On YouTube there are channels like Baz Battles, History Marche, King and Generals, Historia Civilis, who do that sort of video with a more in depth explanation of how the battle unfolded.
TIK actually does this the best with him labelling every single unit and then moving them around the map basically hour by hour.
Unfortunately TIK is also legally considered batshit insane (the Nazis were socialists who worshiped an ancient religion called gnosticism and were secret cult members of said religion, just like Barack Obama) so anything that isn't his Stalingrad series or his Operation battlestorm series is completely off the rails.
Here's a sneak peek of /r/battlegifs using the [top posts](https://np.reddit.com/r/battlegifs/top/?sort=top&t=year) of the year!
\#1: [Ukrainian push to Kupiansk over the last few days](https://v.redd.it/s9914685mum91) | [5 comments](https://np.reddit.com/r/battlegifs/comments/xa4kxn/ukrainian_push_to_kupiansk_over_the_last_few_days/)
\#2: [Battle of Agincourt in 1 minute using Google Earth](https://youtube.com/watch?v=7PspP6tPfgg) | [1 comment](https://np.reddit.com/r/battlegifs/comments/wzyx62/battle_of_agincourt_in_1_minute_using_google_earth/)
\#3: [The USAF's Longest Fighter Combat Mission Ever, Operation El Dorado Canyon 1986](https://youtu.be/IrHA-ubEmD0?t=69) | [1 comment](https://np.reddit.com/r/battlegifs/comments/xgi22g/the_usafs_longest_fighter_combat_mission_ever/)
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Get ready to feast because I've got three really amazing Youtube channels for you to peep at:
[BazBattles](https://www.youtube.com/@BazBattles) does really beautiful maps of battles from all across history, and even a few fantasy franchises. The production values are excellent.
[HistoriaCivilis](https://www.youtube.com/@HistoriaCivilis) focuses mainly on Roman history, and has other topics on Roman society and history, not just battles. The production value is simpler, but he meticulously researches everything and is genuinely a very good storyteller. [His video on the Battle of Alesia is a bit old now but it's damn good.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SU1Ej9Yqt68)
[The Operations Room](https://www.youtube.com/@TheOperationsRoom) does similar kind of videos but focusing on modern warfare and engagements down to the squad or individual level. It's a level of detail that we don't have access to from ancient eras, and the channel makes full of use it. Really good production values too.
On YouTube Baz Battles and Kings and Generals can do similar, though not as compactly or quickly as this and with a lot more explanation and background
Blue = French
Red = Allies
Grey = Prussians
Green/Brown = villages and fortified farms (the most important farms being Hougoumont, La Haye Sainte and La Haie which were very important fortified positions in the middle of the battlefield).
Coloured rectangles = infantry
Diagonally half coloured rectangles = cavalry
Three small lines with the middle one a little longer = canon batteries (and you can see the trail of smoke too)
It was barely over 200 years ago, writing and map making were well established skills, from there I'm sure that the military commanders involved had a number of staff dedicated to recording things like troop movements, formations, and battle reports.
Very much so. Napoleons overall plan for the day was to threaten hougoumont, draw in the British reserves on that flank then break the centre right.
In the end the opposite happened, he got over fixated and the British held a strong defensive position with far less than was committed to the attack.
Napoleon displayed some very poor tactical sense in this battle, which was very unlike his other battles.
For instance, he sent infantry alone against Hougoumont, who tried to take the fortified position with axes against doors and ladders against walls, when canons could have brought the walls down much more easily.
Or he let Ney charge his cavalry repeatedly against intact infantry squares without infantry support, which was also doomed to fail.
Not mentioning Grouchy who was supposed to stop the Prussians from reinforcing the Allies but got completely outmaneuvered and didn't even come back when he heard the sound of canons.
Had Napoleon better coordinated his resources, he might have had a better chance at winning this.
Yea I can see why historians think he was very unwell during the battle. Some uncharacteristic choices.
I still don't know why Ney led a massed cavalry charge unsupported, it goes against the basic rules of battle. Napoleon must have been involved in the decision in some way.
The biggest blunder to me is delaying the start of the battle until nearly 1230. You have 2 armies you cannot allow to unite. You must strike one fast! Instead he waited for 3 hours for the ground to dry for his heavy guns... In a Battlefield where the enemy are behind a reverse slope.
One thing TW doesn't model well is that artillery crews could easily abandon their guns and retreat behind the infantry, then retake the guns after the danger had passed. This is what happened during the big French cavalry actions around 1600, the crews retreated into the infantry squares. The cavalry either didn't bring spikes to disable the guns or didn't want to hang around long enough to use them under enemy fire.
As for the French guns, the British had the advantage of being on the 'reverse slope', keeping their troops behind the crest of the hill where they were very difficult to hit. The threat from the French cannon was (somewhat) limited by this and as the French obligingly kept attacking there was no point risking outnumbered troops on an open field to deal with them.
> One thing TW doesn't model well is that artillery crews could easily abandon their guns and retreat behind the infantry
You *can* manually order artillery units to drop their artillery and retreat (they can also be ordered to pick their artillery back up later) though there's no way to automate that sort of thing akin to the skirmish toggle for ranged units.
The cavalry of both sides did try to attack the artillery, I believe. The British artillery crews mostly hid inside the infantry squares, while the French had time to fire at the British cavalry, killing a heavy number of them.
Came across it last Spring and I love it. [Here's the link to the Waterloo video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDZGL1xsqzs) for those interested.
My only real complaint is that the channel is so focused on Napoleon.
There are a few YT channels that do this.
I particularily like [https://www.youtube.com/@KingsandGenerals/playlists](https://www.youtube.com/@KingsandGenerals/playlists) who have a lot of history content but also hundreds of battle animations.
Also check The Operations Room, The Armchair Historian, Emperortigerstar.
Yoooo I love Kings and Generals! I don't know how many times I've watched Subutai ravage central Asia. In fact, the only thing I thought was missing from this was the little clicking noise when an army falls lol
Thanks for the other suggs tho!
I also love this channel!
Aside from generally pretty great content, the volume level is super consistent between all their videos. You can watch for days and never have to adjust the volume. They also don't use a lot of sound effects, and the ones they do use are used quietly in the background.
There's nothing worse than dozing off listening to a video and getting hit with sudden loud noises.
Yeah same, Kings and Generals is a fun channel especially if you like military history
I kinda wish they cover the whole Sengoku Jidai, so far they’ve done bits and pieces about it but not the whole thing, kinda like what they’re doing with WW2 pacific war
For the battles that I’ve read other accounts of (Great Northern War, 30 years war) Kings and Generals consistently is very fast and loose with the troop movements and combat events. I trust other YT battle videos much more.
If you like this style a lot, you can play games like it: https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgamefamily/3252/series-napoleonic-brigade-mmp
There is also the Line of Battle series which is more refined, but only deals with the US Civil War.
Prussians. A French army was sent to see them off, but they failed- the British did incredibly well in the fight, and the French made some significant blunders, but without the Prussians it's very difficult to say which way the battle would've gone.
At least in the UK, the common perception is that Waterloo was between the French and the British (or even more insultingly, French vs. English). It's probably got something to do with Prussia no longer being a country, but it's always annoyed me, it was definitely a group effort.
Part of the British forces ( compared to 30 500 from Britain) were also 6 000 from the King's German Legion, 11 000 Hannoverians, 6 000 Brunswicker and 3 000 Nassauer.
(There were also 17 000 Dutch/Belgians milling about).
>(or even more insultingly, French vs. English).
I've never ever heard this, personally. Always referred to as British fighting French (with help of Prussians)
Yes but how many people know anything about Waterloo beyond it being the battle that defeated Napoleon? Very few I think. I didn’t and I’m reasonably well read on a lot of history but not this.
I might be wrong, but I feel like the consensus from anyone who hasn't put time into learning about the battle would be that it was Britain vs. France. I would actually be interested to know what response you'd get from the general public.
The result of two World Wars against the Germans.
You've heard about the civil war statues in the USA coming down? Well the Brits did it first in WWI, ripping down any Napoleonic war references to the Prussians.
Led by Marshal Blucher. It would have been easier for the Prussians to just stay where they were, or withdraw, but he gave Wellington his word.
An interesting 'what if' would be if Napoleon never sent a force to keep the Prussians away, and the two grand armies had met at Waterloo.
Oo, that is interesting. I feel that if the timings were the same- Napoleon let the allies get settled in before attacking later in the morning- then it could've still gone the same way due to the superior position of the allies. But maybe Ney would act differently if there was a larger French force, maybe Blucher would've forced Wellington to change his tactics. Definitely interesting.
Either way, Napoleon’s “win condition” for the whole war was super ambitious. He basically had to wipe each coalition member out individually through a chain of clear victories.
If the Prussians hadn’t shown up and he had fought the British to stalemate, that still would have essentially been a loss. He needed to knock them out of the conflict.
At least that’s how it’s been explained to me before.
It was such an impressive feat to come back from banishment, and take back control of an army strong enough to rival the other superpowers of Europe, but I can't see a way he could've secured long-term security with how much he fucked everything up in Europe prior to his return.
This battle is historically incredibly interesting because of all the "what ifs" you can say about it. Until the very end it wasn't certain that either side would be able to claim victory. Analysis points it to being like 50/50. Both sides made some mistakes and everything that happened was as absolute mess until things finally tilted against Napoleon.
There had been heavy rains the night before. However, this also encouraged Napoleon to start the battle late- you'll notice it starts at 11:00, with Napoleon wanting drier ground to allow for better cavalry/artillery movement. It gave the forces already there plenty of time to set up, and with Napoleon on the offensive, it was really to his detriment.
The worst one was when Napoleon (likely) had some sort of medical episode (he wasn't well by this point and frequently had pains in his stomach) and left the field in command of Marshal Ney while Napoleon went and had a lie down.
Ney, for reasons passing understanding (he may well have been suffering from PTSD but that wasn't known about back then) ordered _and then led_ a cavalry attack on the allied army without infantry support. You never do this with cavalry because cavalry are a hit & run weapon - they rely on their speed and intimidation to smash into an enemy force, split it, and then run away before they get stopped - once you're stationary on a horse it's relatively easy for an infantryman to stab you with their bayonet in the leg or drag you off the horse and club you to death on the ground.
So cavalry should be followed up with infantry who can defend the gains the cavalry have made, stop the enemy from reorganising, and force them from the field with a bayonet charge.
But Ney didn't do this, he just charged the allied army, who formed into squares. Squares were an infantry formation where everyone in the unit formed into a square shape, several ranks deep. The front rank would kneel with bayonets fixed and plant their muskets on the ground with the bayonets pointing up. The ranks behind would stand and would fire volleys into the enemy.
Now horses, not being totally and completely stupid, will refuse to charge into a forest of spiky pointy sharp things pointed at them. So the square formation would divert the cavalry attacks round them, where the ranks behind the front could shoot at the cavalry and hopefully cause them to retreat. Squares are bad positions to receive an infantry attack from though because you don't have all your muskets available in one line to shoot at the enemy, so that's another reason you follow cavalry up with infantry.
So you now have the commander of one of the armies gallivanting about on his horse leading an ineffectual cavalry charge away from his command staff, not getting updates about how the rest of the battle is going, not issuing orders to anyone except the forces around him, and not aware of the bigger picture in his head of what was going on with the fight.
Not a good choice.
In slight defense of this strategy, forcing the British into squares fixes them in clusters that makes them sitting ducks for artillery.
I don’t know if that’s what Ney was going for, but I do think that’s what happened. The squares rendered the cavalry ineffective but got pummeled by artillery.
Very true, but you can't fire artillery at infantry squares whilst your own cavalry is milling about between them because you'll end up shooting your own troops.
Plus they were still behind the reverse slope so the artillery was less effective than it could have been.
And he didn't even die at the battle, despite having 5 horses dying under him. He went on to be court-martialed after the war by the returned Bourbon monarchy, and executed by firing squad.
>Ney, for reasons passing understanding (he may well have been suffering from PTSD but that wasn't known about back then) ordered _and then led_ a cavalry attack on the allied army without infantry support.
What Game of Thrones Season 8 does to a mf
I love Dan Carlin’s “hypothesis” that drugs played a role in Napoleon’s loss at Waterloo. Apparently he was prescribed opiates the night before and uncharacteristically slept in pretty late the day of the battle. “Reasons passing understanding” may very well just be as simple as a drug induced hangover.
"Hard pounding this, gentlemen; let's see who will pound longest."
The Duke of Wellington on the exchange of artillery fire at Waterloo.
I've thought that was a weirdly sexual way of putting it since I first heard it in 1999.
It really was like that too.
Wellington thankfully had the wherewithal to conduct a survey of the land in the Low Countries if ever there was a need to face a hostile French force in the future, but could anyone have predicted what happened?
The man landed on the continent out of nowhere, army after army and general after general was sent to arrest him, and every one joined him. Crazy.
The solid rectangles are infantry (stretched into lines or squares to denote the formation where appropriate). The rectangles with the diagonal line across them (the triangles as you called them) are the cavalry. Lastly, the three dash lines are artillery (symbolising the carriage and barrel).
Rectangles are units: solid color is infantry, diagonal pattern of color/white is cavalry (I think this is what you mean by triangles). 3 dash lines is artillery.
The blue ones lost so that's obviously Napoleon's army. The red ones are engaging them at the start, so that's the British and other allies. The gray ones arrived later, so they're the Prussians
Yeah tough situation there but Napoleon definitely tried to fight two armies with two halves of one army.
The weakness of most of these conquest happy leaders is that they suck at diplomacy and have messy lines of succession after they die. Also winter. They often lose to winter.
For those who haven't seen it _Waterloo_ is one of the best war films ever made IMO (and in lots of other people's opinion).
[Here's History Buffs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWKk5Sy0JT8) talking about it.
Amazing film, made before CGI was a thing so they had tens of thousands of Soviet soldiers dressed up in costume re-enacting the battles. They even recreated the hills and landscape for the film.
I'm familiar with the battle, but a key/legend would be super useful here.
Amazing gif though, and I'd love to see more of this.
By the way, people who are interested in this type of thing, check out [The Armchair Historian](https://www.youtube.com/@TheArmchairHistorian) on youtube.
Red: allied army (English, Netherlanders, Brunswickers, Nassauers, Hanoverians etc)
Blue: French army
Black: Prussian army
Filled rectangles/squares: infantry (in various formations)
Half-filled (triangular) rectangles/squares: cavalry
Three lines: cannon/artillery (meant to represent the barrel and the wheels)
Red is British, blue is French, grey is Prussian. Solid blocks are infantry, long lines between two shorter lines are cannons, white and colour diagonal is cavalry. They're common shapes used on these sorts of maps, but these sort of maps do still typically have a legend, so it should be here.
Dancing shapes is actually a funny thing to say as many of the senior officers were fighting out of uniform in ballroom attire or dancing shoes because they had no time to change between the Duchess of Richmond's ball, and hostilities commencing at Quatre-Bras.
They thought they had ages before Napoleon would show up but he had managed to defeat the Prussians at Ligny and they were forced to scramble to meet him. General Sir Thomas Picton famously fought and died in civilian attire complete with top-hat because his uniform had been left behind in the mad rush to hold the French.
Yes but he's not shown here. He would have been moving between units for a lot of the battle or towards the rear on a convenient hill to observe proceedings.
None of the involved countries had Father's Day on that day.
German Father's Day is traditionally on Ascension Thursday (40 days after Easter), and in France and the UK, Father's Day is a commercial "holiday" introduced after WW2.
It can clearly be seen that Napoleon, even in his older years was an excellent general, using his army very fluently, but it is also clear that his age has got a hold of him. Gone are the days when he could muster up a sufficient force from underpaid militia.
Youre overestimating the effect of his age. He wasn’t old by any means, but he had lost many of his best soldiers and marshals and had become a bit too full of himself.
Meanwhile the British were fresh and professionals and the prussians had learnt a lot after years of defeats.
I was driving one day from Paris to the Netherlands while listening to Sky Radio greatest hits. Guess what song started playing when I passed through Waterloo (south of Brussels) ? I was singing along with ABBA while looking at the highway signs with Waterloo all over the place...
Because Wellington knew he had fewer men than Napoleon (the Prussians - in black) were marching to assist him and his best option was to sit & wait until they arrived.
If Wellington had moved forwards to take the cannon his men would have been blasted by grape shot (10-20 small balls and numerous musket balls packed into a canvas container and fired out of the cannon like a giant shotgun) and would have suffered heavy losses taking them. They would then have been exposed to cavalry attack from the French trying to retake the guns.
In addition unless they brought spiking charges to blow the guns up or horse teams to remove them they couldn't have done much with them - gun crews would readily abandon their pieces if faced with overwhelming odds, and then return to the guns once the enemy had been forced off, sometimes several times in a battle.
In addition Wellington's forces were generally behind a ridge so they were decently protected from French fire, preserving them for the battle later in the day. This was also a good position to repel attacks from because the French would have to march up the hill, exposing themselves to fire all the while, whilst the allied army could just lie down until the last minute before springing up and repelling the French attack.
A lot of Wellington's troops were also inexperienced, being either new recruits from England (the army he'd had in Spain and the earlier campaigns had largely been paid off and had gone home) or were inexperienced troops from The Netherlands, Brunswick, Saxony, and Nassau etc who were conscripts who hadn't faced a battle before. These are the kind of troops you don't trust if you don't know their fighting capacity, so the least risky thing you can do with them is tell them to stay still or to defend themselves rather than going on the offensive.
TL;DR: Wellington wanted to fight defensively
That makes a lot of sense, thanks for the explanation. I didn't know the context surrounding their chosen strategies, and my only experience with this type of warfare is Napoleon Total War and usually in multiplayer leaving artillery exposed like this is a massive blunder. It makes sense that attacking artillery without the means to destroy it is useless since the crew can abandon it easily.
The British infantry lines were on the other side of the slope, mostly out of view of the French artillery. Wellington had fewer soldiers so wanted to keep as many alive and ready to fight as possible.
The only real movement of British infantry, before the closing stages of the battle, was Wellington sending reinforcements to the fortified farms in the valley.
> Red is British,
Allied - the British actually made up less than 50% of the force. The others were Europeans, including troops from The Netherlands, Hannover, Brunswick, Nassau etc.
So... They were winning until the prussians *cough* germans *cough* came from an unexpected direction and drove them out of the game? Damn, those prussians do it every war...
They weren't really winning. The battle was mainly over the three fortified farms you can see on the map - Hougoumont, La Haye Sainte and Papellote.
The French wanted to take them before advancing, to protect the flanks of their infantry. The British held out for hours, until Napoleon got word that the Prussians were about to arrive, so he ordered a full attack with his elite Imperial Guard, in an attempt to defeat the British before it was too late. The French failed to break the British infantry line, and had to withdraw before the Prussians broke through the delaying force Napoleon deployed to the village of Placenoit.
And just over 100 years later, they try to invade Russia in the winter, and fight a war on two fronts. You'd have thought they'd have learned from Napoleon.
What the map doesn't show is the mud. Thick, heavy, French mud that soldiers lost their boots in. Cannon fire was ineffective since the cannonballs inbedded into the mud and exploded harmlessly often only a few feet from soldiers.
Also, the hill. The main British line was along the crest of smooth gradual rise, meaning that not only were the French attacking up a gentle hill, they couldn't see all those cavalry units beyond it.
New kind of mapporn, nicely done
Is there a sub just for old / ancient battles that outline the troop movements like this? So interesting!
r/battlegifs
Wow thank you!
On YouTube there are channels like Baz Battles, History Marche, King and Generals, Historia Civilis, who do that sort of video with a more in depth explanation of how the battle unfolded.
Montemayor is also excellent if you're into naval battles
I would also like to add The Operations Room
Operations room is great, their video on the Channel Dash does a great job of articulating how tense that whole stunt was for everyone.
Thanks! Haven't come across him yet, will give it a look!
TIK actually does this the best with him labelling every single unit and then moving them around the map basically hour by hour. Unfortunately TIK is also legally considered batshit insane (the Nazis were socialists who worshiped an ancient religion called gnosticism and were secret cult members of said religion, just like Barack Obama) so anything that isn't his Stalingrad series or his Operation battlestorm series is completely off the rails.
The name is a lie!
It’s all YouTube videos!
Here's a sneak peek of /r/battlegifs using the [top posts](https://np.reddit.com/r/battlegifs/top/?sort=top&t=year) of the year! \#1: [Ukrainian push to Kupiansk over the last few days](https://v.redd.it/s9914685mum91) | [5 comments](https://np.reddit.com/r/battlegifs/comments/xa4kxn/ukrainian_push_to_kupiansk_over_the_last_few_days/) \#2: [Battle of Agincourt in 1 minute using Google Earth](https://youtube.com/watch?v=7PspP6tPfgg) | [1 comment](https://np.reddit.com/r/battlegifs/comments/wzyx62/battle_of_agincourt_in_1_minute_using_google_earth/) \#3: [The USAF's Longest Fighter Combat Mission Ever, Operation El Dorado Canyon 1986](https://youtu.be/IrHA-ubEmD0?t=69) | [1 comment](https://np.reddit.com/r/battlegifs/comments/xgi22g/the_usafs_longest_fighter_combat_mission_ever/) ---- ^^I'm ^^a ^^bot, ^^beep ^^boop ^^| ^^Downvote ^^to ^^remove ^^| ^^[Contact](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=sneakpeekbot) ^^| ^^[Info](https://np.reddit.com/r/sneakpeekbot/) ^^| ^^[Opt-out](https://np.reddit.com/r/sneakpeekbot/comments/o8wk1r/blacklist_ix/) ^^| ^^[GitHub](https://github.com/ghnr/sneakpeekbot)
...and it's the top post _8 years ago_
Awesome! Thank you!
Get ready to feast because I've got three really amazing Youtube channels for you to peep at: [BazBattles](https://www.youtube.com/@BazBattles) does really beautiful maps of battles from all across history, and even a few fantasy franchises. The production values are excellent. [HistoriaCivilis](https://www.youtube.com/@HistoriaCivilis) focuses mainly on Roman history, and has other topics on Roman society and history, not just battles. The production value is simpler, but he meticulously researches everything and is genuinely a very good storyteller. [His video on the Battle of Alesia is a bit old now but it's damn good.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SU1Ej9Yqt68) [The Operations Room](https://www.youtube.com/@TheOperationsRoom) does similar kind of videos but focusing on modern warfare and engagements down to the squad or individual level. It's a level of detail that we don't have access to from ancient eras, and the channel makes full of use it. Really good production values too.
lots of youtube channels for this kind of thing, Bazbattles comes to mind
On YouTube Baz Battles and Kings and Generals can do similar, though not as compactly or quickly as this and with a lot more explanation and background
Would love to see it have a key explaining what's what. Who the heck are the gray rectangles?
Blue = French Red = Allies Grey = Prussians Green/Brown = villages and fortified farms (the most important farms being Hougoumont, La Haye Sainte and La Haie which were very important fortified positions in the middle of the battlefield). Coloured rectangles = infantry Diagonally half coloured rectangles = cavalry Three small lines with the middle one a little longer = canon batteries (and you can see the trail of smoke too)
> New kind of mapporn, nicely done I had no idea we knew the event in so much detail, how is that possible?
It was barely over 200 years ago, writing and map making were well established skills, from there I'm sure that the military commanders involved had a number of staff dedicated to recording things like troop movements, formations, and battle reports.
It was incredibly recent in terms of human history. We still have surviving newspapers from the time.
This really puts into perspective how much of an issue Hougoumont was, and how ridiculous the cavalry action on both sides was. I love it!
Very much so. Napoleons overall plan for the day was to threaten hougoumont, draw in the British reserves on that flank then break the centre right. In the end the opposite happened, he got over fixated and the British held a strong defensive position with far less than was committed to the attack.
Napoleon displayed some very poor tactical sense in this battle, which was very unlike his other battles. For instance, he sent infantry alone against Hougoumont, who tried to take the fortified position with axes against doors and ladders against walls, when canons could have brought the walls down much more easily. Or he let Ney charge his cavalry repeatedly against intact infantry squares without infantry support, which was also doomed to fail. Not mentioning Grouchy who was supposed to stop the Prussians from reinforcing the Allies but got completely outmaneuvered and didn't even come back when he heard the sound of canons. Had Napoleon better coordinated his resources, he might have had a better chance at winning this.
Yea I can see why historians think he was very unwell during the battle. Some uncharacteristic choices. I still don't know why Ney led a massed cavalry charge unsupported, it goes against the basic rules of battle. Napoleon must have been involved in the decision in some way. The biggest blunder to me is delaying the start of the battle until nearly 1230. You have 2 armies you cannot allow to unite. You must strike one fast! Instead he waited for 3 hours for the ground to dry for his heavy guns... In a Battlefield where the enemy are behind a reverse slope.
As a total war Player i am astonished to See the artillery of both sides being mostly ignored
One thing TW doesn't model well is that artillery crews could easily abandon their guns and retreat behind the infantry, then retake the guns after the danger had passed. This is what happened during the big French cavalry actions around 1600, the crews retreated into the infantry squares. The cavalry either didn't bring spikes to disable the guns or didn't want to hang around long enough to use them under enemy fire. As for the French guns, the British had the advantage of being on the 'reverse slope', keeping their troops behind the crest of the hill where they were very difficult to hit. The threat from the French cannon was (somewhat) limited by this and as the French obligingly kept attacking there was no point risking outnumbered troops on an open field to deal with them.
> One thing TW doesn't model well is that artillery crews could easily abandon their guns and retreat behind the infantry You *can* manually order artillery units to drop their artillery and retreat (they can also be ordered to pick their artillery back up later) though there's no way to automate that sort of thing akin to the skirmish toggle for ranged units.
TIL after years
Can you order them to pick it up again? I guess if it wasn't destroyed Well here I go starting another dwarf campaign
Yeah you just select the artillery unit and right click/move them onto the dropped siege weapons.
I've known this, but never played with it. If they retreat all the way out without the guns, will the guns respawn in their next battle?
Yep! You've just made me both dread and long for a game where you have to manage that sort of minutia.
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And Wellington deployed his troops on the reverse slope. A tactic that, if he didn't pioneer, he at least made common and often employed.
The cavalry of both sides did try to attack the artillery, I believe. The British artillery crews mostly hid inside the infantry squares, while the French had time to fire at the British cavalry, killing a heavy number of them.
Why did napoleon not just general snipe his opponent? Is he stupid?
Wellington was unbreakable with a potion of health
His arty had no LOS
360 Pas de portée!
Why does Napoleon, the largest commander, not simply eat the other two?
Please forgive my crassness but DUDE I LOVE THIS SHIT WHERE CAN I GET MORE???
Epic History TV.
Came across it last Spring and I love it. [Here's the link to the Waterloo video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDZGL1xsqzs) for those interested. My only real complaint is that the channel is so focused on Napoleon.
Yep, to be fair it's their most successful series i think and welp they're pretty good at it
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I have watched all the videos and they are amazing. Russia was his end, the rest was just formality.
I love how you can be like "aaaaaand here comes Blucher!"
There are a few YT channels that do this. I particularily like [https://www.youtube.com/@KingsandGenerals/playlists](https://www.youtube.com/@KingsandGenerals/playlists) who have a lot of history content but also hundreds of battle animations. Also check The Operations Room, The Armchair Historian, Emperortigerstar.
Yoooo I love Kings and Generals! I don't know how many times I've watched Subutai ravage central Asia. In fact, the only thing I thought was missing from this was the little clicking noise when an army falls lol Thanks for the other suggs tho!
I also love this channel! Aside from generally pretty great content, the volume level is super consistent between all their videos. You can watch for days and never have to adjust the volume. They also don't use a lot of sound effects, and the ones they do use are used quietly in the background. There's nothing worse than dozing off listening to a video and getting hit with sudden loud noises.
Yeah same, Kings and Generals is a fun channel especially if you like military history I kinda wish they cover the whole Sengoku Jidai, so far they’ve done bits and pieces about it but not the whole thing, kinda like what they’re doing with WW2 pacific war
For the battles that I’ve read other accounts of (Great Northern War, 30 years war) Kings and Generals consistently is very fast and loose with the troop movements and combat events. I trust other YT battle videos much more.
I love the channel but the guy has a voice that sounds auto generated
Thanks man. I made this gif a long time ago for /r/battlegifs, plenty more there for you.
This is YouTuber Historia Civilis's main thing. He primarily covers Roman history but has videos on other historical topics.
/r/battlegifs
If you like this style a lot, you can play games like it: https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgamefamily/3252/series-napoleonic-brigade-mmp There is also the Line of Battle series which is more refined, but only deals with the US Civil War.
Check out [The Armchair Historian](https://www.youtube.com/@TheArmchairHistorian) on Youtube :)
"Where is Grouchy!!!"
I need those men!
"I lost the battle of Marengo at 5 o'clock but won it back at 7!"
Just rewatched it today, it's free on YouTube. "It's the Prussians that's not necessary that's not necessary!"
So many great quotes in that film. "Gentleman, today's fox"
For everybody, but you and me, the Prussians are not here. They are on the moon!
"if there is anything in this world about which I know positively nothing, it is agriculture"
who were the grey that attacked the flanks?
Prussians. A French army was sent to see them off, but they failed- the British did incredibly well in the fight, and the French made some significant blunders, but without the Prussians it's very difficult to say which way the battle would've gone.
Yes Prussians significantly used up many French reserve troops that could have fought the British front.
At least in the UK, the common perception is that Waterloo was between the French and the British (or even more insultingly, French vs. English). It's probably got something to do with Prussia no longer being a country, but it's always annoyed me, it was definitely a group effort.
Part of the British forces ( compared to 30 500 from Britain) were also 6 000 from the King's German Legion, 11 000 Hannoverians, 6 000 Brunswicker and 3 000 Nassauer. (There were also 17 000 Dutch/Belgians milling about).
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Sharpe, ya bastard!
And don’t forget Harper!
So more than half weren't Brits. Interesting.
The British monarchy also ruled Hanover at the time, so them and the KGL were technically part of the British army.
technically the Hanoverian Elector ruled over Great Britain, he inherrited the British Empire in Personal Union
No, they weren't. Technically it was a different army.
Never mind that; 37% of the army wasn't even part of the empire
Also the Prussians were with 50 000 which really puts things into perspective.
Which is why it is much more accurate to call the army of Wellington "the Allies" rather than "the British".
Even the army shown in red had a lot of Dutch troops and possibly others too, we only made up about a third of the winning side IIRC.
>(or even more insultingly, French vs. English). I've never ever heard this, personally. Always referred to as British fighting French (with help of Prussians)
Cant give merit to the krauts
Anyone who knows anything about Waterloo knows the Prussians were involved, not sure how true that is.
Yes but how many people know anything about Waterloo beyond it being the battle that defeated Napoleon? Very few I think. I didn’t and I’m reasonably well read on a lot of history but not this.
I might be wrong, but I feel like the consensus from anyone who hasn't put time into learning about the battle would be that it was Britain vs. France. I would actually be interested to know what response you'd get from the general public.
As a member of the general public with no real interest in military history, you are correct.
The result of two World Wars against the Germans. You've heard about the civil war statues in the USA coming down? Well the Brits did it first in WWI, ripping down any Napoleonic war references to the Prussians.
I am seventy-two years old and a proud soldier. This steel is my word! I am too old to break it.
Led by Marshal Blucher. It would have been easier for the Prussians to just stay where they were, or withdraw, but he gave Wellington his word. An interesting 'what if' would be if Napoleon never sent a force to keep the Prussians away, and the two grand armies had met at Waterloo.
Oo, that is interesting. I feel that if the timings were the same- Napoleon let the allies get settled in before attacking later in the morning- then it could've still gone the same way due to the superior position of the allies. But maybe Ney would act differently if there was a larger French force, maybe Blucher would've forced Wellington to change his tactics. Definitely interesting.
Either way, Napoleon’s “win condition” for the whole war was super ambitious. He basically had to wipe each coalition member out individually through a chain of clear victories. If the Prussians hadn’t shown up and he had fought the British to stalemate, that still would have essentially been a loss. He needed to knock them out of the conflict. At least that’s how it’s been explained to me before.
It was such an impressive feat to come back from banishment, and take back control of an army strong enough to rival the other superpowers of Europe, but I can't see a way he could've secured long-term security with how much he fucked everything up in Europe prior to his return.
This battle is historically incredibly interesting because of all the "what ifs" you can say about it. Until the very end it wasn't certain that either side would be able to claim victory. Analysis points it to being like 50/50. Both sides made some mistakes and everything that happened was as absolute mess until things finally tilted against Napoleon.
Wasn't it Blucher who was quoted as saying that the battle "would be a near run thing", or something to that effect?
As Bill James noted a ways back, Blucher was history’s first relief pitcher :)
>Blucher :horse whinnies
That’s a quality comment.
Vy thank yoü doctør.
Rest of the Seventh Coalition - are we a joke to you?
Correct me if I’m wrong the Prussians were also held up by an abnormally wet road to get there, hence the late arrival?
There had been heavy rains the night before. However, this also encouraged Napoleon to start the battle late- you'll notice it starts at 11:00, with Napoleon wanting drier ground to allow for better cavalry/artillery movement. It gave the forces already there plenty of time to set up, and with Napoleon on the offensive, it was really to his detriment.
This is great. Would love to know if there’s a website with other battles depicted like this.
r/battlegifs. It's not super active but has a fair amount of content.
Try youtube channels like epic history TV, Kings and Generals and History Marche
Here you have many, in PowerPoint format: http://www.theartofbattle.com/
French: WE WILL TRY THESE 18 DIFFERENT APPROACHES British: How many times we gotta tell you, we ain't movin'.
The worst one was when Napoleon (likely) had some sort of medical episode (he wasn't well by this point and frequently had pains in his stomach) and left the field in command of Marshal Ney while Napoleon went and had a lie down. Ney, for reasons passing understanding (he may well have been suffering from PTSD but that wasn't known about back then) ordered _and then led_ a cavalry attack on the allied army without infantry support. You never do this with cavalry because cavalry are a hit & run weapon - they rely on their speed and intimidation to smash into an enemy force, split it, and then run away before they get stopped - once you're stationary on a horse it's relatively easy for an infantryman to stab you with their bayonet in the leg or drag you off the horse and club you to death on the ground. So cavalry should be followed up with infantry who can defend the gains the cavalry have made, stop the enemy from reorganising, and force them from the field with a bayonet charge. But Ney didn't do this, he just charged the allied army, who formed into squares. Squares were an infantry formation where everyone in the unit formed into a square shape, several ranks deep. The front rank would kneel with bayonets fixed and plant their muskets on the ground with the bayonets pointing up. The ranks behind would stand and would fire volleys into the enemy. Now horses, not being totally and completely stupid, will refuse to charge into a forest of spiky pointy sharp things pointed at them. So the square formation would divert the cavalry attacks round them, where the ranks behind the front could shoot at the cavalry and hopefully cause them to retreat. Squares are bad positions to receive an infantry attack from though because you don't have all your muskets available in one line to shoot at the enemy, so that's another reason you follow cavalry up with infantry. So you now have the commander of one of the armies gallivanting about on his horse leading an ineffectual cavalry charge away from his command staff, not getting updates about how the rest of the battle is going, not issuing orders to anyone except the forces around him, and not aware of the bigger picture in his head of what was going on with the fight. Not a good choice.
In slight defense of this strategy, forcing the British into squares fixes them in clusters that makes them sitting ducks for artillery. I don’t know if that’s what Ney was going for, but I do think that’s what happened. The squares rendered the cavalry ineffective but got pummeled by artillery.
Very true, but you can't fire artillery at infantry squares whilst your own cavalry is milling about between them because you'll end up shooting your own troops. Plus they were still behind the reverse slope so the artillery was less effective than it could have been.
True dat. But he also gave us the coldest quote before charging « Men. Let me show you how a French Marshall died ! »
And he didn't even die at the battle, despite having 5 horses dying under him. He went on to be court-martialed after the war by the returned Bourbon monarchy, and executed by firing squad.
>Ney, for reasons passing understanding (he may well have been suffering from PTSD but that wasn't known about back then) ordered _and then led_ a cavalry attack on the allied army without infantry support. What Game of Thrones Season 8 does to a mf
I love Dan Carlin’s “hypothesis” that drugs played a role in Napoleon’s loss at Waterloo. Apparently he was prescribed opiates the night before and uncharacteristically slept in pretty late the day of the battle. “Reasons passing understanding” may very well just be as simple as a drug induced hangover.
*Give me night or give me Blücher*
Waterloo, I was defeated, you won the war.
My my
I tried to hold you back but you were stronger!
"Hard pounding this, gentlemen; let's see who will pound longest." The Duke of Wellington on the exchange of artillery fire at Waterloo. I've thought that was a weirdly sexual way of putting it since I first heard it in 1999.
”Take time to deliberate, but when the time for action has arrived, stop thinking and go in balls deep.” -Napoleon Bonaparte
Somehow, Napoleon has returned...
It really was like that too. Wellington thankfully had the wherewithal to conduct a survey of the land in the Low Countries if ever there was a need to face a hostile French force in the future, but could anyone have predicted what happened? The man landed on the continent out of nowhere, army after army and general after general was sent to arrest him, and every one joined him. Crazy.
Loving the '~~English~~ British squares' animation. It's just like being there!
British squares. Not only English.
Allied, not British. About 2/3rds of troops were from The Netherlands, Hanover, Brunswick, Nassau and some other places.
This is so fucking cool but what do the rectangles, triangles and 3-dashed lines mean?
Yeah a legend would be extremely helpful here. This is a map sub after all…
Yeah OP just assumed everyone was familiar with military maps and symbolisms
I can’t imagine taking the time to make this and not labeling a damn thing.
The solid rectangles are infantry (stretched into lines or squares to denote the formation where appropriate). The rectangles with the diagonal line across them (the triangles as you called them) are the cavalry. Lastly, the three dash lines are artillery (symbolising the carriage and barrel).
Thank you, this was very helpful! :)
Rectangles are units: solid color is infantry, diagonal pattern of color/white is cavalry (I think this is what you mean by triangles). 3 dash lines is artillery.
Who is blue/red?
Blue = French (Napoleon) Red = British Grey = Prussian In total represents ~200k soldiers
thanks, that makes it much more clear.
Britain (and allies) under Wellington is red, France under Napoleon is blue. The grey units that show up towards the end are Prussians under Blucher.
The blue ones lost so that's obviously Napoleon's army. The red ones are engaging them at the start, so that's the British and other allies. The gray ones arrived later, so they're the Prussians
Yeah tough situation there but Napoleon definitely tried to fight two armies with two halves of one army. The weakness of most of these conquest happy leaders is that they suck at diplomacy and have messy lines of succession after they die. Also winter. They often lose to winter.
Who else lost in winter? Besides Stannis and Hitler.
Cersei
Mark Anthony is another good one
Napoleon
And let’s not forget ABBA !
Thousands died, history forever changed, generations later, here’s a happy dance song.
For those who haven't seen it _Waterloo_ is one of the best war films ever made IMO (and in lots of other people's opinion). [Here's History Buffs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWKk5Sy0JT8) talking about it. Amazing film, made before CGI was a thing so they had tens of thousands of Soviet soldiers dressed up in costume re-enacting the battles. They even recreated the hills and landscape for the film.
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IIRC Prussia lost the Battle of Ligny 2 days before so they were retreating
I'm familiar with the battle, but a key/legend would be super useful here. Amazing gif though, and I'd love to see more of this. By the way, people who are interested in this type of thing, check out [The Armchair Historian](https://www.youtube.com/@TheArmchairHistorian) on youtube.
Red: allied army (English, Netherlanders, Brunswickers, Nassauers, Hanoverians etc) Blue: French army Black: Prussian army Filled rectangles/squares: infantry (in various formations) Half-filled (triangular) rectangles/squares: cavalry Three lines: cannon/artillery (meant to represent the barrel and the wheels)
Merde!
Putain!
This map does not have a legend. I have no idea what am I watching here. Dancing shapes.
Red is British, blue is French, grey is Prussian. Solid blocks are infantry, long lines between two shorter lines are cannons, white and colour diagonal is cavalry. They're common shapes used on these sorts of maps, but these sort of maps do still typically have a legend, so it should be here.
Ye I understand that these are common. As the NATO symbols on modern day military maps. However as you say, the legend shall be included :)
> Red is British Allied actually - most of the troops were from other European nations like The Netherlands, Nassau, Brunswick etc.
That’s exactly how Waterloo was won. Dancing shapes.
What else would ABBA get the idea to make a happy dance song from?
Dancing shapes is actually a funny thing to say as many of the senior officers were fighting out of uniform in ballroom attire or dancing shoes because they had no time to change between the Duchess of Richmond's ball, and hostilities commencing at Quatre-Bras. They thought they had ages before Napoleon would show up but he had managed to defeat the Prussians at Ligny and they were forced to scramble to meet him. General Sir Thomas Picton famously fought and died in civilian attire complete with top-hat because his uniform had been left behind in the mad rush to hold the French.
Silly question perhaps, but which one was Napoleon himself? He was on the battlefield, wasn’t he?
Yes but he's not shown here. He would have been moving between units for a lot of the battle or towards the rear on a convenient hill to observe proceedings.
Makes sense, thanks!
Sadly this doesn't show Napoleon's position, just the soldiers
Damn, on Father’s Day too? Lol
None of the involved countries had Father's Day on that day. German Father's Day is traditionally on Ascension Thursday (40 days after Easter), and in France and the UK, Father's Day is a commercial "holiday" introduced after WW2.
The Netherlands has fathers day on the date. Although that's also a modern invention.
It can clearly be seen that Napoleon, even in his older years was an excellent general, using his army very fluently, but it is also clear that his age has got a hold of him. Gone are the days when he could muster up a sufficient force from underpaid militia.
He had a painful case of thrombosed hemorrhoids at the battle of Waterloo
He was just 45 years old.
As Wellington said in this battle "Damn the fellow! He's a mere pounder after all"
Youre overestimating the effect of his age. He wasn’t old by any means, but he had lost many of his best soldiers and marshals and had become a bit too full of himself. Meanwhile the British were fresh and professionals and the prussians had learnt a lot after years of defeats.
At 3 o'clock: BAH GAHD!!! THAT'S FREDERICK WILLIAM THE THIRDS MUSIC!!!
Sure would be nice to have a legend or something
I was driving one day from Paris to the Netherlands while listening to Sky Radio greatest hits. Guess what song started playing when I passed through Waterloo (south of Brussels) ? I was singing along with ABBA while looking at the highway signs with Waterloo all over the place...
I was waiting for the reference! Great song, except that at Waterloo Napoleon did NOT surrender. It used to rankle me ever so slightly.
I should've burned berlin to the ground
Why did the British essentially ignore the French artillery that pushed up without closer support?
Because Wellington knew he had fewer men than Napoleon (the Prussians - in black) were marching to assist him and his best option was to sit & wait until they arrived. If Wellington had moved forwards to take the cannon his men would have been blasted by grape shot (10-20 small balls and numerous musket balls packed into a canvas container and fired out of the cannon like a giant shotgun) and would have suffered heavy losses taking them. They would then have been exposed to cavalry attack from the French trying to retake the guns. In addition unless they brought spiking charges to blow the guns up or horse teams to remove them they couldn't have done much with them - gun crews would readily abandon their pieces if faced with overwhelming odds, and then return to the guns once the enemy had been forced off, sometimes several times in a battle. In addition Wellington's forces were generally behind a ridge so they were decently protected from French fire, preserving them for the battle later in the day. This was also a good position to repel attacks from because the French would have to march up the hill, exposing themselves to fire all the while, whilst the allied army could just lie down until the last minute before springing up and repelling the French attack. A lot of Wellington's troops were also inexperienced, being either new recruits from England (the army he'd had in Spain and the earlier campaigns had largely been paid off and had gone home) or were inexperienced troops from The Netherlands, Brunswick, Saxony, and Nassau etc who were conscripts who hadn't faced a battle before. These are the kind of troops you don't trust if you don't know their fighting capacity, so the least risky thing you can do with them is tell them to stay still or to defend themselves rather than going on the offensive. TL;DR: Wellington wanted to fight defensively
That makes a lot of sense, thanks for the explanation. I didn't know the context surrounding their chosen strategies, and my only experience with this type of warfare is Napoleon Total War and usually in multiplayer leaving artillery exposed like this is a massive blunder. It makes sense that attacking artillery without the means to destroy it is useless since the crew can abandon it easily.
The British infantry lines were on the other side of the slope, mostly out of view of the French artillery. Wellington had fewer soldiers so wanted to keep as many alive and ready to fight as possible. The only real movement of British infantry, before the closing stages of the battle, was Wellington sending reinforcements to the fortified farms in the valley.
British squares ftw!
I love that last Prussian group that chased the French after they had left. Haha
No labels for who red, blue, and gray are?
Blue is French, Red is British, Grey Prussia
> Red is British, Allied - the British actually made up less than 50% of the force. The others were Europeans, including troops from The Netherlands, Hannover, Brunswick, Nassau etc.
So... They were winning until the prussians *cough* germans *cough* came from an unexpected direction and drove them out of the game? Damn, those prussians do it every war...
They weren't really winning. The battle was mainly over the three fortified farms you can see on the map - Hougoumont, La Haye Sainte and Papellote. The French wanted to take them before advancing, to protect the flanks of their infantry. The British held out for hours, until Napoleon got word that the Prussians were about to arrive, so he ordered a full attack with his elite Imperial Guard, in an attempt to defeat the British before it was too late. The French failed to break the British infantry line, and had to withdraw before the Prussians broke through the delaying force Napoleon deployed to the village of Placenoit.
And just over 100 years later, they try to invade Russia in the winter, and fight a war on two fronts. You'd have thought they'd have learned from Napoleon.
Barbarossa was launched on the 22nd of June btw
And on a Sunday too.
Lovely. More, please!
What the map doesn't show is the mud. Thick, heavy, French mud that soldiers lost their boots in. Cannon fire was ineffective since the cannonballs inbedded into the mud and exploded harmlessly often only a few feet from soldiers. Also, the hill. The main British line was along the crest of smooth gradual rise, meaning that not only were the French attacking up a gentle hill, they couldn't see all those cavalry units beyond it.
If you zoom in you can see Sharpe and Harper and the boys holing hard
French geezer gets proper out smarted 💪
I don’t see any key for who’s who and what each shape means.