[Jimmy Valentine]

Napoleon was fighting against long odds.

Two serious mistakes were Ney's cavalry charge against the British squares, and Grouchy wandering around instead of hitting Wellington's flank or at least pushing Blucher out of the fight completely.

As to the British Army, it was loaded with hardened veterans of many campaigns and they were some tough hombres.

Wellington was smart to get the high ground, put many of his troops behind the slopeof the hill and fight a defensive battle.

[chopperman]

Its threads like this that confirm to me the quality of contributors to FR. I’m sure if this thread was started over at DU or DailyKOS or Huffington, the typical response would be who’s Wellington?

[Steve Van Doorn]

Thanks guys.. I should of known better.

[Cheburashka]

As to the British Army, it was loaded with hardened veterans of many campaigns and they were some tough hombres.

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Wellington's Peninsular army was dispersed in 1814 after Napoleon's first abdication. Some of it went to North America to fight the U.S., some of it went to British colonies like India where the garrisons had been on station without relief for years.

The British troops at Waterloo were of lesser quality than Wellington had led in Spain, some of them raw recruits.

Wellington did have some experienced troops in his army, but many of them, like the Dutch-Belgians, had been in Napoleon's army as recently as 1 1/2 years before. Would kind of make you nervous.

But the “sepoy general”, as Napoleon liked to deride him, held it together and sent Napoleon on his path to the South Atlantic paradise of St. Helena.