一路 BBS

 找回密码
 注册
搜索
查看: 1061|回复: 0
打印 上一主题 下一主题

Battle of Waterloo; Origin of the Name

[复制链接]
跳转到指定楼层
楼主
发表于 6-10-2015 18:39:12 | 只看该作者 回帖奖励 |倒序浏览 |阅读模式
David Marcelis, Napoleon Met His Waterloo Where? Get out of Town!  After 200 years, Braine-l'Alleud wants credit s the site of the French emperor's defeat. Wall Street Journal, June 10, 2015 (front page).
www.wsj.com/articles/when-napole ... -of-town-1433894903

Quote:

(a) "But the French emperor didn’t meet his Waterloo in Waterloo at all, and a town that did see significant fighting would now like a little more credit.  

" 'Napoleon never set a foot in Waterloo—it’s a fact,' said Bernard Coppens, a Belgian historian and former Waterloo resident. Most of the Battle of Waterloo took place a few miles south, in Braine-l’Alleud and Plancenoit.

"The battle got its name because the victor, the Duke of Wellington, penned his official report from his Waterloo headquarters.

"More than a hundred places world-wide are its namesakes. ABBA’s [1974] 'Waterloo' ranks among the best-selling singles ever.

(b) "The town council [of Braine-l’Alleud] commissioned a book unequivocally titled 'Braine-l’Alleud, Heart of the 1815 Battle,' scheduled to hit shelves before the commemorations.

"Belgian historian Eric Meuwissen, who researched and wrote it, found that three of the five key offensives in what he calls the ‘so-called Battle of Waterloo’ were in Braine-l’Alleud. The other two were in Plancenoit [village], one of which overlapped with Waterloo’s territory.

“ 'Barely anything happened in Waterloo,' Mr Meuwissen said. 'Yet it got all the glory.'

(c) "On June 18 that year, Napoleon faced Wellington’s Anglo-allied troops and Prussian troops under Gebhard von Blücher.

"The turning point was the midafternoon arrival of Blücher’s troops, which Napoleon didn’t think could make it to the battlefield that day. By dusk, Napoleon’s army was retreating. Close to 200,000 fought that day. About 12,000 died.

(d) "When Wellington’s report reached London, its Waterloo dateline began taking hold. * * * Even Napoleon later used the Waterloo moniker.

Note:
(a) Get out of Town: "Beat it!; Get out of here!"
idioms.thefreedictionary.com/Get+out+of+town!

(b)
(i) Lion's Mound
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lion's_Mound
(French: Butte du Lion; to commemorate the location where William II [1792 – 1849; reign 1840 – 1849] of the Netherlands (the Prince of Orange) was knocked from his horse by a musket ball to the shoulder [which wounded him] during the battle. Its construction was ordered in 1820 by his father, King William I of the Netherlands, and completed in 1826)
(ii) Belgium (table: declared independence from the Netherlands in 1830 and was recognized in 1839)  Wikipedia
(iii) English dictionary
butte (n; French, knoll): "an isolated hill or mountain with steep or precipitous sides usually having a smaller summit area than a mesa www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/butte

(c)
(i) Braine-l'Alleud
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braine-l'Alleud
(“The name of the municipality changed to the current one, derived from ‘Braine,’ former name of the stream that crosses its territory (now called the ‘Hain’), and ‘alleu,’ a medieval French word designating exempt land. The latter name was added to the former to distinguish this community from two neighbouring ones also called Braine”)
(ii) What is “ l’ “?

French articles and determiners
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_articles_and_determiners
(section 1.1 Definite article)
回复

使用道具 举报

您需要登录后才可以回帖 登录 | 注册

本版积分规则

快速回复 返回顶部 返回列表