Models¹

Sir Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington
Francisco Goya

The history of a battle, is not unlike the history of a ball. Some individuals may recollect all the little events of which the great result is the battle won or lost, but no individual can recollect the order in which, or the exact moment at which, they occurred, which makes all the difference as to their value or importance. - The Duke of Wellington

There are, to my knowledge, two, rather large, terrain models of the Battle of Waterloo on display to the public, one at the Royal Green Jackets (RJG) Museum in the UK (website here) and the other at the National Army Museum, also in the UK (website here). Both are pretty big and both are, in my opinion anyway, pretty cool.

The model at the RJG Museum is on a larger scale (figure-wise, think HO) and was put together in 1970, the other was put together by a serving British officer (Captain William Siborne) in the 1830s. Both give a nice picture of the terrain and various stages of the battle. (All taking place at the same time, an anachronism but saves having to build multiple models!)

A portion of Capt. Siborne's model
(Source)

The detail of the terrain is striking, one of the motivators for the project was the Dutch tearing up a large section of the field to build the Butte du Lion. The thought was to build a model of the field before those who had fought there forgot the details.

For the most part Siborne succeeded, though he went broke working on it. Also the Duke of Wellington didn't like it at all. (That opening quote might give us a hint as to why. Also Siborne's model depicts events at around 1900 on the day of the battle, just when the Prussians were throwing their forces in. Wellington, it is speculated, didn't like the idea it gave that the Prussians sealed the victory. Though in this man's view, they did indeed seal the win!)

A portion of the model at the RGJ Museum
(Source)

In the photo above there is a lot going on, seemingly at the same time, but in reality the attack of D'Erlon's corps came first, followed by the charge of the British heavies. The French cavalry charges took place much later.

Fighting around Hougoumont was continuous, the fighting around La Haye Sainte ebbed and flowed until it was captured by the French late in the afternoon or early evening. (The defenders, a German rifle battalion, had run out of ammunition. Legend has it that their sole ammunition cart had overturned on its way to the field. No doubt apocryphal, most battalions had more than one vehicle for ammunition. But they did indeed run out of ammunition for their Baker rifles.)

As the video at the RGJ Museum site wouldn't load for me, I reproduced it here (found it on YouTube) -

I highly recommend reading the stories at the links under the photos, interesting reading (though the one from the Daily Mail gets a lot of it wrong.)

'Tis all I have for now, long day at the mines of Moria, didn't see the balrog today but those bloody drums were pounding down in the deep.²

Ciao!

¹ No, not that kind of model ... (For those of you expecting a Victoria's Secret post. Won't ever happen here.)

² Tolkien reference, of course. I am such a bloody nerd.