Once the Duke of Wellington strongly rejected any attempt to turn the Battle of Waterloo into a novel or even a history lesson. His own description of the battle in his official report is very restrained, and he similarly advised a correspondent of the time, who sought his assistance to write an article about the battle: "Leave the Battle of Waterloo alone." The duke despised sensationalism, but above all, he was skeptical about the possibility of describing a battle. "The history of a battle," he said, "is not much different from the narration of a dance. Some people may remember all the small events of a battle that led to victory or defeat. But no one is able to recall the sequence or the exact moment they happened, which is what determines their real value and significance." The Duke of Wellington's advice was ignored by everyone. Neither historians nor writers heeded it. War, and more specifically a battle, has always fascinated people and often stirred mixed feelings of repulsion and attraction.

War stories have always evoked strong emotions not because of swords, weapons, or shells, tanks, fighters, or battleships, but simply because people participate in a battle. People who kill and are killed. Often, especially in older wars, ordinary people. A grandfather, a father, an uncle. Inside a bomber and behind the sight of a rifle, there are always people. People who worry, fear, want to survive, who are capable of heroic acts but also of the most abhorrent atrocities, people who want to forget but memory does not allow them. Fortunately, the times when war narratives were understood exclusively and solely as something "heroic," "nationalistic," pompous, grandiose – ultimately as something that presents only one aspect or even distorts an extreme reality – have passed.