Alternate battle of Waterloo

Waterloo. Alternate outcome.

Following the August 11th 1814 treaty of Fontainebleau Napoleon abdicated the French throne and was exiled to Elba. The former French emperor did not stay on the tiny island forever though and on February 26th 1815 managed to escape and return to France.
Following his return to Paris Napoleon proclaimed himself as Emperor once more and hastily prepared and army of men to fight for his throne. He sent this army, under his personal command of course, to the Dutch occupied country of Belgium with the intent of defeating any force sent against him.
In OTL the following battle of Waterloo ended in a crushing defeat for Napoleon, and his final abdication of the French throne. Following the battle he was captured and sent off to the small island of Saint Helena.
But what if that was not the case? What if instead of suffering a massive defeat at Waterloo Napoleon manages to win the battle and smash the armies arrayed against him? Here is one possible scenario.

Ligny, 16th of June 1815.

In our time line this was the last battle which Napoleon won before Waterloo. And in this version of events it is the same. Napoleon manages to smash the Prussian army in the battle and send them packing to the British army.

The key difference in this time line however is the death of the Prussian general Blucher (He nearly died in our time line when his horse was shot and fell on him) during the height of the battle. With no leader the Prussian army collapses and retreats in disarray towards General Wellington and his ninety thousand Anglo-Dutch troops.

The defeat at Ligny makes Wellingtons position at Quatre Bras untenable and he chooses to move to a pre scouted position overlooking the town of Waterloo, the gateway to Brussels. Meanwhile Napoleon dispatches Field Marshal Ney to defeat what is left of the Prussian army, which he does in a brief but vicious battle. This means that unlike our time line Wellington does not receive a steady stream of fresh Prussian troops to replace lost or tired units.

On the 18th of June Napoleon engages wellington in a series of brutal forward attacks which significantly weaken the Anglo-Dutch armies center. Only the fall of night saves them from defeat and allows them to redeploy troops from the flanks to fill in the gaps.

The next morning sees Napoleon make the first of six charges into the re-enforced Anglo-Dutch line. Wellingtons army manages to survive five of the attacks an inflict heavy losses on the French. But on the sixth charge the French break through and overwhelm the exhausted English center. 

Wellington attempts to organize a counter attack to shore up his position and re-establish the center, but a cannon fires a ball which kills him.

With no leader the center of the army collapses quickly and is split into two separate parts with the French in the middle. Here Napoleon sends in what little reserves he has left to break the flanks of the Anglo-Dutch army. By the end of the day this is accomplished and Waterloo is in Napoleons hands.

In total over thirty thousand English and Dutch troops are killed. fifty thousand Prussians are killed, and the French loose over forty thousand men.

Aftermath.

Following the battle the leaders of Europe are stunned. Two of the finest Generals they had are dead. Most of the Prussian army in annihilated, and the French appear to be stronger than ever. Napoleon is once again Emperor of the French and holds southern Belgium. He appears to be on the cusp of waging another massive invasion of Europe and plunging the continent into another period of brutal warfare.

However that does not happen. Rather Napoleon sends ambassadors to Britain, Prussia, Austria and Russia with a request of peace. This unexpected move on the emperors part (Napoleon was a warmonger at heart)  confuses the Allies so much that they pause and choose to listen to any peace deals Napoleon might offer.

Eventually the treaty of Amsterdam is signed which gives France all of the French speaking portions of Belgium and recognizes Napoleon Bonaparte as Emperor of France. Peace finally settles on Europe and everyone breaths a sigh of relief, even if confusion still reigns as to why Napoleon had offered peace in the first place.

What no one outside of France will know for quite some time though is that Napoleon is no longer the sole ruler of France. Following the victory at Waterloo a number of prominent army officials step forward and force Napoleon to give some of his power to a democratically elected Assembly which will elect a President to co-rule the empire. Napoleon does not like it, but with the only alternative being another exile he accepts and signs the French Constitution.

Meanwhile abroad the British decide to maintain a close eye on the French by supporting the Dutch and Prussians. Prussia remains a major power on the continent while the Dutch become a naval power once again. This is done in the hopes that if Napoleon should wish to declare war once more he would fight only the Prusso-Dutch and not the British, leaving them free to run the largest empire in world history.

France remains a European power, who`s only foreign ally is the United States, Many of the colonies claimed by France in the late nineteenth century are claimed by either the Dutch, or the British and a series of wars break out in the 1860`s and 80`s between the Anglo-Dutch, Prussian alliance and the Franco-Americans when the US splits into two nations following a rebellion over states rights (OTL Civil war only with less emphasis on slavery).

Stranger people of History. Bazooka Charlie.

The second world war is filled with interesting characters from Winston Churchill to cocaine addict Herman Goering, who led Germanies air force in the war. But all of these people, Churchill especially, pale in comparison to major Charles Carpenter. A man known to history as Bazooka Charlie.
The good major was a pilot attached to the first bombardment division of the United States Army. He was not a combat pilot who flew missions in iconic aircraft like P-51 Mustang fighters or B-17 flying fortresses. Rather Charlie flew a l-4 Grasshopper observation plane named Rosie the Rocketeer. That may sound like a weird name for and airplane that has no armament, but we will get to that later in the story.
Now Charlies job was to act as an airborne artillery observer. Basically he flew around and watched were artillery shells landed and reported it to the gunners for correction. Overall not the most exiting job to have during the biggest armed conflict in human history.
However Charlie did not let that stop him. One day he realized that during his flying he saw quite a number of German tanks, tanks he could not kill because he had no guns on his plane. He had an idea however and with the help of an ordinance technician he fitted six Bazooka rocket launchers on his planes wings (Hence the name).
Well from then on whenever Charlie saw anything moving he shot at it. Proved to be a good shot to. At the end of the war he could claim several armored cars destroyed, a number of regular trucks. And six tanks, two of which were Tiger tanks.
Bazooka Charlie did not limit his "heroics" to the air however and during a German attack commandeered a M-4 Sherman tank and went at them. He shot at several enemy tanks and soldiers, but the highlight of the battle was when he fired on a friendly Sherman tank equipped with a bulldozer blade. Fortunately for everyone the tank was not destroyed and only lost its blade.
When the battle was over Charlie was arrested and threatened with a court-martial for not only shooting at a friendly tank, but stealing a tank to shoot with in the first place.
The court-martial did not stick however as he was the personal pilot of the commander of the 4th armored division and a favorite of US General Patton. Instead he was given a medal and promoted to colonel. His medals were the Bronze star and Airmedal with oak cluster.
Well when the war ended Charlie was kicked out of the army and went home back in the states. He got a job which required him to ride a train from one side of town to the other. On his way home everyday he would throw his bag out the window just before the train reached the station. After a while of this going on someone finally found the nerve to ask him why he did it. He said "Well my house is just over there and I don't want to carry my bag".

Loss of empre. Alternate Spain post Napoleonic wars

In our time line Spain had pretty much managed to loose all of their once vast colonial empire. But that not have been the case...

Loss of empire. 1812-1822.

By 1812, when the first Spanish constitution was signed into effect, Spain was in turmoil. Years of brutal French occupation and guerrilla warfare against their oppressive regime had destroyed Spanish society and torn the government apart. But perhaps even more disconcerting for many was the state of the many and far flung Spanish colonies.
None of the colonies had accepted the Bonaparte’s as the true rulers of Spain and all established governments in exile which ruled the colony in the name of Spain, but in reality were for all intents and purposes independent of the true Spanish government in Cadiz. When Ferdinand the seventh became king of Spain once more he expected all that to change and sent armies to retake the colonies from what he viewed as revolutionary control.
His armies had managed to defeat the majority of the rebellions by 1816 but before peace could be appreciated a second wave of revolts, even more destructive than before, swept the empire. Unlike previously when the colonies had simply asked for greater representation in the Spanish government, the colonies now sought outright independence from the empire.
Part of the reason for this move was the king Ferdinand who soon after his coronation had dissolved the 1812 constitution and had reinstated autocratic rule in Spain. Rather than treating his colonial subject, who had contributed many men, guns and much money to his supporters during the occupation, he treated them as children in need of punishment. Thinking that his power was given by God himself he believed that he knew what was best and refused to entertain the notion that anyone else could ever be right. That was especially true of his colonies who he thought of as stupid.
Thus the governments of the colonies began a series of revolts which by the end of the year had practically caused the end of the Spanish empire. That is not to say that Spain did not try to keep ahold of their colonies, in fact up until the eighteen seventies there was serious talk in Madrid of launching attempts to regain their empire.
However their attempts were all in vain and it was not until Ferdinand was killed in 1819 that change would come about. Ferdinand’s brother Carlos had had his brother assassinated to ensure that he could claim the throne by killing his brother before he could father a child. This accomplished Carlos proclaimed himself king and attempted to exile Ferdinand’s wife Maria Christina.]
At this point Spain broke out into a civil war which pitted troops loyal to either Maria of Carlos against eachother. Carlos`s main support came from the northern regions of Spain while Maria held control of most major centres of  trade and population along the coast and to the south. Despite her larger armies and greater public support it was not until 1822 that she was able to defeat Carlos and send him into exile in Portugal.
Soon afterwards Maria decided to cut her losses and in a series of treaties granted independence to Mexico under the first empire, Gran Columbia, Argentina and Chile. Spain would continue to rule over Cuba and Puerto Rico in the Caribbean, and the Philippines and Guam in the Pacific. 
Although she was the monarch who would grant independence to a large part of Spain’s colonial empire she never intended it to be permanent and until the day she died in 1854 she planned to retake her lost colonies. All that was lacking was the gold to fund such a move.