Napoleon (1769-1821) escaped from Elba, landed near Cannes and was joined by Michel Ney (1769-1815) and a large French army. He marched to Paris, where he resumed power, driving King Louis XVIII (1755-1824) from the throne and beginning his rule of a "Hundred Days." Austria, Britain, Russia, and Prussia formed an alliance against Napoleon and planned to invade France. Taking the offensive, Napoleon, at the head of a 125,000-man army, marched north into Belgium, planning ot crush the nearest allied armies. He seized Charleroi and won a victory over the Prussians under Gebhard von Blucher (1749-1819) at Ligny on June 16, 1815. That same day, French forces under Ney suffered defeat by the British under Sir Arthur Wellesley, Lord Wellington (1769-1852), at Quatre-Bras nearby but managed to prevent Wellington's forces from aiding Blucher's against Napoleon. At Waterloo on June 18, 1815, Napoleon attacked Wellington, whose forces, aided by Blucher's Prussians, routed the French. The allies then marched without opposition to Paris, forced Napoleon to abdicate, and shipped Napoleon as a prisoner of war to St. Helena in the South Atlantic, were he remained for the rest of his life.