Battle of Waterloo: Causes, Forces, and Outcome (1815)

Introduction

The Battle of Waterloo took place on June 18, 1815, when the allied European forces joined with the Prussian forces to defeat the French army under the command of Napoleon. The battle brought to an end Napoleon's dream of conquering and establishing his empire in continental Europe. This paper analyzes the causes of, and events surrounding, the battle.

The Armies: Forces and Composition

The Battle of Waterloo was fought by three armies: the French Army (Armée du Nord) under the command of Napoleon, the multinational army under General Wellington's command, and the Prussian army under Gebhard Blucher.

The French Army: The French army was by far the most well-equipped of the three, consisting of approximately 74,000 soldiers — 48,000 infantry, 14,000 cavalry, 7,000 artillery, and 250 guns.¹ It consisted primarily of veteran soldiers, a majority of whom had already participated in one or more campaigns for Napoleon. The French cavalry was numerous and formidable, and included 14 regiments of armored heavy cavalry and 7 highly versatile lancer regiments.²

The Multinational Army: Wellington's force was largely inexperienced and ill-equipped, consisting of 68,000 soldiers — 50,000 infantry, 11,000 cavalry, 6,000 artillery, and 150 guns.³ Approximately 6,000 soldiers were from the King's German Legion, while 23,000 were British.⁴ The British troops were composed primarily of regular soldiers; only 7,000 were veterans who had fought in the Peninsular War.⁵ In addition to the British and German troops, Wellington's army included 17,000 Dutch troops, 11,000 troops from Hanover, 6,000 from Brunswick, and 3,000 from Nassau.⁶ The allied army was, however, short of heavy cavalry regiments, with only seven British regiments and three Dutch regiments.⁷

The Prussian Army: The Prussian force consisted of 50,000 men drawn from four brigades.⁸ It was made up mainly of veterans, although there was also a sizeable number of recruits.⁹

The battle was fought on Sunday, June 18, 1815.¹⁰ The broader Waterloo Campaign ran for approximately four days, between June 14 and 17, before the decisive battle on June 18.¹¹ As the sun set on the evening of June 14, the men of the I Corps of the Prussian Army were ordered to sleep with their weapons within reach and their uniforms on; at dawn, the first shots were fired by French advance scouts.¹² The battle took place on a battlefield located in present-day Belgium, near the town of Waterloo, approximately 12 km south of Brussels.¹³ Belgium at that time was part of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands.

Strategic Setting and Causes

The Battle of Waterloo was caused primarily by Napoleon's return to France from exile in February 1815. During the 1814 campaign, a coalition of European states had combined their forces to defeat the French army and send Napoleon into abdication, exiling him to the island of Elba, off the Italian coast, in order to prevent him from controlling continental Europe.¹⁴ Napoleon, however, grew restless at Elba and organized his return to France to reclaim power.¹⁵ Upon his unexpected return to Paris, the European states that had previously opposed him feared he intended to resume his campaign of conquest. They reorganized their forces and prepared to stop him at all costs. It was this confrontation between Napoleon and his former adversaries that led directly to the Battle of Waterloo, as the allies reassembled and went to war against him once more.¹⁶

King Louis XVIII's Loss of Popularity: Upon successfully exiling Napoleon in 1814, the European allies placed King Louis XVIII in control of the French monarchy.¹⁷ Louis, however, fell out with the French public and military almost immediately. He embarked on a mission to pay off the financial legacy of the war, instituting a series of policies designed to raise revenue at the public's expense.¹⁸ Contrary to his followers' expectations, he retained the unpopular taxes Napoleon had imposed, reduced army expenditure, dismissed nearly half of the army's members, and imposed 50% pay cuts on 12,000 military officers.¹⁹ These measures caused him to fall out of favor with both the public and influential army officials. He further alienated educated French citizens by proclaiming militant Catholicism as the country's official religion.²⁰ All these factors rendered Louis deeply unpopular, with most people perceiving him as incapable of filling Napoleon's role.²¹ This loss of popularity made it relatively easy for Napoleon to win back the hearts of the French public upon his return and to reconstitute his army from the disgruntled veterans in Louis's service. King Louis's own right-hand man, Marshal Ney, whom Louis had sent to stop Napoleon's forces as they marched toward Paris, was among those who defected back to their former emperor.²²

Disunity among the Allies at the Congress of Vienna: The allies' conflicting interests had driven them into numerous quarrels at the Congress of Vienna, providing Napoleon with an opportunity to exploit their distraction.²³ Russia and Poland were in conflict because Russia sought to absorb a significant portion of Polish territory and reduce Poland to a puppet state. Austria and Prussia were similarly at odds, with Prussia demanding the entire Kingdom of Saxony — a demand Austria refused to accept.²⁴ These conflicting goals created disunity among the allied nations of continental Europe, making it considerably easier for Napoleon to regroup and reorganize his forces.²⁵

The Return of French Prisoners: The authority of the Congress of Vienna had arranged for French soldiers captured during the 1814 campaign and held as prisoners in Britain, Spain, Germany, and Austria to be repatriated to France. These returning men provided Napoleon with a ready pool from which to reconstitute a strong army and regain his pre-exile position in Paris.²⁶

Bibliography

Evans, Richard. "Waterloo: Causes, Courses and Consequences." Gresham College. Accessed September 16, 2015. http://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/waterloo-causes-courses-and-consequences

Hibbert, Christopher. Waterloo: Napoleon's Last Campaign. Hertfordshire, UK: Wordsworth Publishers, 1998.

Matthews, Rupert. The Battle of Waterloo: Europe in the Balance. London, UK: Arcturus Publishing, 2015.

Roberts, Andrew. Napoleon and Wellington: The Battle of Waterloo and the Great Commanders who Fought It. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster, 2001.

Siborne, William. History of the War in France and Belgium in 1815: Containing Minute Details of the Battles of Quatre-Bras, Ligny, Wavre and Waterloo. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2012.