- La Belle Alliance
La Belle Alliance is an
inn situated a few miles south ofBrussels inBelgium .On the morning of
June 18 ,1815 the inn becameNapoleon Bonaparte 's headquarters for theBattle of Waterloo .After the battle, at around 21:00, the Duke of Wellington and Gebhard Blücher met close to the inn signifying the end of the fighting.
Blücher, the
Prussia n commander, suggested that the battle should be remembered as "la Belle Alliance", to commemorate the EuropeanSeventh Coalition of Britain, Russia, Prussia,the Netherlands ,Sweden , Austria,Spain ,Portugal , Sardinia, and a number of German States which had all joined the coalition to defeat the FrenchEmperor . Wellington, who had chosen the field and commanded an allied army which had fought the French all day, instead recommended Waterloo, the village just north of the battlefield, where he himself had spent the previous night, commenting that it would not do to name the battle after the loser'scommand post . Nevertheless in 1815 the "Rondell" plaza inBerlin was renamedBelle-Alliance-Platz to commemorate the victory.The building is currently used on Friday and Saturday evenings as a night club.
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