Editing Napoleonic Wars (section)

==War of the Seventh Coalition, 1815==
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{{See also|Hundred Days|Neapolitan War}}
[[File:Wellington at Waterloo Hillingford.jpg|thumb|left|''Wellington at Waterloo'' by [[Robert Alexander Hillingford]]]]

The [[Seventh Coalition]] (1815) pitted Britain, Russia, Prussia, Sweden, Switzerland, Austria, the [[United Kingdom of the Netherlands|Netherlands]] and several smaller German states against France. The period known as the Hundred Days began after Napoleon escaped from Elba and landed at [[Cannes]] (1 March 1815). Travelling to Paris, picking up support as he went, he eventually overthrew [[Louis XVIII]]. The Allies rapidly gathered their armies to meet him again. Napoleon raised 280,000 men, whom he distributed among several armies. To add to the 90,000-strong standing army, he recalled well over a quarter of a million veterans from past campaigns and issued a decree for the eventual draft of around 2.5&nbsp;million new men into the French army, which was never achieved. This faced an initial coalition force of about 700,000—although coalition campaign plans provided for one million front-line soldiers, supported by around 200,000 garrison, logistics and other auxiliary personnel.

Napoleon took about 124,000 men of the Army of the North on a pre-emptive strike against the Allies in Belgium.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Hofschroer |first=Peter |title=The Waterloo Campaign: Wellington, His German Allies and the Battles of Ligny and Quatre Bras |year=2006}}</ref> He intended to attack the coalition armies before they combined, in hope of driving the British into the sea and the Prussians out of the war. His march to the frontier achieved the surprise he had planned, catching the Anglo-Dutch Army in a dispersed arrangement. The Prussians had been more wary, concentrating 75 per cent of their army in and around [[Ligny]]. The Prussians forced the {{lang|fr|[[Armée du Nord]]}} to fight all the day of the 15th to reach Ligny in a delaying action by the Prussian 1st Corps. He forced Prussia to fight at [[Battle of Ligny|Ligny]] on 16 June 1815, and the defeated Prussians retreated in disorder. On the same day, the left wing of the {{lang|fr|Armée du Nord}}, under the command of Marshal [[Michel Ney]], succeeded in stopping any of Wellington's forces going to aid [[Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher|Blücher]]'s Prussians by fighting a blocking action at [[Battle of Quatre Bras|Quatre Bras]]. Ney failed to clear the cross-roads and Wellington reinforced the position. But with the Prussian retreat, Wellington too had to retreat. He fell back to a previously reconnoitred position on an [[escarpment]] at [[Mont-Saint-Jean, Belgium|Mont St Jean]], a few miles south of the village of [[Waterloo, Belgium|Waterloo]].

[[File:Waterloo Campaign map-alt3.svg|thumb|upright=1.35|Map of the Waterloo campaign]]

Napoleon took the reserve of the Army of the North, and reunited his forces with those of Ney to pursue Wellington's army, after he ordered Marshal [[Emmanuel, marquis de Grouchy|Grouchy]] to take the right wing of the Army of the North and stop the Prussians regrouping. In the first of a series of miscalculations, both Grouchy and Napoleon failed to realise that the Prussian forces were already reorganised and were assembling at the city of [[Wavre]]. The French army did nothing to stop a rather leisurely retreat that took place throughout the night and into the early morning by the Prussians. As the 4th, 1st, and 2nd Prussian Corps marched through the town towards Waterloo, the 3rd Prussian Corps took up blocking positions across the river, and although Grouchy engaged and defeated the Prussian rearguard under the command of Lt-Gen [[Johann von Thielmann|von Thielmann]] in the [[Battle of Wavre]] (18–19 June) it was 12 hours too late. In the end, 17,000 Prussians had kept 33,000 badly needed French reinforcements off the field.

Napoleon delayed the start of fighting at the [[Battle of Waterloo]] on the morning of 18 June for several hours while he waited for the ground to dry after the previous night's rain. By late afternoon, the French army had not succeeded in driving Wellington's forces from the escarpment on which they stood. When the Prussians arrived and attacked the French right flank in ever-increasing numbers, Napoleon's strategy of keeping the coalition armies divided had failed and a combined coalition general advance drove his army from the field in confusion.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Napoleonic Wars {{!}} Summary, Combatants, & Maps {{!}} Britannica |url=https://www.britannica.com/event/Napoleonic-Wars |access-date=2023-07-15 |website=www.britannica.com |language=en |archive-date=7 February 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220207144711/https://www.britannica.com/event/Napoleonic-Wars |url-status=live }}</ref>

Grouchy organised a successful and well-ordered retreat towards Paris, where Marshal Davout had 117,000 men ready to turn back the 116,000 men of Blücher and Wellington. General [[Dominique Vandamme|Vandamme]] was defeated at the [[Battle of Issy]] and negotiations for surrender had begun.

[[File:Charge of the French Cuirassiers at Waterloo.jpg|thumb|upright=1.15|The charge of the French [[Cuirassier]]s at the [[Battle of Waterloo]] against a square of [[Scottish regiment|Scottish Highlanders]]]]

On arriving at Paris three days after Waterloo, Napoleon still clung to the hope of a concerted national resistance; but the temper of the [[Corps législatif|legislative chamber]]s, and of the public generally, did not favour his view. Lacking support Napoleon abdicated again on 22 June 1815, and on 15 July he surrendered to the British squadron at [[Rochefort, Charente-Maritime|Rochefort]]. The Allies exiled him to the remote South Atlantic island of [[Saint Helena]], where he died on 5 May 1821.

In Italy, [[Joachim Murat]], whom the Allies had allowed to remain King of [[Kingdom of Naples (Napoleonic)|Naples]] after Napoleon's initial defeat, once again allied with his brother-in-law, triggering the [[Neapolitan War]] (March to May 1815). Hoping to find support among Italian nationalists fearing the increasing influence of the Habsburgs in Italy, Murat issued the [[Rimini Proclamation]] inciting them to war. The proclamation failed and the Austrians soon crushed Murat at the [[Battle of Tolentino]] (2–3 May 1815), forcing him to flee. The [[House of Bourbon-Two Sicilies|Bourbons]] returned to the throne of Naples on 20 May 1815. Murat tried to regain his throne, but after that failed, he was executed by firing squad on 13 October 1815.

The [[Treaty of Paris (1815)|Second Treaty of Paris]], signed on 20 November 1815, officially marked the end of the Napoleonic Wars.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Treaties of Paris {{!}} Congress of Vienna, European Balance of Power, Peace of Paris {{!}} Britannica |url=https://www.britannica.com/event/Treaties-of-Paris-1814-1815 |access-date=2024-07-27 |website=www.britannica.com |language=en}}</ref>