"Actor: Frank Toogood"

• The Waterloo Collection DVD Part 3 | DVD | (29/08/2011) from £35.99   |  Saving you £-20.00 (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

  This series of documentaries is a major project that will chart the entire 1815 Waterloo Campaign in detail from Napoleon s return to France through the various battles and engagements to the pursuit to Paris and Napoleon s final abdication. The whole suite will total over five hours of programmes. Each of the four disks will contain three separate programmes that concentrates on aspects of the campaign or phases of the great battle itself. Each programme is filmed on the ground where the particular phase of battle was fought making this a unique project that fuses tactics and ground in a readily understood way with re-enactment and lavish use of both maps and diagrams.Vignettes provided by living historians illustrate the life of the Napoleonic soldier, along with his weapons and tactics. The period from mid afternoon until early evening on that terrible Sunday was the time, as Wellington described it, of hard pounding. The three programmes on this disc cover the Massed French Cavalry Attacks led by Marshal Ney, the battle fought by the Kings German Legion and the 95th Rifles to hold La Haie Sainte and the adjacent sand pit. The Prussian march to Plancenoit and the bloody battle fought in and around the village is the subject of the third programme.

• The Waterloo Collection DVD Part 2 | DVD | (15/08/2011) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Hougoumont & D'Erlon's Attack is the second part in the explosive four part series, The Waterloo Collection, which covers the entire Waterloo Campaign from Napoleon's return to France and ensuing battles to his final pursuit and eventual surrender to the British. Following on from Ligny and Quatre Bras, Part II starts by focusing on the concentration of the Allies on the ridge of Mont St Jean and the plans of the opposing armies. While the guns of the Grand Battery thundered in the centre, French columns bore down on the Hougoumont chateau and farm complex, which protected Wellington's flank held by the Guards and their German allies. Thus began an epic 'battle within a battle' that sucked away valuable troops from Napoleon's main attack, causing Wellington to declare that 'the battle turned on the closing of the gates at Hougoumont'.