The Battle of Waterloo was fought on 18 June 1815 in present-day Belgium between the French army under Napoleon Bonaparte and the allied forces commanded by the Duke of Wellington, supported later in the day by the Prussian army under Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher. Napoleon’s defeat ended his attempt to regain power in Europe and brought the Napoleonic Wars to a final conclusion.
Background
The Battle of Waterloo was the decisive engagement of the Hundred Days, the brief period in 1815 during which Napoleon returned to power after his exile.
Napoleon had dominated much of Europe during the early nineteenth century. His armies had defeated numerous European coalitions and conquered or controlled large parts of the continent.
However, his invasion of Russia in 1812 ended disastrously.
The French army suffered enormous losses during the campaign and retreat. Napoleon’s enemies took advantage of the weakened French military position.
In 1813, French forces were defeated at the Battle of Leipzig, often called the Battle of Nations.
In early 1814, Allied armies invaded France.
Napoleon was eventually forced to abdicate and was exiled to the Mediterranean island of Elba.
The Bourbon monarchy was restored under Louis XVIII.
Napoleon’s exile, however, did not last long.
On 1 March 1815, Napoleon landed in southern France with a small group of followers.
Rather than arresting him, many French soldiers joined his cause.
Napoleon entered Paris on 20 March 1815.
Louis XVIII fled.
Napoleon had returned to power.
The European powers immediately declared him an outlaw and began preparing another coalition against France.
Austria, Russia, Prussia, and Britain were among the major powers committed to defeating him.
Napoleon understood that he could not afford to wait for the coalition armies to combine.
His strategy was to move rapidly into Belgium and defeat the British-led Allied army and the Prussian army separately before they could unite.
The main Allied army in Belgium was commanded by Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington.
The Prussian army was commanded by Gebhard von Blücher.
Napoleon believed that if he could destroy either army before the other arrived, he could potentially force the coalition to negotiate.
On 15 June 1815, French forces crossed into Belgium.
Napoleon’s army moved rapidly and caught the Allied and Prussian armies before they had fully concentrated.
The first major clashes occurred at Quatre Bras and Ligny on 16 June.
At Ligny, Napoleon defeated the Prussian army.
However, the Prussians were not destroyed.
Blücher’s forces withdrew northward but remained capable of fighting.
At Quatre Bras, Wellington’s forces managed to hold their position against French attacks.
The French had therefore failed to achieve the complete separation and destruction of the Allied armies that Napoleon had hoped for.
The armies began maneuvering toward a decisive confrontation.
Wellington selected a defensive position south of Brussels, near the village of Waterloo.
The location consisted of a long ridge running roughly east-west.
The ridge provided the Allied army with a strong defensive position.
Several farms and buildings, including Hougoumont, La Haye Sainte, and Papelotte, served as important strongpoints.
Napoleon planned to attack the Allied army and defeat Wellington before the Prussians could arrive.
The fate of his empire would depend on the outcome.
The Battle
The French army reached the Allied position during the morning of 18 June.
The battlefield was wet because of heavy rain during the previous night.
Napoleon delayed the main attack until later in the morning, partly because he wanted the ground to dry enough for his artillery and cavalry.
The Allied army occupied the ridge.
Wellington placed his troops behind the crest, keeping much of the infantry protected from direct artillery fire.
The French began with an artillery bombardment.
Napoleon then ordered an attack against the Allied position around Hougoumont on the Allied right.
The fighting around the farm quickly became intense.
French troops attempted repeatedly to capture the complex, but British and Allied defenders held it throughout the battle.
Although the French never succeeded in taking Hougoumont, the fighting consumed substantial French forces.
Napoleon then launched a major infantry assault against the Allied center-left.
French infantry advanced up the slope toward Wellington’s position.
The Allied troops initially appeared vulnerable.
However, Wellington’s infantry formed disciplined defensive squares and lines.
The French attack struggled to break through.
The battle then became a series of assaults against different sections of the Allied line.
One of the most important positions was La Haye Sainte, a fortified farm near the center of the battlefield.
German troops of the King’s German Legion defended the farm.
The French repeatedly attacked it.
The defenders resisted for much of the day but eventually ran out of ammunition and were forced to withdraw.
The capture of La Haye Sainte gave the French an important position close to the Allied center.
However, the Allied army remained intact.
Napoleon also faced another problem.
The Prussian army was approaching.
After their defeat at Ligny, Blücher had promised Wellington that he would bring his army to the battlefield as quickly as possible.
Napoleon initially believed the Prussians were retreating away from the battlefield.
They were not.
By the afternoon, Prussian troops began appearing on the French right flank.
The arrival of the Prussians changed the strategic situation.
Napoleon had to divert increasingly large numbers of troops to face them.
He sent Marshal Emmanuel de Grouchy with approximately 30,000 French soldiers to pursue the Prussians after Ligny.
Grouchy failed to prevent Blücher from reaching Waterloo.
Historians continue to debate the precise reasons for this failure, including communications, orders, terrain, and the decisions made by Grouchy and Napoleon.
Whatever the reasons, the result was decisive.
The Prussian army arrived.
Napoleon now had to fight Wellington’s army in front while facing an expanding Prussian force on his right.
Later in the afternoon, Napoleon ordered one of the most famous cavalry attacks of the battle.
French cavalry under Marshal Michel Ney charged the Allied positions.
The cavalry attacks were extremely powerful but failed to break the Allied army.
The Allied infantry formed squares.
These formations presented dense walls of bayonets and disciplined musket fire.
French cavalry repeatedly charged the squares but could not destroy them.
Without sufficient infantry and artillery support, the cavalry attacks eventually failed.
The French then renewed their attacks against the Allied center.
By the evening, Napoleon decided that the moment had arrived for a final assault.
He committed the Imperial Guard, the elite formation of the French army.
The Imperial Guard had developed a legendary reputation during Napoleon’s campaigns.
Its appearance on the battlefield was intended to deliver the decisive blow.
Several battalions of the Guard advanced toward Wellington’s position.
The Allied troops initially fell back.
Then the French Guard encountered intense resistance.
British and Allied infantry opened fire at close range.
The Guard’s advance stalled.
Some units were forced back.
A famous phrase later became associated with the moment:
“The Guard dies, but does not surrender.”
However, the historical accuracy of this exact quotation is uncertain.
What is clear is that the Imperial Guard’s attack failed.
When Allied troops saw the French elite units retreating, they advanced.
At the same time, the Prussian army was attacking the French right and rear.
The French army began to collapse.
Napoleon’s final reserves could no longer restore the situation.
The defeat became a rout.
French soldiers fled southward while Allied and Prussian troops pursued them.
Napoleon left the battlefield.
The battle was over.
Aftermath
The Battle of Waterloo was a decisive Allied victory.
French losses were approximately 25,000–30,000 killed, wounded, or missing, while the Allied and Prussian armies suffered roughly 22,000–24,000 casualties.
The exact numbers vary depending on the sources and definitions used.
More important than the casualties was the political consequence.
Napoleon’s return to power had failed.
After the defeat, he returned to Paris and abdicated for the second time on 22 June 1815.
He initially hoped to escape to the United States but instead surrendered to the British.
The British government exiled him to the remote island of Saint Helena in the South Atlantic.
Napoleon remained there until his death in 1821.
The Bourbon monarchy was restored in France.
The European powers then reorganized the political order of Europe.
The Congress of Vienna, which had begun before Napoleon’s final campaign, established a new balance of power intended to prevent another French attempt to dominate Europe.
France was required to accept territorial and political consequences, although the victorious powers ultimately avoided permanently destroying the French state.
Waterloo therefore ended more than a single military campaign.
It marked the end of the period in which Napoleon had dominated European politics.
Historical Significance
The Battle of Waterloo became one of the most famous battles in European history.
Napoleon had returned from exile with remarkable speed and once again demonstrated his ability to organize and command a powerful army.
However, Waterloo showed the limitations of his strategy.
His initial plan had been based on defeating the coalition armies separately.
At Ligny, he defeated the Prussians but failed to destroy them.
At Quatre Bras, the Allied army remained intact.
At Waterloo, Wellington’s defensive position and Blücher’s arrival transformed the battle into a two-front struggle that Napoleon could not win.
The battlefield itself also played an important role.
Wellington used the ridge to protect much of his infantry from French artillery.
The fortified farms of Hougoumont and La Haye Sainte became defensive anchors that absorbed repeated French attacks.
The arrival of the Prussians was ultimately decisive.
Their presence prevented Napoleon from concentrating his entire army against Wellington.
Waterloo is also remembered for the role of leadership.
Wellington maintained a defensive strategy and relied on discipline and coordinated Allied resistance.
Blücher demonstrated remarkable determination by bringing his army to Waterloo despite its earlier defeat at Ligny.
Napoleon, meanwhile, faced increasing difficulty coordinating his subordinate commanders as the battle developed.
The failure of the French cavalry attacks and the unsuccessful assault of the Imperial Guard left Napoleon without an effective reserve.
The battle therefore demonstrates the importance of coordination, reserves, logistics, terrain, and timing in large-scale warfare.
Waterloo also had enormous symbolic significance.
For much of Europe, it represented the final defeat of Napoleon and the end of an era of revolutionary and imperial warfare.
The phrase “meeting one’s Waterloo” subsequently entered the English language as a metaphor for suffering a decisive and final defeat.
The battle’s importance extends beyond its immediate military outcome.
After Waterloo, Europe entered a period of relative great-power stability that lasted for several decades.
The political settlement created after Napoleon’s defeat was not permanent, and Europe would experience new wars and revolutions.
Nevertheless, the defeat at Waterloo ended Napoleon’s attempt to restore his empire and established the political framework of post-Napoleonic Europe.
The Battle of Waterloo therefore remains one of history’s clearest examples of how a single military defeat can bring an entire political era to an end.
Sources
Primary Sources
Wellington, Arthur.
The Dispatches of Field Marshal the Duke of Wellington
.
Napoleon Bonaparte. Correspondence and military orders from the Waterloo campaign.
Siborne, William.
History of the War in France and Belgium in 1815
.
Müffling, Karl von.
Passages from My Life
.
The Waterloo Despatch
, 19 June 1815.
Modern Scholarship
Barbero, Alessandro.
The Battle: A New History of Waterloo
. Walker & Company, 2005.
Hofschröer, Peter.
1815: The Waterloo Campaign
. Greenhill Books, 1999.
Roberts, Andrew.
Waterloo: Napoleon’s Last Gamble
. Viking, 2005.
Chandler, David G.
The Campaigns of Napoleon
. Scribner, 1966.
Adkin, Mark.
The Waterloo Companion
. Aurum Press, 2001.
Keegan, John.
The Face of Battle
. Viking Press, 1976.