How the French Won Waterloo (or Think They Did)

Two centuries after the Battle of Waterloo, the French are still in denial.

As soon as the cannons stopped firing on 18 June 1815, French historians began re-writing history. Napoleon had beaten the Duke of Wellington, they say, but 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
.

Modern France is still a profoundly Napoleonic country, and most of the institutions he created 200 years ago still live on. Napoleon’s image in France is at an all-time high – one of his hats recently sold at auction for almost two million euros, and there is even a Napoleon theme park planned to open in 2020.

More than this, though, with the economy in tatters and distrust of politicians rife, the French are in desperate need of heroes – which is why, today more than ever, even non-Bonapartists can’t bear the idea that their greatest warrior actually lost at Waterloo . . .

Stephen Clarke
lives in Paris, where he divides his time between writing and not writing. His first novel, A YEAR IN THE MERDE, became a word-of-month hit in 2004, and is now published all over the world. Since then he has published four more bestselling MERDE novels, as well as TALK TO THE SNAIL, an indispensable guide to understanding the French, PARIS REVEALED, his insider’s guide to his home city, DIRTY BERTIE, in which he reveals the glamorous and sometimes shocking details of the future Edward VII’s parallel French life, and 1000 YEARS OF ANNOYING THE FRENCH, in which he investigates what has really been going on since 1066. A
Sunday Times
bestseller in hardcover, 1000 YEARS OF ANNOYING THE FRENCH went on to become one of the top ten bestselling history books in paperback in 2011.

FICTION

A Brief History of the Future

A Year in the Merde

Merde Actually

Merde Happens

Dial M For Merde

The Merde Factor

NON-FICTION

Talk to the Snail: Ten Commandments for Understanding the French

Paris Revealed

1000 Years of Annoying the French

Dirty Bertie: An English King Made in France

E
B
OOK SHORT

Annoying the French Encore!

For further information on Stephen Clarke and his books, you can visit his website:
www.stephenclarkewriter.com

or follow him on Twitter
@SClarkewriter

To everyone who makes my books possible –
with their thoughts, words, deeds and cups of coffee.

‘It wasn’t Lord Wellington who won; his defence was stubborn, and admirably energetic, but he was pushed back and beaten.’

– Captain Marie Jean Baptiste Lemonnier-Delafosse,
French veteran of Waterloo, in his
Souvenirs Militaires

‘This defeat shines with the aura of victory.’

– France’s former Prime Minister Dominique
de Villepin, in a recent book about Napoleon

‘John Bull was beat at Waterloo!

They’ll swear to that in France.’

– Winthrop Mackworth Praed (1802–39),
British politician and poet

‘L’histoire est une suite de mensonges sur lesquels on est d’accord.’

‘History is a series of lies about which we agree.’

– Napoleon Bonaparte

EVERYONE KNOWS WHO
lost the Battle of Waterloo. It was Napoleon Bonaparte, Emperor of France. Even the French have to admit that on the evening of 18 June 1815 it was the Corsican with one hand in his waistcoat who fled the battlefield, his
Grande Armée
in tatters and his reign effectively at a humiliating end. Napoleon had gambled everything on one great confrontation with his enemies, and he had lost. The word ‘lost’, in this case, having its usual meaning of ‘not won’, ‘been defeated, trounced, hammered’, etc.

No one seriously disputes this historical fact. Well,
almost
no one …

Let’s look at a few quotations.

‘This defeat shines with the aura of victory,’ writes France’s former Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin in a recent book about Napoleon.

‘For the English, Waterloo was a defeat that they won,’ claims French historian Jean-Claude Damamme in his study of the battle, published in 1999.

A nineteenth-century French poet called Edouard d’Escola pre-empted this modern doublethink in a poem about Waterloo, prefacing it with a quotation to the effect that ‘Defeats are only victories to which fortune has refused to give wings.’

Astonishingly, it is obvious that in some French eyes, where Napoleon is concerned, losing can actually mean winning, or at least not really losing. This despite the fact that after the Battle of Waterloo, Napoleon was ousted from power, forced to flee his country, and then banished into exile on a wind-blown British island for the rest of his life. The only victory parades in France in the summer of 1815 were those by British, Prussian, Austrian and Russian troops as they marched along the Champs-Elysées, past Napoleon’s half-built, and rather prematurely named, Arc de Triomphe.

And yet today, visitors to Waterloo, just south of Brussels, might be forgiven for thinking that the result of the battle had been overturned after a stewards’ inquiry, and victory handed to the losers. The most spectacular memorial there is the Panorama, a circular building that houses a dramatic 110-metre-long painting of the battle at its height. It is a wonderful picture. You can almost hear the sabres rattling, the cannons firing, the horses snorting, the roars and screams of the fighting men. But there is something very strange about it: Napoleon is in the distance, calmly watching the action, while Wellington seems to be trapped in a corner by a thundering cavalry charge, in imminent danger of having his famous hooked nose hacked off by a French blade. Can this really be the painting that is meant to serve as an official memorial of the battle?

The answer is yes – or rather
oui
, because the painter, Louis Dumoulin, was a Parisian brought in by the Belgians just over a hundred years ago to commemorate the centenary of the most famous historical event that ever took place in their country (apart, perhaps, from the invention of the waffle). This French cavalry charge was the image Dumoulin selected as being representative of the battle as a whole. Napoleon himself could not have chosen a more Bonapartist scene, and yet it was approved by the Belgians. Needless to say, Waterloo is in Wallonie, the French-speaking half of Belgium, where Napoleon has always been hailed as a liberating hero.

Similarly, in the old Waterloo museum next to the Panorama, visitors hoping to watch a (French-made) film about the battle enter the video room beneath a portrait of a defiant-looking general. No, not one of the victors – it’s Napoleon again.

A huge new museum is currently being built at Waterloo in readiness for the bicentenary. It will probably give a more balanced, and historically accurate, view of the battle. But one thing seems certain: the new gift shop will be just like the old one – that is, selling ten times more souvenir statuettes, medals and portraits of Napoleon than of anyone else involved in the battle. French revisionists seem to have taken possession of Waterloo, and Napoleon’s image is everywhere. He has been turned into the icon that represents the events of 18 June 1815. He lost, but it doesn’t seem to matter.

It is a beautifully French contradiction that provokes two main questions: Who exactly is behind this rewriting of history that has been going on ever since the battle ended? And why do they feel the need to indulge in such outrageous denial?

Luckily for me (and, I hope, for you, dear reader), the answers are fascinatingly complex. But let me give a brief introductory summary before going into much more detail in the book.

First of all, Napoleon has an army of fiercely loyal fans. They have been around since he was Emperor of France, and they are as fanatical today as they ever were. These are the people who dress up in Napoleonic uniform and shout ‘Vive l’Empereur!’ at battle re-enactments, who give generous grants to Napoleonic research (as long as the thesis flatters Napoleon), and who paid 1.8 million euros for one of his famous black hats when it came up for auction in November 2014.

Among these fans is a belligerent battalion of French historians who refuse to associate Napoleon’s name with anything as shameful as defeat. To achieve this feat of historical acrobatics, they will use any argument they can muster: at Waterloo, they contend, Napoleon might have lost to Blücher but he beat Wellington; the British cheated by choosing the battlefield; Napoleon’s generals disobeyed him; traitors revealed his plans; the French government prevented him from mustering another army and fighting on; etc., etc. Anything to have Napoleon emerge as a winner of some sort.

In any case, these fan-historians constantly remind us, Napoleon was France’s greatest ever champion: he won far more battles than he lost, and during his short reign France was at the peak of its influence in the world, with most of continental Europe under the Napoleonic yoke. To these determined and highly outspoken Bonapartists, Waterloo is nothing more than a minor blemish on Napoleon’s glorious record.

And in a way, the whole of modern French history revolves around, or has its roots in, Napoleon. Even historians who see him as a dictator and are relieved that his imperial regime was toppled will readily acknowledge Napoleon’s greatness and the undeniable influence he exerts on present-day life in France. After all, most of the laws he drafted are still in place (minus a few of his more sexist clauses); he invented France’s education system; and all modern French presidents model themselves on his autocratic style of leadership – they even live and work in his former palace, surrounded by his furniture.