This week’s image of the week features one of the greatest British heroes of them all, Prussian von Bluche, and Napoleon Bonaparte.
The cartoon has leaders of two European armies literally putting the lid on another failed European attempt to dominate that continent. After controlling much of Europe just a few short years before, by 1815 Napoleon’s France had been defeated. This cartoon goes some way to commemorating that.
We see Field Marshal Gebhard Leberecht von Blucher, who led Prussian forces at the 1815 Battle of Waterloo, alongside his British counter-part, Arthur Wellesley, the Duke of Wellington. In the center we see them putting the lid on top of France’s Napoleon Bonaparte. Napoleon is trying to escape but can’t. His face looks distressed in a comical way. Indeed, Napoleon was exiled to the remote Atlantic island of Saint Helena by the British after the Battle of Waterloo.
There is an article about a very significant battle involving the Duke of Wellington and Napoleon’s France in the new issue of History is Now Magazine. Click here to find out more!
George Levrier-Jones