Napoleonic Literature
Waterloo Excerpts
Officer Casualty Lists for the Anglo-Allied Army:
16, 17 and 18 June 1815

FOREWORD

It is difficult to fathom the enormity of casualties sustained on Napoleonic battlefields when reading accounts of the various battles. For example, following are the total casualties for several of the more prominent battles:

Yes, it is obvious that the above casualty figures, which include killed, wounded and missing, are large; however, the true enormity of these numbers do not impact on our minds as they should: the are merely numbers and numbers are impersonal. Take another look at the number and then think a moment about 20th Century warfare. During the 10 years (+/-) that the United States was involved in Vietnam, approximately 58,200 U.S. serviceman were killed. I don't know how many were wounded, either slightly or seriously, but I will estimate 200,000, which is not a great amount over a 10 year period and probably consists mostly of slight wounds. There were very few real battles in Vietnam; for the most part, they are properly characterized as firefights. To find real warfare, with real casualty figures, one must look at the Korean War, World War II and World War I.

At this point I would like to state that I am a Vietnam Veteran (1967-68 and 1971) and that I have seen my share of action as a small arms infantryman, especially on 23 November 1967, the day before Thanksgiving Day, near Phan Thiet, in which my battalion, the 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry, First Cavalry Division (Airmobile), sustained more than 50% casualties and all of its helicopters, as well as many additional helicopters sent to assist us from division headquarters.

Now let me point out that all of the Napoleonic battles listed above began and ended on the same day, usually from sunrise to sunset. Waterloo was a 10-hour battle; therefore, there were an everage of 6,100 casualties per hour of the battle. This is tremendous. Except for a very few battles in World War I, no battle fought in the 20th Century can come close to matching the horror of the typical large Napoleonic battle.

I always knew that the casualties sustained on the Napoleonic battlefield were huge; however, I never realized the true impact until I began working on this project: I typed the hundreds of names of the casualties that the Anglo-Allied army sustained at Quatre-Bras on 16 June, during the army's retreat to Mont. St. Jean on 17 June, and lastly at Mont. St. Jean, which we commonly call Waterloo because the Duke of Wellington wanted the battle to have a proper English sounding name, on 18 June 1815. The following casualty lists are large; that for the 18th of June is huge. If you have a half-hour or so to read the casualty lists, I'm certain that you too will develop a new appreciation for the true horrors of warfare. There are several hundred names included in the lists--all officers. When reading the names, remember that they are just the officers and amount to only about 5% of the total casualties sustained by the Anglo-Allied army; the other 95% were the enlisted soldiers. Then consider the casualties sustained by the Prussians, which were considerably less, and those sustained by the French, which were almost double those of the Anglo-Allies (at Waterloo).

John Schneider
 
Officer Casualties on 16 June 1815
Officer Casualties on 17 June 1815
Officer Casualties on 18 June 1815
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