The longest afternoon : the 400 men who decided the battle of Waterloo / Brendan Simms.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Simms, Brendan, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Waterloo, Battle of, Waterloo, Belgium, 1815.

Belgium--Waterloo.

Great Britain. Army. King's German Legion.

Great Britain.

Waterloo, Battle of (Belgium : 1815).

Physical Description:

1 online resource (209 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

New York : Basic Books, 2015.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

"In 1815, the deposed emperor Napoleon returned to France and threatened the already devastated and exhausted continent with yet another war. Near the small Belgian municipality of Waterloo, two large, hastily mobilized armies faced each other to decide the future of Europe--Napoleon's forces on one side, and the Duke of Wellington is on the other. With so much at stake, neither commander could have predicted that the battle would be decided by the Second Light Battalion, King's German Legion, which was given the deceptively simple task of defending the Haye Sainte farmhouse, which dominated a crucial crossroads on the way to Brussels. In The Longest Afternoon, Brendan Simms recounts how these 400-odd riflemen beat back wave after wave of French infantry until finally forced to withdraw, but only after holding up Napoleon for so long that he lost the overall contest. Their actions decided the most influential battle in European history."--Jacket flap.

Contents:

Prelude

For King and Fatherland

A Tragedy of Errors

Bolting the Barn Door

Inferno

Hand to Hand

"Heat and centre of the strife"

Legacy : A "German Victory"?.

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (ebrary, viewed March 9, 2015).

ISBN:

1-4945-0691-2

0-465-03994-4

OCLC:

902415281