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[[File:Herzog von Wellington bedankt sich beim Retter und Waffengefährten Feldmarschall von Blücher kurz nach 21 Uhr am 18. Juni 1815 am Gasthof „La Belle Alliance“.png|thumb|300px|Field marshal Wellington (left) and Generalfeldmarschall von Blücher congratulate each other after their victory over Napoleon on 18 June 1815 shortly after 9 p.m. south of the dairy near the inn "La Belle Alliance" (which fittingly is translated as "the beautiful alliance") a few miles south of Brussels.]]
The '''Battle of Waterloo''' ({{lang-de|Schlacht bei Belle Alliance}}) was fought on Sunday 18 June 1815 near Waterloo in present-day Walloon Brabant in Belgium south of Brussels. An Imperial French army under the command of [[Napoleon Bonaparte|Napoleon]] was defeated by combined armies of the Seventh Coalition, a multi-national army under the command of the [[Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington|Duke of Wellington]] combined with a [[Prussia]]n army under the command of [[Prussia|German-Prussian]] [[Generalfeldmarschall]] [[Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher|Gebhard von Blücher]] ([https://de.metapedia.org/wiki/Bl%C3%BCcher,_Gebhard_Leberecht_von de]). It was the culminating battle of the Waterloo Campaign and Napoleon's last. The defeat at Waterloo put an end to Napoleon's rule as Emperor of the French and marked the end of his Hundred Days' return from exile.

==Belligerents and Strength ==
The North Army of the French Empire invaded Belgium (part of the Netehrlands at the time) and fought against the Seventh Coalition consisting of troops from the [[Kingdom of Prussia]], the [[United Kingdom]], the [[Kingdom of Hanover]], the Duchy of Nassau, the Duchy of Brunswick, and the United Netherlands.

The numbers below are those of the soldiers taking part in the battle, but the armies were much larger. Napoleon had as of 1 June 1815 550,000 men (800,000 had been his goal): 363,000 men line troops (line infantry), 112,000 men national guard, and 45,000 men navy and costal guard. His main army, the "Army of the North" (''Armée du Nord'') including the "Reserve Army" (''Armée de la Réserve''), for the campaign in Belgium as of 15 June 1815 and gathhered in Charleroi had a strength of 124,000 to 130,000 men.

Wellington had as of 16 June 1815 93,218 men to his disposal, 36,299 [[Germans]], 32,418 [[British]] (with 6,371 King's German Legion, therefore also [[German]]), and 24.501 men from the Netherlands.<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20191021223901/http://www.kgl.de/KingsGermanLegion/geschichte/1814_1815niederlande_waterloo/schwertfeger/schwertfeger561_567.htm Wellington's army]</ref> Von Blücher's "Niederrhein-Armee" had three corps<ref>I. Korps Generallieutenant von Zieten (29,096), II. Korps Generalmajor von Pirch I (30,026), and III. Korps Generallieutenant von Thielmann (23,544)</ref> with 83,000 men and a fourth corps under General der Infantere von Bülow with 47,000 men and 176 guns still marching from direction of Lüttich (Liège).

===France===
[[File:The Battle of Waterloo, by William Sadler II.jpg|right|500px]]
* 72,000 to 73,000 men<ref name=Hofschroer72-73>Hofschröer, pp. 72–73</ref> (who took part in the battle)
**50,700 infantry
**14,390 cavalry
**8,050 artillery and engineers
**252 guns
===Seventh Coalition ([https://de.metapedia.org/wiki/Siebter_Koalitionskrieg de])===
*118,000 to 120,000 men (who took part in the battle)
** Wellington's international army: 68,000 men (including 7,000 British and German veterans of the Peninsula campaign)<ref name=Hofschroer72-73/>
*** 25,000 British
*** 6,000 King's German Legion ([https://de.metapedia.org/wiki/K%C3%B6niglich_Deutsche_Legion ''Königlich Deutsche Legion''])
*** Netherlands: 17,000
*** Hanover: 11,000
***Brunswick: 6,000
*** Nassau: 3,000
*** 156 guns
** Von Blücher's Prussian army: 48,000 to 50,000 men<ref>{{Harvnb|Chesney|1907|p=4}}.</ref>
*** I. Korps Generallieutenant [https://de.metapedia.org/wiki/Zieten,_Hans_Karl_Graf_von von Zieten]
*** II. Korps Generalmajor [https://de.metapedia.org/wiki/Pirch,_Georg_Dubislav_Ludwig_von von Pirch I]
*** IV. Korps (partial) General der Infantere [https://de.metapedia.org/wiki/B%C3%BClow_von_Dennewitz,_Friedrich_Wilhelm von Bülow]
==History==
After Napoleon's escape from the island of Elba and his return to power in 1815, many states that had opposed him formed the Seventh Coalition and began to mobilise armies. Two large forces under Wellington and von Blücher assembled close to the northeastern border of France. Napoleon chose to attack in the hope of destroying them before they could join in a coordinated invasion of France with other members of the Coalition. The decisive engagement of this three-day Waterloo Campaign (16 June – 19 June 1815) occurred at the Battle of Waterloo. According to Wellington, the battle was "the nearest-run thing you ever saw in your life."<ref>Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, citing ''Creevey Papers'', ch. x, p. 236</ref>

Napoleon delayed giving battle until noon on 18 June to allow the ground to dry. Wellington's army, positioned across the Brussels road on the [[Mont-Saint-Jean, Belgium|Mont St Jean]] [[escarpment]], withstood repeated attacks by the French, until, in the evening, the Prussians arrived in force and broke through Napoleon's right flank. At that moment, Wellington's Anglo-allied army counter-attacked and drove the French army in disorder from the field. Pursuing Coalition forces entered France and restored [[Louis XVIII of France|Louis XVIII]] to the French throne. Napoleon abdicated, surrendered to the British, and was exiled to [[Saint Helena]], where he died in 1821.

The battlefield is in present-day Belgium, about eight miles (12 km) SSE of [[Brussels]], and about a mile (1.6 km) from the town of [[Waterloo, Belgium|Waterloo]]. The site of the battlefield is today dominated by a large monument, the [[Butte du Lion|Lion Mound]]. As this mound used earth from the battlefield itself, the original topography of the part of the battlefield around the mound has not been preserved.

:''"In the middle of the position occupied by the French army, and exactly upon the height, is a farm, called ''La Belle Alliance''. The march of all the Prussian columns was directed towards this farm, which was visible from every side. It was there that Napoleon was during the battle; it was thence that he gave his orders, that he flattered himself with the hopes of victory; and it was there that his ruin was decided. There, too, it was that, by happy chance, Field Marshal Blücher and Lord Wellington met in the dark, and mutually saluted each other as victors."'' - General Gneisenau<ref>August Wilhelm Antonius Graf Neidhardt von Gneisenau (27 October 1760 – 23 August 1831) was a German-Prussian field marshal. He was a prominent figure in the reform of the Prussian military and the War of Liberation.</ref>

===A French view of the reasons for Napoleon's defeat===
General Antoine-Henri Jomini, one of the leading military writers on the Napoleonic art of war, had a number of very cogent explanations of the reasons behind Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo:

:''"In my opinion, four principal causes led to this disaster: The first, '''and most influential''', was the arrival, skilfully combined, of [[Generalfeldmarschall]] [[Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher|Blücher]], and the false movement that favoured this arrival;<ref>This "false movement" was the detachment of Grouchy's force in pursuit of the Prussians – Napoleon had overestimated the extent of his victory at Ligny and underestimated the resilience of the German-Prussians. He also seems to have discounted the presence of Bülow's substantial corps, which had not been in action at Ligny ([https://de.metapedia.org/wiki/Schlacht_bei_Ligny de]). Had Napoleon retained Grouchy's 30,000 men as a guard for his right flank it is likely that these troops could have held off the Prussians and allowed the rest of Napoleon's army to attack Wellington's army unmolested.</ref> the second, was the admirable firmness of the British infantry, joined to the sang-froid and aplomb of its chiefs; the third, was the horrible weather, that had softened the ground, and rendered the offensive movements so toilsome, and retarded till one o'clock the attack that should have been made in the morning; the fourth, was the inconceivable formation of the first corps, in masses very much too deep for the first grand attack."''

==Casualties==
===France===
*Total: 48,000
** 25,000 killed and wounded
** 8,000 captured
** 15,000 missing / deserted<ref>{{Harvnb|Barbero|2005|p=420}}.</ref>
===Allies===
* Total: 24,000
** Wellington's army: 17,000
*** 3,500 killed
*** 10,200 wounded
*** 3,300 missing<ref name="Barbero 2005 419">{{Harvnb|Barbero|2005|p=419}}.</ref>
** Prussians: 7,000
*** 1,200 {{KIA}}
*** 4,400 wounded
*** 1,400 missing<ref name="Barbero 2005 419"/>

==Bibliography==
* Barbero, Alessandro (2006), ''The Battle. A New History of Waterloo'' (translated by John Cullen) (paperback ed.), Walker & Company, ISBN 978-0-8027-1500-5
* Chappell, Mike (2000) ''The King’s German Legion 1812–1816'', London
* Chesney, Charles C. (1874), ''Waterloo Lectures: A Study Of The Campaign Of 1815'' (3rd ed.), Longmans, Green, and Co
* Hofschröer, Peter
** (1999), 1815: ''The Waterloo Campaign. The German Victory'', 2, London: Greenhill Books, ISBN 978-1-85367-368-9
** (2005), ''Waterloo 1815: Quatre Bras and Ligny'', London: Leo Cooper, ISBN 978-1-84415-168-4
==External links==
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QH7JDkT5XEQ Battle of Waterloo – 1815 – War of the Seventh Coalition], [[Youtube]]
=== Encyclopedias ===
*[https://www.britannica.com/event/Battle-of-Waterloo Encyclopedia Britannica: Battle of Waterloo]
*[https://theodora.com/encyclopedia/w/waterloo_campaign.html Encyclopedia Britannica 1911 Edition: Waterloo Campaign]
*[https://www.encyclopedia.com/history/modern-europe/wars-and-battles/waterloo-campaign Encyclopedia.com: Waterloo campaign]

==References==
<references/>

[[Category:Battles]]
[[Category:Battles]]
[[Category:Napoleonic Wars]]
[[Category:German history]]
[[Category:European history]]

[[de:Schlacht bei Belle Alliance]]
[[es:Batalla de Waterloo]]

Battle of Waterloo - Revision history