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The Battle of Waterloo was fought on Sunday 18 June 1815, near Waterloo. A French army under the command of Napoleon was defeated by two of the armies of the Seventh Coalition. One of these was a British-led coalition consisting of units from the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Hanover, Brunswick, and Nassau, under the command of the Duke of Wellington. The other was composed of three corps of the Prussian army under the command of Field Marshal von Blücher. The battle marked the end of the Napoleonic Wars. The battle was contemporaneously known as the Battle of Mont Saint-Jean (France) or La Belle Alliance.
Waterloo is a 1970 epic historical war film about the Battle of Waterloo. A co-production between Italy and the Soviet Union, it is directed by Sergei Bondarchuk and produced by Dino De Laurentiis. It stars Rod Steiger as Napoleon Bonaparte and Christopher Plummer as the Duke of Wellington with a cameo by Orson Welles as Louis XVIII of France. Other stars include Jack Hawkins as General Sir Thomas Picton, Virginia McKenna as the Duchess of Richmond and Dan O'Herlihy as Marshal Ney.
The Battle of Ligny, in which French troops of the Armée du Nord under the command of Napoleon I defeated part of a Prussian army under Field Marshal Blücher, was fought on 16 June 1815 near Ligny in what is now Belgium. The result was a tactical victory for the French, but the bulk of the Prussian army survived the battle in good order, was reinforced by Prussian troops who had not fought at Ligny, and played a role two days later at the Battle of Waterloo. The Battle of Ligny was the last victory in Napoleon's military career.
Château d'Hougoumont is a walled manorial compound, situated at the bottom of an escarpment near the Nivelles road in the Braine-l'Alleud municipality, near Waterloo, Belgium. The site served as one of the advanced defensible positions of the Anglo-allied army under the Duke of Wellington, that faced Napoleon's Army at the Battle of Waterloo on 18 June 1815.
The Battle of Quatre Bras was fought on 16 June 1815, as a preliminary engagement to the decisive Battle of Waterloo that occurred two days later. The battle took place near the strategic crossroads of Quatre Bras and was contested between elements of the Duke of Wellington's Anglo-allied army and the left wing of Napoleon Bonaparte's French Armée du Nord under Marshal Michel Ney. The battle was a tactical victory for Wellington, but because Ney prevented him going to the aid of Blucher's Prussians who were fighting a larger French army under the command of Napoleon Bonaparte at Ligny it was a strategic victory for the French.
The Battle of Wavre was the final major military action of the Hundred Days campaign and the Napoleonic Wars. It was fought on 18–19 June 1815 between the Prussian rearguard, consisting of the Prussian III Corps under the command of General Johann von Thielmann and three corps of the French army under the command of Marshal Grouchy. A blocking action, this battle kept 33,000 French soldiers from reaching the Battle of Waterloo and so helped in the defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo.
The Waterloo campaign was fought between the French Army of the North and two Seventh Coalition armies, an Anglo-allied army and a Prussian army. Initially the French army was commanded by Napoleon Bonaparte, but he left for Paris after the French defeat at the Battle of Waterloo. Command then rested on Marshals Soult and Grouchy, who were in turn replaced by Marshal Davout, who took command at the request of the French Provisional Government. The Anglo-allied army was commanded by the Duke of Wellington and the Prussian army by Prince Blücher.
This is the complete order of battle for the four major battles of the Waterloo campaign.
The Brunswick Ducal Field-Corps, commonly known as the Black Brunswickers in English and the Schwarze Schar or Schwarze Legion in German, were a military unit in the Napoleonic Wars. The corps was raised from volunteers by German-born Frederick William, Duke of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel (1771–1815). The Duke was a harsh opponent of Napoleon Bonaparte's occupation of his native Germany. Formed in 1809 when war broke out between the First French Empire and the Austrian Empire, the corps initially comprised a mixed force, around 2,300 strong, of infantry, cavalry and later supporting artillery.
The following units and commanders fought in the Battle of Quatre Bras on 16 June 1815 at Quatre Bras in the Belgian region of Wallonia. The numbers following each unit are the approximate strengths of that unit.
James Graham (1791–1845) was an Irish non-commissioned officer (NCO) in the British Army during the Napoleonic Wars, recognised as the "bravest man in the army". Serving in the Coldstream Guards, he was commended for his gallantry during the defence of Hougoumont, at Waterloo. Graham saved the life of an officer, and his own brother, and was among the small group responsible for closing the North Gate at Hougoumont after a French attack – an act which won the Duke of Wellington's encomium. He was rewarded with a specially cast gallantry medal and an annuity. After later serving in the 12th Royal Lancers, Graham was discharged in 1830 for ill health, and died at the Royal Hospital Kilmainham in 1845.
During the Hundred Days of 1815, both the Coalition nations and the First French Empire of Napoleon Bonaparte mobilised for war. This article describes the deployment of forces in early June 1815 just before the start of the Waterloo Campaign and the minor campaigns of 1815.
Jonkheer Albert Dominicus Trip van Zoudtlandt was a Dutch lieutenant-general of cavalry who headed the Dutch heavy cavalry brigade at the Battle of Waterloo.
Willem Frederik count of Bylandt or Bijlandt was a Dutch lieutenant-general who as a major-general commanded a Belgian-Dutch infantry brigade at the Battle of Quatre Bras and the Battle of Waterloo.
Jean Victor de Constant Rebecque was a Swiss mercenary who distinguished himself in Dutch service. As chief-of-staff of the Netherlands Mobile Army he countermanded the order of the Duke of Wellington to evacuate Dutch troops from Quatre Bras on the eve of the Battle of Quatre Bras, thereby preventing Marshal Michel Ney from occupying that strategic crossroads.
Hendrik George, Count de Perponcher Sedlnitsky was a Dutch general and diplomat. He commanded the 2nd Netherlands Division at the Battle of Quatre Bras and the Battle of Waterloo.
The Waterloo campaign commenced with a pre-emptive attack by the French Army of the North under the command of Napoleon Bonaparte. The first elements of the Army of the North moved from their peacetime depots on 8 June to their rendezvous point just on the French side of the Franco-Belgian border. They launched a pre-emptive attack on the two Coalition armies that were cantoned in Belgium—the Anglo-allied army under the command of the Duke of Wellington, and a Prussian army under the command of Prince Blücher.
Van Bylandt's brigade is the nickname, used in military historiography for the 1st brigade of the 2nd Netherlands division of the Mobile Army of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands, a Dutch and Belgian infantry brigade led by Major General Willem Frederik Graaf van Bylandt which fought in the Waterloo Campaign (1815).
After the fighting at Quatre Bras the two opposing commanders Marshal Ney and the Duke of Wellington initially held their ground while they obtained information about what had happened at the larger Battle of Ligny. They received intelligence that the Prussian army under the command of Prince Blücher had been defeated by the French Army of the North under the command of Napoleon Bonaparte.
The Indies Brigade or Indian Brigade, also referred to as the Dutch Indies Brigade or Netherlands Indies Brigade, was a Dutch-Belgian military unit which took part in the Waterloo Campaign and subsequent invasion of France in 1815. It was sent to the Dutch East Indies togehter with the Commissioners-General of the Dutch East Indies after the Hundred Days to fulfill its mission as the core of the future Royal Netherlands Indies Army in October 1815.
References
- Barbero, Allesandro (2006), The Battle: A new history of Waterloo, Walker & Company.
- Boulder, Demetrius C. (2005), The Belgians at Waterloo.
- Muilwijk, Erwin (2012), 1815 – From mobilisation to war, Souvereign House Books, Bleiswijk.
- Muilwijk, Erwin (2013), Quatre Bras – Perponcher's gamble', Souvereign House Books, Bleiswijk.
- Muilwijk, Erwin (2014), Standing firm at Waterloo, Souvereign House Books, Bleiswijk.
- Op de Beeck, Johan (2013), Waterloo – De laatste 100 dagen van Napoleon, Manteau Uitgeverij.
- Pawly, Ronald (2001), Wellington's Belgian allies, Osprey Publishing.