Battle re-enactment ends in mass slaughter...again

Thousands lay dead in a field outside Brussels, Belgium last night as authorities picked their way through the remains of a Battle of Waterloo re-enactment gone horribly wrong. A hardcore of French and British revisionists from the respective Battle Re-enactment Societies, who were at the centre of the battle, are understood to have attacked each other with blunt instruments for no apparent reason and events quickly spiraled out of control.

Educated men and women of all ages reportedly assaulted each other with an array of weapons ranging from rifles to swords to hoes to wheelbarrows to plastic chickens with no one exactly sure of what was happening and who was fighting whom, much like the original in many respects.

Even spectators and their families were said to have been drawn into the growing fray, some against their wishes. The generals representing Napoleon and the Duke of Wellington were the last to find out, only becoming fully aware as the first blows from large logs and small rocks landed on their skulls.

At the end, only a few British men could be found nursing their gaping wounds down at the local pub to explain what had happened, not that they were entirely sure themselves after 17 pints each. Authorities are still trying to piece together...well, everything.

One elderly British observer, who claimed to have been at the original battle and was lucky enough to escape a second time, said: 'I thought it a startlingly realistic display overall, but it didn't have the same sheer volume of blood and guts as the original, and I can't remember any women and children getting sliced in half the first time round either.'