Wellington's Victory

At dawn on June 18th, the torrential rain which had soaked the Belgium countryside the previous day began tapering off.

At dawn on June 18th, the torrential rain which had soaked the Belgium countryside the previous day began tapering off. Seventy thousand French troops, constituting the bulk of Napoleon’s Armee du Nord, which two days earlier had vanquished the Prussian Army of the Rhine at Ligney, now expected to exploit their initial victory by destroying the unsupported and inexperienced Anglo-Dutch forces which the Duke of Wellington had deployed across the Brussels-Charleroi highway a few miles south of the inconsequential hamlet called Waterloo.

That morning at his headquarters in Le Caillou, Napoleon discussed the impending battle with his subordinates while awaiting the arrival of several French Corps which had bivouacked further south. Disagreeing with the French generals whom Wellington had consistently defeated in Spain, Napoleon insisted that his opponent was a poor commander and that the English troops were much inferior to the French. The battle which Napoleon envisioned would resemble ‘le petit dejeuner’, Wellington’s army would be devoured as easily as a light continental breakfast.