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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 converged on him, commanded by the United Kingdom 's Duke Of Wellington , and Prussia 's Gebhard Von Blücher . 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 . PRELUDE 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 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 moved two armies, the Army of the North (AotN) and the Reserve Army (RA), up to the Belgian frontier, crossing at Thuin near Charleroi , engaging Prussian outposts, and split his army in two. He took the reserves and the right wing of the army and attacked the Prussians, under the command of General Blücher , at the Battle Of Ligny on June 16 1815 . The left wing of the army under Marshal Ney proceeded to block the Nivelles - Namur road at the crossroads of Quatre Bras so that the Anglo-Allied forces under the command of Wellington could not go to the aid of the Prussians. Ney's wing of the French army engaged Wellington's forces in the Battle Of Quatre Bras on the same day as Napoleon engaged the Prussians. The outcome of the day of fighting was that, at Quatre Bras, Ney stopped any of Wellington's forces going to the aid of Blücher's Prussians and Napoleon, although unable to destroy the Prussian army, forced it to retreat in disarray. 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 Bülow 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. 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. Napoleon took his time issuing orders on the morning of 17 June, so Grouchy, started the pursuit late on both the 17th, 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 Gérard's , he engaged the Prussian rearguard under the command of Lieutenant-General Baron Johann Von Thielmann at the Battle Of Wavre . After the Prussian defeat at Ligny, Wellington's position at Quatre Bras became untenable. During a stormy 17th, Wellington withdrew his army to the previously reconnoitered Ridge at Mont St. Jean, about a mile south of his headquarters at 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. ORDER OF BATTLE See main article Order Of Battle Of The Waterloo Campaign The battle was to involve 73,000 French soldiers; while the Allied army from Britain, Hanover , Brunswick , and the Netherlands and Nassau were about 67,000 men strong. (Of the 26 infantry Brigade s in Wellington's army, nine were British; of the 12 cavalry brigades, 7 were British. 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 II Corps and parts of Graf Von Ziethen's I Corps engaged at about 18:00.) BATTLE |
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