Waterloo Day | |
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Observed by | regiments of the British Army |
Date | 18 June |
Next time | 18 June 2024 |
Frequency | annual |
Waterloo Day is 18 June, the date of the Battle of Waterloo, in 1815. It is remembered and celebrated each year by certain regiments of the British Army, [1] in the same way that the Royal Navy celebrates Trafalgar Day (21 October).
The Battle of Waterloo was fought on Sunday 18 June 1815, near Waterloo, marking the end of the Napoleonic Wars. A French army under the command of Napoleon 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 the 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 or La Belle Alliance in Prussia.
Field Marshal Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, was an Anglo-Irish statesman, soldier, and Tory politician who was one of the leading military and political figures of 19th-century Britain, serving twice as prime minister of the United Kingdom. He is among the commanders who won and ended the Napoleonic Wars when the Seventh Coalition defeated Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815.
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.
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.
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 Napoleonic era is a period in the history of France and Europe. It is generally classified as including the fourth and final stage of the French Revolution, the first being the National Assembly, the second being the Legislative Assembly, and the third being the Directory. The Napoleonic era begins roughly with Napoleon Bonaparte's coup d'état, overthrowing the Directory, establishing the French Consulate, and ends during the Hundred Days and his defeat at the Battle of Waterloo. The Congress of Vienna soon set out to restore Europe to pre-French Revolution days. Napoleon brought political stability to a land torn by revolution and war. He made peace with the Roman Catholic Church and reversed the most radical religious policies of the Convention. In 1804 Napoleon promulgated the Civil Code, a revised body of civil law, which also helped stabilize French society. The Civil Code affirmed the political and legal equality of all adult men and established a merit-based society in which individuals advanced in education and employment because of talent rather than birth or social standing. The Civil Code confirmed many of the moderate revolutionary policies of the National Assembly but retracted measures passed by the more radical Convention. The code restored patriarchal authority in the family, for example, by making women and children subservient to male heads of households.
The King's German Legion was a British Army unit of mostly expatriated German personnel during the period 1803–16. The legion achieved the distinction of being the only German force to fight without interruption against the French during the Napoleonic Wars.
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 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.
This is the complete order of battle for the four major battles of the Waterloo campaign.
Colonel Sir William Howe De Lancey was an officer in the British Army during the Napoleonic Wars. He died of wounds he received at the Battle of Waterloo.
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" 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 Waterloo Medal is a military decoration that was conferred upon every officer, non-commissioned officer and soldier of the British Army who took part in one or more of the following battles: Ligny, Quatre Bras and Waterloo.
Alexander Cavalié Mercer was a British artillery officer. Although he rose to the rank of general, his fame is as commander of G Troop Royal Horse Artillery in the thick of the fighting at the Battle of Waterloo, and as author of Journal of the Waterloo Campaign.
The Battle of Rocheserviere was fought at Rocheservière on the 20 June 1815, between Vendéan Royalists, who had remained loyal to King Louis XVIII during the Hundred Days, and Napoleon's Army of the West, commanded by General Jean Maximilien Lamarque. The battle ended with the defeat of the Royalist forces. Five days later the Treaty of Cholet was signed, ending the hostilities.
William II was King of the Netherlands, Grand Duke of Luxembourg, and Duke of Limburg.
Hendrik Detmers, was a Dutch general who played an important part in the Battle of Waterloo as a colonel, commanding a brigade.
The Invasion of Guadeloupe was the last conflict between French and British forces during the Napoleonic Wars, and took place after Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo.