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Yogi the Great -> RE: New from HPS (8/5/2019 10:54:37 AM)
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'My regrets are not for myself but for unhappy France! With twenty thousand men less than I had we ought to have won the battle of Waterloo. But it was Fate that made me lose it.'
-Napoleon to Baron Gourgaud on St Helena
The Battle of Waterloo, 16-18 June 1815, was the climatic battle of the Napoleonic Wars. Napoleon Bonaparte led his veteran army against the Duke of Wellington's Anglo-Allied and Marshal Blucher's Prussian armies on the road to Brussels. On the first day of the campaign, Napoleon gained an indecisive victory against Blucher, while Marshal Ney was repulsed by Wellington at Quatre Bras. The next day, both sides refitted, and on the 18th the French attacked again.
On the French right, Marshal Grouchy fought a generally inconclusive action against the Prussians at Wavre and was unable to get significant forces across the Dyle. Further west, Napoleon himself led his forces in several epic attacks against Wellington's position in front of Waterloo. But without the anticipated arrival of Grouchy, it proved too much for the French and they eventually went down to defeat.
And with this final loss for the man called the 'Nightmare of Europe', the world had changed once again. The Napoleonic era was over.
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