To read the account of Waterloo in the history books of England, France and Germany is to read of three utterly different battles. Each nation has made its own glowing tapestry of martial glory and national heroes out of this mighty encounter. Can there be a true story of the day when Napoleon, Wellington and Blücher—three of the masters of combat—met on a compact battlefield to decide the fate of an Empire, and when the course of nineteenth-century history was transformed?

In this book, from dawn to nightfall on June 18, 1815, hour by hour, sometimes minute by minute, we follow each twist of the action in turn from:

• The English point of view: Napoleon was outfought and "outgeneralled" by Wellington; it was not Blücher and the Prussians who carried the day...

• The French point of view: At dusk the French army, fighting a combined enemy twice its size, had victory in hand for the second time in twelve hours... only the flagrant disobedience of two subordinates turned the tide of a stunning victory for Napoleon into defeat...

• The German point of view: Without the cooperation of the Prussian forces, Wellington could not have accepted battle, let alone participated in a victory...

As the action unfolds, each country's writer gives his own view (plus the wonderfully immediate voices of his countrymen who survived to write of their experiences) of the day that called forth some of the most brilliant tactical maneuvering—and the bloodiest and fiercest fighting—in the history of warfare. The result is an indelibly vivid depiction of Waterloo itself. It is also a microcosm of the whole mysterious paradox of men at war—in any war—of horror and squalor and incredible courage. And it tells us a great deal about how it may be possible to see, and understand, great events when we are liberated from the shackles of our own national prejudices.

The book is lavishly illustrated throughout with more than 100 contemporary illustrations, nine maps of the battlefield at particular moments in the action, plus full-color photographs showing the terrain as it is now in comparison with that day in 1815. There are excerpts from some of the most famous accounts of the battle in literature—by Thackeray, Victor Hugo, even Georgette Heyer. There is also a guide to the battlefield, appendices showing the orders and dispatches as they were issued to each army in the course of the day and tables showing the exact make-up of each force and its losses.