A damned serious business

It has been a damned serious business… the nearest run thing you ever saw in your life. (The Duke of Wellington, quoted by Thomas Creevey)

The Battle of Waterloo was fought on Sunday 18 June 1815, the climactic engagement of a campaign that pitted a French army under Napoleon Bonaparte against a combined force of Allied troops commanded by the Duke of Wellington and a Prussian army led by Prince Blücher. The French were routed, and the warfare that had plagued Europe for more than two decades was definitively ended. The battle’s importance was fully recognised by the generations which came after it. Victor Hugo called it ‘the hinge of the nineteenth century’: ‘On that day, the perspective of the human race was changed’. Through its impact on the politics and power-relationships of a Europe approaching the height of its worldwide influence, the outcome at Waterloo remains significant to this day.

To commemorate the battle and throw light on the era in which it played so decisive a part, a new exhibition has opened in the University Library’s Milstein Exhibition Centre. ‘A damned serious business: Waterloo 1815, the battle and its books’ draws on the rich and varied collections of Cambridge University Library to highlight written records, maps and book arts relating to the conflict. Exhibits include political broadsheets, military drill-books, manuscript letters, hand-coloured engravings, printed mementos, early historical accounts and tourist reminiscences, comic and elegiac poems, and a volume from Napoleon Bonaparte’s ’s library in exile on St Helena. The exhibition runs until Wednesday 16 September (open Mondays–Saturdays; closed Sundays and Bank Holiday Monday, 31 August), and a free Exhibition Guide is available for visitors.

An online Virtual Exhibition has been created to complement the physical exhibition, including additional themes and exhibits, extended captions, videos, and links to the Waterloo collection in the Cambridge Digital Library.