Waterloo Rediscovered

On the morning of Sunday 22 September 2024 RSC members and friends enjoyed an entertaining and informative walk on the battlefield of Waterloo with military historian and author Jean-Philippe Tondeur.

Our party met at the Ferme du Caillou on the Chausse de Bruxelles to the south of the battlefield. This building was where Napoleon stayed on the night before the battle and was his last headquarters. This ancient farmhouse is now a museum and here Jean-Philippe described the events leading up to the battle and some insights on Napoleon’s strategy and battle plans.

The party then moved onto the Ferme de la Belle Alliance. Built in 1765, by 1815, the property was a tavern and despite being at the centre of the French lines suffered relatively little from the battle. The main building (pictured below, behind the RSC party) and the annexed stable escaped destruction, although its original outbuildings were ruined.

In Germany, the battle is known as "Belle-Alliance Sieg", the victory of Belle-Alliance, rather than the Battle of Waterloo. The Prussians observed the coincidence between this place name and the political and military alliance that brought down the Napoleonic Empire.

The tavern was also where Napoleon was mainly located during the battle and the place that the two victorious ‘allied’ commanders, Wellington and Blucher, met at the end of the day’s fighting. Today the Belle-Alliance is owned by Jean-Philippe.

Jean-Philippe then took the party along a footpath, le Chemin de Plancenoit, to describe the main elements of the battle with an excellent  view over the battlefield site. It is striking how small the main battlefield is considering the number of soldiers involved.

To complete our excursion most of our party then proceeded to the Maximus Waterloo restaurant on the Route du Lion, in the shadow of the famous Butte du Lion memorial, for a relaxing lunch.

Further reading

Our thanks to Jean-Philippe for his talk. The RSC Belgium party found his descriptions really interesting with new insights and anecdotes that added colour to the Waterloo ‘story’ and helped us understand better what was really going on during the day of the battle.

If you would like to read more about the battle, Jean-Philippe's publications ‘Les Éditions de la Belle-Alliance’ on the battle and the 1815 campaign are available to purchase. 

Les éditions de La Belle Alliance were born in 1998 and are a collaboration between Jean-Philippe and illustrators Patrice Courcelle and Bernard Coppens. All three wanted to work on an approach to the Battle of Waterloo that was more detailed and, above all, more critical and analytical than what had gone before.

Waterloo Walk 2015

The sun certainly shone on the section’s Spring event: a walking tour around the historic site of the Waterloo battlefield on Sunday 10 May.  At almost 200 years to the day since the historic battle 21 members and friends of the section followed in the footsteps of the Anglo-Dutch and French troops at the battle guided by historian and Project Hougoumont Co-ordinator for Historical and Archaeological Research, Alasdair White.

The walk started at 14:15 prompt outside the Wellington Café in the shadow of the famous Butte de Lion. Here Alasdair (below) explained the (still) ongoing building works happening in the area that will provide a new and a very shiny visitor centre and other facilities hopefully in time for the 200th anniversary of the battle on 18 June 2015.

We then moved on to visit the part of the battlefield occupied by the Anglo-Dutch right flank, an area that was held mainly by the Dutch and Dutch-Belgian units while being subject to French cavalry charges and later the attack of the Imperial Guard. Alasdair explained the use of infantry ‘squares’ to repulse cavalry attacks, showed us where the main action took place and told numerous anecdotes of personal actions that made an impact on the course of the battle. During his explanations we also encountered the remnants of a French cavalry charge (see below) still wandering the battle field clearly in a daze!

Alasdair then led us down to Hougoumont farm, where some of the heaviest fighting occurred. There Alasdair explained the major restoration work and archaeology that is happening around the farm and associated buildings and fields. He also described the importance of the farm to the successful outcome of the battle.

Finally we walked across the battlefield to La Belle Alliance (Napoleon’s HQ) and via La Haye Sainte farmhouse back to our starting point following the final failed attack of the Imperial Guard that signalled a general retreat of the French forces as the ‘Anglo-Dutch’ (but consisting of a majority of German troops it would seem) and the Prussians closed in.

 All-in-all the walk was a fascinating four hour tour-de-force and provided an excellent entertaining and educational afternoon. Over a beer or two at the Wellington Café tactics and strategy were further discussed and Alasdair also had copies of his two new books (described below) on the Waterloo campaign available for purchase.

June 1815 – the Belgium Campaign

With text by Alasdair White telling the tale of the 'Campaign of June 1815' and photographs by Marc Fasol taken during various recent re-enactments of the battle, this bi-lingual (English and French) publication includes 89 photographs and five maps to deliver a beautiful ‘coffee-table’ book that would grace the library of any historian or interested reader.

The book is available in hardback €25 direct from the author or from Renaissance du Livre or from Amazon.


The Road to Waterloo: A Concise History of the 1815 Campaign 

This second paperback book from Alasdair contains many new interpretations of the events of 1815 and leads to some perhaps controversial conclusions. It cuts through the accumulated inaccuracies and wishful thinking that has characterised the writings of so many historians to give the interested reader a clear, concise and remarkably unbiased understanding of what actually happened during the early summer of 1815.

This slim volume is available as a paperback (€9.00/£7.50) and e-book (€4.50) from White & Maclean or from Amazon or direct from the author.


Waterloo 200
To find out more about Waterloo and the 200 year anniversary visit the Waterloo 200 website. This is a joint project between charity Waterloo 200, the National Army Museum, and Culture 24 and is largely funded by a grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund. The site covers many famous names associated with the battle, like Wellington and Napoleon, but also less well-known figures. You can use this website to find out ‘Why Waterloo Matters’ and to uncover the stories behind the names.