Europe: 1815 & All That

What is history but a fable agreed upon?

—Napoleon Bonaparte It was the sort of pomp and circumstance that Britons do so awfully well. In Whitehall’s Inigo Jones Banqueting Hall, Queen Elizabeth II last week dined formally with 250 guests off the regimental silver of the 35 regiments that, with Marshal Blücher’s Prussians, defeated Napoleon at Waterloo. Afterward Defense Minister Denis Healey and the ambassadors of The Netherlands, Belgium and West Germany watched 1,200 soldiers from those regiments march under floodlights.

Conspicuously absent was the French ambassador, who obviously reflected the pique of Charles de Gaulle. The banquet was in honor of the 150th anniversary of Waterloo, and le général does not agree with the British that Waterloo is a part of history that needs commemorating. Encouraged by Waterloo’s restaurateurs, souvenir hawkers and the local tourist office, the British, West German and Dutch embassies in Belgium had planned a spirited parade and re-enactment of the battle on the original site twelve miles south of Brussels (which was part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands’ William I in 1815). De Gaulle delivered his opinion of all that to Belgium’s Foreign Minister Paul-Henri Spaak. Result: Belgium decided to stay away from the ceremonies, mainly on the ground that it was not an independent power in 1815, and the Germans and Dutch tactfully decided to send minor diplomats.

The British had to settle for a Brussels embassy ball, which Spaak (and of course the French ambassador) managed to miss, a re-enactment of the cricket game staged on the eve of the battle, and a memorial service on the battle site for the slain of all nations, including the French. This was conducted last week in a drenching rain in the presence of 1,100 stiff-lipped British soldiers standing wetly to attention. Announced Britain’s ambassador in Belgium, Sir Roderick Barclay: “We have had many ceremonies this week. You might call this one eccentric, in line with the curious behavior of the English.”

Some Frenchmen thought the English behavior not curious but downright sinister. Muttered one government official: “You can’t exclude the possibility of some arrière pensée [ulterior motives].” Reported Le Monde: “The hidden intentions of the British can easily be guessed at. This was a fine opportunity to remind Europe of a period when France was the one who wouldn’t play ring-around-the-rosy. The experts on perfidy are whispering that this was a tit-for-tat for a certain press conference [by De Gaulle in 1963] that closed the door of the Common Market against Albion.”