Waterloo: The Three Commanders

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• 1. Three armies
• 2. Two strategies
• 3. Three commanders
• 4. Two battles
• 5. Waterloo
• 6. Napoleon's jeopardy
• 7. Find out more
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Three armies

At the battle of Waterloo, on 18th June 1815, the army of Napoleon Bonaparte contained a fair number of veterans, good cavalry and a large contingent of artillery. It was homogenous and enjoyed the command of a single man with one objective.

The Duke of Wellington's army was a mixture of Germans (the largest contingent), Netherlanders (often referred to as 'Dutch-Belgians') and British (many of whom hailed from Ireland). The sprinkling of veterans, particularly the British and King's German Legion units, were the corset-stays holding together this volatile mixture of men, some of whom had fought for Napoleon only the previous year.

Field Marshal Blücher's Prussians came largely from German provinces, although there were some ethnic Poles in certain units. A substantial number of his men came from newly acquired German provinces on the Rhine, which had been under French control for most of the previous 20 years. Many of his men were untried militia.

'The allied forces therefore had to be spread across the entire length of the southern frontier ...'

In terms of fighting power, Napoleon's army was the strongest, but it was not strong enough to defeat the two allied armies together. To win, he had to separate them and defeat them individually. Conversely, to defeat Napoleon, Wellington and Blücher had to unite their forces. That was easier said than done, because it was far from certain at which point Napoleon's attack would come. The allied forces therefore had to be spread across the entire length of the southern frontier of the kingdom of the Netherlands, to cover every possible line of approach, whereas Napoleon could concentrate his forces at the point of the attack and gain local superiority in numbers.

Napoleon had every chance of doing this. A master of deception, he used Wellington's own network of spies in Paris to send false information to Brussels, and he teased the allies along the entire length of the frontier, keeping them guessing about his intentions. Marches and counter-marches, particularly in the area of Lille, kept Wellington's attention fixed on his right flank and his line of communication via the Channel ports.

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Published: 2005-06-09