This film introduces the campaign, Napoleon's return to France and the armies of the protagonists in this great campaign before visiting the scene of the opening moves that, in his own words, had the Duke of Wellington Humbugged', before travelling to the fields of the twin battles of Ligny and Quatre Bras.

Napoleon was supremely confident that he could bludgeon his way through to Brussels and opened the battle with an attack one of Wellington's forward bastion of Hougoumont and a bombardment of the allied lines with a grand battery. The attack on Hougoumont developed into 'a battle within a battle', while the bombardment was only a prelude to the attack of D'Erlon's corps.

This programme takes the viewer to the heart of the great battle of Waterlo, covering three of the important phases of the battle during the period that the Duke of Wellington's described as 'hard pounding', as the Prussians closed in on Plancenoit, while in the British centre repeated attacks by the cream of French cavalry broke on the allied squares.

With the Prussians closing in on his flank but house behind schedule Wellington was heard to mutter 'Give me Blucher or give me night' as his battered army clung to the ridge at Mont St Jean. Napoleon in his last attempt to bludgeon his way through to Brussels released the 'never defeated' Imperial Guard but they were thrown back and the pursuit to Paris began.