Return
Elba to Belgium.
Ligny and Quatre Bras are not optional prefaces. A one-map Waterloo is a lie.
Vienna was already meeting; the battle sealed a peace in progress.
Timeline
- Elba escape
The Hundred Days open.
- Ligny and Quatre Bras
Prussians hurt; Wellington holds a crossroads.
- Rain and retreat
Wellington to the Mont-Saint-Jean ridge; mud for the 18th.
- Late start
French guns wait on wet ground -- the famous delay.
- Hougoumont
A day-long soak of infantry.
- D'Erlon / cavalry
Failed centre; Ney's charges.
- Prussians at Plancenoit
The right-rear comes apart.
- Guard fails
The last throw; rout.
- Abdication
The political end in Paris.
- St Helena
The personal end of the imperial story.
Eras
Two battles
Ligny and Quatre Bras.
The ridge
Hougoumont to the Guard.
Rout
La Belle Alliance; pursuit.
Memory
Lion, films, re-enactors.
Milestones
Allied coalition held
Britain plus Prussia on one day.
Napoleonic wars close (English dating)
1815 as a full stop.
A proverb is born
"Waterloo" as defeat.
St Helena created a literary emperor. The ridge created a tourist industry.
English fame should not erase Leipzig 1813 or Prussian dead at Plancenoit.