WATERLOO, Battle of, the culminating engagement of the shortest and most de cisive of all of the Napoleonic campaigns, was fought 18 June 1815, near the village of Water loo, in Belgium, situated about 12 miles south of Brussels. From April 1814, when Napoleon signed the first abdication and re tired in exile to Elba, until 20 March, when he terminated the period of that retirement and returned to Pans, the political and domes tic affairs of France had been bordering on revolution. Although the administration of affairs by the government established by the Comte du Provence, who, under the title of Louis XVIII, had taken unopposed possession of the country, restored political liberty, the changes inaugurated were so sudden. that it unsettled all domestic affairs, the title of es tates, the position of public men, and the prospects of the army to an intolerable extent. A general sense of alarm and humiliation pre vailed among all classes, and even a Napoleonic period seemed preferable to the existing con ditions. To add to the general turmoil, about 300,000 troops who had been held as prisoners in the various German fortresses were released under treaty stipulations andreturned to France. Their apparent availability for fur ther operations soon formed the basis for in numerable military plots of which that de signed by Fouche. with the ultimate object of placing either the Duke of Orleans or the king of Rome upon the throne, was the most important.
Napoleon was fully conscious of the exist ing state of affairs. France was down, grovel ing at the feet of the Allies. Here was the opportunity for a truly patriotic action. He would give popular liberty to imperial France, and henceforth devote all his energies to strengthen that liberty and increase that pros perity. He counted upon the entnusiastic sup port of the army which was fretting under the command of emigres who had once fought against France, but were then being appointed to important commands, and felt sure of the effect of his tremendous military fame upon the general military feeling of the country.
He thought of Marengo; how in three short months he had lifted France and himself from army amounted to about 500,000 men, on paper, but only about 200,000 men were available for actual field service. In planning the campaign, Napoleon had the choice of confining himself to purely defensive operations and allowing the Allies to invade France, or of assuming the offensive, and relieve her of the conse quences of a second invasion. He chose the latter, and laid the scene of the campaign in Belgium where the English under the Duke of Wellington had their headquarters at Brus sels, and the Prussians under the command of Marshal Bliicher, at Namur.
the lowest ebb of fortune up to the highest pinnacle of military glory and power. He judged correctly in all these things. He left Elba 20 February, and landed on the coast of France 1 March, and entered Paris triumph antly 20 days later.
While Napoleon was inaugurating the Hun dred Days with professions of peace and liberty, the Allied Powers suspended negotia tions at the Congress at Vienna, issued a declaration branding him as *an enemy and disturber of the peace of the world,• and formed a new Coalition to renew the struggle against him. By the beginning of June they had more than 700.000 men in the field, and he was compelled to take active measures to de fend his newly recovered empire. The French The general plan of operations was based upon his favorite form of strategy — action on •interior lines" against the two armies opposed to him. He assumed that Wellington and Bliicher would endeavor to form a junction at Charleroi. and determined to concentrate the bulk of his own army at that point and defeat them separately before they could effect that junction, and then turn his attention to the force of Austrians and Russians gathering on the eastern border under the command of Prince Schwarzenberg.