The History Book On The Shelf

Turns out that no one in France would care tuppence if we celebrated 2015's two hundredth anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo. Although they tend to be better appraised of their past than we are of ours these days, I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of them had never heard of it.

Meanwhile, any chance that the British media will dare cover any of next year's undoubted celebrations of the War of 1812, either celebrating American victory over our "foul footsteps' pollution", or celebrating Canada's victory in her War of Independence from the United States.

Readers across the Atlantic should note that almost no one in Britain has ever heard of that war. Will our supposedly British media enlighten them? If so, then one trusts that they will spell out the very different views of it in the two parts of North America.

For the memory of these things is always a complicated matter. For many years, the British made a great fuss of the anniversary of the Battle of Trafalgar, which was inconclusive and at which our admiral died. Compared to that, or indeed to anything else, our marking the bicentenary of Waterloo makes perfect sense as much to the French as to anyone else. After all, at least we won the Battle of Waterloo.