- Title: BELGIUM/FILE: Rare remains of soldier found on the site of the Battle of Waterloo
- Date: 15th June 2012
- Summary: BIERGES, BELGIUM (JUNE 14, 2012) (REUTERS) BOSQUET'S HAND SHOWING BOX WITH SMALL BLOCK OF WOOD WITH INITIALS 'C.B' FOUND WITH SKELETON BOSQUET GRABBING SKELETON'S TEETH BOSQUET LOOKING IN MICROSCOPE BOSQUET'S HAND MANIPULATING SKELETON'S TEETH BONES BOSQUET MANIPULATING BONES (SOUNDBITE) (French) ARCHAEOLOGIST DOMINIQUE BOSQUET SAYING: "We have an element that has the potential to become extremely interesting, it is the spoon here, because the cutlery was often attached to a particular regiment. So we may after restoration work... I don't know where I place it... we can't read anything on it right now but once it will be restored we may be able to see the stamp of the regiment and hence to identify the regiment he belonged to and then his nationality." BOX WITH SPOON AND BOX WITH COINS COINS IN BOX HALF FRANC COIN
- Embargoed: 30th June 2012 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: Belgium
- Country: Belgium
- Topics: History,Quirky
- Reuters ID: LVAC4R9LGSPE20UOZGOFAI3HHBF4
- Story Text: The skeleton of a soldier, probably British and with the initials C.B., has surfaced two centuries after he was shot in the chest during the Battle of Waterloo, in a find unrivalled in more than a century.
C.B. might have remained a few hundred metres (yards) behind the British and allied front line beside a field of wheat for centuries more, were it not for plans to build a car park in time for the 200th anniversary of the battle in 2015.
Dominique Bosquet, of the archaeological department of Belgium's Walloon region, watched as a mechanical digger stripped away 120 sections of the future car park last week, shouting for it to stop as it broke into the soldier's skull.
For the archaeologist, the discovery is simply ''exceptional''.
"The discovery is exceptional because it's the first time that we've found a soldier on location. There is another example in 1912 but it was proved that the skeleton was composed of two different skeletons so it was really a fake, a fake one that was forged at the time. Therefore, and as far I know, this is the first time that we've found a soldier on the spot where he died or where he was brought to," Bosquet said.
Finding a body near a battlefield may not seem unusual, particularly with some 30,000 believed to have been killed at Waterloo, 16 km (10 miles) south of central Brussels.
However, the British were particular about taking home their war dead, while French bodies were largely looted by locals before being pitched into mass graves.
Bosquet and other experts believe the soldier was probably from Britain, based on the location of his shallow grave behind the British lines.
C.B.'s remains are an almost entire skeleton, albeit with a shattered skull and missing both hands and a foot. Experts are expected to determine the age and his height next week.
One tooth is worn down, possibly from ripping open paper cones containing gunpowder.
His possessions are also illuminating - a musket ball is lodged in his chest; where a pocket would have been are some 20 coins, a rifle flint and a piece of material, perhaps the pocket itself or from a purse.
One of the coins, a half franc, was minted in 1811.
Two further items found beside a leg could serve to identify the dead soldier - or at least to narrow down the possibilities.
Bosquet believes a small block of wood found with the soldier, and with the letters C.B. etched on it, could indicate his name.
An iron spoon, now covered in soil, could then prove key, if perhaps the handle is embossed with his regiment.
"We have an element that has the potential to become extremely interesting, it is the spoon here, because the cutlery was often attached to a particular regiment. So we may after restoration work... I don't know where I place it... we can't read anything on it right now but once it will be restored we may be able to see the stamp of the regiment and hence to identify the regiment he belonged to and then his nationality," Bosquet said.
Bosquet said we may never know the identity of the soldier and C.B. could be fairly common initials. His job will be to narrow it down.
The Battle of Waterloo, fought on June 18, 1815, marked the final defeat of French emperor Napoleon Bonaparte to a coalition of forces under Britain's Duke of Wellington and Gebhard von Bluecher's Prussian army.
Napoleon, initially defeated in 1813, had escaped exile on the Mediterranean island of Elba and returned to power for a period now called the Hundred Days.
After Waterloo, he was confined on the Atlantic island of St Helena until his death in 1821. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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