John Codman Ropes

The Campaign of Waterloo John Codman Ropes

This is a history and a text book in which each chapter deals with a single aspect of the campaign and is followed by Notes on the chapter. Thus the book opens with the plan of campaign followed by a chapter of notes and comment, and then goes on to compare the opposing armies with accompanying notes. After that the author provides a day-by-day account, looking at the action or events from the French side and then the same action or events from the Allied side. There are a number of interesting appendices with examples of correspondence, orders issued by commanders on both sides and extracts from reports/despatches, all in the language in which they were written at the time. The author was an American historian (died 1899) and this book is regarded as a standard work.