by Tim Clayton
24
Probing Attacks on Saint-Amand and Ligny
16 June, 2.30–3.30 p.m.
Seven miles south-east, the light of battle was in Napoleon’s eyes and he was enjoying himself. He had launched a first probing attack on the Prussian-held villages beneath the windmill hill at Brye, the first move in what he hoped would be a major engagement and a glorious victory. He now thought that he probably had a Prussian army in front of him, although he was still uncertain of the enemy’s real strength and determination: only one corps of about 30,000 Prussians was plainly visible, whereas some 40,000 French infantry and 11,000 cavalry were in motion around Fleurus. But Napoleon knew that more Prussians were hidden further back and more still were arriving. They were evidently not going to attack him, but would they stand and fight? If they did, he would gradually intensify the fighting until they were trapped there and then, with Ney’s help, he would wipe them out. After that, with one allied army removed from the board, he would turn on the other.
Prussian brigades normally contained three infantry regiments, one regiment of cavalry and a battery of artillery. Karl von Steinmetz’s brigade now stood in full sight of the French on the heights behind Saint-Amand and at Brye, with his Silesian Hussars on the right flank ordered to throw out a chain of patrols to maintain contact with Wellington. On Steinmetz’s left, between the headquarters windmill and Ligny, stood Otto von Pirch’s brigade with his cavalry and guns in reserve. Blücher rode among the regiments near the windmill saying, ‘Look over there! The enemy is gathering at Fleurus! Get ready, this is the moment, children!’
The brigades of Generals von Jagow and Henckel, which had done less hard work than the rest of I Corps the previous day, were down in the valley in the front line. Three of Jagow’s nine battalions marched forward at 11 a.m. to defend Saint-Amand, where they joined a company of green-coated Silesian Jägers and the rifle-armed volunteer Jägers of the 12th Brandenburg Regiment who were already there. In German armies Jägers – hunters – were all armed with rifles. The Silesians were elite Jägers recruited from Polish foresters, specialists in woodcraft and trained from a young age in accuracy with the rifle.
Rifles were much more accurate than the muskets with which most infantrymen were armed. A rifleman wrote that ‘the calculation has been made, that only one shot out of two hundred fired from muskets takes effect, while one out of twenty from rifles is the average.’1 In perfect conditions a skilled forester with a rifle reckoned to hit the head of a man at 200 yards and a man at 300, while it was claimed that volunteer riflemen hit a man at 200 as often as they missed and at 100 yards at least one in five shots would hit the centre of a target.2 Combat conditions reduced accuracy a great deal, but rifles were the weapon of preference for sniping at officers. For maximum accuracy riflemen used a ball wrapped in leather that had to be rammed slowly down the barrel, reducing the rate of fire to perhaps one shot per minute, but at short range they used common cartridges to gain a faster rate of fire.
Two musketeer battalions of Jagow’s 29th Regiment, wearing the white coats of the Duchy of Berg, occupied the houses which lined both sides of a single lane leading to the church at the south-eastern extremity of the village. The lane ran to the south and parallel to the Ligne stream. Either side of the houses, hedges and orchards provided further cover. A company of Westphalian Landwehr occupied an orchard close to the church and three more companies formed a reserve. The riflemen covered both flanks of the musketeers.
Nearly half a mile to the east two battalions of Jagow’s fusiliers took cover in limestone quarries just west of Ligny. Each Prussian regiment had a battalion of fusiliers: these were light infantrymen, armed with a shorter and lighter musket, while their corporals and sergeants carried a rifled sharpshooter musket. Their job was to protect Ziethen’s heavy artillery which, including Henckel’s cannon, was lined up as a grand battery of forty-six guns, stretching from Ligny to Saint-Amand-la-Haye. Teams of horses dragged twelve 12-pounders, eighteen 6-pounders, and sixteen howitzers into line. Then the horses and limbers retreated some distance behind the guns, while further back still were the ammunition caissons. Ziethen’s cavalry moved forward as the battle began, taking positions to protect the gun line and the army’s right flank.
Artillery came in two principal types, cannon firing several varieties of solid shot and howitzers that were designed to lob explosives. Prussian cannon fired solid shot weighing six or twelve pounds. Maximum range was about a mile measured to the first ‘graze’ or bounce, though accuracy dropped beyond their effective range of about half a mile. Balls would whistle through the air, then bounce a few times and finally roll. The best defence against artillery fire was to lie down; anybody in the path of a round shot was likely to be killed outright or to lose a major limb. People might lose their head or be cut in half and a lucky shot along the line of a file might kill several men at once, while even when rolling, roundshot were capable of taking off a foot. Twelve-pounders had a longer range and more power but 6-pounders could be fired faster, simply because the balls were less heavy to load. Their rate of fire might start at two or three rounds a minute, but quickly decreased as the crew tired, and 12-pounders probably only fired one shot a minute at best.
Howitzers could lob explosive shells with a higher trajectory to explode over or among troops. Shells consisted of an iron sphere filled with powder and when they exploded they scattered twenty-five to fifty jagged shards of iron over a radius of twenty yards. These caused savage wounds with compound fractures of the bones (meaning fractures with bones exposed to the air) and torn flesh. The shells exploded when a fuse burned down: the art was to set the fuse correctly since it was possible, if hazardous, to hurl away a shell with a burning fuse.3 Howitzer ammunition wagons carried a small number of special incendiary shells to set fire to buildings or dry vegetation and flare shells to light up targets at night. Artillery was the most feared and most potent weapon on the battlefield and usually the one that caused most casualties.
The opening moves were usually made to test the strength and determination of the enemy at various points on the battlefield. Napoleon thus began with an attack on Saint-Amand, the village directly in front of Vandamme’s men, in order to find out whether the Prussians would withdraw, as they had the day before, or whether they would stand and fight.
The 4700 men led by Etienne Lefol had joined with their musicians to sing the Chant du Départ as they marched to assault Saint-Amand. When the columns came into range of the Prussian artillery, hidden in the tall rye on the heights above the village orchards, a new music struck up:
The music of the cannon ball doesn’t vary; it has only two notes. When these projectiles arrive in full flight they remain invisible and announce their passage only with a short whistle which chills the soul. When they ricochet, which is to say, after they first hit the ground, they travel on in successive bounds, and then you can see them coming through the air like so many black dots when they make a sort of moaning noise, a plaintive sound, inexpressible in words. They then produce an extraordinary optical illusion: each of these points seems to be heading straight for your face. That is what makes people duck or bend down to avoid the blow.4
A ball killed a file of eight men in one of Lefol’s columns but the others marched on, closing ranks.
Ahead of the battalion columns, the light infantry, all in blue, and thinned out in skirmish order, were well hidden as they pushed stealthily forward through the rye and wheat. The white-coated Rhinelanders defending Saint-Amand did not see them until they were nearby: ‘the red, yellow, green plumes and epaulettes of the grenadiers, tirailleurs and voltigeurs looked like poppies and cornflowers growing in those tall crops. Everywhere, the rye came to life with attackers whose sudden appearance was just as frightening as their well-aimed shots.’5
The French and Prussians in particular employed large numbers of men as skirmishers. Acting individually, invisibly if possible, often crouching or lying on the ground, skirmishers
worked in loose, extended order, using any cover. Whereas ‘line’ infantry relied on firing close-range volleys at large targets, light infantry skirmishers were taught to aim at individuals, although to have any hope of hitting your target with a flintlock musket – the most common weapon on the battlefield – you had to creep close.
Firing was a laborious process. The musketeer bit open a cartridge, primed the pan with powder, poured the rest down the barrel and spat the ball after it. Inserting a ramrod into the muzzle, he rammed the charge home, pulled back the cock which held the flint (otherwise the gun would go off half cock) and pulled the trigger. The cock flew forward and the flint hit the frizzen, forcing it back and allowing sparks to hit the powder in the pan. This caused a flash that reached the charge through a hole in the side of the barrel. The particles of powder from the flash burned your face, but if you didn’t prime with enough powder to ignite the charge you merely produced a flash in the pan, while a proper explosion caused a recoil that bruised the shoulder. It was possible to fire three or four rounds a minute at first, but soldiers quickly tired.
In French light infantry regiments all the men were capable of skirmishing, but in each French line and light regiment one of the six companies consisted of elite voltigeurs; these were selected from the best shots in the regiment and the smallest, most agile men, and were distinguished by yellow plumes. Originally conceived as infantry who could be transported by cavalry, the voltigeurs – ‘vaulters’ – were supposed to be able to leap onto the back of a horse, and although the concept proved generally impractical, voltigeurs did occasionally hitch a ride behind dragoons. Generally, voltigeurs performed on foot, first to advance and last in a retreat. Their sergeants, corporals and officers were armed with rifled carbines which had an excellent sights, were forty inches long, weighed eight pounds and fired a half-ounce ball.6 The rest carried the French dragoon musket, shorter and lighter, but just as good as the infantry musket. They aimed at officers and sergeants to induce demoralisation, confusion and paralysis. Their job was to do as much damage as possible before the main columns attacked, although their first opponents were usually similarly minded enemy skirmishers, with whom they duelled, darting forward to seize a good position, falling back when pressed, like a swarm of midges on a sultry day.
Sharpshooting at Saint-Amand continued for half an hour with more Prussian rifle detachments running in to reinforce the hard-pressed front line. Meanwhile, French guns were hauled forward and deployed, before bombarding the village with shot and shell while the assault columns prepared their attack. Lefol drove the Rhinelanders back from the church north-west towards La Haye. His men followed them over the lane, past cottages and gardens and into the fields bordering the stream, but there they were showered with canister from the Prussian artillery. Lefol himself had his horse shot under him and was narrowly saved by his nephew from being captured.7
At close range – up to about 400 yards – both guns and howitzers fired canister or case shot, which consisted of balls packed with sawdust into a tin. There were two types: light case contained musket balls; heavy case or grapeshot contained fewer, bigger balls. The tin exploded as the gun was fired and the canister spread out in a cone as if from a shotgun. The diameter of the cone was about 32 feet at 100 yards, 64 feet at 200 yards and 96 feet at 300 yards. Canister had a murderous effect on closely packed targets. The maximum range for heavy case was 600 yards, but it was usually only fired at 300; that for light case was only 250 yards.
As Lefol’s attack on Saint-Amand began, a new French column emerged into view of Blücher’s staff from behind Fleurus. While Etienne Hulot’s division marched straight up the Charleroi–Gembloux road to guard IV Corps’ flank against attacks from Sombreffe, Maurice Gérard’s remaining 10,600 men marched along the main road towards Sombreffe and then turned sharp left opposite Ligny, over a mile from Saint-Amand, and threw out a skirmish line towards the village.
Count Wilhelm Henckel had about 3000 men in Ligny, a village built from blueish stone and whose houses, roofed with thatch, ranged along two lanes, the rue d’en haut south of the stream and the rue d’en bas to the north of it. The main buildings were on the south side and in the centre was a church within a walled graveyard. Above and below the churchyard were two strongly walled farms, the Ferme d’en Haut to the south and the Ferme d’en Bas to the north, linked by a footbridge. The stream which ran just to the north of the church was a serious obstacle, three yards wide and hedged on each bank. There were several wooden bridges over it, but just one stone bridge at the eastern entrance to the village. To the west and north-east of the church was an open common.
Henckel’s men had prepared the village for defence, making loopholes in houses and walls, barricading tracks, building low earth banks, and cutting down the crops close to the houses. One battalion of the 19th defended the moated medieval castle at the south-western extremity, and another the western part of the village, while two Landwehr battalions from the Münster area of the northern Rhineland held the eastern part. Henckel kept one battalion of each regiment in reserve, and his cavalry with eight guns took position behind the village to the east.8 Henckel’s opponent, Maurice Gérard, was one of Napoleon’s best soldiers, an excellent officer, experienced but still energetic.9 He launched a first exploratory attack with just a brigade of nearly 3000 men in three columns preceded by skirmishers.
Only the centre column, from the 30th Regiment, penetrated into the village. Two hundred yards from the hedges they deployed and charged. Captain Charles François, who had been with the army since volunteering in 1792, jogged with his company and two others up a hollow way. Hollow ways were earth roads set below the level of the ground on either side, and enclosed by steep banks usually topped by hedges. Such roads gave shelter and cover from fire to troops within them, but were quite difficult to get in and out of laterally. This one had been blocked with a barricade of felled trees, carts, harrows and ploughs, which the French infantry had to clamber over, under fire from Prussians behind thick hedges. Firing as they jogged along, they passed the Ferme d’en Haut and emerged to their left into an open space in which the church stood:
On the far side of the church we were stopped by a stream, and the enemy, in houses, behind walls and on the rooftops, inflicted considerable casualties, both through musketry and through canister and cannon shot, which took us from in front and from the flank.
In a moment Major Hervieux, commanding the regiment, and the battalion commanders Richard and Lafolie had been killed; battalion commander Blain was slightly wounded and his horse killed under him; five captains were killed, three wounded; two adjutants killed, nine lieutenants and sub-lieutenants were killed, seven wounded, and almost seven hundred men killed and wounded.
Most observers reckoned that the French Charleville musket was better than the others. It weighed 10 lb, was five feet long and fired a 0.69 inch ball weighing 1/20 lb. The old Prussian model was shorter and heavier, the new model similar to the French, but many Prussians were using either British or French muskets. The nature of the fighting in Ligny meant that much firing took place at unusually short range. At less than 50 yards musket balls could shatter major limb bones and joints, while at 100 balls tended to flatten on impact and inflict large conical wounds, complicated by carrying cloth or other foreign bodies with them. At two hundred yards they had lost velocity; a ball might cause a flesh wound, might merely bruise, or might be deflected by equipment or objects in pockets. Some soldiers hit by spent balls were able to pull them out of their own flesh.10
One of Gérard’s aides recalled that some of the 30th got across the stream but were pinned down there, leaderless, under intense musketry. He pulled them back to the French side of the main road, but they were driven from there by a Prussian attack and the survivors fled from the village in disorder, to be rallied behind the artillery.11 On the western flank, the French made little headway against the Prussians defending the walls and towers of the medieval castle and two hedged or
chards in front of it. On the eastern flank, they fled before a charge by Major von Zastrow and his Westphalian fusiliers, but the Prussians pursued the retreating French too rashly into a hail of canister fire, running back to the village with French voltigeurs at their heels.12
Meanwhile, in Saint-Amand, Lefol’s men exchanged fire with the Prussians who had regrouped on their reserves around a fortified farm in Saint-Amand-la-Haye. Then the dynamic General von Steinmetz sent forward the four musketeer battalions of the 12th and 24th Regiments in a fierce counter-attack. The French reserve held onto the churchyard of Saint-Amand, but Steinmetz drove the French out of the rest of the village.13
Both exploratory attacks had been repulsed with loss, telling the French staff that this time the Prussians had no intention of making a show before falling back at the first attack, as they had done the day before. Whether or not Napoleon’s scouts had yet identified the true strength of Blücher’s force, the behaviour of Ziethen’s men proved that he had a real battle on his hands. It was a glorious opportunity to crush the Prussians.
25
Don’t Hesitate a Moment
Fleurus, 16 June, 3–3.30 p.m.
Having observed the initial phase of the fighting at Saint-Amand and Ligny, Major-Général Soult sent a much more urgent demand to Marshal Ney. Timed at 3.15, it instructed him to march east as quickly as possible and fall upon the Prussian flank and rear:
Marshal, I wrote to you an hour ago to say that at 2.30 the Emperor would attack the enemy in the position they had taken between the villages of St Amand and Brye.
At this moment the engagement is very intense. His Majesty charges me to tell you that you should immediately manoeuvre so as to envelop the enemy’s flank and fall with clenched fists on his rear. His army is lost if you act vigorously. The fate of France is in your hands. So don’t hesitate a moment before undertaking the movement the Emperor orders and head for the heights of Brye and St Amand so as to contribute to a victory that could be decisive. We’ve caught the enemy with his trousers down just as he’s trying to combine with the English.1