Battle of Waterloo

The Battle of Waterloo was the final defeat of Napoleon Bonaparte. In it, France was defeated by the allied armies of Great Britain and Prussia.

Following Napoleon's escape from Elba, he had one hundred days to ready his army to face an Allied invasion. Rather than let the Allies concentrate their forces, he marched north into Belgium with the intention of defeating each army in detail.

The plan unraveled when he failed to sufficiently drive back the Prussians before turning to attack the British. The British fought successful delaying actions and employed innovative new tactics like infantry squares to face French cavalry charges. When the Prussians began to reenter the fight, Napoleon was forced to gamble on all-out charges against the British, which were repulsed with heavy losses. The French army retreated and dissolved soon after.