Archive Sources
Official Histories
Contingent Histories
Authorities
Memoirs & Biographies
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German Waterloo Sources
An Examination of Material in the German Language on
the Campaign of 1815
By Peter
Hofschröer
Due to lack of space in my recent publication 1815 -
The Waterloo Campaign. Wellington, his German Allies and the
Battles of Ligny and Quatre Bras, I was unable to
include a bibliographical essay on the relative merits and
value of German source material on the Waterloo Campaign. It
is hoped that this essay will go some way towards making up
for that.
Archive Sources
- Berlin Archives
At one time, the Prussian War Archives were housed in
Berlin. Some papers survived the Second World War and can
be found in the Geheimes Staatsarchiv preußischer
Kulturbesitz (GStA). The bulk of the collection is said
to be held in the former KGB Special Archive in Moscow,
but access remains very restricted, and it has not yet
been possible to verify this.
Blücher's Chief-of-Staff, Generallieutenant
August Wilhelm Anton Graf Neidhardt von Gneisenau
(1760-1832), never wrote his memoirs or an account of the
Campaign of 1815. However, he did keep copies of a number
of papers from the Prussian headquarters, which were at
one time available in the estate of Sommerschenburg, the
family home. These papers are now in the GStA under Rep.
92 (i.e. Carton 92). Included in this collection are a
number of letters from Generalmajor von Müffling,
the Prussian liaison officer in Wellington's headquarters
in Brussels, in the vital days of June 1815. These
letters are particularly interesting as the show the
information that Wellington gave Müffling during the
hours of crisis. Much of this information was misleading
and led in part to Blücher's decision to fight at
Ligny in unfavourable circumstances. It is interesting to
note from Müffling's memoirs, examined below, how
circumspect he was about these events and how selective
his memory was.
- Nassau Archives
These can be found in the Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv
in Wiesbaden. Abteilungen 202 and 210 contain material
relating to the Waterloo Campaign. Historians of the
Campaign, including Pflugk-Harttung and De Bas, used
certain of these documents in their works.
- Hanoverian Archives
The Niedersächsisches Hauptstaatsarchiv in
Hanover contains a collection of material relating to the
Waterloo Campaign. The files of interest include:
- 38D - King's German Legion 1803-1816
41 - Generalkommando und Militärakten der
Londoner Kanzlei 1629-1864.
38D includes a report on the Battle of Waterloo, while
41 includes the official after-action reports of various
brigade, regiment, and battalion commanders of the
Hanoverian forces at the Battle of Waterloo, casualty
lists, copies of correspondence with Siborne on his
Waterloo model, and sworn depositions on the capture of
Général Cambronne at Waterloo. Much of this
material was used by Pflugk-Harttung in his "Belle
Alliance" (see below).
Official Histories
- The Prussian General Staff
The Prussian General Staff produced a History of the
Wars of Liberation, Plane der Schlachten und
Treffen. The fourth volume, covering the 1815
Campaign, was published in Berlin in 1825. The author was
named Wagner. This work was based on the after-action
reports deposited in the War Archives. It has been
translated into French, but not into English.
- The German General Staff
The German General Staff also produced a History of
the Wars of Liberation. The first volume on the Campaign
of 1815, authored by Lettow-Vorbeck, appeared under the
title Napoleons Untergang 1815, Erster Band Elba-Belle
Alliance and covered the events up to and including
the Battle of Waterloo. It was published in Berlin in
1904. It has been reprinted recently and is available
from specialist booksellers.
The second volume, by Voß, Napoleons
Untergang 1815, Zweiter Band, Von Belle-Alliance bis zu
Napoleons Tot, was published in Berlin in 1906. It
covers the events after Waterloo such as the race to
Paris, the fortress warfare and other theatres of the
campaign. It has also been recently reprinted.
The third useful work produced by the German General
Staff, authored by Schwertfeger, covered the history of
the Prussian army in 1815. Its title is Das
preußische Heer in den Jahren 1814 und 1815. It
was published in Berlin in 1914. It has also been
recently reprinted.
Contingent Histories
- Brunswickers
There are two standard works on this contingent. The
first, by Wachholtz, a member of the corps, was published
in Brunswick in 1816 under the title Geschichte des
Herzoglich Braunschweigschen Armee-Corps. Further
details can be found in Volume 2 of Kortzfleisch's
History of the 92nd Infantry Regiment, published in
Brunswick in 1898 under the title Geschichte des
Herzoglich Braunschweigischen
Infanterie-Regiments.
- Nassauers
The standard work is Rößler's Geschichte
der Herzoglich Nassauischen Truppen published in
Wiesbaden in 1863. Various regimental histories add
further details. These include Rößler's
Geschichte des Königlich Preußischen 1.
Nassauischen Infanterie-Regiments Nr. 87 (Berlin,
1882) and Geschichte des Herzoglich Nassauischen 2.
Regiments (Berlin, 1891). Just published is the long
awaited second volume in Wacker's History of the Nassau
army, Das Herzoglich-Nassauische Militär
1813-1866 (Taunusstein, 1998).
- Hanoverians
The standard work is Volume 5 of Sichart's
Geschichte der Königlich-Hannoverschen Armee,
published in Hanover and Leipzig in 1898.
- KGL
Beamish's History has the advantage of having
been written by a member of the Legion, both in German
and English, and the English edition has recently been
reprinted. Its title is History of the King's German
Legion. This work is complemented by Schwertfeger's
Geschichte der Königlich Deutschen Legion
1803-1816, published in two volumes in Hanover and
Leipzig in 1907.
Authorities
There are several authoritative accounts of the campaign
in German. These include:
- Clausewitz
Clausewitz was chief-of-staff of the Prussian III Army
Corps and later taught at the Prussian War Academy. He
died from cholera before he had a chance to produced a
set of memoirs. His widow however, had his teaching
material published. One of the volumes covered the 1815
Campaign. This was published in Berlin in 1835 under the
title Der Feldzug von 1815 in Frankreich. A French
translation has been published, but the first Duke of
Wellington had the publication of an English edition
suppressed because certain of Clausewitz's revelations
embarrassed the Duke. There are plans to publish this
translation in the near future under the title On
Waterloo.
- Damitz
Using material supplied by Grolman, one of
Blücher's senior staff officers in the Campaign,
Damitz wrote a two-volume work entitled Geschichte des
Feldzuges von 1815 in den Niederlanden und
Frankreich. It was published in Berlin, Posen and
Bromberg in 1837 and 1838.
- Hofmann
Hofmann was second-in-command of the 1st Brigade of
the Prussian I Army Corps under Zieten. As such, he saw
much of the fighting at first hand. His account, Zur
Geschichte des Feldzuges von 1815, was published in
Berlin in 1851.
- Ollech
A particularly useful account, Ollech based his work
extensively on the Prussian War Archives. As these are
now missing, presumably destroyed in the Second World
War, his extensive quotations from original documents are
very interesting. It was Ollech that first discovered the
'Frasnes Letter', starting off the controversy of
Wellington's deception of Blücher. His Geschichte
des Feldzuges von 1815 was published in Berlin in
1876.
- Pflugk-Harttung
He was probably the most prolific Waterloo historian
to have lived. Although he wrote several books and
numerous articles on aspects of the campaign, the two
most useful books are his Belle Alliance,
published in Berlin in 1915, and his Vorgeschichte der
Schlacht bei Belle-Alliance. Wellington, published in
Berlin in 1903. The former consists of a collection of
official after-action reports, sworn depositions used in
various courts-martial, and eyewitness accounts taken
from various German archives. As a substantial part of
this material is no longer available, Belle
Alliance is particularly useful. The Vorgeschichte
is probably the most exhaustively researched
examination of the events leading up to the Battle of
Waterloo written until the first volume of
Hofschröer's 1815 ó The Waterloo
Campaign.
- Plotho
Plotho's work on the Waterloo Campaign, Der Krieg
des verbündeten Europa gegen Frankreich im Jahre
1815, published in Berlin in 1818 was the first
authoritative history of the Campaign written in German.
It covers the entire campaign, including theatres other
than the Low Countries, and contains extensive
orders-of-battle.
Memoirs & Biographies
- Blücher
Generalfeldmarschall Gebhard Lebrecht Fürst
Blücher von Wahlstatt (1742-1819) commanded the
Prussian 'Army of the Lower Rhine' in 1815. Although he
did not produce his memoirs, Blücher did write many
letters of which several collections have been published.
These collections of letters contain little of relevance
to the events of 1815. It is amusing to note the comment
made by Lady Longford in her Life of Wellington
that Blücher was supposedly 'illiterate.' For an
'illiterate' man, he wrote an awful lot! It is a shame
that certain British writers find it necessary to make
such unfounded and derogatory comments. There are also
several biographies of Blücher, that by W. von Unger
being one of the more useful. The volume covering 1815
was published in Berlin in 1908. The one biography of
Blücher in English, that by Roger Parkinson, is
flawed with several factual errors and his account of the
Waterloo Campaign is clouded by anglophone mythology. As
such, it is of limited use.
- Gneisenau
As mentioned above, Gneisenau did not write his
memoirs. In addition to the papers referred to above,
there are several biographies of Gneisenau and quotations
from his correspondence can be found in various works.
Perhaps the most useful biography is that by
Delbrück, Das Leben des Feldmarschalls Grafen
Neidhardt von Gneisenau. The fourth volume, published
in Berlin in 1880, covers the Campaign of 1815.
- Grolman
Besides the history of the campaign compiled by Damitz
from Grolman's papers, Conrady wrote a biography of this
senior Prussian staff officer, Leben und Wirkung von
Carl von Grolman. The second volume, published in
Berlin in 1895, covers the Waterloo Campaign. Grolman did
not write his memoirs.
- Müffling
As his memoirs were translated into English,
Müffling's account of his role in the Waterloo
Campaign is among the better known. However, a comparison
of his published record of certain events and the content
of various papers held in the GStA in Berlin (see above)
shows that Müffling's memory was rather selective in
places, particularly on how he was duped by Wellington
into giving Blücher false information.
Müffling's My Life has recently been
reprinted.
- Nostitz
Nostitz, Blücher's ADC in 1815, kept a journal of
the campaigns of 1813-1815. The German General Staff
published it in Berlin in 1885 in the
"Kriegsgeschichtliche Einzelschriften" series under the
title Das Tagebuch des Generals der Kavallerie Grafen
von Nostitz.
- Zieten
Although Zieten's journal from the Campaign appears to
be another one of the casualties of the Second World War,
extracts from it were published in the magazine
"Militärisches" in 1896 in Leipzig. Zieten commanded
the Prussian I Army Corps.
- Thielemann
His biography, published in 1894 in Leipzig, was
written by Petersdorff and entitled "General Johann
Adolph Freiherr von Thielmann [sic]."
Thielemann commanded the III Prussian Army Corps in
1815.
- Bülow
The commander of the Prussian IV Army Corps did not
leave any memoirs either. However, Varnhagen von Ense
wrote his biography, Leben des Generals Grafen
Bülow von Dennewitz, published in Berlin in
1853.
- Reiche
Reiche was chief-of-staff of the Prussian I Army
Corps. Weltzien edited his Memoiren, the second
volume of which, published in Leipzig in 1857, covered
the Campaign of 1815. Reiche's memoirs are, as a whole,
accurate and informative, but there is the occasional
error, such as in certain details of his account of
Gneisenau's decision to retreat after the Battle of Ligny
on 16 June 1815.
- Dörnberg
Dörnberg's reports and memoirs have never been
published as such. However, several works contain
reference to these. As commander of the Allied
listening-post at Mons, his accounts are useful. Some of
his letters and reports can be found in the papers of
certain British officers, such as Wellington and
Uxbridge. Pflugk-Harttung (see above) made extensive use
of two documents in particular. One was then in the
Prussian War Archives, the other can be found in the
Hanover Archives. As the former is no longer available,
one cannot be certain as to when it was written. However,
it contains so many inaccuracies that it seems likely
Dörnberg wrote it some years after the events. The
latter was a report on the role of his Hanoverians in the
Battle of Waterloo and was written in 1824.
- Prince Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar
His biography was published in Gotha in 1866. Written
by Starklof, the second volume covers the Waterloo
Campaign. The title is Das Leben des Herzogs Bernhard
von Sachsen-Weimar.
- Thurn und Taxis
Thurn und Taxis was the Bavarian representative in
Blücher's headquarters. Although he never wrote his
memoirs, he did keep a journal of his role in the
Campaigns of 1812-1815. This diary was then deposited in
the Vienna archives before being published in 1912 under
the title Aus drei Feldzügen 1812 bis 1815.
His insights into events in Blücher's headquarters,
as a neutral outsider, are of particular use and this
diary, kept while the events were in progress, can be
taken as reliable.
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