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WATERLOO

"Hard pounding this, Gentlemen.

  Let us see who will pound longest"

                                                                        

   The Duke of Wellington

Sunday, 18th June 1815 pitched Wellington and Napoleon against each other for the first and only occasion.About 69,000 French fought the Allied Army of 67.000 for almost 9 hours on that summer day. Wellington described the battle as "the nearest run thing you ever saw in your life".

 

Most of the topography remains as it was in this comparatively small battle field. The fortified sites of Hougoumont Chateau, La Haye Sainte, Plancenoit and the ridge of Mont-Saint-Jean, from where Wellington ran his battle, are much in evidence to illuminate this most famous of battles.

 

On this Battlefield Tour, it is also possible to examine the BEF's retreat from Mons in 1914. This covered much of the same ground as Napoleon's approach to Waterloo.

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