Exploring Incredible Relics from the Battle of Waterloo
Join historian Matt McLaughlin and his team as they uncover amazing artifacts from the historic Battle of Waterloo. Walk the battlefield and discover the significance of these relics. Visit battlefields.com.au for more information and book your Battlefield tour today!
Install Tubelator On Chrome
Video Summary & Chapters
No chapters for this video generated yet.
Video Transcript
Hi, it's Matt McLaughlin with a special invitation.
If you'd like to join me and my team of outstanding historians
to walk the ground where these videos were made,
visit our website and join one of our Battlefield tours.
That's battlefields.com.au.
Enjoy the video.
I'm Matt McLaughlin.
I'm Peter Hart.
We're here at the National Army Museum in Chelsea in London,
and it's time for another History in Six Objects.
Pete, what are we doing today?
We're doing the Battle of Waterloo.
Let's get to it.
Pete, our first object is this really quite wonderful painting by Lady Butler
known as a few different things, the dawn of Waterloo. Reveille, that kind of thing, yes.
I mean have a look at it though, this shows British troops before the battle.
It's not something we often talk about as what was happening before the battle
but obviously essential to the story of how the troops actually got there.
What does this say to you Pete?
Well, firstly I like the focus on the ordinary soldier.
in it, but there is a heavy focus on soldiers waking up. Imagine what it was like, you know,
they'd have been chucking it down there, there's the echoes of the storm up there,
been chucking it down, they're wet, they're probably cold, and there they are, and there's
just some lovely, lovely detail work on it, and the atmosphere is great, you know, I think it's
just, you're not there, but you get a feeling of what it must have been like, and cold and wet.
Look at the embers of the fire.
This guy's under his coat.
There's just so many things.
And of course we've got the officers riding along,
blowing Ravelli to say, get up, you know, night's over.
Time to get on with your job.
And little did they know what was coming up for them.
And I think she's got the idea of dawn
and the passing storm.
I just think it's very emotive.
It's a cracky bit of work.
It's an unusual military depiction as well, isn't it?
Because often, especially from this time,
this was the era of Napoleon on his grand steed
in.
Thanks.
huge battles and charging cavalry, this is a real insight into,
as you say, just the common man and what he was experiencing
in the lead up to the battle.
And you can see the nerves.
They're not laughing, are they?
I mean, several of them are clearly thinking
about what lies ahead of them.
And what lies ahead of them is one of the most murderous
battles of that time.
