ANGLO-ALLIED MISNOMER

As I keep returning to what is often referred to as the 100 Days campaign of 1815, I naturally revisit Wellington’s army at Waterloo. Calling it Wellington’s army certainly follows a common and accepted nomenclature inasmuch as armies have long been referred to by the man who commanded it. So that much is definitely accurate. I have been finding it more difficult to accept the habit amongst the English speakers (of which I am one) of referring to the same army as the ‘Anglo-Allied’ army.

Wikipedia uses the term in their order of battle page. I see it on Youtube broadcasts on the subject and it’s on the Napoleon Series website. It’s used by the National Army Museum (British), Amazon, EpicHistory TV, Pintrest, more historical publications than you can poke a stick at – it’s in widespread use. Whilst I see the term Anglo-Allied to describe Wellington’s last army everywhere; however, I just don’t think it is correct. It comes with very clear implications and conforms to a narrow historical view more in keeping with my Airfix shaped childhood than reality. It places the red-coated British front and centre in concept and memory, requiring an effort to peer past the façade to see what’s really going on behind the billboard labelling. It looks very much like another case of cultural high-jacking. So, let’s test it.

If Wellington’s army comprised approximately 26,000 British troops from a strength of near 72,000 (I’ve seen many figures) then the ‘Anglo’ component wasn’t even a majority contingent. No one national contribution made a single majority but the Germanic states (Hanover, Brunswick, Nassau,) comprised the largest collective ethnicity. Even within the ‘British’ army, a good number of participating regiments would be more accurately prefixed with ‘Hiberno’ (the Scots) and not Anglo. The British army also included amongst the British count the long-standing arrangement of the Kings German Legion. I’m unsure how many Germans made up the Kings German Legion but it’s obvious that genuine ‘Anglo’ (meaning of the English) soldiery equated to less than 26,000. When the Dutch-Belgian contingent is taken into account, this army was a particularly polyglot force in which the Anglos of even the British were in no way ethnically dominant. So why do so many people within the English-speaking world insist on referring to this Allied army as an Anglo-Allied army?

Historically, the English or rather perhaps the British have sought to own the victory at Waterloo from the beginning. It’s an historiographical tradition which modern historians are only just starting to properly examine and unravel. In no way is this exclusive to the 100 Days campaign, the Napoleonic era or any other period in history. Similarly, this is not a cultural practice exclusive to the British or the English – everyone does it. By way of comparison, I can assure my British friends and colleagues that my fellow Australians completely own the Gallipoli campaign of 1915 to the point of national obsession. If you were to attend any number of our annual ANZAC Day ceremonies and had no prior knowledge of history, you’d be forgiven for thinking that the French and British (including Canadians and Indians) weren’t even there – let alone in larger numbers. Getting back to cultural appropriations, for all I know in Germany the battle of Waterloo and the 100 Day campaign is all about the German soldiers who rescued the allies from the brink of disaster.

Labelling can have a profound influence on how uninformed perception is shaped. The term Anglo-Allied places the majority of that Allied army into a subordinate role. It suggests it was a British army with allies, subordinating non-Anglo participants to a supporting role. This is clearly false and establishes a misleading impression. But what are the rules if any rules exist for branding armies? If it is only proper to label armies based on ethnic contributions, then this Allied army would be more properly labelled the Germanic-Allied army. When taking the Prussian army into account on the day, then Waterloo can be seen very much as a German victory over the French and not a British one.

If the rule for labelling is dependent upon financial considerations then this was likely very much an Anglo-Allied effort. The British government financed most every coalition against Napoleon and bank-rolled several armies over the preceding years. I’ve not gone into the financial examination of the 1815 arrangements but even if Blucher’s Prussian Army were reliant on British funding, there’s been no attempt to label it the Anglo-Prussian army because of it. The point is obvious I hope inasmuch as financial backing does has not proven sufficient to assign naming rights. Not purely of itself at any rate. So, I think we can write that argument off as a weak one.

If you are not convinced, then let’s consider the Allies in WW2. US General Eisenhower was CinC, US forces were present in significant numbers and the US economy effectively bankrolled the war but no one has ever referred to the landings in Normandy in 1944 as being an invasion by the US-Allied coalition. I’m sure British and Commonwealth veterans would turn in their graves.

Back to Waterloo. A glance through the lists of commanding officers from Battalion up to Corps level also indicates quite strongly that commanders from the other national contingents were very much in evidence. In fact, regiments were deliberately diffused under divergent national commands at Brigade and Divisional levels for a range of political and practical reasons to ensure balance in the field. So, there is no supporting evidence to claim that the forces were under British command or control beyond the over-arching direction of the commanding general himself.

The cultural subsuming of the credit for this victory is a simple matter when applied through the prism of cultural superiority. This has never been a problem for European aristocracies or the British version. There’s more than ample surviving evidence to see how each ethnicity stereotyped the other. The French looked down on the Spanish, the Spanish looked down on the Portuguese, the Austrians, Prussians and Russians all looked own on the Poles. Hell, even the Russians looked down on their own Cossacks and in turn, the Cossacks looked down on the Russian officer corps and serf-soldiery. Certainly, Wellington himself is on record for numerous denigrating remarks about his allies and for that matter his own subordinates. The great man was just as much a product of his class and his age as everyone else – he was an aristocratic snob. Given the recent political realignment of Europe post-1814 there was also a good deal of suspicion and mistrust between the Allied contingents which is unsurprising. Largely this was unfounded as it turned out but the diffusion of the various command groupings in the Allied order of battle had as much to do with prejudice than practicality.

Whilst this is the subject for another day, Prince William of Orange and his Dutch-Belgian contingent and the Duke of Brunswick’s command demonstrated their initiative and independence two days previous to Waterloo in salvaging the Allies dispositions and taking the stand at Quatre-Bras. I intend to look a lot more closely at the campaign preceding 18 June but I have formed the opinion that Wellington’s scouting, communication and intelligence failure prevented him from properly appreciating the situation when Napoleon marched into Belgium. This almost lost the war. His disposition and orders in response to the incursion prevented adequate concentration and prevented the Allied army from joining with Blucher at Ligny. Regardless of operational intent, Marshal Ney was able to block an army with a Corp and by the next morning was left in possession of the field at Quatre-Bras. Had Wellington lost at Waterloo I wonder what history would have made of him. But I digress.

It was the non-Anlgo part of the Allied army which saw what was needed and rallied at Quatre-bras contrary to the instinct of high command. There has been a determination on the part of English accounts to denigrate William of Orange and I suspect it is required in order to lionize Wellington to the status of flawless genius. Irrespective of where a reader’s sympathies may lie, Quatre-Bras provides sufficient evidence at least that the other participating contingents were so much more than mere battlefield participants or British grist for the mill.

I don’t imagine this essay will change many minds determined on the contrary but I really think there is a strong case to revisit how we label this army and view this campaign. I for one will be determined to never again slide into referring to this Allied army as anything else.