How the French Won Waterloo – or Think They Did by Stephen Clarke (PDF)

Description

Published in the 200th Anniversary year of the Battle of Waterloo a witty look at how the French still think they won, by Stephen Clarke, author of 1000 Years of Annoying the French and A Year in the Merde.Two centuries after the Battle of Waterloo, the French are still in denial.If Napoleon lost on 18 June 1815 (and that’s a big ‘if’), then whoever rules the universe got it wrong. As soon as the cannons stopped firing, French historians began re-writing history. The Duke of Wellington was beaten, they say, and then the Prussians jumped into the boxing ring, breaking all the rules of battle. In essence, the French cannot bear the idea that Napoleon, their greatest-ever national hero, was in any way a loser. Especially not against the traditional enemy – les Anglais.Stephen Clarke has studied the French version of Waterloo, as told by battle veterans, novelists, historians – right up to today’s politicians, and he has uncovered a story of pain, patriotism and sheer perversion …

User’s Reviews

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐Think the Allies won the Battle of Waterloo? Think again! As author Stephen Clarke documents, with much good humor, the French apparently have had a hard time getting their heads around what happened on 18 June 1815. The denial started with Napoleon himself, who spent the rest of his life proving to prove that Waterloo wasn’t a defeat, or wasn’t his fault, or it was the weather, or the Prussians, or his marshals or something. The legend of Napoleon continues to grow in France, and the unhappy facts about Waterloo somehow have become more obscure over time.”How the French Won Waterloo (or Think They Did)” is an interesting and amusing book. Readers already familiar with the battle will appreciate the French struggle to arrive at a national narrative for the fall of Napoleon. Students of the era may find the author has done some interesting research. Well recommended.

⭐I think a very non biased view of why the French chalk Waterloo up as an event that shaped their history in a positive manner, but calling it a victory is a stretch.

⭐Funny telling of history makes this a great read.

⭐A great book received on time and a great read.

⭐Entertaining writer!

⭐great book

⭐Great

⭐Who is this freak? It is said a man that spent most of his time in France? A masochist I think. You can (try to) write a funny history book and base it on true facts (yes, truly you can). No, Napoleon didn’t run away scared from Moscow but left quickly as a coup was possible in Paris. No the French didn’t surrender in 1940 when the Germans crossed the border. Who ran away maybe were the English who fled at full speed to Dunkirk destroying the allied defence and opening France to the panzer (they nearly did the same in 1914 but Joffre was better at having them fight and not flee than Gamelin…

⭐Stephen Clarke writes outside the accepted canon. Because he is witty and cynical he is not given the respect he deserves by mainstream academics, but that is to their shame – and loss.He does not just regurgitate the thoughts of others. His Sources list isn’t just a catalogue of books already on our shelves: books by authors afraid to be original, an academic sin, I often find. It takes courage to step out of line, to challenge conventional ‘interpretation’, to invigorate our understanding of the past. And to include a good laugh? Unpardonable outside the lecture hall – and a bit suspect in it…. you might upset someone. Supposing your audience includes a…. a French person! Quelle horreur!Get over it… As Stephen observes on page 3 here, by 1815 “Britain and France had been at war virtually non-stop since 1337.” Somehow it seems a shame to drop such an enduring tradition now…Just look down Stephen’s Sources list: nearly all primary, nearly all French, all pertinent and often contemporary to the period. Yet these would be valueless in the hands of a non-reflective writer. Clarke clearly thinks deeply and rationally – but crucially, independently.I find his work stimulating: sparkling wit combined with a sparkling mind. I recommend this book to you full-heartedly.And thank you, Stephen. Please continue your free-thinking, free-flowing output.

⭐Despite its title and the light-hearted style of much the text this book is actually quite a thought-provoking work.There is no doubt that militarily Britain and her Allies won Waterloo but as any visit to the battlefield today will speedily demonstrate France undoubtedly won the post battle/war propaganda campaign to the point where, in France at least, you could actually believe that Napoleon won!The text is, as noted, often light-hearted in its approach but is nonetheless quite thorough for all that.If you are interested in Waterloo or, indeed in propaganda and how history is viewed by the later generations then this book is for you. Oh, and its also often great fun to read!

⭐A serious but amusingly-written book that manages to explain how the Bonapartist wing of French history scholars sincerely believe that Napoleon was the moral victor of both Waterloo and the whole Napoleonic war. “Only God beat Napoleon, because the Universe wasn’t big enough for both of them!”. Watch out for the bi-centenary commemoration of Napoleon’s death in 2021 – particularly if Macron is still the President. Thoroughly recommended.

⭐Not a fun read. It could have been an interesting take on Waterloo and the cult of Napoleon, but halfway through I was beginning to think I was trapped in a room with with some boorish pub bore. Not full on bigot like Jeremy Clarkson, but still it started to grate by the midway point.

⭐Amusing…good arguments, fun read…

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