Were the bones of Waterloo soldiers sold as fertilizer? The case is not yet closed
Were the bones of Waterloo soldiers sold as fertilizer? The case is not yet closed
Enlarge / The morning after the battle of Waterloo, by John Heaviside Clark, 1816.
Public domain
When Napoleon was sadly defeated at Waterloo in 1815, the conflict left a battlefield littered with thousands of corpses and the inevitable detritus of war. But what happened to all those corpses? Only one complete skeleton has been found at the site, much to the astonishment of archaeologists. Contemporary accounts tell of French bodies being burned by local peasants, with other bodies thrown into mass graves. And some accounts describe how scattered bones were collected and ground into flour to be used as fertilizer.
It is this last statement that particularly interests Tony Pollard, director of the Center for Battlefield Archeology at the University of Glasgow. He examined historical sources such as memoirs and diaries of early visitors, as well as works of art, to map the missing burial sites on the battlefield of Waterloo in hopes of finding a definitive answer. He recently gave an update on his efforts so far in a recent article published in the Journal of Conflict Archaeology.
Napoleon was first defeated and deposed as Emperor of France in 1814, ending up in exile on the island of Elba in the Mediterranean. He briefly returned to power in March 1815 for what is now known as the Hundred Days. Several states opposed to his rule formed the Seventh Coalition, including a British-led multinational army led by the Duke of Wellington and a larger Prussian army under the command of Field Marshal von Blücher. It was these armies that faced Napoleon's Army of the North at Waterloo.
Enlarge / Map of the Battle of Waterloo, 18 June 1815, showing major movements and attacks. Napoleon's units are in blue, Wellington's in red, Blücher's in grey.
Public domain
Historians still dispute the exact start of the battle, but dispatches from Wellington indicate that Napoleon "launched a furious attack on our post at Hougoumont" around 10 a.m. on 18 June. It was a large country house partially obscured by trees, one of several key locations on the battlefield of Waterloo. Fighting raged for eight hours at several sites.
Ultimately, Wellington's casualties amounted to some 15,000 dead or wounded, while Blücher's forces suffered 7,000 dead or wounded. Napoleon's forces fared less well: between 24,000 and 26,000 men were killed or wounded, including several thousand captured. An additional 15,000 French soldiers deserted over the following days.
This created a monumental cleaning task. A contemporary account, by Major W.E. Frye, described the battlefield on June 22 as "too ghastly a sight to behold". Frye recounted "the multitude of carcasses, the heaps of wounded men with mutilated limbs unable to move and perishing from not having their wounds dressed or from starvation."
Enlarge / The morning after the battle of Waterloo, by John Heaviside Clark, 1816.
Public domain
When Napoleon was sadly defeated at Waterloo in 1815, the conflict left a battlefield littered with thousands of corpses and the inevitable detritus of war. But what happened to all those corpses? Only one complete skeleton has been found at the site, much to the astonishment of archaeologists. Contemporary accounts tell of French bodies being burned by local peasants, with other bodies thrown into mass graves. And some accounts describe how scattered bones were collected and ground into flour to be used as fertilizer.
It is this last statement that particularly interests Tony Pollard, director of the Center for Battlefield Archeology at the University of Glasgow. He examined historical sources such as memoirs and diaries of early visitors, as well as works of art, to map the missing burial sites on the battlefield of Waterloo in hopes of finding a definitive answer. He recently gave an update on his efforts so far in a recent article published in the Journal of Conflict Archaeology.
Napoleon was first defeated and deposed as Emperor of France in 1814, ending up in exile on the island of Elba in the Mediterranean. He briefly returned to power in March 1815 for what is now known as the Hundred Days. Several states opposed to his rule formed the Seventh Coalition, including a British-led multinational army led by the Duke of Wellington and a larger Prussian army under the command of Field Marshal von Blücher. It was these armies that faced Napoleon's Army of the North at Waterloo.
Enlarge / Map of the Battle of Waterloo, 18 June 1815, showing major movements and attacks. Napoleon's units are in blue, Wellington's in red, Blücher's in grey.
Public domain
Historians still dispute the exact start of the battle, but dispatches from Wellington indicate that Napoleon "launched a furious attack on our post at Hougoumont" around 10 a.m. on 18 June. It was a large country house partially obscured by trees, one of several key locations on the battlefield of Waterloo. Fighting raged for eight hours at several sites.
Ultimately, Wellington's casualties amounted to some 15,000 dead or wounded, while Blücher's forces suffered 7,000 dead or wounded. Napoleon's forces fared less well: between 24,000 and 26,000 men were killed or wounded, including several thousand captured. An additional 15,000 French soldiers deserted over the following days.
This created a monumental cleaning task. A contemporary account, by Major W.E. Frye, described the battlefield on June 22 as "too ghastly a sight to behold". Frye recounted "the multitude of carcasses, the heaps of wounded men with mutilated limbs unable to move and perishing from not having their wounds dressed or from starvation."
Enlarge / The morning after the battle of Waterloo, by John Heaviside Clark, 1816.
Public domain
Enlarge / Map of the Battle of Waterloo, 18 June 1815, showing major movements and attacks. Napoleon's units are in blue, Wellington's in red, Blücher's in grey.
Public domain
