Last month, we remembered the sacrifice of allied soldiers on D-day and afterwards, and the media said it was the decisive campaign in defeating Nazi Germany. Now, it is claimed that Napoleon was “defeated by the British at the Battle of Waterloo” (Pistols Napoleon planned to use to kill himself sold in France for €1.7m, 8 July). Wrong both times.
In defeating Hitler, it was our then ally the Soviet Union that combated and defeated the largest part of the German army from 1941 to 1945; and in 1815, as the Duke of Wellington – whose army included many allied soldiers – himself acknowledged, it was the arrival of Marshal Blücher’s Prussian army, by forced march, that turned the course of the battle. Repeating historical myth is dangerous. It adds to false ideas of exceptionalism and can feed dangerous far-right agendas.
Dr Peter Purton
Southall, London
