The Hundred Days

The Lion Mound in 2010

"The well-known events of June 18 [1815] form only the climax of the short but intense military phase of the Hundred Days.  To treat them in isolation from what went before and what ensued would be to give a very fallacious impression of the campaign and battle.  The so-called Battle of Waterloo was in fact a composite action made up of no less than four contributory actions : two on June 16, Quatre Bras and Ligny; and two on the 18th -- Waterloo and Wavre.  The whole is the sum of its parts, and each of the three smaller actions had a most decided influence on what took place between La Belle Alliance and the ridge of Mont-St.Jean."

~ D. Chandler, The Campaigns of Napoleon; page 1008.