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The Battle of Waterloo was a conflict on June 18, 1815, during the Hundred Days, the period from Napoleon’s escape from exile to the return of Louis XVIII. Fought near Waterloo village, Belgium, it pitted Napoleon's 72,000 French troops against the duke of Wellington’s army of 68,000 (British, Dutch, Belgian, and German soldiers) aided by 45,000 Prussians under Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher. Napoleon was defeated, and he was exiled for the final time.

The Battle of Waterloo marked the final defeat of Napoleon. On June 22, 1815, four days after losing the conflict, Napoleon abdicated as emperor of France for the second and last time and was later exiled to St. Helena. The defeat brought an end to the Napoleonic Wars, a series of conflicts that had resulted in 23 years of recurrent warfare between France and other European powers.

Napoleon, emperor of France, launched a series of wars that temporarily ended in 1814, when he was forced to abdicate. Exiled to Elba, he left the island and returned to Paris in March 1815. Days later Great Britain, Prussia, Austria, and Russia signed a treaty in which each vowed to maintain 150,000 men in the field until Napoleon was overthrown. Lesser battles occurred June 16, and the Battle of Waterloo was fought two days later.

Following secondary battles, the Battle of Waterloo began on June 18, 1815. Four French attacks on the allied army’s centre failed to break through, and Napoleon had to move troops to meet a flanking attack. A French unit captured a farmhouse at the centre of the allied line, but Napoleon refused to send reinforcements. After repulsing the final French assault, the duke of Wellington’s forces advanced against the French, forcing them into a disorganized retreat.

Battle of Waterloo, (June 18, 1815), Napoleon’s final defeat, ending 23 years of recurrent warfare between France and the other powers of Europe. It was fought during the Hundred Days of Napoleon’s restoration, 3 miles (5 km) south of Waterloo village (which is 9 miles [14.5 km] south of Brussels), between Napoleon’s 72,000 troops and the combined forces of the duke of Wellington’s allied army of 68,000 (with British, Dutch, Belgian, and German units) and about 45,000 Prussians, the main force of Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher’s command.

(See “Napoleon’s Major Battles” Interactive Map)

Having been exiled to the island of Elba in May 1814, Napoleon returned to France on March 1, 1815, landing near Cannes with 1,000 men. He won support from the rural peasantry as he marched toward Paris, and Louis XVIII fled the country prior to Napoleon’s arrival in the capital on March 20. In a treaty of alliance signed on March 25, Great Britain, Prussia, Austria, and Russia each vowed to maintain 150,000 men in the field until Napoleon had been overthrown. Shortly thereafter it was decided that the allied armies, comprising a total of about 794,000 troops, should assemble along the French frontier and march on Paris by convergent routes. The time needed for the Russians to reach the Rhine would delay the invasion until early July, and that allowed Napoleon the opportunity to organize his defenses. Napoleon could command over 160,000 first-line troops, but he was forced to relegate many of them to border defense. Because Louis XVIII, who had been restored to the throne upon Napoleon’s first abdication, had abolished conscription, Napoleon was not immediately able to draw on the vast number of trained men who had returned to civilian life. To address that shortfall, he quickly set about raising troops for an early campaign. All undischarged soldiers were summoned to arms, and in eight weeks 80,000 men were added to the army. At the beginning of June—too late for use in the Waterloo campaign—the conscription class of 1815 was ordered to mustering points, and Napoleon hoped to have more than 500,000 men under arms before autumn. By April 27 Napoleon had decided to attack Wellington and Blücher in the southern Netherlands (now Belgium), in the hope of defeating them before the Austrians and Russians could bring their forces to bear.

The allied campaign against Napoleon began in earnest in early June, but the armies that had assembled in Belgium were of dubious quality. Blücher’s four corps included many inexperienced conscripts among their 120,000 men. Wellington, whose forces numbered more than 93,000 before the campaign began, characterized his own army as “infamous.” Of the 31,000 British troops under his command, most had never been under fire. Many of the 29,000 Netherlanders under William, Prince of Orange (later William II), were unreliable, having served under Napoleon little more than a year before. The remainder of that polyglot army was made up of some 16,000 Hanoverians, roughly 6,800 Brunswickers, and the 6,300 men of George III’s German Legion. Only the last contingent, veterans of the Peninsular War, could be safely trusted in a crisis. Thus, the majority of the troops arrayed against Napoleon were no match for the highly enthusiastic and largely veteran French force. Wellington and Blücher had agreed to come to each other’s assistance should either be attacked, but the lack of any real preparation prior to June 15 shows that little serious attention had been given to such a possibility.