‘The Belgians ran at the first shot’:De slag bij Waterloo en de retoriek van de lafheid ; ‘The Belgians ran at the first shot’ :The Battle of Waterloo and the Rhetoric of Cowardice

For many generations British historians have decried the conduct of the Dutch troops at the battle of Waterloo as cowardly, an accusation which Dutch and Belgian historians, in their turn, have tried time and again to refute. This accusation of cowardice results from the exclusive and uncritical use a chauvinistic British historiography made of compatriotic eyewitness accounts. The slighting assessments of the Dutch military they contain, in most cases, derive from misinterpretation: the smoke and noise, the chaos and danger of battle precluded an objective appraisal of each other’s combat per... Mehr ...