Mystery surrounds what happened to the bodies of Waterloo militaries

Were the bones of fallen Battle of Waterloo soldiers sold as fertiliser?

Thousands of soldiers died on the Belgium battlefield yet very few human remains have been found.

A study by the University of Glasgow's Professor Tony Pollard suggests fertiliser is the most probable outcome of such a bloodied affair, but the archaeologist says it isn't quite a situation of 'case closed'.

Publishing his results in the peer-reviewed Journal of Conflict Archaeology exactly 207 years since the historic conflict, Professor Pollard, Director of the Centre for Battlefield Archaeology at the University of Glasgow, demonstrates original data comprising of newly found battlefield descriptions and drawings.

These include letters and personal memoirs from a Scottish merchant living in Brussels at the time of the battle, James Ker, who visited in the days following the battle and describes men dying in his arms.

Together, the visitor accounts describe the exact locations of three mass graves containing up to 13,000 bodies. But will this new data lead to a mass grave discovery of the long-lost bones of those who gave their lives in this battle, which finally concluded a 23-year long war?

Professor Pollard says that this is unlikely: “Artistic licence and hyperbole over the number of bodies in mass graves notwithstanding, the bodies of the dead were clearly disposed of at numerous locations across the battlefield, so it is somewhat surprising that there is no reliable record of a mass grave ever being encountered.

“At least three newspaper articles from the 1820s onwards reference the importing of human bones from European battlefields for the purpose of producing fertiliser.

“European battlefields may have provided a convenient source of bone that could be ground down into bone-meal, an effective form of fertiliser. One of the main markets for this raw material was the British Isles.”

Professor Pollard explained: “Waterloo attracted visitors almost as soon as the gun smoke cleared. It’s likely that an agent of a purveyor of bones would arrive at the battlefield with high expectations of securing their prize. Primary targets would be mass graves, as they would have enough bodies in them to merit the effort of digging the bones.

“Local people would have been able to point these agents to the locations of the mass graves, as many of them would have vivid memories of the burials taking place or may even have helped with the digging.”

“It’s also possible that the various guidebooks and travelogues that described the nature and location of the graves could have served essentially as treasure maps complete with an X to mark the spot.

“On the basis of these accounts, backed up by the well attested importance of bone meal in the practice of agriculture, the emptying of mass graves at Waterloo in order to obtain bones seems feasible, and the likely conclusion is that.”

But, to determine once and for all, as part of his role as the Lead Academic and an Archaeological Director at the charity Waterloo Uncovered, Professor Pollard will help to lead an “ambitious”, several years-long geophysical survey, involving veterans who will join the dig to provide insight to world-class archaeologists. In turn they receive care and recovery.

Professor Pollard added: “The next stage is to head back out to Waterloo, to attempt to plot grave sites resulting from the analysis of early visitor accounts reported here.

“If human remains have been removed on the scale proposed then there should be, at least in some cases, archaeological evidence of the pits from which they were taken, however truncated and poorly defined these might be.

“Covering large areas of the battlefield over the coming years, we will look to identify areas of previous ground disturbance to test the results of the source review and distribution map and, in conjunction with further documentary research and some excavation, will provide a much more definitive picture of the fate of the dead of Waterloo.”

Image by Chris Van Houts.  

Waterloo Uncovered

Waterloo Uncovered is an archaeology project involving military veterans and serving personnel who have been injured or are suffering from PTSD.

Working in partnership with some of Europe’s top universities, and through the unique perspective of a team comprised of archaeologists, veterans, and serving soldiers, Waterloo Uncovered aims to understand war and its impact on people - and to educate the public about it.