Waterloo: Causes, Courses and Consequences - Professor Sir Richard Evans FBA

good evening everybody once a year the provost of gresham college which is the office i'm proud and delighted to hold gives a lecture and quite by chance uh the lecture was showed you long ago for the exact anniversary of the battle of waterloo the 200th anniversary which is today shown here in a later painting by the victorian artist william holden silver sullivan so in this lecture i want to explore the causes courses and consequences of the battle why was it fought who fought it who won and why and how important was it well to the daily mail and probably to many others in the country the answer these questions seem so obvious is hardly to merit discussion it was a battle in which the british led by the duke of wellington bashed the french led by the emperor napoleon and thus brought his dream of a european dictatorship to an end in a decisive moment of world history well the next three-quarters of an hour or so i want to persuade you that every single one of these statements is wrong the british did not bash the french the duke of wellington did not defeat the emperor napoleon and the battle was not a decisive moment in world history okay so let's start with the with the background what starts with this man who was napoleon vanepot well it was born in corsica in 1769 became a leading commander in the armies of the french revolution defeating the military might of the heisman empire the leading power among the enemies of revolutionary frauds his success as a general gave him huge political influence which he used in 1799 to stage a coup d'etat in france then in 1804 to proclaim himself emperor of the french and in a long series of brilliant military victories at ulm australis jena austet uh seen here in a painting by the uh contemporary french artist alice osavene at friedland virgram and others he defeated the successive coalitions of different powers put together by the austrians to try and stop him and he establishes domination over the whole of europe he redrew its map he uh prompted the abolition of the thousand-year old holy roman empire establishing his relatives or his marshals on a whole range of thrones of half of europe he beat the leading german states austria and prussia into submission and in the process the boundaries of france were extended far to the east until they included huge chunks of western germany and northern italy you can see napoleon at his height there you see the the french france actually now goes to the borders of uh of denmark includes hamburg bremen it goes down there uh includes uh large bits much further south then these are kind of like light blue uh light blues bits are client states of the french so that's uh in that's uh in 1810 well while he was almost continuously victorious on land he met with a series of defeats at sea against the british who fought the french empire across the globe as indeed they had the kingdom of france through most of the 18th century from india to canada battle of trafalgar in 1805 seen here in a painting by turner enabled the british to establish a stranglehold over the continent with a naval blockade while napoleon reposted with his continental system which is aimed at denying britain access to continental european markets and sources of supply it was a russian tsar's alexander first refusal to stop trading with the british that provided the trigger for napoleon to lead the grand army six hundred and eighty thousand strong into russia in 1812. victories at smoliensk and at borudino the bloodiest battle of the entire napoleonic wars memorably of course described in tolstoy's war and peace failed to bring the decisive victory napoleon was looking for the russians extricated themselves they retreated and they avoided further major encounters they burnt moscow to the ground denied the grand army the quarters and supplies so badly needed as winter came on napoleon was forced to retreat as shown in the german artist aldolf norden's later painting losing men to hypothermia typhus starvation and guerrilla raids by the cossack cossack cavalry who harassed the retreating french mercilessly as they marched back towards central europe altogether 380 thousands to 400 000 troops in the grand army died nearly 200 000 were taken prisoner almost nothing was left of it by the end of the year shown in the famous graphic completed by charlotte joseph minar in 1869. you can see the light shaded bit is the grand army marching left to right the dark shaded bit is marching back until it's only a very thin line of not very many left by the time they return the retreat from moscow the destruction of the grand army provided the trigger for the austrians to put together a sixth coalition of european powers and the first to include all the major states among them russia prussia britain spain now largely liberated from the napoleonic rule by the military victors victories of the british expedition led by wellington and by guerrilla action by spaniards sweden portugal number of minor german states you can see the red bits are the the coalition in practice most of spain belonged to it uh as well uh now um after a series of um uh encounters the grand this seventh the sixth coalition's army about eight hundred thousand men in total uh confronted napoleon who raised a new army of six hundred thousand strong as a series of bloody but inclusive inconclusive engagements but uh eight hundred and thirty thousand allied troops converged on leipzig where they heavily defeated napoleon's force of 191 thousands a much smaller less than half a size in the battle of the nations which was the largest military engagement in europe before the first world war that's the battle of the of the nations and around leipzig you can see napoleon is basically blocked in uh it's worth remembering those names blue ship at the top with the prussians who finally after a long period of equivocation had turned round to oppose napoleon and in the south the austrians led by schwarzenberg so they they compared a dot is a swedish marshal who again turned against napoleon and napoleon's absolutely uh surrounded he refused uh peace terms retreated to france but wellington was now dancing with british spanish armies from the south while more than four hundred thousand allied troops marched in from the rhine with only eighty thousand troops left in his army napoleon did not stand a chance in senior officers led by martial nay another name to remember mutinied and refused to continue fighting after the allies that occupied paris napoleon was forced to abdicate in april 1814 and was taken into exile on the mediterranean island of elba between tuscany and corsica rather unwisely perhaps the allies allowed him to take 600 troops with him while the allied representatives met in vienna in september to hammer out a piece of him as a contemporary cartoon journey of a modern hero to the island of alba uh back on his way into exile facing backwards on a donkey well the first thing the allies did even before they met at vienna was to restore the french monarchy under louis the 18th brother of the executed louis xv extravagant gluttonous he was enormously fat and his death in 1824 indeed was described by contemporary doctors to morbid obesity louis entered paris on the 4th of may 1814 at the invitation of the french senate napoleon senate uh and to general public acclaim he traveled to the coach since he was unable to walk but the new regime got into trouble almost immediately he was overwhelmed by there he is uh sort of rather discreet picture um there are others that make him look fatter than that uh the the the regime had to pay for the legacy of the war she'd been drained france of resources so it retained the unpopular taxes imposed by napoleon it imposed cutbacks and expenditure on the army it disbanded half its men and put 12 000 officers on half pay creating of course serious discontent among those affected you remember france had been almost continuously at war since the early 1790s so most of these a lot of these men had spent their entire adult lives as soldiers they knew nothing nothing else they had no other career louis xviii alienated liberals by reimposing censorship after decades of impassioned debate from the french revolution even before it onwards and he the 18th rejected the constitution voted through by napoleon's last senate after it had formally deposed the emperor and had it publicly burned in a paris square because he didn't accept that his royal authority derived from an implicit contract between the king and the people it came he said from divine right he was granting the french people their rights of his own free will and the proclamation of a militant catholicism as the state's religion alienated more educated frenchmen brought up with the principles of the enlightenment there were widespread fears that the king would try and restore lands confiscated by the revolution to their original clerical and aristocratic owners they've been divided up by the revolution parceled out among thousands and thousands of of peasants and small landowners the aristocrats in fact came back from exile and started behaving with rather ill-advised arrogance towards their former subjects at 59 years of age having grown up in the french court at versailles before the revolution louis the 18th was an intransigent figure he abolished the universal male suffrage introduced by the revolution he refused to fly the tricolor and replaced it with the royal flute elise as the official flag he reviews to recognize that legend instituted by napoleon he counted 1814 as the 19th year of his reign when a courtier told him in 1814 of napoleon's abdication and said sire you are king of france he said have i ever ceased to be king of france and the court rituals titles and ceremonies of the asean regime came back in their full pomp so he quickly became unpopular especially among public servants of the revolutionary and napoleonic periods who considered him apart for anything else incapable of filling napoleon's boots as in this slightly later cartoon after several months on the isle of elba napoleon began to realize that the restored monarchy was losing support the allies were starting to quarrel with one another at the congress of vienna the return of thousands of his troops from captivity and russia and germany along with the discontent of masses of his former soldiers provided a fertile recruiting ground from which to build a new army on the 26th of february 1815 as the british and french guard ships were away he slipped off the island with his troops there he is embarking uh on the on the journey scene painted by joseph baum he landed near khan and he traveled across the alps it didn't go straight north because it the whole of the southern area was a hot bit of royalist sentiment so he went round by the alps entered southeastern france his return triggered an outburst of popular sentiment in favor of preserving the legacy of the revolution meeting a detachment of royalist troops he stepped forward uh pulled open his jacket and said if any of you will shoot your emperor shoot him now they rushed over to join him louis xviii sent one of napoleon's greatest and most famous marshals marshall nay to put down the rebellion declaring that napoleon was a madman who should be put in a cage now he led a force of 6 000 troops southwards but when he saw the former emperor his resolve melted and he too went over to his side with his troops and this was i think the decisive moment in what became known as the hundred days louie in his court prudently withdrew to the netherlands on the 20th of march 1815 napoleon entered paris to a rapturous welcome justice louis the 18th had entered paris uh not a few months before now in the south uh lou the 18th nephew the duke don gulem seen here in a contemporary portrait from the studio francois joseph kessel raised a militia of a hundred thousand men and set up in effect a kind of independent autonomous royalist state he wasn't then forced to leave but his supporters re-emerged later on to instigate a very violent white terror against the former emperor's supporters demonstrations of support for napoleon from parisian workers alienated many bourgeois notables the emperor faced serious hostility amongst the clergy in areas like the voldemort brittany traditionally royalist he couldn't win much support so it wasn't the whole of france by any means who supported napoleon's return was particularly amongst his former soldiers who were angered by the mass dismissals and the economy measures imposed by the restored monarchy that he was popular i only have the people and the army up to captain level for me he remarked the rest is scared of me but i can't rely on them and i think really his his arrival uh exposed the deep divisions in french society left by a quarter of a century of revolutionary conflict well conveniently all assembled in one place at the congress of vienna the allies immediately declared napoleon to be an outlaw uh as a beyond the pale of civil society the declaration uh uh put it penned by his former foreign minister talihang who had prudently switched sides anyone could thus murder him without fear of perfect prosecution it was legal to shoot him louis xiii remained the legitimate internationally recognized head of the french state and the allies now formed a seventh coalition the last one in which britain austria russia and prussia each promised to raise a hundred and fifty thousand troops that's six hundred thousand troops and undertook not to make a separate peace with napoleon altogether 16 states joined the coalition including spain and portugal sweden switzerland sardinia tuscany the two sicilies hanover brunswick nassau and of course the kingdom of france within a short space of time they had nearly a million men under arms a quarter of a million russian troops began the long march westwards towards france the british were unable to raise a large force because a great proportion of their army was still in north america having burned down the white house in 1812 in the war against the united states but the british made substantial sums of money available to the other coalition powers to pay for troops ammunition pay arms supplies and so on well for his part of course napoleon realized that this is going to happen so he tried to assure the allies of his peaceful intentions his emissary florida shabulon told the austrian representative at a secret meeting at the three kings inn in basel the only leader we want is napoleon but not the conquering ambitious po napoleon but napoleon tamed by adversity although as a compromise the allies who were already disillusioned with attackless and politically incompetent louis the 18th offered to place napoleon's son on the throne with napoleon as a regent but he was only encouraged by this these gentlemen he said are starting to come around since they're offering me the regency he told his entourage my firmness is making them respect me in a month i'll no longer fear them and i think his intransigence at that point in the end was to prove his undoing the secret negotiations were broken off the allied armies continued to be mustered and got ready to march the russians continued to move towards central europe now napoleon was no longer the vigorous and healthy man he'd been in his heyday fleury his emissary in these talks told the austrian representative the former emperor has become fat and flabby heavy and sluggish he sleeps a great deal and he realizes what he needs now is peace and quiet not terribly plausible uh it was of course designed to reassure the austrians that he was less of a threat than they feared and whether he was actually suffering some kind of illness uh which has been widely debated in the literature ever since he's certainly not lost his former drive within weeks he mustered nearly a quarter of a million men as the provincial administrators and mostly appointed by him did their job of recruitment that's before as veterans you know many who'd come back from imprisonment in germany and russia disillusioned with the bourgeois restoration rallied to the tricolor now napoleon left a substantial portion of these troops to guard the french capital and large forces to prevent royalist uh uh insurrections and allied invasions in the south and west uh that's napoleon not looking very happy or very particularly well contemporary drawing now as you can see uh you can see um here uh don't worry there's paris so he leaves some troops there he's got to leave some troops in the west because it's a heavily royalist area he's going to have troops along the rhine because there's an enormous army led by schwarzenberg the austrians and the austrians gathering on the right bank of the rhine uh he's got to leave some more down down south so um he's got it he's dispersing this quarter of a million forces and forming them into military groups he's got other forces facing him up and up in the north and another one uh up there so um he uh he's only got a portion of his total force under his command when he advanced with the rest uh with what's left to meet the allied armies drawn up between between paris uh and brussels so you can see allied armies are massing up there now in uh in in mid-june when he advanced with his troops to meet these allied army armies which had drawn up in this area um he was his aim was to prevent the the two major forces uh one led by duke of wellington and the other led by the prussian blucher his aim was to prevent them from uniting and to defeat them sequentially otherwise he'd be outnumbered he actually wrong-footed wellington who expected him to try and surround the two forces in his usual way by advancing swiftly he stole the march on the allies now the first of these two allied armies was an entirely prussian force commanded by field martial liberecht von blucher born in 1742 he was a veteran of the seven years war who had risen to command the army that defeated napoleon as you saw earlier at the battle of nations in leipzig uh there's old bluesha beating the corsican big drum uh beating him that is at the battle of the nation's uh leipzig in a rather enjoyable um uh cartoon it's a victory for which he received the title of prince from the prussian king blue she was famous for his impetuosity and daring he was known popularly as general forwards general forbes a lifelong soldier he played a significant role in reforming and restructuring the armies in prussia after they were defeated so heavily by napoleon at yala and aarshted he's the leader of the so-called patriotic party in prussia an impassioned advocate of war against the french at a time when pressure in 1812 to 13 had not made up its mind malicious force in 1815 numbered about 90 000 men but a third of them consisted a poorly trained militia and a substantial contingent of saxons had mutineed had been sent home even before the campaign began guns ammunition equipment and short supply they were still being delivered to him during the campaign volusia failed to get a substantial part of his army under general fondulo up to the front in time but although he considered the french but the odds were with the french he uh thought a retreat would damage morale so he took up a defensive position against the advance of the advancing army of about 80 000 led by napoleon and waited for the main allied force under the duke of wellington to arrive as promised they were of course communicating with each other all the time uh now there you can see um battle of linear rough uh rough indication there um uh of uh uh the the french versus the prussians the first battle of the uh welling of the waterloo campaign now napoleon had an observation post built and realized that blue shield arranges forces in the expectation of being relieved by wellington along the road from katrina so wellington was expected to come down this way so uh the prussian uh he launched a fierce attack on on blucher's right frank right flank uh up here and uh the prussian militias panicked when blucher tried to rally the troops his horse was shot from under him almost all the generals lost several horses during uh during the these battles but um in in most movies of battle of these times of course you don't uh that you don't see this happening the horses were the most vulnerable uh of uh of all the elements in the battle um he was shot from he fell and his horse pinned him to the ground and you can see paul blucher there not looking very happy underneath the horse um uh at the battle of leaning and the the two french cavalry charges passed over them before he could be rescued the russian uh command thought he was dead and as leading he fell to napoleon's old guard the protestants retreated in disorder losing 16 000 dead and wounded and another six thousand deserters from the militias but napoleon's forces lost about twelve thousand men it's quite a major battle his forces failed to follow up and complete the route by the time the final prussian units retreated it was three in the morning the french troops are tired they were unable to make rapid progress over the heaps of dead and piles of abandoned guns and equipment and the bodies of horses the prussian command was able after a while to restore order and rally their remaining troops blucher who's heavily bruised but not seriously wounded had himself rubbed all over with a potion made of garlic brandy gin and rhubarb he was given a bottle of champagne to drink he put his uniform on and arrived at headquarters justice is second in command can eisenhower was starting to organize a retreat as napoleon expected them to do as he roughly embraced his english liaison officer hardinge you can imagine the poor man wincing because he just had his arm amputated blusher shouted ish tinker haha i stink i stink and resumed command ordering his army to carry out the original plan of getting together and uniting with wellington's force now meanwhile a smaller french force of about 24 000 under marshall nay took the strategic crossroads of katrina which you saw meant to go up there to prevent wellington joining up with pollution and as the allied troops numbering about 36 000 stream towards a battle scene there was fierce fighting uh the allied troops having the upper hand but when he learned of blush's defeat at leonie wellington had to withdraw each side lost around you can see up there it's a bit clearer map there there's capital apart wellington comes down here uh but he's blocked by after the the the french victory uh volusia is sort of going up that way uh and he has wellington then has to turn around and go back each side lost about 4 000 soldiers in the encounter uh now that's um that's the two that these are the battles in relationship to one another okay there's lenie there's katrina and there's waterloo so it all takes place very much in the same kind of area the french stream up this way beat the prussians back they have to go away they beat the british back and it all moves up from from here up to up to there realizing the prussian army had managed to regroup and had not dissolved as he'd expected napoleon sent thirty three thousand men under martial gushi to pursue it blusher left a rear guard of seventeen thousand in a defensive position at vavra under general tileman while he set off to join wellington with his main force of 72 000 prussians and the fierce fighting and you can see valver is there so the prussians are coming up uh napoleon leaves that leaves a second they retreat in that direction take a stand there napoleon sends martial gushy there to try and beat them so he split his main force into two lines um the fierce fighting throughout the afternoon of the 18th june 17 000 prussians held off cause she's 33 000 frenchmen long enough to prevent them from joining napoleon's main army so the frenchmen uh were ordered to meet um to go and join the main army and in fact even before that one of the junior officers said what just march towards the sound of gunfire the famous soldiers are always saying that but march towards the sound of gunfire because the battle of waterloo is in full train but grushi was afraid of disobeying the emperor he'd been told to hold to take father so he stayed there and so to the battle of waterloo itself after these earlier encounters the main allied force took up a defensive position along a ridge a mile away from the town of waterloo uh it's uh the uh of course wellington knew that blue shirt reformed his army and was was marching to to join him duke wellington arthur wellesley born in 1869 so in his mid-50s was a professional soldier he'd fought in india and the netherlands before in 1808 to nine taken charge of british forces in the iberian peninsula which at that time was occupied by the french now wellington was essentially a defensive commander uh he was famous for developing a method of defense where you kind of occupied a ridge and he put most of your soldiers behind it uh to to avoid the enemy gunfight and pop out when things get difficult uh sort of flexible defense uh he made very slow progress in the peninsula against a series of armies led by napoleon's marshals before defeating them at the battle of victoria in 1813 which opened the way for him to enter france this is the occasion not only for his elevation to a dukedom but also for beethoven's battle symphony which is written for a mechanical orchestra as possibly his lucrative and certainly his worst composition [Music] after napoleon's defeat and exile to elba wellington was made british plenipotentiary at the congress of vienna but they sent him off to take command of the allied forces in what is now belgium with the aim of defending brussels uh against uh napoleon now it's important to realize that the army wellington commanded at waterloo was not a british army out of 68 000 troops only 25 000 were british the rest of the army was made up of six thousand troops from the king's german legion and eleven thousand hanoverians both of these forces of course consisted of german subjects of king george iii was also king of hanover as british kings had been since 1714. there were 17 000 dutch troops there were six thousand more germans from the duchy of brunswick and three thousand from nasa so you add them all together there's more german and british troops in burlington's army 26 000 is against 25 000. it's an allied force it's a force of the seventh coalition of the european powers against napoleon now against them napoleon could pit about 73 000 men he outgunned wellington by two five two guns two one five six he had fourteen thousand cavalry against wellington's eleven thousand the best british troops veterans of the peninsula campaign were in america wellington said i have an infamous army very weak and ill-equipped and a very inexperienced staff by contrast napoleon's troops were mostly battle-hardened veterans wellington's a bad general napoleon told his martials the english are bad troops this affair is nothing more than eating breakfast wellington of course knew that blue shirt was marching to his eight there's constant messages going back and forth so his task was to hold the line until the prussians arrived it's the sort of thing he did best and this would then when they came give him a decisive numerical advantage napoleon's task was to break the allied line before this happened either forcing the prussians to retreat or enabling him to turn on them after defeating the allied force under wellington and with his numerical superiority still uh thinking that the prussians were continuing to gather their strength together he thought it would take them two days before they could arrive and in any case grushi with his force could handle them so napoleon wasn't concerned about the delay occasioned by his observation that the ground in the early morning was dangerously soft so he waited until well after 10 indeed even later than that to launch his assault it wasn't really it didn't really get going until later than that and this hesitation i think was to cost him dearly napoleon's battle plan was to force wellington to pull in his reserves by attacking ugamore farm before general delor rolled up the line from the left but as the fighting around the farm became fiercer so it became more important both sides threw in more troops there's wellington uh and there's the disposition of the troop now you can see here you've got the french um there's delon there commanding that that wing uh you've got um the ridge this is an escarpment a ridge and wellington's doing his usual thing of putting most of his troops just behind it keeping the cavalry there's cross crosshatch ones in reserve french cavalry and reserve until they're needed and the idea of napoleon is to some get up there roll them up from the right now um but they get stuck on farm which is uh there i think am i right yeah who come on farmers there so very fierce fighting starts around around there at the height of um the the the fighting around oogamal um depicted here by clermont august andrea in 1852 there's 12 000 allied and 14 000 french troops are battling it out wellington later said the success of the battle turned upon closing the gates at ugemon which i think is an exaggeration but it gives you an idea that importance they attached to it meanwhile dialogue launched an attack on the second farmhouse at la a salt which is there and you see it's already not not really doing what he's supposed to he's supposed to go around there but in fact he's going really for the center um this also occasionally is fighting the king's german legion occupied the farmhouse and they defended it throughout the the afternoon not long after one o'clock napoleon learned that blush's army was in fact only four or five hours march away the defeat of the allied army under wellington became more urgent now de la managed to beat the allied armies back and actually got penetrated to be behind the defensive ridge he was held up uh however by uh by the fighting around that lay thought but he did get through and things didn't look very good but he was pushed back then by the british cavalry who came out and and charge the heavy brigade heavy cavalry charge increasingly desperate marshall nays down on the left there um launched a series of cavalry charges against the allied right because they knew the russians were coming here's a picture and you can see what the british forces and their allies did was to form defensive squares the french are constantly charging them with cavalry here they come there but they were met with withering fire the squares held the french could not break these allied squares and when they did overrun the allied guns they failed to spike them so they could simply be reoccupied by the the gunners who of course retreated to him within the squares uh when the french went away they could simply come out man the guns again and fire on them wellington uh uh was trapped in a square from which he couldn't really see what was going on and la hayasant at seven in the evening fell the french forces went up into the allied center they brought up the guns and they opened fire on the squares from above so things started to look extremely bad for wellington's force but seven o'clock in the evening was too late the first prussian units under bulow remember his army had been separated from lucia's army and was relatively intact and fresh they had begun to arrive on the eastern side of the battlefield about 4 30. del oro had to replace redeploy his forces to deal with them so essentially he had to the depression started coming in from here delaware had to sort of reform like that and um the first uh the the the prussians began to pour in larger and larger numbers onto the battlefield the village of place noir as depicted here by ludwig elshotz in 1843 fell to the prussians and the french were pushed back a final desperate charge by the old guard against the allied center was repelled by dutch troops who arrived there just in time excuse me and as the guard retreated wellington ordered the general advance lord hill and demanded the god surrender and met with a famous report the guard dies but it does not surrender although some have said this is an apocryphal tale the scene is depicted here uh by the um english artist robert hillingford now as the allied and prussian forces advanced the french retreat turned into a route the napoleon and the units protected him retired in fairly good order wellington and blue shield met at the fel farmer bel alias in fact the battle is known in germany it's a battle of bel alliance napoleon had made his headquarters there he'd left his carriage behind with a large collection of diamonds which the prussians took and put into their collection of crown jaws the scene was painted by uh it's a it's a difficult to see but the point is it's painted by daniel mclees on a mural in the gallery of the house of lords in 1861 after the palace of westminster had been reconstructed following its destruction by fire in 1834 so you go to the house of lords you can see this scene uh there's blue shield in his cat and wellington is hat prussians then british then well so to kind of sum up the battle consisted of two phases in the first napoleon made repeated attempts to defeat the allied army under wellington here he essentially failed because of the instead of the tactical flexibility that had led him to victory in earl of earlier battles the quick reactions and the element of surprise and so on he'd simply launched a series of frontal assaults even if his intention had been to roll up the allied armies from the left flank he was diverted first by fighting around uugamon and then by attack on the center and la isot derlon did not maneuver his forces around the left flank we launched a frontal assault far too close to the center marshall nay's late attempts to destroy the allied right was similarly made through a frontal assault and you could say some have said that they're the ones who messed it up and napoleon's plan would have worked had they had the intelligence to carry it through there's no sign of the tactic of encirclement that had made napoleon famous whether he's weakened by illness or lost his tactical genius in his face of his desperation that the knowledge of the oppressions were coming soon he could not adapt any longer with the speed flexibility and element of surprise he'd shown through most of his career damn fella said wellington he's a mere pounder after all if the first phase of the battle was fairly evenly balanced with napoleon holding the advantage but unable to overcome wellington the second phase of the battle which began around harpo's four in the afternoon with the arrival of the first prussian units was the decisive one napoleon was now faced with overwhelming odds 74 000 troops pitted against 118 000 allies and prussian troops two phases in the battle can be seen quite clearly in this graphic you can see the french moving up the allies getting themselves ready and the french guns there are now off they go and they are unable to do it the cavalry report repelling them there and then the prussians start to write the black ones here charges by nay and the cavalry repeated charges but failing to block these to destroy these squares and the prussians are pushing them back there french more russians coming in crushing cavalry and the french have to retreat from the field so i'll run that once more okay it all happens a lot quicker than here than it happened in reality of course hey you've got the time at the top here right so one o'clock is when the french start two o'clock they fail to destroy the center they're repelled by the cavalry then three o'clock russians start arriving they're getting desperate here not breaking the squares now the russians are coming in large numbers pushing the french back at five o'clock six o'clock more and more prices coming in uh it's they can't do anything more uh they're now surrounded effectively they're surrounded and they're pushed off the field okay but that's just a brush just a brush and cavalry are trying to chase it well it's what happens to napoleon um now the casualness on the allied side amounted to fifteen thousand dead and wounded seven thousand dead and went into the prussian forces napoleon lost twenty five thousand men seven thousand captured fifteen thousand deserted uh either after the battle or or even during it on the following morning uh general gurushi not marching towards the sound of battle defeated the prussians under tilamen and valverde but all he could do then was retreat um because the the battle of waterloo was over so uh his 33 000 troops might have given napoleon victory had they joined them at waterloo napoleon went back to paris abdicated 24th of june he was taken to saint helena on the british warship but the hms bellerophon seen in here in an 1880 picture by sir william orchards on this remote island in the atlantic he managed to dictate his memoirs before dying on the 5th of may 1821. and um as a um the main uh other victim as it were was marshall nay whose treachery in going over to napoleon's side when he was supposed to defeat him at the beginning of the hundred days not forgiven by louis the 18th and he was condemned for treason and shot how decisive was the battle of waterloo well certainly it finished in the napoleonic dream but had napoleon proved victorious he'd still have needed to deal with schwartz and banks 200 000 strong army and camped on the other side of the rhine beginning to launch an invasion of france young contemporary cartoonist crookshank indeed portrayed napoleon corsican shuttlecock been batted backwards and forwards by blucher and schwarzenberg in a kind of game of badminton so he's pretty trapped between the two source two two armies then there's a russian force of a quarter of a million men marching in from the east by the time of waterloo they'd reach central germany and they would have reached the french border in a few weeks after that and there's another army uh threatening napoleon from northern italy so the the the odds are overwhelming sooner or later the european powers gathered at vienna would have defeated him so in that sense the battle of waterloo was not an all-or-nothing encounter and it's rather misleading to claim it prevented napoleon from re-establishing his empire and launching a fresh bid to conquer europe that was never not going to happen but the real had the real effect was napoleon's ability to raise such a large force in such a short time the fact he almost defeated the allied armies under wellington it's the nearest run thing you ever saw in your life as the duke said from now on until the middle of the 19th century the major allies russia austria russia and britain established a system of international relations the concert of europe in succession to the seventh coalition to prevent the recurrence of anything like the french revolution or the napoleonic wars the congress of vienna imposed harsher terms on france than it had proposed when it first convened periodic international congresses met to regulate international relations the congress of verona for example in 1822 uprisings and revolutions were to be crushed by concerted international action as they were in italy and spain in the 1820s actually armies going into those countries to restore monarchs had been deposed in a revolution so in this sense the defeat of napoleon did not prevent authoritarian rule over europe it established it it crushed rebellion and there's a system of policing that tries to stop um revolutionary outbreaks the peace is restored then there's no major wars in europe for a century until the outbreak of world war one in 1914 there are limited uh conflicts limited in the number of um countries that are in go engaged in them limited by time limited by aims in the crimean war the war uh the wars uh of german unification italian unification um we really um uh it's not the battle of waterloo that creates a general peace in europe until 1914. what's decisive actually is the british elimination of the french global empire over the course of the napoleonic and revolutionary wars um there was no chance of a re-emergence of a napoleonic style global empire the french have been defeated in north america and india it's britain's uh command of the seas throughout most of the 19th century that really guarantees there's another battle of trafalgar by clarkson stanfield 1836. so european states are not going to be embroiled in a worldwide conflict as they had been in the 18th century not until the emergence of a nu of other global empires and the rise of the rival european power with global ambitions germany at the end of the 19th century did this situation look as if it's going to change so between them the concert of europe and the british domination of the seas ensured that the 19th century was essential peace napoleon's legacy proved to be rather different to some he appeared as a meditator and warmonger but everywhere he ruled he replaced custom and privilege with the rationality and uniformity of bureaucratic efficiency while his army's rampaged across europe his bureaucrats moved in behind reorganizing systematizing standardizing local and regional jurisdictions were swept away church and senatorial courts were removed in all these areas that he conquered the napoleonic law code replaced existing often centuries-old tradition-bound laws and ordinances introducing key elements of equality before the law property rights were guaranteed wherever the code applied as they'd not been in many areas serfdom was swept away the code proclaimed many ideas of the french revolution including the freedom of the individual as napoleon himself proclaimed in his testament equality of opportunity career open to the talents rule of reason the early 19th century painter jean-baptiste moses's portrayal of napoleon writing the civil code crowned by the allegory of time says something i think according to the about the importance according to these measures in france and more generally in europe after 1815 you know weights and measures with some extent standardized internal customs abolished guilds removed restrictions on labour so swept away and so on so everywhere napoleon brought change and as he departed for centaulina it was clear much of it could not be reversed he left behind a political legend that quickly developed into potent myth encouraged by his own whether genuine or not turned to liberal ideas during the hundred days very much aware of the weakness of a situation he went to some length to reassure the world that his right his dreams had conquered so over he'd respect the rights and liberties of the citizen and so on and content continued the same vein uh in writing for his death in 1821 his death mask in subsequent decades the legend of the liberal emperor gained still in further in potency during his life remarked writer chateaubriand the world slipped from his grasp but in death he possesses it in france bonapartism came to stand for patriotism universal amount of suffrage sovereignty the nation institutions of an efficient centralized administration that dealt equally with all citizens the periodic consultation of the people through plebiscites and referendums an implicit contract between frenchmen and the state that provided social order political stability national pride the image of napoleon was celebrated in countless popular stories and cheap pamphlets folk songs paintings sculptures old imperial coins tobacco boxes and trinkets scarves and caps even in children's sweets chocolates or boiled sugar confections made in the shape of the emperor or bonbons with wrappings with napoleon's symbols men cultivated extravagant mustaches to advert advertise their admiration for the grand army's magnificently be whisked old guard and more violets or red carnations in their buttonholes in defiance of the ban opposed on the imperial colours by the french monarchy so napoleon one of his legacies with an enormous wave of kitsch that swept across france after after his death but the cult of napoleon stood for many people outside france for the achievements of the revolution translated into purposeful reform after the excesses of the terror in the early 1790s irish republicans polish nationalists looked at napoleon for inspiration in their political struggles in armenia a potent and widespread legend idolized the mythical figure of panaporte who conquered the world destroyed russia by fire and strangled the pope native american tribes incorporated napoleon to their folk tales european settlers named 15 towns in the usa napoleon or bonaparte by 1859. latin american liberators looked at his military exploits for inspiration the venezuelan liberated large parts of the continent from the spanish rule simone believer seen here in an anonymous portrait and lived for a while in france and was so enthusiastic about napoleon actually made the journey to milan to see his hero crown king of italy even in britain where he was widely reviled as bony a rapacious and militaristic desperate her parents told children would come and get them if they didn't behave themselves there were some radicals who retained a admiration for napoleon as a liberal and democratic reformer retrospectively in france itself even the battle of waterloo became a kind of victory celebration of courage in the face of overwhelming odds of patriotism of self-sacrifice for the nation and the restored french monarchy did not last long the allies made sure this time that louis the 18th made more concessions to the revolutionary napoleonic legacy than he'd done in 1814 at the insistence of the duke of wellington he was forced to appoint two of napoleon's chief aides to leading positions jose fujie minister of police and telegram foreign minister and head of the government mentioned earlier went over to the other side or as shut up put it vice leaning on the arm of crime louis had to recognize that the immigrants couldn't get their land back they had to concede an elected legislature that was very limited in its powers and its uh franchise the napoleonic structure of the administrative department was retained within the law code the french legitimacy never really accepted these changes louie's brother charles 10th seen here in a portrait by pierre narcissa guerra succeeded in 1824 as a rather more determined reactionary it's interesting both he and louis the 18th wear these very elaborate robes uh it shows how uh i think they they unconsciously feel that they need to emphasize their legitimacy by wearing these kinds of clothes if you go to absolutely house that you can wellington's house and london you'll see a picture of louis the 18th in these fantastic robes and and france is the first of um of austria who's just in a plain military uniform he's knows he's got power he knows he's the most powerful man in europe he doesn't need to advertise it with all his irma um so uh charles's attempts to clean up turn the clock back led to disaster in 1830 um he was overthrown in a revolution that brought his cousin the liberal duke d'ol to the throne in the so-called july monarchy bonapartan came to power again in the 1848 revolution uh in the wake of the 1848 revolution in a coup d'etat by a napoleon's nephew in 1951 the journalist and adventurer louis napoleon bonaparte portrayed here in 1861 by jean-paul the echoes of the coup which brought the first napoleon to power in 1799 prompted karl marx to make his famous statement that history repeats itself the first time it's tragedy the second time as farce the second empire did last for two decades tight authoritarian control at home rigged elections the rapid development of the economy kept napoleon iii as he styled himself in power uh because he said napoleon said have been 2nd but he never actually ruled he was kind of the first modern dictator because he relied on the appearance manufacturing the appearance of popular support to stay in power his ceaseless search for laguar abroad and adventures that would somehow uh make his reputation live up to that of his illustrious predecessor disturbed the european equilibrium with his involvement in the crimean war and the wars of italian unification but also the american world as he sent troops to impose a member of the habsburg family on the mexicans as their emperor which ended in the poor man being shot the second empire met his nemesis in the form of otto von bismarck who engineered a war with a willing napoleon iii in 1870 that ended with a crushing defeat for france the creation of the third republic and the german empire as for the duke of wellington he entered french british politics as a conservative he became prime minister twice uh he cultivated his image as a national hero uh was successful enough to be granted a massive state funeral and his death in 1850. he lost no importance to boost the uh enough opportunity to boost the importance of waterloo and indeed its reputation as a history changing event in which he played the decisive role owed a lot to his skillful manipulation of its memory he claimed already in his famous dispatch from the battlefield that the prussians had arrived far later than they actually did he even went so far as to suppress a model depicting the battle that gave full recognition to the role played by the prussians the battle that wellington wanted remembered was largely this one where there's not a prussian in sight and not this one and i'll give you that that's where the the prussians are have all arrived there i began by citing the popular view in this country that waterloo is a battle in which the british lived by the duke of wellington be bashed the french led by the emperor napoleon and thus brought his dream of european dictatorship to an end in a decisive moment of world history i've argued in this lecture that the victorian army was the victorious army was not british but multinational the germans were dominating british troops although very important in a minority it was not the duke of wellington who won but the prussians led by marshall blucher whose bravery indeed cost him his life only four years later since he never really recovered from his wounds wellington's achievement was to defend his lines successfully against the repeated assaults of napoleon's troops and that is no mean achievement and a very very important one but he didn't actually manage to defeat napoleon napoleon of course was not emperor of the french he was an outlaw a renegade an escaped prisoner his army did indeed consist of frenchmen unlike most of the armies he'd led earlier on like the grand army for example but many frenchmen refuse to support him and he can't be said to have represented the french indeed since the legitimate and internationally recognized french government was a member of the seventh coalition one would be justified in saying that the french were on the winning side in the battle napoleon did not aim at creating a european dictatorship but said at least that he wanted a liberal regime and that's in fact how he's mostly remembered on the european continent because his reforms have brought many civil freedoms waterloo was a decisive victory but had napoleon lost he'd still have faced overwhelming odds from those other huge armies under the austrians and the russians uh uh who were fake who were about who would have come into france and completed the route the long piece that followed owed more to british command of the sea in europe what followed the allied victory in 1815 was a long period of unity and perhaps the most important lesson to draw from the events of 200 years ago is that european unity is the best guarantee of international peace and stability as indeed it has been on this continent since the end of the second world war some 70 years ago thank you very much [Applause] you

Channel: Gresham College

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Keywords: gresham, gresham college, gresham lecture, gresham talk, gresham professor, gresham provost, gresham college talk, gresham college lecture, richard evans, sir richard evans, gresham history, history, napoleon, blucher, Wellington, napoleonic war, napoleonic history, waterloo, prussina military, prussian military, military history, military, warfare, war, british history, french history, german history

Id: wKIY40_LSWI

Length: 60min 9sec (3609 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 01 2015