The gruesome practice may have taken place at other Napoleonic battle sites, with sugar factories nearby
The mystery of what happened to the bodies of the more than 20,000 men killed at the Battle of Waterloo has preoccupied historians for decades.
Despite the fact that more than 200 years have passed since the Duke of Wellington’s triumph over Napoleon’s forces in 1815, only two skeletons of fallen men have been found, with the most recent discovery coming last month.
But now, bombshell new research suggests the remains of the men and tens of thousands of horses are missing because they were ground up and used to make white sugar, the Daily Mail reports.
The gruesome practice may have taken place at other Napoleonic battle sites, with sugar factories nearby.
The factory in Waterloo, Belgium, was only three miles from the sites of mass graves from which the bones of fallen men and animals may have been removed.
The new research was carried out by respected historians Bernard Wilkin and Robin Schäfer, together with archaeologist Professor Tony Pollard, from the University of Glasgow.
The team discovered dozens of contemporary written references in Belgian, German and French archives, suggesting the bones were used for Belgium’s growing sugar industry.
Some of this sugar could also have ended up in Britain, for use in the production of sweet treats or to sweeten tea and coffee.
“It is undoubtedly the most exciting discovery about the Battle of Waterloo in recent times,” the researchers say. The research also builds on earlier work by Professor Pollard showing that some of the bones of the Waterloo dead were ground up and used to make phosphate fertiliser.
The Battle of Waterloo also went down in history as the great victory of Britain (followed by the so-called Pax Britannica until the outbreak of World War I) which put an end to the Napoleonic regime in Europe. However, the price paid at Waterloo was very heavy.
More than 200,000 men, 60,000 horses and more than 500 guns were crammed into just five square kilometers of land. About 50,000 soldiers died there, while tens of thousands were injured.
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