Baron von Aacken, the Waterloo Hero Who Committed Suicide
In London in 1817, two years after the battle of Waterloo, a shocking event took place. A foreign gentleman who had arrived in the country three months earlier, shot himself in the head at the entrance to Carlton House in Pall Mall, the residence of the Prince Regent. The melancholy background story tells us a lot about the unequal recognition and reward that was offered to the commanders in this allied victory in which British, Prussian, Hanoverian, Bavarian, Belgian, Piedmontese, Sardinians and even some Frenchmen fought side by side against the Imperial forces. The facts were reported in The Gentleman's Magazine a couple of weeks after his death, when a jury at the inquest pronounced a verdict of suicide caused by insanity, and having read various testimonies from his military colleagues, said that von Aacken had played a vital, key role in winning the battle of Waterloo. Without him the allied army would never have regained its position after the French attacks had