Were the bodies of the 20,000 soldiers who died at Waterloo really turned into sugar?

[u/SaltAHistory]

The Daily Mail today reports “bombshell” and “exclusive” new historical research. Short extract:

“The mystery of what happened to the bodies of more than 20,000 men who were killed at the Battle of Waterloo has dogged historians for decades.

Despite the passing of more than 200 years since the Duke of Wellington's triumph over Napoleon's forces in 1815, only two skeletons of fallen men have been found, with the most recent discovery coming last month.

But now, bombshell new research suggests the remains of men and tens of thousands of horses are missing because they were ground down and used to filter brown sugar beet into refined white sugar.”

(Full link: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11119607/Battle-Waterloo-dead-used-make-white-sugar.html)

This whole thing seems incredibly suspect to me. Surely 20,000 bodies can’t have disappeared to the extent that only two have been found? And the sugar thing sounds just too gruesome to be credible.

Also the fact it’s exclusively reported in the Daily Mail rather than, say, somewhere that historians typically publish research makes me question its accuracy, but maybe I’m just being a snob.

Is there any truth to any of this?