1st Life Guards.
2nd Life Guards.
Royal Horse Guards.
1st Dragoon Guards.
Royal Dragoons.
Royal Scots Greys.
Inniskilling Dragoons.
7th Hussars.
10th Hussars.
11th Hussars.
12th Lancers.
13th Hussars.
15th Hussars.
16th Lancers.
18th Hussars.
Grenadier Guards.
Coldstream Guards.
Scots Guards.
Royal Scots.
King's Own Royal Lancasters.
West Yorkshire.
Royal Welsh Fusiliers.
Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers.
Gloucesters.
East Lancashire.
Cornwall Light Infantry.
West Riding Regiment.
South Lancashire.
Welsh.
Royal Highlanders.
Oxford Light Infantry.
Essex.
King's Own (Yorkshire Light Infantry).
Highland Light Infantry.
Gordon Highlanders.
Cameron Highlanders.
Rifle Brigade.
THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON.
To face page 192.
The story of the Battle of Waterloo has been described in the minutest detail by the most accomplished military historians in Great Britain, Germany, and France, so that nothing remains to be told on this head. As is well known, Napoleon, worn down by the successive campaigns which had been waged against him in Europe and in Spain, had at last abdicated, and was relegated to honourable exile in the Island of Elba. In the early spring of 1815 he violated his engagements, and returned to France, where the majority of his soldiery flocked to his standard. The Allies once more mobilized their armies, and prepared for war. Whilst Austria and Russia were advancing from the east, the armies of Prussia and of Great Britain pushed forward from the north. Napoleon endeavoured to defeat these before the arrival of the Russians and Austrians on his frontier. On June 16 he simultaneously attacked the Prussians at Ligny and Wellington at Quatre-Bras. The Prussians were undoubtedly worsted, and we at the best fought a very doubtful action at Quatre-Bras. The Allies then fell back, and it was agreed that a further stand should be made at Waterloo. Circumstances arose which prevented Blücher from arriving on the field as soon as was anticipated, and for four long hours the small British army withstood the onset of the whole of Napoleon's forces; then, early in the afternoon, the effect of the Prussian advance on our left began to be felt, and as the divisions of our allies came successively into action, the success of the day was no more in doubt. By sundown the battle was won, the French in full retreat, and Napoleon's sun had set for ever.
The vexed question of the relative part played by the Prussians and ourselves will never be settled to the satisfaction of all. One point in regard to this question has, in my humble opinion, never been sufficiently brought out. The Prussian army was virtually an army of mercenaries, kept in the field by the large subsidies so generously voted by the English Parliament. It is true that we might have held our own without the arrival of the Prussians, but it is quite certain that we should never have inflicted the crushing defeat had not Blücher arrived—not so opportunely, as some writers assert, but according to his promise. Then, we know that the battle was a part of the prearranged plan between the Duke of Wellington and Prince Blücher. This, however, is beyond all doubt—that had it not been for the generous subsidies voted to Prussia by the English Parliament, amounting to 3,000,000 sterling, in the years 1814-15, there would have been no Prussian army to assist us. Throughout the wars with Napoleon, Austria, Prussia, and Russia received large sums to enable them to keep their armies in the field. It was not only the King's German Legion which was paid with English gold, but the Prussian army also; and when the Germans taunt the British army with being an army of mercenaries, it would be well for them to study the financial conditions under which they fought in the wars with France in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The following figures, showing the pecuniary assistance afforded by England to her allies, are of passing interest:
| Austria. | Prussia. | Russia. | |
| 1814 | £545,612 | £1,757,669 | £1,758,436 |
| 1815 | £1,475,632 | £2,555,473 | £1,330,171 |
| 1816 | £1,796,229 | £2,382,823 | £3,241,919 |
Casualties during the Waterloo Campaign.