The Battle of Waterloo: The British Squares Receiving the Charge of the French Cuirassiers The Battle of Waterloo: The British Squares Receiving the Charge of the French Cuirassiers The Battle of Waterloo: The British Squares Receiving the Charge of the French Cuirassiers is an 1874 oil painting by French artist Henri Félix Emmanuel Philippoteaux. It depicts a scene from the Battle of Waterloo on 18 June 1815, with squares of red-coated infantry from Sir Thomas Picton's British 5th Division to the left being charged by cavalrymen of the French 5th and 10th Cuirassiers in blue uniforms to the right. The main British unit is one of Highland infantry, with the colour party and a
Battle of Waterloo his last reserves, the French Imperial Guard, to a desperate final attack, which was narrowly beaten back. With the Prussians breaking through on the French right flank, Wellington's Anglo-allied army counter-attacked in the centre, and the French army was routed. Waterloo was the decisive engagement of the Waterloo Campaign and Napoleon's last. According to Wellington, the battle was "the nearest-run thing you ever saw in your life". Napoleon abdicated four days later, and on 7 July coalition forces entered Paris. The defeat at Waterloo ended Napoleon's rule as Emperor of the French, and marked the end of his Hundred Days