Napoleonic re-enactors and the Battle of Waterloo pt2

For Napoleonic re-enactors, events don’t come any bigger than the annual restaging of the Battle of Waterloo.

The spectacle regularly attracts around 3,000 men and women, dressed in the uniforms of the era, who act out the events of 18 June 1815 on the same ground that was trodden by the armies of Wellington and Napoleon.

And the colourful, dramatic and often noisy display is watched by many thousands more.

Belgium: Napoleonic re-enactors and the Battle of Waterloo

And here come the French

Every year thousands of Napoleonic re-enactors travel to Belgium to recreate the Battle of Waterloo.

This annual re-staging of the 1815 battle that saw Napoleon Bonaparte’s French army defeated by a confederation of other European nations led by Great Britain and Prussia and commanded by the Duke of Wellington, attracts well over one thousand re-enactors dressed in brightly coloured and authentic-looking uniforms of the period.

Many of the combatants, however, are not necessarily what they seem. There are Poles taking the role of Frenchmen, Dutch playing Scots, Germans dressed as English...