2015-12-09 History Channel:西恩宾回顾滑铁卢战役-16

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Napoleon loved his cannons². He'd risen through the ranks as an artillery³ officer and he knew how brutally⁴ effective his so-called beautiful daughters could be. -What Napoleon actually wants to do is use these cannons to wear down the enemy. Yes, literally⁵ b*, hmm? There is a problem he's got on the day of the battle of Waterloo, and this is the clue to the problem. You can just have a look ahead of me here, Shown. I mean, look at this, completely waterlogged. This soil has taken an aweful lot of rain in the last 24 hours or so. And it's pretty much identical to what had happened prior to Waterloo, because for the 24 hours or so before it, it's just been non-stop rain. And the problem with soil like that is you can't manoeuvre⁶ guns in it. I've been roped in to help move a repilca of cannon¹ to position.

-You can see the problem you can move this gun on a relatively⁷ dry day.

This is Jim P*. He was a major in the royal artillery, and he is an expert on Waterloo cannons.

-It's heavy. It's hard work.

Waterloo artillery was much heavier than this and harder to move through the mud, So Napoleon faced an agonising way for the ground to dry before he could get his cannons up and running. But the clock was ticking. 

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