Waterloo 1815: Muddy Cannon, Quatre Bras Defiance and the Guard Breaks

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On March 13, 1815, the powers of Europe declared Napoleon Bonaparte an outlaw, six days before he even reached Paris from Elba. Facing a Seventh Coalition of about 850,000 men, he assembled some 300,000 mostly veteran troops and drove into Belgium to split Wellington's Anglo-Allied army from Blücher's Prussians. He beat the Prussians at Ligny on June 16 but assumed they were retreating east, when they were actually marching north to stay within reach of Wellington. At breakfast at Le Caillou on June 18, he mocked a commander who warned about British infantry on a ridge.

Overnight rain turned the ground at Mont-Saint-Jean to mud, so French round shot buried itself instead of bouncing, and Napoleon delayed his attack until nearly midday. At Quatre Bras, Dutch generals Perponcher and Constant de Rebecque disobeyed Wellington's orders to hold the crossroads and stalled Marshal Ney. Hougoumont swallowed French infantry, British squares held against cavalry, and about 50,000 Prussians struck the French flank late in the day. When the Imperial Guard broke under point-blank volleys, the army dissolved, and Napoleon abdicated four days later.

• The general Jomini blamed the defeat on the Prussian arrival, British infantry firmness, the weather and the French reliance on deep columns.
• Records show the British heavy cavalry survived its first charge and spent the afternoon plugging gaps in the line.
• French losses reached up to 26,000 on the day, with another 15,000 deserting afterward, against about 17,000 Anglo-Allied and 7,000 Prussian casualties.
• Wellington and Blücher met that night near the inn called La Belle Alliance.
• Scavengers pulled teeth from the dead for dentures sold as Waterloo Teeth, and bones may have been ground into bone char for sugar refining.