Dan Snow's History Hit - Dan, The Skeletons and The Battle of Waterloo

Episode Date: February 9, 2023

Dan Snow’s History Hit hits the road to Belgium and the Waterloo Battlefield to see the soldier’s bones found in an attic earlier this month. The Battle of Waterloo is often remembered for its great leaders; Napoleon, Wellington and Blücher. Or, for its sweeping strategic importance but what did the ordinary fighting men endure? We went to the Waterloo Battlefield to learn about the almost apocalyptic reality of the battle with thick quagmires of mud and the bodies of both soldiers and horses strewn about. French Historian Antoin Charpagne shares stories of the men on the ground, what they ate (or didn't), their relationships and how they suffered. The History Hit team then head to Universite de Liege Medical Institute to the morgue to see what bones from Prussian soldiers can tell us about the battle before finally heading on to the Brussels Museum of Natural Sciences where Dan helps Dr Caroline Laforest unpack the British bones that have just arrived.With great thanks to Mathilde Daumas, Dr Bernard Wilkin and Waterloo Uncovered.Produced by Mariana Des forges and mixed by Joseph Knight.If you'd like to learn more, we have hundreds of history documentaries, ad-free podcasts and audiobooks at History Hit - subscribe to History Hit today!Download the History Hit app from the Google Play store.Download the History Hit app from the Apple Store.

Dan, where are we and where are we going? It's 6.30 in the morning and my team, Jan and my trusty producer, some of the History Hit TV folk and I are heading out to Belgium because we're going to the battlefield of Waterloo. It's one of my happy places folks. I'm heading to Waterloo. The journey starts at Heathrow Airport, we're going to fly out there to Brussels and we're going to go just south of Brussels to where Waterloo was fought on the threshold of that great city as Napoleon tried to push north and capture Brussels and divide Wellington's Anglo-Thutch army and because oh yeah why are we going the reason we're going

is because as you'll have heard on the podcast a week ago bones have been found on the battlefield and if bones are found on battlefields folks you know history here is going to be there in short order like the Battle of Waterloo, this is a coalition effort. We've got the TV team out here. We've got the podcast team, and we are going to be making some great programmes and podcasts because we're talking to the scientists, the pathologists, the experts.

We're going to be looking at these bones the first time they've been filmed, the first time anyone has had access to them. I'm going to be telling you all about it. The major discovery of human remains on europe's most famous battlefield that's it that's our call God save the king. No black-white unity till there is first in black unity.

Never to go to war with one another again. And lift off, and the shuttle has cleared the tower. On 2345. We just arrived at the battlefield, parked our car. We're just behind the ridge on which Wellington spread out his troops. In fact, actually, we're probably exactly where Wellington put his troops, because he hid them down a little bit behind the ridge,

so they were out of harm's way for as long as possible and if we've been here in june 1815 there have been french cannonballs whizzing over our heads now and we are just going to stroll up this hill here towards the giant lion mound built a memorial right here on the battlefield waterloo was fought because napoleon wanted to become Emperor of France once again and no one else wanted him to. Napoleon had been defeated in 1814, he'd abdicated the throne of France, he'd gone off to Elba, a little island off the Italian coast, he'd promised to stay there, but within a year he was back, he landed on the French coast, he seized France, and that was a red line for the Brits, the Austrians, really everybody else.

And a huge coalition took shape. They declared war, not on France, but on Napoleon himself. The Russians, the Austrians, the Prussians, the Spanish, the Portuguese, and the Brits. Napoleon was entirely surrounded by enemies and Waterloo was fought because this was his first attempt to break out of that cage. He made a lightning march north out of France to take on two of his greatest enemies the Prussians and the British. The British had an army in what is now Belgium, commanded by the Duke of Wellington. It was an army made up of British troops, but also Germans and Dutch as well. They hoped to fight alongside the Prussian army, led by Marshal Blucher. Napoleon wanted to drive a wedge between the two, so he made for Brussels, hoping to divide the two and then defeat them both one by one.

In the days before Waterloo he'd fought a battle against the Prussians and they'd retreated but not as far as Napoleon had hoped. At Waterloo he was hoping to defeat the Brits and their allies. What happened that day was that the Prussians and the Brits were able to fight together and between them, defeat Napoleon. No trip to the battlefield of Waterloo would be complete without climbing the many steps up to the Lion Mound, the huge mound that was built here on the battlefield after that bloody day. There's a sign at the bottom that says, not recommended for people who suffer from dizziness or heart complaints you

have a good level of fitness and I've climbed this alone many times my dad first dragged me up here when I was oh I don't know it could be almost 40 years ago now and I fell in love with the period the story of Waterloo and the Napoleonic Wars and then I've been up here several times since TV and other things and I've 2020 I dragged my kids up here that was a bit of a mission we got them to the top

on a cold February day and I'm confident that one day they'll drag their kids up here too that is how generational trauma works folks anyway always at the top. Matuka Wellington, the British commander here, hated the mound when he visited the battlefield, but frankly,

it's quite useful today for getting a good viewpoint, a vantage point of this stretch of countryside. I've got Brussels behind me. I can see Brussels just a few miles to the north, about 10, 15 miles to the north. I've got the road that leads from Brussels south to the French border that's the one Napoleon was coming up and then I've got the rolling countryside the ridge that this mound is on the ridge that Wellington decided to stop the French army at the gates of Brussels. He'd reconnoitered the area previously he'd made a note of this useful defensive position. He lined his men up along the top of this ridge, in fact slightly behind the ridge, so when the French

fired their cannonballs they would bounce harmlessly over their heads and the British would have some measure of protection. And then down looking south, cloudy miserable day up here now, but looking south that's where the French army would have deployed on the morning of the 18th of June 1815 very muddy that day unseasonably wet spring probably because of the Indonesian volcano Mount Tambora you won't expect me to say that it erupted in April of that year spewed lots of ash and debris into the atmosphere and made for a very wet cold northern hemisphere summer so the mud stuck to the wheels of Napoleon's cannon and it slowed his men and horses down as they were deploying. So he couldn't get the battle started until almost lunchtime,

which was a disaster for him, one of the big reasons he lost. So did the Indonesian volcano cost him the battle? Over to my right, I can see the Chateau Hougoumont, which was a big fortress-like farmhouse, which the British and their allies occupied. That would sort of anchor Wellington's right wing. In front of me, the farmhouse of La Haissante. One of these kind of classic French-Belgian square farmhouses,

courtyard in the middle, big thick walls and stables around the side. So you could make for a good little strong point there. And that was also very contested during the day. The Hanoverian troops, don't forget, King George III was also the elector of Hanover. So his Hanoverian troops were in there. Foolishly, they burnt the gates for firewood the night before. That would come back to haunt them later in the day. And this is where the battle was fought.

Where I'm standing now, I'd have seen a giant French infantry attack in the morning heading up the slope to my left. That was narrowly defeated by a very well-timed British cavalry attack. The horses were rampaging down the slope from where I am now. Right where I am now probably is where Marshal Ney, Napoleon's number two, so-called bravest of the brave, launched his cavalry attacks. Again and again, the French horses pounded up the ridge. And again and again, they were repulsed by the British troops standing in their squares. Terrible slaughter of men and horses as the afternoon wore on.

And then really just below me, slightly to the right, was where the climax of the battle took place. The French Imperial Guard, the elite unit of the French army, never defeated in battle before. They marched up this slope, dragging cannons with them, blasting the British from short range. And then, as I mentioned, the British who were just behind the crest of the hill, they emerged. Wellington shouted, now Maitland, now's your time. He shouted to the British commander of that part of the line and the British guards, the British unit stood up out of the long grass, out of the crops, and they blasted the French at very close range with their musketry. It was described as one of the most perfect volleys in the history of warfare and the French recoiled,

they got charging back down this slope and that was the start of a retreat by the French army. But it wasn't just that, alongside Wellington's allied army, brits the germans the dutch and his army were the prussians they were coming in from the east there's lots of woods as i looked to the east a couple of miles away the prussians and their black uniforms were filtering through those woods and they were beginning to catch napoleon in a vice-like grip and so as napoleon was desperately trying to beat wellington's army up here on the ridge he was also having to fight the Prussians over there. And there's a village called Plancenois, which was bitterly contested between the French and the Prussians

all through the afternoon of Waterloo. I'm going to head over there in a little bit. The battle ended with Napoleon's army almost disintegrating, fleeing south, little better than a rabble, as they headed back towards France, catastrophically defeated. This was the end of the Napoleonic Wars. This was the end of Napoleon's attempt to re-establish himself as ruler of France and perhaps re-establish France as the great superpower of Europe. Napoleon would end up abdicating, surrendering himself to

the Brits and being taken by ship to the island of Saint Helena in the middle of the Atlantic. What happened here would change the course of history. No wonder Abba used it as a song title. Looking out at the battle of the day I'm struck by how many people are here visiting even on a cold day. How many people are interested that the podcasts and the programs we make about Waterloo always do so well. Why is it still remembered? Why is it still talked about? And that's because it was both a day of extraordinary drama, bloodshed, tragedy, a battle that could have gone either way, a battle with huge characters.

One British soldier here called it the Battle of the Giants, two of the greatest geniuses of military history, Wellington and Napoleon, facing each other for the first and last time. But it was also a battle that continued to shape Europe and perhaps continues to to this day. It's a battle that ended the Napoleonic Wars and would usher in a very different 19th century to what had gone before. It was a day on which history was made. It was a day on which history could have gone very differently. And it was a day on which the drama, the suffering, the chaos of battle was irresistibly fascinating to generations that have come since.

In the past when I've been at this battlefield it's been very easy to get distracted by the senior commanders, the great geniuses of Napoleon, of Wellington, the extraordinary characters like Marshal Ney, one of Napoleon's senior commanders known as characters like Marshal Ney, one of Napoleon's senior commanders, known as the bravest of the brave, the man who was awarded the title Prince of Moscow. He led his men up this slope that I'm standing on now so many times.

He had five horses shot from under him. It was said that he sought death that day, but death didn't want him. Other commanders, like the British General Picton, were not so lucky and were killed on this battlefield. today in this podcast and this project for history here I want to look beyond the commanders. Today is all about the men who fought here because we're at the threshold of new discoveries that can tell us about those young men who fought and died on this field. Now before we get into these discoveries I'm going to go and meet the Belgian historian Antoine Chapan,

who works here at the battlefield, and he's going to tell me about their experience, the experiences of the men who fought here. Hi, Antoine. Bonjour, Dan. Bonjour. Right, we're sitting in the middle of it now. Tell us where we are. Yes, we're at the foot of the Lion's Mound.

We really are at the heart of the battle. But the B we are. Yes, we're at the foot of the Lion's Mound. We really are at the heart of the battle. But the Boute de Lyon was not there. No, no, no. The Lion's Mound was built 10 years after the battle by a Dutch king because his son was a soldier here commanding the Dutch and Belgium troops and was injured. And it's an amazing place to see the battlefield now. We really can see everything. Actually, right now, we are on the top of the British lines. But when you go to the top of the Lion's Mound, you can clearly see the French lines.

Tell me about, on the late morning of the 18th of June, we'd have seen the men taking up position here around us now. Tell me about those men. They're drawn from all over Europe. Soldiers came from all over Europe. The weather was really bad. It had rained the entire day on the 17th, so on the morning of the 18th, the soldiers are tired. Some of the French hadn't eaten for two or three days, which made it very hard for soldiers to take position here. This is why the battle was postponed to later in the day, because there was so much mud. Napoleon couldn't move the cannons.

As you say, they hadn't eaten, the weather was terrible. Even just before the battle, they'd gone through hell. Yeah, even before the first shot, they were already in hell. Some had lost their shoes and fought the entire day in bare feet. It was a real disaster. It would have been cold at night, hot during the day. They just were wearing their woolen coats and that was it. Cold at night, hot during the day. They just were wearing their woolen coats and that was it.

A lot of wool, actually. So when it's hot, they get very hot. And when it is cold, they are very cold. So that complicates a lot of things. Also, on Napoleon's side, he didn't have a chance to restock his army with better quality clothes. So it was all a bit of a mess, really. When they were camping here the night before,

would they have just been sleeping on the ground or in tents? So the legend says that the soldiers were sleeping in tents, but that's actually not true. What that means is that the lucky ones would have found shelter under a tree. They could protect themselves with the leaves, but the rest were just in the middle of the field and got absolutely soaked in the rain throughout the night. La Haisson, which we can just see the roof of, the Germans were in there.

Didn't they burn the doors for firewood? Didn't they try and keep warm? Yeah, they did. So you can imagine them just scouring, just trying to find food, trying to find... Absolutely, yes. The French army moves very fast, but their biggest problem was that they weren't looked after, unlike the British.

No one brought the French soldiers food, so when they needed it, they stole it from the locals, which caused them more problems. And speaking of complicated, the men who are on Wellington's side up here, very few Brits, only what, maybe 30% British? Around 30 to 40% were British. There were a lot of Dutch, a few Belgians and also German soldiers who were not fighting with the Prussians serving under Wellington. So a true allied army? Yes, really a very European army. As the fighting begins here, the French open up with the artillery. This ridge would have been a very dangerous place to be.

What were the casualties that were being taken, the killed, the wounded up here around us? So there were different ways to get injured or to die. Firstly, of course, it was being shot by a musket ball or cannonball. But back then, they tended to try and injure as opposed to kill the enemy, because more soldiers would go and tend to the wounded soldiers. So finally, when you were head to head with your bayonet, the intention was to injure each other rather than kill each other. And we should remember this slaughter, it's all happening in quite a small space.

Yes, that's it. It is a very small battlefield. It's the smallest battlefield of the napoleonic era. But with nearly 200 000000 people packed into that space. And horses as well, of course. Yes, absolutely. 10,000 horses had died by the end of the day. You've mentioned the wounded. Tell me more about, would the wounded be taken back to a particular place? Was there any medical assistance?

Yes, but not for all regiments. On the Napoleon side, the Imperial Guard, who were the best regiment, the Imperial Guard, who were the best regiment, the most equipped regiment, they had a medical service with ambulances, which the soldiers lower down didn't get. And pour les ongles for the Allies up here? They were a bit more organized. Their hospitals were at the Mont Saint-Jean farm, which is down there, a bit further down there by the roads, so they could bring their wounded soldiers

more easily to their back lines. They were more organized in general. And not much medicine. Surgery was just chopping? Exactly. Actually, the French were also very good at it. They really invented a real war surgery. It was much easier to chop. They chopped very quickly. They would cut legs in three, four minutes. It was very fast. Terrifying. The French came and went from this ridge during the day, and didn't float like the tide. What would this battlefield have looked like at the end of that day? You need to imagine we were on a very small field. By the end of the day, 10,000 horses were killed where we are now.

There really were horses everywhere, but of course dead bodies. We can never agree, but at least 10,000 were killed and wounded by the end of the day. Some injured French were only taken away from the fields three days later. So for days, the cries of the wounded, local people taking clothes and valuables from them? Yes, this was very common during that era. Today it feels a bit barbaric, but back then we had what we called robbers, individuals who would remove the clothes of the dead bodies, take their medals, take their uniforms, take their swords, which is why we still find them in this day and age in people's homes. How did they start to clear up that battlefield and bury the dead?

It started the next day. Actually, there were two possible ways. One, they dug a big communal line and put all the bodies in there and put quicklime on top. It burned everything, bones, clothes, everything. Or they made pirates. And given that we found a body here at Waterloo and it's in the museum, given that now more bodies are being found, is that important?

Yes, it is important, I think, because it ultimately allows us to get to know the soldiers that were here better, to know their age, and finally to know their physical condition, how heavy they were, where they came from, and how they died. It really allows you to retell a story, and it really helps to understand what happened. It's funny that we have so many oil paintings, we have so many written accounts,

but when you're up with the human remains, it becomes more real. Yes, absolutely. And of course, it's a little bit abstract. Today, we are here. There is the hill. There is a museum. But ultimately, we do not realize what happened here. Whereas right away, it's true that when you discover a body,

you say to yourself, well, that's it. We think of the Deuxième Guerre Mondiale and the stories of the units and how they became friends. Do you think the same was true for this period, these people? Oui, oui, un peu, c'est vrai. Yes, it's true. We also have, I think, something more particular

here for the locals, the Belgians. There were Belgians fighting for the French and Belgians fighting for Wellington. And so we have families where brothers fought against each other. We have two generals, for example. One is fighting on the French side and the other is fighting on the Allied side. And one of them dies at the end of the day. So it's still a bit poignant. You've studied this battle all your life and you're such an expert.

Are there any individuals, are there any stories that you find very compelling? Yes, that's it. And that's what's a bit extraordinary here, is that there really were plenty of them. I think, for example, of a story of a French cuirassier. So there are great cavalry charges. The French cavalry is massacred, just flattened by the end of the day. So when the last riders return, they come across one French cuirassier who is there, who is sitting on his dead horse and who is crying for his horse. Because in fact, he had the same horse for 25 years and the horse died there in Waterloo. And this guy is crying at the loss of his friend. That's incredible. How tragic.

Thank you very much. You's incredible. How tragic. Yeah. Thank you very much. You're welcome. Great stuff. Right, time to leave the battlefield behind me now. Reluctantly, I turn my gaze upon the eastern city of Liege, the beautiful Belgian town where a remarkable set of discoveries are being made. The bones found on this battlefield at Waterloo, some of them only

a few meters away from where I'm standing now, have been assembled in a lab in Liege and a team of scientists and historians are beginning the process of finding out what we can learn from those bones about these men, who they were, how they lived, and how they died. I'm Matt Lewis. And I'm Dr. Eleanor Janaga. And in Gone Medieval, we get into the greatest mysteries. The gobsmacking details and latest groundbreaking research. From the greatest millennium in human history. We're talking Vikings. Normans. Kings and popes.

Who were rarely the best of friends. Murder. Rebellions. And crusades. Find out who we really were. By subscribing to Gone Medieval from History Hit. Wherever you get your podcasts. That is the sound of the big metal gate sliding open at the morgue here in Liege, a city in eastern Belgium.

And there's a big sign on the wall saying University de Liege, Institut Medico-Legal. So it's Guten Morgen here from this part of Belgium. I'm just walking through it now. I'm feeling kind of nervous as I always do when I am confronted with human remains. There's something very different about that you have to go into a certain frame of mind. You have to remember that these were living, breathing people before they met a terrible end on the battlefield. But also there's something just inherently sombre about these surroundings. This is where all the dead of this part of Belgium are brought.

Ones who've died far more recently than 200 years ago. Lots of biohazard yellow boxes, waste boxes around. I'm entering the building now. White tiles, very institutional. Very kind of 19th century institutional. Oh, I'm now here. I'm in the morgue. Great metal slab here. And there's some of those wall-mounted drawers the big catches where they slide the corpses in and out but let's head

through here to the lab I'm here to meet Dr Bernard Wilkin he's been on the pod many times you've heard him he's the man who discovered these Prussian bones in the village of Ponce the bones in the attic and he's brought them to be inspected by Mathilde Doma. She works at the University of Brussels. She's doing a PhD on historical bones, and she teaches there as well. Let's go and say hello. Good morning, everybody. Good morning. Well, you guys are laying out the bones. I won't interrupt you, but we're looking at parts of multiple skeletons. We've got at least two skulls here, a couple of femurs, lots of bits of pelvis and ribs.

What would be the normal purpose of this room? Forensic examination for the judicial system in Belgium. So it's basically people who've been murdered or unknown bodies found in the river, those kind of things. As I look around the room, there's even one or two specimens left over from previous cases.

There's some human remains in jars, a few skulls around the walls. But it feels very like a medical lab. Lots of stainless steel, lots of washable surfaces, slabs for looking at cadavers, and tinted windows. Tell me what you think you can see in front of you now, because you're an expert, but you haven't really seen many of these bones before.

In front of me, I saw several bones from the upper limb, the lower limb, some coxal bones, which is like the pelvic area, and two skulls. Based on the number of the bones, especially from the lower limb, and also the pelvic bones, we can say we at least have four individuals on this table. Tell me anything we can learn from these bones. What are you seeing here? At this part of the bones belong to male individuals. Like nothing in this table make me think about female individuals, especially for the pelvic bones because they're really shaped like male individuals.

At least one of them suffer from fractures long time before his death. So this skull should probably present sharp force trauma, especially in the left orbital, because the bones look like they suffer from the sharp force trauma. So that's something sharp being pushed into the head, around the eye area. So there's a possible disfiguring previous injury there we've got evidence of broken bones as well so these people would have lived with pain and known trauma even before they died what we can say for sure is like all the muscle attachments of these individuals are very strong so they may have a huge level of physical activity, whatever the physical activity was. I'm not able to say there were warriors, soldiers or whatever, but they during their living time having a high level of

activity. So they were strong? They were strong. From what I saw here, we've got at least like one or two younger individuals around like 20, 40 and one maybe older more 30, 50. And that fits with what we know about the soldiers at Waterloo. The oldest soldiers were into their late 40s we think but many of them were in their obviously their 20s and and into their 30s. Are you excited by what you can learn from these over the next few months? Very a lot. Bernard, where did you find these bones? Well, I was giving a conference in the Memorial of Waterloo in November,

and after the conference an old man came to me and said, well Dr. Wilkin, you should know that I have some Prussian bones in the attic. And that's very unusual on the Waterloo battlefield. Yes, I must say it was a first for me and probably for everybody around. And then he explained to me that he was friends with a guy who had passed away since, who had discovered the bones in Plancenois

while doing some construction work. That was a village that was, maybe you've changed hands five times during the day, terrible fighting in Plancenois. Absolutely. It's less known than the main field of Waterloo, but it's a very important place of course because the Prussians arrived there. They brought the bones, apparently

the original man who found the bones at this place, and then he gave them to the old man I was talking to because he had a private museum and he wanted to exhibit them. But he did nothing of the sort because he thought there is an ethical problem here. Those are human remains and I don't want to exhibit them. So he kept them in the attic for all these years and then he saw my research on bones and he said, perhaps it's the right guy to talk to. So how unusual is it to find a big cache of human remains on the battlefield of Waterloo? It's extremely unusual. I mean if we think that there are yearly archaeological investigations on the battlefield, we've found only two sets of boats, I think, since 2012. One in 2012 and one in 2022.

And suddenly we have those guys and another discovery. So it's almost unprecedented. Yes, absolutely. It is. So the Battle of Waterloo, in the space of 10, 12 hours, over 10,000 people killed, many horses. So where are the boats? That's a very good question. I mean, even with this discovery, I mean, that leaves us, you know,

with probably about 9,985 missing still, plus the horses as well. So we had a research with Robin Schaefer, a German historian and professor Tony Pollard, archaeologist last year, and we discovered through the primary sources that the locals probably used the bones for the sugar industry. And we discovered actually that it's not something unique to the battlefield of Waterloo. It's something that happened everywhere in Europe, Germany, Russia, Belgium, France, probably. So they dig up bones, crush them down and use them in an industrial process. Yeah, apparently they're burned in an oven at a very high temperature. And then they

form what is called charbonne cole. I think that's English name at least. In French it's noir animal, so literally black animal. And it's a product that has been used by early industrial factories to purify the white sugar. So you pour the syrup of the beetroot and then you have something very clean coming at the end. syrup of the beetroot, and then you have something very clean coming at the end. So the vast, vast majority of bodies at the battlefield of Waterloo were dug up and used in this process? That's what the sources suggest. We have tons of testimonies everywhere in Europe.

We've got for Waterloo, we've got these German professors, not the kind who, you know, would make up things or make jokes, explaining that he's visiting the battlefield and then he sees farmers, local farmers, digging mass graves and they're just picking the bones. And when he inquires, they say, oh yeah, we're just sending them to the sugar factories. We're not taking the human bones. We're taking the horses basically. But you know, the French imperial guard, they have very massive bones and it can be easily mistaken with horses. So that's why there are no mass graves left on the battlefield of Waterloo?

It's a very plausible explanation. I was very glad when giving the conference in Waterloo, one of the lead archaeologists on the battlefield came and stood in front of the public and he said well Dr Wilkins' theory is a very good one and it's a very efficient one to explain why we really cannot find bones. And what are you hoping to find out from these bones as the scientists begin their examinations? Well, I hope first that the DNA and the strontium analysis will tell us a lot more about its geographical origins, because at the present we think that some of them might be Prussians, but there might be French as well because bodies were mixed in the mass graves.

Perhaps we will be able to answer that, but we know also more already. We know that one had back problems, we know that one had issues with his teeth. I mean, there's a very nasty problem here as you can see on the skull. So science might be able to tell a lot more about the daily life of Napoleonic soldiers. So you work in the archives, you're always reading the texts. When you're face to face with human remains, does it give you a whole new aspect on the battle? That's a very interesting question. I have to confess, I've been doing this for now 20 years.

And usually, you know know reading about violent death is not something that really bothers me anymore but looking especially at that skull it's something entirely different I think I think even from pedagogy teaching about violence looking at the skull and looking at all this facial damage this is something entirely different you really see the action here and it really connects you with I find I think about Waterloo, I often think about the Wellington and Blucher and Marshal Ney and the paintings. I now feel that I'm seeing a different side of the battle.

Yes, that's a bit the unfortunate side of the Napoleonic Wars. We always have the point of view of the officers, the generals, but the soldiers, what forms, you know, the base of an army. I think only 34% of the Frenchmen could read or write, so they didn't leave much behind, you know, and suddenly they're telling us a story. Right, let's head to Brussels now. We've seen the Prussian bones here. Let's go and have a look at the British bones, see what they can tell us. bones here. Let's go and have a look at friends. Murder, rebellions. And crusades. Find out who we really were. By subscribing to Gone Medieval from History Hit.

Wherever you get your podcasts. Right, here I am in Brussels, the Belgian capital, and it's here that the second cache of bones are being studied. These ones are in slightly different circumstances. These ones seem to have been disturbed by the metal detectors. They've been taken into official custody of the Belgian state. So we're going to head into the museum now and see what we can learn from these bones, some of which we think might be British.

Is this your office? Yes. And these are the bones? Yes. And it's very great that you come today because I was in the middle of unpacking a new set of bones which were brought to me last week, actually. So this is the first time you've seen them?

Yes. And you see they are still full of soil, so they are very kind of new. This is breaking news. Is this the box they came in here? Yes, you can have a look. How did these bones come to be in your office in a box? So these bones came from a discovery of a team of detectorists who found these bones 25 years ago near the Lion Mounds. When they found these bones, they believed that there were four people. But I can already tell you

that there are actually six, at least. That's great. So your professional eye has already taken that in. That's very impressive. You can see here on this cranial vault a greenish stain here, you see? Yeah. But also here, it's a little bit more discreet,

but you can see the green. Oh, yeah? Now, what's that green? Generally, archaeologists found some green stain on the bones when the bones stay during a long time in contact with some metallic objects. Okay, like a belt buckle or... Exactly, yes.

Okay. And so those objects, buttons and things, they can help us take a guess at the nationality? Yes, of course, because some accessories are very specific And so those objects, buttons and things, they can help us take a guess at the nationality? Yes, of course, because some accessories are very specific to one army or one country. And so the specialist knows perfectly, even if the accessory and the object are fragmentary, they are able to tell you the nationality of the accessories. And some of the accessories with these, do they give a suggestion?

Yes, one of the skeletons was found with some British accessories, apparently. So we can say at least that one of the skeletons belonged to an English soldier. Wow. But it might be that the other skeletons were from other nationalities,

of course. Well, a huge thank you to Caroline Laforeste for letting me help unpack the bones from the box. That was an intense moment. And also seeing some of the work she's done on the bones that have been uncovered over the last from the box. That was an intense moment. And also seeing some of the work she's done on the bones that have been uncovered over the last couple of years. Spending the day

looking at these human remains and seeing the impact of these appalling weapon systems, a sharp sword, spear tip, or bayonet that almost takes the side off someone's face, a musket ball that smashes into a bone and shatters it. It's made me think about Waterloo in an entirely new way, a battle that I thought I knew, I thought I'd read the sources, and I thought I'd studied. In fact, I've learned that my knowledge of it is very incomplete. I don't think I have a real sense of the scale of the horror, the injuries, the pain, and the trauma that was inflicted that day. It can be easy to think about acts of heroism, the capture of Napoleonic eagles, fine cavalry charges,

and not really think about the reality of those events. And these skeletons that I've seen today, I think, paint a picture that a hundred history books don't quite manage. And these skeletons that I've seen today, I think they paint a much more complete picture than the accounts that I've studied so far. The Battle of Waterloo ended with the complete and utter defeat of Napoleon Bonaparte. It was the end of his attempt to regain the French throne. The British and their Prussian allies would advance from Waterloo down and capture Paris within weeks. Not long after that, Napoleon was a prisoner in the custody of the Royal Navy and he'd be transported on a Royal Naval ship down to St Helena where he'd die a few years later. The Battle of Waterloo was the end of the era of Napoleon and it's so exciting that even today, 200 years later, we're still able to learn so much

about the men who fought there. Right, well, it's time to get news of this exciting discovery back to the UK. Like the news of Waterloo itself, carried by Major Henry Percy, descendant of the great Percy family of Northumberland, who Wellington gave the dispatch to and told him to make all haste across the channel, I'm going to race back and bring Britain news of Waterloo. I'll be travelling a little bit quicker than him, though.

Under the channel, not across it. you