Before you start reading, take a sheet of paper and several pencils. You will need them to do the exercises.
Whenever you see this quill, it is your turn to play!
was linked to Brussels by a single paved road. Waterloo, around 20 km south of Brussels, and its surrounding region, was mainly agricultural. It was a rolling landscape, with many scattered villages, farms, fields, woods and windmills. Everything seemed calm there until the morning of June 18, 1815. Braine-l’Alleud, Genappe, Lasne and Waterloo would soon become no more than a battlefield.
Find the main farms: Hougoumont, Haie Sainte, Papelotte, … which would become strategic points during the battle.
Napoleon built up his empire at the cost of many wars. Almost all the other European countries formed a coalition to try and defeat him. From 1813, the French empire began to collapse. In 1814, Napoleon was exiled to the island of Elba in Northern Italy. King Louis XVIII, in exile since 1792, became King of France, with the support of foreign armies.
The European countries did not agree to Emperor Napoleon’s return to power in France. They formed a new armed coalition ready to intervene. Nearly a million men gathered on the French borders.
On June 12, 1815, around 130,000 French soldiers left for war, to fight the alliance against Napoleon. Where were they heading? Belgium! Napoleon wanted to capture Brussels where two allied armies – the English and Prussian forces – were stationed on Belgian territory.
See how Napoleon advanced towards Brussels. Where would he face the Allied armies?
1. June 15, 1815: Napoleon crosses the border. He crosses the river Sambre at Charleroi.
2. June 16, 1815: The French troops clash with the British and their allies at the Quatre Bras crossroads on one side, and the Prussians at Ligny on the other. The Prussians retreat towards Wavre.
3. June 17 1815 : Napoleon reacts somewhat late in the day and sends Marshal Grouchy, with 34,000 men, to pursue the Prussians, without knowing exactly in which direction they are moving. This was a wrong move by the French, as it divided their forces.
4. In the meantime, Napoleon and the bulk of his army chase the British and their allies, in the direction of Waterloo.
Napoleon Bonaparte