The Battle of Waterloo, 18 June 1815: some geological reflections to mark the bicentenary

The Battle of Waterloo was fought nearly 18 km south of Brussels in Belgium, between the forces of the French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte and a coalition army of British, German, Dutch and Belgian troops led by the British Duke of Wellington, joined later in the day by a Prussian army led by Gebhard von Blücher, Prince of Wahlstatt. One of the great battles of history, it precipitated the end of some 23 years of intermittent warfare that had raged at times across much of Europe, and parts of the Mediterranean region, India, Africa and America, to initiate a period of relative peace and stability in Europe that was to last for nearly a century—until the First World War began in 1914.