Battle of Waterloo 1815
Recorded location from Wikidata; battle sites are often approximate.
Key facts
| Date | 18 June 1815 | Wikidata |
|---|---|---|
| Year | 1815 | Wikidata P585 (point in time) |
| Era | 19th century (1800–1913) | derived from year |
| Location | Belgium | Natural Earth (modern borders) |
| Continent | Europe | Natural Earth |
| War / conflict | Waterloo Campaign | Wikidata P361 |
| Participants | First French Empire, Hanover, Principality of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, Prussia, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, United Kingdom of the Netherlands | Wikidata P710 |
| Coordinates | 50.6781, 4.4122 | Wikidata P625 |
About the battle
The Battle of Waterloo was fought on Sunday 18 June 1815, near Waterloo (then in the United Kingdom of the Netherlands, now in Belgium), being the last engagement with Napoleon I. The French Imperial Army under the command of Napoleon I was defeated by two armies of the Seventh Coalition. One was a British-led force with units from the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Hanover, Brunswick, and Nassau, under the command of Field Marshal Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington. The other comprised three corps of the Prussian army under Generalfeldmarschall Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher. The battle was known contemporaneously as the Battle of Mont Saint-Jean in France (after the hamlet of Mont-Saint-Jean) and La Belle Alliance in Prussia ("the Beautiful Alliance"; after the inn of La Belle Alliance).
Upon Napoleon's return to power in March 1815, the beginning of the Hundred Days, many states that had previously opposed him formed the Seventh Coalition to oppose him again and hurriedly mobilised their armies. Wellington's and Blücher's armies were cantoned close to the northeastern border of France. Napoleon planned to attack them separately, before they could link up and invade France with other members of the coalition.
Text adapted from the Wikipedia article Battle of Waterloo (revision 1380652941), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Changes: excerpted from the article lead section; shortened by selecting paragraphs and trimming at a sentence boundary; formatting and citations removed. No text added.
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Browse more: battles in Belgium · Europe · 19th century battles