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During the Napoleonic Wars, dragoons generally assumed a cavalry role, though remaining a lighter class of mounted troops than the armored cuirassiers. Dragoons rode larger horses than the light cavalry and wielded straight, rather than curved swords. Emperor Napoleon often formed complete divisions out of his 30 dragoon regiments and used them as battle cavalry to break the enemy's main resistance. In 1809, French dragoons scored notable successes against Spanish armies at the Battle of Ocana and the Battle of Alba de Tormes. British heavy dragoons made devastating charges against French infantry at the Battle of Salamanca in 1812 and at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815. The Napoleonic Wars (1803-15) were a series of major conflicts pitting the French Empire and its allies, against a fluctuating array of European coalitions, primarily led and financed by the United Kingdom and paved the way for more than a decade of constant warfare. The Congress of Vienna, which started in 1814 and concluded in 1815, established the new borders of Europe and laid out the terms and conditions that ended the wars.
