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“The heroism at

La Haye Sainte

was rational, not

suicidal: They

fought to the last

bullet but not the

last man.”

BRENDAN SIMMS,

HISTORIAN

A NEW VIEW

Drawing on new

sources, including

diaries as well as

other unpublished

material, renowned

Cambridge historian

Brendan Simms has

written an account of

this key event in the

Battle of Waterloo

from a soldier’s point

of view called The

Longest Afternoon.

Looking back on this fi nal defeat,

historians agree: The brilliant general

made two serious mistakes. First off,

he had underestimated the strategic

importance of La Haye Sainte. This

farmhouse in a narrow depression

was a bottleneck through which his

ar my had to pa s s to at tack the ce nte r

of Wellington’s position. Herodotus

tells us that a band of 300 Spartans

held off a huge Persian army for seven

days at the narrow coastal passage

of Thermopylae in 480 BC. In the same

manner, a force of just 400 soldiers

from the King’s German Legion held

off the French Army long enough that

its supe rior numbe r s we re of no avail.

Second, Napoleon had overestimated

the size of the defending force. After

his fi rst attack on La Haye Sainte, he

believed that the compound must be

defended by an entire division, and

he became more cautious. In the end

Napoleon suffered defeat in a battle

he must have seen as a sure victory.

What ultimately tipped the scales in

the allies’ favor was a loyal group of

400 courageous sharpshooters who

refused to yield.