by Tim Clayton
Soult was warier of Prussian intervention than the others and regretted the absence of Grouchy’s troops; he knew the ground of old, for twenty-one years ago when chief of staff to General Lefèbvre in 1794, he had driven an Orangist-Austrian army off the plateau of Mont Saint-Jean. He also spoke of the obstinate defensive qualities of the English infantry, but Napoleon swept his doubts aside.5
When Napoleon asked for Reille’s opinion of the English, Reille emphasised the firepower and tenacity of British troops and recommended outmanoeuvring them, in preference to a direct assault. Napoleon said they were lucky that the English were standing to fight and that this would be a famous battle that would save France. He would make full use of his abundant artillery, he would charge the allied line with his cavalry to make them show themselves, and when he was sure of where the English troops were positioned, he would march straight at them with his Old Guard.6 Like everything Napoleon said that morning, this semi-jocular speech was calculated to raise morale. He exuded optimism, especially when his generals pointed out difficulties, and concluded by saying that if his orders were executed well, they would sleep that night at Brussels.
The weather had begun to brighten up around seven o’clock: the clouds had risen, there was fitful sunshine and a driving wind promised to dry the ground quite quickly, since this rich agricultural clay soil was well drained. About half past nine Napoleon decided to inspect the enemy positions, taking with him Jean-Baptiste Decoster, who had been persuaded to leave his alehouse on the chaussée in order to act as a guide. The Emperor wished to mount the horse that had been waiting for him since seven but the duty equerry had gone for breakfast, so his page, César Gudin – whose father, a school friend of Napoleon from the artillery academy at Brienne, had been killed during the Russian campaign of 1812 – helped him into the saddle, giving him such an energetic hoist that Napoleon almost rolled over the other side. ‘Petit imbécile!’ exclaimed Napoleon, ‘va-t-en à tous les diables,’ and he rode off, leaving the discomfited Gudin to mount and ride lamely after. After a few hundred yards the staff parted and the boy saw the Emperor returning. ‘Mon enfant,’ he said kindly, ‘when you help a man of my size to mount, it needs to be done gently.’
Bonaparte sent his chief engineer, General Haxo, to ride close along the enemy line to check that there were no defensive entrenchments.7
Marshal Soult remained at Le Caillou to write an order to Marshal Grouchy, timed at 10 a.m., informing him of the sizeable Prussian column Milhaud had identified the previous day heading through Gentinnes to Wavre, since Grouchy seemed to be unaware of it, and telling him that the Emperor was about to fight Wellington at Waterloo:
… Therefore, His Majesty desires that you should direct your movements towards Wavre, in order to close up with us, to be in touch with our operations and link communications with us, pushing before you the Prussian army corps that have taken that direction and which may have halted at Wavre, where you should arrive as early as possible. You will follow the enemy columns that may be to your right with a few light units, in order to observe their movements and bring in their stragglers.
Inform me immediately about your locations and your march as well as your news of the enemy and do not on any account neglect to link your communications with ours. The Emperor wants to hear your news very frequently.8
Soult issued no order to march to the battlefield, and there is no hint that Napoleon might have done so during the night, as he later insisted; Soult did rebuke Grouchy for his failure thus far to establish between them the communication chain of light cavalry outposts that the Emperor had ordered. There is evidence that Grouchy had finally made efforts to link his cavalry patrols with Napoleon’s, but he had started too late and the Prussians were already disrupting progress.
In order to facilitate a meeting between his cavalry patrols and Grouchy’s, Soult strengthened his own outposts on the eastern flank. He sent an order to a redoubtable veteran light cavalryman, Colonel Marbot, to take a battalion of light infantry and his 7th Hussars to the extreme right of the French line behind the château of Fichermont, a mile and a half to the east, placing 200 infantry half a mile further on in the Bois de Paris, the wood east of Fichermont, and a squadron of hussars at Lasne, the village a mile beyond the wood on the stream just below Saint-Lambert; he was to keep watch on the bridges over the Dyle at Moustier and Ottignies two miles further east. Each detachment was to establish a chain of posts so that news could be passed at the gallop to the battlefield. The object was to establish contact with Grouchy’s troops and Marbot was to transmit all reports directly to the Emperor. Although Napoleon did not tell Marbot so, his troops would also serve to provide an early warning of any Prussian incursion.9
While the generals surveyed the enemy, the French troops made a show of marching into line. As Napoleon described it, the French advanced in eleven columns. The light cavalry of Reille’s II Corps deployed in three lines astride the Nivelles chaussée. II Corps formed two lines, covering one and a quarter miles between the Nivelles and Charleroi roads, with Jérôme’s division on the left, Foy’s in the centre and Bachelu’s on the right. D’Erlon’s I Corps marched into a position with its left near La Belle Alliance and its right opposite La Haye, mostly out of allied sight behind a ridge onto which the artillery began to haul its wagons and cannon. Jacquinot’s cavalry formed three lines opposite Smohain and Fichermont. Kellermann’s heavy cavalry formed behind Reille, with his batteries on each flank. Lobau’s VI Corps and the light cavalry divisions of Domon and Subervie remained in column either side of the Charleroi road. Milhaud’s cuirassiers formed up behind d’Erlon’s infantry. The Guard cavalry marched into line, with Guyot’s heavy cavalry behind Kellermann and Lefèbvre-Desnouëtte’s light cavalry behind Milhaud. Between them marched in the infantry of the Guard, which halted in six lines either side of the Charleroi road ahead of Rossomme. The reserve of Guard artillery remained behind, with the paved road clear ahead of it, so that it could deploy rapidly.
The reality was far less choreographically exact: in fact the Guard only set off from Glabais at ten, so that the battle was already under way by the time they reached their position at Le Caillou, while other bedraggled columns were still marching in.10 Nevertheless, the precise manoeuvres of the frontline troops were watched by the opposing army with admiration, if not trepidation. Tricolour flags, cavalry guidons, the little pennons of the lancers, rippled in the fresh breeze. Drums beat, trumpets sounded, and the military bands played the old revolutionary song, ‘Veillons au salut de l’Empire’, that had become an Imperial anthem, calling all the peoples of Europe to join the French in overthrowing tyranny. With its rising crescendos of
Liberté! Liberté! que tout mortel te rend homage.
Tyrans, tremblez, vous allez expier vos forfaits.
Plutôt la mort que l’esclavage!
(Liberty! Liberty! Let every mortal pay you homage.
Tremble, tyrants! You will pay for your infamy.
Better to die than to be enslaved!)
it was a call aimed chiefly at erstwhile friends in the other army, the formerly liberated Belgians and the Germans who had once again fallen under the yoke of kings.
At that moment Napoleon rode by to review his troops. He loved his army and his army loved him. They were old comrades who had shared many trials and triumphs and they were now fighting a necessary war for liberty and the revolution against tyranny, invasion and oppression. ‘Never was “Vive l’Empereur!” shouted with more enthusiasm, never was more absolute devotion visible in the faces, gestures and voices of his soldiers. They were delirious.’ Helmets and shakos were raised aloft on sabres and bayonets as the soldiers cheered the Emperor.11 The troops were not sparkling with gold braid, for this was largely a scene of drab grey and blue greatcoats and cloaks, most of them coated in mud, but the commitment and the professionalism were impressive for all that.
Napoleon rode half a mile back from La Belle Alliance past his faithful aide Georges M
outon’s columns, marching forward with the infantry to the left and the borrowed cavalry of Generals Domon and Subervie to the right of the main road. Then the Emperor dismounted and climbed up a hillock near the farmhouse of Rossomme, from which his staff had borrowed a table for his maps and a chair. It was the highest point on the battlefield. He pored over the map, wearing his signature grey greatcoat and black hat. Excluding staff and support services, he had about 74,500 men – 53,000 infantry, 15,000 cavalry and 6500 artillery – and 254 guns. Napoleon thought Wellington’s army stronger, but he had 74,300 men and far fewer guns – only 156.12 The Emperor considered matters for a quarter of an hour, and then dictated his orders.
45
The Position
Wellington’s line, 18 June, 10–11 a.m.
Wellington’s front line extended roughly a mile either side of the Charleroi road. About 10 a.m., the Duke rode along the line with his staff, ‘looking entirely unconcerned and as smart as if they were riding for pleasure’. He was dressed in his usual blue coat under a ‘grey great-coat with a cape, white cravat, leather pantaloons, Hessian boots, and a large cocked hat à la Russe.’1 He was riding his dark chestnut charger, Copenhagen, a former racehorse and a grandson of the legendary racehorse Eclipse.
Wellington’s tail of staff was usually at least forty strong, although his personal staff consisted only of his military secretary, Fitzroy Somerset, and about eight aides-de-camp, nearly all sons of dukes. The Adjutant and Quartermaster-General each had his own suite of half a dozen officers, and there were the commanding officers of artillery, horse artillery, engineers and their assistants. Sometimes Uxbridge, who was wearing his dashing blue, red and gold hussar uniform, was present with his cavalry staff, while Prussian liaison officer Müffling and his orderly officers were usually to be found close to Wellington. Finally there were the representatives of allied powers: Miguel de Alava representing Spain, Napoleon’s inveterate Corsican enemy, Carlo Pozzo di Borgo, representing Russia, Charles, Baron Vincent, representing Austria, and others, all attended by their own aides. On this tour Wellington was also accompanied by the Prince of Orange and his substantial staff.
The command structure beneath Wellington was eccentric and pliable. Lieutenant-General Sir Rowland Hill nominally commanded II Corps but on the battlefield he actually commanded the troops on the right wing, including the 3rd Netherlands Division. Henry Paget, Earl of Uxbridge commanded all the cavalry, including the Netherlands cavalry, while Wellington generally left the artillery commanders to control their own arm. Sir Thomas Picton commanded the left wing, including the 2nd Netherlands Division. The young Prince of Orange, nominally in command of I Corps, controlled the centre of the position between the two cobbled roads with advice from Constant and Carl von Alten, ‘despite the fact’, Constant pointed out, ‘that the Duke gave his orders directly to the troops on the right, being the Guards Division and the Brunswick troops’. The Prince of Orange chose for his principal station the highest point on the plateau in the centre of the 3rd Division.2 Wellington took up position ahead of the centre of the Guards division and gave orders to particular units as he saw fit.
Wellington’s army of 74,300 men was of very uneven quality and he placed little faith in large parts of it. Just over 26,000 were British, and of these some were inexperienced, but there was a hard core of reliable, veteran infantry. Thirty-one thousand were German: 5100 constituted the King’s German Legion, all highly trained and experienced, including the most reliable cavalry; 12,100 men from King George III’s kingdom of Hanover were of unknown quality, some being young militiamen with rudimentary training; the surviving 5450 Brunswickers were inexperienced, but had proved their commitment and determination at Quatre Bras, while Wellington was less sure of the 7200 Nassauers from the Rhineland. He and his staff expected little from his 15,200 Dutch and Belgian soldiers. Altogether he had nearly 56,000 infantry, 13,000 cavalry and 5000 artillerymen.3 The figure of 74,000 was however a paper total; most units had far fewer men in the field since many were serving as servants and baggage guards, and most of these had run away to Brussels during the night.
The troops on Wellington’s extreme right occupied Braine l’Alleud, although the post there was detached, three-quarters of a mile from the continuous line of troops further east. General David Chassé’s 3rd Netherlands division, 6700 strong, bivouacked in and around the town with their sixteen guns. The place should have been fortified, and the only company of sappers and miners in the army had been summoned from Hal for that purpose, but they got lost during the night, arriving at Waterloo at 9 a.m. on the 18th to find that it had been barricaded by the Netherlanders. The division at Braine was the first link in a chain of outposts intended to obstruct the manoeuvre round the army’s western flank that Wellington anticipated. Detached eight miles away further west still were two brigades of about 6000 men under Sir Charles Colville at Tubize on the Mons–Brussels road, and Prince Frederick’s Netherlands division, about 10,500 strong, nearer Brussels at Hal, placed there in case Napoleon marched that way to draw Wellington further away from the Prussians or additional French forces advanced on Brussels from that direction.4
Wellington’s front line roughly followed that of a lane running five miles along a ridge from Ohain to Braine l’Alleud; above Hougoumont, however, where the lane continued to Braine l’Alleud, his troops occupied the ridge that it had followed previously as this bent sharply to the north above a fairly steep-sided valley to Merbe Braine. The heights above the valley made a strong defensive position, should Napoleon try to turn Wellington’s western flank, and were densely occupied: Hugh Mitchell’s brigade stood four hundred yards behind Hougoumont. Behind them, the three brigades of Sir Harry Clinton’s division of nearly 7000 men stood in reserve to the west of the Nivelles road on the triangular plateau between Hougoumont and Merbe Braine. Carl du Plat’s German Legionaries were in front, with Frederick Adam’s Light Brigade behind them and Hugh Halkett’s Hanoverian militia furthest back, close to Merbe Braine. Hugh Halkett was the younger brother of Sir Colin, ‘a bright, active cheery man speaking German very badly’ in the words of one of his colleagues. He had started as a captain in his brother’s 2nd Light infantry of the Legion and commanded that fine battalion before being given a brigade of raw Hanoverians. The divisional artillery, Major Augustus Sympher’s German troop, and Captain Samuel Bolton’s foot battery, each of five 9-pounders and a howitzer, accompanied them. Also in reserve on the right, between Halkett’s men and the Nivelles road, stood the Brunswick Corps, reduced to 5450 men and sixteen guns.
The château farm of Hougoumont stood three hundred yards south of the front line and formed a sort of forward bastion, a breakwater against French attacks on Wellington’s right wing. The ridge described above, on which Wellington’s army stood, turned to the north at the point that the dirt lane from Ohain met the Brussels–Nivelles cobbled chaussée. This then ran on south-west towards the French lines through a cutting, beyond which it passed over another sunken lane to Braine l’Alleud on an arched bridge and continued through another cutting. At the bridge the chaussée was blocked with felled trees and a troop of the 15th Hussars stood guard. From the bridge an avenue lined with trees led three hundred yards south-east to Hougoumont.
The previous evening the Duke’s staff had made it clear that Hougoumont was ‘to be defended to the utmost’. A supply of spare ammunition was placed in the buildings, and the pioneers of the 2nd German Legion from La Haye Sainte were sent there to help the light companies of the Guards make loopholes in the walls and build shooting platforms.5 In the morning Lord Saltoun’s two light companies rejoined the 1st Guards on the ridge behind the farm, to be replaced by the 800 men of his first battalion of the 2nd Nassau light infantry under Captain Moritz Büsgen, led by an aide across from the far left wing. They found the farm deserted but already prepared for defence. Private Johann Peter Leonhard took one look around, decided the place was a death trap, and said a quick farewell to the world.6
> South of the buildings and walled garden was a wood, three hundred yards long and about the same wide. This had been occupied a little earlier by 330 Hanoverian riflemen, comprising companies of the elite volunteer Jägers and one each of the Lüneburg and Grubenhagen battalions.7 Büsgen reinforced the riflemen in the wood with his voltigeurs and a reserve company. He placed his grenadiers in the buildings, two companies in the walled garden, and one company lining the hedge of an orchard that ran on eastward from the walled garden for another two hundred and fifty yards. James Macdonell’s Guards light troops remained in a kitchen garden on the west of the buildings, so the estate had an initial garrison of 1330 specialist light infantry.
On the high ground north of Hougoumont stood the Foot Guards, still over 3000 strong, with Sir John Byng’s brigade behind the château and Peregine Maitland’s further east. In front of Maitland were Major Kühlmann’s troop of Hanoverian artillery and Captain Sandham’s battery, each of five 9-pounder guns and a howitzer. The front-line infantry were supported by Colquhoun Grant and Wilhelm von Dörnberg’s light cavalry brigades of 2400 sabres.
To the east of the Guards in the front line stood Carl van Alten’s division, reinforced by the 1st Nassau Regiment. The men under Alten’s command consisted, moving east, of Colin Halkett’s 1780 British survivors of their baptism of fire at Quatre Bras, Friedrich von Kielmansegge’s 3000 Hanoverian regulars and Christian von Ompteda’s brigade of the Legion, 1530 strong. As positioned by Assistant Quartermaster-General James Shaw, Alten’s men were in line, but could form a chequerboard of oblongs at any threat of cavalry. Shaw was only twenty-seven but highly experienced. After distinguishing himself with the rearguard during the retreat to Corunna in 1808 he joined the staff of the Light Brigade, serving with bravery and sense in the Peninsula, and winning Alten’s trust.