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A Model Victory
A VIVID RETELLING OF THE BATTLE OF WATERLOO, BASED ON UNPUBLISHED SOLDIERS WRITTEN ACCOUNTS. THERE WERE FIFTY THOUSAND CASUALTIES ON THE SINGLE BLOODY DAY OF THE BATTLE OF KILLING ON THE SCALE OF THE FIRST WORLD WAR. IN THIS ELECTRIFYING ACCOUNT, MALCOLM BALEN COMBINES EXTRAORDINARY FIRST-HAND ACCOUNTS OF THE BATTLE WITH THE STORY OF WILLIAM SIBORNE, AN OFFICER WHO WANTED TO CAPTURE THE MOMENT OF VICTORY BY MAKING THE PERFECT MODEL. SIBORNE GATHERED TOGETHER EYEWITNESS ACCOUNTS THAT READ AS IF THE BATTLE WAS FOUGHT YESTERDAY. BUT HIS QUEST FOR TRUTH CAME UP AGAINST THE MIGHT OF THE BRITISH ESTABLISHMENT. WHO HAD WON THE DAY? WAS IT WELLINGTON S FORCES OR BLUCHER S PRUSSIANS? MALCOLM BALEN TELLS HOW TWO BATTLES OF WATERLOO WERE FOUGHT -- FOR EUROPE S FUTURE, AND FOR THE CONTROL OF HISTORY.
- GenresHistory
304 pages, Paperback
First published August 1, 2005
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February 26, 2026
I read Peter Hofschroer's work, Wellington's Smallest Victory, some months ago and reviewed it here. So I'll try to confine this review to differences between the two and highlight some salient points that stood out to me.
First off, this book is much less concerned with the actual construction of the model and is far less detailed than Hofschroers on the materials and techniques that Siborne used. The majority of the text was absorbed with the politics around the model, and it focuses much more on the actual Battle of Waterloo.
One thing I appreciated was that Balen often drew attention to the fact that Siborne really achieved something remarkable in collecting and collating the vast correspondence he carried on with the myriad participants of the battle who were still alive when he began his project.
Balen also is at pains to point out that conspicuously absent in this pile of documentation is that of Wellington himself. Napoleon's own testimony is absent too, but that was because the Emperor died on St. Helena several years before Siborne began constructing his model.
Wellington outlived Siborne by three years, and it's a shame because, like Hofschroer, Balen is convinced that Wellington was a major obstruction in Siborne's ability to complete and exhibit the model. He may even have been an impediment to HM's Government purchasing the model after it's completion.
There are many insights involving Waterloo, including that Wellington could not have seen the entire field, and likely was not in a position to judge when the Prussians arrived or in what force.
As Wellington himself famously said in an analogy, a battle is like a ball where everyone is dancing the whole day through, and nobody can accurately determine what precisely was going on at any one moment.
There is a lot of merit in this observation, and Siborne certainly had to weigh testimonies against each other and try to square the circle of contradictory reports.
But Balen says what Wellington really disliked about it was that it was too democratic, and took the control of history out of the Duke's own hands. History became a matter of determining the most probable position based on numerous reports, rather than on what Wellington said in his despatch.
We know that Wellington was, by his own words, 'humbugged' by Napoleon's initial movements. The rapid crossing of the Sambre into Belgium took the Allies by surprise, and Wellington moved to protect his communications with Antwerp when Napoleon was striking east towards the Prussians.
Hofschroer goes into more detail on the events around Quatre Bras and Ligny than Balen, but the story is the same. Wellington either deliberately or unintentionally let the Prussians down and did not come to their aid at Ligny, where they suffered a considerable defeat. Both Hofschroer and Balen mention that the Prussians believed that Wellington had promised them assistance, and some of them suspected that it was a lie to get them to fight.
Balen also makes clear how desperate the combat at Waterloo was, and how important the fall of La Haye Sainte was to the subsequent operations of the French. Despite the legend of Wellington's coolness under fire and his stoic passivity, the British were close to breaking at the end.
Waterloo is an interesting case study because of all the contingency factors that went into it. The battle might have gone either way if not for a number of upsets that entered into the equation, friction and fog of war a la Clausewitz.
Everyone knows that the heavy rains reduced the lethality of Napoleon's cannons. We also know that Grouchy was supposed to pin the Prussians at Wavre but did not. I learned a few more tidbits in this regard with Blucher's fall from his horse at Ligny, for example.
He was crushed by the horse and presumed dead, but miraculously survived. While he was unconscious Gneisenau took command of the Prussian Army and, convinced of Wellington's duplicity, did not wish to cooperate with him. Blucher recovered and insisted on marching to Wellington's assistance.
Balen suggests that Gneisenau may nonetheless have attempted to interfere with this, because he points out that the Prussians did take an awfully long time to reach the field, and they did in strange ways such as moving their easternmost formations to the vanguard, which wasted time and likely exhausted the men.
If Gneisenau had had his way, or if Blucher had been killed in the fall, Napoleon would have conquered the field that day. Balen also notes that the British were too weak to pursue, and that the Prussians followed up the victory with a vigorous pursuit that scattered the French Army. This pursuit after Waterloo, I feel, is not given enough attention.
As it was Wellington was not aware of how decisive Waterloo was until he learned about the collapse of the French Army and, especially, after Napoleon was removed from power. Otherwise Napoleon might yet have resisted the Allied advance towards Paris. I think Balen says that only five days or so after Waterloo did it dawn on Wellington that it really was the end.
The core of the book, then, deals with our interpretation of battles and who decides history. This is really a question worth asking, and recalls to one's mind the work of Yuval Noah Harari on how battles are out of fashion because they serve their purpose too well, especially from a nationalist perspective.
Waterloo has entered the consciousness of British nationalists as another glorious episode of pugnacious underdogs defeating overwhelming odds. One could bring up Cressy and Agincourt in this vein.
It might we worthwhile discussing Creasy and the old idea of decisive battles in history, which remains strong in the popular imagination but which has been seriously challenged by more recent generations of scholars.
One thinks here of battles like Tours, which supposedly saved Western Europe from Islam. Or Salamis, which has always been touted as the salvation of Western Civilization against Oriental Despotism.
But we would do well to consider if this was really the case. It is worth asking how decisive was Waterloo really, what is its political and historical significance? Who won it, and is it important?
Balen mentions that Blucher wished to name the battle La Belle Alliance after a nearby farmhouse. The name, the Beautiful Alliance in French, was symbolic and it would have underscored the joint victory obtained by Prussia and England against France.
It is telling that Wellington instead insisted that the battle be named after the location of his own headquarters, which would tend to draw attention away from the Prussians and the fighting at Plancenoit.
We learn about all the depressing attempts of Siborne to reach out to the Duke, to flatter the Duke, even to remove the Prussians from the model which was selling out to the Duke's version of history. Sadly, he even went back on his own conscience in his history to explain why he had been wrong about the Prussians before.
This is all the more tragic because it did not placate Wellington. Balen seems to think that Siborne was not as broken and destitute as the portrait drawn by Hofschroer, and notes a few wins for our subject. Still, he deserved much better.
The second model is only briefly described, and it was interesting that Siborne planned to make more models, of Ney's charge against the British squares for instance. Alas, he had neither the time nor the money.
I found this be a delightful read, and it gives you as much of an insight on the Battle of Waterloo and its place in history as it does on William Siborne and his model. It also argues that Siborne's real achievement was his history of Waterloo, compiled from all the testimonies documented and collected by him and by no one else. Siborne inadvertently created a treasury of eyewitness accounts that has been mined by generations ever since. For that alone he deserves to be remembered and celebrated.
First off, this book is much less concerned with the actual construction of the model and is far less detailed than Hofschroers on the materials and techniques that Siborne used. The majority of the text was absorbed with the politics around the model, and it focuses much more on the actual Battle of Waterloo.
One thing I appreciated was that Balen often drew attention to the fact that Siborne really achieved something remarkable in collecting and collating the vast correspondence he carried on with the myriad participants of the battle who were still alive when he began his project.
Balen also is at pains to point out that conspicuously absent in this pile of documentation is that of Wellington himself. Napoleon's own testimony is absent too, but that was because the Emperor died on St. Helena several years before Siborne began constructing his model.
Wellington outlived Siborne by three years, and it's a shame because, like Hofschroer, Balen is convinced that Wellington was a major obstruction in Siborne's ability to complete and exhibit the model. He may even have been an impediment to HM's Government purchasing the model after it's completion.
There are many insights involving Waterloo, including that Wellington could not have seen the entire field, and likely was not in a position to judge when the Prussians arrived or in what force.
As Wellington himself famously said in an analogy, a battle is like a ball where everyone is dancing the whole day through, and nobody can accurately determine what precisely was going on at any one moment.
There is a lot of merit in this observation, and Siborne certainly had to weigh testimonies against each other and try to square the circle of contradictory reports.
But Balen says what Wellington really disliked about it was that it was too democratic, and took the control of history out of the Duke's own hands. History became a matter of determining the most probable position based on numerous reports, rather than on what Wellington said in his despatch.
We know that Wellington was, by his own words, 'humbugged' by Napoleon's initial movements. The rapid crossing of the Sambre into Belgium took the Allies by surprise, and Wellington moved to protect his communications with Antwerp when Napoleon was striking east towards the Prussians.
Hofschroer goes into more detail on the events around Quatre Bras and Ligny than Balen, but the story is the same. Wellington either deliberately or unintentionally let the Prussians down and did not come to their aid at Ligny, where they suffered a considerable defeat. Both Hofschroer and Balen mention that the Prussians believed that Wellington had promised them assistance, and some of them suspected that it was a lie to get them to fight.
Balen also makes clear how desperate the combat at Waterloo was, and how important the fall of La Haye Sainte was to the subsequent operations of the French. Despite the legend of Wellington's coolness under fire and his stoic passivity, the British were close to breaking at the end.
Waterloo is an interesting case study because of all the contingency factors that went into it. The battle might have gone either way if not for a number of upsets that entered into the equation, friction and fog of war a la Clausewitz.
Everyone knows that the heavy rains reduced the lethality of Napoleon's cannons. We also know that Grouchy was supposed to pin the Prussians at Wavre but did not. I learned a few more tidbits in this regard with Blucher's fall from his horse at Ligny, for example.
He was crushed by the horse and presumed dead, but miraculously survived. While he was unconscious Gneisenau took command of the Prussian Army and, convinced of Wellington's duplicity, did not wish to cooperate with him. Blucher recovered and insisted on marching to Wellington's assistance.
Balen suggests that Gneisenau may nonetheless have attempted to interfere with this, because he points out that the Prussians did take an awfully long time to reach the field, and they did in strange ways such as moving their easternmost formations to the vanguard, which wasted time and likely exhausted the men.
If Gneisenau had had his way, or if Blucher had been killed in the fall, Napoleon would have conquered the field that day. Balen also notes that the British were too weak to pursue, and that the Prussians followed up the victory with a vigorous pursuit that scattered the French Army. This pursuit after Waterloo, I feel, is not given enough attention.
As it was Wellington was not aware of how decisive Waterloo was until he learned about the collapse of the French Army and, especially, after Napoleon was removed from power. Otherwise Napoleon might yet have resisted the Allied advance towards Paris. I think Balen says that only five days or so after Waterloo did it dawn on Wellington that it really was the end.
The core of the book, then, deals with our interpretation of battles and who decides history. This is really a question worth asking, and recalls to one's mind the work of Yuval Noah Harari on how battles are out of fashion because they serve their purpose too well, especially from a nationalist perspective.
Waterloo has entered the consciousness of British nationalists as another glorious episode of pugnacious underdogs defeating overwhelming odds. One could bring up Cressy and Agincourt in this vein.
It might we worthwhile discussing Creasy and the old idea of decisive battles in history, which remains strong in the popular imagination but which has been seriously challenged by more recent generations of scholars.
One thinks here of battles like Tours, which supposedly saved Western Europe from Islam. Or Salamis, which has always been touted as the salvation of Western Civilization against Oriental Despotism.
But we would do well to consider if this was really the case. It is worth asking how decisive was Waterloo really, what is its political and historical significance? Who won it, and is it important?
Balen mentions that Blucher wished to name the battle La Belle Alliance after a nearby farmhouse. The name, the Beautiful Alliance in French, was symbolic and it would have underscored the joint victory obtained by Prussia and England against France.
It is telling that Wellington instead insisted that the battle be named after the location of his own headquarters, which would tend to draw attention away from the Prussians and the fighting at Plancenoit.
We learn about all the depressing attempts of Siborne to reach out to the Duke, to flatter the Duke, even to remove the Prussians from the model which was selling out to the Duke's version of history. Sadly, he even went back on his own conscience in his history to explain why he had been wrong about the Prussians before.
This is all the more tragic because it did not placate Wellington. Balen seems to think that Siborne was not as broken and destitute as the portrait drawn by Hofschroer, and notes a few wins for our subject. Still, he deserved much better.
The second model is only briefly described, and it was interesting that Siborne planned to make more models, of Ney's charge against the British squares for instance. Alas, he had neither the time nor the money.
I found this be a delightful read, and it gives you as much of an insight on the Battle of Waterloo and its place in history as it does on William Siborne and his model. It also argues that Siborne's real achievement was his history of Waterloo, compiled from all the testimonies documented and collected by him and by no one else. Siborne inadvertently created a treasury of eyewitness accounts that has been mined by generations ever since. For that alone he deserves to be remembered and celebrated.
August 28, 2012
While its structure is not the most easy-to-follow (jumps around in time in several places, which makes it difficult for anyone not versed in Waterloo history to follow), the writing is very vivid and the book "flows" very well - especially when recounting/reconstructing the events on the field of battle.
I also read "Wellington's Smallest Victory" (covering the same topic), and while the writing was a bit more stilted and personal ("I believe", etc.), the structure of the book followed events in a more-or-less chronological order. It also very expressly highlighted Wellington's POV (to which "A Model Victory" only alluded without fully laying out in detail) - context that I found enlightening. However, that book did not cover the events at Waterloo and assumes the reader has read in-depth accounts of the battle. The two books also varied in where they gave details about the construction of the model - reading both gives a much clearer account of Siborne's travails than either book does alone, and the books would be excellent as a one-volume, all-inclusive tome. If I were recommending the books, I would say that one should read "Wellington's Smallest Victory" first in order to fully appreciate the timeline of events following the battle, with 'A Model Victory' adding some very interesting and vivid details about the battle itself and aspects of Siborne's struggles that "Wellingtons Smallest Victory" glosses."
I also read "Wellington's Smallest Victory" (covering the same topic), and while the writing was a bit more stilted and personal ("I believe", etc.), the structure of the book followed events in a more-or-less chronological order. It also very expressly highlighted Wellington's POV (to which "A Model Victory" only alluded without fully laying out in detail) - context that I found enlightening. However, that book did not cover the events at Waterloo and assumes the reader has read in-depth accounts of the battle. The two books also varied in where they gave details about the construction of the model - reading both gives a much clearer account of Siborne's travails than either book does alone, and the books would be excellent as a one-volume, all-inclusive tome. If I were recommending the books, I would say that one should read "Wellington's Smallest Victory" first in order to fully appreciate the timeline of events following the battle, with 'A Model Victory' adding some very interesting and vivid details about the battle itself and aspects of Siborne's struggles that "Wellingtons Smallest Victory" glosses."
February 23, 2022
The Battle for Waterloo's History: AKA what to do with those pesky Prussians?
Capt. William Siborne is, as Balen succinctly and correctly observes, ‘still struggling to be heard'. This is a story of heroic and bloody-minded obduracy, both on the fields of Belgium, and afterwards.
Siborne's is a rather sad tale, but a sufficiently engrossing one that, amidst the mountains of Waterloo themed literature, we now have two books in English telling of his travails in researching and building an unprecedented battlefield diorama, depicting the Crisis point of 18 June 1815, aka The Great Model.
This incredible creation - obsessively detailed, covering an areas over 240 square feet, and featuring tens of thousands of minute figures - is now housed in the National Army Museum (henceforward NAM), exactly the kind of place it was originally intended to reside, and where, tragically, the military establishment continues to perpetrate upon its heroic maker the most inexcusable calumnies (this is a fact neither Balen nor Hofschröer mention in their books on this subject).
In an ironic twist to this convoluted tale, the 8th Duke of Wellington inaugurated the current Waterloo display, in which Siborne's model is the centrepiece, this apparent reconciliation - Arthur Wellesley himself scrupulously avoided either visiting or publicly endorsing Siborne's creation - leading Balen to observe that 'With time history learns to forgive.'
But actually, if one listens to the audio presentation which accompanies the model, and specifically that part dealing with Siborne and the making of his masterpiece, one will be grossly misinformed: the first bit of misinformation concerns the models origin, with the commentary implying that Siborne undertook the project of his own volition, when in fact, as Balen says 'He was invited ... [by] Lord Rowland Hill, a Waterloo veteran, to map the ground, and from this to create a scale model, with the work paid for by public funds.'
Having set Siborne up as an obsessive outsider (the National Army Museum audio commentary, that is, not Balen), when in fact he was being commissioned by both government and armed forces representatives, the commentary then lays the charge of historical inaccuracy - regarding the absence of the Prussians in greater force - at Siborne's door, when this aspect of the Model's current state in fact represents his eventual capitulation to the campaign of the military establishment against his original dispositions (he removed approximately 40,000 Prussian figures in the end!).
And it doesn't end there, several further factual errors are made which compound the calumny and lend the whole thing the air of a continued conspiracy to defame the poor man! This aspect of Siborne's story is something both Balen and Hofschröer address.
It's not only alleged, by the NAM, that Siborne is the one responsible for this inaccuracy, but that further, and with a grotesquely unjust twist, that he made his error because he didn't bother to consult French or German sources! I personally think it's shocking and beyond comprehension that a national institution should so blatantly malign the creator of an object it so proudly displays when the facts are so clearly otherwise than it suggests*.
Actually his troubles were a direct result of his 'overly' thorough investigation, and more particularly the nature of that investigation, or what Balen refers to as the 'unwelcome democracy of it's evidence-gathering...' which was 'far too democratic for its times'! This resulted in 'the military establishment's growing opposition to the exercise in historical democracy it had unwittingly unleashed.'
It was precisely because Siborne had gathered such vast amounts of data, which also formed the basis of his book (History of the War in France and Belgium), and very definitely included material from both French and Prussian sources, that he ran into the troubles this book (and Hofschröer's) relates.
Personally I prefer Hofschröer's book on the subject (Wellington's Smallest Victory), which is simply, for me, the better written and more engaging of the two, and is also more focussed upon the history of the model and its maker. Balen's account, which it has to be said is also a very compelling and enjoyable read, spends more than the first two-thirds of the book following the battle itself, only alluding very briefly here and there to Siborne's travails.
It's not until chapter XII that the focus shifts decisively from the battle to the model. Whilst yet another re-telling of Waterloo is okay with me, this isn't the best account of that sanguinary day that I've read, and for me the book is most interesting in its final three chapters, when addressing the issue of Siborne's building and exhibiting of the model, and his struggles first to pay for it, after the government backs out quite early on, and secondly to find a home for it.
Balen's use of letters from Siborne's correspondence as headers to each chapter, along with small but regular references here and there, is a rather tenuous way of dealing with the diorama thread. Whilst it allows the author to combine the two themes of the battle itself and the model depicting it, it does also result in some unwelcome repetition (particularly by harping on about the continued absence of the Prussians and Siborne's choice of the moment to be depicted), and even some rather misleading 'teasing', with Balen appearing to come down on Wellington's side at various points.
I won't spoil it for you by giving too much away, but suffice it to say that such toying with the reader may be a little disingenuous. In the end Balen concludes that whilst Siborne was 'a man before his time', 'To look at the battleground he created is to marvel at a man who tried to turn the history of a war into a model of the truth.'
This is a fascinating adjunct to the story of the battle of Waterloo itself, and with the bicentennial of that famous and conclusive chapter of Napoleonic history rapidly approaching, this is, like Hofschröer's book on the subject, both interesting and illuminating in itself, and a salutary reminder of the political aspects of history.
* It would be wonderful if, for 2015, the 200th anniversary of Waterloo, the NAM could correct this, and, as they're currently closed for a refit, the opportunity to do so seems perfect. [NB - Review written c. 2013!]
Capt. William Siborne is, as Balen succinctly and correctly observes, ‘still struggling to be heard'. This is a story of heroic and bloody-minded obduracy, both on the fields of Belgium, and afterwards.
Siborne's is a rather sad tale, but a sufficiently engrossing one that, amidst the mountains of Waterloo themed literature, we now have two books in English telling of his travails in researching and building an unprecedented battlefield diorama, depicting the Crisis point of 18 June 1815, aka The Great Model.
This incredible creation - obsessively detailed, covering an areas over 240 square feet, and featuring tens of thousands of minute figures - is now housed in the National Army Museum (henceforward NAM), exactly the kind of place it was originally intended to reside, and where, tragically, the military establishment continues to perpetrate upon its heroic maker the most inexcusable calumnies (this is a fact neither Balen nor Hofschröer mention in their books on this subject).
In an ironic twist to this convoluted tale, the 8th Duke of Wellington inaugurated the current Waterloo display, in which Siborne's model is the centrepiece, this apparent reconciliation - Arthur Wellesley himself scrupulously avoided either visiting or publicly endorsing Siborne's creation - leading Balen to observe that 'With time history learns to forgive.'
But actually, if one listens to the audio presentation which accompanies the model, and specifically that part dealing with Siborne and the making of his masterpiece, one will be grossly misinformed: the first bit of misinformation concerns the models origin, with the commentary implying that Siborne undertook the project of his own volition, when in fact, as Balen says 'He was invited ... [by] Lord Rowland Hill, a Waterloo veteran, to map the ground, and from this to create a scale model, with the work paid for by public funds.'
Having set Siborne up as an obsessive outsider (the National Army Museum audio commentary, that is, not Balen), when in fact he was being commissioned by both government and armed forces representatives, the commentary then lays the charge of historical inaccuracy - regarding the absence of the Prussians in greater force - at Siborne's door, when this aspect of the Model's current state in fact represents his eventual capitulation to the campaign of the military establishment against his original dispositions (he removed approximately 40,000 Prussian figures in the end!).
And it doesn't end there, several further factual errors are made which compound the calumny and lend the whole thing the air of a continued conspiracy to defame the poor man! This aspect of Siborne's story is something both Balen and Hofschröer address.
It's not only alleged, by the NAM, that Siborne is the one responsible for this inaccuracy, but that further, and with a grotesquely unjust twist, that he made his error because he didn't bother to consult French or German sources! I personally think it's shocking and beyond comprehension that a national institution should so blatantly malign the creator of an object it so proudly displays when the facts are so clearly otherwise than it suggests*.
Actually his troubles were a direct result of his 'overly' thorough investigation, and more particularly the nature of that investigation, or what Balen refers to as the 'unwelcome democracy of it's evidence-gathering...' which was 'far too democratic for its times'! This resulted in 'the military establishment's growing opposition to the exercise in historical democracy it had unwittingly unleashed.'
It was precisely because Siborne had gathered such vast amounts of data, which also formed the basis of his book (History of the War in France and Belgium), and very definitely included material from both French and Prussian sources, that he ran into the troubles this book (and Hofschröer's) relates.
Personally I prefer Hofschröer's book on the subject (Wellington's Smallest Victory), which is simply, for me, the better written and more engaging of the two, and is also more focussed upon the history of the model and its maker. Balen's account, which it has to be said is also a very compelling and enjoyable read, spends more than the first two-thirds of the book following the battle itself, only alluding very briefly here and there to Siborne's travails.
It's not until chapter XII that the focus shifts decisively from the battle to the model. Whilst yet another re-telling of Waterloo is okay with me, this isn't the best account of that sanguinary day that I've read, and for me the book is most interesting in its final three chapters, when addressing the issue of Siborne's building and exhibiting of the model, and his struggles first to pay for it, after the government backs out quite early on, and secondly to find a home for it.
Balen's use of letters from Siborne's correspondence as headers to each chapter, along with small but regular references here and there, is a rather tenuous way of dealing with the diorama thread. Whilst it allows the author to combine the two themes of the battle itself and the model depicting it, it does also result in some unwelcome repetition (particularly by harping on about the continued absence of the Prussians and Siborne's choice of the moment to be depicted), and even some rather misleading 'teasing', with Balen appearing to come down on Wellington's side at various points.
I won't spoil it for you by giving too much away, but suffice it to say that such toying with the reader may be a little disingenuous. In the end Balen concludes that whilst Siborne was 'a man before his time', 'To look at the battleground he created is to marvel at a man who tried to turn the history of a war into a model of the truth.'
This is a fascinating adjunct to the story of the battle of Waterloo itself, and with the bicentennial of that famous and conclusive chapter of Napoleonic history rapidly approaching, this is, like Hofschröer's book on the subject, both interesting and illuminating in itself, and a salutary reminder of the political aspects of history.
* It would be wonderful if, for 2015, the 200th anniversary of Waterloo, the NAM could correct this, and, as they're currently closed for a refit, the opportunity to do so seems perfect. [NB - Review written c. 2013!]
November 12, 2013
The Model Victory, while certainly educational and informative, was rather hard to get through at times. Though the prose was stellar and actually inspired to finish it, my lack of knowledge about this subject is quite detrimental to the reading experience--so, despite the fact that the author managed to introduce certain concepts without it being boring, I was simply too bogged down by the military terms and the significance of this attack or that siege into the final turn of events.
And, seeing as that fault is completely mine, and not the author's, this book is still a solid four stars because it was still quite enjoyable to read.
And, seeing as that fault is completely mine, and not the author's, this book is still a solid four stars because it was still quite enjoyable to read.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews