Battle of Waterloo
Napoleon defeated by Wellington and Blücher at Waterloo
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Original prompt & settings (JSON) ↗A small French party got inside Hougoumont through its north gate. The defenders shut the gate behind them and killed nearly everyone inside.
18 June 1815: the ridge at Mont-Saint-Jean
On 18 June 1815, Napoleon's Army of the North attacked Wellington's multinational Anglo-Allied army on the Mont-Saint-Jean ridge near Waterloo, then in the United Kingdom of the Netherlands. Rain-soaked ground had reduced the effect of French artillery and hindered cavalry movement before the attacks began.
From about 11:30 a.m. the French struck Hougoumont, then Wellington's centre and left; later cavalry attacks failed to break the Allied infantry squares. Napoleon brought about 72,000 men and 246 guns; Wellington about 68,000 and 156 guns.
The Prussians arrive
Around 6 p.m. the French captured La Haye Sainte and Wellington's centre was in serious danger. But Prussian forces — some 48,000 men under Blücher — had been reaching Napoleon's right flank through the afternoon and fighting around Plancenoit, forcing him to divert troops away from that weakening centre.
Marshal Grouchy, commanding the large French detachment sent after the Prussians, fought their rearguard at Wavre rather than at Waterloo.
Seven o'clock, and the rout
At about 7 p.m. Napoleon committed battalions of the Imperial Guard against Wellington's line. They were repulsed, and the panic spread through the French army into a general retreat pursued through the night by Prussian cavalry. French losses ran to nearly 40,000 killed, wounded or captured; Allied losses to about 22,000.
This was not a purely British victory: Wellington commanded British, Dutch-Belgian, Hanoverian, Brunswick and Nassau troops, and his own dispatch acknowledged Blücher's timely assistance. Napoleon returned to Paris and abdicated on 22 June.
Sources
Researched 23 Aug 2026 5 sources 3 audit passes
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What the sources leave uncertain
- Force and casualty totals vary by historian because sources count attached troops, missing personnel and campaign casualties differently. The figures here follow the National Army Museum and should not be treated as exact headcounts.
- The exact timing and sequencing of several attacks remain debated; the National Army Museum’s approximate times are used here.