The battle field is actually just outside of the city of Waterloo. The battle was given the name Waterloo because Wellington's headquarters was located in the city. The museum was interesting.
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| Catholic church across the street from Wellington's headquarters |
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| The desk on which Wellington wrote the communication on the outcome of the battle |
After leaving the museum, we arrived at the battle field itself. Before entering the battle field memorial, we had lunch. Both Stephen and I had the beef tartare. Pretty good.
The Lion Mound, commemorating the battle field was closed due to high winds. It was a blustery day, cool, wet and strong winds.
After the memorial, we got back on the bus and traveled to the French front line on the battle field.
Along this road, Napoleon, placed his 80 cannon to fire upon the English about 3/4 mile away.
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| The open ground between the lines of the opposing armies |
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| The English front line |
Why did we visit the Waterloo battle field on our WWI tour? It is commonly considered that Waterloo was the turning point in the world of great powers. For the previous 500 years, France had been the major power on the continent. With the loss at Waterloo and the collapse of the French nation, this changed. Prussia, was consider pivotal in the victory at Waterloo. In fact, without the intervention of the Prussian army late in the battle, the outcome of the battle might have been very different,
The role of Prussia in the battle of Waterloo was considered a major influence in the subsequent unification of the Germany nation and the role as a major power that Germany would command. Without the victory at Waterloo, it is doubtful that the German nation would have developed, that the war with France in 1870 would have occurred and WWI would have happened the way it did. That's why we visited Waterloo as the prologue to our WWI tour.
Leaving Waterloo, we drove about 90 minutes to Ypres, Belgium. We checked into the Ariane Hotel, just off the main part of town. We will be here for two nights. As soon as we had dropped our luggage off in our room, we headed into town.
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| Found a couple of Camino de Santiago directional pointers in the sidewalk |
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| Ypres main square |
Just off the main square, we decided to try a little pub. Not sure why, but it looked interesting and quiet.
We shared a country pate as an appetizer. Stephen had the rabbit and I had beef tongue. Everything was delicious!
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| Country pate |
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| Rabbit |
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| Beef tongue |
After dinner we headed toward the Menin Gate. Every night since 1928 (with the exception for when the city was occupied by the Germans during WWII), there has been a "last post" ceremony at the gate commemorating those missing in action during the fighting around Ypres. There are 54,395 names of Commonwealth soldiers whose bodies were never recovered inscribed on the walls of the gate.
The ceremony began promptly at 8:00 pm.
I had a night cap in the bar where they served pork rinds instead of chips.
Tomorrow morning, we meet at 9:00 am to begin our exploration of the battle fields around Ypres.
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