READ MORE: 7 Things You May Not Know About the Battle of Waterloo Battle of Waterloo Begins Wellington, a known expert at defensive combat, directed his troops to take an advantageous position along a ridge.

The British army, which included Belgian, Dutch and German troops, was commanded by Arthur Wellesley, the Duke of Wellington, who had gained prominence fighting against the French during the Peninsular War. Two days later, on June 18, 1815, Napoleon led his army of some 72,000 troops against the 68,000-man British army, which had also taken up a position near Waterloo, where they were able to communicate with their Prussian allies. However, the French were unable to totally destroy the Prussian army, which quickly regrouped and retreated to a position not far from the village of Waterloo in modern-day Belgium. Napoleon rallied his troops by declaring “For all Frenchmen who have the courage, the moment has come to conquer or perish!”Īt the Battle of Ligny, on June 16, Napoleon used his superior artillery to defeat the Prussians under the command of Gebhard von Blucher. In June 1815, Napoleon’s forces marched into Belgium, where separate armies of British and Prussian troops were camped. Napoleon raised a new army and planned to strike preemptively, defeating the allied forces one by one before they could launch a united attack against him. Upon Napoleon’s return to France, a coalition of allies-the Austrians, British, Prussians and Russians-who considered the French emperor an enemy began to prepare for war. The new king, Louis XVIII, fled, and Napoleon embarked on what came to be known as his Hundred Days campaign. On March 20, he returned to Paris, where he was welcomed by cheering crowds. Less than a year later, on February 26, 1815, Napoleon escaped Elba and sailed to the French mainland with a group of more than 1,000 supporters. With the Treaty of Fontainebleau, he was exiled to Elba, a Mediterranean island off the coast of Italy. On April 6, 1814, Napoleon, then in his mid-40s, was forced to abdicate the throne, ending some 25 years of warfare. Afterward, Napoleon retreated to France, where in March 1814 coalition forces captured Paris. In the 1813 Battle of Leipzig, also known as the Battle of Nations, Napoleon’s army was defeated by a coalition that included Austrian, Prussian, Russian and Swedish troops. At the same time, the Spanish and Portuguese, with assistance from the British, drove Napoleon’s forces from the Iberian Peninsula in the Peninsular War (1808-1814). In 1812, Napoleon led a disastrous invasion of Russia in which his army was forced to retreat and suffered massive casualties.

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