This title is a dual biography of the greatest opposing generals of their
age who ultimately became fixated on one another.On the morning of the battle of Waterloo, the Emperor Napoleon declared
that the Duke of Wellington was a bad general, the British were bad soldiers
and that France could not fail to win an easy victory. Forever afterwards
historians have accused him of gross overconfidence, and massively
underestimating the calibre of the British commander opposed to him. Andrew
Roberts presents an original, highly revisionist view of the relationship
between the two greatest captains of their age. Napoleon, who was born in the
same year as Wellington - 1769 - fought Wellington by proxy years earlier in
the Peninsula War, praising his ruthlessness in private while publicly deriding
him as a mere 'sepoy general'. In contrast, Wellington publicly lauded
Napoleon, saying that his presence on a battlefield was worth forty thousand
men, but privately wrote long memoranda lambasting Napoleon's campaigning
techniques. Although Wellington saved Napoleon from execution after Waterloo,
Napoleon left money in his will to the man who had tried to assassinate
Wellington. Wellington in turn amassed a series of Napoleonic trophies of his
great victory, even sleeping with two of the Emperor's mistresses.
