George F Nafziger will be known to many already. Over the last forty years he has produced a mass of extremely detailed Orders of Battle totaling nearly 8,000 different OOB’s ranging from 1600 to 1945 and produced a number of books on various aspects of military history. Having retired, George donated his entire collection to […]
The Napoleon Series hosts a large quantity of material on: Battles and Campaigns, Maps, Virtual Battlefield and much more. The Napoleon Series to the important and significant research source that it is today with over 20,000 informative and interesting articles. The Waterloo Association is pleased and honoured to be able to take over the management […]
The Napoleon Series hosts an extensive quantity of Biographies, Eyewitness accounts and the “Peninsular Roll Call” which has a list of all 9,600 British officers believed to have served in the Peninsular War. The Napoleon Series to the important and significant research source that it is today with over 20,000 informative and interesting articles. The […]
by Elizabeth Lancaster On May 1st 1903, the Batley News published an obituary to my great grandfather, Armitage Colbeck, which stated, among other things, that the deceased’s grandfather had fought at the Battle of Waterloo. This was the starting point to my search for my soldier ancestor. War Office records yielded the information that a […]
The following pages are taken from the memoirs of Commissary-General Tupper Carey. He joined the Commissariat Department in 1808 at the age of sixteen, and was immediately sent out to the Peninsula. He accompanied the Light Brigade of Cavalry on their retreat to Vigo. With the exception of a few months, when he was invalided […]
These are stories that seem to belong to another age, legends of centaurs, titans, with human heads and the bodies of horses galloping to the assault of Olympus, horrible, sublime, invulnerable beings, both gods and beasts ….
Waterloo General – The Life, Letters and Mysterious Death of Major General Sir William Ponsonby 1772-1815’
The late Duke was a distinguished soldier during and after the Second World War being awarded an MC for his gallantry in an action, ironically against the Vichy French in Syria in 1941.
The Battle of Fishguard, which took place 22-24 February 1797, was the last time a hostile foreign force landed on British soil, and is therefore often referred to as “the last invasion of Britain”.
After the battle of Trafalgar in October 1805, there occurred the following year a land battle, which though small scale and unimportant in many ways, crucially showed that in the right circumstances that the British could also defeat the French on land.
The Walcheren Campaign was an unsuccessful British expedition to the Netherlands in 1809.
Field Marshal John Colborne, 1st Baron Seaton (1778-1863), most famous for commanding the 52nd Regiment of Foot at Waterloo.
The Waterloo campaign – What was it all about?
Napoleon returns to France and takes power again in a bloodless coup.
Order of Battle.
A Congress had been convened at Vienna to sort out all of the difficult questions over land rights and borders after such a long war.
Some 14,000 French soldiers were tied down in attacking the farm complex, its gardens and orchard, throughout the day; the Allies defending numbered about 3,000, with another 3,000 in close support.
France prepares to fight the allies.
This was intended to be the French main attack and certainly given the approach of the Prussians to the battlefield was the only one with any potential of lasting success.
Napoleon had secretly managed to march his army of about one hundred and twenty thousand men into an area just south of Charleroi by the night of the 14 June.
Two brigades of British heavy cavalry surprise d’Erlon’s troops and destroy them – only to be destroyed in their turn.
By 2pm on 16 June, Blucher however had some 83,000 men and 224 cannon, with which to face Napoleon’s 63,000 men and 230 cannon.
Whilst Blucher and Napoleon fought at Ligny, a battle of encounter was played out at the crossroads at Quatre Bras.
Ney launches huge cavalry attacks in Wellington’s centre in the belief that his squares would not hold.
The morning of the 17th June was full of confusion, with no one really sure what the other armies were doing.
The Prussian advance from Wavre and Grouchy’s pursuit.
Waterloo in 500 words.
The 2nd Light Battalion KGL and other supporting troops held out for much of the day, but finally succumbed – It was no massacre however.
Marshal Grouchy had moved slowly north east from Ligny during the afternoon and evening of 17 June, unsure in which direction the Prussians had retreated.
The Duke of Saxe Weimar’s troops hold onto Papelotte against the attacks of the French and the Prussians!
Having pursued the French from the field, the Prussians pushed on all night with their cavalry beating drums and blowing horns to disconcert any attempt to rally the French troops.
The fighting for Plancenoit was bitter and without mercy.
Napoleon takes his last gamble, launching his final reserve in an effort to smash wellington’s army.
The fighting was finally over at Paris but isolated fortresses held out for many months; whilst diplomacy became the order of the day.
The French soldiers see the Guard defeated and the realisation that the Prussians were nearly in their rear causes the French to rout.
The field of the Battle of Waterloo was a terrifying and shocking place to be that night and for the following few days. Nine hours of desperate fighting on such a small area of ground had left a butcher’s bill that is truly staggering to contemplate.
The Prussians pursue the French, driving them on with no opportunity to rest or reform.
At Waterloo Whinyates' rockets were used to great effect at a key point in the battle.
Colour Serjeant John Gibson of the 33rd Regiment of Foot written by Evelyn Webb-Carter in November 2012.
The misadventures of Wellington's Cavalry from the Peninsular to Waterloo.
What was the real legacy of Waterloo?
The Duke of Wellington, was an Anglo-Irish soldier and statesman who was one of the leading military and political figures of 19th-century Britain.
Many of the reminiscences and memoirs from the men of Wellington's armies make mention and comment at some time of the unreliability of their personal firearms.
Napoleon surrendered to HMS Bellerophon at Rochefort on 15 July and was transported to St Helena in the South Atlantic, where he died on 5 May 1821 of stomach cancer.