Papelotte Farm (French: ''Ferme de la Papelotte'') is located at Rue Du Dimont a rural road in the
Municipality of Braine-l'Alleud around south of
Brussels
Brussels (french: Bruxelles or ; nl, Brussel ), officially the Brussels-Capital Region (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) (french: link=no, Région de Bruxelles-Capitale; nl, link=no, Bruss ...
, Belgium. On June 18th, 1815 during the pivotal
Battle of Waterloo
The Battle of Waterloo was fought on Sunday 18 June 1815, near Waterloo (at that time in the United Kingdom of the Netherlands, now in Belgium). A French army under the command of Napoleon was defeated by two of the armies of the Sevent ...
it served as one of the advanced defensible positions of the Anglo-allied army under the command of the
Duke of Wellington
Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, (1 May 1769 – 14 September 1852) was an Anglo-Irish soldier and Tory statesman who was one of the leading military and political figures of 19th-century Britain, serving twice as prime minister ...
. Along with the walled farm compounds of
Hougoumont
Château d'Hougoumont (originally Goumont) is a walled manorial compound, situated at the bottom of an escarpment near the Nivelles road in the Braine-l'Alleud municipality, near Waterloo, Belgium. The site served as one of the advanced defens ...
and
La Haye Sainte
La Haye Sainte (named either after Jesus Christ's crown of thorns or a bramble hedge round a field nearby) is a walled farmhouse compound at the foot of an escarpment on the Charleroi-Brussels road in Belgium. It has changed very little since it ...
, it proved to be instrumental to the delay and the disruption of the opposing
Napoleonic army's progress on the battlefield.
Napoleon
Napoleon Bonaparte ; it, Napoleone Bonaparte, ; co, Napulione Buonaparte. (born Napoleone Buonaparte; 15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821), later known by his regnal name Napoleon I, was a French military commander and political leader wh ...
diverted disproportionately large numbers of troops in order to capture or eliminate these perimeters, while he failed to achieve a decisive break through in one of several attacks on the lines of the Allies.
Papelotte was situated on the center-left flank of Wellington's army. Napoleon would also lose valuable time and resources as he struggled with the Allied strongpoints, whose comparatively rather moderately sized garrisons defended with remarkable efficiency. Papelotte was manned by two ''Orange-Nassau regiments'' of the
King's Dutch Brigade, from the
Duchy of Nassau
The Duchy of Nassau (German: ''Herzogtum Nassau'') was an independent state between 1806 and 1866, located in what is now the German states of Rhineland-Palatinate and Hesse. It was a member of the Confederation of the Rhine and later of the G ...
. German troops accounted for 45% of the personnel in the multi-ethnic Anglo-allied army. Around 6.15pm a contingent of the French
Durutte division managed to enter and briefly occupy Papelotte Farm, as its garrison had run out of ammunition and retreated to a defensive line in the rear. However, the French troops could advance no further. They ''were tired, decimated, soaked by the previous night’s rain, covered with mud, demoralised by their previous lack of success and by the Prussian arrival and suspicious of their generals...'' Papelotte provided cover during the approach of
Lieutenant-General von Zieten’s Prussian
Prussia, , Old Prussian: ''Prūsa'' or ''Prūsija'' was a German state on the southeast coast of the Baltic Sea. It formed the German Empire under Prussian rule when it united the German states in 1871. It was ''de facto'' dissolved by an e ...
I Corps onto the Waterloo battlefield around 7.00pm. Around 30 minutes later Papelotte and La Haye Sainte
were in Prussian hands as Durutte's forces had fully retreated without resistance.
Papelotte Farm was damaged and partly burnt down during the battle. From 1857 until far into the 20th century the site was restored, old buildings were replaced and new structures added, including the octagonal tower. Papelotte Farm is the home of the ''Poney club de la Papelotte''.
See also
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List of Waterloo Battlefield locations
The Waterloo Battlefield is located in the municipalities of Braine-l'Alleud and Lasne and Waterloo, about south of Brussels, and about from the town of Waterloo. The ordering of the places in the list is north to south and west to east.
N ...
Notes
; Footnotes
References
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Further reading
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External links
{{commonscatinline
Waterloo Battlefield locations
Houses in Belgium
Buildings and structures in Walloon Brabant