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The Battle of Waterloo, fought on 18 June 1815 , was Napoleon Bonaparte's last battle. His defeat put a final end to his rule as Emperor of the French. Waterloo also marked the end of the period known as the Hundred Days , which began in March 1815 after Napoleon's return from Elba, where he had been exiled after his defeats at the battle of Leipzig in 1813 and the campaigns of 1814 in France. After Napoleon returned to power, many States which had previously resisted his rule formed the Seventh Coalition and began to assemble armies to oppose him. The first two armies to assemble close to the French frontier were a Prussian army under the command of Gebhard Von Blücher and an allied army under the command of Duke Of Wellington . These armies were close to France's north-east frontier, and Napoleon chose to attack them in the hope of destroying them before they, with other members of the Seventh Coalition (who were not such an immediate threat), could join in a coordinated invasion of France. The campaign consisted of four major battles, that of Waterloo proving decisive. Napoleon chose to delay the start of the battle of Waterloo until late in the morning of 18 June to give the ground time to dry out a little from the rain that had fallen during the night. The allied army positioned across the Brussels road on the Mont St. Jean escarpment withstood repeated attacks by the French until in the evening they counter-attacked and drove the French from the field. Simultaneously the Prussians – arriving in force – broke through Napoleon's right flank adding their weight to the attack. The French army left the battlefield in disorder and was unable to prevent Coalition forces entering France and the restoration of King Louis XVIII to the French throne. Napoleon was exiled to the British island of St. Helena where he remained until his death in 1821. The battlefield is in present-day Belgium , about 12 Kilometre s (7.5 Mi ) SSE of Brussels , and 2 kilometres (1.2 mi) from the town of Waterloo . PRELUDE As far back as 13 March 1815 , 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 Seventh Coalition Allies from invading France had failed, his only chance of remaining in power was to attack before the Coalition put together an overwhelming force. If he could destroy the existing Coalition forces south of Brussels before they were reinforced, he might be able to drive the British back to the sea and knock the Prussians out of the war. Wellington expected Napoleon to try to envelop the Coalition armies, a manoeuvre that he had successfully used many times before,D.Chandler, ''The Campaigns of Napoleon'' (1967) by moving through Mons to the south-west of Brussels. The roads to Mons were paved, which would have enabled a rapid flank march. This would have cut Wellington's communications with his base at Ostend , but would also have pushed his army closer to Blücher's. In fact, Napoleon planned instead to divide the two Coalition armies and defeat them separately, and he encouraged Wellington's misapprehension with false intelligence. Moving up to the frontier without alerting the Coalition, Napoleon divided his army into a left wing, commanded by Marshal Ney , a right wing commanded by Marshal Grouchy , and a reserve, which he commanded personally (although all three elements remained close enough to support one another). Crossing the frontier at Thuin near Charleroi before dawn on 15 June , the French rapidly over-ran Coalition outposts and secured Napoleon's favoured "central position" - at the junction between the area where Wellington's allied army was dispersed to his north-west, and Blücher's Prussian army to the north-east. Only very late on the night of 15 June was Wellington certain that the Charleroi attack was the main French thrust, and he duly ordered his army to deploy near Nivelles and Quatre Bras . Early on the morning of 16 June , at the Duchess Of Richmond's Ball , on receiving a dispatch from the Prince Of Orange , he was shocked by the speed of Napoleon's advance, and hastily sent his army in the direction of Quatre Bras, where the Prince of Orange, with the brigade of Prince Bernhard Of Saxe-Weimar , was holding a tenuous position against the French left, commanded by Marshal Ney. E.Longford, ''Wellington the Years of the Sword'' Panther (1971)p.508 Ney's orders were to secure the crossroads of Quatre Bras, so that if necessary, he could later swing east and reinforce Napoleon. As Napoleon considered the concentrated Prussian army the greater threat, he moved against them first. Lieutenant-General Graf Von Zieten's I Corps rearguard action on 15 June held up the French advance, giving Blücher the opportunity to concentrate his forces in the Sombreffe position, which had been selected earlier for its good defensive attributes. On 16 June Napoleon, with the reserve and the right wing of the army, attacked and defeated Blücher's Prussians at the Battle Of Ligny . The Prussian centre gave way under heavy French attack, but the flanks held their ground. Ney, meanwhile, advancing against Quatre Bras on the same day, found it lightly held by Saxe-Weimar and the Prince of Orange. The latter successfully repelled Ney's initial attacks, but were gradually driven back by overwhelming numbers of French troops. As the just as torrential rain set in for the night. The retreat of the Prussians was not interrupted, and was seemingly unnoticed, by the French.Chesney, Charles C. p136 By nightfall, at about 21:00, almost all of the Prussian formations had left the field. Crucially, they retreated not to the east, along their own lines of communication and away from Wellington, but northwards, parallel to Wellington's line of march and still within supporting distance, and remained throughout in communication with Wellington. On the Prussian right, Graf von Zieten's I Corps retreated slowly with most of its artillery, leaving a rearguard close to Brye to slow any French pursuit. On the left, Lieutenant-General Thielemann's III Corps retreated unmolested, leaving a strong rearguard at Sombreffe . The bulk of the rearguard units held their positions until about midnight, before following the rest of the retreating army. In fact, Graf von Zieten's I Corps rearguard only left the battlefield in the early morning of 17 June, as the exhausted French had failed to press on.Chesney, Charles C. p136 Pirch 's II Corps followed I Corps off the battlefield and Thieleman's III Corps moved last with the army's various supply parks in tow. It should be noted that the last of III Corps moved out in the morning and was completely ignored by the French. Chesney, Charles C. p136 Von Bülow's IV Corps, which had not been engaged at Ligny, moved south of Wavre and set up a strong position on which the other elements of the Prussian army could reassemble.Chesney, Charles C. p136 Before leaving Ligny, Napoleon gave Marshal Grouchy 33,000 men and orders to follow up the retreating Prussians. A late start, uncertainty about the direction the Prussians had taken, and the vagueness of the orders given to Grouchy meant that he was too late to prevent the Prussian army reaching Wavre , from where it could march to support Wellington. By the end of 17 June , Wellington's army had arrived at its position at Waterloo, with the main body of Napoleon's army following. Blücher's army was gathering in and around Wavre, around eight miles' march to the east. ARMIES Three armies were involved in the battle: the French ''Armée du Nord'', a multinational army under Wellington, and a Prussian army under Blücher. The French army of around 69,000 consisted of 48,000 infantry, 14,000 cavalry, and 7,000 artillery with 250 guns.A.Barbero, ''The Battle'', Atlantic Books (2005) p.75 Napoleon had used conscription to fill the ranks of the French army throughout his rule, but he did not conscript men for the 1815 campaign. All his troops were veterans of at least one campaign who had returned more or less voluntarily to the colours. Wellington said he had "an infamous army, very weak and ill-equipped, and a very inexperienced Staff".Longford, p.485 It consisted of 67,000 men - 50,000 infantry, 11,000 cavalry, and 6,000 artillery with 150 guns. Of these, 24,000 were British, with another 6,000 from the requested powder and cartridges as members of a Hanoverian reserve regiment there had never yet fired a shot. (Longford p.486) The Duke Of York imposed many of Wellington's staff officers on him, including his second-in-command, the Earl Of Uxbridge . Uxbridge commanded the cavalry and had ''carte blanche'' from Wellington. A further 17,000 Anglo-allied troops were stationed at Hal, eight miles away to the west, and were not recalled to participate in the battle. This has been cited by some historians as evidence of Wellington's misplaced concern over a potential enveloping attack. Others have pointed out that these troops represented a strategic reserve. Hal was also one of two defensive positions identified by Wellington as suitable places to meet a French attack, the other being Waterloo. The Prussian army was in the throes of reorganization. In 1815, its former Reserve regiments and various Freikorps volunteer formations from the wars of 1813-14 were in the process of being absorbed into the line, along with many ''Landwehr'' (militia) regiments (which were significantly better than other militias).Barbero, p.39 Its artillery was also reorganizing and would not give its best performance. Nominally under the command of Blücher, in fact much of its operation was directed by his chief-of-staff, II Corps and parts of Graf von Zieten's I Corps engaged at about 18:00.) BATTLEFIELD |
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