On This Day in History: June 18

Waterloo

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In 1977, when I was nine, it seemed the kids in my school either liked KISS, or ABBA. I was a KISS fan and thought the Waterloo song was stupid. Now that my joints creak, my running playlist has more ABBA on it. Anyway, the song was wrong about Napoleon surrendering at the battle. He lost at Waterloo, fled, and surrendered a month later.

--On This Day in History, Shit Went Down: June 18, 1815--

The French Revolution began in 1789, and for 10 years Napoleon was a skilled military leader who rose through the ranks, eventually seizing control in a 1799 coup d’état. He declared himself Emperor of France and looked beyond its borders to do some conquering. And he had the army to do it, because in 1793 the basis for a mega force was laid via Levée en Masse, which loosely translates to “You can hold a gun? You’re in the army now.”

He waged war all over Europe for several years, then did that dumbass invading Russia in winter thing in 1812, and the fact that only 100,000 of his 600,000-strong invading forces made it out kind of soured people on him, so he was forced to abdicate two years later and exiled to the island of Elba.

Less than a year later, he was all like, “I’m back, motherfuckers!”

He escaped Elba and was welcomed back to France with cheering crowds. No word if the crowd had red hats proclaiming to “Make France Great Again.” Then he began his “Hundred Days campaign,” because other European nations were not thrilled to see Bonaparte back in power, and they wanted to fuck his shit up.

And fuck him up they did, on June 18, 1815, at the Battle of Waterloo in Belgium. “They,” in this case, were mostly the British and Prussians (a German state). Bonaparte kicked some Prussian ass at Ligny two days previous but didn’t destroy their army.

And this is how Napoleon lost.

Napoleon faced off his 72,000 French soldiers against a British-led coalition 68,000 strong, led by the Duke of Wellington, who the beef is named after. Bonaparte was a talented tactician yet made a terrible blunder. The ground was wet, and he was like “Fuck it. We’ll chill and wait for it to dry before we get to the killing.” That gave the 30,000 Prussians who fled Ligny time to join the fracas—cool word, “fracas”—and turn the tide.

It was a rout. That’s another cool word that means “flee in chaos.”

Wellington went on to become British Prime Minister, and Napoleon was exiled to a new island and died a few years later, most likely from cancer.

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