by TCW | Aug 23, 2019 | Uncategorized
The Duke of Wellington bought Apsley house in 1816. It had been designed by Robert Adam for the first Baron Apsley in the 1770s. It was the first house on the north side of Piccadilly and, situated opposite the London turnpike, it was known as No. 1 London. It was a grand house, well suited for the victor of Waterloo, a national hero who remained head of the Army and who was soon to take up a career in politics.
Apsley House as it was when Wellington bought it
It was not, though, to be quite grand enough. Apsley House was to be extended and furnished as a symbol of Wellington’s life and achievements. Apsley house as it is today might look as if it has been furnished as a museum, rather than as a private house, but the effect is pretty much what Wellington was looking for in his lifetime.
Extending the house
Almost as soon as he had bought the house, Wellington started to expand it. The first change he made was to add a grand dining room on the east of the house (the right as you look at the house from the front). This was set back from the main frontage and, even today, with some of the smaller buildings in the area now demolished, it doesn’t really impact on the appearance of the front of the house.
The dining room enabled him to hold grand dinners, most famously his annual Waterloo Banquet. The dining room was big enough for him to host 35 of his most senior officers. This, though, was considered inadequate and in 1828 work started on another extension, this time on the west side of the house.
The original Apsley house had five bays, whereas you can see in the photo below that now there are seven.
The two westernmost windows on the first floor (those on the left of the house) are the end windows of the Waterloo Gallery. This 90 foot long room was built to enable Wellington to host state dinners. It was not used for less splendid occasions when Wellington’s guests still ate in the original dining room, so it was only really for the annual Waterloo Banquet. Although the number of surviving officers inevitably reduced with every year, the number of people attending the Waterloo Banquet increased. The tables in the Waterloo Gallery would seat 85 guests and it seems likely that it was often full. Guests included King William IV who dined at Apsley House in 1836. The dinner was commemorated in a painting by William Salter, which gives some idea of the splendour of the occasion. (The banquet was a private occasion, but members of the public could pay to see the room laid out before the guests arrived.)
The length of the Waterloo Gallery is clear in this picture, taken from Hyde Park.
The seven large windows on the first floor are the windows of the Waterloo Gallery. On the inside are mirrors and the windows would be closed at night with the mirrors reflecting the light from the candelabra in the gallery, making it appear both larger and brighter. During the day, the mirrors can be slid out of sight, leaving the large windows, five of which open onto a balcony.
The tables in the Waterloo Gallery can be cleared away when it is not in use for dining, but the two large floor-standing torcheres (one of which is visible on the left of the painting) are too heavy to move and are a permanent fixture. They were a gift from the Czar of Russia and the table used for banquets was designed to fit around them.
Home or museum?
Wellington always intended his home to be a memorial to his victory over Napoleon. The building always housed a museum room (although it was not originally where the museum lives on the ground floor nowadays).
Wellington never met the Emperor but he collected an astonishing amount of art depicting Napoleon from his youth to the end of his rule. Most spectacularly, at the foot of the grand staircase is a gigantic (3.45 metre) statue of Napoleon depicted (with no trace of irony) as Mars the Peacemaker. Carved by Antonio Canova, it was commissioned by Napoleon in 1802 but the Emperor never liked it and banished it into storage, ordering that access be limited only to a handful of artists. After Waterloo it was purchased by the British government who gave it to Wellington, who had the floor at the foot of staircase specially reinforced to bear its weight.
The Striped Drawing Room, adjacent to the Waterloo Gallery, would have been a room where guests would gather before moving through to dine or could withdraw after the meal to chat and mingle. To allow it to accommodate a considerable number of people, Wellington had three rooms of the original house knocked into one. It was decorated with paintings of participants in the Battle of Waterloo and a panorama showing the battlefield.
Battle of Waterloo by Sir William Allan
The first floor of the house, where all the grand reception and dining rooms are, has no domestic rooms at all. The Duke and his family lived on the floor above (where the present duke still has his home). The house was purchased with money voted by Parliament for a “Waterloo Palace” for the victorious Duke, and Wellington understood the importance of a building that would serve as a memorial to the battle that established Britain’s place in Europe and (Wellington’s place in Britain). Even the doorman was an ex-soldier who had served in the battle.
Apsley House is a beautiful building in its own right and houses some important paintings (the Duke was an avid collector), but it is above all a statement in stone and brick as to the importance of Waterloo.
Visiting Apsley House
Apsley House is right next to Hyde Park Corner tube station and is open throughout the year. It’s generally closed on Mondays, but opening times vary and open days are limited to weekends during the winter. For details visit the website at https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/apsley-house/prices-and-opening-times/. Entry is £10.50, although concessionary prices are available, and it is free to English Heritage members.
Acknowledgements
Thanks to English Heritage, whose audio guide to Apsley House is excellent (and whose staff there are patient and terrifyingly well-informed). The EH website on Apsley House (https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/apsley-house/) is well worth a look.
The picture at the top of the page shows troops of the 95th Rifles parading at Apsley House on the anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo.
The picture of Apsley House as it was in 1816 is from a painting on the Prussian Service plate which is part of the Wellington Collection, in the care of English Heritage.
Sir William Allan’s painting of the Battle of Waterloo is reproduced by kind permission of English Heritage
Salter’s painting of the Waterloo Banquet is in the public domain. (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:WaterlooBanquetWilliamSalter.JPG)
For more beautiful photos of the interiors at Apsley House, I recommend https://www.pooky.com/inspiration/we-love-interiors/amazing-interiors-apsley-house-london
The University of Southampton’s webpage on the Waterloo Banquet (https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/wellington-and-waterloo/0/steps/24871) contains a mass of interesting detail.
by TCW | Aug 20, 2019 | Book review
Every so often I “buy” a free book on Amazon which is being promoted in the hope of getting some reviews. If I read a book like this and I like it, I feel that I really should review it. That’s only fair, isn’t it? I hope you do the same.
Anyway, the latest random book picked up like this was Tannis Laidlaw’s ‘Half-truths and Whole Lies’. Here’s the review.
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Sophie Rowan has left an American university to lead a research project at a prestigious medical school in London. There she discovers, to her amazement, that her professor takes credit for the work done by other researchers on her team.
This is an enjoyable tour of an aspect of academic life that anyone who has worked in a university (I’ve dabbled and my wife has worked as an academic) will recognise. The evil professor in this case is more blatant than most, simply plagiarising her students’ theses and publishing them under her own name, but I am surprised that Laidlaw’s protagonist is shocked to learn that professors don’t always properly credit work done by others in their departments. (I hasten to add that the academics I’ve worked for have been generous with credit, but this is far from a universal experience.)
Sophie Rowan’s journey from dewy-eyed innocence to an understanding of just how Machiavellian university politics can be makes for an excellent read. At the same time as she is learning the realities of academic life, she is also exploring her new home in London. As a Londoner, I enjoyed seeing my city as experienced by a foreign visitor. Sophie Rowan’s London is well observed and it is clear that the author, too, has seen London as an outsider. The confusion that Sophie feels when offered “nibbles” is just one example of the fun that Laidlaw has with this.
This is quite a layered book. Sophie has rather a busy back-story and she has to sort out family issues and her love life as well as deal with university politics. There’s so much going on it’s easy to get very involved with the character and I did enjoy the story. As it goes on, and the evil professor is revealed as a sexual predator as well as a plagiarist, things get a bit melodramatic, culminating in a stand-off between somebody who can be legitimately described as psychotic and somebody who shows many of the attributes of a psychopath. A butcher’s knife features. It’s a slightly rushed and over-the-top ending which I found a bit unsatisfying, but those who want to see good triumph and evil carted away in handcuffs should enjoy it.
by TCW | Aug 16, 2019 | Uncategorized
It’s summer holidays and most people have better things to do than spend their time checking out blogs on the Internet, so I’m reconciled to getting rather fewer than my usual 3000+ readers this month.
Given that we’d all rather think about holidays than 19th century history, I’m going to indulge myself this week with a little bit about the long weekend I just spent in Cluj, the capital of Transylvania. My beloved and I were there to dance at a tango festival, and with dances every afternoon and most of the way through every night we had very limited time to see much of Romania, but Cluj is a small city and we were able to get something of a feel for the place. Here are 10 things the guidebooks don’t tell you but which might be useful if you ever visit the area.
1. Romanian meals are huge
Romanian food is excellent. In Cluj meals seemed to be heavy on pork and cabbage, though other meats, fish and even vegetarian options were available. The food we ate was mouth-wateringly good but, even so, portion sizes were mad.
Here is a starter for two.
There is more food on my plate and more that we couldn’t get into the picture. Needless to say, we did not go on to the main course.
At another restaurant the main course included 350gm of meat (quantities are usually shown on menus) plus cabbage and potato and sauces. We asked if it could be split across two dishes and shared, which produced perfectly sensible portion sizes. (Nobody seemed to think our request unreasonable, so don’t be embarrassed to ask.)
Not only is the food excellent and served in madly generous portions but, even with the pound in free-fall, it’s all amazingly inexpensive. If you ever visit Cluj, make sure you allow yourself plenty of time to eat.
2. Romanians eat early.
In Cluj the main meal seems to be lunch. People don’t appear to go for long lazy dinners. Many kitchens close at 10.00 or even earlier, so if you want good food, don’t try to nip out for a late evening meal.
3. Public transport is excellent
All the guidebooks tell you to get a taxi from the airport. I have no idea why. In Cluj there are regular buses from the airport to the town centre. Google gives accurate information on times and routes. You will have to pay for a ticket before you board the bus, but the main bus stops (including the one at the airport) have self-service machines for tickets, which accept credit cards. Buy your ticket and validate it on the bus. Most tickets seem to be good for two journeys – you put one end into the validator for one journey, and the other end for the next. If you stand there looking puzzled, someone will show you how to do it.
There are masses of buses, so getting around is easy (although the centre is so small we generally walked). There is a cycle hire system, similar to the one in London, though we never worked out how to use it.
4. English is widely spoken
Perhaps Cluj is particularly likely to have lots of English speakers because it’s a university city with a lot of young people, but English does seem a popular language choice. Despite the proximity of Germany and Russia, most signage is in Romanian and English (and, sometimes, Hungarian, as this is an area of Romania with a large Hungarian population). Romanian is a Romance language, so if you have decent French or Italian you’ll probably be able to read important signs even if they are not translated.
5. People are really friendly and helpful
Even when their English is weak, the locals we met were all friendly and helpful. A Romanian friend says that people are particularly nice to foreigners, but we did notice that public behaviour seemed generally gentler than in, for example, London. Cars stop religiously at pedestrian crossings and there is remarkably little of the impatient horn blowing that characterises so many cities. Perhaps it’s that the heat (it was 90° in the shade when we were there) means people don’t have the energy to get overexcited – or perhaps they’re just nice people.
6. Most places take credit cards
Plastic seems as popular in Romania as everywhere else. Contactless payment is easy, even in very small shops.
7. There’s a huge tango scene
Not just in Cluj: definitely in Bucharest and in smaller towns too. This may not interest you, but it’s why we went.
8. There are an awful lot of churches in Romania
After the fall of communism, Romanians indulged in an orgy of church building. The main church is Romanian Orthodox and at one point new churches were being built at a rate of around 10 a month. There are Roman Catholics, Greek Catholics, and various protestant sects, so in some cases rival congregations set up their churches next to each other.
We even came across Jehovah’s Witnesses recruiting in the centre of town.
Besides all the new churches there are many older ones. In Cluj several date back to the 18th century.
Franciscan church
Calvinist church
The most interesting one we saw was at the Ethnographic Village on the outskirts of the town, where buildings from around the country have been reconstructed. Traditional village churches were made entirely of wood and Romanians are particularly proud of this fine example originally from Cizer in Salaj county.
9. Much of the centre of Cluj is a building site
European funding is being used to restore many of the old buildings in Cluj. Some of the most famous monuments are inaccessible because they are being, effectively, rebuilt. It seems that some may be closed for a while. Guidebooks are not very reliable about pointing out which these are, so don’t, for example, get all excited about visiting St Michaels Cathedral, which may indeed be the wonder of Gothic architecture it’s claimed to be, but which is now mainly hoardings and scaffolding.
10.Romanian or Hungarian – don’t even go there
What’s the significance of this not particularly interesting looking house in the centre of Cluj? It was the birthplace of Matthias Corvinus. There’s a big statue of him in front of the cathedral as well.
Although he was supposed to have been born in Cluj, he became king of Hungary. Parts of Transylvania have passed between Hungary and Romania over the centuries and there is still a substantial Hungarian population in the area. In the past, there have been significant tensions between the two communities and the inscription on the statue is regularly changed as either the Hungarians or Rumanians claim Matthias as “their” king. Right now, it just says “Rex” and leaves it to the reader to decide whether he was Hungarian or Romanian. We took our cue from the inscription and avoided any discussion of Romanian vs Hungarian culture.
Bonus round: Everybody waits for the green man on crossings
Where there are traffic lights at pedestrian crossings, everybody waits with the green man, even if there is clearly no traffic in sight. If you cross against the lights, nobody will berate you, but they will look slightly bemused. Probably best not to.
So there you are: our summer holiday. Enjoy yours. Normal service (with lots about Wellington) will be resumed next week.
by TCW | Aug 9, 2019 | Uncategorized
I blog on Fridays, generally about history but sometimes about other things, like this blog on an aspect of writing life. I do the odd book review as well, and these are usually posted on Tuesdays.
For all kinds of boring reasons, I’m not writing a lot at the moment. (I’m looking for publishers for some stuff I have written already and I don’t want to write another book until the ones that have already been written have homes to go to.) This means that my blog is the main writing that I do right now.
It can be very satisfying to run a blog. This one gets well over 3,000 visitors in the average month. Even allowing that many of them seem to be spambots of one sort or another, that still leaves quite a few real people and they surely can’t all be Russian hackers. It’s nice to know that my take on some historical events is widely read and, as my figures stay pretty stable, a lot of people are presumably coming back month after month, hopefully because they like what they see. (I know 3,000 isn’t very many by the standards of these things, but then I’m writing thousand word posts on topics like the Conference of Vienna, so I don’t expect a massively high readership.)
It’s a good thing that it is satisfying, because there are no obvious practical benefits. One reason for doing it was to prove to myself, and anybody who read it, that I can reliably produce a column week-in week-out. (I’m allowed to take time off for Christmas and summer holidays.) This is a lot harder than it seems at first and many bloggers who start with high hopes fizzle out after a month or two, but here I am (though I have no idea yet what next week’s blog will be about). The market for people who can write a regular historical column is, though, extremely limited and there seem to be more than enough Caitlin Morans and Giles Corens to supply the market for columnists generally, so, having proved I can do it, I have really impressed no-one but myself.
I did have a vague hope that if people read about the history behind some of my books they might go on to read the books themselves. Let’s just say that if one in a hundred of those 3,000 people a month were to decide to buy a book, I would not still be trying to persuade my publisher to take the next in the Burke series.
I don’t blame you, I really don’t. I feel guilty enough about all the excellent authors whose blogs I read but whose books I don’t buy without adding to your guilt burden. Plus, for some reason that I must admit I don’t understand, a lot of people who are otherwise quite generous feel that they really don’t want to spend money on a book. Perhaps it’s that they think that if they do they will have this unread novel haunting their Kindle, like the ghost of summer reading yet to come. Honestly, I’m not proud. I’m really happy that you’ve bought one of the books – I’m not going to insist that you read it too (although you might enjoy it if you do).
Anyway, given that everybody talks about monetising blogs, I have decided that, if you feel so inclined, you can Buy Me a Coffee. Somewhere on this page (top of right sidebar if you are on a computer, somewhere at the bottom if you are on a phone) there is a cheery little orange box that you can use to send me the price of a cup of coffee. At least, I hope you can. It’s new, so let me know if you have any problems (comment below or use the ‘Contact’ page).
Alternatively, please leave a comment occasionally. Blogging allows writers to talk to readers (and non-readers – it’s not a private club) and for them to talk back. I know WordPress can be annoying, but you shouldn’t have to register or anything. I do read all the comments I get and I like hearing from you. If you haven’t commented before, I do have to approve your comment. This is mainly to protect you from the oceans of spam that would otherwise flood the page: it’s not evil censorship or anything.
Anyway, that’s me for this week. Normal historical ramblings and other chat will be resumed shortly. Meanwhile, if you know anyone who wants to commission a regular column or who is in the market for some historical non-fiction (I’m branching out), point them in my direction.
If you’ve got this far, thanks for reading.
by TCW | Aug 2, 2019 | Napoleonic history
The Battle of the Nile was on 1 August 1798. Nobody seems to remember it these days – it’s all about Trafalgar. Back in the day, though, the battle of the Nile was regarded as quite a big deal. Look at this commemorative arch at Greenwich and you can see one of the figures holding a scroll saying “Trafalgar” on the left while a cherub on the right holds another saying “The Nile” and “Copenhagen”.
In many ways, I think that the Battle of the Nile was a more impressive victory than Trafalgar. I’ll go into details of battle and why it was important later, but first I should explain the background to the engagement.
In 1798 Napoleon invaded Egypt. He had distinguished himself by his generalship during his invasion of Italy and was a rising star in France. There are suggestions that the Directory (the rulers of France at the time) wanted him out of the way. He was becoming a little bit too popular and they may well have been worried that he could one day challenge their rule, as, indeed, he did only a year later.
Was the invasion of Egypt just a sideshow? Or would its possession by France allow them to move troops overland into India and threaten British possessions there? We know that Napoleon looked seriously at the idea of building a canal very close to where the Suez Canal was eventually constructed, but in the end his plans were thwarted, so we will never know whether an overland invasion of India was a serious prospect or not.
Victory at the Battle of the Pyramids gave Napoleon control of Egypt
Egypt had fallen very quickly to the French attack, but if it was to be used as a jumping off point for further conquest it was essential that France maintain its supply lines across the Mediterranean. The British had a substantial naval presence in the Med, but Napoleon had assembled a considerable fleet to transport his army and to maintain communications after the conquest. This was lying off the northern coast of Egypt, not actually at the Nile at all but in the Bay of Aboukir, near Alexandria.
Nobody knows exactly why the fleet was lying at anchor in a position where it was at risk from an attack from the sea where it would be pinned between the land and any hostile force. After the French defeat everybody blamed everybody else for this strategic error. One possible explanation is that Napoleon had ordered the fleet to sea but that the message had somehow never reached it, and this is the version that I use in Burke and the Bedouin. We’ll never know, of course, but if the British had had an agent in Egypt, then stopping that message getting through would have been a very useful way for him to spend his time.
There was a roughly equal number of ships in both fleets, but the French ships carried more guns. In 18th-century naval battles the number of guns that could be brought to bear was usually decisive and the French fleet carried 1196 guns against only 1012 for the British.
The British sailed into the bay intending a conventional attack. Each British ship would line up against a French vessel and both sides would hammer into each other with their cannon until the loser was no longer able to fight effectively. However, as the British approach the French line they realised that the French vessels were swinging at anchor. Clearly there was enough water between the line of French vessels and the coast for them to swing without grounding and, the British reasoned, it must therefore be possible for their ships to sail down the narrow channel. The British split into two columns and each French vessel found itself engaged on both sides. With the wind making it impossible for the French to make out to sea, they were stuck in line as the British worked their way along sinking ship after ship.
The most dramatic French loss was their flagship L’Orient, which carried an astonishing 120 guns. Fire on deck spread to the magazine magazine which exploded and the ship very quickly sank. While nowadays most of us have forgotten the Battle of the Nile many will remember the boy who “stood on the burning deck, whence all but he had fled”, a poem that commemorated the sinking of L’Orient. The boy was the captain’s son who, the captain being dead and unable to tell him to abandon ship, remained at his post and became one of over a thousand men to die in the explosion.
When it was all over, of 13 French ships of the line and four frigates, three were destroyed and nine captured by the British. British casualties were 895 while the French lost 5,225 dead and 3,105 captured.
The French defeat left them with no way of resupplying or reinforcing their army in Egypt. The French remained stuck in the country, despite attempts to fight their way out through Syria, until they surrendered to an Anglo-Ottoman force in 1800. By then, of course, Napoleon had abandoned them, returning to France in August 1799.
Nelson’s remarkable victory left the British firmly in control of the Mediterranean and prevented the French from using Egypt as a jumping off point for further aggression in the Middle East or towards India. It deserves to be remembered.
‘Twas on the ninth day of August in the year ninety-eight
We’ll sing the praise of Nelson and the bold British fleet.
Traditional sea song.
Burke and the Bedouin 
Did a British spy stop the messenger carrying the orders to the French fleet to set to sea and thus make Nelson’s victory possible? We’ll never know, but the idea that the messenger was intercepted is one that historians consider quite credible.
Burke’s escapades in Egypt are a straightforward adventure story, featuring a beautiful woman (of course), desperate rides across the desert, evil Turks, and dastardly Frenchmen. It’s a lot of fun but there’s some solid history about the French landings, the Battle of the Pyramids and, of course, the Battle of the Nile.
Burke and the Bedouin is available from Amazon in both paperback and e-book format, and in the USA from Simon & Schuster.
Picture credits
The Battle of the Pyramids, by Louis-François, Baron Lejeune, 1808. Public domain
Battle of the Nile, August 1st 1798 at 10 pm, by Thomas Luny. Public domain
