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Faringdon (Oxon) ( W A & J S Meeuws ) ( ABA, BA, ILAB, BASEES) E-Mail
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Member of the
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1808 - 1891 
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N o w
s o l d (October 2012)
| Siborne, Captain
W.,
History of the War in France and Belgium, in 1815. Containing Minute Details of the Battles of Quatre-Bras, Ligny, Wavre, and Waterloo. By Captain W. Silborne. 2 Volumes + Folder with all the Battle Maps. London. T and W Boone. 1844, second edition.,Two volumes 8vo. There is a little rubbing but this is otherwise a lovely set in green hard-grain morocco; title and author's name and 1815 lettered-direct in gilt onto the spines; spines ornately gilt in compartments; plain green pebbled cloth-backed boards; all edges and endpapers marbled; fine armorial bookplate of the Pennington family with the device " Firm active vigilant - Vincit amor patriae" on the front paste-down of volume 1. Name and date in ink on 2nd blank . Volume 1: xxvi, (2), 461pp., with 5 portraits. Volume 2: xii, 523pp., with 6 portraits. COMPLETE WITH THE VERY RARE SET OF MAPS IN THE ORIGINAL ELEPHANT FOLIO RED CLOTH FOLDER CONTAINING THE BATTLE MAPS: 1 Part of Belgium / 2 Field of Quatre-Bras. 3 o'clock P.M. / 3 Field of Quatre-Bras. 9 o'clock P.M. / 4 Field of Ligny. ½ past 2 o'clock P.M. 5 Field of Ligny. ½ past 8 o'clock P.M. / 6 Field of Waterloo. ¼ past 11 o'clock A.M. / 7 Field of Waterloo. ¼ before 8 o'clock P.M. / 8 Field of Waterloo. 5 min. past 8 o'clock P.M. / 9 Field of Wavre. 4 o'clock P.M. 18th June / 10 Field of Wavre. 4 o'clock A.M. 19th June / Part of France The battlefield maps, based on Siborne's models, engraved by Bate's Anaglyptographic process which was designed to give an impression of relief when viewed with a strong light source at the top edge. the red cloth covers of this folder are damp stained, maps are fine. *** Historian and model-maker, Siborne would become the first to challenge Wellington's version of the events of 18 June 1815. Ironically, the research that led Siborne to do so was undertaken at the behest of Wellington's close associates, who commissioned Siborne to make a vast scale model of the Battle of Waterloo. This was to be the greatest model of the greatest battle, a splendid tribute to the Iron Duke's colossal achievement. At the time, Siborne was a junior staff officer in the British army based in Dublin, but he had made a name for himself with his expertise in topographical cartography and military model making. As soon as he received this commission, he left for Waterloo, where he spent eight months based at the farmhouse of La Haye Sainte scrupulously surveying the battlefield. He returned to Dublin with the most thorough and detailed cartography ever made of the scene of battlef, even down to the crops growing in each field that day. Siborne methodically established, Field Marshal Blücher's Prussian army was staging its own decisive attack in the right rear of Napoleon's line. Wellington would have to share the limelight. Although Wellington's army had started the day 68,000 men strong it had lost a substantial part of that before the Prussians arrived. Siborne's model would show 48,000 Prussians making that attack. Although this was historically accurate, the debt of Britain's great national hero to the Prussians would be revealed in graphic detail. The Duke was not amused. . One of Wellington's close advisors pointed out to the Duke that the positions of the troops as shown on the model conflicted with what he had written about the effects of the Prussian involvement in the 'Waterloo Despatch'. Pressure was put on Siborne to change the model. The truth was that Waterloo had almost been a total disaster for Wellington. He had gravely misjudged the strategic situation on the outbreak of hostilities on 15 June 1815. Instead of moving his troops to give rapid support to his Prussian allies as he promised, Wellington hesitated and delayed issuing orders to that evening. This left the Prussians almost alone facing Napoleon. Ultimately, Wellington achieved what Napoleon could not do: he removed the Prussians from the field of Waterloo. It was, however, his smallest victory. Siborne was forced to reduce the number of Prussian soldiers to a mere 8000 under pressure from Wellington and friends. The Duke had little alternative but to discredit Siborne in the 1830s and 1840s if Britain's immediate post-Waterloo diplomacy - and his own post-war reputation - were not to be revealed as founded, if not quite on a lie, then on a convenient half-truth. Siborne's Large Model of Waterloo is once again on public display - in the National Army Museum, beside the Chelsea Hospital, where Siborne ended his days as Military Secretary in 1851. But it was Wellington's version of history that has prevailed: of the offending 40,000 Prussians that Siborne once painstakingly placed on his model, all but a handful have now been removed. loosely inserted are a 2-page typewritten list of the casualties arranged by regiment and rank and a publisher's leaflet for a later volume of engravings on Wellington. Provenance: the map collection comes from the library of the Royal House of Hanover library, with some slight damage to edges and spine . auctioned c. 1970 in Hamburg at Dr. Ernst Hauswedell & Co. the front board of the slipcase has some staining. Loosely inserted is the announcement , 4pp., A-5, by Henry Graves and comp. Her Majesty's publishers and printsellers in ordinary, of the engraving by Charles G. Lewis off the historical picture representing Wellington receiving his guests at Apsley house entitled The Waterloo Heroes painted by J.P. Knight. completed in 1840. n A-4 modern print of this is also inserted. |
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