Wellington’s smallest victory: the Duke, the model maker and the secret of Waterloo

As every schoolboy knows, Wellington won at Waterloo because the Prussians arrived in the afternoon, putting pressure on Napoleon's flank and bringing much-needed respite to the tiring allied forces under Wellington's command. Indeed, the Duke himself noted as much in his renowned Waterloo Dispatch written the morning after (Faber and Faber give the text), 'I should not do justice to my own feelings, or to Marshal Blücher and the Prussian army, if I did not attribute the successful result of this arduous day to the cordial and timely assistance I received from them. The operation of General Bülow upon the enemy's flank was a most decisive one; and, even if I had not found myself in a situation to make the attack which produced the final result, it would have forced the enemy to retire if his attacks should have failed, and would have prevented him from taking advantage of them if they should unfortunately have succeeded.' However, despite this recognition, the general tone of the dispatch seems to limit Prussian participation. Wellington seems to present himself as alone responsible for the total victory, and he was less than scrupulous in pushing that message, as Hofschröer ably points out.
 
In the years following the battle, the need was felt in British military circles to commemorate Waterloo. The idea of a model of the battle in honour of the Duke of Wellington was mooted and in the end approved, and a certain William Siborne, a 32-year-old Irish lieutenant and recognised model expert, was commissioned to make it. It was to be the most detailed and accurate battle model ever made, covering 420 square feet and comprising 190,000 lead soldiers, all painted in the most exhaustive detail. It took Siborne 8 years hard graft (3 alone were spent simply in correspondance with veterans of the battle). He also corresponded with the Prussian military and gained access to primary sources concerning the Prussian action at Waterloo. But because he had decided to model the moment of the battle called the 'Crisis' (about 7pm) and consequently the true extent of the Prussian action on the day, his work attracted Wellington's displeasure and his funding ran out. Despite the Duke's opposition, the model opened brilliantly at the 'Egyptian Hall' museum in Piccadilly. The Duke however criticised it as 'fudge' and 'ridiculous and useless'. As a result the United Services Museum refused to buy the model and Siborne faced financial ruin.

In this very carefully researched book, Hofschröer shows clearly how Wellington deliberately misrepresented the Prussian contribution (both in the Waterloo Dispatch – implying that they arrived late – and over the rest of his life), and how when Siborne's model began to show the true extent of the action performed by the 50,000 Prussian soldiers on that June day (who began fighting at Plancenoit at 2pm) Wellington effectively undermined the project, casting aspersions on its accuracy – the fundamental pillar upon which the model was made.

Brilliant though Hofschröer's research may be, history's view of the battle remains unchanged, simply with a bigger pat on the back for the Prussians and black mark for the Duke. It is not news that military men are too often tempted to be 'economical with the truth'. 'Putting a good light on it' has been symptomatic of the military report since Caesar right up to the present day. Take the contemporary example of Napoleon's report after Marengo. Writing this report four times over several days, Napoleon managed completely to airbrush out Kellermann's crucial (and very likely autonomous!) cavalry charge which turned certain defeat into effective moral (if not complete military) victory. And yet Marengo was one of the pillars of the Napoleonic legend and set down as an example of Napoleon's brilliant tactics. It was presumably this official version that was repeated when Marengo was actually one of the first ever battles to be re-enacted, at Alessandria in 1805.

One query. Did Siborne harbour Napoleonic sympathies? The portrayal of Siborne as an ingénu seems inconsistent with the intelligence highlighted by Hofschröer. Did Siborne have agendas? The bill poster announcing the first exhibition of the model is astonishingly titled 'NAPOLEON'S LAST GREAT STRUGGLE FOR VICTORY'. Wellington is not even in the small print. The Duke did refuse Siborne his patronage, but surely Siborne (for patriotic reasons alone) ought have mentioned the allied leader somewhere in the blurb. Furthermore, the model was shown at the 'Egyptian Hall' almost contemporaneously with John Sainsbury's 'Napoleon Museum'. Sainsbury was a notorious Bonapartist and a friend of Joseph Bonaparte. Did Siborne move in English Bonapartist circles? If he did, though not changing Hofschröer's conclusions, it would have made his clash with the Duke more politically credible.