Tomorrow is the bicentenary of the battle in which the Duke of Wellington’s allied British, Dutch and Prussian forces vanquished the army led by Napoleon Bonaparte. It was one of the defining events of modern European history.
Waterloo not only brought to an end the extraordinary career of Napoleon, whose ambitions had led directly to the deaths of up to six million people. It also re-drew the map of Europe and was the climax of what has become known as the second Hundred Years’ War, a bitter commercial and colonial rivalry between Britain and France that began during the reign of Louis XIV.
Through its dogged resistance to France’s hegemonic ambitions in the preceding 20 years (which included of course the embrace of Malta into British arms), Britain helped create the conditions for the security system, established in 1815, known as the Concert of Europe. The peace dividend Britain enjoyed for the next 40 years allowed it to emerge as the dominant global power of the 19th century, an empire of which Malta formed a vital part.
Waterloo was a genuine historical turning point. These are rarer than we like to imagine. It ended more than 20 years of debilitating conflict. For a century after, until the morass and political upheavals of the First World War, no British Army would fight in Western Europe.
If the consequences of the battle were profound, the scale of the slaughter and suffering that took place in the fields just 16 kilometres south of Brussels on that long June day 200 ago was truly shocking. It was a bloodbath. A filthy, chaotic killing field in which men butchered one another with medieval ferocity using the latest military technology. One British officer of the 95th Rifles, who survived the onslaught, said, “I had never yet heard of a battle in which everybody was killed, but this seemed likely to be an exception.”
It was horrific, messy and wasteful. An area of two square miles was fought over by 200,000 men, 60,000 horses and 537 guns. It was a density of conflict that makes the Battle of the Somme seem scattered by comparison. In a single day up to 50,000 men were killed, with many more wounded. 10,000 horses lay dead or dying.
One of those killed at Hougoumont was Major William Norman Ramsay, when a musket “passed through his snuff box and entered his heart”. Major Ramsay, a highly acclaimed Gunner officer in the Peninsular War in Spain, was the commander of H (Ramsay’s Troop) Royal Horse Artillery, the successor battery to which I had the privilege of commanding 154 years later.
Much of the fighting at the Battle of Waterloo was man-to-man, using sabre, bayonet or pike. Military couriers got lost in the smoke. This was literally “the fog of war”. Many soldiers perished when cannon backfired. The popular image nurtured is of heroes hurling themselves into battle with clear purpose and stiff upper lip. It was not like that for the participants. Piles of wounded men with mangled limbs were unable to move. Those who perished from not having their wounds dressed were the harsh reality.
The battle of Waterloo in June 1815 – widely seen as heroic despite the sheer medieval brutality – deserves the attention it is getting over the next few days
This is how Frederick Ponsonby of the Light Dragoons spent his day. Having charged too far through the French infantry, both his arms were disabled by sabre cuts in the melée. Then he fell off his horse and was speared in the back by a French lancer. A French skirmisher robbed him as he lay helpless. Another used him as a barrier, firing over his body. Finally, he was trampled upon by the advancing Prussian Cavalry. Surprisingly, he survived the battle to become Lieutenant Governor of Malta between 1826 and 1835, an admirable servant and administrator of Malta. A monumental pillar, since destroyed in a storm, was later erected in his honour in Valletta.
Ponsonby kept all his limbs. Some 2,000 British soldiers were less fortunate. Amputations were performed in 15 minutes, with the patient standing up with a glass of brandy and water as anaesthetic. Dentists also had a field day. In the early 19th century, dentures made from real teeth sold for high prices. Dental scavengers scoured the battlefield and 52 barrels of dead men’s teeth are said to have been shipped to London to be made into “Waterloo Teeth”.
War always produces unintended benefits. The experience of Waterloo led to important advances in battlefield medicine and the first porcelain dentures were produced by dentists sickened by handling dead men’s teeth.
The story of the battle, or rather three battles, was tense and gripping.
The engagement between Wellington’s Anglo-Dutch forces and the French at Quatre Bras on June 16.
The much bigger battle of Ligny on the same day, which saw the defeat of Prussia’s army, the last victory ever achieved by Napoleon. Unfortunately for him, the bulk of the Prussian Army survived to play a pivotal role two days later.
And, finally, Waterloo itself on June 18.
In all probability, we can say with the benefit of hindsight that Napoleon could not ultimately have won the war. The size and determination of the forces ranged against him across Europe were formidable. What gives the story its enduring power is the fact that the outcome of the battle was far from certain. As Wellington said later: “It was the nearest run thing you ever saw in your life.”
It was a coalition victory, almost as much a German as a British victory.
Returning from his nine-month exile on Elba, Napoleon had quickly mobilised an army of nearly 200,000 men to take on the coalition forces gathered to oppose him. His plan was to split the forces commanded by Wellington from the Prussian Army, led by the redoubtable Gebhard von Blucher, and then defeat each separately. Its execution depended on a speed and decisiveness that was beyond Napoleon’s subordinates and perhaps, by this stage, even beyond the great man himself.
However, nothing should be taken away from Napoleon’s conquerors.
Both Wellington and Blucher were talented professional soldiers, who commanded experienced, battle-hardened and competent subordinates and staff officers. The men of the British infantry, who had come through the Peninsular War, were tried and tested veterans of the highest quality. Above all, both Wellington and Blucher trusted each other and never wavered in their mutual support, a factor which Napoleon almost certainly under-estimated in his strategic calculus.
Wellington’s triumph was not the result of moral righteousness, or even great tactical skill, but a particularly terrible way of killing. What decided the battle – Wellington’s defence, or Prussian reinforcements, or Napoleon’s strategic errors – remains an open question.
But the battle of Waterloo in June 1815 – widely seen as heroic despite the sheer medieval brutality – deserves the attention it is getting over the next few days. Under the pressure of the allied pursuit, Napoleon’s army disintegrated, effectively ending his bid to return to power.
At least 5,000 costumed soldiers – along with a Napoleon look-alike (from New Zealand) and including a sizeable contingent of keen re-enactors from Malta – will re-enact the battle of Waterloo watched by 200,000 spectators. It will be a most worthy reminder of a historical turning point in European history.