June 29, 2023 - Belgium
Waterloo

Visiting Waterloo battlefield has long been near the top of my bucket list.  My fascination dates back to the day when a history professor at the Naval Academy told me about this huge mound that had been built on the Waterloo battlefield with a giant lion on top.  Today I finally got to see it.

Arriving at the Waterloo battlefield, the first thing we did was climb the gigantic grass-covered pyramid.
   

The Lion's Mound was erected in 1826 at the request of William I, King of the Netherlands, who wished to commemorate the spot where his elder son, the Prince of Orange, is presumed to have been wounded on 18 June 1815;
   

226 is a big number when it's the number of steps you have to climb.

The Battle of Waterloo was fought on Sunday 18 June 1815, just south of the town of Waterloo.  It marked the end of the Napoleonic Wars and Napoleon. A French army under the command of Napoleon was defeated by two armies of the Seventh Coalition. One of these was a British-led force with units from the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Hanover, Brunswick, and Nassau, under the command of the Duke of Wellington (often referred to as the Anglo-allied army or Wellington's army). The other comprised three corps of the Prussian army under Field Marshal Blücher. The battle was known contemporarily as the Battle of Mont Saint-Jean in France (after the hamlet of Mont-Saint-Jean) or La Belle Alliance in Prussia (means "the Beautiful Alliance"; after the inn of La Belle Alliance).
   

The 28-ton lion.

The Waterloo position chosen by Wellington was a strong one. It consisted of a long ridge running east–west, perpendicular to, and bisected by, the main road to Brussels. Along the crest of the ridge ran the Ohain road, a deep sunken lane.  The Lion Mound sits roughly in the middle of the east-west ridge.
   
Made it on top!  The Waterloo battlefield is in the background.  It reminded me of Gettysburg, in that the battlefield is not really very big, but with hundreds of thousands of men fighting to the death.
   
Lynnette made it too!  From this position, we are facing south where the French army was.
   
A placard to show where to look.  The Lion Mound is located on the British side.
   
Looking to the right, at center is the château, garden, and orchard of Hougoumont. This was a large and well-built country house, initially hidden in trees. The house faced north along a sunken, covered lane (usually described by the British as "the hollow-way") along which it could be supplied. Hougoumont was fortified and garrisoned, and thus anchored Wellington's right flank securely.  Hougomont was where Napoleon first attacked and kept attacking all day.  Both Napoleon and Wellington considered it a key to the overall battle.  Despite bitter fighting, Napoleon was never able to capture it.
   
Looking to the left, on Wellington's left flank was La Haye Sainte, a walled farmhouse compound.  Napoleon tried hard to take it.   If his army had captured La Haye Sainte earlier in the day, he might have broken through the allied centre and defeated the Duke of Wellington's army.  The French did finally capture La Haye Sainte in the early evening.  This gave the French the advantage of a defensible position from which to launch a potentially decisive attack on the Allied centre. However, Napoleon was too late—by this time, Blücher and the Prussian army had arrived on the battlefield and the outnumbered French army was defeated.
   
So in the end, Napoleon basically attacked right up the middle, first with the French heavy cavalry, then infantry, and finally the Imperial Guard.  When the Imperial Guard failed, the British counterattacked and this combined with the Prussians coming in on Napoleon's right flank caused the French Army to collapse and the battle turned into a rout.
   
The town of Braine-l'Alleud is off to the west.
   
Looking down at the Panorama of the Battle of Waterloo, built in 1911.  To the left of the Panorama is the relatively new, underground Battle of Waterloo Museum.
   
That large crane is used to hoist a hanging restaurant.
   
Heading down the 226 steps.
   
Dine in the hanging restaurant!
   
You gotta be kidding me.  On a sacred battlefield?
   
We went into the underground museum.  The first thing we saw was this huge diorama.  Napoleon's French army is on the left and Wellington's British Army and allies are on the right.
   
The museum opened in 2015, replacing an old visitors center that was "outdated and uninteresting".
 
Here is the infamous French guillotine, symbol of the French Revolution and the Reign of Terror.
   
A map of Napoleon's route after he escaped from the island of Elba in the Mediterranean Sea and marched to Paris, gathering supporters as he went.  From Elba to Paris to Waterloo to abdictation is the period known as "The Hundred Days".
   

Muskets with bayonets carried by the Napoleanic armies.

Napoleon primarily equipped his army with the Charleville M1777 Revolutionnaire musket, a product from older designs and models. Used during the French Revolution and Napoleonic wars, the Charleville musket was a .69 caliber, (sometimes .70 or .71) 5-foot-long, muzzle-loading, smoothbore musket. Properly trained French infantry were expected to be able to fire three volleys a minute. A trained soldier could hit a man sized target at 100 yards but anything further required an increasing amount of luck, the musket was wildly inaccurate at long range.
   
French officers were usually armed with a .69 pistol as a secondary weapon to their sword. This still had to be muzzle loaded and fired with a flintlock after reloading.
   
Besides guns, soldiers used a variety of pikes, swords and bayonets for close range or melee combat. Officers, sergeants, other higher-ranked officials and cavalry mainly used swords, while the majority of infantry soldiers were equipped with bayonets.
   
French bearskin hat.
   
Memorial sword in honor of the Duke of Wellington.
   
Helmet worn by troops in the Dragoon Regiment of the French Imperial Guard called 'The Empress's Regiment'.
   
Allied soldiers s on the left and French troops on the right.
   
Various types of French soldiers.
   
A British general.
   
British soldiers.
   
The Prussian Commanding Officer, General Blucher.
   
Diorma of a French War Council meeting.  From left to right:  Marshal Soult,  Marshall Bertrand, General Drouot, General Kellerman.  Napoleon is sitting at right wearing his ‘green’ Cavalry Chasseur Colonel’s uniform. This was what he most frequently wore during the day, and not surprisingly, he is best known for it.
   
Marshal Michel Ney, the Bravest of the Brave.
   
Left to right:  General Reille, General Cambronne, Soult, Bertrand, Drouot.
   
A close-up of Napoleon.
   
Grenadier of the Old Guard.
 
The Imperial Guard was originally a group of elite soldiers of the French Army under the direct command of Napoleon I, but grew considerably over time. It acted as his bodyguard and tactical reserve, and he was careful of its use in battle. The Guard was divided into the staff, infantry, cavalry, and artillery regiments, as well as battalions of sappers and marines. The guard itself as a whole distinguished between the experienced veterans and less experienced members by being separated into three sections: the Old Guard, Middle Guard and Young Guard.
   
Wellington and Prussian General Bucher shaking hands after winning the battle.
   
From 1820 until 1852, the Duke of Wellington hosted an annual banquet at his London residence, Apsley House, to celebrate the allied victory at Waterloo. At first, the dining room could seat no more than 35.  However, in 1830 Wellington had what became known as the Waterloo Gallery constructed at Apsley House, which could seat 85 people.  The dinners, despite only being open to the elite of the officer corps that fought at Waterloo, became one of the most recognizable and long-lasting remembrances of the battle in British society.
 
Here is a painting of the Waterloo Banquet.
 
The Duke of Wellington died in 1852 at the age 83 after having received every honor Great Britain can bestow and having served as Commander-in-Chief of the British Army, Leader of the House of Lords, and Prime Minister.
   

Napoleon, on the other hand, was exiled to the remote island of St. Helena in the South Atlantic where he died in 1821 at the age of 51.
   

We checked out the Panorama.  Interesting but not great.  The gigantic painting represents the Battle of Waterloo at 6pm on 18 June 1815.

Here, French calvalry are circling around Wellington's infantry squares.
   
Marshall Ney leading the French cavalry charge.
   
Leaving the battlefield area, we headed south down the main road to the Caillou Farmhouse which was Napoleon's headquarters the night before the battle.  In fact, it was the last headquarters Napoleon would ever have.  It's a small two story building which has been turned into an interesting little museum.
   
A map of Waterloo that not only shows troop placements but also the Commander's HQ.  The French are at top and Allies at bottom.
   
Napoleon's field bed, set up in the farmhouse living room.  The campaign furniture consisted of a folding iron bed, a silver washbasin, Napoleon's travel kit, a folding leather table and chair, and portfolios containing papers and maps.  Napoleon's cared only for work.  "He ate sparingly, worked with a will, and slept little.  All through the short night of 17 June, confined to his room due to the terrible rainy weather, Napoleon was constantly disturbed by messages and reports of ongoing missions."
   
Napoleon breakfasted off silver plate in this very room -- the farmhouse kitchen -- with his Marshals and Generals and their aide-de-camps.  "When the meal was over, the table was cleared and covered with a carpet, upon which the maps for the coming battle were spread."
   
A painting of the war council meeting in the farmhouse kitchen; it looks similar to the diorma we saw in the Museum.
   
Leaving Napoleon's HQ, we drove back north along the same road -- Chau. de Bruxells -- past the battlefield on the left, and into the town of Waterloo, where we stopped at the house where Wellington had his headquarters and spent the night before and after the Battle of Waterloo.  It is now a little museum.
 
This is Wellington's bedroom, where he slept the night before the battle, and wrote his Waterloo dispatch to Lord Bathurst, British Secretary of War, early in the morning after the battle, pictured in the below diorama.
   
The bed in which the mortally wounded Sir Alexander Gordon died in the evening after the battle.  Gordon was Wellington's aide-de-camp.
   
A diorama of the French attack on the advanced defensive position of the Anglo-allied army at Hougoumont, on Wellington's right flank.  Hougoumont escalated into an all-day battle where both Napoleon and Wellington fed significant forces.  The French were never able to take it.
   

The museum's gift shop had an excellent selection of books, both in German and English.  I've read a bunch of books on Napoleon but never one just on Waterloo.  So I bought "Waterloo: Myth and Reality" by Gareth Glover which I enjoyed reading the week after our Waterloo visit.  Excellent book.

Overall, I really enjoyed visiting Waterloo.  Between the Museum, the Lion Mound, the Headquarter buildings, and of course seeing the battlefield itself, I felt like I really saw it.  Of course, given more time, I would have liked to walk the battlefield (if that is possible) and visit Hougoumont and
 
   
 
   
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