June 19, 2007 cameron

1815 Battle of Waterloo reenactment draws thousands

This story from the St Paul Tribune in Minnesota tells about a recent reenactment of the Battle Of Waterloo held on the site of the actual battle in Belgium:

History buffs from Britain, France, Belgium, Germany, Holland and elsewhere said the Waterloo commemoration is one of the most important events on their calendars. The actual anniversary of the battle was Monday but the event was on the weekend.

Comments (12)

  1. Antonio

    Is there any listener from Belgium who could find us a link with pictures taken in this event?

    Antonio

  2. K.C.

    Hello, again! I just wanted to say how much I’m still loving this series! I’ve told a number of people about it, most of whom are history geeks of one sort or another so hopefully they’re in your target audience.

    I also have a question to ask: As you consider what subjects you might get into after… after obvious Napoleon-related topics are no longer quite so abundant, I was wondering what I could do to lure you both into French Resistance studies?

    We’ve got French history and glory, people fighting to preserve (or overthrow) the Republic, codenames, passwords, secret-agent librarians, the French making the Brits play host to De Gaulle for years on end (which was a fairly-good sized prank on their part; one can imagine De Gualle and his ego being shipped to England on a boat called ‘The Trafalgar This!’), tantalizing coded messages on the BBC, and Caluire – which is as mysterious an event as a chain of dominoes all falling over at the same time without touching each other.

    Plus it’s an excuse to watch Casablanca. What more could you want from a topic of discussion?

    Off to listen to ep 20 now. Keep up the great work! 😀

  3. KC,

    Nice idea, but I think that a general premis of these programs is that we actually know something about our subject! I’m afraid that, for now at least, I’ll have to beg off of this topic. But we have plenty more coming up, so don’t fret too much!

    Anyway, one never needs an excuse to watch Casablanca, the movie I generally rate as my all-time favorite. It is its own excuse!

    David

  4. Ronald R Nurmi

    Hello,

    I remember the 1995 reenactment and one of the highlights was the weather. It was about the same as it was in 1815.

    Also Dr. David Chandler was on the same tour and I took pictures of him dressed as the French general who defected a few day before the battle.

    FYI, I have enjoyed all of the podcast so far!

    Ron

  5. Arni Sigurdsson

    Thank you from Iceland for a great series. As a history buff when observing the current state of affairs I sometimes wonder what Napoleon would be doing today had he been born in 1969 instead of 1769 🙂 Comments on that topic maybe here would be really interesting to read.

  6. Cameron

    Hi Arni! On behalf of David and myself, I’d like to prematurely accept your sure-to-be-coming invitation to the first annual Icelandic Napoleonic convention!

    What he would be doing if born 200 years later is a terrific question! How much of what he accomplished was due to events and circumstances he found himself in and how much was due to his fierce will?

  7. Austin

    If your looking for video footage of the 2007 re-enactment. You tube offers a pretty wide selection. just type in “Waterloo re-enactment” or anything along the lines of that. I wish i could have gone. But by the time of its bi-centenial ill have been out of high-school for 3 or 4 years so ill get so that one. Hopefully.

  8. I was with a unit at Waterloo this year. Great event! If you want to see some pictures go to the Gallery on our website and click through the thumbnails unitl you get to the section on Waterloo. Hope you enjoy them. We go approximately every 2 years and it is getting better every year.
    4 years ago a Belgium student was so impressed (he was in a French unit) that he came and asked to be drilled and train with us although it meant he had to travel to a couple of events in the UK. He also used our training video ‘Georgian Drill’ which was made by our late lamented Sergeant Major Jeff Peacock, who had been the military trainer for many films. Well our ‘deserter’ then joined us in 2005 & this year and had a great time.

  9. My society, the 68th Durham Light Infantry Society go regularly to Waerloo and this year was great. If you are looking for some more phtos go to our web pages http://www.68dli.co.uk
    and look in the Gallery. There is an extensive section on Waterloo. For the second time a belgium lad (a french unit deserter!) joined us, having drilled with the use of our Video ‘Georgian Drill with Serg. Jeff Peacock’ and come up to stratch by joining us on several events beforehand. Great fun had by all.

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