by Tim Clayton
The Greys were followed by the Gordons, who turned, ran after them and attacked the flank of the French column, taking prisoners desperate to escape the chopping sabres of the Greys. Many of those initially rounded up escaped in the ensuing confusion, but hundreds were escorted from the field by dragoons or Dutch infantry.12
Most of the Greys charged on. Gathering pace down the slope, they actually had the impetus of a proper cavalry charge when after three or four hundred yards they hit and swept round the flanks of another column, probably that of Noguès’ brigade. For the French, seeing the dragoons come suddenly into view over the brow, there was no time to form square, although the 21st Regiment tried. Hit in the flanks and rear, the column disintegrated. In the recommended manner some soldiers tried to form rings, the British ‘hives’, facing outwards, bayonets bristling; some tried to defend themselves, holding their muskets above their heads to parry the sabre blows. Others threw themselves to the ground, feigning dead until the cavalry passed. Antoine Noguès himself was shot in the hand but rallied some of his men in their starting position.
By what from a British point of view was a very happy accident, the timing of Ponsonby’s charge had been perfect. It hit the French infantry just as they reached the crest of the ridge, so that they were totally surprised by the sudden appearance of cavalry. Captain Clark later wrote that ‘had the charge been delayed two or three minutes, I feel satisfied it would probably have failed’, and that since ‘there were no infantry in reserve behind that part of the position’ the French infantry would then have taken Mont Saint-Jean.13
Clark may have been right: had Ponsonby’s charge failed, French infantry might have broken through decisively. If Picton’s weak battalions had failed to hold them it is questionable whether the morale of the Hanoverian militia would have held up and the whole wing might easily have collapsed. But one way or another, the battered veteran infantry and the novice cavalry undertaking their first real charge had prevailed, and for a moment it seemed as if they might have won the day.
54
The French Counter-attack
18 June, 2.30 p.m.
When General Charles-Claude Jacquinot, commander of d’Erlon’s cavalry, saw that the Grand Battery was in danger he unleashed a brigade of lancers. Simultaneously, to the west, a brigade of cuirassiers and a further substantial force of lancers moved in to bring off Crabbé’s cuirassiers and drive away the British heavy dragoons who rode in scattered knots, their horses blown, out of breath and labouring in the heavy ground.
Lord Edward Somerset, ‘having heard that the greater part of the KDG were broke & gone away without order into the enemy’s lines, ordered [a captain] to rally & halt as many as possible, which was done, but too late, as no one seemed to know what was become of the right hand squadron and other broken troops & the ground in the plain where they had so far advanced was covered with immense columns of the enemy.’ As a lieutenant of the King’s Dragoon Guards admitted:
Our brigade, never having been on service before, hardly knew how to act. They knew they were to charge, but never thought about stopping at a proper time … the consequence was that they got among the French infantry and artillery, and were miserably cut up. They saw their mistake too late, and a few (that is about half the regiment) turned and rode back again; no sooner had they got about five hundred yards from the French infantry than they were met by an immense body of Lancers.
Suddenly, the Guards realised the seriousness of their predicament. The French lancers, dressed in green with brass helmets, and with conspicuous red and white pennants towards the end of their nine-foot lances, were riding fresh mounts and could move faster. Led by their commander, Colonel William Fuller, the Guards
resolved either to get out of the scrape or die rather than be taken prisoners, so they attacked them, and three troops cut their way through them; about a troop were killed or taken prisoners. In this affair poor Fuller lost his life; his horse was killed by a lance, and the last time he was seen he was unhurt but dismounted. Of course the Lancers overtook him and killed him, for our men were on the full retreat; he made a sad mistake in pursuing the Cuirassiers so far.
Fuller was killed somewhere south of La Haye Sainte; the major commanding the right-hand squadron also died, run through the side by a lance or sword, on the slope of the French position. Practically nobody from his squadron returned: almost all were killed, wounded or captured.1
After his duel with the cuirassier, Private Hasker realised that he had been left behind by the main body of the regiment. He tried to catch them up, ‘but in crossing a bad, hollow piece of ground’ his horse fell, and he had hardly got to his feet when another cuirassier rode over. The Frenchman
began to cut at my head, knocked off my helmet, and inflicted several wounds on my head and face. Looking up at him, I saw him in the act of striking another blow at my head, and instantly held up my right hand to protect it, when he cut off my little finger and half way through the rest. I then threw myself on the ground, with my face downward. One of the lancers rode by, and stabbed me in the back with his lance. I then turned, and lay with my face upward, and a foot soldier stabbed me with his sword as he walked by. Immediately after, another, with his firelock and bayonet, gave me a terrible plunge, and while doing it with all his might, exclaimed ‘Sacré nom de Dieu!’ No doubt that would have been the finishing stroke, had not the point of the bayonet caught one of the brass eyes of my coat – the coat being fastened with hooks and eyes – and prevented its entrance. There I lay, as comfortably as circumstances would allow – the balls of the British army falling around me, one of which dropped at my feet, and covered me with dirt; so that, what with blood, dirt, and one thing and another, I passed very well for a dead man.2
Life Guard Thomas Playford succeeded in getting back without having even crossed swords with the enemy; he had the opportunity to despatch a fallen cuirassier but didn’t have the heart and pulled out of the blow, although he did save a comrade whose horse had been killed and who was running along, trying to catch a French one. What was left of his squadron found their way home blocked by French infantry, but Arentsschildt’s German hussars ‘menaced them into squares’ and Playford made his escape by riding between the French squares without being hit by their fire.
Of those who charged in the front line of the Household Brigade, few returned to the battle. Only about thirty of the King’s Dragoon Guards under a captain rejoined the brigade: the rest were lost and scattered even if they had survived.
Once the French infantry had surrendered, most of the dragoons had ridden on and only a few had remained to lead away the prisoners. Jacques Martin had just been bundled over by the horse of a dragoon who came past him at high speed, and he found himself lying among others, some dead, some wounded, some merely knocked over. The British marched off the men who were standing without bothering about those who were on the ground. Once they had gone, he was able to make his escape, walking unsteadily back across the valley through the smoke, feet catching in the downtrodden wheat, across mud that was strewn with bodies. Around him were groups of mounted dragoons, but they were intent on reaching the French guns, and for Martin the greater danger came from the French artillery. When the dragoons chased the gunners away, he slipped past the line of guns and found shelter.3
The French counter-attack enabled many more French prisoners to escape, among them Corporal Louis Canler of the 28th who had been captured by dragoons and disarmed. Suddenly he heard the familiar order, ‘Au trot!’ French lancers and cuirassiers were charging his captors and he found himself abandoned as the dragoons attempted to repel them. He threw himself into a nearby field of wheat, from where he watched the furious onset of the French horsemen and a fierce mêlée that ended with the flight of the dragoons. Canler began to creep through the wheat towards his own lines, but first he visited the body of a dragoon officer he had just seen felled. A sword blow had split the man’s skull open and his brains were oozing out, but from his f
ob hung a superb gold chain. Canler swooped on that and also pocketed the gold watch attached to it. A little further on he found a shoulder bag with a copper plaque on the cover, on which was engraved ‘Labigne, sous-lieutenant au 55e de ligne’. In the bag was a writing case and some linen, valuable since Canler now possessed only what he was wearing. Walking south he discovered his colonel with a few officers, desperately trying to gather together soldiers from his regiment; when a wounded man from the 105th appealed to Canler to help him to the field hospital, though, Canler carried him back to the French ambulances.4
A little further east, Ponsonby and his staff of the Union Brigade also recognised their danger and sought to escape. Many, staying on the low ground or on the nearest ridge, tried to ride eastward back to British lines and, in so doing, encountered advancing French artillery which they were able to cut up and disperse. They were riding across the ridge to which Dessales’ artillery had been advancing when they saw French lancers. Ponsonby tried to ride round to the east and was isolated and killed. According to a story current soon afterwards, he was on his spare horse, a small bay hack. Exhausted by the charge, the horse floundered and got stuck in a ploughed field. Ponsonby could see lancers approaching and gave his watch and a miniature of his wife to his aide-de-camp, but the lancers killed both of them. His body was found next day, beside his horse, pierced with seven lance wounds. A French account has it that a lancer, Maréchal-des-logis Urban, killed Ponsonby reluctantly to prevent his recapture when some British dragoons attempted a rescue.5
Wellington’s moment of wild optimism had now been dampened by the virtual destruction of his strike cavalry. ‘What with men lost and others gone to the rear in care of the wounded, and many absent from not knowing where to assemble, and other causes, there did not remain efficient above a squadron,’ wrote a cavalry officer about the Union Brigade, and although the Horse Guards were still in good order, the rest of the Household Brigade was in similar plight. ‘The fact was that the men did not know where to assemble after the charge, and this being the first action they had ever been in they, I suppose, fancied that nothing remained for them to attend to after this one attack, and many went in consequence to the rear.’ The problem began with their training:
We never teach our men to disperse and form again, which of all things, before an enemy, is the most essential … they should be taught to disperse as if in pursuit of a broken enemy, with as much confusion as possible, but to form instantly on hearing the bugle, or rather retreat at that sound, and for fear anything should happen to the trumpeter, to return by word.6
If these men, most of whom were fighting their first action, had never been taught to form up after dispersing, it is hardly surprising that they failed to do so. It was a lesson that only hardened campaigners had learned, usually from their better-trained German colleagues.
Instead, some of those who escaped the lancers with their lives joined the increasing throng of fugitives who were running or riding up the road to Brussels spreading alarm and despondency behind the lines. Casualties had been heavy. Of the Greys’ twenty-four officers, eight were killed and eight wounded. ‘There was one squadron of the 1st Dragoon Guards in which not above one or two returned,’ noted a cavalry officer shocked at the disappearance of about 120 men. ‘They rode completely into the enemy’s reserve and were killed.’7 Wellington had accused his cavalry of ‘galloping at everything’ in the Peninsula, and once again they had shown more enthusiasm than discipline.
Nevertheless, the Duke had won the first round. Napoleon’s first attack, intended to be decisive, had been resoundingly defeated. It was a serious setback for the Emperor.
55
The Charge of Sir John Vandeleur’s Brigade
Wellington’s left wing, 18 June, 3 p.m.
While skirmishing and cannonading continued around Hougoumont, the scene from La Haye Sainte to the east was chaotic. Of Quiot’s division, the first to assault the farm and the slope above it, some battalions remained intact in square while others were in flight or rallying to their officers on the high ground near La Belle Alliance. Donzelot’s supporting division was in a huge square in the valley, surrounded by fleeing British dragoons and pursuing cuirassiers and lancers. To the east Marcognet’s whole division was running away or rallying somewhere near its start line, while wounded men and others streamed south along the chaussée. On the British side of the valley, what since the death of Picton had become Kempt’s men were returning to their lines to reform to the right of a huge square of Hanoverian Landwehr, while wounded men and prisoners streamed towards the cobbled road leading to the British rear. Further east, skirmishing continued between Durutte’s men and Nassauers around the farms in the marshy valley.
Sir John Vandeleur’s brigade of light dragoons was riding westward from the left flank to reinforce Kempt’s area, with permission to charge at discretion. Before them, the battalions of Durutte’s division were still intact, while the surviving remnants of the Union Brigade were coming back in groups of twenty or thirty on blown horses, harried by merciless French lancers. Many of the dragoons were trying to reach the lower ground on the left of the British line, and Vandeleur’s cavalry might save them.
In front of Vandeleur was Pégot’s brigade of French infantry, uncertain whether to continue its attack on the huge square formed by the combined Hanoverian Landwehr of Best and von Vincke. Though these inexperienced young Germans were determined enough to fight, they had been looking shaky as the French attack went in 250 yards to their right, and they were still looking uncertain as a brigade of Jacquinot’s light cavalry, riding in support of the French infantry, threatened to charge them.1
Holding back the 11th Light Dragoons in reserve, Vandeleur ordered the 12th and 16th to charge. Each regiment had three squadrons of about 140 men, making some 800 horsemen in total. Frederick Ponsonby, colonel of the 12th and second cousin of the late commander of the Union Brigade, fixed on a body of French infantry that he estimated at fifty men wide and twenty deep, so probably a regiment, and had his trumpeter sound the charge.
The blue-coated light dragoons of the 12th, who wore French-style bell-top shakos, surged forward, to find themselves fired on from behind; this ‘friendly fire’, they said afterwards, caused them more casualties than the French. Already badly shaken at the sight of what was happening to the infantry to their left, the French fired a loose volley at long range and then turned their backs. Ponsonby’s men charged the regiment in the flank and were soon cutting and hacking at the retreating infantry. The light dragoons did ‘much execution’, but as they emerged on the other side of the infantry they were charged in their turn by a regiment of chasseurs, with dire consequences for their leader:
Nothing could equal the confusion of this melee, as we had succeeded in destroying and putting to flight the infantry. I was anxious to withdraw my regt, but almost at the same moment I was wounded in both arms, my horse sprung forward and carried me to the rising ground on the right of the French position, where I was knocked off my horse by a blow on the head.2
Meanwhile Ponsonby’s supports, the 16th Light Dragoons, had been delayed in crossing the Ohain road, and they were further delayed when their commander was shot in the back by ‘friendly’ infantry and seriously wounded. By the time they charged the French chasseurs, the men of the 12th were either fleeing for their lives or galloping forward behind their runaway, disabled colonel towards the French guns and reserves. Of the 12th Light Dragoons only about a hundred men rallied from their first charge.3
André Masson’s 85th Line, recruited in coastal towns in Normandy in 1814, chiefly comprised former prisoners of war returned from England after capture in the Peninsula. They were experienced, determined and animated by hatred of the English. A mere 631 men strong, they had been left to guard twelve guns on the right flank of the Grand Battery. Masson had formed the regiment into a small square in two ranks long before he was attacked by Ponsonby’s dragoons and by marauding heavy dragoons riding a
long the French gun line from the west. His men met them with sharp volleys; the light dragoons circled round them, and were then charged by French lancers.
Masson, a forty-five-year-old Burgundian of enormous experience, had been a captain in the Grenadiers of the Guard in the great days of the Grande Armée, and held his regiment together when under a lesser man it might have melted away. The regiment held its fire with perfect discipline as the cavalry mêlée took place around them, and eventually Durutte’s battalions rallied behind their square.4
Meanwhile, as the British dragoons sought to escape the merciless lancers pursuing them towards their own line, Frederick Ponsonby recovered from a brief loss of consciousness to find that only his arms were wounded. Seeing a part of his own regiment at the foot of the hill, he staggered to his feet, but a French lancer spotted him, rode over and, snarling ‘Coquin, tu n’es pas mort?’ plunged his lance into Ponsonby’s back. The colonel’s mouth filled with blood and he fell on his face, breathing with difficulty, for the lance had pierced his lungs. But he remained conscious. Soon afterwards the French tirailleurs reoccupied their station on the crest of the rising ground where Ponsonby lay. The first to discover him plundered him, although later an officer gave him some brandy. Ponsonby begged to be sent to the rear but the Frenchman merely put a knapsack under his head and told him he would be taken care of after the battle. He assured him he would not have to wait long, since the Duke of Wellington had been killed and several British battalions on the right had surrendered. All the time the skirmishers fired away and a young tirailleur, who was using Ponsonby’s body for cover, kept up a running commentary, ‘always observing that he had killed a man every shot he fired’.5