Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher in the context of "Battle of Waterloo"

The Battle of Lützen, fought on 2 May 1813 near the town of Lützen in Saxony, was a major engagement during the War of the Sixth Coalition. It pitted Napoleon Bonaparte's French forces against a coalition army of Prussian and Russian troops commanded by Generals Wittgenstein and Blücher. The battle marked Napoleon's attempt to reassert dominance in Central Europe following his disastrous retreat from Russia in 1812. Although the Allies initially gained ground and inflicted significant damage on the French forces, Napoleon's tactical brilliance and use of concentrated reserves allowed him to turn the tide of the battle. The French ultimately secured a costly victory, forcing the Allies to retreat.

In the Battle of Bautzen (20–21 May 1813), a combined Prusso-Russian army, retreating after their defeat at Lützen and massively outnumbered, was pushed back by Napoleon but escaped destruction. Some sources claim that Marshal Michel Ney failed to block their retreat. The Prussians were led by General Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher, and the Russians by General Peter Wittgenstein.

The Waterloo campaign, also known as the Belgian campaign (15 June – 8 July 1815) was fought between the French Army of the North and two Seventh Coalition armies, an Anglo-allied army and a Prussian army. Initially the French army had been commanded by Napoleon Bonaparte, but he left for Paris after the French defeat at the Battle of Waterloo. Command then rested on Marshals Soult and Grouchy, who were in turn replaced by Marshal Davout, who took command at the request of the French Provisional Government. The Anglo-allied army was commanded by the Duke of Wellington and the Prussian army by Field Marshall Graf von Blücher.

The war between France and the Seventh Coalition came when the other European Great Powers refused to recognise Napoleon as Emperor of the French upon his return from exile on the island of Elba, and declared war on him, rather than France, as they still recognised Louis XVIII as the king of France and considered Napoleon a usurper. Rather than wait for the Coalition to invade France, Napoleon decided to attack his enemies and hope to defeat them in detail before they could launch their combined and coordinated invasion. He chose to launch his first attack against the two Coalition armies cantoned in modern-day Belgium, then part of the newly formed United Kingdom of the Netherlands, but until the year before part of the First French Empire.

The Battle of Ligny, in which French troops of the Armée du Nord under the command of Napoleon I defeated part of a Prussian army under Field Marshal Blücher, was fought on 16 June 1815 near Ligny in what is now Belgium. The result was a tactical victory for the French, but the bulk of the Prussian army survived the battle in good order, was reinforced by Prussian troops who had not fought at Ligny, and played a role two days later at the Battle of Waterloo. Ligny was the last victory in Napoleon's military career. In the culminating moment of this battle Blücher was wounded and carried off the battlefield, and was replaced by his chief of staff, Lieutenant General Gneisenau.

The Battle of Quatre Bras was fought on 16 June 1815, as a preliminary engagement to the decisive Battle of Waterloo that occurred two days later. The battle took place near the strategic crossroads of Quatre Bras and was contested between elements of the Duke of Wellington's Anglo-allied army and the left wing of Napoleon Bonaparte's French Armée du Nord under Marshal Michel Ney. The battle was a tactical victory for Wellington (as he possessed the field at dusk), but because Ney prevented him going to the aid of Blücher's Prussians who were fighting the French army under the command of Napoleon Bonaparte at Ligny it was a strategic victory for the French.