Battle of Waterloo

On Sunday 18 June 1815, near the village of Waterloo south of Brussels, the last great battle of the Napoleonic Wars was fought, in what was then the United Kingdom of the Netherlands and is now Belgium. Napoleon, who had returned from exile and retaken power in France, was defeated by an allied army under the Duke of Wellington and a Prussian army under Gebhard von Blücher. It was his last battle, and it ended both his rule and more than two decades of war in Europe.

After his failed invasion of Russia and further defeats in 1813 and 1814, Napoleon abdicated and was sent to the island of Elba. In late February 1815 he left the island and in March reached Paris, beginning the period known as the Hundred Days. The great powers meeting at the Congress of Vienna declared him an outlaw, and Britain, Russia, Austria and Prussia mobilised armies against him. Napoleon's best hope was to strike first. Two allied armies stood in what is now Belgium: Wellington's force of British, Dutch, Belgian and German troops, and Blücher's Prussians. Napoleon aimed to beat them separately before they could join.

On 16 June Napoleon defeated the Prussians at Ligny, while Marshal Ney fought Wellington to a standstill at Quatre Bras. The Prussians, however, withdrew in good order towards Wavre, from where they could still help Wellington. Napoleon sent Marshal Grouchy with about 33,000 men to follow them, while Wellington pulled back to a ridge at Mont-Saint-Jean, south of Waterloo, after Blücher promised to support him.

Napoleon had about 72,000 to 73,000 men at Waterloo. Wellington had roughly 68,000, only about four in ten of them British, and around 50,000 Prussians eventually joined the fighting. Heavy rain had turned the ground to mud overnight.

When the battle began is itself uncertain, with accounts ranging from about 10 o'clock to just before noon. The first French attack fell on the walled farm of Hougoumont on Wellington's right, which held out all day. A little after 13:00, the infantry of Count d'Erlon's corps advanced against the allied centre-left and was thrown back, partly by a charge of British heavy cavalry. By then the first Prussians were appearing to the east. From about 16:00, Ney launched massed cavalry charges against Wellington's centre, but the allied infantry formed squares and held. In the early evening the French finally captured the farm of La Haye Sainte after its King's German Legion defenders ran out of ammunition, and French guns began firing at close range into the allied centre.

Meanwhile the Prussian corps under Friedrich von Bülow attacked the village of Plancenoit, in the French rear, drawing off Napoleon's reserves. At around 19:30 Napoleon committed his last reserve, battalions of the Imperial Guard, against Wellington's centre. They were driven back, and as more Prussians broke through on the French right, the French army collapsed into rout.

The figures are estimates. Wellington's army lost about 17,000 killed, wounded and missing, and Blücher's about 7,000. French losses were around 24,000 to 26,000 killed or wounded, including several thousand taken prisoner, and another 15,000 or so deserted in the following days. Wellington called the battle "the nearest-run thing you ever saw in your life".

Napoleon fled to Paris and abdicated four days after the battle. Coalition forces entered Paris on 7 July, and on 15 July Napoleon surrendered to a British warship. Louis XVIII was restored to the French throne, and Napoleon was exiled to Saint Helena, a remote island in the South Atlantic, where he died in 1821. The second Treaty of Paris followed in November 1815, bringing the Napoleonic Wars to an end and opening a long period of relative peace between the great powers.

Our 1815 map shows the settlement of Europe after Napoleon's fall, including the Kingdom of Prussia and the end of the First French Empire.