Dan Snow's History Hit - The Battle of Waterloo

Episode Date: June 17, 2025

Dan is joined by his dad, veteran broadcaster Peter Snow, to tell the incredible story of the clash between Napoleon Bonaparte and the Duke of Wellington on June 18, 1815. This showdown - packed with heroic last stands, strategic genius, and catastrophic missteps - shattered Napoleon’s dreams of empire. This episode marks exactly 10 years of Dan Snow's History Hit, and in it, Dan and Peter reflect on the very first episode of the podcast they did together and everything that has come since.Produced by Mariana Des Forges and edited by Dougal PatmoreYou can now find Dan Snow's History Hit on YouTube! Watch episodes every Friday here.Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe.We'd love to hear your feedback - you can take part in our podcast survey here: https://insights.historyhit.com/history-hit-podcast-always-on.You can also email the podcast directly at [e-mail].

Hi folks, welcome to Dan Snow's History Hit. The reason I'm giggling slightly is because I've been told that I've now said that 1,649 times. Because today marks exactly 10 years since I started doing this podcast. It all began in June 2015, back before podcasts were really a thing. Before my youngest child existed, when Obama was in the White House, Britain was in the EU, Queen Elizabeth was on the throne, before the pandemic, different world. I mean, she and Putin were in power.

Well, you know, not everything's changed. I recorded an episode and it was just me and my dad in a cheap hotel room and we went straight to a subject we knew pretty well. And that was the Battle of Waterloo. We'd just written a book about it for the 200th anniversary. And our setup was certainly a little more primitive than it is now. I'm Dan Snow. And this is History Hit.

Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duty. We want one thing. The German radio has just announced that Hitler is dead. So here we are, Dan. This is our first ever podcast. Isn't this exciting, Dan?

Very exciting. Full of firsts over here. The Snowboys getting it all done. And we've chosen the best topic ever to have as our first podcast, haven't we?

The Battle of Waterloo. One of the most extraordinary moments in history. Just one day when history was chosen the best topic ever to have as our first podcast haven't we the battle of waterloo one of the most extraordinary moments in history just one day when history was decided for the next hundred years when we recorded that i just could not have imagined this would become a huge podcast and one that would enable us at team history to launch all the other podcasts launch our streaming tv service to make documentaries for the world's biggest TV channels. And it would also, most importantly, it would let me and my team travel to every continent making podcasts, making documentaries about all the history that we

really love and that you love. It's 6.30 in the morning and my team, Yana, my trusty producer, some of the history at TV Folk and I are heading out to Belgium because we're going to the battlefield of Waterloo. I'm now walking down one of the side wadis, the ravines in the Valley of the Kings. This place was carved out of the landscape by infrequent but dramatic rainstorms that turned this dry landscape into a raging torrent of water. You're listening to Dan Snow's History Hit. And for this miniseries, I'm taking you with me to Rome. This is somewhere completely new to me,

the Peruvian Andes. I'm following a trail taken by a remarkable man, Hiram Bingham. I'm right here at the beginning of the adventure, everybody. I'm walking through Beijing Station, and unlike every other documentary or podcast you've ever heard, I'm afraid I have to repeat the cliche because it's true this country is enormous. Today on Dan Snow's history hit we've got a first we're doing something a little bit different we have chosen the most important hour

and a half of D-Day and we are going to tell the story as it happened we're going to go minute by minute so in theory if you hit play on this episode... He tells me they have seen the acoustic signature of a shipwreck at the bottom of the Weddell Sea. It has to be endurance. It's inconceivable it could be anything else. Without you listeners, this would not be a thing. You've made all that happen, so thank you.

It wasn't all smooth sailing, of course. We all know about Marianna, the producer, the enormous footwear challenges that she faced. This is the sound of the new forest in winter. The new forest can be less of a forest and more of a bog. And as ever, Marianna de Forge has refused to wear welly boots. She's wearing shoes and is soaking alongside me. Are you enjoying those? Yeah. And then there was the period when I got braces and everyone told me it'd be fine

and it wasn't really fine. And that is something in turn that Marianna never lets me forget. A few miles north of the town of Hastings, Duke William of Normandy pitted his forces against King Harold of England. The battle that took place on that bloody ridge would be known as Hastings. I think I can admit on this big anniversary that race is realistically worse than occasionally inappropriate footwear.

But thank you to you guys because you stuck with me and we made it through. Thank you. I'd love to know if there's anyone out there, in fact, who's been listening to the show for 10 years and what your favorite episode has been. You can email me and the team on ds.hh at historyhit.com. And we've got no plans to give up. There's plenty of history out there, folks. But for now, I want to revisit that first episode. We've cleaned it up a little, but this is me and my dad telling you the story of the Battle of Waterloo that took place on the 18th of June, 1815, on the rolling landscape just south of the village of Waterloo in what is now Belgium. That titanic

clash that saw Emperor Napoleon of France face the Allied armies of the Duke of Wellington and Marshal Blucher. For over 10 hours, something like 180,000 soldiers clashed in a terrible battle. It was appropriate that it was my dad and I doing this together. It was he that gave me that love of history. He took me to every battlefield and church and museum within 150 miles of our house growing up. I don't think I really enjoyed it that much at first, but then I got Stockholm Syndrome, and here I am now, indoctrinating all of you guys as well. I owe everything to my dad, and it's a huge honour to launch the podcast with him. And it's a great honour to have him back on the pod to mark this 10-year anniversary.

T-minus 10. The atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. God save the king. No black-white unity till there is first and black unity. Never to go to war with one another again. And liftoff, and the shuttle has cleared the tower. another gate. And lift off. And the shuttle has cleared the tower. So what we're going to do on this podcast, everybody, is we are going to talk through the story of the Battle of Waterloo, fought 200 years ago this June. And Dad is going to be the

part of Napoleon Bonaparte, the Corsican tyrant. I'm going to be the Duke of Wellington, and we're going to take you through this battle that changed history and will forever be remembered as one of the most dramatic and bloody battles of the early modern era. So I suppose we should also say, Dad, you and I have been obsessed with this battle since I was a little boy, and I remember being six years old. You took me to the battlefield, and we agreed it was 30 years ago. That's depressing. And we agreed that we'd come back for the Bicentenary if we were both still around. And we were, we went back this summer, didn't we?

It was good to see. That's still around, Debra. Yes, I'll be around for the next 50 years, you and I. Don't worry. Damn right. Go on. Well, okay, so let's start with the commands. I'm Wellington, I'll start.

Wellington, 46 years old. He'd fought something like 24 battles and sieges before Waterloo, only one of which you can consider a bit of a defeat the siege of burgos would you say correct the siege of burgos was a real disaster okay well they're the wrong guns okay well there you go so always take the right guns people uh and but he'd fought across india portugal spain southern france as a commander and achieved a string of stunning victories against many of napoleon's senior generals but never against napoleon bonaparte himself this was the first time they'd meet on the battlefield he was known to his officers as the peer because he was very

very grand very aristocratic and he rode a horse called copenhagen um and whereas napoleon was very lavish with praise and lavishly rewards and things, Wellington was very tight, very disciplined, very cold, very hard. And as an old man, someone said to him, did you have any regrets? And he said, yes, I should have given more praise. So he's an austere, intelligent, remote, but hugely respected commander. And Napoleon, by contrast, of course, is absolutely drowned in charisma. He was so popular with his troops.

You've got to remember that this man had been defeated, utterly defeated, in Moscow and Russia in 1812, as Leipzig in 1813, and of course, he abdicated in 1814. But back he bounced in 1815, only 100 days before Waterloo, he bounced back and he was immediately carried on the shoulders of his army right back to Paris where in a great surge of popularity put an army of 300,000 men together. An extraordinary triumph for a man who was a hugely successful general until 1812. But then he came back and there he was. Everybody thought, God, this dreadful king who had succeeded him, Louis XVIII, had come back and he'd been a disaster. And there was Napoleon Bonaparte back again, unbelievably, taking this army back to attack the coalition of allies who got together, Wellington and all the other Prussians and the Russians and the Austrians all got together. But Napoleon was going to beat them to it. He drove up, he whammed up with his army across the Belgian border. He was going to defeat the Allies one by one that he was going to get to Brussels by the night of the 18th of June.

Now, I should say who the Allies were. So we got all of the enemies of France have come together. They've declared Napoleon Bonaparte an outlaw. The Spanish, some of the Italian kingdoms, the Austrians, the Russians, the Prussians, many of the German nations, and the British. And they're all forming armies, the Austrians and the Russians, for example, hundreds of thousands of men marching from Central Europe towards the borders of France. But the target that Napoleon goes for first is the army commanded by my man, the Duke of Wellington, and his Prussian allies next door. So they are in southern Belgium, Marshal Blucher,

commanding the Prussians, which is a big, powerful state in Germany, and the Duke of Wellington commanding an allied army made up of Brits, and as we'd now call them, Dutch and Belgian troops, and many German troops as well. Only one third of Wellington's army was British, British and Irish. The rest two thirds were Dutch, Belgian and from German little countries. And next door to him was General Blücher, as I said, Marshal Blücher with this big force of Prussians. They were spread out across Southern Belgium waiting for Napoleon to make his move. And they were pretty surprised by the speed and secrecy with which he made his move. He crossed the border. The British and the Prussian armies are still coalescing. They're mobilizing. They're bringing their guys to central points.

And Wellington, I suppose you could argue, is slightly caught on the bounce. Just imagine the scene on the 15th of June, 1815. It's an extraordinary moment in history when this man with 100,000 troops, the Poland Bonaparte, crosses the Belgian frontier, knowing that he faces in the end something like a million allied men put together in this coalition army. But he's determined to hit them one by one. And he starts by going for Blucher. Blucher's a bit closer to him when he crosses the border. So he's going to hit Blucher first. He's going to destroy Blucher. And then he's going to destroy Wellington.

You've got to admire the hotspot, the cheek of this amazingly competent general. He was dumb. His strategy was brilliant. So first of all, he goes for Blucher. 16th of June, 1815, he attacked Blucher at the Battle of Ligny. And he really damaged and crippled Blucher's army. And he thought to himself, I've done it. I'm going to send off Marshal Grouchy chasing Blucher.

He's going to get off the field. I've got him out of the way. Now I can turn on Wellington. Wellington, when he heard confirmed news of where Napoleon had crossed the border into what is now Belgium, Wellington was a big party in Brussels. The Duchess of Richmond's ball, the most famous ball in history, where many of the finest dandies of the British army were dancing the night away with their girlfriends and wives. Not at the same time, I hope.

And he received news. He ordered Picton, who was one of his best subordinate generals, to march south as fast as he could to try and hold the crossroads at Quatre Bras, which meant that he would try and conform to the movements of the Prussians, as you might say. That he and the Prussians would be joined and they could join forces and they could together overwhelm Napoleon. The problem is by the time Wellington's men

got to Catrebras in enough force, Napoleon was already giving the Prussians a good beating and there were elements of Napoleon's army, again, pressing up the road to Brussels at Catrebras. So the british are involved in their own battle they're unable to go and help the prussians as much they might like to have done because they're involved with their own battle at catra bra where they're being attacked by the ferocious marshal ney so far then brilliant for napoleon he's doing a wonderful job he's knocked off the prussians he's got marshal ney confronting wellington at catra bra but now things begin to go wrong.

Because he sent to reinforce Ney, he sent General Delon with some 20,000 men. But unbelievably, Delon marched backwards and forwards, never actually joining Ney and never actually rejoining the podium to attack the Prussians. And so Ney was desperately under-resourced when he faced Wellington at Quatre Bras. Wellington, it should be said, he's got a big allied army. He was very distrustful of many of the elements of his army. He called it an infamous army, very weak and ill-equipped. And as I say, two-thirds of it were foreign troops who'd never fought under, or many of them had never fought under his command before. So he is being particularly cautious in the Waterloo campaign, not just because he's never faced Napoleon before, but also because he's not entirely happy

with the raw materials under his command. But Wellington, on the night of the 16th of June, it is clear that the Prussians have been driven back. It is clear that Wellington has held his own against Marshal Ney, but soon if he stays there, because the Prussians have been driven back to his east Napoleon can swing around and smash into Wellington's flank so Wellington withdraws which is a

very hard thing to do to withdraw in the face of the enemy but he does it very effectively Marshal Ney and Napoleon make a terrible mistake letting him withdraw

so easily the weather is appalling and they march north and it's about how far is it dad from Catrebrat to well 10 miles or so catrabrá to waterloo he marches north to a ridge that he's identified the year before when he was riding across the landscape looking for useful defensive features and it's a long ridge known as mont sejon which is just south of the village of waterloo and that is where wellington has

decided that if he can't hold them at Cuttrebrough, he will retreat and he will hold them on this ridge at Waterloo until the Prussians can come and help him by marching to his aid. Well, the Pope has missed a trick because as Dan says, he did allow Wellington to withdraw to Mont-Saint-Jean.

It was foolish of him not to attack Wellington as soon as he'd destroyed Bluger. He just thought that, I've got to give my guys a rest. I've got to let them relax. It was an absolutely dreadful wet day, the 17th of June, the day before Waterloo, the day after the Battle of Ligny, which the Pozole had won. He didn't take the opportunity of hitting Wellington as he pulled back to Waterloo. It was a big mistake. Anyway, he started pulling his guns up. But of course, the rain of the 17th of June meant that everything was muddy. His huge guns, he had twice as many guns as Wellington. He pulled them up slowly up towards Waterloo to face that ridge where Wellington was placed.

He still was very confident, though, that he could hit Wellington. And he was very confident, indeed, that he could hit Wellington. And he was very confident, indeed, that the Prussians were now eliminated from any battle. Well, let's see if they were or not. On the 17th of June, the day before Toulouse, Wellington's withdrawing his troops north. It's brutal. Some of the officers are still wearing their dancing shoes from the Duchess of Richmond's ball. They're hungry. The logistics, in many cases, haven't caught up with them. Then, at the evening of the 17th of June, an absolute downpour. Find any shelter they can on this ridge outside Waterloo.

I've got one surgeon here who wrote, we were up to our knees in mud and stinking water. We had no choice but to settle down in the mud and filth as best we could, men and horses shaking with cold. A private from the guards, Private Clay, wrote, all four of us crept under the cover, taking the remainder of our equipment with us. The storm continued with equal force and our covering became very quickly soaked. So terrible conditions to spend the night before a huge battle. In the morning, all through the night, Wellington is making his disposition. Now, critically, in that night, this is the most important moment, the Prussians send messages to Wellington and vice versa that allows Wellington to believe that the Prussians, although they've and vice versa that allows Wellington to believe

that the Prussians although they've been defeated they're still near enough to Wellington near enough in the east that they can come to his aid the next day and Marshal Blucher despite quite big disagreements within his senior command says I am going to help Wellington if he makes a stand at Waterloo I will send perhaps up to 30,000, 40,000 troops to help him defeat Napoleon. Armed with that knowledge, Wellington tells his army that night to make preparations to make a stand on this ridge and make a decisive go at stopping Napoleon the following day. Just get a picture of the numbers involved here. Facing each other at Waterloo on that ridge and Napoleon coming up with his troops,

you've got 70,000 on each side. But don't forget, Wellington's detached about 30,000 to guard his right flank in case Napoleon staged something over there. And Napoleon has sent off Marshal Grouchy with some 30,000 troops to look after the Prussians. So you've got Napoleon and Wellington facing each other with the same number of troops, some 70,000. But the Prussians promising to reinforce wellington with some 40 000 and the poland 30 000 men way off chasing unsuccessfully the prussians chasing their tail on the 18th of june a day that will live in infamy the day of the battle of waterloo wellington woke

up at 3 a.m the first thing he did was write to his mistress. Isn't that right, Daddy? She was in Brussels. Yes. Slightly unprofessional. He wrote to her saying, I'm feeling fairly confident about the battle, but you may wish to head to the Channel Coast

and get on a ship and head back to Britain, just in case. He then mounted his horse, Copenhagen, at 6am. And he was in the saddle, by the way, for the next 16 hours. He spent 16 hours in the saddle. At the end of it, he got off his horse and Copenhagen gave him a kick. By the end at the end of it he got off his horse and copenhagen

gave him a kick by the end of the battle it's quite interesting here he'd had nine hours sleep in the previous 72 and in the previous 72 hours he spent 57 of them in the saddle so an extraordinary physical performance by the duke of wellington and much more impressive you've got to say dad than napoleon bonaparte who was actually actually only a few months younger, almost the same age. Napoleon was the same age as Wellington, 45, 46. There's no question Napoleon had passed his best. I mean, he'd been defeated in Russia. He'd been defeated in the Battle of Leipzig.

And he'd lost some of that shine that he had, some of that flair. And he, in fact, spent most of these last three days rather behind the front line, sitting in a great big chair, actually, at Waterloo, watching what was going on and leaving most of the decisions, unfortunately, to rather second-rate generals who were under him, Marshal Soult and Marshal Ney.

Ney was a very reckless, very hot-headed character to whom Napoleon left most of the command and arrangement of the Battle of Waterloo. That was really Napoleon's problem. But Napoleon had health problems, didn't he? He was said to have stomach ulcers and said to have had pretty bad piles, which is like what he had in the South,

which made him riding a horse rather unpleasantly. But he was seen riding his horse up and down the front line. I mean, he was still enormously popular with his troops. That was his great bonus. So Wellington gets into the saddle at about six and starts making his final deployments. Now, it's very interesting. His second in command was the Earl of Uxbridge

in charge of his cavalry. And Uxbridge said to him, he asked him if he had a plan and Wellington replied, well, Bonaparte has not given me any idea of his projects. As my plans depend on his, how can you expect me to tell you what mine are so he was just going to fight a defensive battle he was going to respond to the situations as they arose as Napoleon threw attacking soldiers at him Wellington had

70,000 men her dad said that's about 50,000 infantry just under 15,000 cavalry and about 150 guns would you say so about half the number of guns of Napoleon. Napoleon was a gunner. He trained as a gunner. He was a gunner as a young man. He once said, it is with guns that one makes war. So he was going to blast a big hole in Wellington's lines and Wellington knew it. 30% of Wellington's army was British, as I said. Only 7,000 of them were his Peninsular War veterans. So only one in 10 of Wellington's troops were his absolute trusted veterans who'd followed him across the peninsula.

And he placed most of his infantry behind the crest of this ridge, Mont Saint-Jean. So he hid them away from the French. They couldn't see. He would also place experienced units mixed up with inexperienced units, foreign units and British units mixed in, Dutch, German, British units all mixed in.

So there was less chance of panic seizing hold and ripping through his army. Quick thing about the guys who fought, the British infantrymen were paid about 13 pence a day, about 20 pounds a year. They actually received less than half that because most of it was deducted for uniforms and breakages and equipment losses and things. Now they were eating because they would have had a meal that morning, a pound of beef a day, about a pound and a half of bread, and you got a pint of wine or a third of a pint of gin. And the gin ration was issued at the beginning of the battle. And after the battalion had its gin ration, the rest of it was poured away into the ground. And there's accounts of men looking sadly as the rest of the gin is poured into the earth.

The average age we think of Wellington's men is about 27 years old. The youngest infantrymen we know about were about 17, the oldest about 44, and the sergeants, the grizzled sergeants with 10 or 15 years experience, were about 36 years old. They were the backbone of Wellington's army. Wellington's front line was only about 3,000 meters long. So Wellington, in the saddle all day, riding Copenhagen, could be everywhere where the action was hottest. And it's one of the last great battles of history when the action was so compressed in such a tiny piece of territory. Napoleon, on the morning of the 18th of June,

after the dreadful rain all night, it was a sunny morning, and Napoleon got up, had breakfast, and summoned his generals together and said, right, this is going to be as easy as having our breakfast defeating this man Wellington. He's no good as a general. He's got a terrible army. We're going to destroy them. And he was very confident. He said, we'll go straight up this road. We'll be in Brussels for supper tonight. I'm going to go straight at him. No mucking about, no maneuvers, no clever tactics. We'll just go straight at these British and their allies, and we'll have no trouble getting there. And he decided that what he would

do is start off his grand battery. As Dan said, he had nearly twice as many guns as the Brits. He had about 250. And they were lined up, a grand battery, a huge number of these massive cannon facing the British on the ridge. Of course, the problem was they couldn't see the British because they were down behind the ridge. So he started these guns firing round about midday. And as those guns were firing, he decided to attack one of Wellington's forward positions, a place called the Farm at Hoogermont, where Wellington had moved some small number of people, only about a battalion of guys, the Coldstream Guards, forward to garrison this farm which held his right flank. And Napoleon, one of his brothers actually, Jerome Bonaparte, he threw him at this farm and said, right,

take that farm. That will distract Wellington and then allow me to hammer the real right hand, right fist at Wellington's left hand side on the east side of Wellington's line. I'm going to do that later in the day, but meanwhile, I want that farm attacked so that Wellington is distracted by this attack. So he's going to feint left and then punch with his right. That's right.

Now, it all comes down to whether Wellington will weaken his centre, weaken his positions and the rest of the line to support this sort of fortified farmhouse right on the western edge of his line. The Brits are always worried about their connections with the sea with the navy the channel and home so napoleon's thinking if i can make him what nervous about his western flank he might weaken the rest of his line now luckily for wellington the coal stream guards in hugomol performed exceedingly well and managed to hold off this attack. In fact, what was meant to be a feint,

a sort of what was meant to be a diversionary attack, ended up taking the attention of huge numbers of Frenchmen. As all day, they became increasingly obsessed with taking this huge farmhouse. Yes, I mean, just look at these numbers again. We had in the farmhouse something like 1,200 top-whack British soldiers, the Cold Streamers and a few allies in the farm, attacked by up to 10,000 Frenchmen. You had Jerome Bonaparte's division, some 3,000 men, 4,000 men.

Then they had to be reinforced by General Foix's division, another 3,000 or 4,000 men. In the end, you had some 10,000 men on Napoleon's left flank attacking this farm without success. The French do manage to encircle it. They drive the defenders out of the orchard. They're attacking the great thick walls of this chateau. And indeed, one French officer, a Lieutenant Legros, whose nickname was L'Enforcer, the Enforcer, a huge giant man, managed to break through the north gates of Hougoumont. Now, he sounds like a pretty tough individual. And indeed, it was all a very decisive moment in the battle because he breaks in.

Then the coal streamers respond by desperately closing the gates. They do manage to get those gates closed again and they hunt down and kill all the Frenchmen, including the enforcer, who managed to get in through the gates of Hougoumont. All except for a little drummer boy. A drummer boy survived and tells the story. And Wellington later wrote,

success at Waterloo depended on closing the gates at Hoogamore because had they lost that big anchoring defensive position on Wellington's western flank,

it might have forced Wellington to send more and more troops over the west which would have weakened him for Napoleon's great punch

that was coming up. You're listening to the 10th anniversary episode of Dan Snow's History Hit. Stay with us for more after this. 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. the podium having failed to take hoogermont but seeing that wellington was pretty distracted by it or hoping he was very distracted by it although wellington hasn't hasn't sent many reinforcements to hoogermont he decided to make his main attack on the east side, on Wellington's left flank. And so he said to General Dallon, he said, right, now is the time to go. And I want you to go and hammer that ridge and take all of your corps, your first corps, up that bridge. And we're talking here about 18,000 French infantry in columns, long lines of troops, but many ranks deep, going up this ridge, pushing their way, brushing their way, forcing their way through the six-foot-high flax, and also mud. The thing was absolutely sheeted with mud, the ground. And so they had to sweat up this hill, carrying their packs and their muskets and their ball ammunition.

It must have been a heck of a job. Anyway, when they got to the top of the hill, suddenly they saw in front of them, of course, they saw the British line. And then they attacked. And this is, well, they do quite well at this point. The British and Allied line is driven back, it seems, even though the French took a terrible beating from the canister shot, which was big boxes of effectively big musket balls that you jammed into a can

and you turned the whole thing basically into a giant shotgun and it would blast out at close range, this terrible spray of balls ripping through the French ranks. Then thousands of Brits and Allies sprang up from the barley and fired their muskets at very close range to the French and the French. And the French say it caused a terrible slaughter. But even so, the weight of this attack did start to drive units back, didn't it, Dad? And it meant that the Earl of Uxbridge, the Duke of Wellington's cavalry commander,

thought the critical moment had arrived and unleashed a mighty cavalry charge. Well, the saddest thing for the Brits was the death of General Picton, who was commanding that division on the front line of the Brits. And the French managed to shoot him in the head. And it was, in fact, looking extremely dicey for the Brits, as you say. It was looking dicey. It looked like Napoleon's plan might have succeeded. Fate left, punch right. At the moment, the right punch was driving the Brits back. But a mighty cavalry attack was unleashed and it is one of the most extraordinary and iconic moments I think certainly in British military history

the cavalry roared forward it's said that many of the Highland infantrymen grabbed the stirrups as they passed and sort of went hurtling into the battle holding on to the horsemen but I'm not sure if that's true. Having Scotland forever. And Scotland forever. And they fell upon the French infantry attack and annihilated it, completely scattered it. Very, very successful. But then everything went completely mad. The cavalry, as they often did, and Wellington had complained about this many times in the past,

they went too far. They charged down into the valley. Their blood was up and they decided to charge up the other side of the valley towards Napoleon's centre to try and smash up his grand battery, try and charge down to paris wellington once said i have never been more annoyed than by this our cavalry officers have acquired the trick of galloping at everything they never consider the situation never think of maneuvering before an enemy and never keep back or provide a reserve and it's exactly what the cavalry did here well

it's important to understand horses run out of of breath. They're what is called blown. After some four or five hundred meters, they get terribly out of breath. And the French were able to counterattack as this cavalry charge went way beyond where it need to have gone, right up to the French guns. In came the French cavalry, who were standing there just behind the guns and they were able to hammer into the british cavalry and do them serious damage but in the meantime the british had captured two eagles they'd got rid of this infantry attack one was famously captured by sergeant charles hewitt and there's some great stories corporal shaw and the second lifeguards recovery when he was a huge man a prize fighter a boxer he was apparently wildly drunk on gin

he took part in a mad charge up to the center of the French line, cut down 10 men, broke his sword, used his helmet as a club, and then he in turn was cut down and shot and crawled off where he bled to death in horrible conditions during the following night. eaten across the battlefield. He was hit with 19 lance and saber wounds and he lay for two days and three nights wounded on the battlefield. And he was actually used as a foothold by French artillerymen trying to get some purchase in the muddy ground. We know this story because he survived,

he claimed a pension that survived the document and he survived on a pension of two shillings a day in Belfast for another seven years. Ponsonby, one of the commanders, dad of the Hussars, what was Ponsonby's commander? He was a light dragoon. Light dragoon.

He was stabbed in both arms, slashed in the head, stabbed in the back with a lance. And then he lay on the battlefield in this terrible state. He was robbed twice by various soldiers who were advancing and retreating. But he was given a drink of wine

by a passing Frenchman, which he always thought might have saved his life. So, incredible stories. At this stage of the afternoon, Napoleon's attack on both flanks hasn't succeeded, although it had come close, hasn't succeeded. It's sort of on as even at this point, right, Dan? Napoleon still has two huge weapons at his elbow. He has his imperial guard, some 10,000 men who were simply unbeatable, he reckoned. They hadn't been beaten in war before.

They were standing by to do what they could. He also had, I mean, talking numbers again, Dan talked about this dramatic and colorful and brave charge by the British cavalry. There were some 3,000 British heavy cavalry charging into Dallol's men and indeed destroying, as Dan said, Dallol's advance. But Napoleon now had 9,000 heavy cavalry whom he now sent in against the British infantry on that ridge. And at three o'clock in the afternoon, between three and five roughly, there was this huge set of charges by this French cavalry, these two French cavalry corps. An extraordinary sight it must have made. One soldier looking at it, actually from the British side, described it as watching a

huge sea approaching, great waves breaking, the crest of the waves breaking, and this roaring, crashing sea coming towards you. It must have been an extraordinary sight. And they run up the hill and they attack the british infantry squares british infantry turned into squares didn't they doubt this yeah the british infantry went from lines into squares so they're 360 degree defense they look very vulnerable little thin red lines stretched around four sides but actually they were real strong points muskets planted in the soil or into your laps with bayonets on the end, razor sharp steel on the end. And horses won't commit suicide. They won't charge into those bayonets. And so they're just hedges of steel, sharpened steel in these little hedgehog-like blocks on the battlefield. It must have looked

absolutely extraordinary. And indeed, it's the great moment of the Waterloo film by Dino De Laurentiis when you get a helicopter shot of all those squares formed up and the cavalry surging around them. Sergeant William Lawrence was ordered to take the colour in one square, carry the flag. He said, it's a job I did not like at all. There had been before me that day, 14 sergeants already killed and wounded while in charge of these colours with officers in proportion and the staff and the colours themselves almost cut to pieces. Another eyewitness wrote, our square was a perfect hospital being full of dead and dying soldiers. And Wellington was galloping in and out of these squares,

inspiring the men, checking the situation right at the front line. And the French cavalry would charge right up. They'd get within 10 or 15 yards. They'd have to pull up because they couldn't charge home in these squares. They couldn't charge onto these steel hedges, as I said. And they'd fire their carbines, their weapons weapons they'd shout vive l'empereur and they hoped that the sheer morale effect of galloping up would break the squares apart but it didn't the british held firm and the french in the end ended up wasting quite a lot of their cavalry didn't they don't oh the french cavalry were decimated by this series of of terrifying charges which certainly weakened well, but it certainly weakened

Napoleon as well. Now, on the Napoleon side, Napoleon, he kept well back from the front line of this battle, as we've said already. And he had beside him one of his staff officers. And just before the cavalry charge began, he looked over to his right, he looked over to the east of the battlefield. And appearing out of the woods on the right-hand side, he saw some men. And he said, who are they? To his staff officer. The staff officer said, sir, I think that's Grouchy coming back to help us. And Napoleon said, hmm, if it's Grouchy, fine. But there's one problem. Those men are not wearing blue. They're wearing black. Those men are Prussians. And so between them, they decided the only thing to do at this stage was to get the word around the French army that Grouchy was indeed coming to help them.

And if anybody saw these soldiers coming in on the east side, they would be told that they were Grouchy's men. So the word went around the French army, voila, Grouchy, there is Grouchy coming to help us. And that worked for some time through the afternoon. Anyway, so Napoleon, through the afternoon, is throwing his cavalry at Willington's Ridge, hoping to weaken the center. He's also waiting to assemble his main group, the Imperial Guard, but he's very worried indeed about the Prussians. And round about five or six o'clock in the afternoon, there was one big French success. Gans mentioned the squares, there was one big French success. Dan's mentioned the squares very successfully holding on against the cavalry.

But there's another farm called La Haye Sainte right in the middle of the British line, slightly forward of the British line by the British cavalry and had to run back and retreat from their failed attack on the ridge earlier on in the day, they managed to capture La Haye Sainte. Wellington's line now looked very, very dangerously exposed indeed. La Haye Sainte, the big fortified farmhouse that anchored right in the centre of the line, protected by the King's German Legion. right in the centre of the line, protected by the King's German Legion. Garrison by the King's German Legion, a bunch of Germans and Hanoverians in the service of the British Army. Of course, at that time,

George III was still the Elector of Hanover, still an important German prince in his own right. They were firing rifles. We haven't mentioned rifles, have we? British Army was equipped with a number of rifle regiments, wasn't it, Dad? It was, yeah.

Rifles accurate to around 300 metres, if you say, Dad, whereas muskets only accurate to about 80 metres. So muskets could only be used in the great mass and you just fire a lot of balls down the range and see, I hope they hit someone. But rifles, you could actually shoot and kill people at 300 metres. So again, what we're also beginning to see there

was the beginning of that increasing range of warfare, of lethality, from being on the battlefield and seeing the whites of someone's eyes to being able to kill someone from a big distance. And you see that at Waterloo, 300 metres. In the First World War, you can kill someone from miles away. And of course, today, you can kill someone sitting in Nevada. You can kill someone on the other side of the world. Indeed. Rifles, but of course, no machine guns.

No really massive weapon you can kill. You get bigger range, great. You get much more accuracy, but you can only fire it, what, twice a minute? Whereas the muskets, three times a minute. Absolutely. Less rate of fire, worse rate of fire. But the King's German Legion, garrisoning La Haisante, this farmhouse,

they'd burnt the gates the night before for firewood. The fools. So there were no gates on La Haisante. That partly helped the French get in, but mainly because the King's German Legion ran out of ammunition. They were not properly supplied with ammunition. That was a big mistake on the Allied side.

This farmhouse has fallen. his center is in grave problems wellington at this terrible moment of crisis friends and colleagues dying around him it's remarkable that he wasn't injured he was in the thickest of the fighting all day he simply said coolly there are no orders except to stand firm to the last man he needed night to come for the fighting to finish or he needed the prussians to come either would save him if neither came in time the chances are he would lose his battle against napoleon bonaparte now this is a massive moment for napoleon he moved forward his artillery he moved forward at least two or three batteries of artillery up to in front of lehessant further forward than the farm that he just captured. And they started shelling the British from about 200 or 300 yards range. And the 27th Regiment of Foot, the Inner

Skillings, were totally, almost totally destroyed. It was the most horrendous massacre of the Inner Skillings. Wellington was in serious trouble. And Narshal Ney now said to Napoleon, he said, look, sir, if you give me the troops now, I can go and hit Wellington's line. We've captured the farm. The artillery are now hammering his center. We can break through, and we will indeed be in Brussels for dinner tonight. But Napoleon said, hang on, which troops? I haven't got any troops left, because Blucher's men had appeared on his right, and they had started attacking his right.

Napoleon had had to divert an entire corps under General Lobo, 20,000 men that had to shift to the right to face the Prussians. And now, just before six o'clock, when he captured the Haysant, Napoleon had to divert no fewer than eight regiments of his imperial guard to defend his right-hand side. This was a disastrous moment for Napoleon. So he was actually eating into his reserve, his key imperial guard, to send them off to defend his right-hand side against Glucca. And what he wanted to do, of course, was to attack Wellington in the center. And so a battle then raged at a village called Plon-sur-Loire on Napoleon's right. And he had to say no to Ney.

And so it was a vital moment between six and seven when Wellington was desperately exposed when Napoleon failed to attack him. You're listening to the Battle of Waterloo. Stay with us for more after this. I'm Matt Lewis. And I'm Dr. Eleanor Yonaga. 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. But then Napoleon does attack him. We now get to about 7 o'clock, 7.30 in the evening, when Napoleon amazingly, he finds that his young guard and his old guard sent off to the right to defend this village of Plos-sur-Noir is holding on successfully. They're holding the Prussians back. They are incredibly impressive professional French troops. Many of the Prussians are young

recruits. So although the Prussians had the numbers and those numbers were increasing all the time, that was the problem for the French. They had the numbers, but they didn't have the professional skill that the French side had defending Napoleon's right. And so Napoleon said, right, nay, I can afford to put nine battalions of the Imperial Guard into a final throw against Wellington's center. So he marched himself. He went up the road, leading the imperial guard himself up towards the ridge. At a certain moment, Ney said, sire, I think you should go back now and leave it to me. And so Ney, as usual, Ney who lost five horses, he was riding five horses that day. One after the other, they got killed. He himself survived.

He led the imperial guard up the hill. And they went up that hill, tramp, tramp, tramp up the hill and they went up that hill tramp tramp tramp up the hill these terrifying looking men all of them over six foot tall especially chosen for their height and physique with great big mustachios and make a wonderful picture when you look at the pictures now the the old days in waterloo these imperial guards were marching up the hill they were really invincible they marched up the hill or they thought they, up the hill determined to hammer through Wellington Centre. This is the decisive moment of the Battle of Waterloo, the climactic moment of generations of warfare, the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars.

It's all coming to a head right now. Unfortunately for Napoleon, his attack, this final attack of his guard, his elite was going to fall against the British First Guards Division, also the elite of Wellington's army. Peninsular war veterans mixed with some younger units. Now, they were hidden in the wheat in lines of about four deep. As the French Imperial Guard reached the top of the ridge, the high watermark of Napoleon's campaign, Wellington, who of course was exactly there at the spot taking close personal command,

shouted, now Maitland, now's your time. And that's to the commander of the Guards Brigade. And the British jumped up out of the wheat, surprising the French attackers. At some points of the line, they're only 25 meters away. One British soldier wrote, they loomed most formidably. When I thought of their character and saw their noble bearing, I certainly thought we were in for a very slashing business. And he was absolutely right. About 1,400 British and Allied soldiers fired a massive volley at point blank range. The old expression, you've got to see the whites of their eyes, comes from the late 18th century, but it's designed for this period. When you're using muskets, if you want to hit someone, you've got to be sure you're going to see the whites of their eyes first you can

almost touch them and they fire a massive volley which wipes out the forward ranks and some of the most important officers of this large french attack after brutal volleys at toe to toe we're not certain how long it lasted but it was incredible intensity of warfare. The French turn around and retreat. And the word goes around the huge French army, many of them still surviving in their regiments and hoping to fight back at the Brits. The word goes around, the guard recoup, the guard is pulling back. Something that had never been heard said before. The Imperial Guard was pulling back. And at that same moment, the success of the French on the right of the village of Plon-sur-Noir, keeping the Russians off, it collapsed as well. The Prussians broke through at Plon-sur-Noir,

Wellington and its men charged down the hill, and the French army was between the hours of 8.30 and 9 o'clockclock was turned from apparent success against the British ridge into total rout. And the French position completely collapsed. The Imperial Guard surrendered, deported himself,

got into his coach and drove off down south towards Paris. It was an utter and total defeat. It was a triumph of British musketry, which was widely regarded as some of the best in the world. They could fire three rounds a minute in these giant volleys. The thin red line, a thin red line which didn't look as dramatic as big attacking columns and masses of men,

but made sure that every man could bring his musket to bear so no one was wasted. You could maximise your firepower. And the field of Waterloo was covered with corpses. Nowhere did I see carcasses so heaped upon each other, wrote one British veteran about the French, particularly the French guards in that last struggle. The casualties at Waterloo were appalling, 45,000 casualties in all probably.

The guards up on the ridge we've just talked about, we think the British guards up on the ridge suffered about 50% casualties, half the men were killed. In all, the British army lost around a quarter of its men, around 17,000 killed, wounded, and missing. A third of its officers were killed, and historians guess that the French lost around 30,000 men, which is around 30% of their army. It's stunningly high casualties. Bear in mind, those who weren't killed outright would lie screaming in agony on the battlefield and couldn't expect much in the way of surgical attention. They might get a limb sawed off to prevent gangrene spreading by a surgeon whose blade

was dulled by the day's activities without anesthetic. Wellington had lost friends and colleagues and he famously said, next to a battle lost, the greatest misery is a battle gained. So although he'd won a battle, he was very sad and indeed appalled by what he saw on that battlefield. But it was the end of the Emperor Napoleon. The Allied troops marched into northern France and within a few weeks had managed to take Paris. Napoleon was desperate. He fled from Paris, got to the coast and attempted to make it through to America, didn't he? He'd like to have gone to America. He'd like to have found a ship to take him to America. But he ended, or the Polar, he ended surrendering to a British ship, HMS Bellerophon. Bellerophon

took him to Plymouth, and there he wrote a letter to the Prince Regent in Prephalite language, pleading for asylum in Britain. And the Prince Regent sent a message back, having consulted Lord Doverpool's government, and said, no, certainly not. There's no way we're going to give you asylum. We've already seen what happened when we sent you to Elba. That wasn't a great success. We're going to send you to the most remote part of the entire world. We're going to send you to the island of St. Helena, 8,000 miles away in the South Atlantic, where there's no way you'll be able to escape. And so poor old Napoleon was sent down there and he lived in a rather smart house called Longwood. He spent his retirement writing his memoirs, a rather self-illusion, persuading

himself and his readers that he'd been let down by all his generals and that Wellington, he could have defeated him. And it was a rather sad ending to an extraordinarily great career. And he died in 1821, six years after the Battle of Waterloo, he died. Everybody reckons of stomach cancer. Wellington went on to become one of the senior figures of the British,

well, the probably senior figure of the British state. He was prime minister in the late 1820s. He wasn't a very good prime minister. After one cabinet meeting, which meant to be quite sort of a collective activity, he wrote, I gave them their orders, and they wanted to stay around and discuss them. So he wasn't really suited to civilian political life. But he was a titanic figure. He cast a very long shadow over subsequent British history. He died at age 83 in 1852. in 1852. That, ladies and gentlemen, is our description of the Battle of Waterloo. But I suppose we should quickly say why was it so important? It confirmed several great things

that had come out of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. It had confirmed that France's dreams of carving out an empire which stretched way back over 100 years in Western Europe and become a super state in Western Europe were decisively brought to an end. It confirmed Britain as the hegemonic global power with colonies and naval reach that stretched right across the globe and a huge industrial and commercial power that would go on to grow in the 19th century. Importantly, it confirmed Prussia was the most powerful North German state, and it would go on to swallow up the rest of Germany and eventually become the German Empire and result in the mighty German state of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. So it was a battle that in many ways set the seal on a political settlement that would

last almost 100 years until 1914 1914 when all the parts were shattered and had to be put back together again. Okay, Dad, I'm going to put this on. Look at these clever little things. Have you seen these before? Have you seen these? Are these the microphones? Yeah.

They're good, aren't they? Yes. It's all changed. All changed, hasn't it? Absolutely extraordinary. Absolutely extraordinary. Right, so here we go. Ten years on.

Do you remember recording that first episode? Very well. Very well. Extraordinary. Mortal Kombat has always been the greatest battle of all time, really. I just find it an extraordinary story. The way it came and went and the way it's so nearly won and lost by either side makes a wonderful, wonderful story. Did you know what I was doing recording audio onto that iPad in that hotel room?

I thought it was nonsense. I thought nobody would listen to a podcast. I remember that, certainly. And I thought you were mad to desert terrestrial television and all those wonderful BBC opportunities you had. But yes, no, podcasting, which I am now a complete fanatic for. You are a podcast obsessive, aren't you? Yes, I am, very much so.

I go for walks and listen to podcasts all the time. I can't go for a walk without a podcast in my ear. Very important. Makes the walk so much more exciting. It's a lovely experience. I'm a news junkie, and that still, I'm afraid, is separate from my podcasting junkiness. I mean, podcasting... It's parallel interest. Yes, I'm fascinated by the podcast because I like people giving their interpretation of the news, their account of it, their commentary on it. And I greatly admire the news agents. I think the restless politics is excellent.

Has it been funny watching history hit on all these different platforms and Instagram and YouTube all popping up in these weird places? You've had to catch up on all the different platforms, haven't you, Dad? Yes, I'm very bad at that. You're good at Instagram. Instagram, yes, but I still get lost on Instagram. I tune into Instagram, and within a few minutes, I see a virtually naked woman standing there.

It's ridiculous. I mean, it's just absurd. I want pictures of the family, but I can't find it. But History Hit is great fun. I love History Hit. It's so rich in texture and different stories and moments in history. And it's really superb, the enthusiasm of the people

who do it, tremendous. Yeah, I know you sometimes listen to my podcast. What episodes do you like of the podcast? Is it the ones that, as you described it once, I just talk all the time? Or do you like it when I interview experts? Or is it fun when I do the ones that are the current affairs history crossovers when I explain why Canada isn't the 51st state?

Which ones do you like? I love the why Canada isn't the 51st state or why it should be. And I love you commenting on what you think of it. That's what I like about podcasting. I like it when you have done your own research. And I meant the Admiral Coburn. Admiral Cochrane. Cochrane, that wonderful Cochrane.

No, I thought Cochrane was very good because you'd done the research yourself. And you were, in your inimitable way, telling us the story of Cochrane. Your words, your description, your study, your research. Dad, is your podcast player still stuck on 0.75 speed? So I sound like I've got a slight... Yes, I made a terrible mistake. I've now learned to press 1.0. For about, for a few months, if not years,

Dad was listening on 0.75, wondering why I was being so pedestrian in my delivery. Quite true. Pathetic. But actually, since my hearing is not all that great, 0.75 is very useful. All right, Dad, we'll see you again in 10 years' time. OK, I'll look forward to it. When I should be 97. Can't wait.

Well, all that remains to be said is thank you to all of you for listening, for keeping this podcast going. And I want to assure you that I'm looking forward to the next 10 years with as much excitement as I approached the last decade. There's so much moisture to tell. We're going to go on some more adventures, folks. See you next time. Thank you so much to you for listening to this episode of Dan Snow's History Hit.

We could not make this podcast without you. That's actually true. So make sure, if you want to keep it going, that is, to hit follow in your podcast player right now. You'll get new episodes dropped into your podcast library automatically by the power of tech. You can listen anywhere you get your pods. Apple, Spotify, even BBC Sounds. Imagine a world, just imagine, where you never miss an episode of this podcast. I mean, it's there. The technology makes that possible. That could be your reality right now if you hit follow. See you next time. you you