Belle Alliance
Coordinates: 50 ° 40 ′ N , 4 ° 25 ′ E
Belle-Alliance [bɛl a.ljɑ̃s] ( French for “beautiful connection” or “beautiful alliance”) is the name of a former inn that Napoleon Bonaparte used as his headquarters in the battle of Waterloo . In Prussian and German historiography, the name “Battle at” or “von Belle Alliance” was used up until the 20th century. This is due to Blücher , who already used this name in his reports on June 21, 1815.
Location and history
You can find the building today on the N 5 not far from Plancenoit . On this road from Paris to Brussels , it stands at an intersection in the middle of the battlefield of Waterloo. The building is now intended to serve as a discotheque, but has not lost its historical name. The pub received the same name in 1765 on the occasion of the marriage of a young farmhand to an old widow.
postcard
Inn 1880
Inn 2012
Plaque
Historical incident
Napoleon led the battle of Waterloo from the “Belle Alliance” inn. It is doubtful that Blücher and Wellington met there on the evening of the battle, even if pictorial representations of such a meeting exist. Wellington, like his opponent Napoleon, had already described the position of his troops in the days before the battle with the name of the village of Waterloo. By choosing the name “Belle Alliance”, the Prussian general Blücher tried to give the Allied armies equal rights, although he probably also liked the ambiguity of the name. However, the name "Waterloo" caught on internationally.
Belle Alliance as the French headquarters
The "historic" meeting
The "historic" meeting
The "historic" meeting
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Places in Berlin
In the Prussian capital Berlin, the names of three squares are reminiscent of the most important places of the Wars of Liberation. The “Quarre” was located in front of the Brandenburg Gate in front of the western city exit . It was named Pariser Platz in 1814 after the victorious army returned from conquered Paris . The square at the city exit to the southwest, the "Octagon", was renamed " Leipziger Platz " in the same year after the decisive battle of the Nations near Leipzig . When the Wars of Liberation came to an end a year later with the Battle of Belle Alliance, the "Rondell" at the southern exit of the city in front of the Hallescher Tor was named " Belle-Alliance-Platz ". The function as representative city entrances underlined in 1824 at Leipziger Platz Schinkel's New Potsdamer Tor and in 1843 at Belle-Alliance-Platz a peace column by Christian Daniel Rauch and in 1879 gate buildings by Johann Heinrich Strack . At the same time, the stone-built bridge over the Landwehr Canal in the extension of Friedrichstrasse was given the name " Waterloo Bridge ".
Since 1821, the nearby National Monument for the Wars of Liberation also bore the inscription “Belle Alliance June 18, 1815”.
As early as the 1860s, when the names were given for the streets to be laid out according to the Hobrecht Plan in the Tempelhofer Vorstadt , which was incorporated into Berlin , the "Tempelhofer Weg" leading south from Belle-Alliance-Platz over the Landwehrkanal was in " Belle- Alliance Street ”has been renamed. The other streets were also given names related to the Wars of Liberation. Because the names of the main street were reminiscent of Prussian generals, the urban planning area was called Generalszug .
In February 1946, Magistrate Werner, appointed by the Soviet occupying power , named Belle-Alliance-Platz and the street of the same name after the Marxist historian Franz Mehring . The renaming also affected the Belle-Alliance-Straße underground station . In contrast, the nearby streets “Waterloo-Ufer”, “Gneisenaustraße” and “Blücherstraße” and the “Blücherplatz” were allowed to keep their names.
Web links
- Official site for the Battlefield of Waterloo (English, French, Dutch)