Nathan Albright

This revisionist history of the Battle of Waterloo portrays the Dutch and Belgian soldiers of the Prince of Orange as essential to the victory of the Duke of Wellington. They also ensured the survival of his army after Napoleon's rush north during the hundred days of his second reign over France. The book goes well beyond tactics and strategy to sketch the political history of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands from its origin in 1814. Readers will learn much, too, about the logistical constraints Dutch and Belgian soldiers faced during the Waterloo campaign. Such emphasis on the Dutch perspective is rare in English-language historiography. Most accounts of Dutch heroism at Quatre Bras and Waterloo—chiefly written in Dutch—have not previously been examined in detail by military historians of the battle. The author of Wellington's Hidden Heroes, historian Veronica Baker-Smith, 1 has spent time in the Netherlands and is fully conversant with the Dutch archival material relevant to Wa-terloo. The book is organized chronologically, starting with a discussion of the foundation of the Kingdom of the Netherlands and the creation of its army out of troops from the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, and the German possessions of the house of Orange-Nassau. The author then turns to the state of the Armée du Nord and Wellington's management of the difficult process of coalition-building in a polyglot context (ignored by strictly Anglophone historians). Baker-Smith next describes Wellington's surprise in Brussels at the French advance and the strategies adopted by both the French and Anglo-Dutch forces, with attention to the commanders of the Dutch army, including the young, much maligned Prince of Orange. We read next of the brave and determined stand made by the Dutch-Belgian force at Quatre Bras to buy time for Wellington to concentrate his scattered army. Then comes a recounting of the preparations for and the actual Battle of Waterloo. Baker-Smith deconstructs the pro-British myth of the battle, which grudgingly gave credit to the Germans but not the Dutch and Belgians. The Iron Duke himself elided Dutch and Belgian bravery and skill from his (never revised or corrected) post-battle report. The author closes with a look at the aftermath of the battle in the Netherlands and a thoughtful conclusion that shows the Duke of Wellington in an extraordinarily humane light despite her previous criticisms. Baker-Smith underscores Wellington's failure to prepare adequately for Napoleon's invasion on the strategic level and to give due credit to the Dutch and Belgians under his command (a quarter of his total force). She astutely taps not only neglected Dutch sources, but a passage by Wellington showing his wit as well as his concern for the well-being of his men: Unfortunately, the sum of one shilling and nine pence remains unaccounted for in one infantry battal-ion's petty cash, and there has been a hideous confusion as to numbers of raspberry jam issued to one cavalry regiment during a sandstorm in western Spain. This reprehensible carelessness may be related to 1. Her earlier publications include A Life of Anne of Hanover, Princess Royal (Leiden: Brill, 1995) and Royal Discord: The Family of George II (Twickenham, UK: Athena Pr, 2008).

In To Live and Die in Dixie, 1 David Zimring (Univ. of Maryland, Baltimore County) presents the results of a rudimentary statistical analysis of several hundred mostly well known cases (including that of Gen. William T. Sherman) to demonstrate that certain native born Northerners tended to adopt the identity and the cause of the Civil War South. He focuses on a little studied demographic—people born in the North who moved at some point to the South, became integrated into local communities, and assimilated into Southern culture. Most of the book is narrative based on supporting data, with no cross-tabs or direct statistical analysis shown. The stories told here represent a small sample of the many native Northerners living in the South. The point is to show that the strength of a pre-Confederacy regional identity allowed them to be treated as true Southerners before but not after the war. The book seems directed not to a general readership, but to students of history, especially social history, with a strong interest in the formation of the Confederate national identity. The author clearly states his aims. For example, of the supposed desire of many Northern migrants to remake the South in the image of the North, he writes: Analyzing the lives of Northern emigrants in the South, therefore, improves our understanding of the nature of sectional identity, as well as the strength of Confederate nationalism. Rather than view sectional identity as permanent, we can instead see the options Americans possessed in the antebellum era when it came to identity formation. The idea of Northern emigrants moving to the South to remake the region in their own image is shattered by observing the individuals adapting to their surroundings and absorbing the culture and identity of the south. These individuals also provide more evidence that Confederates created a viable nationalism that bred loyalty and devotion among its [sic] citizens, since even Northerners with no previous ties to the South could still feel connected to the Confederacy. (5) It is passing strange that Zimring can write about Confederate nationalism while downplaying the foundational importance of slavery and racism in its formation to begin with. On the assimilation of native Northerners (at least within a convenient sample) as full Southerners in the antebellum period, Zimring declares that At no time did they ever comprise more than a small percentage of the Confederate armies or the home front, yet they commanded the defenses of some of the most important cities in the Confederacy, including Charleston and Vicksburg. This did not happen by chance. Thanks to their years of assimilation into their adopted homes, these men had already established themselves as important figures in their Southern communities and as firm supporters of the Confederate cause. As a result, despite their backgrounds, Northern Confederates had little trouble serving in the ranks of their new country. (153)