Battle of Waterloo

Date

18 June 1815

Category

Military & conflict

Region

Belgium (Waterloo)

Era

Modern

Significance

On 18 June 1815, near the village of Waterloo in present-day Belgium, Napoleon's bid to reclaim power during the Hundred Days came to a decisive end. Having escaped exile on Elba and returned to rule France in March 1815, he marched against the Coalition forces gathering in the Low Countries.

There an Anglo-allied army of British, Dutch, Belgian and German troops under the Duke of Wellington withstood repeated French assaults through a long day of fighting until the timely arrival of Field Marshal Blücher's Prussians turned the battle into a rout. The defeat shattered Napoleon's army and his imperial ambitions forever. He abdicated for a second time on 22 June and was exiled to the remote South Atlantic island of Saint Helena, where he died in 1821. Waterloo ended twenty-three years of nearly continuous warfare between France and the other European powers, secured the settlement reached at the Congress of Vienna, and ushered in a long period of relative peace across Europe.

Empires active in 18 June 1815

• Russian Empire
  1721 CE to 1917 CE
• British Empire
  1583 CE to 1997 CE
• Qing Dynasty
  1636 CE to 1912 CE
• Spanish Empire
  1492 CE to 1976 CE
• Portuguese Empire
  1415 CE to 1999 CE
• Mughal Empire
  1526 CE to 1857 CE

Related military & conflict events

• Napoleon's invasion of Russia
  June to December 1812
• Haiti declares independence after a successful slave revolution
  1 January 1804
• First Opium War and the Treaty of Nanking
  1839 to 1842 (Treaty of Nanking, 29 August 1842)
• The Taiping Rebellion
  1850 to 1864
• American Civil War and the abolition of slavery
  1861 to 1865 (Emancipation Proclamation 1 January 1863; 13th Amendment ratified 6 December 1865)
• The Franco-Prussian War, German unification and the Paris Commune
  19 July 1870 to 10 May 1871; German Empire proclaimed 18 January 1871

Also relevant

• Battle of Leipzig (Battle of the Nations)
  16 to 19 October 1813
• The Mfecane
  c. 1815-1840

Further reading

Waterloo: The History of Four Days, Three Armies, and Three Battles

If you read one book

Waterloo: The History of Four Days, Three Armies, and Three Battles

Bernard Cornwell

Vivid popular account of the decisive battle.

Get it on Amazon →

Also worth reading

• The Battle: A New History of Waterloo by Alessandro BarberoAmazon →
• Waterloo: Napoleon's Last Gamble by Andrew RobertsAmazon →

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