Sharpe's Waterloo

For the television adaptation, see Sharpe's Waterloo (TV programme).

Sharpe's Waterloo

First edition cover
Author	Bernard Cornwell
Language	English
Series	Richard Sharpe
Genre	Historical novels
Publisher	Collins
Publication date	1 February 1990
Publication place	United Kingdom
Media type	Print (hardback & paperback) and audio-CD
Pages	416 pp (first edition, hardback)
ISBN	ISBN 0-00-223643-5 (first edition, hardback)
OCLC	32926187
Dewey Decimal	823/.914 20
LC Class	PR6053.O75 S57 1990a
Preceded by	Sharpe's Revenge
Followed by	Sharpe's Ransom

Sharpe's Waterloo is the twentieth historical novel in the Richard Sharpe series by Bernard Cornwell, first published in 1990. The story is set during the 1815 Waterloo campaign. In some printings, it is simply called "Waterloo."

Plot summary

Napoleon having escaped from Elba, Richard Sharpe leaves his farm in Normandy to rejoin the British Army, and is created a Lieutenant Colonel of a Dutch-Belgian cavalry regiment, a sinecure to give him standing as one of the the Prince of Orange's staff officers. Sharpe's lover Lucille has been escorted to the ball by his friend Patrick Harper, who is present with the army as an armed civilian.

The First Day: June 15, 1815

While patrolling the roads connecting the Anglo-Dutch and Prussian forces, Sharpe witnesses the main body of Napoleon's army crossing the border from France, revealing that Napoleon does not intend to maneuver around the flank of the Allied armies, via Mons, as the Duke of Wellington expected, but instead to ram his army into the gap between the two allied forces and defeat them in detail. Encountering a cavalry patrol of the King's German Legion, Sharpe sends an urgent message to Wellington, while Sharpe stays behind to continue spying on the invading French. Unfortunately, the cavalry's commander, General Dornberg, decries Sharpe's message as a French deception, and tears it up rather than forward it to Wellington.

Later that day, after the French have entered Charleroi, Sharpe returns to the Prince of Orange's headquarters and is aghast to find that the army is ignorant of the French invasion. The Prince's aide, Rebecque, dispatches a messenger to retrieve the Prince from the Duchess of Richmond's ball, while Sharpe carries orders to the troops nearest to the crossroads at Quatre Bras, Prince Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar. Although the French are checked as evening falls, Sharpe knows they will make a much stronger attack in the morning, and rides to Brussels to warn Wellington.

Sharpe also encounters Lord John Rossendale, the lover of his estranged wife Jane. He demands the return of the money Jane took from him while Jane encourages Rossendale to use the battle as cover to kill Sharpe.

's Army of the North enters Belgium at Thuin, meeting only light resistance from the Prussian troops garrisoned nearby, and without the [[

On the field at Quatre Bras, the Prince of Orange disregards Sharpe's advice and issues orders for his men to form line when a French cavalry patrol is nearby. As a result, a regiment is decimated by the French troops although Sharpe and Harper save their old regiment the Prince of Wales Own Volunteers by helping them take cover among the trees.

At Waterloo, Sharpe assists in the defence of La Haye Sainte but continues to clash with Orange over the latter's poor military decisions costing men's lives and is eventually relieved of his position. When Orange for the third time causes his men to be slaughtered by forming line in the proximity of cavalry, Lieutenant Doggett, another British officer on his staff, insults him and leaves to find Sharpe. Fearing more men will die if Orange remains in command, Sharpe attempts to kill him under cover of a rifle barrage but only succeeds in hitting him in the shoulder and wounding him, forcing him to retire from the field. Meanwhile, Rossendale takes part in the Earl of Uxbridge's cavalry charge but in fleeing from the French Lancer retaliatory charge traps his horse in mud, is slashed across the face (breaking his nose and blinding him), knocked off his horse and stabbed multiple times by French lances, leaving him badly wounded.

With Prussian reinforcements arriving and the French about to break through the British lines, Colonel Ford, the POWOV's commanding officer, goes to pieces and Sharpe's friend D'Alembord, who had been previously shot in the leg but insisted on returning to the battle, succumbs to his wound as he tries to take command. Sharpe, with Harper, Doggett and Captain Harry Price, takes command of the regiment and helps to turn back the French columns, forcing the French into full retreat. As the smoke of battle clears, a delirious Rossendale is killed by a peasant woman looting the battlefield, leaving Jane pregnant and alone.

Characters in Sharpe's Waterloo

Fictional

• Lt. Col. Richard Sharpe – now a staff officer in the Dutch army.
• Patrick Harper – now a civilian, Dublin pub owner, horse trader and thief.
• Lt. Simon Doggett – a British officer on the Prince of Orange's staff.
• Lord John Rossendale – British cavalry officer, and the lover of Sharpe's estranged wife Jane.
• Jane Sharpe – Sharpe's estranged wife, discovered to be pregnant with Rossendale's child.
• Lucille Castineau – Sharpe's French lover.
• Daniel Hagman – Rifleman.
• Major Dunnett – Rifle officer, Sharpe's old commander.
• Lt. Harry Price – officer in the Prince Of Wales' Own Volunteers.
• Major Peter d'Alembord – officer in the Prince Of Wales' Own Volunteers.
• Lt. Col. Joseph Ford – new commanding officer of the Prince Of Wales' Own Volunteers.
• Paulette: Belgian prostitute, the Prince of Orange's "seamstress" (i.e., mistress).

Historical

• Field Marshal Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington – commander of the Anglo-Dutch army.
• William, Prince of Orange – commander of the allied I Corps.
• Harry Paget, Earl of Uxbridge – Wellington's second in command.
• Rebecque: the Prince of Orange's tutor and aide-de-camp.
• Major General William Dornberg
• The Duke of Richmond.
• The Duchess of Richmond.
• Miguel de Alava – Spanish envoy to the Netherlands, and Wellington's close friend.
• Major General Sir Thomas Picton
• Prince Bernhard Carl of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach
• Sir Colin Halkett

• Generalfeldmarschall Gebhard von Blücher, commander of the Prussian army.
• Generalleutnant August von Gneisenau – chief of staff of the Prussian army.

• Napoleon Bonaparte – restored Emperor of France.
• Marshal Michel Ney, Napoleon's primary field commander.
• François Étienne de Kellermann, commander of the cavalry charge at Quatre Bras

Television adaptation

The novel was adapted as the fifth season finale (and last regular episode) of the Sharpe television series, guest starring Paul Bettany as the Prince of Orange, Neil Dickson as Uxbridge, Oliver Tobias as Rebecque and Chloe Newsome as Paulette, with the latter having her nationality changed to English. The adaptation was largely faithful to the novel but several characters were omitted such as D'Alembord, Charlie Weller and Sharpe and Lucille's son Henri (since her pregnancy had been removed from the adaptation of Sharpe's Revenge). Others, such as Dunnett and the Claytons, had been killed in earlier episodes, although Harry Price was retained despite a character of the same name apparently dying in Sharpe's Company. Other small changes included having Sharpe's friends Hagman and Harris killed as a result of one of Orange's orders (in the novel, Hagman dies in the main battle while Harris was created for the series), a cleaner death for Rossendale (who is bayonetted by French soldiers) and Ford being killed by artillery in the closing stages of the battle.

External links

• Section from Bernard Cornwell's website on Sharpe's Waterloo
• Independent Review of Sharpe's Waterloo