Waterloo protest

Saddletank wrote: LOL, there's only one nation that likes to moan and b*tch at stuff more than us English, and that's the French. Waterloo was only a "negative event" for Napoleon and later Marechal Ney, for every other French person it was just a small wave on the rolling ocean of time's flow called history. It was neither good nor bad, it was just change, the end of one era, the start of another.

For people living 200 years later to be offended by a reminder of a defeat suffered long ago by men long dead is silly. Looking at it from a wider European context, Napoleon's downfall was a huge bonus which brought more than 20 years of death, suffering and economic ruin to the majority of Europeans to a close. They were now at liberty to go have arguments and wars elsewhere over other matters

SiliconMagician wrote: "You could argue since the 7th coalition included the French Kingdom it was the first time Europe united under one banner for a common purpose with the goal of establishing a peaceful Europe."

That's rather.. idealistic I think. More like "under one banner for a common purpose with the goal being the reestablishment of their monarchies".. peaceful Europe? Later events proved that wasn't at all true or even desirable among Napoleon's enemies. He just grew too big for the rest of them to stand. Some Corsican midget going around deposing kings and such just couldn't be tolerated.