Waterloo Reenactment Draws Thousands

Actors re-enact the battle of Waterloo in Waterloo, Belgium, Saturday June 16, 2007. The Battle of Waterloo, fought on 18 June 1815, was Napoleon Bonaparte's last battle. His defeat put a final end to his rule as Emperor of France. (AP Photo/Geert Vanden Wijngaert) (Geert Vanden Wijngaert - AP)

WATERLOO, Belgium -- When Edmund Gulvin first joined the Black Watch regiment, he was a 6-year-old "powder monkey." He is now a rifleman and hopes to make sergeant one day _ if he manages to make it through the Napoleonic Wars.

Gulvin, 18, is one of tens of thousands of enthusiasts around Europe who share a common passion _ the reenactment of famous historical battles. Over the weekend, about 4,000 set up camp, donned uniforms, strapped on bayonets and sabers and took up muskets for the anniversary of the 1815 Battle of Waterloo.

"You have to be passionate to do this. I could be clubbing back home, but instead I'm marching around in a skirt in this rain," said Gulvin, who with his father Keith and friend Richard Heymann had driven up from Chatham, in southeastern England, to take part in the mock battle.

All three wore the representative kilt of the 1815 Black Watch uniform and carried "Brown Bess" muskets, the standard British firearm of the Napoleonic Wars.

History buffs from Britain, France, Belgium, Germany, Holland and elsewhere said the Waterloo commemoration is one of the most important events on their calendars. The actual anniversary of the battle was Monday but the event was on the weekend.

Such gatherings also are popular and highly developed elsewhere in the world, including the United States, where reenactments of Civil War battles such as Bull Run, Gettysburg, and Antietem draws tens of thousands of enthusiasts.

The clash between France's Grande Armee and combined British, Dutch and German forces commanded by the Duke of Wellington played a pivotal role in world history, ending 26 years of warfare and Napoleon's dream of uniting Europe under French rule.

Spectators lined the fields and perched atop the Butte du Lion, a 130-foot earthen mound crowned by a massive lion built to commemorate the allied victory. They watched infantry and cavalry converge on the battlefield where Napoleon lost his empire.

The sound of cannon fire, fifes, drums and bagpipes filled the air as the soldiers raised their banners, moving shoulder to shoulder, and recreated the events of June 18, 1815. Most significant was the dramatic French assault on Hougoumont Farm, on whose massive wooden gate, in the words the Duke of Wellington, the outcome of the entire battle hinged.

British dragoons and French hussars crossed swords and charged with horses through thick cannon smoke.

Two hundred years after Napoleon's efforts to unite Europe the hard way, the capital of the modern European Union is located only eight miles down a highway from the battlefield, in Brussels.

Once a rural hamlet with a few taverns surrounded by rolling farm fields, Waterloo is now an upscale community of spacious family homes _ popular with foreign residents _ international schools, huge hypermarkets, drive-in hamburger joints and a bustling commercial center, all still surrounded by cultivated fields. Perhaps not surprisingly it's home to a large part of Brussels' expat British community.