Hundred Days

This article is about Napoleon's last period of rule and the Seventh Coalition. For the final Allied offensive on the Western Front during World War I, see Hundred Days Offensive. For other uses, see Hundred Days (disambiguation).

War of the Seventh Coalition
Part of the Napoleonic Wars and the Coalition Wars
hundred daysBattle of Quatre BrasBattle of LignyBattle of Waterloo
hundred days

Click an image to load the battle.
Left to right, top to bottom:
Battles of Quatre Bras, Ligny, Waterloo.
Date20 March – 8 July 1815[4]
(110 days)
Location
Result

Coalition victory

Belligerents
Commanders and leaders
Strength
800,000–1,000,000[5] 280,000[5]
See military mobilisation during the Hundred Days for more information.

The Hundred Days (French: les Cent-Jours IPA: [le sɑ̃ ʒuʁ]),[4] also known as the War of the Seventh Coalition (French: Guerre de la Septième Coalition), marked the period between Napoleon's return from eleven months of exile on the island of Elba to Paris on 20 March 1815 and the second restoration of King Louis XVIII on 8 July 1815 (a period of 110 days).[b] This period saw the War of the Seventh Coalition, and includes the Waterloo Campaign[7] and the Neapolitan War as well as several other minor campaigns. The phrase les Cent Jours (the hundred days) was first used by the prefect of Paris, Gaspard, comte de Chabrol, in his speech welcoming the king back to Paris on 8 July.[c]

Napoleon returned while the Congress of Vienna was sitting. On the 13th of March, seven days before Napoleon reached Paris, the powers at the Congress of Vienna declared him an outlaw, and on the 25th of March, Austria, Prussia, Russia and the United Kingdom, the four Great Powers and key members of the Seventh Coalition, bound themselves to put 150,000 men each into the field to end his rule.[10] This set the stage for the last conflict in the Napoleonic Wars, the defeat of Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo, the second restoration of the French kingdom, and the permanent exile of Napoleon to the distant island of Saint Helena, where he died in May 1821.

  1. ^ a b c Chandler 1981, p. 181.
  2. ^ Hofschroer 2006, pp. 82, 83.
  3. ^ Hervé de Weck: Franche-Comté expedition in German, French and Italian in the online Historical Dictionary of Switzerland, 8 May 2007.
  4. ^ a b "Hundred Days". Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 11 October 2021.
  5. ^ a b Chandler 1966, p. 1015.
  6. ^ "Honderd Dagen, De". Encarta Encyclopedie Winkler Prins (in Dutch). Microsoft Corporation/Het Spectrum. 1993–2002.
  7. ^ Beck 1911, "Waterloo Campaign".
  8. ^ Townsend 1862, p. 355.
  9. ^ Gifford 1817, p. 1511.
  10. ^ Hamilton-Williams 1996, p. 59.


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