Battle of Waterloo Celebrations

Nigel Rogers and I are starting to prepare our talk on the Battle of Waterloo.

After our triumphant presentation in June 2005 to the noble members of the Zurich International Men’s Club on the “Life of Nelson and the Battle of Trafalgar (1805)”, to mark its 200^th anniversary, we decided, there and then, that the Battle of Waterloo should be the next subject.

This is a very big topic. We took 90 minutes to deliver our Trafalgar dissertation. The Battle of Waterloo probably needs about 8 hours. So the first challenge is to find an audience who will put up with this, and to lay on breakfast, lunch and dinner.

The other major challenge is what to call the combatants. In June 2005, Nigel and I made the mistake of referring to the English, as “The English”, and the French, as “The French” (not forgetting that the Spanish were referred to as “The Spanish”)

We were horrified, even mortified to learn of our error. This could have been very offensive to the French and very confusing if you were Spanish (as they were not always sure which side they should have been fighting for) and shameful if you were English. After all, who wants to boast about glorious military victories against former enemies and current allies? (I have been told that the French are our allies, notwithstanding the evil previous French President’s brush off of our glorious Prime Minister.)

The public celebrations for the Battle of Trafalgar in 2005 made no such awful mistake. Our brave and resourceful public servants were not going to fall into such an obvious trap and creatively and correctly named the two sides the “Reds” and the “Blues” (or was it the “Blues” and the “Reds”). It was a bit like the F.A. Cup Final with Chelsea and Liverpool, where Chelsea scored more goals, but, being good sports, said that Liverpool were jolly good chaps and could share the cup and winnings with them (Grumpy’s alternative version).

Now the Battle of Waterloo will be even more difficult territory. The French were the French, so that is simple enough. Instead of colours, this time we could use fruit. So we could call the French, the “Apple” team (no infringement of any copyright here, I hope).

The good guys, winning team, the Allies are more difficult to pin down as there were lots of them. There were the British, of course, a minority in their own army, whom we will call the bananas. The Prussians (Germans) had their own army, as well as forming one-third of the British Army, and will be called the Pineapples.

I had thought of Oranges. However that could be confused with a colour, as you might think that we were still re-enacting the Battle of Trafalgar. Kiwis are out as the New Zealanders did not take part in this particular European campaign, although I am sure that they would have done if the European Settlement of New Zealand had taken place by then.

We will make an exception of the fruit rule for the Dutch who should be the Tulips and the Belgians can be the grapes.

Now we have got that lot of old ***** protocol out of the way, Nigel and I can start to plan the 10 hour talk. By the time that we have finished this, I guess that the new Theme Park with Napoleon as its motif may be opened. I was trying to think of a way of celebrating a man responsible for the death of 5 million people in Europe, at a time when the population of England was less than 10 million. However, I failed. No doubt someone will manage it.

Probably the same people who thought of the “Reds” and the “Blues”.