360Napoleon is defeated at the Battle of Waterloo
On 18 June 1815, near Waterloo in present-day Belgium, an allied army led by the Duke of Wellington and a Prussian army under Field Marshal Blücher defeated Napoleon Bonaparte. It was Napoleon's final battle. He abdicated days later and was exiled to Saint Helena. The defeat ended more than two decades of war in Europe.
Napoleon Bonaparte had ruled France as emperor and conquered much of Europe. Defeated in 1814, he was exiled to the island of Elba, but escaped in February 1815 and returned to power in Paris.
European powers rushed to stop him. Napoleon marched into what is now Belgium to strike before the armies could unite.
On 18 June 1815, he attacked the Duke of Wellington's army on a ridge near the village of Waterloo. Wellington's troops held out through a long day of fighting until Prussian forces under Blücher arrived and broke the French army.
Napoleon abdicated four days later and was sent to the remote island of Saint Helena in the South Atlantic, where he died in 1821. The peace that followed, settled at the Congress of Vienna, shaped Europe for decades.
- February 1815
- Napoleon escapes from Elba
- 18 June 1815
- The Battle of Waterloo
- 22 June 1815
- Napoleon abdicates
- 1821
- Napoleon dies on Saint Helena
Sources: National Army Museum · Britannica.