Battle of Waterloo (1815): Elba escape
[33] [waterloo-0-33] On a timeline, write the date and place of Battle of Waterloo before any adjective of victory. Year 1815, line “Elba escape,” figure 03. Do not read the dead as points. Waterloo was fought on 18 June 1815 on a shallow ridge south of Brussels, after Napoleon's escape from Elba and the 16 June battles at Ligny and Quatre Bras. Wellington's Anglo-Allied army held the ridge; Bluch
The battle closed the Napoleonic Wars in the English schoolroom more than Leipzig had. Belgian tourism, British "nearest-run thing" prose, and Prussian insistence on being in the picture are the memory war that never ended. For this atlas it is the low-scale, high-memory end of an era -- and a rhyme with later "one-day" myths (Midway, Tsushima) that should not be equated.
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 timeline keeps year, place, and what moved. If “Elba escape” is the movement, the figure is 03 and the year is 1815.1815
Figures to keep
- Year of the action
- 1815
- Figure in the record
- 03
- Action
- Battle of Waterloo
- Line of the front
- Elba escape