Waterloo

by Tim Clayton

  Basil Jackson carried the duplicate order to Colonel Cathcart, Lord Greenock, to assemble the cavalry at Ninove, their headquarters, eleven miles west of Brussels. As he approached the town, Jackson encountered one or two orderly dragoons speeding to out-quarters and saw lights flickering in the nearby villages, which indicated that the German hussar who had left ahead of him had already arrived successfully.3 However, only Cathcart and Major Thornhill were at Ninove to write out orders, for almost all of the cavalry staff was with Lord Uxbridge at the ball. So there was a further delay before the 2nd Life Guards, based only a mile away, ‘having just received orders to march at a moment’s notice’, began to assemble ‘in complete marching order, with all forage and baggage, ready to commence its march’. Private Thomas Playford remembered that ‘about two or three in the morning of the 16th of June I happened to be awake and heard the notes of an English bugle at a distance.’ Sure enough, it was not long before their own bugler sounded the alarm, quickly followed by the notes of ‘to horse’.4

  Surgeon John James of the 1st Life Guards had dined with the officers of the 2nd after a review of the brigade, and ‘returned to Ninove replete with my friends’ excellent dinner and vintage wines at twelve o’clock on that fine warm night’. He slept through the alarm and was roused by his friend Captain Edward Kelly, who told him ‘the trumpet had been sounding “to horse” for an hour or more.’ His servant packed his things and he went over to Kelly’s for breakfast. ‘It was a lovely morning, the sun about to rise and our trumpets sounding “to horse” in every direction, the suddenness of the call being sufficient excuse for the troops being so little prepared and the tremendous air of bustle, clatter, and indeed confusion, that was over all.’

  As he strode, excited, to the captain’s quarters, he ‘met two Hussars, staggering down very drunk and all unconscious of the call to action around them. One said to his companion, “I don’t think I shall go to bed now.” One of our lads who heard him laughed and called out, “Belike you will be put to bed with a shroud this night, and know nothing about it.”’

  By four o’clock his own regiment was ready, with its baggage loaded, but they had to wait another four hours for the King’s Dragoon Guards to ride in last from their quarters six miles away. Their marching orders arrived shortly after daybreak, but they were ordered merely to march ten miles south to Enghien and there await further instructions; moreover ‘it was generally thought that it was only intended to concentrate the Army’.5

  Frederick Ponsonby, second son of the Earl of Bessborough, the young, sandy-haired commander of the 12th Light Dragoons, had been invited to Brussels to attend the Duchess of Richmond’s ball, but had learned of the attack before he got there and decided to ride back to Ninove instead. ‘We were on the ground at 6 o’clock in the morning, the rest of the cavalry, having further to come, did not arrive till nine or ten,’ he wrote, but Sir John Ormsby Vandeleur, Ponsonby’s commander, led his brigade off without waiting for the whole of the cavalry to reach the rendezvous. The hussars of generals Grant and Vivian started from further away, a good ten miles south-west, and left later. Some of the Royal Horse Artillery was also further away to the north and Captain Cavalié Mercer realised when his order to leave for Enghien arrived that his ammunition and supply wagons were scattered all over the place.6 Mercer was acting commander of G-troop and the voyage to Buenos Aires for an ill-fated campaign in 1807 had been his only active service, so this sudden call to arms was enormously exciting.

  Separate instructions were sent to the German hussars on the French border. The 2nd Regiment was ordered to remain on watch around Mons, and the 3rd was told to leave pickets in place on the border further north, so only 500 of their 700 men joined the army, riding direct to Enghien.7 The 1st left the frontier at midday for Braine-le-Comte. Wilhelm von Dörnberg’s regiments north of Brussels, having been delayed getting food and forage, then followed Wellington’s reserve southward via the capital.

  It took a long while simply to contact the most westerly troops. Sir Charles Colville, forty miles west of Brussels at Audenaerde, got orders for the 4th Division only at 6 a.m. and his troops were marching south-east towards Enghien by ten. Prince Frederick’s men assembled around noon, but could not march until the late afternoon, leaving behind 500 militiamen to garrison Audenaerde. Orders did not reach General Henry Clinton, commanding Hill’s 2nd Division, based thirty miles south-west of Brussels, until about 7 a.m. He had not been to the ball and was unaware of the emergency; it was not until around ten that his British regiments were gathered. Carl du Plat’s German brigade had been on an exercise since 2 a.m. and took the order to march immediately literally, leaving without rations or baggage, although by regulation these veteran legionaries already had iron rations in their packs.

  The 5th Division at Brussels had been prepared for a sudden start. Sergeant David Robertson of the 92nd Gordon Highlanders explained that ‘the orderly sergeants were desired to take a list of the men’s quarters, with the names of the streets, and the numbers of the houses. It was also arranged that every company and regiment should be billeted in the same, or the adjacent streets, to prevent confusion if called out at a moment’s warning.’ That day ‘the sergeants on duty were all in the orderly room till ten o’clock at night; and no orders having been issued, we went home to our quarters. I had newly lain down in bed when the bugle sounded the alarm, the drums beat to arms, bagpipes played, and all was in commotion.’ When the alarm sounded, ‘sergeants and corporals ran to the quarters of their respective parties to turn them out.’ Robertson ‘went to the quarter-master for bread, and four days’ allowance was given out of the store’. The men also received a pint of gin, four days’ ration of beef and 120 rounds of cartridge.8 Another veteran orderly sergeant, Ned Costello of the Rifles, a short, twenty-six-year-old Leinsterman, commented that of the rations he drew and handed out to his men, ‘the chief part of this was left behind, as none but old soldiers knew its value.’ Young soldiers gave the heavy rations to their hosts or left them on the pavement.9

  Although in theory the soldiers’ wives and camp followers were supposed to remain in Brussels, there is abundant evidence that this was not so in practice. A visitor who had arrived in Brussels earlier that day watched the scene from her rooms in the Hôtel de Flandre:

  Numbers were taking leave of their wives and children, perhaps for the last time, and many a veteran’s rough cheek was wet with the tears of sorrow. One poor fellow, immediately under our windows, turned back again and again, to bid his wife farewell, and take his baby once more in his arms; and I saw him hastily brush away a tear with the sleeve of his coat, as he gave her back the child for the last time, wrung her hand, and ran off to join his company, which was drawn up on the other side of the Place Royale. Many of the soldiers’ wives rushed out with their husbands to the field, and I saw one young English lady mounted on horseback, slowly riding out of town along with an officer, who, no doubt, was her husband.10

  The same visitor was nonetheless amused to see that:

  Into this confusion of soldiery quietly moved a long trail of carts from the country coming in to market as usual, with old Flemish women sitting among piles of cabbages, baskets of peas, early potatoes and strawberries, gaping with wonder at the strange scene around them as they jogged through the Place Royale and through the crowds of soldiers and the confusion of baggage wagons.11

  Once the companies were equipped, the battalions marched into the park in front of the Royal Palace, where the brigades were inspected.12 Basil Jackson returned in time to see the whole division gathered in the park and stood by the Hotel Bellevue as the veterans marched off. First came the 95th Rifles in forest green, with black facings and belts, then the 28th North Gloucesters playing ‘The British Grenadiers’, then the 42nd Highlanders, the Black Watch, ‘marching so steadily that the sable plumes of their bonnets scarcely vibrated’. The 79th Cameron and 92nd Gordon Highlanders were also wearing tartan kilts and plumed bonnets covered with b
lack ostrich feathers. Jackson watched, along with many others in the golden dawn, as Picton’s veteran division marched south along the broad street to the Porte de Namur.13

  An ensign of the Brunswick Guards arrived at the Allée Verte on the northern fringe of Brussels to find the Duke of Brunswick lying on the grass under the avenues of trees poring over a huge map, while he waited for his scattered battalions to march in. The commander of his hussars, Major von Cramm, had held a boozy party where they played music, sang songs and shot at a target and his men had hardly lain down to sleep when the alarm sounded, summoning them to the Allée Verte before daybreak. Since the more distant units had only received orders to move an hour after they were due at the rendezvous, the Duke marched off at sunrise with what was present, leaving three battalions, the Uhlans and artillery to follow. The artillery mustered at eight, reaching Waterloo at two in the afternoon; when, an hour further on, one of the Duke’s aides summoned them to hurry, they sent an advance guard to clear the way ahead by pushing the wounded and the baggage off the street.14

  Before dawn Wilhelm von Dörnberg arrived in Brussels from Mons. Having waited for more news from his outposts, then ridden into Binche and found the Prussians gone, he decided the campaign had probably begun and that he should report to headquarters. After getting a taste en route of the alarm at Braine-le-Comte, he was concerned that at Brussels there was still no sense of the real urgency of the situation and believed that it took his arrival to get the Duke of Wellington out of bed.

  Refreshed by his brief repose, the Duke sent Colonel Canning to fetch Sir Thomas Picton, who had slept at the Hotel d’Angleterre after his arrival in Brussels the previous evening. Picton abandoned his breakfast to join Wellington, Fitzroy Somerset and the Duke of Richmond in the park, where he found the Duke at his most formal and haughty:

  Picton’s manner was always more familiar than the duke liked in his lieutenants, and on this occasion he approached him in a careless sort of way, just as he might have met an equal. The duke bowed coldly to him, and said, ‘I am glad you are come, Sir Thomas; the sooner you get on horseback the better: no time is to be lost. You will take the command of the troops in advance. The Prince of Orange knows by this time that you will go to his assistance.’ Picton appeared not to like the duke’s manner; for when he bowed and left, he muttered a few words, which convinced those who were with him that he was not much pleased with his interview.15

  Picton nevertheless rode off after his men to reinforce the Prince of Orange.

  Meanwhile Constant at Braine-le-Comte had the troops belonging to the Prince’s corps assembled significantly earlier than the other elements of Wellington’s army. Karl von Alten’s 3rd Division had assembled at Soignies in the early evening, many of them crammed into the town’s huge church. Told to move in the small hours, they formed up in the marketplace and left immediately, receiving their ‘after orders’ as they marched, but their route to Nivelles led through thick woodland ‘and as it was not known how near the enemy might be, it was necessary to throw out an advanced guard and proceed with caution’. According to Sergeant Tom Morris, ‘the progress we made through the wood was so slow, that by eight o’clock in the morning we had not proceeded more than ten miles.’16

  At Enghien, where the Guards were already concentrated, the drums beat an hour after midnight, and the men stumbled from their quarters. There they waited for their officers to return from the ball and change their clothes, and the column eventually took the road south-east towards Braine-le-Comte around dawn.

  Wellington’s army was even further behind schedule than Blücher’s; if any battle were to begin early in the morning very little of it would be present. But they were now at least on the move.

  19

  The Emperor’s Orders

  16 June, 4–10 a.m.

  Around four o’clock Napoleon got up to study the reports from his generals and issue them with fresh orders. It looked as if the Prussians were behaving as he had wanted them to. They appeared to be retreating eastwards, and they had made no attempt to move north in order to link up with Wellington. He sent an aide to Frasnes to assess Ney’s situation, for yesterday’s events were bound to provoke a reaction from the enemy, but he hoped that the other army would also retreat. Napoleon later claimed that he had expected the rash Blücher to help Wellington, but did not expect Wellington to hurry to Blücher’s aid; he thought that a forceful attack would send them reeling in opposite directions, with each looking after his own national interest. In reality, he had underestimated their determination to help each other.1

  However, the immediate priority, whatever Wellington and Blücher might be doing, was to destroy the Prussian troops that had eluded him yesterday. To this end Napoleon’s first plan was to seize control of the roads leading towards Brussels from the Prussian bases in the east, block them with French troops, and then march on Brussels, defeating Wellington’s army or driving it to the sea. As the day’s events unfolded, however, he was to change his plans several times. A day intended to start with the completion of yesterday’s business against Ziethen’s corps and end with a march on Brussels, would evolve quite differently. To understand why things turned out as they did it is important to grasp how Napoleon’s appreciation of the opportunities open to him changed. Early that morning he did not anticipate having to fight two bloody battles during the day, and it was because he had to react to the unexpected that staff work and communication were to take on such importance as the day went on.

  By 6 a.m. Major-Général Soult was writing orders. Jean de Dieu Soult was a clever man who had been a difficult opponent for Wellington in the Peninsula. Cold, hard, ambitious and ruthless, in his role as one of Napoleon’s original marshals he had played a key part in Bonaparte’s glorious victories long ago. But Soult was a controversial choice for the job. Having served as chief of staff to General Lefebvre during the Fleurus campaign of 1794, he had some experience of the topography and conditions in that part of Belgium, and had been nominal chief of staff to Joseph Bonaparte in Spain, but he had not previously done the job with Napoleon. His deputy, Bailly de Monthion, resented his demotion to assistant, while the staff that Soult had hurriedly gathered had no experience of working together and was distinctly inferior to that of his long-trusted predecessor, Marshal Berthier. Inadequacies had already emerged in conflicting orders to d’Erlon that had resulted in two divisions and a cavalry brigade remaining miles behind the front. Moreover, Soult’s apparent enthusiasm for the role as war minister to Louis XVIII he had occupied until he was sacked on 11 March 1815 had made him very unpopular in an army that was largely Bonapartist or republican. He had reintroduced chaplains to regiments that had little love for priests, set up a monument to the émigrés who, wearing British uniforms, had been defeated by the French revolutionary government at Quiberon in 1795, and had prosecuted several of his current colleagues who had declared prematurely in favour of Napoleon. General Vandamme refused to shake his hand and would not take orders from him until made to do so by Napoleon.

  Napoleon had decided to emphasise Marshal Grouchy’s authority by giving him the prime role that morning. Grouchy was to take command of the corps led by Gérard and Vandamme and march, first on Sombreffe to cut the road from Namur to Nivelles, and then on the nearby town of Gembloux to cut the road from Namur to Brussels. He was to carry out extensive reconnaissance, especially towards Namur, to discover as much as possible about the location of Prussian forces.2

  As Napoleon’s most recently appointed marshal, promoted in April after his defeat of the Duc d’Angoulême in Provence, Emmanuel de Grouchy was the senior ranking officer after Ney and Soult and had to be given this command, though it is questionable whether he was up to the task. He came from the liberal aristocracy, his sister being the Girondin intellectual Sophie de Condorcet; Grouchy had shared her principles, and had been ejected from the Royal Guard for supporting reform in 1789. He became a general under the Republic, but quickly accepted Bonaparte’s r
égime, distinguishing himself at Eylau and Friedland and commanding a cavalry corps in Russia. Unemployed under the King, Grouchy rallied to Napoleon and won the swift victory over royalist forces in Provence that caused Napoleon to make him a marshal. The nephew of Grouchy’s wife wrote that Grouchy was an extremely distinguished, brave cavalry officer, but had never been in overall command and had no experience of commanding infantry and combining arms. He was little known by the soldiers, little liked by his colleagues, weak, and incapable of taking a decision. Above all, he was fearful of displeasing Napoleon, even to the point of acting against his own instinct. A long habit of passive obedience had robbed him of initiative.3

  To support Grouchy’s aggressive thrust, Antoine Drouot was to march the Guard to Fleurus. Meanwhile the comte de Lobau was to wait at the crossroads outside Charleroi, ensuring that the prisoners and the wounded were sent back to Avesnes, and protecting the artillery park, which contained the reserve ammunition. From there he could reinforce either Grouchy or Marshal Ney, who was on the road towards Brussels.

  Soult’s orders to Ney assumed that the hostile force at Quatre Bras would have retreated during the night towards either Nivelles or Brussels, as General Lefèbvre-Desnouëttes had anticipated. Ney was to occupy Quatre Bras and then scout ahead along the Nivelles and Brussels roads. If at all possible, he was to place an advance guard at Genappe, three miles nearer Brussels, and a division at Marbais, a village halfway between Quatre Bras and Sombreffe. Soult instructed Kellermann’s corps of cuirassiers to join Ney. The light cavalry of the Guard and the 1st Hussars were also to ride to Marbais, unless they were already engaged in following the enemy.