Military historians and a wider range of readers enticed by the blood and thunder exploits of Bernard Cornwell’s Richard Sharpe in the Napoleonic Wars will welcome the publication of this new edition of Captain William Siborne’s classic account of the Waterloo Campaign first published in 1848, a year before the author’s death, under the title History of the War in France and Belgium in 1815. Focusing upon the Battle of Waterloo it also covers the Battles of Ligny and Quatre-Bras and is a valuable addition to Frontline’s Napoleonic Library in the year following the bicentenary of the Battle of Waterloo in 2015, with nearly 600 pages of text including a sequence of original graphic engravings by George Jones R.A., first published in 1817.

The Historical Association

Siborne's history of Waterloo, the latest addition to Frontline's growing Napoleonic Library, is essential and gripping reading for all those who are interested in how this famous battle was fought and won.

Armourer, November – December 2016

Captain William Siborne became an ensign in the 9th Regiment of Foot in September 1813 and was sent to France in August 1815 as part of a battalion sent to reinforce the Duke of Wellington’s army. Siborne was a notable topographer and following the publication of his second book, in 1830 he was commissioned by Roland Hill to create a scale model of the battle of Waterloo. For this he carried out extensive research, and to obtain further information, wrote to officers who were present in the Allied forces. The correspondence which followed amounted to the largest ever assembled single collection of primary source material on the subject. After Siborne had completed his model, he used the mass of information he had gathered to produce his History of the Waterloo Campaign, which at the time was the most detailed account of the operations in 1815 and is often still considered as one of the classic – if sometimes controversial - works on the subject.

First published in 1848 under the title History of the War in France and Belgium in 1815, then as the current title in 1990 and 1995 by Greenhill Books and now in 2016 as a hefty 584 page hardback, the text is reproduced exactly as the original, complete and unabridged, with additional illustrations and maps. Major General Herbert Taylor Siborne (1826-1902) was the second son of William Siborne. If this book was missed from the Napoleonic bookshelf, Pen & Sword have provided an ideal opportunity to rectify the situation.

Stuart Asquith, Author