What if ... Napoleon had won?

[privatehudson]

My knowledge of Waterloo terrain is cursory and I cannot speak to the changes since 1815

Roughly speaking there's two main ridgelines, the Mont St Jean ridge held by Wellington's army and the other facing it held by the French army. There was also a valley between. Neither ridges were espeically huge as such, but when the Dutch built a mound for a monument to their forces and Prince on the battlefield, they levelled much of what ridges there was to do so. IIRC the mound is in the middle of the "British" lines and is quite big, I don't recall exactly as I saw it when I was 8 They have also built a rather large road running through part of the field of battle which all combines to spoil the effect somewhat. From what little I recall, the ridge now wouldn't trouble anyone to surmount unlike 1815.

Other than that, 2 main areas of the field remain much the same, Hougomont and La Haye Sainte haven't changed that much. What is apparent though is that Napoleon's much more favoured there than the victors, most pubs and so on are named after him or his army in some way. Waterloo the village though is hardly on the maps of the battle in most cases as it was so far in the rear as to make no difference. At least the Prussians and French named it after places that saw fighting

 

[Birdjaguar]

I've read Scott Bowden's Waterloo book a couple of time and studied his photographs, for which I cannot find a source. I assume that he took them himself. They show what is typical of most battlefields where 10s of thousands of men and horses had to maneuver: wide open vistas with gently sloping hills. Field of fire and room to deploy were key. Artists and historians often distort the terrrain and make it seem more dramatic than it was. The bigger the armies the more open and level the terrain needed to be to allow for established tactical maneuvering to work. Other than the human constructed anomalies I would not expect any significant deviation from gently rolling land easy for men horses and guns to transverse.

 

[privatehudson]

They show what is typical of most battlefields where 10s of thousands of men and horses had to maneuver: wide open vistas with gently sloping hills. Field of fire and room to deploy were key

Then Waterloo is something new. Hougomont and La Haye sainte ensured by extension a cramping of area and the field of actual engagment in the battle for most of it (ie if you remove the prussian element) really centered around those two areas. Remember that Wellington chose Waterloo ahead of time to fight on, it was his ground, it suited his defensive strategy more than Napoleon's offensive attitudes and tendency to attack frontally against the centre of an enemy line. Wellington, coming from the peninsula would be likely to choose as close terrain to that as possible. (though within reason, it's not called the low countries for nothing ) Most of the Cavalry assaults fell in areas so narrow that they were crushed together and of little effect because of this. It's true that taken throughout the field there was space, but the area fought over was much much smaller. That in part is a point against Napoleon's tactics on the day, instead of working around his left flank as Wellington feared he would do he chose to attack straight up the centre into the area between the two farmhouses and slightly to the right which narrowed his options considerably.

Slopes I'm not so sure about, I know they skimmed a good deal of both to create the mound, plus many British and French accounts talk of being unable to see troops in the vallley between the ridge lines when they descended into it. For you I'll try and dig out a book my father has called Waterloo a new perspective because IIRC it has an excellent commentary on the Swinbourne work and the battlefield overall I think I have a map somwhere that my father bought me on the sight of the battle that covered it well to. I'll try and dig both out.

 

[wurkwurk]

All I know was that the town of Planecoit was the anchor of the French right, and when the Prussians took it after a hard fight then Napoleon was pretty much halfwy surrounded. Cant forget that village.

 

[privatehudson]

I'm not suggesting it's affect was minimal, far from it, but rather that the main bulk of the fighting was elsewhere in that small area I mentioned.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Chandler puts the length of the of the Waterloo battlefront at 5 miles and a density of 14,500 men per mile (including Planecoit) for the French and 5 miles and 28,000 men per mile for the allies.

For comparison:

Austerlitz: French 7 miles 10,400
Allies 8 miles 10,700

Borodino: French 4 miles 33,200
Russians 5 miles 24,000

Friedland: French 9 miles 9,000
Russians 7 miles 8,600

Jena: French 7 miles 13,700
Prussians 7 miles 7,500

Ligny: French 7 miles 11,400
Prussians 7 miles 12,000

Wagram: French 12 miles 11,370
Austrians 12 miles 12,200

Waterloo was Borodino sized and dense.

 

[privatehudson]

When you include Plancenoit of course it would However, as I pointed out the main event and most of the battle was conducted between less than half that frontage. Another statistics case that fails to reveal the real picture. It's interesting only in that the figures used don't display the correct image. I also have pointed out that whilst the overal field was not that crammed, the main attacks were which was my point, not that the entire field was cramped.