Butte du Lion
Butte du Lion - Lion's Mound on the battlefield of Waterloo. Installed in 1826 and inscribed XVIII JUNI MDCCCXV - 18 June 1815, the date of the battle. The mound is 141 ft. (43 m) in height.
"About 1/4 M. to the right rises the Mound of the Belgian Lion, 200 ft. in height, thrown up on the spot where the Prince of Orange was wounded in the battle. The lion was cast by Cockerill of Liège, with the metal of captured French cannon, and is said to weigh 28 tons. The French soldiers, on their march to Antwerp in 1832, hacked off part of the tail, but Marshal Gérard protected the monument from further injury. The mound commands the best survey of the battlefield..."--Baedeker 1910.
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Belgium became independent from the Netherlands in 1830 and was occupied by Germany during World Wars I and II. It has prospered in the past half century as a modern, technologically advanced European state and member of NATO and the EU. Tensions bet... ... read more 
