The differences between the battle of Waterloo and the Battle of the Somme - Essay Example

Topic: The differences between The Battle of Waterloo and The Battle of The Somme Introduction The battle of Waterloo is considered among the smallest battlefields in regard to worldwide warfare. The entire battleground from the moderate slope of Mont St Jean, through to Le Caillou which was Napoleon’s command center is not more than 6 square miles. June 18, 1815, saw more than one hundred and seventy thousand soldiers fight in this area for nine hours in a war that determined the fate of the Europe for the next century. On the other hand, the battle of Somme occurred in 1916 between June and November and is considered among the largest battles of the First World War. It had more than a million casualties and was among the bloodiest wars to ever take place in human history. The differences between the battle of Waterloo and the Battle of the Somme The waterloo battle started at almost noon when the French army launched an attack on Wellington’s fortified farmhouse and buildings that were at Hougoumont (Keegan, 1976: 126). Even though this attack had been intended to be a diversion, the fighting at Hougoumont went intermittently in the process of the battle, while claiming the lives of many French soldiers. The British soldiers, who were located behind the secure rocks that surrounded Hougoumont, were defiant against recurring French attacks. Napoleon instructed the infantry under Comte d’Erlon, which included sixteen thousand troops, in columns to launch an attack at the center of Wellington’s line only two hours into the battle after he had already directed an artillery barrage from eighty-four French guns on the allied lines (Keegan, 1976: 152). At a critical instance when the French forces were climbing the ridge, the line that was under Wellington’s command held up to the point when the heavy cavalry brigades under the command of Lord Uxbridge charged the French soldiers and forced them to back down the slope. The British forces got carried away by this success and foolishly charged at the French lines where they met a counterattack that was launched by the French leading to forty percent casualties. Napoleon then instructed Marshal Ney to assume a second allied fortified position on the field but the initial cavalry attacks were repelled forcing him to launch a bigger cavalry attack at four in the afternoon at the center of Wellington’s line, pushing between Hougoumont and La Haie Sainte on both sides. French soldiers numbering more than seven thousand fought their way to the top of the ridge on an eight hundred yard front where they encountered Wellington’s infantry that had arranged into squares. Regardless of the repeated charges from the French cavalry, the infantry squares did not give in and in the end, the casualties on both sides were terrible. At around six in the evening, Napoleon gave another order to Ney instructing him to attack La Haie Sainte which was under the control of the French troops as a result of heavy fighting. This created a scenario for one of the most notable engagements in the history of battles. The French infantry that included the famous Imperial Guard advanced adamantly in the direction of the crest of Mont St Jean while the British and their allied infantries waited for them along the other side of the ridge (Keegan, 1976: 154). During the engagement between the French and the British troops, the Prussian troops that were under the command of Field Marshal Gebhard von Blucher launched an attack on the French from the eastern side of the Battleground (Keegan, 1976: 123). The overpowered French soldiers had to fall back and were pursued down the slope by the allied troops signaling an end to the Battle of Waterloo. At the end of this battle, there were forty-seven thousand casualties. On reflection of the bloodshed associated with Wellington’s final battle, he stated that the worse thing than being successful in a battle is losing it. This battle was the final battle in a struggle aimed at denying the French supremacy in Europe that had taken twenty five years. This struggle included the famous victory by Nelson over the a combination of French and Spanish troops at Trafalgar on 1805 was a component of a more prolonged worldwide conflict between Britain and France that started when Louis XIV was still at the helm. Between 1689 and 1815, England went into seven full scale wars against the French along with other powers in wars such as the War of the Spanish Succession and the Seven Years’ War among others (Keegan, 1976: 198). These conflicts should not be perceived as distinct autonomous wars as they were part of a bigger struggle for hegemony between the British and the French. On the other hand, the eastern side of the town of Albert in France and northern side of the Somme River was of little strategic importance in 1916 except for the simple fact that its location was along a line that stretched from the Flanders region in southern part of Belgium to the Swiss border boarder. Both sides in World War One had dug and created trenches on the ground where they fought from. On the 1st of July in 1916, after an artillery offensive on German positions as well as the explosion of several mines under the German lines that had lasted an entire week, the British troops and their commonwealth counterparts came out of their trenches and advanced into the no man’s land only to be attacked without mercy by the German machine guns, rifles and weaponry (Keegan, 1976: 217). On the first day of the battle, almost twenty thousand British soldiers and their commonwealth colleagues died and more than forty thousand people were injured. In the five months that followed, the British and Commonwealth soldiers suffered in excess of four hundred thousand fatalities while the French had more than two hundred thousand fatalities (Keegan, 1976: 249). All these deaths resulted from a battle whose main cause was the control of several miles of ground. The battle resulted in a physical scar on the land which can be identified today in areas such as the Newfoundland memorial park as well as psychological scars in the numerous British and commonwealth soldiers’ cemeteries that are in the area. One of the main aims of the battle was to divulge the attention of the German troops from the Battle of Verdun, but when the battle ended, the losses in Somme were higher than the ones faced at Verdun. When the battle came to an end, the British had learnt numerous lessons in regard to contemporary warfare while the Germans had suffered matchless losses (Keegan, 1976: 269). The Battle of Some cannot be considered as a victory for any of the sides as the British gained only two miles while losing more than four hundred soldiers implying each centimeter was worth two men. Conclusion The waterloo battle was the last stand by Napoleon, in which England together with its allied powers decided to fight against Napoleon’s army after they had returned to power in 1815. During the battle, Napoleon launched attacks on the British lines but was not successful in breaking through. At the culmination of the battle that took three days, the British troops were able to go through the French ranks and authoritatively defeat the French soldiers. When the battle came to an end, Napoleon was exiled and Louis XVII resumed to the helm. On the other hand, Battle of Somme is more often than not remembered for its nonsensical slaughter when the British soldiers advanced into no man’s land and were attacked by the Germans. In reality, the battle of Somme was one that was characterized by a lot of destruction and huge losses were suffered by the two sides. The land that was gained by the British at the end of the war was comparatively small. In the end, the battle was not decisive and had not contribution towards wearing down the German troops who were eventually outnumbered when the United States joined the British forces. References Keegan, J. (1976). The face of battle. New York: Viking Press. Read More