On Sunday 18th June 1815 the 74,000 troops of the French Emperor Napoleon hurled themselves at 67,000 European allied troops of the Seventh Coalition from Holland, Belgium, Germany and Britain under the command of the English Duke of Wellington who had drawn his battle line on the Mont-Saint-Jean escarpment near the village of Waterloo, some 15km south of Brussels in Belgium. By the end of the day Napoleon’s troops were exhausted, decimated and defeated, their final retreat coinciding with the arrival of the Prussian troops led by Marshal Blucher. According to Wellington, the battle was “the nearest-run thing you ever saw in your life”.
Fast forward to the same weekend of June, but now 200 years later in 2015, the entire battle was reenacted by 6,200 enthusiastic reenactors in front of a vast crowd of 64,000 spectators. Travel Gumbo ensured that their representative was present to report back.
The reenactment was arranged around a staged attack on the key allied defensive position of the farmhouse and orchard of Hougoumont (represented by the two red buildings in the photo below).
Both mounted lancers and foot soldiers went forward to their defensive positions led, on the allied side, by the sombre and black coated Duke of Wellington mounted on his steed ‘Copenhagen’ followed by his officers.
A more ebullient Emperor Napoleon (apparently a blood-line descendant of the original Emperor) followed (to the great cheers of the French members of the crowd).
They were followed by streams of mounted allied troops, each one faithfully dressed in the precise uniforms of the day.
Eventually both the opposing sides of the infantry assembled their battle lines to the sound of fifes and drums.
Here French troops prepare for the onslaught.
The massed British ‘Red Coats’ stood by their regimental colours to face the enemy.
Then the massed French cannon commenced firing upon Wellington’s troops, receiving booming shots in return.
The infantry advances were historically very slow and exceptionally exposed to ferocious fire from the opposing side. Some 55,000 soldiers were killed during the 1815 battle, many in and around the Hougoumont and Haie Sainte farmhouses that lay on Wellington’s flanks.
Within two years of the 1815 battle, the Dutch King William 1st ordered that 300,000 cubic metres of earth from the original allied battle escarpment at Mont-Saint-Jean be used to create the Hill of the Lion (below) to commemorate Wellington’s victory. This considerably reduced the height of the original escarpment. Today the Hill gives a magnificent view over the, now tranquil, battlefield upon which so many troops died.
Today, the panorama sweeps over the battlefield, across gentle rows of cabbages, down from Mont-Saint-Jean escarpment towards the solid Hougoumont (right flank) and Haie Sainte (left flank) farmhouses that played such important roles in the battle.
Many memorials around the battlefield and in the old village of Waterloo (now a sizable town) commemorate the enormous human losses of that day 200 years ago.
Marvellous piece of history and such a great photo blog to accompany it.
Your camera work certainly gives us a taste of the original battle.
The end of another tyrant who wanted world domination.
Worthy of an entry in any glossy magazine Mac.
Thank you very much Garry. The spectacle made the photos so easy to capture. It was quite humbling to go to this which was a real once-in-a-lifetime event. Very pleased to share it with TG and happy you enjoyed it.
