Publisher's Synopsis
A German language account of the 'pre-battle' of Waterloo around the Belle-Alliance Inn. The eminent Napoleonic historian Peter Hofschröer notes that the author of this 1903 work, Julius von Pflugk-Harttung, was "probably the most prolific Waterloo historian to have lived" and that this work is one of his two most useful books: "probably the most exhaustively researched examination of the events leading up to the Battle of Waterloo written. After the Battle of Waterloo, at around 21:00, Prince Blücher and the Duke of Wellington met close to the inn signifying the end of the fighting. Blücher, the Prussian commander, suggested that the battle should be remembered as la Belle Alliance, to commemorate the European Seventh Coalition of Britain, Russia, Prussia, the Netherlands, Sweden, Austria, Spain, Portugal, Sardinia, and a number of German States which had all joined the coalition to defeat the French Emperor. Wellington, who had chosen the field and commanded an allied army which had fought the French all day, instead recommended Waterloo, the village just north of the battlefield, where he himself had spent the previous night. Nevertheless in 1815 the Rondell plaza in Berlin was renamed Belle-Alliance-Platz to commemorate the victory.
