Belgium in Brief: Couldn't escape if I wanted to...

Good afternoon!

An article in The Brussels Times today reminds me of one of my favourite jokes from when I was a kid:

Q. Where does Napoleon keep his armies?

A. Up his sleevies.

I thought that was the funniest thing ever when I was nine years old. But today British Royalty is in town to commemorate where The Duke of Wellington kept his armies. His Royal Highness Prince Edward, the Prince of Wales will visit Hougoumont, Friday, two days after the 210th anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo, which saw the Duke of Wellington’s allied forces vanquish Napoleon’s Grande Armée on 18 June 1815. The chateau farm was valiantly defended by the Coldstream and Scots Guards against overwhelming odds during the battle, which left 50,000 dead and wounded.

When I first visited the site, I did the usual tourist things, and of course ended up in the gift shop – where I thought I'd stepped through some energy portal into a parallel universe. I could not find a single souvenir depicting Wellington. Not a single thing. It's as if he was never there, never mind actually won.

I'm not going to die on this hill (although thousands unfortunately did) but I do find it strange that an attraction that is supposedly there to educate and inform the public and particularly young people about an historic event can leave a not entirely accurate impression in the minds of those who visit it. The fact that Wellington trinkets are outnumbered by Napoleon ones may seem trivial, but context is everything in history, no matter how unpalatable, and it informs the present.

Bonaparte spent his life carefully constructing his image, and I guess in pure commercial terms, this is more marketable to present day tourists than the Duke. In that sense – although he lost the battle, Napoleon has won the war of history. Wellington does have his every day legacy as well of course – what would we call those moulded rubber waterproof boots we all own without him?

But as I walked slightly bemused out of the Waterloo visitors site, it was with a felt replica Bicorne hat tucked under my arm, and not a pair of wellies.

Speaking of Wellingtons, you won't be needing them in Belgium this weekend, as we are in for a minor heatwave according to the forecasts. The Brussels Times will have information on how to keep cool and cope, what to be aware of, what precautions to take and we will give you some ideas of where and how to enjoy the sun in our weekend content. Traffic to the coast will be heavy, and there are road closures on Sunday for Bike races, so getting out of Brussels will need planning. Indeed Waterloo could be a perfect trip, and the knowledge you glean there could come in handy for the quiz that we are helping host together with The Full Circle Club on Tuesday 24 June – find all the details here!

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