Talk:Hundred Days

Civilian casualties

Should there be some mention of civilian casualties? I know the war was driven by large set piece battles and army manoeuvres but there must be some sources covering the impact on the local population.©Geni (talk) 04:38, 12 May 2015 (UTC)

I am extracting a detailed account of the advance/retreat from Waterloo to Paris from William Silburn's books. There were some civilian casualties, but no numbers are given and it seems to have been mainly rape and pillage rather than murder.

At the moment there is a brief mention Waterloo Campaign#Invasion of France and the occupation of Paris (18 June – 7 July) of the problems. Wellington forbade his army to pillage (s:Nevilles general order) and issued the Malplaquet proclamation, but Blucher's Prussians considered the French enemies and according they plundered the populace and wantonly destroyed property during their advanced (Gifford 1817, p. 1494). It was particularly bad/notable at surrender of Avesnes (Gifford 1817, p. 1494).

Some Dutch-Belgian troops did pillage and to officers identified as taking part were dismissed from Wellington's army and sent them to the King of the Netherlands to punish them at his discression. (Siborne 1848, p. 703). It was not that the British soldiers were angels in comparison to their allies, its just they knew very well what Wellington thought of them ("scum of the earth") and knew with certainty that he would hang any of them who disobeyed his orders -- the veterans had also seen the difference in the behaviour of the Spanish and French population towards their invaders during the Peninsula War, so knew that Wellington's approach had positive affects for them.

There were also bound to have been incidental civilians deaths in the storming of some towns. One can not fire artillery rounds into an inhabited town and always miss civilians, but these are not systematically recorded in the general histories that I have read.

• Gifford, C. H. (1817), History of the Wars Occasioned by the French Revolution, from the Commencement of Hostilities in 1792, to the End of 1816: Embracing a Complete History of the Revolution, W. Lewis, p. 1494
• Siborne, William (1848), The Waterloo Campaign, 1815 (4th ed.), Westminster: A. Constable

However the Waterloo Campaign was not the only campaign in the Minor campaigns of 1815. The Civil War in La Vendée must have involved casualties (if only of the sort of tit-for-tat executions). In several places during the advance of the Army of the Upper Rhine (Austo-German Army), the Austrians inflicted reprisals on the civilian population for real or imagined attacks by civilians. For example General Rappe states in his memoirs "The enemy's General revenged himself for this defeat by devastation. The day after the battle he set on fire the village of Souffelweyersheim, under pretext that the peasants had fired on his troops. "This was not the fact, and the name of the Crown Prince of Württemberg will remain for ever sullied by an action which plunged a multitude of families into misery" (Rapp 1823, p. 370).

• Rapp, comte Jean (1823), Memoirs of General Count Rapp: First Aide-de-camp to Napoleon, H. Colburn and Company, pp. 359–

There were other similar instances elsewhere. Here is an extract from another contemporary account which details some attacks on civilians and justifies them using a common view of many supporters of the Coalition forces (after 25 years of near continuous war):

Some idea may be formed of the vast force of the allies, which entered France in this direction, when it is known that the Austrian force disposable on the Upper Loire, exclusive of the armies from Italy, amounted to 100,000 men.(M'Queen 1816, pp. 418–419) The advance of the main armies gave the numerous free corps assembled in Alsace and the Vosges mountains, opportunities to attack the line of the allied communication and carry off the baggage. But the continued advance of fresh troops, gave the allies an opportunity of organizing a sufficient force in moveable columns, which soon cleared the country of these marauders, who equally annoyed friend and foe; and whom the allies treated with great severity, as they exercised the greatest cruelties upon the allied troops who fell into their hands. In this difficult undertaking, the hardy and indefatigable Sons of the Don were employed; and whose perseverance soon ferreted out, and destroyed these troublesome bands.(M'Queen 1816, pp. 419) The disposition of a great part of the people of this part of France was, and had always been, most hostile and rancorous against the allies; and this hatred now showed itself in numerous instances, which brought down destruction on their heads. The villages of Hogentheim and Mülhausen gave the first-example of the most shocking excesses. In the former, a German soldier, after having his eyes put out, was hung up alive. The most dreadful punishment followed upon the instant. The aged, the women, and the children, suffered with the wicked perpetrators.(M'Queen 1816, p. 419) At Mülhausen, two soldiers were shot by a clergyman. His house was surrounded, and he was destroyed with it. Half a league from this, six huhlans inquired at a boy in a farm-house, the name of the next village—instead of answering, a man was shot from his horse. The boy was immediately cut down by the side of his mother. Similar was the conduct of the people in this part of France, and similar was their punishment. Wherever the allied troops met with resistance from the country people, every thing was destroyed. [I slightly reorders the wording in the next sentence (PBS):] Accounts from that quarter said: "For six days, the sky has been red every day with the flames of burning villages. Where a single shot is directed from them upon the allies, all is levelled to the ground. A dreadful judgment hangs over France—the crimes of preceding times are visited upon their descendants, who rival them in the commission of enormities." Indeed, in numerous instances, the French people seem to have lost all sense of honour, justice, and regard for truth; and seemed to make these principles their sport (M'Queen 1816, pp. 419–420). M'Queen, James (1816), A narrative of the political and military events, of 1815; intended to complete the narrative of the campaigns of 1812, 1813, and 1814, pp. 418–

So yes there were civilian casualties but I do not know of any source that has tried to estimate how many. -- PBS (talk) 10:51, 12 May 2015 (UTC)

War of the Seventh Coalition and Hundred Days

Should these article really be the same? Uspzor (talk) 01:24, 31 October 2014 (UTC)

For those who do not realise: the War of the Seventh Coalition currently redirects to here. Given the underdevelopment of this article, what is it that you would include (or if you prefer exclude) and what new information would you add to an article on the War of the Seventh Coalition that would not appear this article? -- PBS (talk) 09:27, 9 November 2014 (UTC)

IMO the Hundred Days are about the government of Napoleon as a whole and the Seventh Coalition about the war itself. Uspzor (talk) 17:18, 9 November 2014 (UTC)

Does any one else supports this? What do you think PBS? AdjectivesAreBad (talk) 08:05, 29 August 2015 (UTC)

---

I have created a table of articles to show what exists and a possible way of view them:

Articles on the Hundred Days

War of the Sixth Coalition Campaign in north-east France (1814) Campaign in south-west France (1814) Treaty of Fontainebleau (1814) Treaty of Paris (1814) Isle of Elba Congress of Vienna Hundred Days Treaty of Paris (1815) Neapolitan War Minor campaigns of 1815 Waterloo Campaign French Provisional Government (1815) Military mobilisation during the Hundred Days Order of Battle Battle of Rocheserviere Start of hostilities Battle of La Suffel Duchess of Richmond's ball Battle of Quatre Bras Battle of Ligny Quatre Bras order of battle Ligny order of battle Quatre Bras to Waterloo Ligny through Wavre to Waterloo Battle of Waterloo Battle of Wavre List of Waterloo Battlefield locations North Sonian Forest Waterloo Mont-Saint-Jean West Hougoumont Lion's Mound Centre Waterloo Elm La Haye Sainte East Papelotte La Haye, Lasne Smohain Frischermont South La Belle Alliance Decoster's house Plancenoit Rossomme Caillou Museum Chantelet Waterloo to Paris, 1st week Malplaquet proclamation Waterloo to Paris, 2nd week Abdication of Napoleon (1815) Peace negotiations Battle of Rocquencourt Waterloo to Paris, 3rd week Battle of Issy Convention of St. Cloud Reduction of the French fortresses

I have not included in this list the articles to be found on Wikisource see:

• s:Final Act of the Congress of Vienna
• s:Portal:Hundred Days
• s:Portal:Waterloo Campaign

Uspzor as you can see from this diagram apart from the this article (Hundred Days) we have three detailed articles on the military conflict that year, how do you envisage that these articles ought to be rearranged. For example I am not sure how the events in the article Abdication of Napoleon (1815) falls neatly into either "the government of Napoleon as a whole" or "the Seventh Coalition about the war itself". I am most interested to hear your views as at the moment I think that some further development of this article is needed to homogenise the sections "5 Waterloo Campaign", "6 Napoleon abdicates", "7 Prussians enter Paris", and "8 Other campaigns and wars". -- PBS (talk) 15:58, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

"Participants of the War of the Seventh Coalition" map

It seems to me that this map is wrong, at least about Louisiana. Can anybody sort that out? -- Falep (talk) 09:49, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

Please explain why you think "on the morning" is better than "in the morning" on the talk page...

In English, "on the morning of..." is the idiomatic way to specify the morning of a given date, such that the morning hours are, in a sense, part of the date. "In the morning of" might make better sense to a non-idiomatic English speaker, because the usual way to specify the morning hours is "in the morning." The same idiomatic construction applies to the afternoon, evening and night. You will not find "your way" in literature, scholarly works, or journalism written by an idiomatic English writer or speaker, no matter how much better it sounds to your ear. Which of these phrases sounds more correct to you?:

"....are to be married on the afternoon of 20 June..."

"....are to be married in the afternoon of 20 June..."

(Leaving out the preposition would avoid the controversy entirely.)--Quisqualis (talk) 03:40, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

@Quisqualis BRD means "Bold Revert, Discuss", not "Bold Revert, Make a statement, Revert".

I would agree with you if that was the phrase that was in use, but this includes a subdivision with "early": One would say "early in the afternoon of 15 July"; "early in the evening of 15 July", I hear no difference with "early in the morning of 15 July" and I do not see a grammatical difference. -- PBS (talk) 09:26, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

@PBS: In diagramming the original sentence:

"[Unable to remain in France or escape from it,] Napoleon surrendered himself [to Captain Frederick Maitland of HMS Bellerophon] [early] on [the morning of] 15 July, [and was :::::::::transported to England.]"

the material in italics is the basic narrative of the sentence, "Napoleon surrendered himself on 15 July.". "Early" is not an essential part of the sentence, but "on" is important, in that designates the date. That is why "on" is called for here.

The temptation to employ the expression "early in the morning on" is understandable; while idiomatic, it is, however, less formal than the overall style of the article. I must assert, however, that "early in the morning of" is not idiomatic English. Since the original phrasing, as I found it, contained "of 15 July", my preference is to retain "of" and change "in," to maintain idiomatic, somewhat formal English.

It may be noted that I spent several hours reading, digesting and converting this French-tinged article to idiomatic, encyclopedic English in my various edits.--Quisqualis (talk) 01:02, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

I think this must be a dialect problem, and I do not agree with removing "in", but have not opinion on the use of "on 15 July" or "of 15 July".

Not French tinged but Victorian tinged (as the Attribution in the References section indicates -- per WP:PLAGIARISM). Also I presume from your edits that you are American, otherwise why concatenate "north east France" (see MOS:COMPASS)?

-- PBS (talk) 10:35, 9 January 2017 (UTC)

February 2017

Also see the section above this one (#Please explain why you think "on the morning" is better than "in the morning" on the talk page...)

Since my last edit there have been a number of edits some of them were reverts of my last revert edits, despite the fact that that there was not a consensus for them per WP:BRD. To help stabilise the situation I am going to list the reverts I am making and the reason for them:

• The diff from which I am working. The removals are in red

1. removed "accompanied by the municipal body," — it is better as a clause because the sentence can be constructed without the clause "Count Chabrol addressed Louis XVIII in..."
2. Cosmetic changes such as removing a space in "British involvement" — I will not comment on any other such changes.
3. "with some 1,000 men, and landed at Golfe-Juan, between Cannes and Antibes, on 1 March 1815" — an Oxford comma is not needed before the and as there is no other "and" in the sentence there is no need to distinguish sub-clauses. The other commas are not needed, but in this case I will leave the in place as they do no harm, but in other places where I think they are unhelpfulbI will revert them without further comment. If another party disagrees with the revert then please discuss them further on this talk page before reverting reverts.
4. ''"If any of you will shoot his Emperor, here I am."'' The added double single quotes turns the quote in to italics. This is contrary to the MOSS see Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Italics and quotations so I am removing all such changes.
5. "ought to be brought to Paris in an iron cage" the source does not have it as a quote and it may well be paraphrasing (particularly as the original was in French) — so I am removing the quotes and they should not be put back without a inline citation to back them up.
6. Lanjuinais —I have left the initial full name uncovered by an intermediate edit, but have made an alteration to the text (not a revert) to remove the second link to a mention of the man (per MOS:DUPLINK).
7. south west —I have put back the hyphen (south-west) for all such compass points (see MOS:COMPASS).
8. I have reverted the change "At the Congress of Vienna, the Great Powers of Europe" to "At the Congress of Vienna, the Great Powers of Europe (Austria, Great Britain, Prussia and Russia)" because the Concert of Europe is a post Napoleonic era term and linking to it is unhelpful: see Quadruple Alliance (1815) and the Holy Alliance, as well as the Concert of Europe to see why.
9. I have removed the addition of "francs-tireurs (civilian snipers) because francs-tireurs as the article says at this time: "During the wars of the French Revolution, a franc-tireur was a member of a corps of light infantry organized separately from the regular army." Light infantry are not "civilian snipers", their closet equivalent in the British army were the Rifle regiments such as the 95th Foot, in this case they would probably be closer to the Levée en masse of the early revolutionary wars. This is a highly controversial issue, because of the attitude of the Prussians towards guerilla warfare verged on fanatical hatred and it lasted in successor German armies up until the the destruction of the Wehrmacht at the end of Second World War (see Martens Clause).
10. reverted "small-scale combat" to "in detail" — "in detail" is a term of art and is not the same as "small-scale combat" for example the Battle of Ligny was not "small-scale combat". I have linked it to the article Defeat in detail
11. reverted "drove for the Prussian outposts" to "drove in the Prussian outposts" it is a different meaning of drove this meanin is "smashed in" not the "driving" of animals attached to carts (or the driving of motorcars).
12. reverted "placing their forces at Mont-Saint-Jean," to "and secured Napoleon's favoured "central position". This shows a total misunderstanding of the campaign. Mont-Saint-Jean was not the central position it was close to the centre of Wellington's cantonments (his headquarters were in Brussels). Napoleon did not get there until the 18th of June he was driving the wedge as the paragraph starts by saying on the 15th of June.
13. revert "who had died shortly" to " to "where she had died shortly" the significance is to the place where she died.
14. revert "addressed the king" to "addressed the King" see MOS:JOBTITLES bullet point 2.
15. revert "which were known to harbour many royalists" to "which were known to contain many royalists" for the reasons given both in the previous section and in this tea house archive.
16. reverted "with sufficient numbers of experienced troops" to "with a leavening of experienced troops" the metaphor of "leavening" is cleared as it explains what was sufficient and why.
17. reverted "turning on 28 June to oppose the 40,000" to "turning on 28 June to check the 40,000". "check" explains the reason for turning it iwas what in military terminology is called a "holding action" see for example: "The Union Army of Virginia was saved from destruction by an effective rearguard action and hasty retreat across Bull Run Creek" (Murray, Professor of Archaeology Tim; Murray, Tim (December 2009), Memoirs of a Texan: War, FastPencil Inc, p. 103, ISBN 978-1-60746-118-0) or the action at Genappe (17 June 1815)

-- PBS (talk) 17:45, 19 February 2017 (UTC)