Few of Napoleon’s trusted corps commanders remained. Perhaps most critical among those shortages were sufficient numbers of skilled military commanders at the highest levels. Shoes, uniforms, horses, harness-the list of shortages went on and on. At least 500,000 projectiles were needed for the artillery. There were not enough muskets to arm all the men. On paper, he had perhaps 200,000 soldiers in March 1815, but over 30,000 were on furlough and some 85,000 had deserted. On February 26, 1815, he escaped from Elba and returned to France where he remained popular, and soon he was building a new army, but it was not the army that had won great victories in the past. La Petit Empereur was not yet ready to relinquish his dreams of conquest, however. On April 6, 1814, Napoleon abdicated and was exiled to live out his life under guard on the island of Elba off Italy. After he lost much of his Grande Armee on the desolate steppes of Russia in 1812, the French were gradually forced back by a coalition of European armies. Though he sometimes suffered setbacks and defeats, he became the most feared man in Europe, time and again winning battles against the odds.
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9, 1799, he was named “First Consul” of France and consecrated as emperor on December 2, 1804.īeginning with the Battle of Montenotte in Italy (April 12, 1796) in which he defeated an Allied Austrian-Piedmontese Army, Napoleon established his reputation as a great strategist and commander through a series of campaigns that planted the French flag throughout most of Europe and parts of North Africa and the Mideast. His strategic skills, personal bravery and political connections allowed him to rise quickly to the rank of general in the tumultuous period of the French Revolution, 1789–1799. Napoleon’s Dreams of Empireīorn August 15, 1769, to a gentry family on the island of Corsica, Napoleon attended a military school in France and joined the artillery service at the age of 16. The Prussians under Blücher saw approximately 48,000 of their men and 135 guns engaged. The Anglo-Dutch army (British, Dutch, Belgian, and Hanoverian troops) led by the Duke of Wellington, had approximately 67,000 men-about 50,000 infantry, 11,000 cavalry and the crews for 150 guns. Another 33,000 men under the command of Marshal Emmanuel Grouchy were at Wavre, south of Waterloo, and did not take part in the battle. The French force consisted of roughly 72,000 men, including 48,000 infantry, 11,000 cavalry, and 250 guns. La Belle Alliance could be taken to refer to the multinational alliance that defeated the French Emperor, but the farm’s name, which predated the battle, is said to have originated with a “belle alliance” between the mistress of the house and one of her farmhands following the death of her second husband. Blücher favored calling it the battle of “La Belle Alliance,” the name of a farmhouse where Napoleon had his headquarters and where the British and Prussian commanders met following the battle. The French call the event the Battle of Mont St. Wellington’s dispatches were sent from Waterloo, and so that name was given to the battle by the British. Jean, with its center running north-south along the Charleroi-Brussels road. The battlefield was actually south of the village of Waterloo, near Mont St. So significant was the defeat of the “God of War” Napoleon that ever since when a seemingly unstoppable individual, force or movement is defeated, it is said to have “met its Waterloo.” The battle began around noon and ended that evening with Napoleon’s army in retreat. Opposing his French army were the troops of an Anglo-Dutch force (Great Britain and allied nations-The Netherlands, Belgium, and the German state of Hanover) under the command of Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, and a Prussian army led by Field Marshal Prince Gebhard von Blücher. Gebhard von Blucher, Prussia Soldiers EngagedĮnded both the career of Napoleon and the Napoleonic Wars.īattle of Waterloo summary: The Battle of Waterloo in Belgium (June 18, 1815) was the climactic battle that permanently ended the Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815) and wrote finis to the spectacular career of Napoleon Bonaparte, Emperor of France. Jean near Waterloo, Belgium Generals/CommandersĪrthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington, Anglo-Dutch
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