This is soooooo on my buy list.................
. Which is currently about 43 items of interest......
On the morning of 3 July 1815, the French General Joseph Isidore Exelmans, at the head of a brigade of dragoons, fired the last shots in the defense of Paris until the Franco-Prussian War sixty-five years later. Why did he do so? Traditional stories of 1815 end with Waterloo, that fateful day of 18 June, when Napoleon Bonaparte fought and lost his last battle, abdicating his throne on 22 June. So why was Exelmans still fighting for Paris? Surely the fighting had ended on 18 June? Not so. Waterloo was not the end, but the beginning of a new and untold story. Seldom studied in French histories and virtually ignored by English writers, the French Army fought on after Waterloo. At Versailles, Sevres, Rocquencourt and elsewhere, the French fought off the Prussian army. In the Alps and along the Rhine other French armies fought the Allied armies, and General Rapp defeated the Austrians at La Souffel - the last great battle and the last French victory of the Napoleonic Wars. Many other French commanders sought to reverse the defeat of Waterloo. Bonapartist and irascible, General Vandamme, at the head of 3rd and 4th Corps, was, for example, champing at the bit to exact revenge on the Prussians. General Exelmans, ardent Bonapartist and firebrand, likewise wanted one final, defining battle to turn the war in favor of the French. Marshal Grouchy, much maligned, fought his army back to Paris by 29 June, with the Prussians hard on his heels. On 1 July, Vandamme, Exelmans and Marshal Davout began the defense of Paris. Davout took to the field in the north-eastern suburbs of Paris along with regiments of the Imperial Guard and battalions of National Guards. For the first time ever, using the wealth of archive material held in the French Army archives in Paris, along with eyewitness testimonies from those who were there, Paul Dawson brings alive the bitter and desperate fighting in defense of the French capital. The 100 Days Campaign did not end at Waterloo, it ended under the walls of Paris fifteen days later.
Operations after the Battle of Waterloo 1815 - Grouchy's army still in the game, ( almost intact ) and the left behind French division at the battlefield of Ligny which picked up Prussian guns, muskets and supplies; plus what is left of Napoleon's Mont St Jean army which would be added to by new conscripts and the National Guard. I wonder if this would be an add on scenario in the Waterloo Campaign game .............definitely for the die hard Napoleonist fan. And lest we forget - Marshal Davout being unleashed..........he, who never lost a battle...................A lot of material was lost at Waterloo but desparation breeds inhuman effort and genius which Napoleon excelled in. The state of Wellington's army and the Prussians after Waterloo is overrated. Turning the tide was unlikely but making Wellington fill his boots a little while longer is well worth the hypothetical.
I have not bought the new gold edition of the Waterloo Campaign game.....which has a new Campaign game system where you send orders to subordinates/ commanders but will definitely get this book for the sheer novelty value. Hope it is jam packed with previously unknown info and insight on a very neglected topic.................................................. Drool level 7.9.