| Did
the Duke Manipulate the Record? |
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| Thanks are due to Captain
William Siborne, adjutant of the Royal Military Asylum (1843-1849),
whose persistent and dogged determination kept alive knowledge of an
unjust distortion of a major event at the Battle of Waterloo on 18
June 1815. This was the arrival on the field of battle by Field Marshal
Blücher's Prussian army in good time to turn the tide and win
the day. Had the Prussians not arrived in force the outcome of the
battle might well have been different from that which is now a matter
of history. Wellington claimed the Prussian intervention first became
effective after 7 p.m. when the French were already in full retreat.
As proved to the contrary by incontrovertible documentary evidence,
his Prussian allies arrived in strength enough to change the outcome
at 4.30 p.m. The three and half hour discrepancy made a sufficient
difference to change a stalemate into certain victory. |
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Peter Hofschröer,
a graduate of King's College, London, is a military historian with
a specialist knowledge of Napoleonic history. With a record
output of books on the era, numerous articles contributed to the Journal
of the Society of Army Historical Research, War
in History, Military History, the Age of Napoleon, the BBC History
Magazine, First Empire, and the Osprey Military Journal, his
credentials are well established. In his latest work, Wellington's
Smallest Victory, he puts to rest a long battle with pro-Wellington
supporters who contend that Wellington was right and the documented
facts of history are wrong. |
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Peter Hofschröer, author of Wellington's Smallest Victory
published by Faber & Faber in 2004 |
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The front cover of Peter's book, available from bookstores and online dealers. |
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In support of Adjutant Siborne's
lonely battle to present the actual sequence of events that took place
on the day of the battle, Mr. Hofschröer agreed to the publication
on this site of additional papers on this subject.
The section, which deals exclusively with the events on the day of the
Decisive battle of Waterloo is dedicated to Captain Siborne, a former
Adjutant of the RMA, Chelsea. The articles that follow are the copyright
ownership of Peter Hofschröer and may not be reproduced in any form
without the written permission of the author through this site. Hofschröer's
two additional papers on Wellington and his Prussian allies follow this
introduction. First, what has come to be known as The
De Lancey Disposition and, secondly, his paper entitled Did
the Duke of Wellington deceive his Prussian Allies in the Campaign of
1815? |
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