滑铁卢战役200周年 至今影响世界的5件事

It might be 200 years since the Battle of Waterloo on Thursday, but the repercussions of the battle are still being felt today.

到周四，滑铁卢战役将已经过去200年，但人们至今仍能感受到它带来的影响。

Waterloo laid the groundwork for Nato and the United Nations

奠定了北约和联合国的基础

Only 36% of Wellington’s army were actually British, the rest comprised of Dutch and Belgian nationals and soldiers from various German duchies. Then there was the 50,000 strong Prussian army (Prussia later became a part of Germany), which worked in alliancewith Wellington’s forces to defeat the French, which explains why U.K.’s former defence chief Lord Bramall called Waterloo “the first Nato operation.

威灵顿的军队中只有36%的英国人，其余来自荷兰、比利时和各德意志公国。此外还有5万名强壮的普鲁士(后来成为德国的一部分)士兵和威灵顿的军队一起击败了法国人。这就是为什么前英国国防总参谋长彭英武称滑铁卢为“第一次北约合作。

In Lord Byron’s poem, Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, “united nations was mentioned in the Waterloo Passage. This was picked up by Winston Churchill when discussing the allied war aims after Pearl Harbor and the term was eventually used to name the famous global organisation.

拜伦勋爵的诗作《恰尔德·哈罗德游记》中关于滑铁卢的段落里提到了“联合国家一词。在珍珠港事件后，温斯顿·丘吉尔在讨论联合作战的目标时使用了这个词。最后，它成为了著名国际组织的名称。

It paved the way for the U.K. to become a global power

奠定了英国全球霸权的基础

The Vienna Treaty that followed Waterloo didn’t give the U.K. land in Europe, but it did hand over territorial possessions, such as modern day South Africa, Trinidad and Sri Lanka. These become the strategic naval bases the U.K. subsequently used to control its vast colonial empire.

滑铁卢战役后的维也纳会议上，英国虽然没有得到位于欧洲大陆的领土，但却获得了今天的南非、特立尼达、斯里兰卡等地的所有权。这些地区成为英国海军的战略基地，随后被用来控制它庞大的殖民帝国。

And laid the foundations for the eventual emergence of the U.S. as the world’s superpower

奠定了美国最终获得世界霸权的基础

With war disrupting European industry, demand for American products increased massively during the Napoleonic Wars, with its neutrality allowing it to sell to both sides.

战争破坏了欧洲的工业。拿破仑战争期间，对美国产品的需求大大增加。由于美国的中立身份，它可以向交战双方出售货物。

The battle heralded an age of German nationalism, eventually leading to World War II

预示了德意志的国家化，最终导致第二次世界大战

The Prussians’ contribution to the defeat of the French Army at Waterloo entered the mythology of the Prussian state, creating a sense of nationalism which then played a key part in the formation of the new German Empire after 1870. Ultimately, this led to the hyper-nationalism which enabled the rise of the Nazi party and the Third Reich.

滑铁卢战役中，普鲁士为击败法国军队贡献了力量。这成为普鲁士王国的神话，由此产生的民族主义在1870年后成立德意志帝国时起到了重要作用。最终，这滋生出极端民族主义，并导致了纳粹党和第三帝国的诞生。

It has implications for the future of the European Union

它暗示了欧盟的未来

Waterloo was not just a military battle. It was also a battle between the concepts of the nation state and the supranational state. The U.K. and its allies were fighting Napoleon’s desire to impose a single state in Europe, which he would control. Napoleon’s defeat meant the victory of the nation state over other concepts such as Napoleon’s French Revolutionary Empire and Holy Roman Empire before it. Two hundred years later, the idea of a pan-European state has become more fashionable but is resisted by many.

滑铁卢战役不仅是军事上的，它还是国家与超国家之间的观念之争。拿破仑的失败意味着他的法国大革命帝国和之前的神圣罗马帝国的理念输给了国家主义。200年后的今天，泛欧洲的理念越来越流行，但仍然存在许多反对者。