Napoleon
Lost his last set-piece and his throne. The mud-and-Grouchy explanations began in his own circle.
Day
3
End
3
Earlier
3
Wellington and Napoleon are the paired portraits. Blucher is the necessary third. Ney is the tragic extra.
Lady Butler's paintings taught more Britons than Clausewitz did.
People
Wellington
Held the ridge and later the British political right. "Nearest-run thing" is his caption.
Army
3
Phrase
3
Later
3
Blucher
Seventy-two, thrown at Ligny, arrived anyway -- the necessary ally.
Age
3
March
3
Role
3
Michel Ney
The cavalry charges and a later execution (1815) made him a romantic ruin.
Role
3
After
3
Myth
3
Emmanuel de Grouchy
The scapegoat of the missing Prussian chase -- a historiography of blame.
Task
3
Debate
3
After
3
William of Orange
Wounded on the ridge; Dutch-Belgian troops' commander in the allied structure.
Role
3
Wound
3
Later
3
Henry Paget, Lord Uxbridge
Lost a leg to a cannon shot -- the English anecdote ("By God, sir, I've lost my leg") as memory.
Wound
3
Role
3
Anecdote
3
Gebhard's staff -- Gneisenau
Gneisenau kept the army pointed at Wellington after Ligny -- the professional half of Blucher's legend.
Role
3
After Ligny
3
Later
3
Debate
Could Napoleon have won before Blucher arrived?
The live counterfactual; most serious answers still need a different morning and a different Ney.
Whose victory is it?
British popular memory vs Prussian historiography -- a settled "both" that popular culture still resists.
The lion mound is an icon that damaged the ridge it marks.
ABBA's song is a memory artefact -- say so when it crowds out Plancenoit.