On the morning of 3 July 1815, the French General R mi Joseph
Isidore Exelmans, at the head of a brigade of dragoons, fired the
last shots in the defence of Paris until the Franco-Prussian War
sixty-five years later. Why did he do so? Traditional stories of
1815 end with Waterloo, that fateful day of 18 June, when Napoleon
Bonaparte fought and lost his last battle, abdicating his throne on
22 June. So why was Exelmans still fighting for Paris? Surely the
fighting had ended on 18 June? Not so. Waterloo was not the end,
but the beginning of a new and untold story. Seldom studied in
French histories and virtually ignored by English writers, the
French Army fought on after Waterloo. At Versailles, Sevres,
Rocquencourt and elsewhere, the French fought off the Prussian
army. In the Alps and along the Rhine other French armies fought
the Allied armies, and General Rapp defeated the Austrians at La
Souffel - the last great battle and the last French victory of the
Napoleonic Wars. Many other French commanders sought to reverse the
defeat of Waterloo. Bonapartist and irascible, General Vandamme, at
the head of 3rd and 4th Corps, was, for example, champing at the
bit to exact revenge on the Prussians. General Exelmans, ardent
Bonapartist and firebrand, likewise wanted one final, defining
battle to turn the war in favour of the French. Marshal Grouchy,
much maligned, fought his army back to Paris by 29 June, with the
Prussians hard on his heels. On 1 July, Vandamme, Exelmans and
Marshal Davout began the defence of Paris. Davout took to the field
in the north-eastern suburbs of Paris along with regiments of the
Imperial Guard and battalions of National Guards. For the first
time ever, using the wealth of archive material held in the French
Army archives in Paris, along with eyewitness testimonies from
those who were there, Paul Dawson brings alive the bitter and
desperate fighting in defence of the French capital. The 100 Days
Campaign did not end at Waterloo, it ended under the walls of Paris
fifteen days later.
General
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