Battle of Waterloo (1815): Guard fails
[386] [desk-waterloo-5] Battle of Waterloo is the record of 1815 under “Guard fails.” The figure to read with it is 06. Do not arrange states in a league. Fix who moved what, and where, to that year. Do not add a later war into the same total. Use VS / compare tools for neighbours.
A ridge, a delay, and an ally who arrived Waterloo is a British national day that was an allied day -- and a French catastrophe that Vienna then locked in. Elba, the 7th Coalition, and Napoleon's strike into Belgium to smash Wellington and Blucher apart. Ligny hurt the Prussians; it did not destroy them.
Grouchy's chase of Blucher is the French what-if that never dies. Hougoumont soaked men. D'Erlon's attack failed. Ney's cavalry charged squares without enough horse artillery. The Imperial Guard's late attack broke. Prussian pressure at Plancenoit decided the French right while the ridge still held.
The rout unhooked the army. Paris could not be a second 1814. St Helena followed. Vienna's final act had its battlefield seal. Casualties on the ridge became a tourist industry within a generation. British: Wellington and the squares. Prussian: Blucher's march. French: mud, Grouchy, and betrayal. All three are in the sources; none is the whole ridge.
Say Battle of Waterloo with 1815, “Guard fails,” and 06. The figure is not a national score.1815
Figures to keep
- Year of the action
- 1815
- Figure in the record
- 06
- Action
- Battle of Waterloo
- Line of the front
- Guard fails
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