This is all very damning. Yet Siborne was also the subject of very positive and praiseworthy comments. A brother officer once wrote of him, ‘Of Captain Siborne it will suffice to say that he was a perfect gentleman and a most able officer. A man of fine intellect and judgement, truly unpretending in his manner and very well informed.’

In October 1838, the day the Large Model was first exhibited, the United Service Gazette carried a review that mentioned, ‘We recognised many distinguished Waterloo officers at the private view of Lieut. Siborn’s model, all of who bore honourable testimony to its admirable correctness’. The report present from The Times added, ‘A very ingenious model of the field of Waterloo has just been opened for exhibition at the Egyptian-hall, Piccadilly . . . He [Siborne] has executed his task with great accuracy, and presented to the public a plan of the great event of the day, which will convey a better notion than a mere map or the reading a mere account without auxiliary explanation.’

Of his History, Colburn’s United Service Magazine commented, ‘It is written in a free and impartial manner, is lucid in its descriptions, surprisingly correct in details; and many important features of the campaign, which have hitherto remained either wholly unnoticed, or else kept too much in shadow, are now brought forward into proper relief; whilst the grand military operations of the period are delineated with the pen of an enlightened soldier’. The reviewer in The Times described the History as, ‘…a work so faithful and excellent…’ The United Service Gazette commented, ‘It was reserved for Captain Siborne to remedy the defect, by producing a work, which, for accuracy of detail and authenticity of information, is the best of its class that has yet appeared. Captain Siborne’s facility of access to official documents, both English and foreign, the assistance which he has received from the surviving Waterloo heroes of all ranks, and zeal, energy, and talent, which he has displayed in the construction of his materials, have produced a record, not only of the battle itself, but of the whole Waterloo campaign, which is likely to be as enduring as it is creditable to his talents as a writer, and his reputation as a soldier.’

The extremes could hardly be more pronounced, so what is the truth about Siborne? Was he a fool, a liar, and partial, or was he a perfect gentleman, and great historian?

Let us first examine the charges made against Siborne the Model-Maker. Wellington’s objection as he explained to a gathering of prominent people, was that, ‘They went to one gentleman and said, “What did you do?” “I did so and so.” To another, “What did you do?” “I did such and such a thing.” One did it at ten and another at twelve, and they have mixed up the whole. The fact is, a battle is like a ball; they keep footing it all the day through.’ He also wrote to Lady Wilton that, ‘No Drawing or representation as a Model can represent more than one moment of an Action. But this Model tends to represent the whole action; and every Corps and Individual of all Nations is represented in the Position chosen by Himself.’ Was it really the case that the Large Model represented the entire battle and was that the information the Duke had?

The Large Model was commissioned in 1830 for exhibition in the United Service Museum, which was eventually opened in 1833. Lord Hill, then Commander-in-Chief of the British Army instructed Siborne to construct a model that would be the museum’s centrepiece, a major work of art lauding the greatest achievement of the Duke of Wellington. Of course, Siborne consulted the Duke on the progress of his work and sent him a plan of the model for his approval. Wellington commented, ‘I have looked over the plan of the ground of the battle of Waterloo, which appears to me to be accurately drawn. It is very difficult for me to judge of the particular position of each body of the troops under my command, much less of the Prussian army, at any particular hour’. It was well known that Siborne was constructing a model showing the Crisis of the Battle of Waterloo, when Napoleon’s Imperial Guard made its final, but unsuccessful assault on Wellington’s exhausted but still resilient centre, drawn up along the ridge of Mont St Jean, that took place at 7.15 p.m. on the evening of 18 June 1815. This had been announced in the United Service Journal, the official magazine of the armed forces published by the United Service Institute, of which the Duke was Vice-Patron. Siborne had, with the permission of Lord FitzRoy Somerset, Wellington’s Military Secretary and close confident, sent a circular to all surviving army officers that had served at Waterloo soliciting the particulars of the position of their unit at that specific time. Wellington was well aware of that fact, so not only was his charge against Siborne unfounded, the Duke knew it was unfounded. This charge can therefore be dismissed.

The reporter from the United Service Gazette of 6 October 1838 described the preview of the Model he attended as, ‘… this consummate exercise of skill and ingenuity; and [we] have no hesitation in pronouncing it the most perfect model that has yet fallen under our notice’. This journal was the weekly organ on the armed forces; its contributors the most influential military experts of the period and this writer most likely a Waterloo veteran. Why was it Wellington saw matters differently?

To continue with Wellington’s charges, let us look at those he made against Siborne the Historian. He accused Siborne of not having contacted the commander-in-chief or his senior officers while conducting his research. We have already seen that Wellington commented on a copy of the plan of the Model that Siborne sent him. Reference to Siborne’s papers, held in the Manuscripts Department of the British Library in London, show dozens of documents; letters to and from Siborne to FitzRoy Somerset and other senior officers, particularly Lord Hill, Sir Hussey Vivian, the Marquess of Anglesey and all surviving other senior British officers of Wellington’s army at Waterloo. Siborne’s research into the campaign attracted considerable interest at the time and was frequently mentioned in numerous issues of the United Service Journal, over many years. Wellington could not have failed to notice that. This charge against Siborne is equally without foundation, and Wellington knew that.

As for Knoop’s charge of partiality, let us examine one specific point in an attempt to establish its veracity. Knoop claims that Siborne set about playing down the role of the Netherlands Army in the Campaign of 1815, citing as an example the length of time the Netherlanders fought without support at the Battle of Quatre Bras on the afternoon of 16 June 1815. Knoop’s accusation is that Siborne deliberately played this down to exaggerate the role of his own countrymen in that battle.

Knoop criticism of Siborne’s History contains specific points. One important issue was the time at which Picton’s Division arrived at Quatre Bras to relieve the hard-pressed Netherlanders. Siborne gave the time of the commencement of the action at ‘about 2 o’clock’, and the arrival of Picton’s Division half to three-quarters of an hour later. Knoop points out that other accounts time the commencement of the action at between 1 and 2 p.m. and the arrival of Picton’s Division at between 3 and 4 p.m. Did the Netherlanders fight alone for a mere half an hour or was it as much as three hours? Let us endeavour to establish the facts here.

The Dutch source Siborne used was that by Löben Sels. This work was first published in Dutch in 1842. Siborne was evidently not aware of its existence when writing his History, first published in 1844. However, he did use this work to revise the 3rd Edition of his History, published in 1848. Löben Sels’ ‘Bijdragen’ was later translated into French, this version appearing in 1849. As I have been unable to locate a copy of the Dutch version, I will instead refer to the French. Löben Sels stated,

“Many Netherlands documents say that the actual attack took place between 1 and 2 o’clock … Between 3 and 4 o’clock … the 2nd Brigade of Netherlands light cavalry under General van Merlen arrived … Picton’s English division must have arrived almost simultaneously with Van Merlen’s Brigade…”

Knoop’s charges against Siborne of not respecting the truth, of lacking conscientiousness and of being partial are unfounded, at least with regard to the movements of Picton’s Division on 16 June 1815. Siborne may have played down the role of the Netherlanders at Quatre Bras, albeit acting in good faith based on information he considered reliable, but this was a case of merely minutes and not hours, as Knoop implied. Although he based his timings on the accounts of several witnesses whose integrity he had no cause to question, Siborne could have contacted more eyewitnesses, particularly the Netherlanders. Knoop on the other hand was selective in the evidence he chose to make his case and exaggerated it. Although Siborne’s History was not without fault, it was certainly not dishonest. Knoop’s Critique was, in places, a little unfair, to say the least.

It is interesting to note that Hamilton-Williams, although he made serious charges against Siborne, did not produce a single example of his alleged distortion of history in his entire book. An examination of Siborne’s papers, which contain memoranda he wrote on various aspects of the battle and correspondence with many surviving officers, both British; French and German, indicates the exhaustive nature of his research. Newspapers and journals of the period praised the accuracy of his History and the Prussian General Staff commented about how Siborne ‘troubled to present the truth and to give everybody due credit.’ Certainly they did not see his work as a ‘crime against history’. Chandler’s accusation against Siborne, based on information given by Hamilton-Williams, is also quite unfounded, as an examination of Siborne’s papers will show. In them, there are numerous letters from German participants, copies of official reports from the various contingents and a long correspondence with the Prussian General Staff. Siborne even befriended Baron Bunsen at the Prussian Legation in London and exchanged letters with the King of Prussia. Siborne also endeavoured to get input from the French. He wrote to Marshal Lobau, commander of the VI Corps at Waterloo, asking for information and requesting permission to send a circular to surviving French officers. When he got no reply, Siborne had friends at the British Embassy in Paris go and visit him in an endeavour to get a response. They were not successful – the theme of Waterloo was taboo in France, even twenty or thirty years afterwards. There would appear to be no basis at all for these charges.

© Peter Hofschröer
March 2007