Waterloo Elm

The Gordon Monument is a neoclassical monument to a slain warrior on the battlefield of Waterloo. The person commemorated is Lt Colonel Sir Alexander Gordon (1786–1815). It was erected in 1817 by the siblings of the deceased who included a future Prime Minister, Lord Aberdeen. The monument takes the form of a severed column, or colonne brisée to use the French term, reached by a flight of steps. It was designed by the British architect John Buonarotti Papworth, and executed in a type of limestone known as Belgian blue stone (French: pierre bleue). The pedestal features inscriptions and reliefs, including the badge of the Scots Guards, the regiment in which Gordon served, with its motto Nemo me impune lacessit

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.

The Panorama of the Battle of Waterloo (French: Panorama de la Bataille de Waterloo) is a rotunda in Belgium that houses a monumental panoramic painting depicting the Battle of Waterloo. The neoclassical building is located immediately to the north of the Lion's Mound on the battlefield of the Battle of Waterloo in the municipality of Braine-l'Alleud in the Belgian province of Walloon Brabant.

The Lion's Mound (French: Butte du Lion, lit. "Lion's Hillock/Knoll"; Dutch: Leeuw van Waterloo, lit. "Lion of Waterloo") is a large conical artificial hill in the municipality of Braine-l'Alleud, Walloon Brabant, Belgium. King William I of the Netherlands ordered its construction in 1820, and it was completed in 1826. It commemorates the location on the battlefield of Waterloo where a musket ball hit the shoulder of King William II of the Netherlands (then Prince of Orange) and knocked him from his horse during the battle. It is also a memorial of the Battle of Quatre Bras, which had been fought two days earlier, on 16 June 1815. The hill offers a vista of the battlefield, and is the anchor point of the associated museums and taverns in the surrounding Lion's Hamlet (French: le Hameau du Lion; Dutch: Gehucht met de Leeuw). Visitors who pay a fee may climb up the Mound's 226 steps, which lead to the statue and its surrounding overlook (where there are maps documenting the battle, along with observation telescopes); the same fee also grants admission to see the painting Waterloo Panorama.

The Memorial of Waterloo 1815 (Mémorial Waterloo 1815 in French) is a Belgian museum complex located on the site of the Waterloo battlefield in Belgium. It includes a museum inaugurated in 2015, the Lion's Mound, the Panorama of the Battle of Waterloo and the Hougoumont farm.

La Belle Alliance is an inn situated a few miles south of Brussels in Belgium, chiefly remembered for its significance in the aftermath of the Battle of Waterloo (18 June 1815). There are two plaques on the building: one is "In memory of the French Medical Corps who attended the wounded with devotion on 18 June 1815"; and the other commemorates the meeting of the two victorious field marshals at the end of the Battle of Waterloo.

Mont-Saint-Jean is a hamlet located in Wallonia in the province of Walloon Brabant, Belgium, south of Waterloo located partly on Waterloo and partly on Braine-l'Alleud where the National road (N5) going from Brussels to Charleroi crosses the National road (N234) going from Nivelles to Leuven.

Decoster's house was a landmark location during the Battle of Waterloo. It stood on the eastern side of the Waterloo–Genappe main road south of the junction with the minor road to Plancenoit (south La Belle Alliance and north the farm of Rossomme). According to Jean-Baptiste Decoster Napoleon spent the early part of the Battle of Waterloo and around Rossomme and then at about 17:00 moved to a position near Decoster's house where he remained until about 19:00.

Château d'Hougoumont (originally Goumont) is a walled manorial compound, situated at the bottom of an escarpment near the Nivelles road in the Braine-l'Alleud municipality, near Waterloo, Belgium. The site served as one of the advanced defensible positions of the Anglo-allied army under the Duke of Wellington, that faced Napoleon's Army at the Battle of Waterloo on 18 June 1815. Hougoumont, which had become dilapidated, was fully restored in time for the 200th anniversary of the battle and opened to the public on 18 June 2015.

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.

La Haye was a farm, in a hamlet of the same name, in the Belgian municipality of Lasne. It was destroyed by fire in 1910. During the Battle of Waterloo (18 June 1815) the farm was one of the fortified garrisoned points that made up a bulwark on the extreme left (eastern end) of the Duke of Wellington's Anglo-allied line.

St. John's International School is an English-language international school located in Waterloo, Belgium. The school has a student body from a very international background with 55 different nationalities represented. St. John's International School runs from day-care to 12th grade, the final year of high school. It offers the International Baccalaureate Diploma program, AP programs are also offered by the school.