This series of documentaries is a major project that will chart the entire 1815 Waterloo Campaign in detail from Napoleon s return to France through the various battles and engagements to the pursuit to Paris and Napoleon s final abdication. The whole suite will total over five hours of programmes. Each of the four disks will contain three separate programmes that concentrates on aspects of the campaign or phases of the great battle itself. Each programme is filmed on the ground where the particular phase of battle was fought making this a unique project that fuses tactics and ground in a readily understood way with re-enactment and lavish use of both maps and diagrams. Vignettes provided by living historians illustrate the life of the Napoleonic soldier, along with his weapons and tactics. This disk contains the programmes on: Campaign Background Napoleon returns from exile in Elba, quickly re-establishes himself in Paris and begins re raising his Army. The team look at the state of preparedness of the Allies and the French and examine their respective plans. The route of Napoleon s Army is followed across the Belgian boarder to the first engagements astride the River Sambre and into the defiles north of Charleroi. Quatre Bras With Wellington being famously humbugged by Napoleon s deception and with the Prince of Orange s Chief of Staff ignoring Wellington s instructions to fall back the battle of Quatre Bras built from a skirmish into a full scale battle that would be one of the Great Duke s foremost battle if it had not been overshadowed by Waterloo two days later. The battle begins with a steadfast defence by Dutch Belgian and German Allies and saw British troops forced marching to the vita cross roads as Wellington realised his error. The battle fought on a narrow font was a bloody business with the British being thrown into combat as they arrived to support the Prince of Orange s exhausted troops but at nightfall the battle died down into stalemate as the French fell back to their bivouacs. Ligny Marshal Blucher stood and offered battle in the villages and on the heights above the Ligny Brook, believing that he had a promise of support from Wellington. Napoleon duly attacked and committed his troops to a frontal assault on St Armand expecting D Erlon s 20,000 man strong I Corps to fall on the Prussian flank but someone had blundered! The vital corps spent the day marching and countermarching between the Quatre Bras and Ligny battlefields, as contradictory orders were issued by Napoleon s staff and Marshal Ney. The fighting was at its bloodiest in the Village of Ligny but as the darkness fell and lightning lanced out of dark rain clouds Napoleon released the Imperial Guard and a whole corps of cavalry into the attack around the village. The aging Blucher was pinned beneath his horse as he desperately urged his men to hold the heights above Ligny. The Prussians though were beaten but not defeated and withdrew to the north from the scene of Napoleon s last victory to regroup.