Return
Mar-Jun 1815 in Ridge south of Brussels, present-day Belgium: Elba to Belgium. A memory map, not a present overlay.
Darker cells mean a higher score for this topic on that metric.
Scale22
Intensity65
Duration6
Tech shift25
Political impact82
Cultural memory80
LessMore
Last reviewed Sources & creditsMedia creditsMethodology
Quick answers
Are the scores a ranking of nations or armies?
No. Scores are browsing aids inside an era-bounded atlas — not live league tables of countries.
How many casualties?
About 40,000-50,000 killed and wounded is the usual combined band for the day.
Did Wellington win alone?
No. Blucher's Prussians were decisive in the afternoon. Wellington said as much.
Why did Napoleon lose?
Coalition numbers, a delayed start, failed combined-arms in the centre, and Prussian arrival -- not a single farmhouse.
What happened next?
Second abdication, Allied occupation, St Helena, and Vienna's settlement confirmed.
Why is it so famous in English?
It was the last battle, near a newspaper city, with a British-led army. Leipzig was larger and less English.
Ridge, two farms, Plancenoit, Wavre inset -- four labels.
The lion is a fifth, later, label.
Maps
Two battles
16 June in Ridge south of Brussels, present-day Belgium: Ligny and Quatre Bras. A memory map, not a present overlay.
The ridge
18 June day in Ridge south of Brussels, present-day Belgium: Hougoumont to the Guard. A memory map, not a present overlay.
Rout
18 June evening in Ridge south of Brussels, present-day Belgium: La Belle Alliance; pursuit. A memory map, not a present overlay.
Memory
After in Ridge south of Brussels, present-day Belgium: Lion, films, re-enactors. A memory map, not a present overlay.
Portrayals
Napoleon biographies
The usual English doorway into Battle of Waterloo: Lost his last set-piece and his throne. The mud-and-Grouchy explanations began in his own circle.
Wellington biographies
The paired doorway: Held the ridge and later the British political right. "Nearest-run thing" is his caption.
School survey chapters
Where Battle of Waterloo (18 June 1815) is a paragraph or a unit in US/UK/AU/CA -- often thinner than Ridge south of Brussels, present-day Belgium local hours.
Local museums / sites in Ridge south of Brussels
Thicker than the English paragraph. Memory is the usual late pilgrimage caption.
Feature film / television
If Battle of Waterloo has a visual canon, it probably outruns the monographs. Treat film as memory, not as a log.
Korean comparative essays
A Korean reader may pair Battle of Waterloo with 1950-53, Inchon, Tsushima, or the ROK force-structure story even when the campaign was elsewhere.
Rituals
1815-03 / 1815-10 dates
The usual ritual poles of Battle of Waterloo: Elba escape and St Helena.
Museum and cemetery wreaths
Official and family rites at sites in Ridge south of Brussels, present-day Belgium. Henry Paget, Lord Uxbridge is often the civilian or corrective name on the plaque.
Classroom minutes
Where Battle of Waterloo is on the syllabus -- in Anglophone schools often beside 11 November or a Second World War unit, not always beside Ridge south of Brussels, present-day Belgium's own calendar.
Sayings
Coach tours from Brussels are the English pilgrimage. Prussian monuments are the corrective stop.
Korean readers: a European "decisive afternoon" to set beside Tsushima, not above it.