Waterloo

     The defeat at Waterloo was the final blow to Napoleon and his quest for European domination. A joint force of Prussian and British troops caught Napoleon by surprise and defeated the Corsican decisivley, leaving his once immortal army in shambles. The painting on the left illustrates this battle. The Whole Line Will Advance by Edgar Alfred Holloway, a Britsh painter, shows a regimine of British soldiers cheering and advancing on the French while many dead lie in their wake. The most intersting part about this specific painting is the reaction of the soldiers and the officer specfically. He casts off his hate in a sort of symbolic demeanor indicating the battle has been won. The estatic soldiers express their pure hatred for Napoleon and the French. Another ineresting note is that this was illustrated far after Napoleon's death, sometime between 1870-1941 revealing that even more than a century after his death Waterloo was a continued topic of discussion.  

     Here is another depiction of the bloody battle of Waterloo, and once again through the eyes of an Englishman, William Holmes Sullivan, made in 1898, 83 years after the actual battle took place. The painting is a spectacular display of herocism and dominance by the English calvalry over the French, as shown by the fear on the faces of the French. To futher the English position over the French, the center of the picture shows an Englsh cavalryman about to strike down a French officer admist the battle, making that the first clue a viewer sees, establishing English victory though obvious symbolizm. The date of this painting is the real interesting point, a person who wasn't alive when the battle took place illistrated the slaughter. Yet again showing the importance of defeating Naopleon to English people, as well as the battles and wars fought by Napoleon were still being examined.