IV Modern Period · War of the Seventh Coalition (the Hundred Days)
Napoleon stakes his empire on a single afternoon. Wellington holds out, Blücher arrives in time, and an era comes to an end.
Result Decisive victory for the Anglo-allied and Prussian coalition
Background
On 18 June 1815, in the fields south of Brussels, Napoleon staked his empire on a single afternoon. Wellington held out and Blücher arrived in time. It was the end of an era.
At the end of February 1815, Napoleon escaped from his exile on Elba. On 1 March he landed in France and regained the throne without firing a shot. The European powers, gathered at the Congress of Vienna, declared him an outlaw and mobilised huge armies against him. It was the start of the so-called Hundred Days.
Napoleon decided to attack before his enemies could join forces. In June he entered Belgium, where two armies were waiting: the Anglo-allied army of the Duke of Wellington and the Prussian army of Field Marshal Blücher. On 16 June he defeated the Prussians at Ligny, while Marshal Ney faced Wellington at Quatre Bras.
Napoleon believed that the defeated Prussians were moving away and sent Marshal Grouchy after them with some 33,000 men. But Blücher had fallen back northwards, to Wavre, so as not to lose contact with Wellington, and promised to come to his aid.
Wellington halted on the Mont-Saint-Jean ridge, near the village of Waterloo, and waited. On the night of the 17th to the 18th, torrential rain fell and turned the field into a quagmire.
Order of battle
Select a unit to open its card: who commanded it, how it fought and what part it played in the battle.
Napoleon Bonaparte · Marshal Ney · Count d’Erlon · Count Reille · Count of Lobau
≈ 72,000 men and some 250 guns
The Army of the North, with many veterans of the Napoleonic Wars. Some 33,000 more men, under Marshal Grouchy, were pursuing the Prussians far from there and never reached the battle.
Duke of Wellington · Earl of Uxbridge · Sir Thomas Picton · Prince of Orange
≈ 68,000 men and some 150 guns
A multinational army: fewer than half were British. The rest were soldiers of the King’s German Legion and from Hanover, Brunswick, Nassau and the Netherlands.
Field Marshal Blücher · General Bülow · General Zieten · General Pirch
≈ 50,000 men reached the battlefield over the course of the afternoon
Defeated by Napoleon two days earlier at Ligny, the Prussians regrouped and kept Blücher’s promise: to come to Wellington’s aid.
Foot soldiers who fight in close formation. They are the core of almost every army: they hold the line and decide the clash.
Protected horsemen mounted on strong horses. Their charge can break a line, but they tire quickly and find it hard to regroup.
Fast, lightly protected horsemen. They scout, harass, pursue a fleeing enemy and avoid head-on clashes.
The general and his staff. Orders are given from here; losing it can throw the whole army into disorder.
Cannon or other engines that shoot. They batter the enemy from afar and prepare the ground for the infantry’s attack.
Generals carry their side’s flag, and the most representative units carry their own. Hover over a flag to see its name.
The thick line marks the front of each unit. Teeth in front of it show stakes, walls or other defences. A double border marks elite troops.
Phase by phase
Schematic map. Many brigades and divisions have been grouped into a single block to make the course of the battle easier to follow.
Phase 1 of 8: A morning of waiting
Phase I of VIII · Morning
Wellington deploys his army along the Mont-Saint-Jean ridge, almost all of it on the reverse slope, where the French artillery cannot see it. Out in front, like breakwaters, he holds three fortified farms: Hougoumont, La Haye Sainte and Papelotte.
Opposite, Napoleon draws up his army on the ridge of La Belle Alliance. After the torrential rain of the night, the ground is soaked and he decides to wait for it to dry before moving the artillery. The battle does not begin until mid-morning.
Far away to the east, Blücher’s Prussians are already on the march from Wavre.
Phase II of VIII · Around 11:30
Around 11:30, according to most accounts (Wellington himself wrote that it was around ten), the battle begins on the French left wing. The division of Jérôme Bonaparte, the Emperor’s brother, attacks Hougoumont. It was meant to be a diversion to make Wellington weaken his centre.
But the British Guards, entrenched behind the walls, hold out. The French even get in through the north gate, and the defenders manage to force it shut. Hougoumont becomes a battle within the battle that will devour thousands of French soldiers all day long.
Phase III of VIII · 13:30
Around one o’clock (the sources disagree on the time), the Grand Battery, some 80 guns, opens fire on the allied centre-left. Napoleon sees troops on the march far off to the east: they are Bülow’s Prussians. They will still take hours to arrive, but Napoleon sends Lobau’s VI Corps, his infantry reserve, in that direction to cover that flank.
Around 13:30 d’Erlon’s I Corps advances: some 17,000 men in very wide and deep formations. They surround La Haye Sainte and climb the ridge. Bylandt’s Netherlands brigade gives way, but Picton’s division stands in their path with volleys. Picton falls dead, shot in the head.
Phase IV of VIII · 14:00
At the critical moment, Lord Uxbridge launches the British heavy cavalry. The Household Brigade charges beside the Brussels road; the Union Brigade crashes into d’Erlon’s infantry, which, with no time to form squares, falls apart. Thousands of Frenchmen are captured and the dragoons seize two eagles.
But the horsemen, out of control, do not stop. They cross the valley as far as the Grand Battery, where the French lancers and cuirassiers counter-attack them on fresh horses. Ponsonby dies and the brigade is almost destroyed.
Phase V of VIII · 16:00 to 18:00
Marshal Ney thinks he sees Wellington withdrawing and launches the French heavy cavalry against the allied centre-right, without infantry support. Thousands of horsemen ride up the ridge again and again.
The allied infantry forms squares: hollow blocks with bayonets on all four faces, very hard for cavalry to break as long as the men keep calm. The horsemen ride round them unable to get in, while the artillery punishes them. The charges are repeated for hours and the French cavalry wears itself out to no effect.
Around 16:30, Bülow’s Prussians come out of the Bois de Paris and attack Lobau’s VI Corps. Little by little they drive it back towards Plancenoit, in the French rear.
Phase VI of VIII · 18:30
The defenders of La Haye Sainte, out of ammunition, can no longer return fire. The French take the farm and bring guns up to it: now they fire almost at point-blank range into the allied centre, which is bleeding to death. It is the most critical moment of the day for Wellington.
To the east, the fight for Plancenoit is fierce: the village changes hands several times. Napoleon sends in the Young Guard to hold back the Prussians, who keep on arriving.
Phase VII of VIII · 19:30
Napoleon plays his last card: the Imperial Guard. Several battalions of the Middle Guard climb the ridge towards the allied centre-right, between Hougoumont and La Haye Sainte. To encourage his troops, word is spread that the men arriving from the east are Grouchy’s, not the Prussians.
As the Guard reaches the crest, Maitland’s Guards, who had been lying down waiting, stand up and fire at point-blank range, and the 52nd Light Infantry wheels and opens fire on the flank of the Guard. Elsewhere on the crest it is also stopped by Halkett’s brigade and by Chassé’s Netherlands division, which charges with the bayonet; the classic British accounts tend to overlook their part. The Guard halts and falls back.
On the far allied left, Zieten’s Prussian I Corps at last reaches Papelotte. Wellington can bring his light cavalry to the centre.
Phase VIII of VIII · 20:00 to 21:30
“The Guard retreats!” The cry runs through the French ranks and shatters the morale of an exhausted army. Wellington, standing in his stirrups, waves his hat: it is the signal for the general advance. The whole allied line moves down the ridge.
To the east, the Prussians take Plancenoit and threaten the only French escape route. Napoleon’s army breaks up in disorderly flight. Only the squares of the Old Guard stand firm to cover the retreat.
After dark, according to tradition, Wellington and Blücher meet near La Belle Alliance. The Prussian cavalry pursues the French all through the night.
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What came next
Waterloo put an end to more than twenty years of almost continuous wars in Europe, and to Napoleon’s career.
The French army fell apart in the flight. Napoleon returned to Paris and abdicated for the second time on 22 June. He tried to escape to America, but ended up surrendering to the British, who exiled him to the remote island of St Helena, in the South Atlantic. He died there in 1821.
The Bourbons returned to the throne of France with Louis XVIII. The Congress of Vienna had signed its Final Act on 9 June, nine days before the battle; Napoleon’s defeat made it possible to put into practice that new map of Europe, based on the balance between the great powers, which prevented a war among all of them until 1914.
According to the politician Thomas Creevey, Wellington described the battle as “the nearest run thing you ever saw in your life”. He became a national hero and went on to be prime minister. For a long time the decisive role of Blücher and the Prussians stayed in the background in the British memory of the battle.
Bar: strength. Colour: casualties, with the same figures as the text for each side (depending on the case, only the dead or also the wounded and prisoners). The hatched or lighter part shows the range between the sources.
Napoleon delayed the start of the battle until mid-morning so that the ground could dry and his artillery could move. Many historians believe that those hours were decisive in allowing the Prussians to arrive in time.
Years later Wellington would say that the success of the battle depended on the closing of the gates of Hougoumont.
According to tradition, Marshal Ney had several horses killed under him during the battle. He was still fighting on foot at the end of the day.
Lord Uxbridge lost a leg to a shot at the end of the battle. The leg, buried in the village of Waterloo, became a tourist attraction for decades.