New research suggests that Napoleon’s crushing defeat at Waterloo was, in part, an Indonesian volcano’s fault.
New research suggests that Napoleon's crushing defeat at Waterloo was, in part, an Indonesian volcano's fault. Matthew Genge, a scientist with Imperial College London, found that when Mount Tambora erupted in 1815, "electrically charged volcanic ash short-circuited Earth's atmosphere…causing global poor weather." In the case of Europe, the bad weather came in the form of heavy rains. "Rainy and muddy conditions helped the Allied army defeat the French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte at the Battle of Waterloo," according to a university press release. The research behind that conclusion involved taking a detailed look at how volcanic ash moves upward. "Volcanic plumes and ash both can have negative electrical charges and thus the plume repels the ash, propelling it high in the atmosphere," Genge said. He further noted that, in the case of Tambora eruption, it made its way into the ionosphere, where it triggered "a pulse of cloud formation," and, ultimately, the rain that played a role in changing "the course of European history."
