Wellington'S Smallest Victory

William Siborne, a lieutenant in the British army and expert in topography, was commissioned to make a vast scale model of Waterloo, incorporating 75, 000 tin-lead soldiers and stretching over 400 square feet. But why - at a time when celebrations of England's finest hour at Waterloo were so in vogue, and Wellington's fame was at its peak - did this exquisite model gain Siborne the enmity of the Duke and ultimately lead to his own ruin? Peter Hofschroer tells the extraordinary and tragic tale of one man's obsession to build the greatest model of the greatest battle of all time.