With 205th anniversary commemorations cancelled due to Covid-19, I have put together an initiative called #WaterlooRemembered. This video explains a little of the rationale behind the concept, and what you can expect.
More details will follow in the coming days. Please pass word on to anyone who may be interested, and remember to have your say when the programme starts on 5th June.
Let's see what this series about Belle Alliance will show - there this battle is quite over studied, it shows how difficult it is to cut through all the lies and myths shrouding it.
The most interesting question for me is, why did they prevail so long, despite the truth was out there all the time - national bias, politics, hero fawning, covering up of severe blunders, and most of all - ignoring non English and non French sources for ages.
Did old Karl Marx utter such a sentence that religion is opium for the people? He could have added - history is used for that all the time as well. Well it is very difficult when being drugged all the time to see beyond the scope of an addict.
Looking forward to listen to this project.
Dear Alfred, welcome to the forum. A couple of things: Please can you amend your profile in the members area so that it lists your full name rather than just your email address. This is an important rule for transparency in the forum (if you haven't already read the forum rules, please do) Who realistically has ever suggested that Waterloo was the strategic objective of the campaign? Anyone who spends more than two minutes reading about the campaign knows that the Waterloo campaign was never about the significance of the town. Was Napoleon a war monger? Great question. It's something that we will be looking at in Waterloo Remembered. Fell free to share your thoughts - there is even a whole room specifically set up for people to talk about Napoleon. I'm not sure where you are going with the comments on wanting to conquer the world, but please stay focused on the history (another important part of forum rules/expectations). More to be discovered? I couldn't agree more, but actually there is so much about the battle that we THINK we know, but which is actually misremembered. This is something else that is explored over the 14 days of content. Forget Waterloo though? Forget it's impact? It's legacy? Forget those who died there? If we did, we'd be doing a disservice both to the dead and to history. Be sure to take a look at the post with the schedule (if you haven't already) for.mote information on what is in over the two weeks - there's a lot of great stuff lined up.
Forget Waterloo! There is much more to discover out there. Do you really think, that when Napoleon rose to power, he was obsessed by the idee he had to conquer a little hamlet south of Brussels? No I don't think so.
I’m sure it’s allowed to consider the man a warmonger. But even a warmonger, what was he up to? To wage wars and beat rivals in combat? Or perhaps conquer the world?
I would like to conquer the world. I would like to take the capital of the old world, Rom. Beautiful Venice, wealty Amsterdam, arrogant Berlin, mysterious Moscow, and even the cradle of civilisation Egypt.
But no Waterloo, not Waterloo, even doubt he would have liked Brussels. Wenn you leave an Island, whether it’s Corsica or Elba, you don’t want t be go to Waterloo. Nobody wants to be found dead overthere, as to speak.
Why am I writing this comment on the TheNapoleonicWars.net? Because there’s so much more to discover. Even after ten years feeding information into my website about the napoleonic world, I know there’s more. Much more to be discovered. Waterloo will be like diging a grave. It will stop all efforts, we have to make, to recreate the World of Napoleon.
Alfred Brans.