logistic arrangements were not paid for. The best and brightest of the Prussian Army was deployed near the Austrian border. The Battle of Lighy was fought with 3/4 of the army there and I don't care what you say Bulow fucked up. I've never seen a historian say otherwise. Napoleon made more mistakes during the 100 days than he made in all his other campaigns combined. He didn't have a vigorous pursuit of the Prussians after Ligny. He left forces that couldn't possibly achieve the goals he set but would cost him the battle. That isn't the opinion of the editors here that is the consensus of military historians. Finally, the turn around of the Prussian Army is 48 hours is taught in every major war college world wide. It was nothing short of astonishing. That wasn't the end of it either, the entire logistic support chain was kicked north by a fair margin with next to no warning.

.

The points that should be made here is that the Prussian Army fielded at Waterloo was not their best. They were is many cases worse than the armies fielded in 1814. Oh the old infantry regiments were as able as always and equal to anything fields by any army and proved it running off French Guards. But... the artillery wasn't what it was, the cavalry formations were no where near where they should have been. At the operational level it was an entirely different story. Very few armies can reorganize on the move and at the march which is exactly what happened. Rear guards were set up and any attempt to pursue was violently opposed. Multiple blocking positions were setup on the move by various Corps with hardly a pause. It wasn't all cream and butterflies there were panicked formations. Wavre was chosen as the rally point because that was where the last of the troops stopped exhausted. Deserters were caught heading east and sent back in formations to their units. Those refusing got sent... else were. Still I for one would not like to appear in world wide exposure like a complete idiot. Any military professional with war college exposure would think we were UNINFORMED IDIOTS without a clue as to what we were writing.Tirronan (talk) 17:34, 7 August 2016 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ On Waterloo: Clausewitz, Wellington, and the Campaign of 1815. Ed./trans. Christopher Bassford, Daniel Moran, and Gregory W. Pedlow., at [1] Chapter 33
@Urselius - Chesney also states of Gneisenau’s decisions after Ligny that: “the Allied mistakes were at once redeemed by the bold order which Gneisenau gave for a retreat on Wavre … this noble daring at once snatched from Napoleon the hoped-for fruits of his victory”. (Waterloo Lectures: A Study of the Campaign of 1815, By Charles Cornwallis Chesney, pg 139, at [9]) It seems that all the reliable sources actually have high regard for Gneisenau’s decision-making – in complete contrast to your own biased OR. Wdford (talk) 19:53, 7 August 2016 (UTC)
See David Chandler The campaigns of Napoléon - Page 1058, I quote "The latter [Gneisenau] was still in favour of an immediate retreat on Liege via Wavre and Louvain, leaving Wellington to fend for himself". Obviously, my assertion is not OR, I am merely referencing that doyen of Napoleonic military history - Chandler. Urselius (talk) 07:29, 8 August 2016 (UTC)
@Tirronan – I’m not sure why you are getting so worked up about my facts – you are in agreement with me on almost everything. I have stated from the beginning that Wavre should not be considered a Prussian defeat, because they achieved all their objectives despite being massively outnumbered, and only left the field the next day once they knew that the battle at Waterloo was over and that blocking Grouchy no longer justified the cost.
Of course all commanders made mistakes – that still happens today, even with the advantage of spy drones and radios and internet communications. As I understand it, the main reason why the two armies cantonned on opposite sides of the Dyle River was because their supply lines extended in opposite directions. However my main point here has always been that Wellington’s false promise to Blucher at the Brye windmill was nonetheless inexcusable, because by then Wellington already knew that his army wasn’t going to arrive in time, and he already knew that the French were making a play at Quatre Bras. That goes beyond a mistake. I do agree with you that Wellington lied like a possum thereafter to whitewash his deed – which went beyond a mere mistake. Chesney also calls Wellington a liar – “is far from accurate”, “erring so widely”, “can hardly be accepted as authentic” etc. (Waterloo Lectures: A Study of the Campaign of 1815, By Charles Cornwallis Chesney, pg 160 at [10].
The Prussian army was indeed poorly organised, trained and resourced, but they made up for it with good leaders and sheer guts. However I really don’t understand your attitude toward Bulow. I have already reported above that the main sources all exonerate Bulow. Siborne describes Bulow’s non-arrival as being due to "mischance". (The Waterloo Campaign, 1815 By William Siborne; pgs 112 – 114, at [11]) Clausewitz attributes it to "accident and faulty arrangements in the communication of orders and intelligence". (On War, Volume 2; By Carl von Clausewitz, J. J. Graham; pg 84 at [12]) Creasy attributes it to "some error in the transmission of orders". (The Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World: From Marathon to Waterloo; By Edward Shepherd Creasy; pg 336, at [13]) Chesney also blames the matter on an imprecise wording of the orders sent to Bulow. (Waterloo Lectures: A Study of the Campaign of 1815, By Charles Cornwallis Chesney, pg 100 at [14].) I therefore cannot understand your assertion that “I've never seen a historian say otherwise.”
I obviously agree with you that the recovery from Ligny to victory at Waterloo in 48 hours was exceptional – the misinformed and biased OR above is indeed embarrassing. Wdford (talk) 19:53, 7 August 2016 (UTC)
@PBS – I don’t know where you got this list from, but I note with surprise that it nowhere mentions “achieving the strategic objectives” as a criterion for success. I would have thought that this would be the sole issue of importance.
  1. Possession of the battlefield – this is only valid if the battlefield itself is of strategic value. If you are fighting over Omaha Beach because this is key to your entire invasion, then obviously possession of the beach is critical. However Ligny, Quatre Bras, Waterloo and Wavre were not important sites – they were merely the places where stuff happened to happen. Any of those engagements could have happened elsewhere, and very nearly did. Gneisenau abandoned Ligny without a care because he knew Ligny itself was irrelevant. After making a huge fuss about holding onto Quatre Bras, Wellington abandoned it the next day. Thielemann was already in the act of departing from Wavre when Grouchy finally showed up, and he left Wavre the next day as soon as he was informed that holding Grouchy up was no longer necessary. If Wellington had been squished at Waterloo, Napoleon would have chased Blucher around Belgium for two more weeks until the Russian and Austrian armies showed up, then Napoleon would have been squished in turn by the three of them jointly, and the end would have been much the same – although obviously with very different British spin.
  2. Was the enemy commander killed/captured – it would indeed have been very significant if Napoleon was taken, as that would have achieved the strategic objective, and the war would have died right there with him. However this is only valid when the commander is himself the strategic objective – which would be rare. The Prussians would have survived the loss of Blucher – as events proved. If Gneisenau had been killed at the same time, another would have taken over and continued the mission. The quality of Wellington’s backup is less clear, but it is unlikely that killing Wellington would have saved Napoleon – there was too much at stake, and too many other armies were on his case.
  3. How many colours were captured – this is ridiculous. I am well aware that units were very attached to their colours, and men died defending them, but I cannot believe that losing the unit’s colours would cause that unit to instantly surrender. On the contrary, they would probably fight like crazy to get them back again.
  4. The number of guns captured – this is hardly an indication of anything either. Obviously you would not want to lose guns – especially in the days before the mass production of replacements – but if the strategic objective is achieved by the sacrifice of a score of guns then the victory surely goes to he who achieved his strategic objective?
Again, according to this list of yours, Pearl Harbor was a resounding defeat for the Japanese. I honestly cannot accept such an argument. Are you sure this list is reliable? Wdford (talk) 19:53, 7 August 2016 (UTC)
I am very surprised that you are not aware of the military significance of colours, particularly during the Napoleonic period. Why did you think that military histories about battles such as Waterloo inevitably focus on the capture of colours? Even as late as World War II there are iconic images of captured German Colours displayed by the Soviets at the Moscow Victory Parade of 1945. A classic example of trying to save the colours and only half succeeding was the actions of Lieutenant Teignmouth Melvill V.C. (at the Battle of Isandlwana 22 January 1879), or the successful but mortal actions of Senior Ensign James Christie at the Battle of Waterloo.[15] Had you never wondered why military historians mention that some British regiments sent their colours to the rear towards the end of the Battle of Waterloo? It is significant because it was an indicator that the commanders of those regiments were fairly certain that the Anglo-allied army was loosing -- but one has to know the symbolic/mystical significance of regimental colours to soldiers. That you do not know that guns are to the artillery arm of an army their colours (see the infobox in Royal Artillery) is not so unusual. It is the reason why one so often sees military historians list those four points, when discussing the outcome of a battle, because like the statistics of cricket match it is a short-hand for the initiated on how one-sided a battle was. Whether the outcome of a battle has strategic ramifications (like ta pyrrhic victory) is usually added as further analysis. As to Perl Harbour it was a raid (or attack) it was not a pitched battle and unlike ground warfare air raids and navel battles are fought with different metrics over what constitutes a victory. We could discuss those on your talk page if you like, because it is way off topic for this iconic land battle. To sum up at Waterloo: it is notable that Napoleon got away, that the Anlglo-allied forces held most of the battle field, that the number of captured guns were in about the same ratio the those killed, and that no French eagles (colours) were captured during their rout -- indicating that the rout was not as total as has often been claimed. Those are simple statistics, but they are a rough and ready measurement of the outcome, on which most historians agree (with the possible exception of how total the French rout was). Likewise the reason why Clausewitz make the point "his trophies consisted of only 21 guns and perhaps a few thousand prisoners" about Napoleon's victory at Ligny is because to those experience in reading military history and seeing these types of statistics will infer from the number of guns captured and prisoners taken the winning margin. -- PBS (talk) 21:33, 7 August 2016 (UTC)

If anyone is interested in how Peter Hofschroer conducts himself in discussion here's a thread from a wargaming forum in which he posts as two different people, including "Lu Ny China", in support of himself and to insult other posters who questioned his work. http://theminiaturespage.com/boards/msg.mv?id=57213&page=3

Hofschroer's other big crusade apart from his anti-Wellington one was that his brother, the police and the judge who presided over the libel trial he lost were conspiring to steal his mother's house. He has a potty website about it (https://grandmabarbara.wordpress.com/), he insults serving soldiers who laughed at it (http://www.arrse.co.uk/community/threads/did-the-rmp-abuct-my-wheel-chair-bound-great-grandmother-in-germany-foi.220071/) and his defence at his trial was that his brother, the police and the judge who presided over the libel trial he lost were all paedophiles conspiring against him.

This is the person to whom all claims that Prussians won it ultimately trace. It as well to know what sort of maturity and judgment he evinces, and also how cavalier he is with sources. With his Siborne book, much of his case appears to be simply fabricated.

He is another Hamilton-Williams I'm afraid.Tirailleur (talk) 14:01, 8 August 2016 (UTC)

There are quite a few H-W and Hoffie citations in the article, perhaps there is some grounds for a disclaimer concerning the veracity of some of the claims made by these authors? Urselius (talk) 14:51, 8 August 2016 (UTC)
Wow, I hadn't noticed that. Hamilton-Williams is actually David Cromwell of East Grinstead. He was convicted of obtaining money by deception in the 1990s - amusingly ISTR he had Hofschroer as a character witness or something. Essentially, the sources he footnotes for his various assertions don't say what he says. At one point in his Waterloo book, he cites a document that was supposed to show that Prussian communications ran through Mons. Someone checked it out in the British Library and in fact, the referenced source is no more than a letter to Wellington in Paris from the British Foreign Secretary in 1817, advising him to get out of occupied Paris as the natives were getting restless - nothing to do with 1815 at all. Many others were also found, including archives that do not exist that he had just wholly fabricated and then cited. Other footnotes cite himself, in another book of his supposedly "in press". He was exposed because as head of the European branch of Weider's Institute for Napoleonic Studies, he had started calling himself Sir David H-W, had started using the coat of arms and had awarded himself a few degrees. The real Baronet Williams is a neighbour and friend of the Marquess of Anglesey who, as a descendant of Lord Uxbridge, takes an interest in Waterloo and thus noticed and questioned a new Waterloo author misappropriating the Williams coat of arms.
He is the reason Arms and Armour Press stopped publishing - the Walter Mitty stuff discredited him, and them for not noticing.
With both HW and PH, you have to take the view that given the proven misuse of sources, nothing either writes can really be relied on, unless you have checked it. PH, for example, asserts that Ziethen wrote to Wellington of the French attack at 4 in the morning, and that Wellington knew at 9; Wellington later said that "I have heard nothing since this morning", which PH asserted meant the message arrived in the morning. He cites Julius Pflug-Harttung as his source, but in fact the JPH work he points to simply considers whether the message was sent or arrived in the morning, and concludes the former. Greg Pedlow and John Hussey set all this out 10 years ago; PH called them liars and made allegations about one to his employer and libelled the other. PH lost the libel case, but failed to pay the £10,000 damages and that's why he skipped out to Austria. He was arrested when he came back to press criminal charges against his own brother carrying a laptop full of paedophile pornography.
Much of what he claims in his book about Siborne's model is also fabricated. There is no evidence for any of it. OK, it's popular history not academic literature, but a lot of people fall for it.
All this arises from PH's now-public mental health issues. But a lot of PH's pernicious and slanted "analysis" has nonetheless permeated and tainted the more sensational literature on Waterloo - where mugs like our current troll completely fall for it, because it suits their existing biases. HW is another who bigs up the Prussians, and this is the lasting harm they have done. The idea that Wellington "betrayed" the Prussians is wholly PH. It originates with supposed "facts" like the above, which are not true; and he then proceeds to assert that Wellington didn't move instantly on this Prussian news of Napoleon's advance because he was intent on duplicity. As the only unbeaten allied army commander, of course, W wasn't stupid enough to assume that N's move wasn't a feint. Nor did he know exactly where the Prussians were. The Prussians didn't know where the Prussians were either, of course, while the Saxon corps didn't even agree that it was Prussian, and mutinied.
So W wasn't about to act precipitately because to do so was just as risky as awaiting more information or as concentrating forward in less than full strength. You do not find this point considered in PH or HW. The Prussians went ahead and did the latter anyway, and W's gloomy forecast that they would get totally owned in the Ligny position proved spot on. Despite this, PH thinks W should have concentrated forward and got beaten as well (I think it is Barbero who makes the point that if the Prussians had initially concentrated on Wavre and Wellington on Waterloo, the result would have been the same but with two fewer battles).
Wellington meanwhile couldn't trust the Prussians, as Britain and Prussia had been on a path to war until N escaped. So while he and Blucher got on, he made sure he had a force he could rally on just in case, i.e. the troops left at Hal and Tubize. To the (literally) crazy mind of PH, this is more evidence of Wellingtonian duplicity. Dodgy facts and dodgy analysis = junk, I am afraid. We don't know what sources PH twisted to suit his preconceived idea or what sources he buried because they disagree with it. He cites Ziethen's memoirs extensively when it suits him, for example, but these were written 25 years later and are completely potty.
I don't think there should be any reliance by the article on either of them, as both are known to be unreliable and of bad character, hence potentially dishonest analysis. Tirailleur (talk) 16:33, 8 August 2016 (UTC)
I just counted 38 citations of H-W and PH in the article. Replacing them is going to be difficult. Otherwise, the article is too reliant on Barbero. Barbero is good in general, but we need a more balanced set of citations, and I have some problems with Barbero's interpretations and have seen a couple of errors in fact. Urselius (talk) 19:55, 8 August 2016 (UTC)
What about Tim Clayton? I thought his was one of the better recent works that also goes into useful depth. There was stuff in there I didn't know, and I've been reading about Waterloo for 40 years. He isn't a convicted felon, he doesn't libel people, and hasn't been accused of manipulating or misrepresenting his sources.
I actually think that anything written by Hofschroer is deeply suspect. As well as his Waterloo books I also have one or two of his Osprey monographs on the Prussian army and we can now say they really are a bit unhinged. The one on Prussian light cavalry bangs on at great length about what a great drill squadron they had and what an elite force they were. It completely fails to acknowledge that when it came down to tacks the French repeatedly and effortlessly thrashed them. There isn't even a table of where they fought and to what effect. His book on the Prussian army of 1806 is just as potty. Anyone familiar with the 1806 campaign would say that it was a triumph for le bataillon carré, for the Corps structure that enabled Davout at Auerstädt to beat 63,000 Prussians with 27,000 men, and for Murat's celebrated, ruthless and devastating pursuit of the Prussians that turned defeat into catastrophe. 1806 is war college material in how to thrash an inept opponent. Hofschroer's book is instead all about what a fantastically flexible, mobile, and modern army the 1806 Prussians were. Tirailleur (talk) 09:24, 9 August 2016 (UTC)
@ Urselius - Four things: First, this assertion doesn’t actually make logical sense. Liege is due east of Ligny, on the Namur road. Wavre is due north, and Louvain even further north. To go to Liege via Louvain makes no sense under any circumstances – it would be like going from Cardiff to London via Liverpool. It would make even less sense if they were trying to herd a supposedly-shattered army along a huge cross-country triangle on foot through the mud, with Napoleon’s rampant cavalry in hot pursuit.
Second, did Chandler actually say “placing as much distance between himself and the French as he possibly could”, or was that just your personal interpretation?
Third, the Prussians obviously had not suffered too severely, as the facts show that in the next 48 hours they managed to hold off Grouchy, move three Corps to Waterloo over dreadful terrain, lock up and then defeat Lobau and the Young Guard at Plancenoit, and break D’Erlon to start the rout, all while Wellington crouched behind his ridge praying for “night or the Prussians” to arrive?
Fourth, a whole list of reliable sources praise Gneisenau’s decisions (while agreeing that he had developed serious distrust of Wellington – and who could blame him?) Gneisenau had enough intact units still on the field overnight to make a serious effort again in the morning, but apparently they were low on ammunition (per Clayton) and he needed a day to reorganise the supplies. Also, at that point he had no idea if Wellington was even still alive – Wellington was not big on communicating with his allies - and Gneisenau was not inclined to hold on at Ligny with empty guns in order to defend Wellington’s flank if Wellington wasn’t even there anymore.
Should we thus accept the consensus of multiple sources that praise Gneisenau, or rather a British source that seeks to undermine Wellington’s most credible critic by suggesting that he advocated a ridiculous line of retreat? Cherry-picking, anyone? Wdford (talk) 17:07, 9 August 2016 (UTC)

The use of quotation marks usually indicates quotes. By the time Gneisy was in a position to give orders the Prussians had been driven beyond the Nivelles-Namur road. The quickest route to Liege was not available to them. He selected Wavre as the initial rallying point essentially by default, as it was prominent on the maps he was using. Gneisy was not, therefore, acting within a framework of co-operation with Wellie's forces at all. Even after Bluecher arrived, he still advocated a withdrawal to Liege, only Bluecher's spirited insistence, backed by General Groelmann, QMG, made him acquiesce. Same page as before, Chandler was the most well-respected Napoleonic warfare expert and author of his era, bar none. Urselius (talk) 18:57, 9 August 2016 (UTC)

@ PBS - I am still shocked that strategic objectives don’t make the list of criteria, and are only considered in passing. War is not a TV game-show. However I’ll take your word for it.
I am well aware of the military significance of colours, as I mentioned in my own post above. I am also aware that some British regiments sent their colours to the rear at Waterloo because they knew they would be over-run if the Prussians didn’t come to their rescue real soon. However I dispute that losing a colour signified defeat. It is possible that a unit could be annihilated and the last three survivors manage to “save the colours”. It is also possible that the colours could be captured but the unit remains largely intact and continues fighting. (When that happened to a British unit is was presumably considered to be merely a “raid” rather than a battle?) Nonetheless, if this is indeed a reliable indicator, then we should consider that Wellington lost a colour at Quatre Bras, fled the field next morning with the French vanguard hard on his heels, and seemingly captured no colours or guns or commanders in return. How is that performance to be rated?
If you are a cricketer, you will know that a first-innings lead is meaningless if you then go on to lose the match. Napoleon held a narrow first-innings lead over Blucher after Ligny, but was then trounced by Blucher at Waterloo on the final day of play. Wellington was saved from a first-innings deficit at Quarte Bras only because bad light stopped play, and because Ney neglected to bring half his bowlers (D’Erlon) into play at all. Wellington was again in trouble on the retreat via Genappe, only to be saved by torrential rain, and then was AGAIN in trouble at Waterloo, only to be saved by Blucher (and by Thielemann holding off Grouchy at Wavre). However Napoleon lost the match and the series, Wellington carried the Ashes home to Lords, and then (aided by sympathetic British writers) he spent the rest of his life trying to whitewash the precise details of how it was all achieved. Wdford (talk) 17:07, 9 August 2016 (UTC)
Plus don't forget Quatre Bras wouldn't have been fought at all weren't it for the disobedience of Wellington's orders by Dutch generals de Perponcher and de Constant Rebecque in occupying the crossroads. With regards to the bowlers: d'Erlon was the second corps after Reille on the leftwings march of route and would have always been called into action later due to the sheer logistiscs of travelling over one highway. But both the sloppy staffwork of Soult's staff one the one hand and Ney himself on the other hand screwed up good by each recalling d'Erlon without notifying the other. D'Erlon's arrival at Ligny (on the Prussian flank) would have probably caused a complete Prussian rout and changed the course of history. Now his corps didn't fight at either field and was pretty much useless to both Ney and Napoleon. -- fdewaele, 9 August 2016, 21:12 CET.

Wdford , perhaps instead of taking my word for it you should do some further reading. For example on the last full day of fighting on the Western Front of the European theatre of World War II Beevor writes "On the morning of 7 May, the perimeter started to collapse. The last few artillery pieces of the Twelfth Army fired off their remaining shells and then blew up their guns 'by far the hardest moment for any artilleryman' wrote '[Peter] Rettich [in his diary]" (Beevor (2002)Berlin the downfall p.398). This is a typical thought of an artilleryman repeated down they years since before the Napoleonic Wars. So the number of guns captured is an indicator of how large a defeat has been, because like colours to soldiers, gunners will do extraordinary things to try to prevent their guns falling into enemy hands. I will say no more on this but, please read up on it as it will allow you to draw informed conclusions when historians mention colours and guns captured in their accounts of battles (I presume that you now understand better what Clausewitz meant when he states "since his trophies consisted of only 21 guns and perhaps a few thousand prisoners.” in the quote you gave. -- PBS (talk) 19:42, 9 August 2016 (UTC)

@ PBS – I think you are conflating two different things here. I have no doubt that artillerymen would hate to lose their guns. However destroying your guns to avoid them being captured and used against you, is different to destroying your guns so as to pretend you were not defeated. In the WW2 example you quote, the defeat was caused by the Russian Army capturing Berlin and deposing the Nazi government - i.e. the strategic objectives – and not by the Russian Army capturing the last few guns. Blowing up their guns did not mean they were not defeated. It’s like scuttling a ship – it does not mean that you avoided defeat, merely that you avoided your equipment being captured in working order. The sources also make it clear that at least 8 of the 21 Prussian guns were captured on the Namur road the next day, after the battle was long over, when a Prussian battery arrived late from Namur and ran into the French pursuit, and that the prisoners taken were largely wounded people who had been unable to leave the battlefield during the night unaided. How is that factored into this formula, and how is it all weighted against Napoleon's salient failure to achieve his critical objective of knocking Blucher out of the campaign before the arrival of the Russians and Austrians? Wdford (talk) 17:10, 11 August 2016 (UTC)
@ Urselius – Again, this is patent nonsense. The Prussians were not driven beyond the Nivelles-Namur road that night – a Prussian battery arrived on that road the next day still, then turned to withdraw back to Namur and was captured by the French pursuit. The French pursuit only set off around mid-day, so Gneisenau had all morning to use the road if he wanted to. Hooper writes at pg 141 that “At this time [mid-morning on the 17th] not a single French patrol had crossed the Namur road; a proof in itself, if any were needed, of the limited success of Napoleon’s actions on the 16th.”
However, more logically, Gneisenau would have used the road that was used by Bulow the night before. Bulow camped overnight at Sauveniere (Chesney pg 181), which is basically a suburb of Gembloux. Thielemann was sent to Gembloux the next day to meet up with Bulow, so Gneisenau knew that the Gembloux road was open. Bulow’s corps was camped all along that road, so the road was controlled by the Prussians. If Gneisenau wanted to return to Liege, the logical road to use was to Gembloux and then on to Liege via Hannut – the same way that Bulow had just travelled to get to Gembloux from Liege.
Glover mentions at pg 91 that Napoleon believed the Prussians were fleeing toward Liege, but that Napoleon was badly mistaken. Perhaps this is what confused the doyen? I also note on the modern maps that between Gembloux and Wavre lies a town called Ottignes-Louvain-le-Neuve. This town was apparently built only in the 20th century, so mentioning it in this context would be an anachronism, but perhaps this confused the doyen even further?
Gneisenau did indeed select Wavre because it was prominent on the maps they were using, but he selected it because it allowed the Prussians to continue to support Wellington, not because Gneisenau was planning to go on to Louvain and thence to Liege. All the sources that mention the issue make it clear that Gneisenau very much wanted to leave Wellington to twist in the wind, but all the sources also make it clear that when Blucher was nowhere to be found on the night of the 16th, Gneisenau nonetheless obeyed his orders and ordered the army to retire to Wavre not Liege – all except your “doyen”. I seem to recall it being argued elsewhere on this talk page that, when a source is contradicted by the consensus of other sources, the outlying source is “loopy”. Wdford (talk) 20:31, 11 August 2016 (UTC)
You are under the strange apprehension that an army recoiling in defeat, under an acting commander, is under full control. Also, that a recently defeated army could consider marching across the front of the victors without risking total annihilation. By the time Gneisenau had decided to fall back on Wavre, Zeithen and Pirch's corps were at Tilly and Gentinnes, well to the north of the Namur to Nivelles road. Bülow did not receive definite orders concerning where to move his corps until 9:30 the following morning. The mere presence of the victorious French in and around the battlefield effectively closed the Namur to Nivelles road to the Prussians. In short you have no grasp of the difference between withdrawing from a enemy and marching an entire army across the front of an enemy. In order to fall back eastward along his natural supply route and natural line of retreat, Gneisenau had no choice but to make a considerable detour to the north. To do anything other than this would have been imprudent at best and possibly disastrous. You argue that Gneisenau's decision to fall back on Wavre was an articulation of a concern to follow Bluecher's plan of mutual support with Wellington. Given Gneisenau's recorded suspicion of Wellington and the fact that a withdrawal towards Wavre was a military necessity for him anyway, makes your judgement, and whatever sources you care to employ, highly suspect. Urselius (talk) 13:57, 14 August 2016 (UTC)
To help you iron out a few more of your misperceptions:
  1. The Prussians were not “recoiling in defeat”. Numerous sources describe then yielding in good order in one section of the field (behind Ligny) while still holding firm at Brye and Sombref. I have mentioned this repeatedly, but you refuse to hear it.
  2. An army is under the command of he who is in command – all armies have a chain of command that takes over as and when needed. Gneisenau stepped in when it was needed, and did a good job by all accounts (except your doyen). All armies work that way.
  3. You have far too much faith in the power of a “mere presence”. Gneisenau still controlled the area on both sides of Ligny until he chose to relinquish it. In any event the best route back to Liege was to Gembloux and then to retrace Bulow’s line of march back to Liege. If Liege was truly his destination then there was no need to go to Wavre, far less Louvain.
You have now declared the likes of Siborne and Chesney to be “highly suspect” sources. I think your blatant bias has reached a ridiculous level, yes? Wdford (talk) 15:33, 14 August 2016 (UTC)
I used Siborne for my post. No sane commander will make his army move across the front of an enemy of similar strength. It is a fundamental military maxim. Urselius (talk) 16:00, 14 August 2016 (UTC)
Please would you provide page numbers where Siborne supports your assertions? Wdford (talk) 17:29, 14 August 2016 (UTC)

Edits to Battle of Ligny

I am concerned that Wdford is changing the tone of the article Battle of Ligny for example before Wdford started to edit the 6 August 2016] a pragraph stated:

At 20:00 Major-General Kraft announced he would not be able to hold the village of Ligny much longer and half an hour later the Old Guard broke through, signalling that the Prussians had lost the battle. Gneisenau decided to retreat northward on Tilly, which left open lines of communication to the Rhine as well as the possibility of supporting Wellington if Napoleon was to turn on his army

After Wdford had made changes to the article the paragraph stated

At about 10 o’clock the order to fall back was given, and the Prussian forces in the center (Ligny) and the right retired in perfect order. Formed in masses, they repulsed all the attacks of the cavalry. They formed up again within a quarter of a league of the field of battle (about 3/4 of a mile), and retired to Wavre free of French pursuit. The village of Brye remained in Prussian possession (I Corps) during the night, as well as Sombref, where the III Corps had held Grouchy all day.

-- PBS (talk) 19:45, 15 August 2016 (UTC)

Sounds a little too extreme. As Wdford is in a very great minority (possibly of one) in considering Ligny as not a Prussian defeat, this wording is definitely POV and should not stand. Urselius (talk) 19:57, 15 August 2016 (UTC)
That particular paragraph originated in the German Wikipedia page about the battle. User:Tirronan and I copied and translated it] back in 2007 when we expanded the article from 10k to 30k. -- PBS (talk) 21:04, 15 August 2016 (UTC)
The wording I inserted is more accurate and is well referenced. If the "tone" looks different to you now, it may be because the tone previously was biased. Wikipolicy requires us to utilise a neutral tone, not to skew the interpretation by adopting biased tones. I have lots of sources that support my wording, so if anybody has sources that say something different, we will need to include all the different perspectives and make it clear to readers that there is no unanimity among the sources on certain interpretations of certain aspects. Which sources did the original German version may use? Wdford (talk) 21:42, 15 August 2016 (UTC)
Wdford you are entirely correct in your insistence on the use of a dispassionate neutral tone, however, you entirely miss the fact that it is your contribution which is neither dispassionate nor neutral. I have emboldened all non-neutral terms:
{{quote|At about 10 o’clock the order to fall back was given, and the Prussian forces in the center (Ligny) and the right retired in perfect order. Formed in masses, they repulsed all the attacks of the cavalry. They formed up again within a quarter of a league of the field of battle (about 3/4 of a mile), and retired to Wavre free of French pursuit. The village of Brye remained in Prussian possession (I Corps) during the night, as well as Sombref, where the III Corps had held Grouchy all day.}.
Furthermore, your wording has removed any reference to the reason why the Prussians were retreating i.e that the Guard had broken though the centre of the Prussian defensive position. You make it sound as though the Prussians were conducting a 'field day' or even a parade, and the close of a hard-fought battle should not be made to resemble these. Urselius (talk) 12:38, 16 August 2016 (UTC)
The fact that the Prussian positions at Ligny had been overwhelmed by the French Guard is already covered in the section "Napoleon commits the Old Guard". The wording "perfect order" etc comes directly from the sources. I see you have raised no objection to the use of such language when the sources are describing British actions? Wdford (talk) 13:11, 16 August 2016 (UTC)

It is probably better that the rest of this specific conversation taks place at Talk:Battle of Ligny#Details of the retreat where I ask User:Wdford You cited just two sources what made you choose Maxwell "perfect order" instead of Mueffling "good order"? and I look forward to reading Wdford's reply there. I do hope that others will join in the conversation there. -- PBS (talk) 22:04, 16 August 2016 (UTC)

Personally, I'd prefer to see this moved over to the Battle of Ligny. There seems to be some issue as to the disorder of the Prussian Army overall. Most of it was not that shaken but... from my readings the one of the reasons that Wavre was chosen was that there was a fair amount of troops that wanted to be as far away from the French as possible. Further, about 11k worth of troops were collected and sent back when they decided that Prussia just looked a whole lot better to them. Finally there were large parks of relatively slow moving bridging and siege equipment that managed to move off just fine and no interference whatsoever. Some of it not moving off till 2 or 3 am. So I think the Prussians themselves thought they'd been defeated. This wasn't a shattered army in wild panic nor did it march off in perfect order. So I am hoping no one is trying to rewrite history.Tirronan (talk) 01:49, 17 August 2016 (UTC)
So after 2 weeks of disruption by the latest ill-read troll, Tirronan's comment actually brings us back to the main point I raised in adding this section. To summarise, it is not in dispute that the French failed to pursue the beaten Prussians, who thus managed to retreat to Wavre. The original question was whether it's then accurate to say the defeated Prussian army was able to intervene at Waterloo, when in fact, it is also not in dispute that it was the undefeated element that did so. The three Corps defeated at Ligny were given the lesser tasks of holding up Grouchy at Wavre (Thielmann's Corps which, on their left, was the least-damaged of the three), or of marching to relieve Wellington's left. The latter were preceded on that march by the intact IV Corps, which got the job of attacking the French right. Hence it gives a potentially misleading picture to say the Prussians recovered; they committed their last intact Corps, 2/3rds of it Landwehr, which in Blücher and Gneisenau's opinion was more battleworthy after a long march than the survivors of I and II Corps, which were 2/3rds regulars, would be after a short one.
So what about a variant of Urselius' suggestion: "the Prussian army, although defeated, was allowed to fall back to the north, and to realign its supply train, reorganise itself, and follow Bulow's previously-unengaged IV Corps to intervene" - ? Tirailleur (talk) 10:14, 18 August 2016 (UTC)
Or, perhaps we might instead comply with Wikipolicy and report what the reliable sources say, namely that:
  • Of the three Prussian corps in action that day, only the II Corps at Ligny was overwhelmed – and even then they were only pushed back a mile or two. I Corps was still solid at Brye when the French collapsed in exhaustion, despite heavy casualties, and III Corp was solid at Sombreffe – having hardly been in the fight at all. { Waterloo: Myth and Reality, By Gareth Glover, pg 66, at [16]}
  • The Prussians were “allowed to fall back” in exactly the same way that Wellington was allowed to fall back to Waterloo – the French had overwhelming forces available to squish him but delayed the pursuit until only his cavalry remained at the scene – and they ran like hell when the French arrived. { Europe’s Destiny, By Tim Clayton, Chapter 39, at [17]}
  • The main reason Bulow got the nod to lead the rescue was because I and II Corps were out of ammo, and they needed a bit more time to resupply – hence the references to the supply train. { Europe’s Destiny, By Tim Clayton, Chapter 42, at [18]}
  • Ziethen was NOT ordered merely to relieve Wellington’s flank – his original orders were to support Bulow. Ziethen only changed his plan when Muffling convinced him that Wellington was on the verge of collapse, and couldn’t survive another hour without rescue. {On The Fields Of Glory: The Battlefields of the 1815 Campaign, By Andrew Uffindell, Michael Corum, pg 232, at [19]}
  • Ziethen then made another major contribution, in that it was his units that started the rout – by punching through D’Erlon’s corps and getting cavalry behind the Middle Guard while they were engaging the Dutch and British. { Waterloo: The French Perspective. By Andrew Field, pg 206, at [20]} { Waterloo Lectures: A Study of the Campaign of 1815, By Charles Cornwallis Chesney, pg 222, at [21]}
  • Pirch also contributed at Plancenoit, where Bulow’s militia were engaged with Lobau’s corps and the Young Guard. { Waterloo Lectures: A Study of the Campaign of 1815, By Charles Cornwallis Chesney, pg 221, at [22]}
  • Thielemann made a major contribution too, by holding off Grouchy’s entire corps which would otherwise have hit Wellington in the flank.
Either you have not bothered to read the sources, in which case please do so urgently, or you are well aware of the facts but you persist in your blatant bias nonetheless, or you are trolling. Whichever way, it is becoming increasingly difficult to AGF.
The correct solution would obviously be to expand the paragraph in question so as to give the reader a full, proper and unbiased explanation of the facts, as per the reliable sources. Wdford (talk) 17:51, 18 August 2016 (UTC)
Always so prolix, you must have time on your hands. The above is hardly useful for the replacement of one sentence. Urselius (talk) 18:35, 18 August 2016 (UTC)
If you insist on describing this complicated series of events in a single sentence, then more accurate wording would be:
Although one Corps of the Prussian army had suffered a tactical defeat at Ligny, within 48 hours the Prussian army was able to disengage, reorganise itself, resupply its units, and march across difficult terrain to intervene decisively on the Waterloo battlefield, while simultaneously holding up the approaching French Corps of Marshal Grouchy at Wavre and preventing them from participating in the main battle. Wdford (talk) 22:31, 18 August 2016 (UTC)
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