The Battle of Waterloo was fought on Sunday, June 18th, 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.
Waterloo is a 1970 English-language epic historical war film about the Battle of Waterloo. A co-production between Italy and the Soviet Union, it was 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.
Napoleon Bonaparte, later known by his regnal name Napoleon I, was a French military officer and statesman who rose to prominence during the French Revolution and led a series of successful campaigns across Europe during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars from 1796 to 1815. He was the leader of the French Republic as First Consul from 1799 to 1804, then of the French Empire as Emperor of the French from 1804 to 1814, and briefly again in 1815.
The Battle of Valmy, also known as the Cannonade of Valmy, was the first major victory by the army of France during the Revolutionary Wars that followed the French Revolution. The battle took place on 20 September 1792 as Prussian troops commanded by the Duke of Brunswick attempted to march on Paris. Generals François Kellermann and Charles Dumouriez stopped the advance near the northern village of Valmy in Champagne-Ardenne.
The Hundred Days, also known as the War of the Seventh Coalition, marked the period between Napoleon's return from eleven months of exile on the island of Elba to Paris on 20 March 1815 and the second restoration of King Louis XVIII on 8 July 1815. This period saw the War of the Seventh Coalition, and includes the Waterloo Campaign and the Neapolitan War as well as several other minor campaigns. The phrase les Cent Jours was first used by the prefect of Paris, Gaspard, comte de Chabrol, in his speech welcoming the king back to Paris on 8 July.
Pierre Jacques Étienne, 1st Viscount Cambronne, was a general of the First French Empire. A main strategist of the French Revolutionary Wars and Napoleonic Wars, he was wounded at the Battle of Waterloo.
Louis-Nicolas d'Avout, better known as Davout, 1st Prince of Eckmühl, 1st Duke of Auerstaedt, was a French military commander and Marshal of the Empire who served during both the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars. His talent for war, along with his reputation as a stern disciplinarian, earned him the nickname "The Iron Marshal". He is ranked along with Marshals André Masséna and Jean Lannes as one of Napoleon's finest commanders. His loyalty and obedience to Napoleon were absolute. During his lifetime, Davout's name was commonly spelled Davoust - this spelling appears on the Arc de Triomphe and in much of the correspondence between Napoleon and his generals.
Emmanuel de Grouchy, marquis de Grouchy was a French military leader who served during the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars. He was the last Marshal of the Empire to be created by Napoleon, and is best known for his actions during the Waterloo campaign.
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 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 had been 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 Field Marshall Graf von Blücher.
Charles Angélique François Huchet, Comte de la Bédoyère was a French General during the reign of Emperor Napoleon I. He was executed in 1815.
The Battle of Stockach occurred on 25 March 1799, when French and Austrian armies fought for control of the geographically strategic Hegau region in present-day Baden-Württemberg. In the broader military context, this battle constitutes a keystone in the first campaign in southwestern Germany during the Wars of the Second Coalition, part of the French Revolutionary Wars.
James Graham was an Irish non-commissioned officer (NCO) in the British Army during the Napoleonic Wars, recognised as the "bravest man in the army" by the Duke of Wellington. 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.
The Army of Helvetia, or, was a command of the French Revolutionary Army. It was formed on 8 March 1798 from the remnants of the first unit to be known as the Army of the Rhine. It was officially merged into the command structure of the Army of the Danube on 29 April 1799, although it continued to operate in the Swiss theater until 1801. The Army's initial campaigning in the old Swiss Confederation resulted in severe setbacks and defeats at Feldkirch, Lusiensteig, and Zurich.
The Battle of Ostrach, also called the Battle by Ostrach, occurred on 20–21 March 1799. It was the first non-Italy-based battle of the War of the Second Coalition. The battle resulted in the victory of the Austrian forces, under the command of Archduke Charles, over the French forces, commanded by Jean-Baptiste Jourdan.
Friedrich Freiherr (Baron) von Hotze, was a Swiss-born general in the Austrian army during the French Revolutionary Wars. He campaigned in the Rhineland during the War of the First Coalition and in Switzerland in the War of the Second Coalition, notably at Battle of Winterthur in late May 1799, and the First Battle of Zurich in early June 1799. He was killed at the Battle of Linth River.
Manuel Louis Jean Augustin Ernouf was a French general and colonial administrator of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars. He demonstrated moderate abilities as a combat commander; his real strength lay in his organizational and logistical talents. He held several posts as chief-of-staff and in military administration.
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).
Château de Chastellux is a French castle with elements from the eleventh, thirteenth, fifteenth and nineteenth centuries. It is located in Chastellux-sur-Cure in the Yonne, Bourgogne-Franche-Comté.
The Champ de Mai was a public assembly held by Napoleon on the Champ de Mars, Paris, a large open area near the École militaire, on 1 June 1815. This was during the Hundred Days, the period between Napoleon's return from exile and the restoration of the Bourbon kings following his failed Waterloo campaign. The objective of the Champ de Mai was to gather public support behind Napoleon's Charter of 1815, a constitutional reform that promised a more liberal government than under his earlier rule. The Charter was put to the citizens in a constitutional referendum and the results of this would be announced during the ceremony by representatives of the electoral college.
