The Campaigners by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles

In volume fourteen of the Morland Dynasty chronicles the war in Europe comes home to the familly, or rather the familly goes to it! Buonaparte has escaped from Elba and is raising a new army in France. Horatio and Marcus Morland are both in the army which is in Belgium and Lucy's husband Danby Wiske, now Viscount Theakston, is called back to Brussels by the Duke of Wellington. At the same time Lucy, Heloise and the ever parsimonious Lady Barbara Morland all have daughters to "bring out" but have been unable to do so as the familly is in mourning for the late Fanny. The season is nearly over and they must decide whether to fly in the face of social custom or wait until next year when many of the potential husbands will have been taken. Wellington thinks he has problems! All this time James Morland, husband of Heloise, mopes about Morland Place in an extravagance of grief for his dead daughter Fanny. The Ladies decide to "follow the drum" as it were, and take their daughters to Brussels to be brought out where there will be no raised eyebrows and there are plenty of eligible young aristos amongst Wellington's officers. Meanwhile back at Morland Place there is contention regarding the estate of Fanny's late grandfather the cotton magnate Jo Hobsbawm. Yes, there is trouble at t'mill. Back in Belgium Napoleon attacks and drives back the Prussian half of the Allied Army and advances on Brussels. Even worse all the young ladies have fallen for unsuitable men. Miss Harrod-Eagles does a first class job of describing the two battles, at Quatre-Bras and Mont St-Jean, and the terrible suffering of the men involved. These two battles are known to us as the Battle of Waterloo because that is where Wellington had his HQ and from where he wrote his report and so he gave it that name. Perhaps he realised that Quatre-Bras would be a terrible name for a railway station.