The Battle of Waterloo was fought on Sunday 18 June 1815, near Waterloo, marking the end of the Napoleonic Wars. The French Imperial Army under the command of Napoleon I was defeated by two armies of the Seventh Coalition. One of these was a British-led force with units from the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Hanover, Brunswick, and Nassau, under the command of field marshal Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington. The other comprised three corps of the Prussian army under Field Marshal Blücher; a fourth corps of this army fought at the Battle of Wavre on the same day. The battle was known contemporarily as the Battle of Mont Saint-Jean in France and La Belle Alliance in Prussia.
Combined arms is an approach to warfare that seeks to integrate different combat arms of a military to achieve mutually complementary effects—for example, using infantry and armour in an urban environment in which each supports the other.
The Battle of Leipzig, also known as the Battle of the Nations, was fought from 16 to 19 October 1813 at Leipzig, Saxony. The Coalition armies of Austria, Prussia, Sweden, and Russia, led by Tsar Alexander I and Karl von Schwarzenberg, decisively defeated the Grande Armée of French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte. Napoleon's army also contained Polish and Italian troops, as well as Germans from the Confederation of the Rhine. The battle was the culmination of the German Campaign of 1813 and involved 560,000 soldiers, 2,200 artillery pieces, the expenditure of 400,000 rounds of artillery ammunition, and 133,000 casualties, making it the largest battle of the Napoleonic Wars, and the largest battle in Europe prior to World War I.
The Battle of Rivoli was a key military engagement during the War of the First Coalition near the village of Rivoli, then part of the Republic of Venice. In the climax of the Italian campaign of 1796-1797, the outnumbered French Army of Italy commanded by General Napoleon Bonaparte decisively defeated the attacking Austrian army commanded by General of the Artillery Jozsef Alvinczi, who was attempting to march south in a fourth and final attempt to relieve the siege of Mantua. The French victory at Rivoli further demonstrated Bonaparte's capability and deftness as a military commander, and led to the Austrian surrender of Mantua in February, French consolidation of northern Italy, and ultimately France's victory over Austria in the war later that year.
A frontal assault is a military tactic which involves a direct, full-force attack on the front line of an enemy force, rather than to the flanks or rear of the enemy. It allows for a quick and decisive victory, but at the cost of subjecting the attackers to the maximum defensive power of the enemy; this can make frontal assaults costly even if successful, and often disastrously costly if unsuccessful. It may be used as a last resort when time, terrain, limited command control, or low troop quality do not allow for any battlefield flexibility. The risks of a frontal assault can be mitigated by the use of heavy supporting fire, diversionary attacks, the use of cover, or infiltration tactics.
Michel Ney, 1st Prince de la Moskowa, 1st Duke of Elchingen, was a French military commander and Marshal of the Empire who fought in the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars.
La Haye Sainte is a walled farmhouse compound at the foot of an escarpment near Waterloo, Belgium, on the N5 road connecting Brussels and Charleroi. It has changed very little since it played a crucial part in the Battle of Waterloo on 18 June 1815.
The Grande Armée was the main military component of the French Imperial Army commanded by Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte during the Napoleonic Wars. From 1804 to 1808, it won a series of military victories that allowed the French Empire to exercise unprecedented control over most of Europe. Widely acknowledged to be one of the greatest fighting forces ever assembled, it suffered catastophic losses during the disastrous Peninsular War followed by the invasion of Russia in 1812, after which it never recovered its strategic superiority and ended in total defeat for Napoleonic France by the Peace of Paris in 1815.
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.
Canister shot is a kind of anti-personnel artillery ammunition. It has been used since the advent of gunpowder-firing artillery in Western armies, and saw particularly frequent use on land and at sea in the various wars of the 18th and 19th century. Canister is still used today in modern artillery.
Horse artillery was a type of light, fast-moving, and fast-firing field artillery that consisted of light cannons or howitzers attached to light but sturdy two-wheeled carriages called caissons or limbers, with the individual crewmen riding on horses. This was in contrast to other forms of field artillery which may also be horse-drawn but were heavier and whose gunners either marched on foot or were transported seated on the gun carriage, wagons or limbers. Horse artillery units provided highly mobile fire support especially to cavalry units, and existed in armies in Europe, the Americas, and Asia, from the early 17th to the mid-20th century.
A military column is a formation of soldiers marching together in one or more files in which the file is significantly longer than the width of ranks in the formation. The column formation allows the unit rapid movement and a very effective charge, and it can quickly form square to resist cavalry attacks, but by its nature only a fraction of its muskets are able to open fire.
The Coalition forces of the Napoleonic Wars were composed of Napoleon Bonaparte's enemies: the United Kingdom, the Austrian Empire, Kingdom of Prussia, Kingdom of Spain, Kingdom of Naples, Kingdom of Sicily, Kingdom of Sardinia, Dutch Republic, Russian Empire, the Ottoman Empire, Kingdom of Portugal, Kingdom of Sweden, and various German and Italian states at differing times in the wars. At their height, the Coalition could field formidable combined forces of about 1,740,000 strong. This outnumbered the 1.1 million French soldiers. The breakdown of the more active armies are: Austria, 570,000; Britain, 250,000; Prussia, 300,000; and Russia, 600,000.
A reverse slope defence is a military tactic where a defending force is positioned on the slope of an elevated terrain feature such as a hill, ridge, or mountain, on the side opposite from the attacking force. This tactic both hinders the attacker's ability to observe the defender's positions and reduces the effectiveness of the attacker's long-range weapons such as tanks and artillery.
In military usage, a barrage is massed sustained artillery fire (shelling) aimed at a series of points along a line. In addition to attacking any enemy in the kill zone, a barrage intends to suppress enemy movements and deny access across that line of barrage. The impact points along the line may be 20 to 30 yards apart, with the total line length of the barrage zone anything from a few hundred to several thousand yards long. Barrages can consist of multiple such lines, usually about 100 yards apart, with the barrage shifting from one line to the next over time, or several lines may be targeted simultaneously.
Napoleon I, Emperor of the French, is recognized as the greatest early modern warfare commander in military history. His main strategy was focusing on one part of the enemy, quickly defeating them, and continuing onward. His success was made possible not only by his ambition, but also through the dynamic composition of his army. Napoleon would see his equipment being gained through provisional control of the armories of France, thus allowing the weapons direct control by government.
General Alexander Cavalié Mercer was a British Army officer of the Royal Horse Artillery. He is most notable as commander of G Troop Royal Horse Artillery at the Battle of Waterloo, and as author of Journal of the Waterloo Campaign.
Horses were widely used during the Napoleonic Wars for combat, patrol and reconnaissance, and for logistical support. Vast numbers were used throughout the wars. During the War of the Sixth Coalition, depletion of the French cavalry arm through attrition and loss of horse-producing allies to provide remounts contributed significantly to the gradual French defeat and downfall of the French Empire. During the Waterloo Campaign, the Armée du Nord had 47,000 horses: 25,000 cavalry, 12,000 for artillery, 10,000 for infantry and supply columns.
Napoleonic tactics describe certain battlefield principles used by national armies from the late 18th century until the invention and adoption of the rifled musket in the mid 19th century. Napoleonic tactics are characterised by intense drilling of soldiers; speedy battlefield movement; combined arms assaults between infantry, cavalry, and artillery; relatively small numbers of cannons; short-range musket fire; and bayonet charges. French Emperor Napoleon I is considered by military historians to have been a master of this particular form of warfare. Military powers would continue to employ such tactics even as technological advancements during the industrial revolutions gradually rendered them impractically obsolete, leading to devastating losses of life in the American Civil War, the Franco-Prussian War, and World War I.
The French Imperial Army was the land force branch of the French imperial military during the Napoleonic era.
