THE WATERLOO MEDAL, AND CAMPAIGN IN FLANDERS, 1815.
Reading edition
There was but a brief interval of peace after the battle of Toulouse. The triumphs of the Peninsula were not destined to give repose to Europe. Napoleon having learnt that at the Congress of Vienna it had been debated whether he should not be sent to St. Helena, (a measure opposed by the Duke of Wellington, and the idea relinquished,) and reckoning on the attachment of the French people, escaped from Elba, landed at Cannes, in Provence, on the 1st. of March, 1815, with a handful of men, and on the 20th. of that month entered Paris at the head of an army which had joined him on the road. Louis XVIII at once withdrew to Ghent, and Napoleon assumed his former dignity of Emperor of the French; the allied powers at once refused to acknowledge his sovereignty, and determined to effect his dethronement. Preparations for war commenced, troops were assembled in the Netherlands, and the regiments which had been engaged in America were, on their return, immediately forwarded to the seat of war.
Britain had no selfish end in view in this great struggle, but sent her sons to battle in support of the rights of nations, and to secure herself from a military despotism. To those readers who would study the events of this short but momentous campaign, no better guide can be recommended than Captain Siborne’s elaborate account,—the work of a life-time. In this last success, Wellington, like a graceful actor, took his leave of war, for this terminated his active military career. The right wing of the Duke’s army, in and about Ath, was commanded by Lord Hill; the left, near Braine le Comte and Nivelle, was under the Prince of Orange; the cavalry, under the Earl of Uxbridge, was quartered about Grammont, and the reserve was in proximity to Brussels and its neighbourhood.
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