Battles and Loops

 Hat-tip here

Today is the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo, fought on Sunday, 18 June 1815, near Waterloo in present-day Belgium, then part of the Netherlands.

From this piece in The Independent - a British newspaper -

The Battle of Waterloo will be celebrated with a national memorial service at St Paul's Cathedral to mark its bicentenary on Thursday (today) – and while descendants of those who fought there will be among the VIP guests, they have been warned that it will not be "triumphalist". Nonetheless, it has to be said, the Duke of Wellington's victory over Napoleon and the Bonapartists at a little ridge near the hamlet of Mont St Jean, 11 miles south of Brussels, was so complete that "Waterloo" has become synonymous with a crushing defeat.

But, it must also be added, that is not how it looked in the spring of 1815. Radical MPs such as Sam Whitbread, son of the brewer, were appalled at the prospect of Britain being dragged into another costly war against Napoleon. The Commons were just as divided as during the debates before the Iraq war in 2003. Whitbread and other Radical MPs accused Wellington of going to war for regime change – just as the anti-war MPs accused Tony Blair over Saddam Hussein.

Reading on, about the upshot of the Battle, and circumstances in Britain when soldiers returned home, the story of Waterloo bleeds into an uprising in northern England, I've blogged about this before:
The Peterloo Massacre in Manchester. In the present article circumstance leading to it is mentioned thus:

.....the bloated Prince Regent, who was as much reviled as the newly-restored Bourbon monarchy in France. In the same year as Waterloo, "Prinny" commissioned John Nash to turn his beach house in Brighton into a fantasy Moghul palace – the Royal Pavilion – and refurbish Carlton House at vast expense. The Government was so alarmed that Lord Liverpool, Lord Castlereagh and the Chancellor Nicholas Vansittart wrote to the spendthrift prince, warning him to rein in his spending as the only means of "weathering the impending storm"

The storm they feared broke in Manchester on 16 August 1819 when an estimated 60,000 men, women and children crowded onto St Peter's Field (now the site of the Radisson Hotel) to hear a powerful public speaker Henry "Orator" Hunt – the Tony Benn of his day – call for representation in Parliament for the burgeoning industrialised towns of the Midlands and the North, who had no MPs in the Commons to speak up for their people. And among the crowd was one Waterloo Man – John Lees – whose story can stand for many... (the story, of subsequent bloodshed, continues).

See also British Museum website for this illustration of the Peterloo Massacre:

The Manchester Yeomanry ride down women, children, and men, making for a platform (right) in the background, where Hunt stands with three supporters. The foremost points his sabre at a fainting woman with children round her, who is supported by a man; he says "None but the brave deserve the Fair." A little boy, holding his mother's kerchief, exclaims: "Oh pray Sir, doan't Kill Mammy, she only came to see Mr Hunt." Another man rides up furiously, saying, "Cut him [the boy] down, Cut him down." On the left the yeomanry ride forward in close formation. Above them the head of the Regent (poorly characterized) emerges from clouds, supporting the beam of a pair of scales. The heavier scale is inscribed 'Peculators' [Ministers and placemen], the other 'Reformers'. He says: "Cut them down, doan't be afraid, they are not Armed, courage my boys, and you shall have a vote of thanks, & he that Kills most shall be made a Knight errant [cf. No. 12811, &c.] and your exploits shall live for ever, in a Song, or second Chivey Chace." Hunt, hat in hand, exclaims: "Shame, Shame, Murder, Murder, Massacree [sic]." Two others echo "Shame." They have banners, one surmounted by a cap of Liberty.
Septemeber 1819. Hand-coloured etching

As has been said before in posts here, and in comments, it seems we are trapped in a loop - do you detect it? It's always us and them: us = ordinary people; them = the wealthy ruling elite and/or corporations. Like east and west, ne'er the twain shall meet, except in bloodshed and violence.

Oh...this is depressing...let's end with the song: Waterloo, the song with which ABBA won the Eurovision Song contest in 1974.