waterloo in 3-d
SIBORNE, William. History of the War in France and Belgium, in 1815. Containing Minute Details of the Battles of Quatre-Bras, Ligny, Wavre and Waterloo … Second Edition. London, T. and W. Boone, 1844.
Two text volumes, 8vo and atlas volume in large folio (44 by 31 cm). Original publisher's red cloth, spines lettered in gilt, boards decorated in blind (text) and original publisher's half-calf over cloth-covered boards, lettered in gilt (re-backed, corners restored, endpapers renewed); pp. 8, (publisher's catalogue), xxvi, [2], 461, [3, blank], [4, catalogue]; 4, [2, catalogue], xii, 523; 11 steel-engraved portrait medaillons in the text volumes, [atlas]: 2 engraved maps by J. Kirkwood of 'Part of Belgium' and 'Part of France', and 9 plans of battlefields depicted in anaglyptograph engraved by Freebairn after models by Siborne using John Bates' method, maps and plans with troop dispositions and movements shown with hand-colouring; a little marginal water-staining, light spotting here and there; cloth with a few marginal indentures and a little wear, a little offstting from plates to text, and with occasional light spotting; a good copy of a scarce work, text volumes from the library of the 2nd Earl of Minto ( First Lord of the Admiralty when the work was published); atlas with contemporary bookplate of North Ludlow Beamish, Irish military writer and antiquary.
This spectacular atlas volume was issued without title-page. William Siborne (1797-1849) was the son of Captain Benjamin Siborn of the 9th regiment, who was wounded at the battle of the Nivelle in the Peninsular War. William was educated at Sandhurst, and followed his father into the army, being commissioned into the 9th regiment as an ensign in 1813 and serving under Wellington during the Napoleonic Wars and then serving in the army of occupation in France. In 1826 Siborne was appointed assistant military secretary to Lieutenant-General Sir George Murray, commanding the forces in Ireland, and served the succeeding commanders in the same capacity until 1843. 'In 1830 Siborne was commissioned by the commander-in-chief to construct a model of the field of Waterloo. He lived for eight months at the farm of La Haye-Sainte on the field of battle, and made a survey of the whole ground, upon which he based his model. The execution of this work occupied some years, as Siborne devoted to it only such time as his professional duties permitted. In 1833 the progress of the work was interrupted by the refusal of the new ministry to allot funds for it. Thrown upon his own resources he continued the work until its completion in 1838, at a cost of nearly £3000. The model was publicly exhibited in London and elsewhere, but the receipts barely covered the expenses of exhibition, and Siborne never recovered the cost of its construction [...] Siborne also constructed a smaller model on a larger scale of a portion of the field of battle, and a Guide to Captain Siborne's New Waterloo Model was published. Having amassed much information from surviving officers on the battle and the entire campaign, Siborne in 1844 published his two-volume History of the War in France and Belgium in 1815 [...]; it long remained a standard work' (ODNB). Siborne's enquiries led him to form a different view of events to the generally accepted one, since the accounts he received were 'so greatly at variance was this historical evidence with the general notions which had previously prevailed on the subject' (I, pp. xiii-xiv), and these views generated some controversy.
The work is particularly remarkable for its use of 'anaglyptographic' plates of the battlefields, which were intended to provide the viewer with a three-dimensional impression of the battlefield; a note beneath the plate-list advises, 'In examining these anaglyptographic engravings from models of the undulations of the ground represented, it is absolutely necessary that the reader should place the upper margin of the Plate nearest the light. If the upper side be placed furthest from the light, then everything will appear reversed -- the heights will become hollows, and the hollows heights'.
Kircheisen 3816.
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