AN INTERNATIONAL team of experts led by a Scots archaeologist have begun a dig on the famous Waterloo battlefield.
Glasgow University’s Dr Tony Pollard and his team of experts have started work on the site near Hougoumont Farm in southern Belgium ahead of the bicentenary of the famous battle where it is thought a mass grave of soldiers is located.
During the battle in June 1815, thousands of Napoleon’s troops attacked the farm, which was held by British forces under the command of the Duke of Wellington. Napoleon’s forces were eventually defeated and there were tens of thousands of casualties. He was exiled to the island of St Helena, where he died in 1821.
Uniquely, British veterans who experienced trauma and were wounded in recent campaigns are working alongside the team of battlefield archaeologists and military historians.
They are part of Operation Nightingale, which encourages armed forces personnel to get involved in such excavation work to help their recovery.
The international team of experts is carrying out the research as part of Waterloo Uncovered, which aims to transform our understanding of the battle that created modern Europe and ended the Napoleonic era.
While the battle has been studied by generations of historians, little is known about the archaeological remains that exist under the battlefield’s surface.
There were tens of thousands of casualties but the locations of massed graves have never been identified. This will be the first time the battlefield has been the subject of a large-scale archaeological survey using the latest technology and practices developed by conflict archaeologists.
Dr Pollard, director of the Centre of Battlefield Archaeology at the University of Glasgow, said the work would answer many questions that still hang over the site 200 years.
He said: “History tells us who won the battle but understanding what happened has until now relied on first-hand accounts and reports of the battle that in some cases are either confusing or biased. We hope archaeology can provide answers to many of the questions about Waterloo that remain unanswered.
“These include the location of graves, which from accounts appear to have been scattered across a wide area as well as details of the at times confused fighting at locations such as Hougoumont, and on a broader scale, the effectiveness of the strong points of Hougoumont and La Haye Sainte in blunting the force of the French attack on the Allied centre and right.
“As an archaeologist this is a once in a lifetime opportunity to explore such a famous battle, not least because the battlefield remains remarkably undisturbed 200 years later.”
Waterloo Uncovered is the brainchild of two Coldstream Guards officers, Major Charles Foinette, who currently serves with 1st Battalion Coldstream Guards, and Mark Evans, who suffered from PTSD following his experience in Afghanistan.
Project supporters include Waterloo 200, the official body recognised by the UK Government to support the commemoration of the battle in its bicentenary year, and the Coldstream Guards. The Waterloo Uncovered team will also work closely with Project Hougoumont, which has funded and overseen the restoration of the surviving farm buildings at Hougoumont and the creation of a new visitor centre focused on that area of the battlefield.
The project will also partner Operation Nightingale, which provides veterans with vocational skills through archaeology. Operation Nightingale, which is backed by the MoD, will oversee the participation of British veterans during the work.
Mark Evans, project co-ordinator of Waterloo Uncovered, said: “Having left the army through PTSD, and subsequently been taken as a veteran on Nightingale digs, I have experienced first-hand the benefits of archaeology and what it can do for the recovery process.”
Waterloo Uncovered is supported by the Service de l’archéologie-Direction extérieure du Brabant Wallon which regulates all archaeological activity on the battlefield. Dominique Bosquet, excavation director, said: “What I think makes Waterloo Uncovered truly special is that for the first time we have a regiment, in the form of the Coldstream Guards, supporting an initiative to explore its own history through the medium of archaeology.”
Count Georges Jacobs de Hagen, chairman of Project Hougoumont, Belgium, said: “It has long been a legend that bodies were buried on the battlefield on Waterloo where they fell. Having restored Hougoumont as a living memorial to the brave soldiers that fought and died to defend it, this current archaeological initiative by the Coldstream Guards, including wounded soldiers from current campaigns, is both fitting and admirable.”
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