Waterloo Battlefield, Waterloo, Belgium. Sept 2016 Wikipeadia below: The Battle of Waterloo was fought on Sunday, 18 June 1815
Waterloo Battlefield, Waterloo, Belgium. Sept 2016 Wikipeadia below: The Battle of Waterloo was fought on Sunday, 18 June 1815, near Waterloo in present-day Belgium, then part of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands. A French army under the command of Napoleon Bonaparte was defeated by two of the armies of the Seventh Coalition: an Anglo-led Allied army under the command of the Duke of Wellington, and a Prussian army under the command of Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher, Prince of Wahlstatt. Upon Napoleon's return to power in March 1815, many states that had opposed him formed the Seventh Coalition, and began to mobilize armies. Wellington and Blücher's armies were cantoned close to the north-eastern border of France. Napoleon chose to attack them in the hope of destroying them before they could join in a coordinated invasion of France with other members of the coalition. Napoleon successfully attacked the Prussians at the Battle of Ligny, while at the same time attacking the British at the Battle of Quatre Bras. Despite holding his ground at Quatre Bras, the defeat of the Prussians forced Wellington to withdraw to Waterloo. Napoleon sent a third of his forces to pursue the Prussians, who had withdrawn parallel to Wellington. This resulted in the separate and simultaneous Battle of Wavre with the Prussian rear-guard. Upon learning that the Prussian army was able to support him, Wellington decided to offer battle on the Mont-Saint-Jean escarpment, across the Brussels road. Here he withstood repeated attacks by the French throughout the afternoon, aided by the progressively arriving Prussians. In the evening Napoleon committed his last reserves to a desperate final attack, which was narrowly beaten back. With the Prussians breaking through on the French right flank Wellington's Anglo-allied army counter-attacked in the centre, and the French army was routed. Waterloo was the decisive engagement of the Waterloo Campaign and Napoleon's last. According to Wellington,
Size: 7360px × 4912px
Location: Waterloo Battlefield Belgium
Photo credit: © BRIAN HARRIS / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: 1815, battle, battlefield, blücher, bonaparte, bras, brian, butte, de, duke, farm, gebhard, harris, haye, hougoumont, la, leberecht, lion, napoleon, prussian, quatre, sainte, von, waterloo, wellington
