Simms, Brendan, <br/><br/>
The longest afternoon :  the 400 men who decided the Battle of Waterloo / 
 Four hundred men who decided the Battle of Waterloo 
Brendan Simms. 
 - xvii, 186 pages :  maps ;  22 cm 
<br/><br/>Includes bibliographical references and index. 
<br/><br/>Prelude -- For King and Fatherland -- A Tragedy of Errors -- Bolting the Barn Door -- Inferno -- Hand to Hand -- "Heat and centre of the strife" -- Legacy: A "German Victory"?. 
<br/><br/> In 1815, the deposed emperor Napoleon returned to France and threatened the already devastated and exhausted continent with yet another war. Near the small Belgian municipality of Waterloo, two large, hastily mobilized armies faced each other to decide the future of Europe -- Napoleon's forces on one side, and the Duke of Wellington is on the other. With so much at stake, neither commander could have predicted that the battle would be decided by the Second Light Battalion, King's German Legion, which was given the deceptively simple task of defending the Haye Sainte farmhouse, which dominated a crucial crossroads on the way to Brussels. In The Longest Afternoon, Brendan Simms recounts how these 400-odd riflemen beat back wave after wave of French infantry until finally forced to withdraw, but only after holding up Napoleon for so long that he lost the overall contest. Their actions decided the most influential battle in European history. - Jacket flap. 
<br/><br/><label>ISBN: </label>9780465064823 (hardcover) 0465064825 (hardcover) 
<br/><br/><label>Subjects--Meeting Names: </label><br/>Waterloo, Battle of (Belgium : 1815)
<br/><br/><label>Subjects--Chronological Terms: </label><br/>1815 
<br/><br/><label>Subjects--Topical Terms: </label><br/>Waterloo, Battle of, Waterloo, Belgium, 1815.
<br/><br/><label>Subjects--Geographic Terms: </label><br/>Belgium--Waterloo.
<br/><br/><label>LC Class. No.: </label>DC242  / .S56 2015 
<br/><br/><label>Dewey Class. No.: </label>940.2/7