Battle of Waterloo From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Battle of Waterloo Part of the War of the Seventh Coalition

The Battle of Waterloo by William Sadler Date: June 18, 1815 Location: Waterloo, Belgium (At that time located in the Kingdom of the Netherlands) Result: Decisive Allied victory Combatants France Anglo-Allied/ United Kingdom Prussian Dutch Commanders Napolon Bonaparte Michel Ney Duke of Wellington Gebhard von Blcher Strength 73,000 67,000 United Kingdom 60,000 Prussian (48,000 engaged by about 18:00) Casualties 25,000 22,000 Waterloo Campaign Quatre Bras Ligny Waterloo Wavre Map of the Waterloo campaign The Battle of Waterloo, fought on June 18, 1815, was Napoleon Bonaparte's last battle. After his exile to Elba, he had reinstalled himself on the throne of France for a Hundred Days. During this time, the forces of the rest of Europe, Britain, Prussia and the Russian Empire converged on him, commanded by the United Kingdom's Duke of Wellington, and Prussia's Gebhard von Blcher. The battlefield is in present day Belgium, about 12 km (7.5 miles) SSE of Brussels, and 2 km (1.2 miles) from the town of Waterloo, at 504045N, 42425E. Contents [hide] 1 Prelude 2 Order of battle 3 Battle 4 Conclusion 5 The battlefield today 6 Waterloo in popular culture 7 References

8 Further reading 9 Notes 10 External links [edit] Prelude A fine bronze eagle statue, commemorative of the Battle of Waterloo, stands in front of the "Bivouac de l'Empereur" inn. See main article Waterloo Campaign As far back as 13 March, six days before Napoleon reached Paris, the powers at the Congress of Vienna declared him an outlaw; four days later the United Kingdom, Russia, Austria and Prussia bound themselves to put 150,000 men each into the field to end his rule. Napoleon knew that, once his attempts at dissuading one or more of the allies from invading France had failed, his only chance of remaining in power was to attack before the Allies put together an overwhelming force. If he could destroy the existing Allied forces in Belgium before they were reinforced, he might be able to drive the British back to the sea and knock the Prussians out of the war. Napoleon divided his army into a left wing, commanded by Marshal Ney, a right wing commanded by Grouchy, and a Reserve (although all three elements remained close enough to support one another). Crossing the Belgian frontier at Thuin near Charleroi, the French drove in allied outposts and secured Napoleon's favoured "central position" - at the junction between Wellington's army to his north-west, and Blucher's to his north-east. Although the Allies were well informed of Napoleon's movements, Wellington did not react to the news of the outbreak of hostilities until the evening of June 15. As Napoleon considered the Prussians the greatest threat, he moved against them first, attacking their outposts at Thuin near Charleroi before advancing through Charleroi, his scouts reaching Quatre Bras that evening. Ziethen's rearguard action held up Napoleon's advance, giving Blcher the opportunity of concentrating his forces in the Sombreffe position, which had been selected earlier for its good defensive attributes. Napoleon sent Marshal Ney, in charge of the French left, with the task of securing the crossroads of Quatre Bras, towards which Wellington was hastily concentrating his dispersed army. Once Quatre Bras was secured, Ney could swing east and reinforce Napoleon. Ney, advancing on June 16, 1815, found Quatre Bras lightly held by Anglo-Allied troops, but having previously experienced Wellington's skill at concealing his strength, he overestimated the forces opposing him. Despite outnumbering Wellington heavily throughout the day, he fought a cautious and lacklustre battle which failed to capture the crossroads of Quatre Bras. By the late afternoon Wellington, who had been reinforced steadily throughout the day as his troops concentrated, was able to advance and drive Ney's troops back.

Napoleon, meanwhile, took the reserves and the right wing of the army and defeated the Prussians, under the command of General Blcher, at the Battle of Ligny on the same day. The Prussian centre gave way under heavy French attack, but the flanks held their ground. Had Ney intervened at this point as planned, the Prussians would have been partially encircled from the west and would almost certainly have been forced to try to extricate themselves by falling back to the east, along their lines of communication. The Prussian defeat at Ligny made the Quatre Bras position untenable, and on the 17th June Wellington duly fell back to the north. His control of Quatre Bras enabled the Prussians to fall back in support of Wellington - that is, parallel to his line of retreat and not, as Napoleon had hoped, away from him. This was part of Napoleon's strategy to split the much larger allied force into pieces that he could outnumber if he was allowed to attack them separately. His theory was based on the assumption that an attack through the centre of the allied forces would force the two main armies to retreat in the direction of their respective supply bases, which were in opposite directions. The general retreat of the Prussian army had taken it to the town of Wavre, and this by default became the marshalling point of the army. The Prussian chief of staff, General August von Gneisenau, planned to rally the Prussian Army at Tilly, from where it could move to support Wellington, but control was lost, with part of the army falling back towards the Rhine, but the majority of it falling back to Wavre, where it rallied. Here, Gneisenau decided to march upon Wellington's left flank at dawn with the I, II and IV Corps. The IV Corps, under the command of General Blow von Dennewitz, had not been present at Ligny, but arrived to reinforce the Prussian army during the night of the 17th and 18th. III Corps formed the rearguard, tasked with hindering the pursuing French. Wellington, meanwhile, spent the 17th falling back to a previously-scouted defensive position at Mont St. Jean, a low ridge south of the village of Waterloo. He was followed by the left wing of the French Army of the North under the command of Marshal Ney. Napoleon joined Ney with most of the reserves which (along with the right wing of the Army of the North) had defeated the Prussians at Ligny. Napolon. Ambiguous orders by Napoleon on the 17th to his subordinate Marshal Grouchy, to pursue the Prussians with 30,000 men, contributed to Napoleon's eventual defeat. Because Napoleon took his time issuing orders on the morning of 17 June, Grouchy started the pursuit late on 17 June, by which time the Prussians had disengaged. Precious time was lost locating the main body of the Prussian Army, by which time it was too late to prevent it reaching Wavre, from where it could march to support Wellington. On the 18th, with the right wing of the Army of the North, reinforced with a cavalry corps, Grard engaged the Prussian rearguard under the command of Lieutenant-General Baron Johann von Thielmann at the Battle of Wavre. [edit]

Order of battle See main article Order of Battle of the Waterloo Campaign The battle was to involve 71,947 French soldiers; while the Allied army from Britain, Hanover, Brunswick, and the Netherlands and Nassau were 67,661 men strong. (Of the 26 infantry brigades in Wellington's army, nine were British; of the 12 cavalry brigades, 7 were British. The remainder were Hanoverian, Dutch-Belgian, or Brunswick troops. Half the 29 batteries of guns were Hanoverian or Dutch). Two and a half Prussian army corps were engaged in the battle, attacking the French right flank, bringing the number of Prussians fully engaged by about 18:00 to 48,000 men. (Two divisions under Friedrich von Blow, commander of the IV Corps, attacked Lobau at 16:30, Georg von Pirch's II Corps and parts of Graf von Ziethen's I Corps engaged at about 18:00.) [edit] Battle The famous "morne plaine" described by Victor Hugo and the Lions' Hillock. The Waterloo position was a strong one. On the extreme right was the "chateau" and orchard of Hougoumont - in fact a large and well-built country house, rather than a military fortification. From here, a long, low ridge ran from west-east to the village of Papelotte on the extreme left. Both Hougoumont and Papelotte were fortified and garrisoned, and thus anchored Wellington's flanks securely. Papelotte also commanded the road to Wavre that the Prussians would use to send reinforcements to Wellington's position. The ridge was bisected by the Brussels road, which ran from north to south. On the western side of this road, and in front of the rest of Wellington's line, was the farm of La Haye Sainte, which the Duke garrisoned with 350 light infantry of the King's German Legion. On the opposite side of the road was a sand quarry, which provided useful cover for sharpshooters and was occupied by more light infantry. The challenge which this position presented to an attacker was formidable. Any attempt to turn Wellington's right would entail taking the entrenched Hougoumont position; any attack on his right centre would mean the attackers would have to march between enfilading fire from Hougoumont and La Haye Sainte. On the left, any attack would also be enfiladed by fire from La Haye Sainte and its adjoining sandpit, and any attempt at turning the left flank would entail fighting through the streets and hedgerows of Papelotte. Nowhere could Wellington's strength actually be discerned because, as was his custom, he had formed his men behind the slope of the ridge and only his skirmishers and artillery were visible. Napoleon ruled out attempts at manoeuvring Wellington off the Waterloo position as too time-consuming, given the potential arrival of the Prussians. He therefore devised an alternative, which was to make a diversionary attack on Hougoumont to draw in

Wellington's reserves and then attack his left centre in force. This attack, Napoleon hoped, would break through a weakened line and would drive Wellington away from the Prussians, who would themselves be left hopelessly trapped between Napoleon and Grouchy. The battle commenced at about 10:00 with the diversionary attack upon Hougoumont[1]. The success of this ruse depended on Wellington moving his reserves to his threatened right flank to protect his communications with the sea. Wellington was indeed apprehensive of a French move around his right flank, and had deployed most of his reserves there. The Hougoumont attacks, led by Prince Jerome, instead escalated into an all-day battle which drew in more and more French troops but just a handful of Allied ones. It thus had the exact opposite effect to that intended. At one point, the French succeeded in breaking into the chateau's courtyard before being repulsed, but their attacks were eventually unsuccessful. The main attack, preceded by an artillery bombardment by the most feared weapon of the era, the French field artillery, was delayed for hours until the sodden ground from the previous nights's downpour had dried out sufficiently to take the weight of the French ordnance. The mud also hindered infantry and cavalry as they trudged into position. When the French artillery eventually opened fire on Wellington's left centre at around 11:35, the expected impact on the Allied troops was diminished by the soft terrain that absorbed the impact of many of the cannon balls. In addition, Wellington's characteristic "reverse slope defence" left the French Grand Battery with few worthwhile targets. Map of the battle. French units are in blue, Anglo-Dutch units in red, Prussian in black. At about 13:30, after receiving news of the Prussian advance to his right, Napoleon ordered Marshal Ney to send d'Erlon's infantry forward against Wellington's centre left, passing to the east of the farm La Haye Sainte. D'Erlon, like Ney, had also encountered Wellington in Spain, and was aware of the British commander's favoured tactic of using massed short-range musketry to drive off infantry columns. His four divisions, totalling around 18,000 men, therefore advanced in battalion lines behind one another rather than the usual French columns, apparently to enable them to fire more effectively. The leftmost division, commanded by General Allix, became embroiled with the defenders of La Haye Sainte; the rightmost, commanded by General Durutte, likewise tried to fight its way into the village of Papelotte on Wellington's left. The remaining two, commanded by Generals Donzelot and Marcognet, initially attacked the Dutch 1st Brigade commanded by Major-General Willem Frederik van Bylandt, which was one of the few units placed on the forward slope of the ridge. After suffering an intense artillery bombardment and exchanging volleys with d'Erlon's men for some nine minutes, van Bylandt's outnumbered soldiers were forced to retreat over the ridge and through the lines of General Thomas Picton's division. Picton's division included veteran regiments from the Peninsular campaign among which were the Highland regiments, some of the few battlehardened regiments that remained with Wellington's British contingent at Waterloo. Picton's 7,000-strong division moved forward over the ridgeline to engage Donzelot and

Marcognet's 9,000 men. There followed an exchange of musketry and a fierce closequarters fight which Picton's outnumbered soldiers came close to losing. At this crucial juncture, British heavy cavalry, formed unseen behind the ridge, were ordered to charge in support of the hard-pressed infantry. Initially the Household Brigade (1st and 2nd Life Guards and Royal Horse Guards) was ordered forward, but somehow the Union Brigade (Royals, Scots Greys and Inniskillings) and Vivians Hussar Brigade (10th and 18th Hussars and 1st Hussars, King's German Legion) also joined in. This force of around 4,000 cavalry swept into d'Erlon's men, who because they were deployed in line for a musketry engagement against infantry, had neither the time nor the space to form defensive squares. Donzelot and Marcognet's divisions were severely mauled, lost two eagles, and took little further part in the day's fighting. Rather than rally and reform, however, the British heavy cavalry galloped across the battlefield in pursuit and rode on into the French lines, where they sabred many gunners. At this point, with their horses blown and their formations in disorder, they were in turn counter-attacked by French cavalry, and all but destroyed, with several regiments suffering 90% casualties. MajorGeneral William Ponsonby, commanding the Union Brigade, was killed. This spectacular event cost the British heavy cavalry so dearly that, collectively, they played little part in the remainder of the battle. This was also the action that featured the famous charge of the Scots Greys, a regiment notable for the beauty of the white horses they rode (they were known as the 'Greys' because of the coats they wore when first raised, not because they rode 'grey' horses). Apocryphal legend has it that in charging the French, the Greys rode through a battalion of Highland troops, who clung onto their stirrups and accompanied them into the charge. This story appears to have arisen shortly after the battle and was later given currency by the romanticised paintings of the battle by Lady Butler, but no reliable contemporary account exists to verify it. Meanwhile, the Prussians began to appear on the field. Napoleon sent his reserve, Lobau's VI corps and 2 cavalry divisions, some 15,000 troops, to hold them back. With this, Napoleon had committed all of his infantry reserves, except the Guard, and he now had to beat Wellington with inferior numbers. At this point Ney noted an apparent exodus from Wellington's centre. This was simply the movement to the rear of casualties from the earlier encounters, but he mistook this for the beginnings of a retreat. Lacking an infantry reserve, as they had all been committed either to the futile Hougoumont attack or to the defence of the French right, Ney tried to break Wellington's centre with his cavalry alone. Thousands of armoured heavy cavalrymen struggled up the slope to the fore of Wellington's centre, where squares of Allied infantry awaited them. The cavalry attacks were repeatedly repelled by the solid Allied infantry squares (four ranks deep with fixed bayonets - vulnerable to artillery or infantry, but deadly to cavalry), the harrying fire of British artillery as the French cavalry recoiled down the slopes to regroup, and the decisive counter-charges of the Allied Light Cavalry regiments, the Netherlands Heavy Cavalry Brigade, and some remnants of the Household Cavalry. After

numerous fruitless attacks on the Allied ridge, the French cavalry was exhausted. Consequently Ney organised a combined arms (infantry, artillery and cavalry) attack on La Haye Sainte, which fell as the defending King's German Legion troops ran out of ammunition. Ney then moved artillery up to the Anglo-Allied centre and began to pulverise the Allied squares. Had there been any infantry reserves left at this point, the French must certainly have broken through Wellington's crumbling centre. Bulow's Prussians, however, had meanwhile driven Lobau out of Plancenoit, which was behind the French right. Therefore Napoleon sent his 10 battalion strong Young Guard to beat the Prussians back. After very hard fighting the Young Guard recaptured Plancenoit, but were themselves counterattacked and driven out. Napoleon sent 2 battalions of Old Guard and after ferocious bayonet fighting - they did not deign to fire their muskets - they recaptured the village. The dogged Prussians were still not beaten, and approximately 30,000 troops under Bulow and Pirch attacked Plancenoit again. It was defended by 20,000 Frenchmen in and around the village. The Old Guard and other supporting troops were able to hold on for about one hour before a massive Prussian counter-attack evicted them after bloody street fighting. The last to flee was the Old Guard who defended the church and cemetery. The French casualties at the end of the day were horrible; for example the 1er Tirailleurs of the Young Guard had 92% losses. The Sunken Road at Waterloo, by Stanley Berkley. With Wellington's centre exposed by the French taking La Haye Sainte, and the Plancenoit front temporarily stabilised, Napoleon committed his last reserve, the hithertoundefeated Imperial Guard. This attack is one of the most celebrated passages of arms in military history, but it is unclear which units actually participated. It appears that it was mounted by five battalions of the Middle Guard, and not by the Grenadiers or Chasseurs of the Old Guard. Marching through a hail of canister and skirmisher fire, the 3,000 or so Middle Guardsmen defeated the Allied first line, including British, Brunswick and Nassau troops. Meanwhile, elements of General von Ziethen's 1st Prussian Army Corps had finally arrived helping to relieve the pressure on Wellington's left flank, thus allowing Wellington to strengthen his shaken centre. The French guard battalions marched on, and the situation became critical. Chass's Netherlands division was sent forward. Chass sent forward his artillery to halt the French advance. Their fire took the victorious grenadiers in the flank. This still couldn't stop the Guard's advance, so Chass ordered his first brigade to charge the French. Meanwhile, to the west, 1,500 British Guards under Maitland were lying down to protect themselves from the French artillery. They rose as one, and devastated the shocked Imperial Guard with volleys of fire at point-blank range. The French chasseurs deployed to answer the fire. After 10 minutes of exchanging musketry the outnumbered French began wavering. This was the sign for a bayonet charge. But then a fresh French chasseur battalion appeared on the scene. The British guard retired with the French in pursuit, but the French in their turn were halted by flanking fire from the 52nd Light Infantry of Adam's brigade.

The last of the Imperial Guard retreated headlong in disarray and chaos. A ripple of panic passed through the French lines - "La garde recule. Sauve qui peut!" ("The Guard retreats. Save yourself if you can!"). Wellington, judging that the retreat by the Imperial Guard had unnerved all the French soldiers who saw it, stood up in the stirrups of Copenhagen (his favourite horse), and waved his hat in the air, signalling a general advance. The long-suffering Anglo-Allied infantry rushed forward from the lines where they had been shelled all day, and threw themselves upon the retreating French. After its unsuccessful attack on the Allied centre, the French Imperial Guard rallied to their reserves of three battalions, (some sources say four) just south of La Haye Sainte for a last stand against the British. A charge from General Adam's Brigade and an element of the 5th Brigade (The Hanoverian Landwehr (Militia) Osnabruck Battalion), both in the second Anglo-allied division under Lieutenant General Sir Henry Clinton, threw them into a state of confusion; those which were left in semi-coherent units fought and retreated towards La Belle Alliance. It was during this stand that Colonel Hugh Halkett took the surrender of General Cambronne. This happened during the destruction of one of the retreating semi-coherent squares from the area around La Haye Sainte towards La Belle Alliance. [2]. The Field at Waterloo, as depicted in the 1851 Illustrated London Reading Book At about same time as the Imperial Guard was thrown back, the Prussians finally drove the French out of the village of Plancenoit and Zieten's Corps entered the gap between d'Erlon and Lobau, essentially taking the French position from the rear. The whole of the French front started to disintegrate under the general advance of the Anglo-allied army and the Prussians following the capture of Plancenoit. The last coherent French force consisted of two battalions of the Old Guard stationed around the inn called La Belle Alliance. This was a final reserve and a personal bodyguard for Napoleon. For a time Napoleon hoped that if they held firm the French Army could rally behind them. But as the retreat turned into a rout, they were forced to form squares as protection against the leading elements of allied cavalry. They formed into two squares, one on either side of La Belle Alliance. Until he was persuaded that the battle was lost and he should leave, Napoleon commanded the square which was formed on rising ground to the (Allied) right of the inn. The Prussians engaged the square to the left, and General Adam's Brigade charged the square on the right, forcing it to withdraw. As dusk fell both squares retreated away from the battlefield towards France in relatively good order but the French artillery, and everything else belonging to them, fell into the hands of the British and Prussians. The retreating Guards were surrounded by thousands of fleeing Frenchmen who were no longer part of any coherent unit. British and Allied cavalry harried the fleeing French until about 23:00 hours. The Prussians, led by General von Gneisenau, pursued them throughout the night. [edit] Conclusion

At around 21:00 Wellington and Blcher met, signifying the end of the battle. Waterloo cost the Anglo-allied forces around 15,000 dead and wounded, and the Prussians some 7000. Napoleon lost 25,000 dead and injured. 8000 of his troops were taken prisoner. After the French defeat at Waterloo and the final battle of the Napoleonic Wars at the Battle of Wavre, Napoleon was deposed and remained at large for some time in France before surrendering to the British. Allegedly, Napoleon tried to escape to North America but the British ship Bellerophon caught up to him where he promptly surrendered. He was subsequently exiled to Saint Helena, where he died in 1821. [edit] The battlefield today Lion Monument at Waterloo, erected by the Dutch on the spot where it is believed the Prince of Orange was wounded. The current terrain of the battlefield is very different from what it would have been in 1815. In 1820, the Dutch King William I ordered the construction of a monument on the spot where it was believed his son, the Prince of Orange, had been wounded. A giant mound was constructed here, using 300,000 cubic meters of earth taken from other parts of the battlefield, including Wellington's sunken road. Wellington, when visiting the site years later, allegedly complained "they've spoiled my battlefield!" [edit] Waterloo in popular culture The phrase to meet one's Waterloo (or similar) has entered the English language as a word signifying a great test with a final and decisive outcome- usually a negative one, in recognition of Napoleon's defeat; e.g. [1], [2]. The battle of Waterloo was the final battle listed in Edward Shepherd Creasy's book The Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World. "The Adventures of Gerard" (1903) by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle contains a chapter "How the Brigadier Bore Himself at Waterloo", about his fictional hero Brigadier Etienne Gerard. The chapter consists of two short stories which were originally published separately. Project Gutenberg:The Adventures of Gerard (Audio Book) "Sharpe's Waterloo" or "Waterloo: Sharpe's Final Adventure Campaign" is a novel by Bernard Cornwell, which sets his fictional hero Richard Sharpe at the battle on the staff of the non-fictional Prince of Orange. The book was later adapted for television by the ITV and starred Sean Bean as Sharpe. Waterloo was an 1970 Italian-Russian film, directed by Sergei Bondarchuk. It was the story of the preliminary events and the battle, and is remembered for its lavish battle scenes. The band ABBA made a song titled "Waterloo" that won the Eurovision Song Contest in 1974.

The famous quote attributed to Wellington ("The battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton") was certainly an invention; unlike his older brother, Wellington got poor grades at Eton; on one of his rare visits back there, the only athletic activities he could remember were skipping across a brook, and fisticuffs with a fellow student. In the video game Psychonauts, Fred Bonaparte, an insane asylum employee and descendant of Napoleon Bonaparte, loses his sanity after continuously losing a game of "Waterloo" with a patient, and develops a split personality between himself and his forefather. In Blackadder: Back & Forth, Lord Blackadder travels back in time and accidentally kills Wellington before the battle of Waterloo; when he returns to the future England is full of French culture, so he time-travels once again to ensure that the Duke lives. "Waterloo" is a song by American metal band Iced Earth, that is about the battle at Waterloo. It appears on the album The Glorious Burden, but is not availble on the regular American release. "The Battle of Waterloo" is a song by the German Metal Band Running Wild off their Death or Glory album. "Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell" is a fantasy novel by Susanna Clarke in which the battle of Waterloo is described from the point of view of a magician who aids the Duke of Wellington. For example, it is thanks to the magician's weather control that heavy rain falls before the battle, aiding the Allied forces. Waterlube is a fictitious water park visited by Napoleon in the film Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure. In the movie Jaws, Captain Quint, while recounting his experience as a seaman aboard the USS Indianapolis, likens the sailors' grouped formations to avoid sharks as "something you would see in a calendar, like the Battle of Waterloo." "Waterloo" was a 1959 country song recorded by Stonewall Jackson. The chorus is: Waterloo, Waterloo Where will you meet your Waterloo? Every puppy has its day Everybody has to pay Everybody has to meet his Waterloo. The battle is mentioned in the 2004 film The Alamo, where it is compared to the Battle of San Jacinto, the final battle of the Texas Revolution. "You're My Waterloo" is an unrealeased song by The Libertines. "Waterloo to Anywhere" is the debut album by Dirty Pretty Things. The entire battle between Julius Caesar and the Belgians in Asterix in Belgium is a parody of the battle of Waterloo. The arrival of Caesar and his troops is resembles a similar painting depicting Napoleon and his army. In the French version the text which accompanies the battle on paper is a parody on Victor Hugo's poem about the Battle of Waterloo. Asterix, Obelix and Vitalstatistix lead a surprise attack on Caesar's troops just when the Romans seem to win the battle. This is of course, exactly what happened to Napoleon in Waterloo. [

Field of Waterloo

Waterloo campaign map