On a field near the Belgian village of Waterloo, a Napoleon re-enactor, riding a white horse, gave orders to hundreds of people in military uniform. “Vive l’Empereur!” they shouted back.
The stand-in Napoleon, wearing a black bicorne hat, looked just like the real Napoleon, sharing his 5-foot-6 height, angular nose and light gray-blue eyes.
There was one big difference: He was not French, but American — an American with a French accent that is “quite horrific,” said Arnaud Springuel, an organizer of the annual battle re-enactment.
“For me, it’s not a problem,” Mr. Springuel said. “But the public doesn’t expect that from Napoleon,” he said.
For the 210th anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo, the organizers held their biggest re-enactment in a decade, with 2,200 actors restaging the battle last weekend before 17,000 spectators.
Mark Schneider, born on Long Island, secured the job over other would-be Napoleons, including from Belgium and Italy, in part because of his unrivaled ability to command respect on the battlefield, several organizers said.
“Even though it’s 200-plus years later, they look to me as their Napoleon, and I look to them as my Grande Armée,” said Mr. Schneider, 55.
For anyone who had an issue with his American accent, well, “haters gonna hate,” said Mr. Schneider, who lives in Williamsburg, Va., where he works as a historian and professional actor. He added that Napoleon himself, born in Corsica, spoke French with an Italian accent (especially when angry), so “it’s very Napoleon to speak French with an accent.”
Many of the re-enactors’ assignments aligned with their nationalities: German and Polish re-enactors formed the Prussian battalions, British fought with the British, and French with the French. But there were exceptions: Portuguese re-enactors studied Dutch phrases so they could follow their Dutch-speaking unit, Czech people fought with the French (the stylish uniforms were a draw, one said), and some Spaniards and Italians fought in a kilt-wearing Scottish battalion.
And then, of course, there was the American leader of the French army. Mr. Schneider has in recent years become the most sought-after Napoleon globally. “I get more street cred, if you will, because I rose up through the ranks,” he said, referring to his start as a rank-and-file re-enactment soldier. “I didn’t immediately make myself the emperor.”
In 2015, for the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo, organizers chose a French Napoleon, Frank Samson, a lawyer in Paris. But Mr. Samson’s retirement just after the battle sparked a search for replacements. For bigger anniversaries, like the 210th, organizers stage a larger event, while holding smaller re-enactments in other years.
Franky Simon, a re-enactment organizer who played Napoleon’s right-hand man, Marshal Michel Ney, said that organizers had to search far and wide for an emperor up to par for this year’s battle.
“For small events, we take a local Napoleon, and for big events, we take Mark,” said Mr. Simon, a Belgian librarian, praising Mr. Schneider’s equestrian skills. Last year, Jean-Gérald Larcin of Belgium played Napoleon for the pared down 209th anniversary.
On Sunday morning, on a wheat field rented from a farmer, war re-enactors and 100 horses staged the battle — which lasted around 10 hours in real life — in 90 minutes. One re-enactor had to be assisted off the field because of the heat, made more trying by the woolen uniforms as temperatures soared into the high 80s.
At the time of the 1815 battle, the real Napoleon Bonaparte, 45, had recently left exile on Elba and returned to power. At Waterloo, on June 18, he faced a coalition of European armies, led by Britain’s Duke of Wellington and Marshal Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher of Prussia. More than 60,000 men were killed, wounded or captured in the battle, which ended Napoleon’s reign and France’s quest to dominate Europe.
In a speech on Friday to hundreds of re-enactors, Michael Haynes, who played a British general, tied Waterloo to modern events.
“We are going to remind the world of how that tyrant was stopped and pulled down,” he said of Napoleon. “We will encourage Europe and the world that there is hope when faced with oppression.”
Mr. Haynes spent the nights leading up to the battle camping in one of the hundreds of tents erected a few miles from the French army’s encampment. (He confessed that he slept on an air bed, not a wooden and canvas one, like some of the most dedicated re-enactors).
While the mood among the allied forces before the Battle of Waterloo in 1815 was reported to have been anxious, the encampment last week was lively. Alcohol flowed freely, and drinking songs lasted until the early hours. When, at 7 a.m. one morning, someone started playing bagpipes, shouts of “shut up,” with expletives, could be heard from the tent of an annoyed re-enactor trying to sleep, according to Mair Mason, from Birmingham, England, who played a friend of the Duke of Wellington’s wife.
As for Mr. Schneider, after 20 years of leading the French army into mock battles across Europe, he plans to pass the baton following his career-crowning performance at Waterloo.
“There are a bunch of Napoleons popping up left and right,” he said. “I want to give them an opportunity. Whether they be the Polish Napoleon, the Dutch Napoleon, or the Belgian.” Or maybe, one day, Napoleon will be French again.
Jenny Gross is a reporter for The Times covering breaking news and other topics.
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