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Napoleon's Return to France Essay

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Napoleon returned to home to France with only about 10% of his Army still alive. He lost most of his soldiers during the Great White Death, which is one of the largest French disasters to date. Since all the coalition allies knew he was in trouble, they decided to follow him and take him out while he was down and burned out. This is when he decided to give himself up and be exiled to Elba with 1000 guards. Before he left though, he promised his men that he, “… would return when the flowers bloomed.” And that was a promise that Napoleon kept. When he returned to France he came face to face with Marshal Nay but as an enemy and not a friend. Marshal Nay had started working for the new King of France, King Louis XVIII and built one of the …show more content…

Unfortunately, for Napoleon there was two days of rain that mad this particular area very muddy. Napoleons forces where divided since Grouchy was keeping a close eye on Blucher. If only they would have known that he should have stayed with Napoleon they would have won Waterloo instead it was a drawn out battle that caused a lot of bloodshed on La Belle Alliance Ridge. Waterloo didn’t get started till 11:35 am because the ground was too muddy to get his cannons into place. Once he did get his cannons into place he decided he wanted to take Hougomont. Hougomont became a huge headache to Napoleon because he would constantly try to take it and never did during the entire battle. Picton ordered Major General William Ponsoby, who led the Scots Grays, to attack the French. Every English boy would have wanted to be one of those brave men at the time. They collided with the French lancers and they were annihilated. The Scots Grays tried to ever turn back but not one of them survived. While this was going on, around 1:45 pm, Picton was shot in the head, through his top hat. Picton was not dressed in his usual military uniform because Napoleon had attacked his train and stole his gear so all he had to wear was a black suit and top hat. That particular hat is on display in a museum at waterloo. A wind storm begin and actually started making Wellington a little nervous. He said give me Blucher or give me night.

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