Battle of Waterloo and withdrew in good order—though at the cost of 33,000 French troops that never reached the Waterloo battlefield. Wellington sent describing the battle to England on 19 June 1815; it arrived in London on 21 June 1815 and was published as a "London Gazette Extraordinary" on 22 June. Wellington, Blücher and other Coalition forces advanced upon Paris. Napoleon announced his second abdication on 24 June 1815. In the final skirmish of the Napoleonic Wars, Marshal Davout, Napoleon's minister of war, was defeated by Blücher at Issy on 3 July 1815. Allegedly, Napoleon tried to escape to North America, but the
Waterloo Campaign: Ligny through Wavre to Waterloo Wavre (nor'-nor'-west) was about with some larger minor road leading there. After considering his options, Grouchy decided to advance to Wavre and engage whatever Prussians he found there, and so aid Napoleon by preventing those Prussians from moving towards Waterloo. Grouchy arrived at Wavre at around 16:00 and immediately engaged the Prussian III Corps (Thielemann's), which was acting as the rearguard of the Prussian army and which had been about to leave for Waterloo) in what became the Battle of Wavre. The Prussian advance to the Waterloo battlefield was impeded by the swollen streams, which had turned their valleys into