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Title: Waterloo by Bernard Cornwell ISBN: 0-14-029439-2 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: 02 November, 2001 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.67 (18 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Five stars just isn't enough!
Comment: For lovers of the Sharpe series Waterloo will provide you with both a triumphant and riveting ending, and a sad farewell. For lovers of Napoleonic history, Waterloo will take you beyond the tactics and strategy and let you feel the thunder of the cannons, smell the clouds of powder smoke, and hear the cries of the dying and wounded. Cornwell places you on the ridge overlooking the valley and lets you watch the battle unfold. The book is really the next best thing to a time machine.
Rating: 5
Summary: Yes, but who won?
Comment: I was dining a few nights ago with - oddly enough - a German,an Englishman, and a Frenchman.
The topic came around to Waterloo. The Frenchman told the table that Napoleon didn't lose. He made a strategic defeat, and anyway it was the Prussians who won the battle. The German said the Prussians won the battle, and the French were beaten spitless. The Englishman said that Wellington and his army of scum won the battle, that Napoleon ran like a rabbit, and the Prussians arrived too late to do anybody any good. Before sabres were drawn, I poured another port and laid out an excellent Blue Vein cheese from New Zealand's Kapiti Coast.
No matter what Cornwell did with this Sharpe story, he was going to be in trouble. I loved the book. Great battle! It's hardly a Sharpe book at all: Sharpe's merely the device Cornwell uses to draw the battle together for the reader.
But Cornwell was always going to cop it in the neck from the Dutch (What? The Dutch run? Never! ) He was always going to be mocked by the Germans (Loiter on the way to a battle? Nein! ). The French have never believed they lost the battle anyway, so Cornwell's version would have to wrong, wrong, wrong.
The book's an entertainment, so let's not get our knickers in a twist about "the facts". It's Cornwell's view of the battle - accept that. And when you come to accept it as an entertainment, you'll enjoy it. This is battle on a huge scale - the largest number of men ever committed to battle at the time. And it's described expertly, with a feel for the blood, terror, glory, and unthinking heroism of the day.
Deeply satisfying, dramatic, gory - with a neat wrap-up for Sharpe's adulterous [...] ex. What more could you want for a Sunday afternoon?
Rating: 4
Summary: Brilliant Work of Fiction
Comment: Whilst reading this book I tried desperately to keep in mind that this was fiction and that it was for entertainment - although my own opinions of the battle, often contrary to the author's, continued to creep up on me.
Enjoyed simply as a work of fiction is book is damn good - one of the best novels of the Napoleonic period (most other novel's cocnentrate on the war at sea which was minor and largely over - at least in the seas around Europe - by 1805). I highly recommend this not just to those who have an interest in the time, but simply to any reader who wants a brilliant action novel.
As for my disagreements with the author's potrayal of the battle - well Waterloo is probably the most controversial battle in history and it would be impossible to get everyone to agree. The author gives the typical English opinion of the battle - that is Wellington's brilliance won the battle. No doubt Wellington was one of the greatest generals of the age along with Davout, Suvorov and of course Napoleon. Waterloo however was not his greatest battle. To attribute the battle's outcome to Napoleon's or his Marshals' failures, to Wellington's skill or to the Prussians' arrival is folly. It was a mixture of all of these factors. Wellington would have been defeated without the Prussians arriving. Had Wellington not been the skilled general he was the Prussians would have arrived to find the Anglo-Dutch army already defeated and would have in turn been defeated. Had Napoleon not been so inatttentive he would have performed just as he had in all of his brilliant battles and against Napoleon at his best even Wellington would have lost. Had Ney not been so impetuous or had Grouhcy not been so overcautious the battle would have gone against the Allies. It was all these things that led to the outcome.
Oh and I believe one reviewer said that Waterloo was the largest battle of the age - there were plenty of larger battles in 1812 and 1813 as well as some earlier. Leipzig was by far the largest - similar in size to some of WWI and II's large battles.
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Title: Sharpe's Devil : Chile 1820 by Bernard Cornwell ISBN: 0060932295 Publisher: Perennial Pub. Date: 01 August, 1999 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
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Title: Sharpe's Sword: Richard Sharpe and the Salamanca Campaign June and July, 1812 by Bernard Cornwell ISBN: 0140294333 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: 10 April, 2001 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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Title: Sharpe's Company: The Siege of Badajoz by Bernard Cornwell ISBN: 0140294325 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: 10 April, 2001 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: Sharpes Gold: Richard Sharpe and the Destruction of Almeida, August 1810 by Bernard Cornwell ISBN: 0140294317 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: February, 2001 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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Title: Sharpe's Battle: Spain 1811 by Bernard Cornwell ISBN: 0060932287 Publisher: Perennial Pub. Date: 16 December, 2003 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
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