by Tim Clayton
The fusilier battalions of the 18th Regiment led off Michael von Losthin’s 15th Brigade towards Fichermont. Lancers and horse artillery covered their right flank.4 Prince Blücher watched them set out, shouting, ‘Keep it lively, kids! Keep going forwards! Over fences, hedges and ditches. There is no obstacle too big for us, there must be none. Keep going forwards!’ After some exchanges of fire with men who, wearing blue with red facings and bell-top shakos, looked almost exactly like Frenchmen, delegates from the ‘enemy’ persuaded the fusiliers that the defenders of the farms they were attacking were actually on their side – men from the Orange-Nassau Regiment. Having resolved this misunderstanding, the Prussians probed further west, where they found Fichermont in the hands of genuine enemies and staunchly defended.5
The commander of a squadron of Colonel Marbot’s 7th Hussars, standing guard on the extreme right wing, had just spoken to General Jean-Siméon Domon, whose chasseurs were deploying to support Lobau’s attack on Wellington’s left flank. Domon had commented that the fire of the British guns had just about ceased, and that he reckoned the battle was won and the enemy army was already retreating. Reminding the squadron chief that his hussars were there to link up with Grouchy, Domon had ridden off, cheerfully predicting that they would be in Brussels that evening. A few minutes later, rather than meeting Grouchy’s patrols as they expected, Marbot’s men were charged by the Silesian Hussars of the Prussian vanguard. ‘We pushed them back vigorously and gave chase,’ the squadron chief recalled, ‘but we were forced to retreat by canister fire from six guns.’ Prussian horse artillery turned the French hussars around and then Silesian lancers chased them off. Colonel Marbot was speared in the side.6
The comte de Lobau’s two divisions of infantry took position facing eastward across the lane from Lasne to Plancenoit on the high ground above the track leading from Fichermont southward to the Bois de Ranson. The fighting was done by strong lines of skirmishers supported by cavalry. Lobau had nearly 7000 infantry, 2000 cavalry and 28 guns, and his divisions included some fine regiments. He was able to take the offensive, driving back the Prussians towards the woods.
There was a bitter struggle on the bush-covered high ground near Fichermont, where the Prussians fought to hold a line. When the rest of the corps reserve cavalry arrived, Bülow used most of it to hold a central position, filling the gap between the two brigades, although it was exposed there to fire from Lobau’s artillery and both cavalry brigade commanders were killed.
Blücher’s decision to send in the two available brigades, made after Stavely had alerted him to Wellington’s precarious situation, had been a crucial intervention, one that prevented Lobau, Domon and Subervie from attacking Wellington’s left flank. By this stage Wellington had few remaining reserves, especially of any quality. The fresh troops of Lambert’s brigade would have put up a fight and Picton’s men were tough, but it is unlikely that his weak left flank could have held out against another assault by fresh forces if they had not been diverted elsewhere.7 Although Blücher’s troops were unable to drive back Mouton’s men, their intervention at this time was vital to the survival of Wellington’s army.
62
The Great Cavalry Charges
Mont Saint-Jean plateau, 5–6 p.m.
When Milhaud’s cavalry fell back, the French artillery opened up again. Nearly all of Wellington’s reserves had been committed and it is possible that if Napoleon had ordered the Old Guard to attack his centre at this moment he might have prevailed. But he did not yet know the strength of the Prussians, and time was pressing. There was no alternative but to repeat the cavalry attack, so the same forty squadrons – still more than 4000 cavalry – surged uphill again.
Wellington called in some of his remaining reserves of artillery. Having advanced to the crest of the ridge above Hougoumont where they deployed, the Brunswick foot battery were almost immediately attacked by a regiment of cuirassiers advancing at the trot. In response, General Dörnberg ordered his 23rd Light Dragoons to attack the left flank of the cuirassiers and his 1st German Light Dragoons to attack their right. He gave strict instructions that if they were successful only the first squadron was to pursue, but the reserves joined in instead of waiting and were then beaten by the enemy reserve which lapped round their flanks. Some of the 23rd, with an ill-discipline sadly typical of British cavalry, went charging across the valley and up the other side; there, some were captured while those who could escape fled, sweeping away the Brunswick artillery in their rout. The Brunswickers took one gun with them and abandoned the other seven, the gunners riding for their lives until the cuirassiers veered away from the fire of the 1st Brunswick line regiment, behind whose square the gunners took refuge.1
Dörnberg gathered the remains of his brigade behind the squares. When another cuirassier regiment attacked, his dragoons charged again but head-on could make no impact on the armoured cavalry. Dörnberg was stabbed through the left lung; unable to speak clearly, with blood filling his throat, he rode to find a surgeon.
Grant’s brigade of light cavalry now abandoned its planned attack on the French lancers threatening the right wing and returned to its original position behind Hougoumont. From there they counter-charged the enemy cavalry, the 13th Light Dragoons leading with the 15th in support. They drove the cuirassiers back a short distance, but the French supports enveloped the line of light cavalry and forced them to ride back and seek shelter behind the squares.
Both lines of infantry on the right wing were now formed in squares to receive cavalry, and with little firing taking place, the impressive spectacle could actually be appreciated. Jack Barnett, the young Highland Light Infantryman, told his mother that ‘It was a beautiful sight to see 10 or 12 fine regiments formed in hollow squares, the French cavalry galloping all round us, not able to penetrate,’ and a lieutenant of the 2nd Line of the Legion was similarly impressed: ‘I believe at this moment was displayed the grandest Sight and most heroic Courage and firmness ever witnessed on both sides – in my view there were at least 20,000 Infantry Occupying a Space of half an English Mile each Regiment formed into Squares four deep, the two Front Ranks kneeling.’2
Sometimes French cavalry swept across the plateau. Captain Mercer watched light cavalry squadrons charging at each other as if there would be a huge clash, but actually passing through one another with only one or two men falling. The inexperienced 14th Buckinghamshire ‘peasants’ had moved from a sheltered situation in a gully onto the plateau, where they were exposed to shot and shell. A bugler of the 51st, mistaking their square for his own, had just said, ‘Here I am again safe enough!’ when a round shot shattered his head and splattered the colour party with his brains, causing an aristocratic ensign who was a notorious dandy to drawl, ‘How extremely disgusting!’ A second shot removed six bayonets in a row. Another broke a sergeant’s breastbone and his screams unnerved the young soldiers who lay down in the mud to minimise casualties. Sixteen-year-old ensign the Hon. George Keppel sat on a drum with his arm round the colonel’s mare, until a shell exploded, knocking over the drum. A shard struck the horse on the nose and killed it.3 The regiment moved again, taking cover behind a slight rise in the ground, not far from Captain Mercer’s troop of horse artillery. Behind them ammunition wagons exploded and a loose horse had the whole of the lower part of its head blown away.
Mercer was talking to the local artillery commander ‘when suddenly a dark mass of cavalry appeared for an instant on the main ridge, and then came sweeping down the slope in swarms’. The artillery officers watched as
the hollow space became in a twinkling covered with horsemen, crossing, turning, and riding about in all directions, apparently without any object. Sometimes they came pretty near us, then would retire a little. There were lancers amongst them, hussars, and dragoons – it was a complete melee. On the main ridge no squares were to be seen; the only objects were a few guns standing in a confused manner, with muzzles in the air, and not one artilleryman. After caracoling about for a few minut
es, the crowd began to separate and draw together in small bodies, which continually increased; and now we really apprehended being overwhelmed, as the first line had apparently been. For a moment an awful silence pervaded that part of the position to which we anxiously turned our eyes. ‘I fear all is over,’ said Colonel Gould [sic: Charles Gold, commander of the artillery of Clinton’s division], who still remained by me. The thing seemed but too likely, and this time I could not withhold my assent to his remark, for it did indeed appear so.
Nearby, Thomas Jeremiah of the 23rd Welch Fuzileers watched the 23rd Light Dragoons in flight and then faced up to French cavalry, who ‘passed us after failing to break into our square and was very near annihilating one of our regiments who was all composed of inexperienced soldiers’.4 He meant the 14th, ‘fresh from the plough’ but stiffened by the transfer of a few battle-hardened officers, such as Captain Loraine White, who had fought all the major battles of the Peninsular campaign with the Cambridgeshires. Momentarily confused, the regiment just scampered into square in time as French cavalry swept past the 23rd and then passed them.
Aiming to escape along the Nivelles road, the cavalrymen had to veer away from the barricade on the bridge over the lane where Sergeant William Wheeler was stationed. Wheeler had just stalked and killed a French hussar officer who was ‘sneaking down to get a peep at our position’:
One of my men was what we term a dead shot, when he was within point blank distance. I asked him if he could make sure of him. His reply was ‘To be sure I can, but let him come nearer if he will, at all events his death warrant is signed and in my hands, if he should turn back.’ By this time he had without perceiving us come up near to us. When Chipping fired, down he fell and in a minute we had his body with the horse in our possession behind the rock.
His section’s syndicate took the opportunity to add to its fortune: ‘We had a rich booty, forty double Napoleons and had just time to strip the lace of the clothing of the dead Huzzar when we were called in.’ It was then that the French cavalry, returning from the plateau to their own lines by the Nivelles road, were ambushed:
Not choosing to return by the way they came they took a circuitous rout and came down the road on our left. There were nearly one hundred of them, all Cuirassieurs. Down they rode full gallop, the trees thrown across the bridge on our left stopped them. We saw them coming and was prepared, we opened our fire, the work was done in an instant. By the time we had loaded and the smoke had cleared away, one and only one, solitary individual was seen running over the brow in our front. One other was saved by Capt. Jno. Ross from being put to death by some of the Brunswickers.5
Jean-Baptiste Lemonnier-Delafosse, acting chief of staff to General Maximilien Foy, saw some survivors return – ‘fifteen to eighteen cuirassiers’ under a sous-lieutenant, ‘covered in blood, black with mud’, their horses soaked in sweat and steaming, eighty-four of the squadron having failed to get back. Foy watched the enormous cavalry mêlées with astonishment, remarking that he had never seen anything like them in his life; he said that several squadrons went straight through the centre of the English army and formed up again behind his own division, having circled all round the Hougoumont wood.6
Around the same time the troops on the British right suffered another alarm, as ‘loud and repeated shouts (not English hurrahs) drew our attention to the other side. There we saw two dense columns of infantry pushing forward at a quick pace towards us, crossing the fields, as if they had come from Merbe Braine.’ Pat Brennan, an experienced Irish officer of the 14th, loudly identified them as French. ‘“Hold your tongue, Pat,” thundered Colonel Tidy, “What do you mean by frightening my boys?” but the expression of his countenance showed that he shared Pat’s apprehension.’ The fear was that French infantry had taken Braine l’Alleud and had got round their right flank, just as French cavalry appeared to be overrunning their left. Captain Mercer turned his guns to face this new threat. Everyone thought they were French, but still Mercer held his fire.
Shouting, yelling, and singing, on they came, right for us; and being now not above 800 or 1000 yards distant, it seemed folly allowing them to come nearer unmolested. The commanding officer of the 14th, to end our doubts, rode forward and endeavoured to ascertain who they were, but soon returned, assuring us they were French. The order was already given to fire, when, luckily, Colonel Gould [sic] recognised them as Belgians.7
It was General Chassé’s 3rd Netherlands division, advancing to support the British right flank; it formed up against the Nivelles–Brussels road.
Then, towards 5 p.m., Sir Augustus Frazer galloped up and shouted to Mercer, ‘Left limber up, and as fast as you can.’ Frazer was calling in his last reserves of horse artillery to face a new attack. Having suffered heavy casualties, including more than half its officers, Milhaud’s cavalry was being pulled out and replaced by Kellermann’s, supported by the Dragoons and Horse Grenadiers of the Guard. The troop limbered up, formed in pairs, three guns deep, and trotted off. Mercer rode with Frazer, ‘whose face was as black as a chimney-sweep’s from the smoke, and the jacket-sleeve of his right arm torn open by a musket-ball or case-shot, which had merely grazed his flesh’. Frazer explained that the enemy ‘had assembled an enormous mass of heavy cavalry in front of the point to which he was leading us … and that in all probability we should immediately be charged on gaining our position.’
As they ascended the reverse slope of the main position, the atmosphere changed dramatically:
the air was suffocatingly hot, resembling that issuing from an oven. We were enveloped in thick smoke, and, malgré [despite] the incessant roar of cannon and musketry, could distinctly hear around us a mysterious humming noise, like that which one hears of a summer’s evening proceeding from myriads of black beetles; cannon-shot, too, ploughed the ground in all directions, and so thick was the hail of balls and bullets that it seemed dangerous to extend the arm lest it should be torn off.
The unfamiliar hum was that of cannonballs and bullets whizzing through the air.
The troop’s kind-hearted surgeon, who had not been in a battle before, ‘began staring round in the wildest and most comic manner imaginable, twisting himself from side to side, exclaiming, “My God, Mercer, what is that? What is all this noise? How curious! – how very curious!” And then when a cannon-shot rushed hissing past, “There! – there! What is it all?”’ With difficulty, Mercer persuaded him that it was important to them that their surgeon should not be killed and it was time for him to withdraw. Frazer indicated where he wanted Mercer’s guns, between two squares of Brunswick infantry, and left them with a reminder to economise their ammunition and withdraw into the squares when cavalry charged.8
The British staff was anxious about these inexperienced Brunswick battalions above Hougoumont. The first cavalry attack on them had been foiled by their foot artillery, which unlimbered rapidly and hit the cavalry with canister, but since then the Brunswick foot battery had been badly cut up and Frazer had brought in his reserves to reassure the infantry.
Mercer, though, did not like the look of the squares behind him. ‘The Brunswickers were falling fast – the shot every moment making great gaps in their squares, which the officers and sergeants were actively employed in filling up by pushing their men together, and sometimes thumping them ere they could make them move.’ The young Brunswickers seemed to be in shock, standing ‘like so many logs’. Their officers and sergeants were doing a good job, ‘not only keeping them together, but managing to keep their squares closed in spite of the carnage made amongst them’, but Mercer felt that if his gunners ran away towards them, they were quite likely to cause the Brunswickers to run too.9
Another battery came up from reserve into a position to the right of Mercer, with Ramsay and Bull on their right.10 The first charges took heavy punishment from the fresh artillery. The Horse Grenadiers and Dragoons of the Guard, each about 800 strong, attacked in this area, although Napoleon later claimed that he had given no orders for this ult
imate reserve of cavalry to join in.11 Their commander, General Claude-Etienne Guyot, was the son of a farm labourer and had risen to be a captain in Napoleon’s horse chasseurs of the Consular Guard by 1802. From 1807 to 1814 he had been responsible for the Emperor’s personal safety on campaign and while travelling, and he was a devoted supporter, intelligent and capable. In the second charge Guyot had his horse shot under him and as he walked down the hill was knocked over, trampled and sabred by pursuing cavalry, but before they could capture him he was rescued by a fresh French attack. Someone gave him horse, but an instant later he was shot in the chest and hit in the arm by a shell splinter. He went to have his wounds dressed – after treatment, he eventually rejoined his troops – handing over command to a colleague who was killed in the next charge.12
On the western side of Wellington’s line where the Guards and Brunswickers stood, this pattern repeated itself several times: after an aborted charge the British and German cavalry would drive the French back into the valley, but this allowed the French artillery to fire into the allied squares. Then the French cavalry walked up the hill to see if any squares had weakened. To the east, it is not so clear that the French were ever driven from the high ground, though they presumably allowed their artillery to play their part. The remaining British cavalry here was soon more or less exhausted and there was no fresh artillery. Something of a stand-off now developed: the cavalry became tired and unwilling to charge home, given the prospect of a volley fired from very close range, while the infantry knew that they were vulnerable if they wasted their volley at long range. They were ordered to hold their fire both for this reason and because most units were now short of ammunition.