Issue 2 (63)
| CONTRASTING MEMORIES OF A BATTLE: WATERLOO, 1815 | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Year | 2019 | Number | 2(63) |
| Pages | 31-40 | Type | scientific article |
| UDC | 94 | BBK | 63.3(0)52 |
| Authors | Forrest Alan |
Topic | CULTURAL AND HISTORICAL MEMORY IN TEXTS AND PRACTICES |
| Summary | Waterloo was Napoleon’s final battle, the engagement which ended his and France’s dream of a pan-European empire. It laid the foundations of nineteenth-century Europe. Yet there is no common memory of the battle in the countries whose troops took part in it. In the years after 1815 only Britain sought to turn Waterloo into a national triumph, depicting it as a very British victory gained by Wellington’s military genius and the supposed attributes of the British character. The Dutch tended to play down their martial qualities and emphasized the dynastic triumph of the House of Orange. In Prussia, which contributed so many soldiers to the Allied cause, little prominence was given to the battle, in contrast to the celebration of the Battle of Leipzig two years earlier. And for France, Waterloo would become the very epitome of a ‘glorious defeat’, which would add to, rather than detract from, Napoleon’s legend in the years before the First World War. These contrasting memories have evolved over the two centuries since 1815 and have left their mark on recent commemorations of the battle, not least at the time of the Bicentenary of Waterloo in 2015. The article looks at the nature of collective memory and shows how far political considerations helped to shape it, especially in the decades immediately following 1815. By comparing national memories of the battle the article raises questions about the nature of the collective memory of war and the purpose of military commemoration. | ||
| Keywords | battle of Waterloo, victory, defeat, commemoration, comparative history, national memory | ||
| References |
Assmann A. Transformations between History and Memory. Social Research, 2008, vol. 75, iss. 1, pp. 49–72. (in English). Black J. Waterloo: the Battle that Brought Down Napoleon. London: Icon, 2010, 256 p. (in English). Blanning T. 18 Juni 1815: Waterloo [18 June 1815: Waterloo]. Erinnerungstage: Wendepunkte der Geschichte von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart [Remembrance Days: turning points in history from antiquity to the present]. Munich: C. H. Beck, 2010, p. 163. (in Dutch). Colby R. The Waterloo Despatch: The Story of the Duke of Wellington’s Official Despatch on the Battle of Waterloo and its Journey to London. London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1965, 43 p. (in English). Colley L. Britons: Forging the Nation, 1707–1837. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992, 429 p. (in English). Cookson J. The British Armed Nation, 1793–1815. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997, 286 p. (in English). Cornwell B. Sharpe’s Waterloo: Richard Sharpe and the Waterloo Campaign, 15 June to 18 June 1815. London: Harper, 2008. 437 p. Corrigan G. Waterloo: A New History of the Battle and its Armies. London: Atlantic Books, 2015, 341 p. (in English). Cubitt G. History and Memory. Manchester: University of Manchester Press, 2007, 272 p. (in English). Elliott M. Wolfe Tone. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2012, 545 p. (in English). Famous Battles and How They Shaped the Modern World. Barnsley: Pen and Sword, 2018, 197 p. (in English). Forrest A. Napoleon’s Men: The Soldiers of the Revolution and Empire. London: Hambledon, 2002, 248 p. (in English). Forrest A. Waterloo. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015, 256 p. (in English). Foulkes N. Dancing into Battle: A Social History of the Battle of Waterloo. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2006, 230 p. (in English). French D. Military Identities: The Regimental System, the British Army and the British people, 1870–2000. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005, 404 p. (in English). Garnier J. [Pierre-Jacques-Etienne Cambronne, viscount]. Tulard J. Dictionnaire Napoléon [Napoleon Dictionary]. Paris: Fayard, 1999, vol. 1, p. 355. (in French.). Gildea R. The Past in French History. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994, 418 p. (in English). Hagemann K. Celebration, Contestation and Commemoration: The Battle of Leipzig in German memories of the Anti-Napoleonic Wars. War, Demobilization and Memory: The Legacy of War in the Era of Atlantic Revolutions. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016, pp. 335–352. (in English). Heinzen J. The Forgotten Victory: Germans and the Battle of Waterloo, 1815–2015. The RUSI Journal, 2015, vol. 160, iss. 3, pp. 70–75. (in English). History, Commemoration and National Preoccupation: Trafalgar, 1805–2005. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007, 130 p. (in English). Hoock H. The King’s Artists: The Royal Academy of Arts and the Politics of British Culture, 1760–1840. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003, 367 p. (in English). Horward D. D. Wellington as a Strategist, 1808–14. Wellington: Studies in the Military and Political Career of the First Duke of Wellington. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1990, p. 113. (in English). Largeaud J.-M. Napoléon et Waterloo: la défaite glorieuse de 1815 à nos jours [Napoleon and Waterloo: the glorious defeat from 1815 to the present day]. Paris: La Boutique de l’Histoire, 2016, 462 p. (in French). Logie J. Waterloo: The 1815 Campaign. Stroud: Spellmount, 2003, 240 p. (in English). Loos W., Jansen G., Kloek W. Waterloo, Before and After: Paintings from the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, 1800–1830. Amsterdam: Rijksmuseum, 1997, 100 p. (in English). Matthews S. Charlotte Malkin’s Waterloo Diary and the Politics of Waterloo Tourism. Literature Compass, 2014, vol. 11, iss. 3, pp. 218–231. (in English). Neglected Genius: The Diaries of Benjamin Robert Haydon, 1808–1846. London: Faber & Faber, 1990, 2374 p. (in English). O’Donnell R. Robert Emmet and the Rebellion of 1798. Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 2003, 285 p. (in English). Parry C. Battle lines: Museums and heritage sites are trying to raise awareness of the Battle of Waterloo. Museums Journal, 2015, June, vol. 115, iss. 6, pp. 20–25. (in English). Pearce S. The material of war: Waterloo and its Culture. Bonehill J., Quilley G. Conflicting Visions: War and Visual Culture in Britain and France, 1700–1830. Aldershot, 2005, pp. 218. (in English). Raxhon P. [The Lion of Waterloo, a controversial monument]. Waterloo, lieu de mémoire européen [Waterloo, Place of European memory]. Louvain-la-Neuve: Academia-Bruylant, 2000, pp. 151–160. (in French). Roberts A. Waterloo: Napoleon’s Last Gamble. Leicester: Harper Perennial, 2005, 160 p. (in English). Seaton A. V. War and Thanatourism: Waterloo, 1815–1914. Annals of Tourism Research, 1999, vol. 26, pp. 130–158. (in English). Sédouy J.-A. de. Le Congrès de Vienne: l’Europe contre la France, 1812–1815 [The Congress of Vienna: Europe against France, 1812–1815]. Paris: Perrin, 2003, 308 p. (in French). Shaw P. Waterloo and the Romantic Imagination. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002. 260 p. (in English). Tebbe J. Revision and “Rebirth”: Commemoration of the Battle of Nations in Leipzig. German Studies Review, 2010, no. 33, pp. 618–640. (in English). Uffindel A., Corum M. On the Fields of Glory: The Battlefields of the 1815 Campaign. London: Greenhill, 1996, 360 p. (in English). |
||
| Download in PDF | |||
