EUCOM Battle Knowledge Centers

Waterloo was the last battle fought by Napoleon and the one which finally ended his imperial dreams. It involved the deployment of huge armies and incurred heavy losses on both sides; for those who fought in it, Dutch and Belgians, Prussians and Hanoverians as well as British and Frenchtroops, it was a murderous struggle. It was a battle that would be remembered very differently across Europe.

Presenting a history of the Napoleonic Wars, this book argues that Napoleon was the master of the broken play, so confident of his ability to improvise, cover his own mistakes, and capitalize on those of the enemy that he plunged his armies into uncertain, seemingly desperate situations, only to emerge victorious as he blundered to glory.

This is the story of the men who were there. David Howarth has re-created the battle as it appeared to them on the day it was fought-what they saw and heard, the little that they knew of what was happening, and above all, what they felt. Here both in the narrative and the unprecedented collection of sketches, paintings, and drawings, are the heat and noise, the fear and elation, the pain and sustaining hope of glory which was every man's experience that day.

Waterloo, once it was over, put an end to twenty-two years of French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, and led to over half a century of relative peace and progress in Europe. When the wars of the future did come, they were fought with infinitely more appalling methods by a constantly changing balance of powers. At Waterloo, the honor of bold, lavish uniforms and, at least initially, the aesthetic beauty of battle were still intact. Here, Andrew Roberts sets the political, strategic, and historical scene before offering an account of each successive stage of the battle.

On June 18, 1815 the armies of France, Britain and Prussia descended upon a quiet valley south of Brussels. In the previous three days, the French army had beaten the Prussians at Ligny and fought the British to a standstill at Quatre-Bras. The Allies were in retreat. The little village north of where they turned to fight the French army was called Waterloo. The blood-soaked battle to which it gave its name would become a landmark in European history.