Napoleon's soldiers shouted "Vive l'Empereur!" while his troops were militarily and tactically outclassed: In the Battle of Waterloo, Europe was reordered

"When the French cavalry attacked us in our squares (which they did with the greatest tenacity and bravery, never retreating more than 100 or 150 paces and repeatedly attacking), our men behaved as if they were on a field day: they fired in lines and with the best possible accuracy. Under a devastating barrage of cannon fire and several shells exploding in our midst, not a man moved. Finally, we were exposed to the combined forces of all their weapons, shifting from line to square and from square to line as the situation required. There was a particularly critical moment when only the exceptional steadfastness of the troops saved the day."

With these words, Colonel James Stanhope of the 1st Infantry Regiment reported one day later on the decisive phase of the Battle of Waterloo. In the late morning of June 18, 1815, the French, led by Napoleon, encountered the allied troops of the United Kingdom and Prussia at Waterloo, a small village south of Brussels. These troops were under the command of British General Wellington and Prussian Field Marshal Blücher.

The main attack by the French infantry began at 1:30 a.m. The approximately 72,000-strong French troops kept Wellington and his 68,000 men under heavy pressure throughout the day, until the final assault by the Imperial Guard finally began around 7:30 p.m. Despite counterattacks, it was essentially a defensive battle for Wellington's army, which consisted primarily of British units, but also of allied Dutch, Belgian, and German units.

This army had already been involved in a protracted battle at Quatre-Bras on June 16. The Prussians had been severely defeated by Napoleon at Ligny that same day. But the French also suffered heavy losses. Over 13,000 of their men had fallen. This left them little room for maneuver in subsequent operations. Furthermore, the Prussians were able to withdraw without defeat.

The British and the Prussians had disengaged from the fighting on June 17 and retreated north along parallel lines, pursued by Napoleon's troops. Wellington was pursued by Napoleon personally, although his troops were not disorganized. Furthermore, the French troops pursued the Prussians under Gebhard von Blücher rather than intercepting them, allowing all but their rearguard to return to their allies unhindered.

Certain that he would be supported by at least one Prussian army corps, Wellington turned to face the French in a tightly packed formation on a slope near Mont-Saint-Jean, across the road to Brussels.

On June 18, the French initially launched a feint attack on Hougoumont Castle, on Wellington's right flank. This would have cleared a position that threatened the flank of any French advance. However, the attack failed and, throughout the day, drew many French troops into incessant, costly, and unsuccessful assaults on the position.

Napoleon planned the main attack on the heart of the British forces for nine o'clock in the morning. But his soldiers were not yet ready. This was partly due to the heavy rain during the night, which made transporting the cannons difficult. The gun carriages were so heavy that they could only be mounted on solid ground. They sank into the mud. The soft, wet ground also softened the effect of the French bombardment. Instead of bouncing forward with deadly effect, the cannonballs remained where they struck the ground.

Furthermore, the combination of mud and wet vegetation posed a significant obstacle to the attackers' advance, especially for the French, who had to advance uphill. This combination reduced both the speed and striking power of the attacking troops.

The French troops had spread out over a large area the previous night, delaying their preparations for the attack. Napoleon was already exhausted from a campaign. He had only begun crossing the border on June 15. He and his troops lacked the necessary energy for the battle.

The French frontal assault was not launched until half past one in the afternoon. There were further attacks throughout the day, first by the French cavalry and later by the Imperial Guard. However, their significance was overshadowed by the growing problems of the French. The main factors were the heavy losses, the lateness of the day, and the changing balance of power that had resulted from the arrival of the Prussian troops.

For these reasons, the first major French attack was the decisive moment of the battle. If the French wanted to break through the British forces and buy enough time to fully exploit this advantage, now was the time. Four infantry divisions formed up in attack formation across a front of more than a kilometer. There was no element of surprise. The soldiers shouted "Vive l'Empereur!" The enemy remained silent.

The French advanced in four dense columns, making them even easier for the British cannons to hit. As the French troops approached the ridge, they were also exposed to heavy musket fire at close range, slowing their progress.

Despite defensive fire and heavy losses, the French units managed to cross, or at least almost reach, the hedge on the ridge in front of the West-East Road shortly after 2:00 a.m. Some of the defenders at the weakest point of Wellington's front were unable to hold their ground. Four of the five battalions of the Bijlandt Brigade, a Dutch-Belgian force engaged in a heavy and costly firefight with the French, withdrew in disorder, tearing a serious gap in the defenses. The officers tried to prevent the retreat but were unable to prevail. Napoleon appeared to have won, much more quickly than he had two days earlier at Ligny and without committing his reserves.

The retreat of Bijlandt's men was supposed to be the culmination of the French success. However, the French troops were inadequately prepared for the fighting. This required both defensive strength to repel the British counterattacks and the ability to sustain the advance. And the advancing French units lacked light cannons.

British battalions in reserve behind the ridge advanced to reinforce the remnants of Bijlandt's Bridge, although the divisional commander, Lieutenant General Sir Thomas Picton, was mortally wounded by a shot to the head and fell to the ground. As at Trafalgar in 1805, the British's good fire discipline, which surpassed that of the French, resulted in deadly volleys. Furthermore, the infantry held firm and was able to continue advancing.

This was made all the more difficult for the French when, at this climax of the battle, the British cavalry intervened decisively, charging up the opposite slope, breaking through the British infantry, and then hitting the unprepared French infantry hard, capturing about 2,000 prisoners and two regimental eagles.

The advancing cavalry then pushed too far forward and was hit hard by a counterattack by the French cavalry. The British line held, and the French I Corps was severely decimated and suffered heavy losses. The same had happened to the II Corps at Hougoumont. In addition, the VI Corps was soon withdrawn to face the Prussians.

The French, who faced Wellington, were significantly outnumbered. This made it all the more important that they launch the necessary attack in the right place, gaining momentum to exploit their advantage before their opponents could form up. However, due to Napoleon's poor leadership and the skill and resilience of the defense, they were unable to do so.

Wellington, in particular, was a far more practical commander than Napoleon. He demonstrated endurance, skill, and bravery. He spent much of the battle on the right flank of his position, where the fighting was fiercest, and exposed himself to heavy shelling. Wellington was keen to regroup the infantry between line and square formations to thwart the specific nature of the French attack, whether the infantry, which in response required a line formation to maximize defensive firepower, or the cavalry, which required squares to provide all-round protection.

There was also a second battle, the Prussian attack on the French. The Prussians advanced in the eastern part of the battle, with contact between the cavalry at 3:30 a.m. and that of the infantry about an hour later. The village of Plancenoit, south of Waterloo, was fiercely contested by the French and Prussians from 6:00 p.m. onward, tying up a large portion of the French reserve. After the British defeated the Imperial Guard, the latter advanced and joined the Prussians, routing the French army.

Across the battlefield, the fighting was fierce, as were the fighting conditions. The smoke and the smell of muskets made visibility difficult. The soldiers could barely breathe. The situation was confusing and confusing. Added to that was the intense heat, partly due to the smoke that hung in the heavy, hot afternoon air, but also due to the sweat of the horses and men on the small battlefield. All of this led to an unbearable stench that, in addition to copious amounts of human and animal urine and feces, also contained the sulfur from the gunpowder that exploded from the muskets and cannons during the fierce exchanges of fire.

The noise also put a strain on the men's nerves, especially the constant sound of muskets being loaded and fired. Added to this were the explosions of the artillery and the sound of projectiles hitting their targets, including the breastplates of the French cuirassiers, the heavy cavalry. They attacked repeatedly between four and six o'clock without being able to break through a British infantry square. But the cavalry suffered heavy losses. The French cavalrymen took advantage of the British failure. They stayed away from the British squares and mocked the soldiers with gestures, waving their swords.

Wellington's defense was far more effective than the French attack. It was layered, with the cannons in the front line, and behind them, neatly organized infantry detachments providing mutual fire support. This was a coordinated defense and also a defense in depth. Neither might have worked if the French had been able to bring up effective infantry and cannons to support the cavalry, but they failed to do so.

The real purpose of drill and discipline was defensive: to prepare a unit to remain intact and compliant with its commander in the face of death and injury. Combat readiness relied on unit cohesion, not least because firing was done in volley fire, a method designed not only to ensure continuity of fire but also to establish a relative superiority that could influence the outcome of the battle.

A lieutenant in the British artillery reported on the Imperial Guard's advance at the height of the battle: "We saw the French Caps just above the tall grain and forty or fifty yards from our guns. I believe they were in close columns of Grand Divisions, and when they reached the crest of our position, they attempted to form a line; but the destructive fire of our grapeshot-loaded guns and the well-aimed volleys of the infantry prevented them from forming an orderly formation."

He further wrote: "They remained under this fire for about ten minutes and advanced a little, but when they saw that it was impossible to capture our position, they gave way and retreated to the right. The Duke then ordered a general attack, and within a few moments our infantry and the French were so intermingled that our fire was ended for that day."

The Imperial Guard withdrew and joined the retreat, which, as Lieutenant George Gawler put it, proceeded "in the wildest confusion." Wellington noted more laconically: "The enemy could not stand the attack," while Stanhope observed: "The arrival of the Prussian cavalry, encircling the enemy's right flank in masses as far as the eye could see, was a magnificent spectacle."

"The French had already been defeated," Stanhope continues, "but this was the beautiful finale. The Prussians pursued them all night, giving them no mercy, and capturing more artillery that had previously escaped our grasp." The French, who had mounted a tough and stubborn defense of Placenoit, were now routed, with only a few units maintaining their formation.

This sealed the French defeat. Napoleon's last army had collapsed in its first campaign of 1815. This was partly due to his own failure. He had failed to keep the British and Prussians apart, and he lacked the tactical imagination that he needed all the more when the mud following heavy rains hampered the movement of his units.

Wellington remarked: "Napoleon didn't maneuver at all. He simply advanced in columns in the old style and was driven off in the old style." The French were outclassed both militarily and tactically, and the British troops were aware of this achievement. Not since the Great Roman War—that is, since Caesar's campaigns in Britain—had there been such a hard-fought battle, wrote Private John Abbott: "We fixed our bayonets and gave the proud gentlemen a beating they will long remember."

Wellington's army lost about 16,200 men, the Prussians about 7,000, and the French suffered about 31,000 dead and wounded. Several thousand more soldiers were captured, and many more deserted after the battle.

But how decisive was this victory? Napoleon was not killed because, unlike Wellington, he did not put himself in danger during the battle. He escaped and reached Paris on June 21, having ordered military preparations on June 19 to form a new army to continue fighting. However, as the British and Prussians advanced into France, resistance was minimal. Captain of the Imperial Guard, Jean-Roch Coignet, reported on the defeated army at Waterloo: "The Emperor tried to restore some order among the fleeing troops, but his efforts were in vain."

Napoleon's defeat led to a loss of power in Paris. The Chamber of Deputies was hostile, so he left the city on June 25. Paris fell on July 7. On July 14, Napoleon surrendered to a British warship. Without trial, he was quickly shipped to the distant island of Saint Helena, where he died in 1821. His imprisonment was a consequence and a sign of British power, secured by the supremacy of the British navy.

Had Napoleon not been defeated at Waterloo, he would almost certainly have fallen victim to the Austrian and Russian troops advancing on eastern France. However, the protection of the Netherlands and the reconquest of France by Anglo-Prussian rather than Austro-Russian troops was crucial for European history. In 1799, Russia demonstrated its power by sending troops to the Netherlands, Switzerland, and southern Italy in the war against France. In 1805, an Austro-Russian army was defeated at Austerlitz in what is now the Czech Republic.

Even more dramatic was that Tsar Alexander I, who had allied himself with Napoleon at Tilsit in 1807 and divided Europe into spheres of influence, inspected a parade of 150,000 Russian soldiers east of Paris in September 1815. Francis I of Austria and Frederick William III of Prussia also participated, wearing Russian uniforms.

The fact that Western Europe was saved from increasing Russian influence in 1815 isn't the first thing that springs to mind when one hears the word Waterloo. In Britain, the memory of it is hazy, partly due to the increasingly lesser emphasis given to national history in schools. Waterloo is best known today through the Abba song, which mistakenly begins with the words: "My my, at Waterloo Napoleon did surrender."

Napoleon had come to power through a military coup. France under his leadership was a kind of "rogue state," its DNA marked by belligerence. And the Battle of Waterloo was crucial for the world order of the 19th century. It paved the way for liberal capitalism, which would transform Europe for the better in many ways. Not least by enabling self-determination for France's neighbors like Switzerland.

Jeremy Black is a historian and was a professor at the University of Exeter until 2020. His monograph "The Battle of Waterloo" was published by Random House in 2010.