Battle of Waterloo
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48 free Battle of Waterloo trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
The Battle of Waterloo ended Napoleon's Hundred Days and two decades of European war in a single sodden Sunday. On 18 June 1815 Wellington's multinational army held a ridge south of Brussels against everything the French threw at it, until Blücher's Prussians broke in on the flank and the Imperial Guard fell back for the first time. Wellington called it the nearest-run thing you ever saw in your life. These 48 questions cover the campaign: the Congress of Vienna outlawing Napoleon, the crossing at Charleroi, the Duchess of Richmond's ball, Ligny and Quatre Bras, and Grouchy's wrong turn to Wavre. Then the day itself: the reverse slope, the elm tree, Hougoumont's north gate, the grande batterie, Picton's death, the Union Brigade and its two eagles, Ney's cavalry against the squares, the fall of La Haye Sainte, Plancenoit, Müffling and Zieten, Maitland's Guards, 'La Garde recule', and Wellington waving his hat from Copenhagen. And the aftermath: the casualties, the diamonds in Napoleon's carriage, Saint Helena, Waterloo teeth, the bones sold to a sugar factory, the Lion's Mound and the coin France objected to. Every answer is cited to a page we checked and comes with a short explanation, so you learn something even when you miss. Play it solo or print it for a pub quiz history round.
30 of 48 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01The Battle of Waterloo ended 23 years of war that had begun in the wake of which upheaval?
The French Revolution
The French Revolution: the wars it set off ran almost unbroken from 1792 until 18 June 1815, and four days after the battle Napoleon gave up his throne for good.
Q 02In which modern country does the battlefield of Waterloo lie?
Belgium
Belgium: no such country existed in 1815, and the ground Wellington defended changed hands again when the Belgians rose and won their own state 15 years later.
Q 03Napoleon's escape from which island in 1815 led to Waterloo?
Elba
Elba: he slipped away with some 1,000 men, was back in Paris within a month, and the allied powers formed a Seventh Coalition to bring him down.
Q 04Who commanded the Prussian army at Waterloo?
Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher
Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher: beaten two days earlier, the 72-year-old had promised to come to Wellington's aid, and his army was back in action within 48 hours.
Q 05The victor of Waterloo gave his name to a style of boot and to which country's capital city?
New Zealand
New Zealand: its capital honours the Duke of Wellington, who took his own title from a small Somerset town and had his shoemaker cut down a cavalry boot to suit him.
Q 06What was the period of Napoleon's return to power in 1815 called?
The Hundred Days
The Hundred Days: the label comes from the Paris prefect's speech welcoming Louis XVIII back, and it undercounts, since 110 days had passed since Napoleon's return.
Q 07At which battle on 16 June did Napoleon defeat the bulk of the Prussian army?
Ligny
Ligny: it was the last victory of Napoleon's career, and a hollow one, since a whole French corps spent the day marching between two battlefields and fought at neither.
Q 08Which battle on 16 June kept Wellington from reinforcing the Prussians?
Quatre Bras
Quatre Bras: Wellington held the crossroads all day, yet had to give it up the next morning to stay in touch with his retreating Prussian allies.
Q 09Which separate battle on 18–19 June tied up a third of Napoleon's army?
Wavre
Wavre: the French won it against a Prussian rearguard, but the 33,000 men who did so were missing from the battle that decided the campaign.
Q 10Waterloo was bloody, but which battle of 1812 was the bloodiest single day of the Napoleonic Wars?
Borodino
Borodino: more men fell outside Moscow on that one September day than at Waterloo, which ranks second; Leipzig cost more lives overall but lasted four days.
Q 11After Waterloo, Wellington wrote that nothing except a battle lost can be half so melancholy as what?
A battle won
A battle won: he wrote it with tens of thousands lying dead or wounded, and of the fight itself he said it was 'the nearest-run thing you ever saw in your life'.
Q 12After Waterloo, Napoleon abdicated in favour of whom?
His son
His son: four days after the battle he named four-year-old Napoleon II, who never ruled France, and Louis XVIII was back on the throne within three weeks.
Q 13Which 'Pax' is the name given to the century of relative peace between the great powers after Waterloo?
Pax Britannica
Pax Britannica: with France beaten, the Royal Navy went almost unchallenged at sea, and apart from the Crimean War the great powers avoided a general war until 1914.
Q 21Which Victor Hugo novel breaks off for nineteen chapters on the Battle of Waterloo?
Les Misérables
Les Misérables: Hugo walked the battlefield in 1861, finished writing the novel there, and argued in its pages that Waterloo was no victory for the old order.
Q 22Which defensive trick did Wellington use at Waterloo to hide his strength from the French?
The reverse slope
The reverse slope: he kept most of his men just behind the crest of the ridge, out of sight and sheltered from cannon fire, a habit he had perfected in Spain.
Q 23Which fortified château anchored Wellington's right flank at Waterloo?
Hougoumont
Q 14On 13 March 1815 which gathering declared Napoleon an outlaw?
The Congress of Vienna
The Congress of Vienna: the diplomats were still redrawing the map of Europe when news of his escape arrived, and they outlawed him a week before he reached Paris.
Q 15Which marshal commanded the French right wing sent to pursue the Prussians before Waterloo?
Marshal Grouchy
Marshal Grouchy: his generals urged him to march to the sound of the guns, but he stuck to his orders, and his 33,000 men never reached the field.
Q 16Facing two armies, what was Napoleon's plan for the Waterloo campaign?
Beat them singly
Beat them singly: together the two armies outnumbered him, so he crossed the frontier near Charleroi on 15 June to drive a wedge between them before they could unite.
Q 17At whose ball in Brussels did Wellington learn the speed of the French advance?
The Duchess of Richmond's
The Duchess of Richmond's: Wellington slipped away from the dancing, shut himself in a side room with a map and said Napoleon had 'humbugged' him by a day's march.
Q 18Besides Britain, which country's troops fought in Wellington's army at Waterloo?
Netherlands
Netherlands: fewer than half of Wellington's men were British, and Dutch regiments under the Prince of Orange stood in his line beside Hanoverians and Brunswickers.
Q 19Which cavalry chief, Wellington's deputy at Waterloo, lost a leg to one of the day's last cannon shots?
Lord Uxbridge
Lord Uxbridge: surgeons took the leg off that night, and the owner of the house buried it in his garden, where its grave became a paying tourist attraction.
Q 20What monument, completed in 1826, dominates the Waterloo battlefield?
The Lion's Mound
The Lion's Mound: the king who then ruled the land had it raised on the spot where his heir, the Prince of Orange, was thought to have been knocked from his horse by a musket ball.
Hougoumont: a French party forced its way in through a gate, the defenders heaved it shut behind them, and Wellington later said the battle had turned on that moment.
Q 24Which regiment held the sandpit opposite La Haye Sainte at Waterloo?
The 95th Rifles
The 95th Rifles: its men wore green rather than red and carried the Baker rifle in place of the army's smooth-bore musket, which is why they were posted as marksmen.
Q 25Napoleon sneered at Wellington as a 'sepoy general' because he had made his name fighting where?
India
India: the campaigns Napoleon mocked taught Wellington the discipline and care over supplies that beat French armies in Spain and then, at Waterloo, Napoleon himself.
Q 26Why did Napoleon delay the start of the Battle of Waterloo until late morning?
The ground was sodden
The ground was sodden: a night of rain had turned the fields to mud, and the hours he spent waiting for them to dry gave the Prussians time to reach the field.
Q 27Which of Napoleon's brothers led the initial attack on the château on Wellington's right?
Jerome
His division was meant to draw in Wellington's reserves; it was the French who got sucked in.
Q 28Thirteen years after Waterloo, Wellington took which job, one he would hold twice?
Prime Minister
Prime Minister: he took office in 1828 and pushed through Catholic emancipation, then threw away his popularity by fighting the Reform Act of 1832.
Q 29Which fictional hero of historical novels fights at Waterloo?
Richard Sharpe
Richard Sharpe: in Bernard Cornwell's novel he serves on the Prince of Orange's staff, and it is Sharpe, not the French, who puts a bullet in the prince's shoulder; Sean Bean played him on television.
Q 30Which Welsh general, the most senior officer killed at Waterloo, fell leading a bayonet charge against d'Erlon's corps?
Sir Thomas Picton
Sir Thomas Picton: he was shot through the temple while cheering his men into the charge, and is remembered today as much for his brutality as governor of Trinidad.