For ten years, one man has dominated Europe: Napoleon Bonaparte, Emperor of the French.

Under his military genius, France conquered an empire that spanned the continent. But

finally, he has been defeated by a grand coalition of his enemies.

Napoleon is forced to abdicate, and exiled to the tiny island of Elba, while the Bourbon

monarchy is restored to France in the corpulent form of Louis XVIII.

But rumours soon reach Napoleon that France would welcome his return the French people

have little love for the monarchy or its hangers-on, the very people whose excesses led to the

French Revolution 25 years before.

He also learns that at the Congress of Vienna, his enemies are locked in bitter dispute over

the future of Europe.

Napoleon decides to act. After just ten months in exile, he returns to France, where the

troops sent to arrest him rally to his cause instead. Most of France soon follows suit.

But in Vienna, the Coalition immediately put their differences to one side. They declare

Napoleon an outlaw, and mobilise their forces for war.

Napoleon knows he must act boldly, before the Coalition launches a co-ordinated invasion

of France. He counts on winning a quick victory, and then negotiating peace from a position

of strength.

He targets the Coalition armies within easiest reach: Prince Bl�cher's Prussian army and

the Duke of Wellington's Anglo-Allied army, both camped in Belgium.

Napoleon's force is a match for either Coalition army on its own, but he'll be heavily outnumbered

if they're able to join forces. So he must keep them apart, and defeat each in turn.

Napoleon's army crosses the frontier near Charleroi, intending to drive a wedge between

the two Coalition armies.

The next day, Napoleon sends his Left Wing under Marshal Ney to take the crossroads at

Quatre Bras. There Ney clashes with Wellington's army, still scrambling into position. The

Allied troops fight off a series of French attacks, and just manage to hold their ground.

The same day, Napoleon attacks Blucher's Prussian army with his main force, near the village

of Ligny. The battle is a brutal slugging match, but the French emerge triumphant.

The 72 year-old Blucher leads a calvary charge in person, and has his horse killed under

him. He only just escapes capture.

The Prussian army retreats, but it is not broken.

Napoleon sends his Right Wing under Marshal Grouchy to keep them on the run, and turns

his own attention to Wellington's army.

The British general doesn't receive news of Blucher's defeat until the next morning, at

which point he orders a retreat, through heavy summer showers, to a position 8 miles south

of Brussels, near the village of Waterloo.

There, he receives a promise from Blucher that the Prussians will march to his aid the

next morning, so Wellington decides to stand and fight.

Wellington has chosen his battlefield with care. His troops are behind a gentle ridge,

which will give them some shelter from French cannon fire. His right flank is anchored on

the farmhouse of Hougoumont, his centre on the farm of La Haye Sainte, and his left on

the farm of Papelotte. All three are fortified and garrisoned with elite troops.

Wellington's men need every advantage they can get. The opposing armies are roughly equal

in size, but his is a ragtag mix of British, Dutch and German troops, many of whom have

never seen combat before.

They will have to hold off Napoleon's army of veterans until Prussian reinforcements

arrive, or the battle and probably the war will be lost.

Sunday dawns bright and fair.

Napoleon has ordered Marshal Grouchy to pursue the Prussians and keep them busy, while he

defeats Wellington's army at Waterloo, and opens the road to Brussels.

But it's Grouchy who gets pinned down, fighting the Prussian rearguard at Wavre: the main

Prussian force eludes him, and is already marching to Wellington's aid.

At Waterloo, Napoleon delays his attack, waiting for the ground to dry which will make movement

easier for his troops. But the lost hours will later prove costly.

The battle begins around 11am, when Napoleon orders a feint against Wellington's right

flank, at Hougoumont. He hopes Wellington will commit his reserves here, drawing them

away from the centre where the main blow will fall. But Hougoumont's British and German

defenders cling on desperately throughout the day. At one point the French force their

way through the main gate, but its shut behind them and the intruders are all killed. Wellington

later calls it the decisive moment of the battle.

Around noon, 80 French cannon open fire against the main Allied line. Most of Wellington's

men are out of sight on the reverse slope, but many cannonballs still find their mark,

smashing bloody holes in the Allied ranks.

At 1.30pm, Napoleon sends in his infantry. The French columns are met by disciplined

musket fire, and then charged by British heavy cavalry.

The French attack disintegrates, as Napoleon's men try to save themselves from the crushing

hooves and flashing sabres. Scores of Frenchmen are ridden down, and two of their famous Eagle

standards are captured.

But the British cavalry, exhilarated by success, charge too far. They become scattered, their

horses blown. At their most vulnerable, they're counter-charged by French cavalry and suffer

terrible losses. Among the dead, Major General Sir William Ponsonby, commander of the Union

Brigade.

Around 4pm, Marshal Ney thinks he sees the Allies begin to retreat, and leads a mass

cavalry charge to drive home the advantage. But Ney is wrong. The Allied infantry are

ready, formed in hollow squares with bayonets fixed. The French cavalry can't break into

these impregnable formations; they can only circle impotently, until they retreat or are

shot from the saddle.

Ney's failure to support this attack with either infantry or artillery is a serious

blunder.

Meanwhile Blucher's Prussians have begun to arrive: they capture the village of Plancenoit,

threatening Napoleon's flank, and forcing him to send reserves to recapture it.

Around 6pm French infantry finally capture the farmhouse of La Haye Sainte in the centre

of the battlefield.

It allows the French to bring forward artillery and blast the Allied squares from close range.

They can't miss the closely-packed formations, and casualties quickly mount. It begins to

seem that if Wellington's army doesn't retreat, it will be killed where it stands.

But the situation for Napoleon is also desperate. The Prussians are arriving in force. And he's

running out of men to throw against Wellington's army. So he turns to his ultimate reserve,

the elite Imperial Guard the most feared troops in Europe.

At 7.30pm, 3,000 of these battle-hardened veterans march past their Emperor and across

the corpse-strewn battlefield towards the Allied centre. Wellington's redcoats rise

to meet them, and pour devastating volleys of musket fire into their ranks.

When the Allies fix bayonets and prepare to charge, the Imperial Guard wavers, and then

retreats.

Wellington, sensing victory, orders a general advance.

About the same time, the Prussians recapture Plancenoit.

News of the Imperial Guard's defeat, and rumours of encirclement by the Prussians, sweep through

the French ranks. Panic breaks out, and the French army flees the battlefield.

Only Napoleon's Old Guard maintain their discipline, mounting a heroic but doomed rearguard action.

Napoleon himself is forced to abandon his carriage, and barely escapes the pursuing

Prussian cavalry.

The battle is won. The Duke of Wellington and Prince Blucher meet and congratulate each

other outside Napoleon's former headquarters, an inn called La Belle Alliance. Blucher thinks

it's the perfect name for their shared victory but Wellington prefers the more English-sounding

'Waterloo', where he has his own headquarters.

The Battle of Waterloo was, in the words of the Duke of Wellington, 'a damned near run

thing'. It was also one of the bloodiest battles of the age. Around 50,000 men were killed

or wounded: 23,000 Coalition casualties, 27,000 French. Due to an appalling shortage of medical

care, many of the wounded were left lying on the battlefield for several days.

Napoleon was utterly defeated. Unable to raise another army, he surrendered to the British.

They transported him to a second exile, on the tiny, remote Atlantic island of Saint

Helena. This time there was no escape. He died there six years later.

Waterloo marked the beginning of a period of relative peace in Europe - there were no

wars between the great powers for 40 years. And the British would not fight on the Continent

for another hundred years, until the summer of 1914.

Forty years after the battle, a pioneer in the new art of photography captured these

remarkable images. They are veterans of Napoleon's armies, by then all old men in their seventies

and eighties...

Among them, Sergeant Tania, of the Imperial Guard.

Moret, of the 2nd Regiment of Hussars.

And Verline, of the 2nd Guard Lancers.

These faces are a tantalising link to the dramatic events that shaped the course of

history two centuries ago.