Waterloo

by Tim Clayton

  Towards seven o’clock Duuring was alerted by a lookout to the presence of two enemy columns in the wood behind Le Caillou. He guessed there might be 800 men in each but their strength was difficult to evaluate because of the trees. At around the same time more runaways appeared, while many more artillery batteries which had run out of ammunition were driving off along the chaussée towards Genappe. Duuring placed two companies to block the road, with orders to let only wounded men pass.

  By eight it was evident that there were large numbers of Prussians in the woods near headquarters and that they were preparing to attack. Duuring improvised a battalion of about 200 runaways and placed it near his own, detached 200 men as tirailleurs, sending a hundred into the wood with another hundred in support, and stationed his chasseurs with their backs to the farm. He had placed a battery close to him in support but its gunners ran away. At this juncture Provost-General Radet appeared, having been sent by Soult to arm the unhorsed cavalry with muskets taken from the wounded at the Imperial Guard field hospital at Le Caillou. He was able to reinforce Duuring’s duty battalion by uniting a lot of unhorsed cavalrymen with men who were helping the wounded to hospital, Corporal Canler being one of those who were thus rearmed. When Radet saw the enemy advancing towards them he sent some of the chasseurs forward and deployed others as skirmishers in the little wood behind Le Caillou. Meanwhile, one of Radet’s aides continued to gather men together until eventually he had a force of 1200.

  It was now imperative to get the Imperial baggage and treasure out before the Prussians cut the road. Grand Equerry Fouler had been waiting for an order from the Emperor, but now, belatedly, he decided to take the initiative on his own responsibility. In order to drive the Prussians away from the road while the precious column of carriages made its escape, Radet led his improvised force against the Prussian skirmishers and drove them into the wood, killing fourteen. Meanwhile, having strapped the Emperor’s bed to a mule, Marchand climbed into his coach with the safe full of gold and notes, and they rolled off. Despite Radet’s efforts, the coach of Napoleon’s private secretary, the duc de Bassano, was brought to a halt by Prussian fire and he had to leap out and run to escape in that of the cabinet secretary, Fleury de Chaboulon; once they were clear of the Prussians, however, Marchand thought the convoy of seven coaches was safe, even though the road was encumbered with retreating vehicles and wounded men.5

  Five of the eight senior battalions of the Old Guard, the best troops in the army and the ultimate reserve, had now had been drawn into a desperate struggle to hold the line of the Charleroi–Brussels road against the Prussians, and the Emperor’s headquarters staff had fled. Radet and Duuring sent a message to tell Napoleon what was happening behind him; it seemed unlikely that they could hold out for long.6

  69

  The Last Reserves

  The centre, 7–8 p.m.

  The noise of artillery on the left, followed by the news that Ziethen, finally, was reinforcing his left flank, served to revive Wellington’s flagging spirits. When he sent Uxbridge’s aide Horace Seymour to ask for Prussian infantry to shore up his centre left, Seymour’s horse was instantly killed, but John Fremantle went instead to meet Ziethen, who told him that his whole force was on its way.

  Wellington summoned the cavalry brigades of Vandeleur and Vivian to plug the gap and give support to the wavering infantry in the centre, while Uxbridge sent his Quartermaster-General George Cathcart to guide them into position. Just as Cathcart returned from this mission, Uxbridge was hit in the right knee by a grapeshot that smashed the head of the tibia and filled the ligament with shards of bone. Looking down, he realised that there was little chance of saving his leg; his legendary exchange with Wellington, ‘By God, Sir, I have lost my leg,’ to which the Duke replied, ‘By God, Sir, so you have,’ may thus have some factual basis. Horace Seymour, rehorsed, rode to Waterloo to prepare a surgeon, while other aides hoisted Uxbridge into a gig.1

  Above Hougoumont, the brigade major of Adam’s light infantry brigade was talking to Sir Augustus Frazer when a French deserter rode in and announced that the Imperial Guard would attack within half an hour. Frazer rode off to tell Wellington. Although the French were short of ammunition now, having fired away so much earlier on, their artillery bombardment grew in intensity one last time.2

  To plug the gap in the centre of his line the Duke ordered Maitland’s Guards to move to their left and form line four-deep. Having been in the front line since the start of the battle, the Guards had taken heavy casualties and by this stage, allowing for those who had escorted wounded men away, they can have numbered barely five hundred men.3 He ordered five Brunswick battalions across to the centre, pointing the way in person, before returning to the Guards. He sent an aide to summon three battalions from Colonel Hendrik Detmers’s Netherlands brigade and these fresh soldiers marched to their left in attack columns, well down the hill for shelter, moved clear of Maitland’s brigade and then wheeled into line.

  The 3rd Netherlands Division, not having been attacked at Braine l’Alleud, had been summoned to the battlefield and had thus become Wellington’s very last reserve. It was not a reserve that he trusted much, being led by a Belgian who had fought for Napoleon. They had been waiting under fire lining the Nivelles road, while their commander, David Chassé, grew increasingly anxious:

  When I saw that an English artillery battery positioned on the left and forward of my division had stopped firing, I went there to enquire the reason and learned there was no ammunition. At the same time I saw the Garde Impériale advancing, while the English troops were leaving the plateau en masse and moving in the direction of Waterloo; the battle seemed lost. I immediately ordered the battery of horse artillery under the command of Major van der Smissen to advance, to occupy the height and to direct an emphatic fire upon the enemy column.

  At this stage of a battle Napoleon traditionally committed the Guard en masse to deliver a final crushing blow. In this combat, however, he had already been forced to commit them piecemeal in defensive measures against the Prussians behind his flank. The eight battalions of the Young Guard having been thrown in to support Lobau, this left the Old Guard consisting of fifteen battalions, five of which were engaged or drawn up in support near Plancenoit. There remained therefore only ten battalions for a strike force, fewer than 6000 men. Napoleon nevertheless deployed them between La Haye Sainte and Hougoumont with the right in the lead to sweep westward across the plateau, mopping up the British right wing.

  It was around half past seven. The first battalion of the 3rd Grenadiers, led by General Friant, took the lead with its right against the chaussée. To its left and behind, in echelon, were the 4th Grenadiers, the 4th Chasseurs, and two battalions of the 3rd Chasseurs – around 3500 men in what may have been six battalions. Between each pair of battalions was a pair of guns from the Horse Artillery of the Guard. The second battalion of the 3rd Grenadiers had already been detached to secure the left flank. Napoleon rode down from La Belle Alliance toward La Haye Sainte and watched from a position near the orchard by the road.4

  Ney and Friant led the attack. What was left of the allied front line artillery caused some casualties, but not many; there was no more ammunition and the allied artillery was remarkable for its silence. The Guard passed over the crest of the ridge and to their astonishment found the plateau empty, except for the corpses with which it was littered. They could see no great distance ahead through the smoke, but passed a line of abandoned British guns as they moved on down the slope. On the right they contacted hostile troops but the enemy retired in disorder in the face of the fire from their tirailleurs, who formed a loose line ahead of the battalion squares.

  Vincke’s Hameln and Gifhorn Landwehr, about a thousand shaky young recruits, had formed a joint square near the Nassauers and rapidly blasted off some thirty cartridges each at the advancing French tirailleurs – no doubt too fast and at too long a range – before falling back. The Brunswick battalions, now led by Rudolph Heinemann for Olf
ermann’s right hand had been smashed by a grapeshot, were shocked by the ‘unexpected nearness’ of the enemy skirmishers, and ‘the all enveloping dense clouds of powder smoke, the men’s exhaustion, the partial disorder of the still incomplete deployment, and, lastly, the powerful thrust of the attack caused several battalions to hesitate at first and fall back a little.’ But the example of one battalion steadied the others. ‘They gave way once bodily just as they reached the crashing line of fire,’ noted Ensign Macready, ‘but were rallied and afterwards stood well, throwing out light troops to the left of our skirmishers.’5

  When the dashing, black-haired Sir Hussey Vivian led his hussar brigade across the chaussée and wheeled it into line the army’s prospects still looked grim. As Vivian’s artillery crossed the road, ‘Sir Robert Gardiner and Captain Dyneley both expressed their distrust of present appearances; they did not like them.’ Lieutenant Ingilby, recalling discussions overheard earlier, ‘expressed a contrary opinion, that it was the Duke’s turn and that he was now attacking their centre, his time for doing which evidently having depended upon the Prussians making their appearance in force on the right flank of the French’. However, on the far side of the main road, they found ‘the ground was strewed with wounded, over whom it was hardly possible sometimes to avoid moving. Wounded or mutilated horses wandered or turned in circles. The noise was deafening, and the air of ruin and desolation that prevailed wherever the eye could reach gave no inspiration of victory.’ Ahead of the cavalry several tiny squares were disintegrating in rout. They came across Lord Edward Somerset with ‘the wretched remains of the two heavy brigades, not 200 men and horses’. ‘Vivian asked, “Lord Edward, where is your brigade?” “Here,” said Lord Edward.’6

  The worn-out cavalry of the centre retired through the fresh troops from the left wing, who then ‘remained for about half an hour exposed to the most dreadful fire of shot, shell, and musketry that it is possible to imagine. No words can give any idea of it (how a man escaped is to me a miracle), we every instant expecting through the smoke to see the enemy appearing under our noses, for the smoke was literally so thick that we could not see ten yards off.’7 Sir John Ormsby Vandeleur’s brigade formed up to the right of the hussar brigade behind Maitland’s Guards.8 They, similarly, at once encouraged the troops ahead of them and prevented them from leaving the field.

  The appearance of the cavalry effectively steadied the Brunswickers first ordered across by Wellington. The Nassauers also rallied on the 18th Hussars, and this probably encouraged what was left of Colin Halkett’s brigade to face about. There were few of Halkett’s men remaining: the 30th mustered only 160 men at the end of the day, while the 73rd, who after Quatre Bras had a paper strength of 489 men remaining fit to fight, had suffered 289 casualties. When they mustered behind the hedge there were two officers and seventy men. The remaining 128 had either been servants or baggage guards, absent at the start, helped wounded men to the rear and not come back, run away towards Brussels, or become scattered and detached from their unit. Morris did not mention the cavalry as a steadying influence, but they probably were, nevertheless. A light dragoon noted in his journal that ‘two columns (one of which, I think, were Hanoverians, the other Scots) were driven back, when some of our officers and cheers from the men succeeded in making the latter front.’9 The three fresh Netherlands battalions, 1500 strong, led forward by Detmers, appeared to the right of the Cambridgeshires. The Netherlands report mentioned a triangle and a battalion of light infantry – the remains of Kielmannsegge’s division – set back from the front line and wavering as they approached.10 Once the remnant of Ensign Macready’s Cambridgeshires had rallied and formed a four-deep line with the 73rd behind their hedge, they sent out skirmishers against the enemy, who were about three hundred yards away.

  Macready wrote in his journal, ‘A sort of lull now took place, close skirmishing with heavy columns in grey greatcoats formed to the left of our front, being all our work … neither party advanced. All at once the fire of musketry thickened so as to tell on our skirmishers, (who were crouched behind dead horses) and to cause many casualties in the line.’ The skirmishers of the French Guards had arrived on the scene.

  70

  La Garde Recule

  The centre, 8–8.30 p.m.

  The French Guard battalions and their accompanying horse artillery battery continued to advance down the reverse slope of the ridge above Hougoumont and La Haye Sainte towards the line of Guards, Netherlanders, Brunswickers and Nassauers that Wellington had improvised to oppose them. Both generals had now committed their last reserves, and as calm as he looked, Wellington must have been nervously aware that his were not of the quality of the Imperial Guard. On the other hand he knew that the Prussians were coming and that with luck he only had to hold the line for a short time longer. Near him a devout Methodist colour-sergeant of the Guards was praying ‘Lord, stretch forth thine arm.’

  Even Captain Mercer admitted that the British guns were losing the contest against the French Guard artillery. It was only the arrival of eight previously unused guns commanded by Chassé’s artillery chief, Major van der Smissen, that stopped the Guard in their tracks:

  The fire continued on both sides, mine becoming slacker and slacker, for we were reduced to the last extremity, and must have been annihilated but for the opportune arrival of a battery of Belgic artillery a little on our left, which, taking the others in flank nearly at point blank, soon silenced and drove them off. We were so reduced that all our strength was barely sufficient to load and fire three guns out of our six.1

  The exchange of canister at short range was violent in the extreme. General Friant was shot and seriously wounded, General Michel, commander of the chasseurs, was killed, Ney’s horse was shot and he was rolled on the ground. The attack wavered, but Paul Poret de Morvan led on his battalion and Ney joined him in front of the 3rd Grenadiers. At first this battalion faced seriously weakened troops who were falling back, but further to the west, as they approached the British line the French battalions suddenly faced disciplined musketry from bodies of infantry that did not appear to be on the verge of disintegrating.

  The decisive intervention came with the confident onset of the six fresh Netherlands battalions of Detmers’s brigade, General Chassé having marched up with the remaining three battalions, another 1500 men. Having united his brigade, they formed closed columns and attacked. As Ensign Macready recalled, ‘A heavy column of Dutch infantry (the first we had seen) passed, drumming and shouting like mad, with their shakos on the top of their bayonets, near enough to our right for us to see and laugh at them, and after this the noise went rapidly away from us.’2 According to a British hussar, they ‘advanced at double quick, their drums rolling, and drove back the enemy. The Bruswick Oels faced about and advanced at the charge also’, with Vivian and his extra aide ‘cheering them on’.3 Rudolph Heinemann, their new commander, was shot in the throat or the heart as he ordered this final advance and killed. His body was never found.

  And at the same time that the Dutch and Brunswickers charged, the grenadiers were unnerved by the sight of troops fleeing to their right. Macready remembered ‘a strange hurly-burly on all sides – firing and shouting, and movement, and it lasted several minutes. Our grey greatcoated opponents disappeared as if the ground had swallowed them.’ The discovery that the newcomers from the east were not Grouchy’s men but Prussians had brought despair to the hard-pressed French defenders. Those in the eastern front line already knew that they were fighting yet more Prussians, and when a battalion chief of the 95th Line was told by one of Napoleon’s messengers that Marshal Grouchy was deploying on the right he pointed out that actually, on the contrary, it was Prussians that they had in front of them, and that they had already killed and wounded several of his men. At that moment the captain of his voltigeurs fell wounded by a ball in the thigh.

  In the smoky desolation to the east of the Charleroi road the situation had looked desperate to the British. The regiments h
ad suffered casualties so heavy that most of them had no more than one or two hundred men left: the officers of the 32nd agreed that they had no more than a hundred. The 27th can have had practically nobody left, having lost from ‘the terrible play of artillery, and the fire of the light troops’ nearly 500 casualties out of a paper strength of under 700 men – the few remaining had joined other units, so they must have looked to be lying dead in square. ‘We had not a single company for support, and the men were so completely worn out, that it required the greatest exertion on the part of the officers to keep up their spirits,’ wrote a rifleman. The subsequent court martial of Henry Ross-Lewin revealed that when ordered to attack, the men of the 32nd refused to form line; they would advance only when Ross-Lewin exhorted them with, ‘Come on my Brave Boys, for God’s sake men move on,’ and then he had to walk behind the twelve remaining men of his company to keep them going forward. They left their colours behind them to secure them from capture.

  By this stage they were mixed up with men from the 27th and the 95th. To a rifle officer,

  Not a soldier thought of giving ground; but victory seemed hopeless, and they gave themselves up to death with perfect indifference. A last effort was our only chance. The remains of the regiments were formed as well as the circumstances allowed, and when the French came within 40 paces, we set up a death-howl, and dashed at them. They fled immediately, not in a regular manner as before, but in the greatest confusion.4