A tale of three farms: veterans, archaeology, and the Battle of Waterloo

On the 18 June 1815, the French Armée du Nord, led by the Emperor Napoleon himself, confronted a coalition of British, Dutch-Belgian, and Prussian armies over a low ridgeline straddling the Brussels–Charleroi road. The ensuing battle was a close but decisive French defeat that led directly to the Emperor’s second abdication and the end of the Napoleonic Wars. Two hundred years later, the rolling farmland over which this climactic battle was fought are subject to an ongoing archaeological project. Despite the historical significance of the battle, and the growing recognition of battlefields as archaeological sites, this is the first comprehensive survey of the Waterloo battlefield.