FORCES OF NATURE · 18 JUN 1815 · WATERLOO, BELGIUM
The dry morning at Waterloo
On the night of 17 June 1815 a thunderstorm drowned the fields of Belgium, and Napoleon spent the next morning waiting for the ground to dry while his last battle shrank from a day to an afternoon. In our timeline the Prussians arrived before he was finished. This is the timeline where the storm slides east and the guns open at first light.
You are reading the timeline that almost was · notes marked THE RECORD are real history
17 JUN 1815 · THE DRY NIGHT
Two armies lie down within cannon shot of each other south of Brussels: Wellington’s sixty-eight thousand on the ridge of Mont-Saint-Jean, Napoleon’s seventy-two thousand across the valley. In our timeline the sky opened at dusk and turned the fields to glue. The emperor, who moved armies on wheels, lost the morning waiting for the ground to bear his guns.
In the timeline recorded here the storm line slides fifty miles east and rains on the Rhine instead. The armies sleep dry under stars, and the gun teams move all night on firm ground, wheels silent in the grass.
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