by Tim Clayton
All of Ligny south of the stream was in French hands except the castle on the western fringe. To the north of the stream the Prussians held the western half including the fortified Ferme d’en Bas, but the French had taken the eastern half. That was the Colbergs’ objective. The noise now was deafening. Clouds of smoke obscured the village, punctuated by flashes of musketry, explosions and plumes of debris. Cannonballs whined overhead. Occasional shells were falling, exploding in plumes of dust and throwing out dirt and jagged shards of metal. Lieber was to walk into that.
Another bugle-call told Captain von Bagensky and his veteran professional sergeant-major to lead the skirmishers forward. Riflemen normally worked in pairs, with a front man and a rear man covering each other. They should have edged forward cautiously, pausing in cover to fire, one reloading while the other fired. Instead, the youngsters ran towards the enemy at top speed without firing, leaving their sergeant-major puffing furiously behind. Lieber saw his Jewish friend pitch forward with blood spurting from his throat where a ball had cut it, but they kept running and at the impetuosity of their advance the French slipped away from the whitethorn hedges at the edge of the village. They reached a street where the Prussian sergeant-major regained control.
The sergeant-major sent Lieber to ‘a house around the corner of which he suspected that a number of French lay’. Lieber stepped round the corner ‘and a grenadier stood about fifteen paces from me; he aimed at me, I levelled my rifle at him. “Aim well, my boy,” said the sergeant-major who saw me. My antagonist’s ball grazed my hair on the right side; I shot and he fell; I found I had shot through his face; he was dying. This was my first shot ever fired in a battle.’
Years later Lieber tried to gather scattered recollections of his first combat. He remembered asking whether this was a proper battle and being reassured that it was. He saw a hog and a child, a bird trying to protect its young. Once, feeling thirsty, he stopped to pull water from a well. His company last advanced along a hollow way, piled deep with the bodies of dead and wounded men, and Lieber remembered the sensation of stepping on them. He had to help drag a cannon over the mangled bodies, and recalled the wounded squirming in agony when the wheel rolled over them.8 They drove the French back across the stream and recaptured the northern part of the village, but were stopped to the south and the bitter, bloody house-to-house fighting continued.
The struggle for possession of the village was now deadlocked. Even though casualties on the French side were much higher than Napoleon would have wished, General Gérard had succeeded in drawing nineteen Prussian battalions into the fighting – a much larger number of men than he had sent in himself – and by late afternoon the Prussian reserves were committed. But so were most of Gérard’s; when Gaspard Gourgaud, Napoleon’s chief orderly officer, who had been observing Gérard’s progress, returned to headquarters at the Naveau windmill it was to report that despite tremendous efforts Gérard still could not break through. The time was just about ripe in the Ligny sector for Napoleon to make the decisive flank attack that he had envisaged in order to cut the Prussians off. But to complete this manoeuvre to his satisfaction the Emperor required intervention from Marshal Ney’s wing of the army. The question was, how were things going over to the west?
28
Ney’s Second Assault
Quatre Bras, 16 June, 3.30–5 p.m.
At Quatre Bras, General Picton’s arrival had saved the allied force from collapse and prevented the capture of the crossroads, but Ney was still applying tremendous pressure. Picton’s easterly battalions, the Camerons and 32nd, were taking severe casualties from the French artillery behind the lake. The gunners aimed at the British flags: when a shell burst next to the regimental colour of the 32nd a captain had his head ‘literally blown to atoms’ and several men were wounded. The flag’s white silk was torn, but the ensign carrying it was only slightly injured.1 The British troops eventually pulled back to lie down under cover behind the banks in the ditches of the road.
Further west, French chasseurs and lancers had mounted a series of charges against the Royal Scots and 28th Foot, who formed square to repel them. But the cavalry never completed a charge, veering away from contact over the final yards as the veteran infantry remained steady. As one British officer observed, it was extremely rare for cavalry to charge home against an unbroken square:
The infantry either break before the cavalry come close up, or they drive them back with their fire. It is an awful thing for infantry to see a body of cavalry riding at them full gallop. The men in the square frequently begin to shuffle, and so create some unsteadiness. This causes them to neglect their fire. The cavalry seeing them waver, have an inducement for riding close up, and in all probability succeed in getting into the square, when all is over. When once broken, the infantry, of course have no chance. If steady, it is almost impossible to succeed against infantry, yet I should always be cautious, if in command of infantry attacked by cavalry, having seen the best of troops more afraid of cavalry than any other force.2
His view was confirmed by a French infantry officer:
It is extremely difficult for the best possible cavalry to break soldiers who have formed square and who defend themselves with intrepidity and coolness. When the infantry is in disorder, it is simply a massacre in which the cavalry run practically no risk, however brave and formidable the troops attacked might have been in other circumstances.3
In the tall rye, moreover, it was as difficult for the cavalry to judge how far infantry were away and when to accelerate as it was for infantry to see cavalry coming. An officer of the 28th spoke of a lancer riding up and planting his nine-foot lance in the ground to serve as a mark to charge at. Since the square did not waver, a French officer rode right up to the British bayonets to set an example, whereupon a grenadier shot him. The man’s lieutenant struck him on the cheek for firing without orders, but as the two discussed this afterwards, General Kempt called out, ‘Silence, gentlemen, let the men alone; they know their duty better than you, the men please me, and not a word gentlemen.’4
If a square successfully resisted cavalry then it had to be dislodged either by infantry attack or by artillery. It was exceptionally vulnerable to the latter, owing to the concentration of many men in a small area, several ranks deep, and Picton’s densely packed men now took heavy casualties from the French artillery and skirmishers. If their own skirmishers left the square they ran the risk of being caught in the open by cavalry, while it was dangerous to deploy into line because the rye so reduced visibility that it was not always possible to see cavalry coming from a distance.
The adjacent British battalions, the 44th East Essex and 42nd Black Watch, had not yet been threatened by cavalry and remained in line. Nicolas Galbois with the 380 men of the 5th Lancers now charged the 42nd. With its men unable to see anything through rye that was above head height, a German orderly dragoon shouted a warning and skirmishers ran in yelling, ‘Square, square, French cavalry!’ But they failed to close their square in time and outlying troops were speared as they raced for safety.5 When the square finally closed, lancers were trapped within it. The colonel was killed by a lance thrust through his chin and into his brain and the major and both senior captains were wounded or killed. The 42nd were to lose 288 of their 613 men during the day, most to musketry and artillery, but also some in this near-catastrophe.
The 44th meanwhile were attacked by lancers and chasseurs who had passed the squares of the Royals and 28th and were returning to their own lines from behind the British front line. The officers of the 44th assumed the cavalry was friendly until they began to slaughter the bandsmen and surgeons, and charged the infantry from the rear. It was too late to form square and so Colonel John Hamerton ordered the rear rank to turn about and fire a volley, which proved enough to deflect the charge.
It being regarded as a great dishonour for a unit to lose its colour and a very great honour to capture one, the French made disproportionately intense efforts at capturing Britis
h colours. One bunch of lancers made a serious attempt to capture the battalion’s colour, and Ensign James Christie was stabbed in the left eye, through his tongue and lower jaw. He fell, pinning his flag beneath him. A lancer tore off a small part and made off but he was shot and bayoneted immediately afterwards. Piré’s staff tried to seize a flag but the British formed a compact circle round it and wounded several Frenchmen.6
‘The loss of the French cavalry at this time, was very great, in proportion to the British infantry,’ it was claimed, and most British infantrymen got the impression they were cutting swathes in the French cavalry in firing on them when their charges on squares failed.7 But the figures do not bear this out, for the 6th Lancers lost only two officers killed and five seriously wounded and less than seventy of their 347 men – about a fifth of their strength – over the entire day. To judge from figures for officer casualties (which are all that we have), the 5th Lancers suffered similarly, while the two stronger regiments of chasseurs lost two officers and one officer respectively. Colonel Galbois was shot in the chest but kept fighting.8 Despite the sustained efforts and repeated charges of Piré’s roaming horsemen, their casualties were low.
As French pressure increased, the allied skirmish line fell back. Some skirmishers of the Verden battalion, to the east of the 42nd, were ambushed by French tirailleurs who had hidden in the tall rye; others were sabred or taken prisoner by the French cavalry. The skirmishers of the 44th used up their ammunition and fled, fighting their way past bands of marauding French cavalry to reach the sanctuary of their square.
Meanwhile, Wellington had ordered the Duke of Brunswick to march his contingent to plug the gap left by disintegrating Netherlands militia units to the west of the Charleroi–Brussels highway. Duke Friedrich Wilhelm sent his Gelernte Jäger – four hundred elite grey-coated riflemen recruited from foresters – into the Bossu wood, with the two light companies of the Avant-Garde battalion skirmishing on the western fringe of the trees. The German riflemen were highly regarded. Behind this skirmish line the Brunswick Guards and 1st Line advanced two hundred yards from the crossroads to a position between the sheep farm of La Bergerie and the wood. They stood in column, with their hussars in support. Two Brunswick line battalions remained in reserve to the right of the Gordons with the Brunswick lancers behind them.9
Around this time in the late afternoon Ney had received Soult’s two o’clock order to crush what was in front of him and then march back towards Brye to fall upon Blücher’s right wing. Earlier this had looked easy, but not any more. Colonel Charles de Forbin-Janson of the staff, who probably carried this message from Soult, found Ney just behind Gémioncourt where the fire was intense. He had no aides, so Forbin-Janson volunteered to stay. A captured staff officer had confirmed that Wellington was present and Ney concluded that it was only a matter of time before he faced Wellington’s entire army.10 Ney immediately hurled Jérôme’s division into the fray in another impetuous attempt to break through.
Pierre Bauduin led an assault on the Bossu wood, which was guarded by Prince Bernhard’s Nassauers. Bauduin had first fought with Napoleon at Toulon in 1793, then in his Italian campaigns and all those of the Grande Armée except 1805 when he was with Admiral Villeneuve’s fleet. It was a very brave veteran who led the way into the wood. A Nassau officer harangued the Frenchmen until a rifleman shot him and carabiniers of the 1st Light Infantry stormed the sunken lane that ran along the edge, a position their leaders had taken for entrenchments. During a fierce firefight among the trees a ball hit Prince Jérôme’s sword hilt and bruised his hip, but the French drove the Nassauers out of the wood and an attempt to retake it with the second Nassau battalion, supported by Brunswick Jägers, failed.11
Having secured his left flank by clearing most of the Bois de Bossu, Ney prepared to attack just to the east of the wood. First he pounded the Brunswickers with the 12-pounders of the corps reserve, while French skirmishers picked them off from concealed positions in the corn. The young Brunswickers endured this patiently to begin with, but it was an ordeal. A hussar thought theirs ‘the worst possible task I can think of, because you stand with your sword in your hand without being able to defend yourself against the missiles and shells, let alone parry them. The Duke smoked happily on his pipe and rode up and down in front of our corps.’ Brunswick was doing his level best to set a calm example but the French heavy artillery was murdering his men. A shot took off the leg of the hussars’ commander, Major von Cramm, and he bled to death.12 After an hour’s punishment the Duke sent the hussars back to the eastern side of the Brussels road.
To the west of the Bois de Bossu the Nassauers gave ground slowly, but Saxe-Weimar became increasingly worried, having no fresh orders and no idea whether he had any support. An officer sent to obtain guidance had failed to return so, after a nervous wait, the young Prince decided to pull out to the west and ordered a retreat to the village of Houtain-le-Val.13 The first battalion of the 2nd Nassau were pursued from the wood by French light infantry and retreated hurriedly across the fields towards the village. Private Johann Peter Leonhard was close to panic – ‘my comrades fell to the left and right from the enemy balls. The screams and moans of the wounded penetrated to the core and set my teeth on edge’ – but when they crossed the crest of a ridge the Nivelles road came into view. ‘On the other side of the village on the road from Nivelles, to our relief we could see the fields on the left and right of the road were red with the English. The soldiers cried, “Praise be to God! Our saviours are coming to becalm the storm!”’14
Alten’s division had arrived from Nivelles. Sir Colin Halkett’s British brigade halted behind the wood, while Count Friedrich von Kielmansegge’s Hanoverian regulars continued eastward along the Namur road. The men were already very tired, ‘having marched about twenty-seven miles, exposed to the burning sun’.15 Halkett conferred with Sir Thomas Picton and was ordered to go into the Bois de Bossu and, if possible, fall on the French left wing, but then an aide announced that Sir Denis Pack’s British brigade needed support, having expended almost all of its ammunition. The French cavalry that was roving at will over the battlefield kept intercepting the ammunition wagons that were sent forward. Meanwhile, the twelve guns attached to Alten’s division trundled into position on either side of the Brussels road.
Brunswick begged Wellington for artillery – his own had not yet arrived – and when Captain Lloyd’s battery arrived ahead of Alten’s troops four guns attempted to silence the French 12-pounders near Gémioncourt, but the French fire seemed to redouble. ‘Before we unlimbered some three or four horses of each gun and wagon were killed, some wheels disabled, and literally some of our gunners were cut in two, for we were not more than four to five hundred yards from the enemy’s batteries.’16 Two of Lloyd’s 9-pounders were dismounted and had to be left where they were when the battery pulled back to make repairs, one howitzer joining Rettberg’s guns further east.17
After an intense bombardment, the 1800 men of what had recently been the King’s Regiment, led by Major Jean-Louis Baux, known inevitably as ‘le beau’, bore down on the shaken Brunswickers.18 The Duke of Brunswick led his lancers in a charge against the French infantry, but there were too few of them and they were driven off easily. The Brunswick infantry commenced a slow retreat, but the elite French infantry inflicted heavy casualties, and seeing cuirassiers advancing behind the French, the young Brunswickers panicked and began to run in disorder. As the Duke strove to steady his veteran Guard battalion, he was shot off his horse close to the alehouse, Les Trois Bras. A ball passed through his bridle hand and into his liver and he was dead when he reached the surgeon. The French 4th Light Infantry were able to capture La Bergerie, which gave them a stronghold a mere two hundred yards from the crossroads itself.
Carl von Alten’s eight battalions had arrived just in time. Just when his right wing had seemed to be crumbling, Wellington had fresh troops and fresh hope. The sight of the British troops arriving encouraged the Brunswickers and they ral
lied. Despite heavy casualties and the death of the Duke himself, the solid block of the Black Legion held firm.19
Wellington ordered the Gordon Highlanders to drive the French light infantry out of La Bergerie, with the support of the two Brunswick line battalions that had been in reserve. Led by the Adjutant-General, Sir Edward Barnes, the kilted Scots scrambled from the cover of their ditch and stormed forward into heavy fire, their grenadier company leading the way up the cobbled highway. Their much-loved leader, Colonel John Cameron, was shot in the groin from an upper window and lost control of his horse, which bolted and then stopped suddenly, throwing Cameron head first onto the cobbles.20 Cameron was carried from the field by his foster brother but died in a cart on the way to Brussels.
Despite very heavy casualties, his men succeeded in storming the enclosures and driving back the enemy. They cleared the building, but found on the far side that they had only been fighting a strong skirmish line. A formed body of enemy infantry was waiting for them beyond the garden hedge. The Gordons charged and were driven back again – in disorder, according to the adjutant of the Brunswick 2nd Line – whereupon they ran to the shelter of the nearby trees of the Bois de Bossu.21 Up to the point that they left their ditch they had suffered relatively few casualties, but during the attack on La Bergerie they lost 23 out of 35 officers and roughly half their strength, ending the day with 39 killed and 245 wounded out of a paper total of 699 (far fewer were in the field fighting because many were behind the lines as servants to officers or baggage guards). The many wounded, like Ensign Angus Macdonald, shot through the thigh while carrying a colour, were treated in a makeshift hospital inside the farm at Quatre Bras and evacuated next morning to Brussels and Antwerp, from where Macdonald wrote to his father to tell him of his sorrow ‘that the greatest part of the regiment are killed and wounded’.22