On the morning of June 18th 1815, Napoleon Bonaparte, master military tactician, empire builder and gambler, was facing his ultimate challenge.
Across an anonymous piece of farmland that we now call Waterloo, Napoleon was facing for the first time the man chosen by Europe to lead the coalition armies united against him - the Duke of Wellington. Four months earlier, the great Emperor Bonaparte had been a forgotten and spent force – exiled to the tiny island of Elba off the coast of Italy. But Napoleon was a man of destiny, and he was not fated to end his days in obscurity without a fight. That fight would cost 50,000 men their lives. Napoleon's Waterloo examines the conflict not only between two nations but also between two great figures of history – Napoleon Bonaparte and his nemesis, Arthur Wellesley, otherwise known as the Duke of Wellington. While in exile in Elba, the Englishman who had defeated his armies was right at his heart. Wellington had been appointed as British Ambassador to the court of Louis XVIII and had taken over one of the Bonaparte family homes as his Embassy. Whilst in Vienna, Wellington heard of Napoleon's return from Elba and his march towards Paris; his response was to remain calm and others followed his cue. Publicly the European allies laughed off the thought of Napoleon's return but all European rulers turned to Wellington. He was the one general who had consistently beaten France, from the one country that has been consistently opposed to the French.
