The armies were not very different in numbers. Napoleon's 72,000 French were opposed to 67,000 troops in the allied army. But Wellington could only count on his 23,000 English and 22,000 Hanoverians and Brunswickers, for good and zealous service. He was hindered rather than helped by the presence of 20,000 raw Dutch and Belgian conscripts, who had no heart in the war, and would as soon have fought for Napoleon. His army was stretched along the gentle slope which is crossed by the Brussels road, with the infantry in the front line, and the cavalry partly in reserve, partly on the wings. In front of his position were the two farms of Hougoumont and La Haye Sainte, the former held by the English guards, the latter by a picked battalion of Hanoverians. Napoleon ranged his men on the opposite ridge, and launched them against the English in successive attacks. His first attempt to storm the farm of Hougoumont was manfully beaten back. He then sent four heavy columns against the English left, but they were utterly routed by the charge of Picton's infantry and Ponsonby's famous "Union Brigade" of dragoons, the Royals, Scots Greys and Inniskillens. His third effort was to break the English centre by the furious charges of 15,000 gallant horsemen, supported by a tremendous fire of artillery. But the English squares held fast, though assailed for five hours by constant onsets of cavalry and pounded in the intervals by an overwhelming force of cannon. Most of the Dutch and Belgians and some of the Germans retired from the field, and many fled to Brussels: but the indomitable squares held their own, even after the farm of La Haye Sainte had been stormed, and a gap opened in the English centre. In the thick of the fighting, Napoleon was surprised to see new troops coming up on his right: these were Blücher's Prussians, marching from Wavre to aid the English, according to a promise which the old marshal had made to the Duke on the previous day. To hold them back, Napoleon had to detach nearly all his reserves; but for a final stroke against Wellington he sent out 5000 men of the "Old Guard" to break through the long-tried English line. But this last effort was foiled by the steady fire of Maitland's English guards, and when the attacking columns were seen recoiling down the hillside and Wellington's last cavalry reserves came charging after them, the whole French army broke and fled.
Napoleon confined at St. Helena.
Never was a more complete rout seen. The defeated army disbanded itself: Napoleon could not rally a man, and fled to Paris, where he abdicated for a second time. Wellington and Blücher rapidly followed him and entered Paris (July 6). The ex-Emperor, fearing death at the hands of the infuriated Prussians, fled across France to Rochefort, and surrendered himself to the English man-of-war which blockaded that port. After much discussion the ministers resolved to send him as a prisoner to the desolate island of St. Helena, where he lived for six years, spending his time in dictating mendacious accounts of his life and campaigns, and in petty quarrels with the governor of the island.
Supremacy of the English mercantile marine.
Napoleon was now really disposed of, and the pacification of Europe was complete. The congress of Vienna had completed its work, and all the territorial changes which it dictated were carried out at leisure. England's share of the plunder in Europe was the islands of Malta and Heligoland and the Ionian Isles; beyond seas she got the French isle of Mauritius in the Indian Ocean and the valuable Dutch colony of the Cape of Good Hope. But her real gain was the fact that she had absorbed, during the course of the war, nearly the whole of the carrying trade of the world. Twenty years of her ascendency at sea had destroyed the mercantile marines of France, Holland, Spain, and Italy, and it was many years before those countries could recover from their losses. The naval and commercial supremacy which we enjoy to-day is the direct result of the great wars of 1793-1815.
The resettlement of Europe.
This being so, the changes on the continent were of comparatively little moment to us. France was confined within her old boundaries of 1789. Russia took the greater part of Poland, Austria was given Lombardy and Venetia, Prussia annexed half Saxony and most of the small states along the Rhine. Belgium and Holland were joined in an unnatural union as the "Kingdom of the Netherlands," while the old despots of Central and Southern Italy returned to their long-lost thrones. These boundaries were to last, with little alteration, for half a century.
FOOTNOTES:
And this including Ireland, where only the Protestants could be trusted with arms.