File:18 June 1815 – Victory at Waterloo – Battle of Wavre.jpg

English: Plaque affixed on the façade of Saint-Jean-Baptiste's church of Wavre, Belgium, on the right of the entrance.

The plaque reads :
Le 18 juin 1815, l'artillerie française bombarde les troupes prussiennes retranchées dans Wavre.
Hommage aux victimes.
Un boulet est encastré dans un pilier de l'église.
Translation
On June 18, 1815, the French artillery bombarded the Prussian troops entrenched in Wavre.
Tribute to the victims.
A ball is embedded in a pillar of the church.

Although Napoleone Buonaparte had already fled the main battlefield before dark on that memorable 18 June 1815, without bothering to concede defeat for fear of the treatment he knew he would receive from Feldmarschall Blücher, the fight went on to the South and East of Waterloo, like here in and around Wavre where the Prussian army was stationned since their arrival by mid-June.
The remains of the French army still in fighting order bombarded the town and its inhabitants, before being repelled by Lieutenant-General Johann von Thielmann (1765-1824) and driven back to France.

Rare are the thoughts spared for the civilian victims of the napoléonic régime, all over Europe.

Equally rare are the thoughts spared for the helpless troops too commonly used as ammunition.