#christopher hibbert

This was one of the scenes that struck me when I first watched Waterloo (1970). It gives such a fascinating insight into Wellington's character.

Andrew Roberts puts it best: "By contrast to today, when an enemy head of state constitutes a legitimate military target, Wellington refused an artillery officer under his command permission to fire his battery at Napoleon.” (Waterloo. HarperCollinsPublishers, 2005. p.15.) Christopher Hibbert quotes Siborne, a Waterloo historian who served as a lieutenant in the 9th foot, providing more detail:

“An officer of the artillery came up to the Duke, and stated that the had a distinct view of Napoleon… that he had the guns of his battery well pointed in that direction, and was prepared to fire. His Grace instantly and emphatically exclaimed, “No! No! I’ll not allow it. It is not the business of commanders to be firing upon each other.” (Hibbert, Christopher. Wellington, A Personal History. Addison Wesley, 1997. p.212.)

Tactically, eliminating Napoleon before the battle ever began would have made sense. Without Napoleon, the battle might not even occur. Even if the Marshals tried to rally and fight for Napoleon's son, French morale would be wrecked. Wellington himself estimated that Napoleon's presence was worth 40,000 men; with his death would go all the personal charisma he could muster. (Hibbert, Christopher. Waterloo: Napoleon’s Last Campaign. Mentor Books, 1967. p.141.)

Consider that French sharpshooters particularly targeted Lord Nelson during the Battle of Trafalgar and killed him. (The Great Commanders, "Horatio Nelson.") There was precedent for giving the order, yet Wellington chose not to. I've seen it argued that Wellington was trying to kill Napoleon, and yet this choice makes that point of view very difficult to defend.

I cannot say precisely what drove Wellington to make this decision, but I suspect it had to do with his ideals of honor, his commitment to being a gentleman. Perhaps there were political considerations as well, but if Siborne tells it accurately, the instant response belies such careful thinking. Siborne doesn't say that he deliberated, but that he instantly and emphatically denied permission. I don't discount a flash of genius on Wellington's part, I just find honor the likelier explanation.

The all mighty RNG brought 945 History:Europe:Italy. So I chose Christopher Hibbert's The Borgias and Their Enemies: 1431–1519. It essentially covers Rodrigo Borja's ascent to power to Lucretia Borgia's death with some context before and after.

The first chapter describes how Rome was a shithole even for the middle ages before popes returned to it (they had abandoned it for France for a while) and then there were three goddamned popes even, and finally things settled down and popes returned to Rome and they wanted a strong leader over a pious one necessarily, so they elected Rodrigo Borja, made a cardinal at a precipitously young age by his uncle Pope Calixtus III (Not uncommon, about every Pope of that age - even the more "honest" ones- promoted relatives and friends left and right). And let's be frank, Rodriogo- AKA Pope Alexander VI, was not one of the more "honest" ones.

He was the first Pope to admit to his children being his and not "nephews" as the phrase "nepotism" comes from. And I think that reflects his biggest downfall. His son, Cesare was a bastard in every sense of the word. He killed his brother and brother-in-law and a lot of other people and his dad still supported him and used simony increasingly heavily to fund his wars.

The Borgias (Italian for the Spanish Borja) are quite well known for poison so it was very disappointing to find out historically it seems only to be mentioned in Alexander VI's death, rumored as a poisoning attempt gone wrong, but quite possibly just some pedantic disease. Lucrezia Borgia in particular, aside from having an asshole dad and brother seems to be made out as all right if not a little into secular humor for the time. So, big whoop.

SHOULD YOU READ THIS BOOK: Sure, if you want a rundown of Italian history in the 1400s-to early 1500s I'd give it a go. There's a who's who of that period of Italian history including Michelangelo, Leonardo Da Vinci, Titian, the guy who broke Michelangelo's nose (Pietro Torrigiano), Nicholo Machiavelli, etc. The only thing I'd suggest is getting a map of Italy of the time to figure out what the sam hill is so important about Naples, etc.

ART PROJECT:

In a family known for its licentiousness the Feast of the Chestnuts stands out as a particularly bawdy episode in which they gave an orgy in which courtesans groped naked on their hands and knees in cadlelight searching for roasted chestnuts. Sorry for the poor scale in this, as I had an artistic vision in mind and stuck to it.

Comparative Waterloo Reviews

I own four Waterloo books. Now that I've read them all, let's kick off Waterloo Week by comparing them.

Andrew Roberts, Waterloo. HarperCollinsPublishers, 2005.

This is the most beginner friendly look at Waterloo if you're only casually interested and want an overview. It's short: including appendices, notes, and the index, it's only 143 pages. There's a chapter summarizing the events leading up to the battle, the battle itself, and a conclusion. Roberts takes the five phases approach to describing the combat, which gives a clearer mental picture (possibly deceptively clear, but not a horrible thing for building a mental scaffold). You get some details and good quotes, it gives a brief overview of the 15th-17th, but it's not overwhelming. My only qualm is that it advances a theory about Ney's cavalry charge that isn't in the others. If this was the newest of the four I would discard it, but Black's is newer. Not to say Roberts is wrong, just that I haven't seen it in other places. Roberts does have two decent maps and an insert of portraits of the major figures and some Waterloo paintings, which give visual references. I liked that he had parts of Wellington's despatch in one of the appendicies, but not that it wasn't the full thing.

Christopher Hibbert, Waterloo: Napoleon’s Last Campaign. Mentor Books, 1967.

Although this was the one I first bought and read, having read the others, I wouldn't recommend this to beginners. Although there is a lot of useful background information on Napoleon, Wellington, and Blucher, there aren't any images or maps. I've found it's much easier to come to grips with the battlefield if you have a map of some kind readily at hand. Hibbert also relies on extensive extracts and quotes from other sources, some primary and some secondary. The formatting makes it difficult to tell what is Hibbert's writing and what isn't. As far as length, my copy is 280 pages all told, with smaller pages and smaller writing, because it packs in so much more information. Hibbert probably has the most detail on the days before the campaign and the Battles of Ligny and Quatre Bras. His organization of Waterloo is Morning in one chapter and Afternoon and Evening in another. He also has a good account of the night after the battle and the days to come. His account is pretty well balanced for the most part between the two sides. I think a reader who has a book or some other research under their belt would find this one interesting.

Jeremy Black, The Battle of Waterloo. Random House, 2015.

This is the book for advanced readers and history scholars. Black is the most academic of the lot and spends time contextualizing Waterloo in the warfare of the 18th and 19th centuries as well as talking about ideas of modernity. This leads to a broader overview than the others. Black addresses the background of the French and British systems and armies more than the others, with less biography of the individual leaders than Hibbert. There are no maps. Black, much like Hibbert, divides the battle between two chapters, early and late. It was an interesting read, but it's not the one I go to first for looking things up and it's probably the one I consult the least. It's 236 pages, so longer than Roberts, and it's probably the densest. While it's discussing the Battle of Waterloo, it wants to weave it into the bigger picture rather than isolating it as an interesting battle.

Jac Weller, Wellington at Waterloo. Greenhill Publishing, 1967.

This is the book if you're a Wellington fan and you don't so much care about what the French army or Napoleon was up to, because you only get as much of them as is necessary to understand the rest. If that's all you want, you can skip right to this one because it's probably the most beginner friendly, particularly if you're a visual learner. Weller's biggest advantage is that he has maps and pictures of the terrain that he has marked the positions of on the maps, so that you can look at a photo and know where it was taken. He has references to these in the text itself. The only downside of the maps is they are drawn upside-down, that is, with the north to the bottom of the page, because it's focused on the British perspective. This can be a bit disconcerting at first. The book is divided into two parts. The first focuses primarily on the battles themselves. It sets up the armies, discusses Quatre Bras, the retreat, and then Waterloo. Weller more or less uses the five phases to separate his chapters but doesn't call them that and integrates them better than some. The second part contains analyses of each army's mistakes and useful information on the composition of the armies and cavalry vs artillery formations. There's also a chapter that is essentially a guide to exploring the modern terrain of the era (circa 1967) and what changes can affect your ability to explore the area yourself. There's even a list comparing town sizes. There are even two indexes, a general index as well as one by place. It is one of the longer books on this list-- it's over 250 pages-- but it's meant to be easily accessible and you can skip a lot of the second part if you're not interested in some of the details. I think this one is going to be a useful reference going forward, especially because of its indexes.

I really wish Weller and Hibbert were in dialogue with each other, because they do seem to disagree on points despite drawing from many of the same sources. Unfortunately, the books came out the same year, 1967. Roberts mentions both Weller and Hibbert in his further reading section, while Black only mentions Weller.

Not all of these books agree as to who made mistakes and who should be absolved of them. Hibbert is probably the most critical, while Weller absolves nearly everyone. Troops numbers vary, as no one agrees on those.

(Duke of Wellington)

Oooh, this is fun! Thank you! I'm always happy to yap about Wellington. I'm going to limit it to five, or I will go on forever. These are in no particular order and entirely based on what I can think of off the top of my head and what my notes can remind me of, so I reserve the right to claim another favorite if later reminded of something good.

He valued being a gentleman.

It was actually something in Waterloo (1970) that put me onto this, and I've been gathering evidence for it ever since. You can see it in a few places. Ideally, all his officers were gentlemen; learned at university and through traveling. (Longford, 356-57.) I think his "anemoic feeling" about university plays into this as well. (Longford, 356) Longford mentions that Wellington wrote to Kitty's nephew, "I would give more than I can mention that I had had a university education.” (Longford, 356) Wellington himself was denied the opportunity to go, but perhaps he felt it would have made him more of a gentleman to have gone. You can see this later in life too; when the Count d'Orsay painted him in evening dress, Wellington quite liked the painting, claiming d'Orsay was the only person who'd managed to paint him like a gentleman.

2. He felt, deeply.

Hibbert infuriates me at times, but one of the stupidest things he's ever written was that Wellington was "without the supreme gift of sympathy for others." Because if you look at his reactions, that's simply not true.

Longford says the death of Somers-Cocks "seems to have knocked the heart out of Wellington." (Longford, 294) The Intelligence officer was Wellington's beau ideal of a soldier (nobly born, dedicated to his profession, and fond of field experience), and probably the person Wellington thought would rise up to replace some of his less competent generals. (Longford, 294) At the man's funeral, Wellington's "look of sheer despair prevented his friends from speaking to him." (Longford, 295)

So too can you see this in his reaction to Waterloo. Not merely in crying while being read the list of casualties, but in his response to others in the months to come. (Holmes, 250)

“Oh, do not congratulate me,” he begged his brother William’s wife, putting his hands to his face to hide the tears, “I have lost all my dearest friends." (Holmes, 254)

He had a similar reaction to the aftermath of the third siege of Badajoz, when, visiting the dead on the glacis, he broke down and wept. (Longford, 273)

When Alexander Gordon was injured at Waterloo, Wellington had him moved to his own bed. (Holmes, 250) Similarly, when informed that there were wounded soldiers enduring bitterly cold bivouacs during the Peninsular campaign, he visited them, then ordered they be taken inside the officer's quarters. When he found they had not been, he had those disobeying his orders punished, and the men taken inside. (Hibbert, 130)

These aren't the emotions of a man without sympathy. Was he unsympathetic at times? Yes, especially when people were being stupid (or when they wanted leave for fanciful reasons). But he wasn't an ice block and I wish people would stop treating him like one.

3. He was a Freemason (sort of) but hated them.

As a very young man, Wellington was inducted as a Freemason at Trim Lodge. Yet he never went near that lodge nor any other ever again. In Portugal, it actually caused quite a bit of political trouble that they thought he was a Mason, and he ended up having to issue a general order requiring his officers to refrain from staging their customary masonic activities, as it nearly got a bunch of them stoned. The Portuguese associated Masonry with the French; they really didn't like it. Then Wellington became a great man, and the Freemasons tried attaching his name to their cause. He rebuffed them every time, as he'd grown to have a hatred of secret societies. (Longford, 242-43.)

4. He had a dramatic streak.

Wellington enjoyed the theater. Although Hibbert says only that he enjoyed the mess's amateur theatricals, enough that he sent for the texts of plays suitable for officers and their ladies to perform when in India, Longford mentions in a footnote that he was "an enthusiastic amateur actor in India." (Hibbert, 39; Longford, 307.) I'm quite pleased I'm stumbled across that last bit because the last time I went looking for the evidence to back up that he'd actually acted, I couldn't find it.

More often, however, you see it in these occasional flourishes. For instance, Sir Thomas Picton told General Donkin that, in 1813, when Wellington led his troops out of Portugal for the last time, Wellington turned his horse around and waved his hat, crying, "Farewell, Portugal! I shall never see you again!" (Longford, 307.) Almost a year later, in Toulouse, when given the news that Napoleon had abdicated in the middle of dressing for dinner, he spun round on his heel snapping his fingers like a schoolboy. (Longford, 344) And then, at the end of dinner the night of Waterloo, he raised both hands in an imploring attitude and said, "The hand of almighty God has been upon me this day.” (Holmes, 250) Whether he gave a single toast in memory of the Peninsular War before or after this is disputed (Hibbert says after (181), Holmes says it came before (250)). Most portrayals lean into the stoicism and imperturbability that he showed, particularly on the battlefield, but he was so much more than that.

5. Wellington loved gossip.

I'm currently working through Hibbert's Personal History and this is one of the facts I picked up on; apparently, Wellington could not hide his love of gossip. (Hibbert, 39.) It just amuses me to think about him in a ballroom, whispering with a woman, being told all the latest on dits and letting out his whooping laugh.

Okay this may, technically, be more than five facts. Oh, well. Who doesn't enjoy writing 1000 word essays on a Sunday, just because? Enjoy!

Oh do I!

I think the answer depends on how much time you're willing to invest and how much detail you want.

My favorite Wellington biography so far is Elizabeth Longford's Wellington: The Years of the Sword. It's just shy of 500 pages and is only the first volume, the second being Wellington: The Pillar of State. I haven't read that one yet, but it's just over 400 pages and is on my TBR list for this year. The first covers his life through Waterloo, the second picks up with its aftermath and carries on to his death. Longford is detailed, fairly easy to read, and funny. Some of her turns of phrase make me laugh aloud. Longford is probably the most sympathetic to Wellington (she's also distantly related by marriage-- she was the Countess of Longford, married to one of Kitty's brother's descendants-- so there is a slight possibility of bias there). The additional length gives her room to go into certain issues in more depth than the other authors, such as the conflict around when he was born and his relations with Harriette Wilson. If you're willing to invest the time, she's a great choice. Most of the later biographers reference her. This is my overall recommendation, but with about 900 pages of material, it might be a little overwhelming.

If so, you might consider reading Richard Holmes' Wellington: The Iron Duke. My paperback copy handles the whole in about 300 pages. That length has its tradeoffs; you get significantly less detail and it leaves out a lot. Holmes focuses more on Wellington's early life, the Peninsula, and Waterloo than he does on anything after 1815 (only about a sixth of the page count is used to handle the last half of his life). You won't get much more than the highlights of his later life. This is also the most modern of the biographies I have, but it's still 20 years old. Holmes, much like Longford, tends to be fairly sympathetic where Wellington is concerned. This was the first whole-life biography of Wellington that I read, both because it was the least intimidating and because it was the easiest to travel with. It's a good starting point.

Alternatively, there is the Christopher Hibbert biography, Wellington: A Personal Life. I'm currently reading this, although it's my second attempt. The first time I abandoned it about halfway through. Lengthwise, it's about 400 pages and I'm somewhere around 350, so I've read most of it. Hibbert's has the benefit of being shorter than Longford and more comprehensive than Holmes. He also gives pretty even coverage to Wellington's life before and after Waterloo, and he does have some interesting facts. I find that his structure for the later chapters results in him being a bit repetitive, and I do think he contradicts himself at one point (or, at least, he fails to explain a change in Wellington's character that would make it not a contradiction). Hibbert is the most critical of Wellington of the three, and his evaluations of Wellington's personality are by far the harshest. I do think having a more critical perspective can be useful in the course of one's studies, but if you're only planning to read one and you're already attached to Wellington, this one might frustrate you at times.

One thing I will point out is that these three don't always agree and I cannot say I know which is the most accurate. For instance all three give slightly different accounts of the evening and morning after the battle of Waterloo in regards to the timing of certain events. These differences are one of the reasons I started taking notes, because I needed to keep straight who said what.

Whichever one you choose, I hope you have fun reading! Wellington was such a fascinating figure and I'm glad you're thinking about learning more about him.