On June 18, 1815, south of the small Belgian hamlet Waterloo, in what was then
the Kingdom of Netherlands, one of the bloodiest battles of history occurred,
Napoleon hoped to destroy the European coalition arrayed against him by means
of a quick, decisive victory over one, or preferably both, of his main antagonists.
These were the Anglo-Allied army under Flied Marshall The Duke of Wellington,
and the Prussian army under Generalfieldmarchall Gebhard Leberecht Fuerst Bluecher
von Wahlstatt. The preperations for the campaign took a couple of months and after
its conclusion some more weeks were needed to bring the French empire to its knees,
and there were other theaters of war besides the one in Belgium. Yet the Waterloo
campaign proper, the just four days between the crossing of the Netherlands border
by the Armee du Nord on June 15, 1815, and its disastrous defeat at the hands of
the combined Anlgo-Allied and Prussian armies on June 18, decided the fate of the
emperor, and by implication, the Empire.
Campaign Waterloo