CHAPTER IX.

1815

THE BATTLE OF WATERLOO.

One of the most important struggles of modern times was now about to
commence--a struggle which for many years was to decide the fate of
Europe. Napoleon and Wellington at length stood opposite one another.
They had never met; the military reputation of each was of the highest
kind,

--[For full details of the Waterloo campaign see Siborne's History
of the War in France and Belgium in 1815, giving the English
contemporary account; Chesney's Waterloo Lectures, the best English
modern account, which has been accepted by the Prussians as pretty
nearly representing their view; and Waterloo by Lieutenant-Colonel
Prince Edouard de la Tour d'Auvergne (Paris, Plon, 1870), which may
be taken as the French modern account.


In judging this campaign the reader must guard himself from looking
on it as fought by two different armies-the English and the
Prussian-whose achievements are to be weighed against one another.
Wellington and Blucher were acting in a complete unison rare even
when two different corps of the same nation are concerned, but