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Marache

LasnePopulated places in Walloon BrabantWaterloo Battlefield locations

Marache, or historically Smohain, is hamlet of Wallonia in the municipalities of Lasne, district of Plancenoit, and Waterloo, in the province of Walloon Brabant, Belgium. It is located in a defile through which runs the Smohain, a stream that rises just to the west of the hamlet.Smohain, along with the two farms of Papelotte and La Haye (which are located on the northern bank closer to the head of the same valley about 600 metres (660 yd) and 430 metres (470 yd) west of the centre of the hamlet) and the now ruined Château Fichermont (on a premonitory 350 metres (380 yd) south of the hamlet) formed the eastern bulwark of the Duke of Wellington's Anglo-allied line during the Battle of Waterloo on 18 June 1815.This was a strong defensive position as: all these roads cut so deeply into the sandy clay hillside as a present extreme problems for cavalry or infantry in formation trying to cross them. The small stream running through marshland, the sunken roads and the defile itself were considerable military obstacles, particularly in view of the wet condition of the countryside on 18 June 1815. Later in the battle it was the location where the Prussian right-hand flank joined forces with the Anglo-allies left-hand flank.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Marache (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors).

Marache
Rue de Fichermont,

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Latitude Longitude
N 50.68073 ° E 4.44252 °
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Rue de Fichermont 26
1380 (Ohain)
Walloon Brabant, Belgium
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Papelotte
Papelotte

Papelotte Farm (French: Ferme de la Papelotte) is located at Rue Du Dimont a rural road in the Municipality of Braine-l'Alleud around 15 km (9.3 mi) south of Brussels, Belgium. On June 18, 1815, during the pivotal Battle of Waterloo it served as one of the advanced defensible positions of the Anglo-allied army under the command of the Duke of Wellington. Along with the walled farm compounds of Hougoumont and La Haye Sainte, it proved to be instrumental to the delay and the disruption of the opposing Napoleonic army's progress on the battlefield. Napoleon diverted disproportionately large numbers of troops in order to capture or eliminate these perimeters, while he failed to achieve a decisive break through in one of several attacks on the lines of the Allies.Papelotte was situated on the center-left flank of Wellington's army. Napoleon would also lose valuable time and resources as he struggled with the Allied strongpoints, whose comparatively rather moderately sized garrisons defended with remarkable efficiency. Papelotte was manned by two Orange-Nassau regiments of the King's Dutch Brigade, from the Duchy of Nassau. German troops accounted for 45% of the personnel in the multi-ethnic Anglo-allied army. Around 6.15pm a contingent of the French Durutte division managed to enter and briefly occupy Papelotte Farm, as its garrison had run out of ammunition and retreated to a defensive line in the rear. However, the French troops could advance no further. They were tired, decimated, soaked by the previous night’s rain, covered with mud, demoralised by their previous lack of success and by the Prussian arrival and suspicious of their generals... Papelotte provided cover during the approach of Lieutenant-General von Zieten’s Prussian I Corps onto the Waterloo battlefield around 7.00pm. Around 30 minutes later Papelotte and La Haye Sainte were in Prussian hands as Durutte's forces had fully retreated without resistance. Papelotte Farm was damaged and partly burnt down during the battle. From 1857 until far into the 20th century the site was restored, old buildings were replaced and new structures added, including the octagonal tower. Papelotte Farm is the home of the Poney club de la Papelotte.

Battle of Waterloo
Battle of Waterloo

The Battle of Waterloo (Dutch pronunciation: [ˈʋaːtərloː] (listen)) was fought on Sunday 18 June 1815, near Waterloo (at that time in the United Kingdom of the Netherlands, now in Belgium). A French army under the command of Napoleon was defeated by two of the armies of the Seventh Coalition. One of these was a British-led coalition consisting of units from the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Hanover, Brunswick, and Nassau, under the command of the Duke of Wellington (referred to by many authors as the Anglo-allied army or Wellington's army). The other was composed of three corps of the Prussian army under the command of Field Marshal von Blücher (the fourth corps of this army fought at the Battle of Wavre on the same day). The battle marked the end of the Napoleonic Wars. The battle was contemporaneously known as the Battle of Mont Saint-Jean (France) or La Belle Alliance ("the Beautiful Alliance" – Prussia).Upon Napoleon's return to power in March 1815, many states that had previously opposed him formed the Seventh Coalition, while hurriedly mobilising their armies. Wellington's and Blücher's armies were cantoned close to the northeastern border of France. Napoleon planned to attack them separately in the hope of destroying them before they could join in a coordinated invasion of France with other members of the coalition. On 16 June, Napoleon successfully attacked the bulk of the Prussian army at the Battle of Ligny with his main force, causing the Prussians to withdraw northwards on 17 June, but parallel to Wellington and in good order. Meanwhile, a small portion of the French army contested the Battle of Quatre Bras and prevented the Anglo-allied army from reinforcing the Prussians at Ligny as planned. The Anglo-allied army held their ground at Quatre Bras on 16 June, but the withdrawal of the Prussians from Ligny caused Wellington to withdraw north to Waterloo on 17 June. Napoleon sent a third of his forces to pursue the Prussians, which resulted in the separate Battle of Wavre with the Prussian rear-guard on 18–19 June, and prevented that French force from participating at Waterloo. Upon learning that the Prussian army was able to support him, Wellington decided to offer battle on the Mont-Saint-Jean escarpment across the Brussels road, near the village of Waterloo. Here he withstood repeated attacks by the French throughout the afternoon of 18 June, almost lost the battle, but aided by the progressively arriving 50,000 Prussians who attacked the French flank and inflicted heavy casualties. In the evening, Napoleon assaulted the Anglo-allied line with his last reserves, the senior infantry battalions of the Imperial Guard. With the Prussians breaking through on the French right flank, the Anglo-allied army repulsed the Imperial Guard, and the French army was routed. Waterloo was the decisive engagement of the Waterloo campaign and Napoleon's last. According to Wellington, the battle was "the nearest-run thing you ever saw in your life". Napoleon abdicated four days later, and coalition forces entered Paris on 7 July. The defeat at Waterloo ended Napoleon's rule as Emperor of the French and marked the end of his Hundred Days return from exile. This ended the First French Empire and set a chronological milestone between serial European wars and decades of relative peace, often referred to as the Pax Britannica. The battlefield is located in the Belgian municipalities of Braine-l'Alleud and Lasne, about 15 kilometres (9.3 mi) south of Brussels, and about 2 kilometres (1.2 mi) from the town of Waterloo. The site of the battlefield today is dominated by the monument of the Lion's Mound, a large artificial hill constructed from earth taken from the battlefield itself; the topography of the battlefield near the mound has not been preserved.

Waterloo Elm
Waterloo Elm

The Waterloo Elm was located just south west of the intersection of the sunken lane and the Genappe–Brussels main road. It was the Duke of Wellington's command post for much of the Battle of Waterloo (18 June 1815). The tree was killed by souvenir hunters after the battle. It was felled in 1818 and made into furniture, including a chair, made by Thomas Chippendale, the younger, that was presented to George IV and remains in the British Royal Collection.One of the souvenir hunters was Sir Walter Scott. In 1824 for a commission by Scott, Joseph Angell, a London silversmith, incorporated the wood into a silver quaich. It is engraved with Scott's motto, "Watch Well". Scott's "Waterloo Tree Quaich" was stolen along with other items from Abbotsford House in 1994. It was discovered in a French free-market and returned to its rightful owners in 2010.The dead tree was purchased by John George Children, a Librarian in the British Museum and father of Anna Atkins, the artist of sketch to the right. He felled the tree and had it shipped to England. Apart from the Waterloo chair in the Royal collection, he had some other items made from the lumber: a minerals cabinet, a small table cabinet, a writing table, a work-table (owned by Anne Atkins), a chair, and a stand with the bark still on it, for a bust of Wellington. Some timber was given to others and they too had pieces made; these included a chair made for the Duke of Rutland and a wine cooler in the possession of Wellington College.