Total Under Officers, Trumpeters, Drummers, and Privates, killed, wounded, and missing, 6,775.
In the absence of all returns it is difficult to estimate the losses of the French Army. They were, however, immense; besides which, the whole of their Artillery, Ammunition Waggons, and Baggage, fell into the possession of the victors. Of the French Generals, Michel and Duhesme were killed; Prince Jerome, Friant, and several others were wounded; and Lobau, Compans, and Cambronne, were taken prisoners.
The minuteness of detail with which the foregoing History of the Battle of Waterloo has been written, the gradual development which has been presented of the motives and dispositions of the Commanders, and the circumstantial description which has been afforded of the movements of the troops engaged—of the working, as it were, of the machinery in the hands of the three most renowned Captains of the Age—obviate the necessity of further comment upon those points; but it would be unjust to the honour, the fame, and the glory, of the actors in that memorable scene, to omit putting forth certain important considerations which are essential to enable an impartial public, and an unprejudiced posterity, to arrive at correct and satisfactory conclusions upon other points, hitherto involved in doubt and obscurity.
These refer chiefly to the relative numerical strength of the Combatants, the relative proportions in which the troops of the Anglo-Allied Army were actively engaged with the Enemy, the conduct of these troops respectively while so engaged, and lastly the extent of the actual share taken in the Battle by the Prussians.
The most simple, and at the same time most rational, mode of computing the relative strength of Armies is by placing in juxtaposition their respective numbers of Battalions, Squadrons, and guns. According to this rule, the Anglo-Allied and French Armies, as they stood in front of each other at the commencement of the Battle, were constituted as follows:—
| Battalions. | Squadrons. | Guns. | |
| Anglo-Allied Army | 73 | 98 | 140 |
| French | 103 | 127 | 246 |
Napoleon having, about one o'clock, detached the Light Cavalry Divisions of Domon and Subervie as a Corps of Observation upon his Right Flank; the opposed forces, from that hour until about six o'clock, stood as follows:—