by Tim Clayton
It was here, where the French troops had been inspired by the good news of Grouchy’s arrival, that bewildering disappointment struck most acutely. Lieutenant Martin of the 45th was with the men of Marcognet’s division, who had once again stormed onto the plateau. From the high ground at the end of the line where the smoke was thin, they could see the mass of fresh troops who were rushing onto the battlefield and they quickly realised that they were not French, but Prussian. Prussian cavalry and fusiliers were charging towards their flank. Everything suddenly gave way, men losing hope and giving up. Thinking they had been betrayed, they fled back down the slope into the valley, pursued by Ziethen’s cavalry. There were no formed bodies to be seen and it was all a question of who could flee fastest and furthest. ‘I did what the others did,’ recalled Martin. ‘The other regiments broke at the same time. The whole army panicked. It was just a confused mass of infantry, cavalry, and guns, pressing against each other and rushing across the plain in a raging torrent, away from the Prussian squadrons charging them and in front of the English battalions who descended from the plateau with shouts of victory.’5
On the plateau between La Haye Sainte and Mont Saint-Jean farm, Poret de Morvan’s 3rd Grenadiers held together for some time in square, with Ney insisting to Poret that this was where they must die, but the sight of 3000 fresh troops charging towards them was too much for the 4th Grenadiers and the chasseurs who were in their path. The Netherlanders pursued them down the hill, although they lost cohesion as they advanced.
Just to the east, Maitland’s Guardsmen had been lying down behind a bank, possibly that of the Nivelles chaussée, to take shelter from the artillery. The skirmishers of the chasseurs facing them advanced, shouting ‘Vive L’empereur!’ As the skirmishers in front of Chassé’s Netherlanders advanced on their left, Wellington ordered Maitland’s Guards to charge, saying something resembling, ‘Up Guards and at ’em!’ They stood up and fired a fierce volley at fifty yards’ range. The French skirmishers were surprised by their sudden appearance and, as they wavered, Lord Saltoun led the Guards in a bayonet charge.6
To the west of the Guards, Sir John Colborne, one of the outstanding officers of the Peninsular War, wheeled his veteran 52nd Oxfordshire Light Infantry to the right and advanced, with a company skirmishing ahead, towards the nearest French column. He had some companies of the 95th to his left, and was followed at a distance by the 71st Highland Light Infantry and behind them the remainder of Clinton’s division. The flank attack caused the French column to pause and the nearest French battalion – probably one of the 3rd Chasseurs – turned to its left to face them. Colborne estimated that his battalion took 150 casualties as they advanced – they halted once to fire on the 23rd Light Dragoons, who had crossed their line and were wrongly assumed to be French. The 71st moved up on their right with the third battalion of the Rifles on their flank. It is reasonable to suppose that the intervention of the Light Brigade was crucial; they were good and relatively fresh troops, however brave and obstinate were Maitland’s exhausted Guards. Three out of four battalion commanders of the 3rd and 4th Chasseurs were mortally wounded, as was the battalion chief of the 4th Grenadiers.
Major-General Hugh Halkett sent one battalion of Hanoverian militia to clear the Hougoumont orchard and advanced with the Osnabrück Landwehr, covering the right flank of Frederick Adam’s brigade. The leading company and skirmishers rushed and captured a French battery. Casualties among the French chasseurs who were trapped by the Light Brigade, the Guards and the light cavalry were very high – it appears that more than half were killed or wounded.7 As the British pursued up and over the ridge, they found more squares of Guards in the valley below.
On the western flank the second battalion of the 3rd Grenadiers was holding its position, and General Cambronne came to its support with the second battalion of the 1st Chasseurs. Halkett’s sharpshooters shot the horse of a senior officer and then dashed forward, capturing the defenceless Frenchman who identified himself as Cambronne. A French newspaper had it that Cambronne, in the midst of a square of his Old Guard, was summoned to surrender and replied with ‘La garde meurt et ne se rend pas!’ (‘The Guard dies, it does not surrender!’); in the 1970 film Waterloo, the Old Guard was then mown down by artillery. The reality was less picturesque. Cambronne was caught out in the open, well outside the square, and if he said anything it was not that.8
The reserve, consisting of the second battalion of the 2nd Chasseurs and the first battalion of the 2nd Grenadiers, marched to a position near the orchard of La Haye Sainte, close to Napoleon and General Drouot, but by the time they arrived everything was in retreat. The Emperor watched the horse artillery of the Guard riding back down the hill for a moment, and then, dazed and tired, mounted and made off. His army to the east was in rout and the only possible explanation was that the new force that he had taken to be Grouchy had actually been yet more Prussians. A battle that they had seemed so close to winning was utterly lost. Meanwhile, on the other side of the ridge, Wellington rose high in the saddle and waved his hat over his head.
71
Right Ahead, To Be Sure
Belle Alliance, 8.30–10 p.m.
The firing stopped, which puzzled those who had not been fighting on the smoke-filled slope behind the ridge. A staff officer of the Netherlands light cavalry rode eastward to see what was going on. To his alarm, he saw lancers riding towards him through the smoke and assumed that since there were practically no lancers in Wellington’s army, they must be French. He was about to gallop away for his life when, seeing their costumes more clearly, he realised that they were not French but Prussian.
Sergeant Robertson of the Gordon Highlanders had been ‘ordered to pay particular attention to any signal or movement I might see in front, for which purpose I was furnished with a spy-glass’. He described what happened next:
In a short time one of our skirmishers came running in, and called to me to look at the French lines, as something extraordinary was going on. On the enemy’s right I perceived that a cross fire had been commenced, and that troops in the same dress had turned the extremity of their line, and were advancing rapidly. I immediately informed the adjutant, who said that perhaps it was a mutiny in the French army, and that we would better form our companies close, so as to be ready to march to any point. At this instant, an aide-de-camp came galloping down our rear, and calling out, ‘The day is our own – the Prussians have arrived.’1
Where Harry Smith, brigade major to General Lambert, stood, ‘the field was so enveloped in smoke that nothing was discernible. The firing ceased on both sides, and we on the left knew that one party or the other was beaten.’ He wrote afterwards that ‘this was the most anxious moment of my life’. When the smoke cleared, they saw ‘the red-coats in the centre, as stiff as rocks, and the French columns retiring rapidly, and there was such a British shout as rent the air’. The Duke and a single staff officer were riding his way and Smith went to meet him. ‘“Who commands here?” “Generals Kempt and Lambert, my lord.” “Desire them to get into a column of companies of Battalions, and move on immediately.” I said, “In which direction, my lord?” “Right ahead, to be sure.” I never saw his Grace so animated.’
Behind the front line, tired little bands of muddy, powder-blackened British infantry prepared to advance, among them the seventy-two surviving members of the 73rd. Sergeant Burton gave Sergeant Morris ‘a hearty slap on the back, and growled, “Out with the grog, Tom; did I not tell you there was no shot made for you or me?”’
‘In less than half an hour,’ reported General Kruse three days later, ‘a brilliant victory had been won over an enemy who had believed they were the victors and that with good reason.’2
The fighting wasn’t over, though. Sir Hussey Vivian got the order to attack; emerging from the smoke, he saw the French retreating up the road with two squares and two bodies of cavalry covering. He went for the nearest cavalry with his 10th Hussars in the lead, taking fire from the square and grapesho
t from a battery. Lord Byron’s cousin Major Howard led a squadron against the infantry and tumbled from his horse in front of the square, where a grenadier finished him with the butt of his musket. The 10th drove away the cavalry that side, so Vivian attacked the flank of the cuirassiers covering the square with his 18th Hussars, drove them off and cut down the gunners. They suffered no other artillery fire from then on as they pursued, harrying the infantry.3 Vandeleur’s 11th and 16th Light Dragoons charged a body of infantry and captured much of it, but attacked no cavalry. The indestructible Major Bäring, overjoyed at the sudden, joyous and unexpected turn of events, ‘joined the 1st Hussars, and with them followed the enemy until dark, when I returned to the field of battle’.4 An officer of the horse artillery with Vivian’s horsemen said that ‘we with the guns alternately unlimbered and advanced, bringing them to bear on every possible occasion, until it was too dark to fire without danger to our own Cavalry, which continued to press upon the rear of the French, and turned their retreat into a complete rout and confused flight.’5
A lieutenant of the 16th Light Dragoons described how they advanced a mile and a half before they reached the valley where La Haye Sainte was burning on their left. If his estimate of distance was remotely accurate, the cavalry had started from a position well to the north of Mont-Saint-Jean, an indication of how far back the British line had really been driven. One of the 11th Light Dragoons said that they charged various bodies of infantry, but ‘Just as it was getting dark we came in sight of some of the Imperial Guards, who rapidly retreated behind a column of infantry, which we charged and received a volley from close to their muskets.’ They received most of their fifty-five casualties during this last phase.
D’Erlon’s artillery commander General Dessales was reluctant to withdraw his guns and gave the order too late. Although his 12-pounders had good teams, hauling them up the slope was a slow business and consequently the allied cavalry was onto them as they reached their original front line. Dessales managed to reach the safety of a square of Imperial Guards, but his guns were captured.
The British cavalry making their charge along the main road into the mass of fleeing troops now encountered the two Imperial Guard battalions that had been in reserve. Retreating in square, assailed by British skirmishers and hit by occasional artillery shots, the Guards held together until they reached Rossomme, where Petit had united the two battalions of the 1st Grenadiers as well as the sappers and seamen, holding their ground either side of the chaussée with the support of a battery of 12-pounder guns. They were obstinately beating the grenadière to rally Imperial Guard grenadiers and many joined the squares, but at about this point the square of the first battalion 2nd Grenadiers broke up in rout.6 The Emperor took refuge in Petit’s square with the 1st Grenadiers until Soult persuaded him to leave the field. He told Petit to hold the line behind him and rode on.
Napoleon’s military coachman Jean Hornn had been abandoned near La Belle Alliance with his vehicle, which contained diamonds belonging to Joseph Bonaparte worth 800,000 francs, Princess Pauline’s necklace, worth 300,000 francs, and a large amount of gold. Hornn too drove off, forcing his way through the confusion on the highway.
As the number of French fugitives swelled, Johan Duuring gathered his 1st Chasseurs of the Guard together so that they could either form square against cavalry or move off in retreat, swelling his numbers by accepting into his ranks fugitives from the Guard. At dusk they were attacked again by skirmishers, for by now the nearby woods were full of Prussian fusiliers. Then the Emperor appeared with his aides Antoine Drouot, Charles de Flahaut, other generals and an escort of chasseurs-à-cheval. Napoleon ordered Duuring to follow him and cover his retreat and rode on.
The remains of Reille’s II Corps, on the French left, pulled out in reasonable order. Although under pressure and under fire, most of them marched off the battlefield, bypassed Genappe, and crossed the Sambre at Marchiennes-au-Pont. A British cavalry officer admired the hauteur with which what was left of the Horse Grenadiers of the Guard walked away, ignoring his 12th Light Dragoons, who considered themselves too weak to attack the heavy cavalry.7 This good order was fragile – although Reille himself claimed that it lasted until Genappe and Quatre Bras, where units broke up in the darkness, some accounts indicate that regiments disintegrated in rout much earlier – but probably the French to the west retreated in relative calm. An officer of the French 2nd Dragoons claimed that ‘The disorder … has been exaggerated … The enemy were so surprised by their success, that in their pursuit they only attacked the soldiers in disorder on the plain immediately to the left and right of the road … the enemy kept away from those bodies who kept their order,’ and most accounts by allied cavalry officers support this contention. Piré’s cavalry division, too, retired in good order, covering the retreat of Reille’s corps.8
Trapped between the British and the Prussians, the French right, which had broken first, suffered most. General Durutte marched the two regiments of Brue’s brigade westward in good order, intending to act as a rearguard to shield the fugitives, but they reached a point where the lane they were following became a hollow way so narrow that they were unable to move along it in formation, and so he told his officers to wait while he looked for a better route forward. He had hardly left them when Marshal Ney appeared, exasperated, riding a horse spattered with mud and blood, brandishing a broken sword, and ordered the troops to follow him so that he could show them how a marshal of France died on the field of battle. Amazingly, they shouted ‘Vive l’Empereur! Vive le maréchal Ney!’ and followed. After an advance of 200 paces, however, they could see the whole allied line surging towards them and a violent hail of canister, followed by a cavalry charge, cut down more than half their number. Those who were not hit by a bullet or a ball were sabred and trampled by horses. An English officer and a dragoon threw themselves against the eagle bearer of the 95th and seriously wounded him in an attempt to seize the eagle; a battalion chief just had time to tear it from his hands and plunge into the hollow way after Marshal Ney, who by some miracle was untouched. Brisk fire from a battalion of Imperial Guards halted the charge of the British cavalry in which they were engulfed and they both galloped towards its square.9
When General Durutte returned to look for his men he was surrounded by English cavalry who sabred him mercilessly, practically severing his wrist and cutting him hideously about his face. The English left him behind, covered in blood, but his horse, which he could no longer direct because he had practically lost consciousness, followed their charge and took him to the high road among the French fugitives. A cuirassier recognised him there and escorted him to Genappe, where his hand was amputated. Durutte’s men were followed westward by the Prussians, with Bieberstein’s fusilier battalion of the 18th Infantry in the lead. The regiment suffered the highest casualties in the Prussian army as they pressed at Durutte’s division and the Young Guard, whose retreat eventually turned into a wild flight; nevertheless, after about an hour Bieberstein’s men reached La Belle Alliance.
As they advanced through the smoke following the retreating Imperial Guard the Netherlands units began to lose cohesion. Captain Gerard Rochell of the 19th Militia saw Frenchmen firing from an orchard on his left – possibly La Valette – and he hurried there with his flankers. The 2nd Dutch line regiment was attacking La Haye Sainte, which was still held by the French 13th Light. Having driven the French out of the orchard, Rochell continued forward through a ploughed field where many of his men lost their shoes in the mud, then up a slope, where he met another captain of his battalion who only had two of his company with him. Finally, they ran into Prussian skirmishers who thought they were French until they waved their orange sashes in the air. ‘They welcomed us with great joy and although we did not know each other we shook hands; everyone shouted: “The victory is ours!” Those who still had something to drink shared this with their comrades. Many Prussians offered me their bottle and my flankers as well, which enlivened us, as we had not had an
ything to drink.’10
The Prussians were storming through everywhere now. Fresh units from II Corps were thrown into the battle as spearheads of a third attack on the burning village of Plancenoit. The 2nd Regiment, 2900 strong, moved on the churchyard, which by now was piled with bodies – several thousand dead and dying men lay in and close to the village. The fusiliers captured the churchyard and the wounded General Barrois of the Young Guard. The 2400 men of the 5th Westphalian Landwehr attacked the north of the village while the fusiliers of the 25th Regiment – Lützow’s Freikorps, dressed in black – made their assault along the track that ran above the Lasne to the south.
The main attack was preceded by an assault by the 2nd Pomeranian Landwehr, who were driven out again. But, as the troops massed for the final attack, Pelet’s officers told him that most of their men had gone and that they stood no chance. He gave the order to retreat, and, gathering together what was left of the chasseurs and grenadiers in a body containing, he reckoned, about half his men, fell back on Le Caillou. The commander of one of Lobau’s brigades told a similar story: outflanked on both sides by cavalry, ‘one sensed that our battalions were in danger of falling into disorder and the order was received to abandon Planchenoit in flames and retire towards the main road.’ His square disintegrated between Plancenoit and the chaussée. He tried to rally his men near the Bois de Chantelet, but found it full of Prussians and had to run for the main road.11