Posted on 06/18/2006 5:21:11 AM PDT by mainepatsfan
This Day In History | General Interest
NAPOLEON DEFEATED AT WATERLOO: June 18, 1815
At Waterloo in Belgium, Napoleon Bonaparte suffers defeat at the hands of the Duke of Wellington, bringing an end to the Napoleonic era of European history.
Beginning in 1812, Napoleon began to encounter the first significant defeats of his military career, suffering through a disastrous invasion of Russia, losing Spain to the Duke of Wellington in the Peninsula War, and enduring total defeat against an allied force by 1814. Exiled to the island of Elba in the Mediterranean, he escaped to France in early 1815 and set up a new regime. As allied troops mustered on the French frontiers, he raised a new Grand Army and marched into Belgium. He intended to defeat the allied armies one by one before they could launch a united attack.
On June 16, 1815, he defeated the Prussians under Gebhard Leberecht von Blucher at Ligny, and sent 33,000 men, or about one-third of his total force, in pursuit of the retreating Prussians. On June 18, Napoleon led his remaining 72,000 troops against the Duke of Wellington's 68,000-man allied army, which had taken up a strong position 12 miles south of Brussels near the village of Waterloo. In a fatal blunder, Napoleon waited until mid-day to give the command to attack in order to let the ground dry. The delay in fighting gave Blucher's troops, who had eluded their pursuers, time to march to Waterloo and join the battle by the late afternoon.
In repeated attacks, Napoleon failed to break the center of the allied center. Meanwhile, the Prussians gradually arrived and put pressure on Napoleon's eastern flank.
(Excerpt) Read more at historychannel.com ...
Napoleon was the man to put mass infantries on the battlefield. Thjis kind of warfare led to the huget slaughters of 18th and 20th century wars. The Iraq war may signal a turn away from that method. Hopefully, also Bush foreign policy turns us away from the "realist" foreign policy that supported the status quo from the Congress of Vienna until 9/11.
From Victor Hugo -Les Miserables
Volume II Book First.--Waterloo
Chapter IX. The Unexpected:
"Odd numerical coincidence,--twenty-six battalions rode to meet twenty-six battalions. Behind the crest of the plateau, in the shadow of the masked battery, the English infantry, formed into thirteen squares, two battalions to the square, in two lines, with seven in the first line, six in the second, the stocks of their guns to their shoulders, taking aim at that which was on the point of appearing, waited, calm, mute, motionless. They did not see the cuirassiers, and the cuirassiers did not see them. They listened to the rise of this flood of men. They heard the swelling noise of three thousand horse, the alternate and symmetrical tramp of their hoofs at full trot, the jingling of the cuirasses, the clang of the sabres and a sort of grand and savage breathing. There ensued a most terrible silence; then, all at once, a long file of uplifted arms, brandishing sabres, appeared above the crest, and casques, trumpets, and standards, and three thousand heads with gray mustaches, shouting, "Vive l'Empereur!" All this cavalry debouched on the plateau, and it was like the appearance of an earthquake.
All at once, a tragic incident; on the English left, on our right, the head of the column of cuirassiers reared up with a frightful clamor. On arriving at the culminating point of the crest, ungovernable, utterly given over to fury and their course of extermination of the squares and cannon, the cuirassiers had just caught sight of a trench,-- a trench between them and the English. It was the hollow road of Ohain.
It was a terrible moment. The ravine was there, unexpected, yawning, directly under the horses' feet, two fathoms deep between its double slopes; the second file pushed the first into it, and the third pushed on the second; the horses reared and fell backward, landed on their haunches, slid down, all four feet in the air, crushing and overwhelming the riders; and there being no means of retreat,-- the whole column being no longer anything more than a projectile,-- the force which had been acquired to crush the English crushed the French; the inexorable ravine could only yield when filled; horses and riders rolled there pell-mell, grinding each other, forming but one mass of flesh in this gulf: when this trench was full of living men, the rest marched over them and passed on. Almost a third of Dubois's brigade fell into that abyss.
This began the loss of the battle."
This is specifically why there were so many casualties during the War Between the States. The generals at that time studied, and used, Napoleonic battle strategies. The problem was, the firearms were revolutionized at the same time, and produced terrible carnage at close range.
Waterloo Waterloo where will you meet your Waterloo
Every puppy has his day everybody has to pay everybody has to meet his Waterloo
Now ol' Adam was the first in history with an apple he was tempted and deceived
Just for spite the devil made him take a bite
And that's where ol' Adam met his Waterloo
Waterloo Waterloo...
[ ac.guitar ]
Little General Napoleon of France tried to conquer the world but lost his pants
Met defeat known as Bonaparte's reterat
And that's where Napoleon met his Waterloo
Waterloo Waterloo...
Waterloo Waterloo...
Painting kind of sums it up doesn't it?
ABBA!!!!
My my, I tried to hold you back but you were stronger
Oh yeah, and now it seems my only hope is giving up the fight
And how could I ever refuse
I feel like I win when I lose
Waterloo - I was defeated, you won the war
Waterloo - Promise to love you for ever more
Waterloo - Couldn't escape if I wanted to
Waterloo - Knowing my fate is to be with you
Waterloo - Finally facing my Waterloo
This is considered to be one of the finest graphs ever produced-it shows six different data elements, all of which are critical to the big picture, in a way that allows you to grasp it completly at a glance!
La Haye Saint Bump.
Leni
He was fighting a losing war after that.
Actually, the size of militaries has been on a steady decline since Korea worldwide, and the numbers of deaths due to "war, terrorism, and conflict" as measured by the (get this) STOCKHOLM PEACE INSTITUTE has declined sharply since . . . the U. S. became the world's sole superpower in the early 1990s.
Well, I guess...:)
The most horrible thing must have been when that straggling band of survivors went north on the return journey to connect up the the contingent that had been left there as the army went eastward.
Can you imagine seeing the rememants of that once powerful army stagger in your encampment?
That is remarkable. I'm copying it for use in my "Stirrups to Star Wars Class."
It probably wasn't good for morale.
The Romans did it before him. As did the Magyars, the Egyptians, and the Mongolians, to name a few.
He looks like a Kennedy in that picture!
I almost spit on my keyboard for "Understatement of the Year"...!
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