Waterloo

Bernard Cornwell's first work of nonfiction: a chronicle of the four days in June 1815 that led to the Battle of Waterloo. After Napoleon's escape from Elba, the French army beat the Prussians at Ligny and fought the British to a standstill at Quatre-Bras before all three forces converged on the village of Waterloo.

Drawing on the letters and diaries of Napoleon, the Duke of Wellington and the ordinary soldiers who fought, Cornwell ties together the three battles, three armies and three commanders — Wellington, Blücher and Napoleon — in an hour-by-hour account of the battle that ended the Napoleonic Wars.