by Tim Clayton
24 Miller, Ball, 140.
25 Glover, Waterloo Archive, I, 226.
26 Mudie, ‘Operations of the Fifth’, 173.
27 Maxwell, Life of Wellington, II, 13; Müffling, Memoirs, 230; Lady Caroline Lamb to Viscountess Melbourne in Mabell Airlie, In Whig Society, 1775–1818 (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1921), 171–3.
18 Marching Orders
1 Jackson, ‘Recollections’, 3.
2 Jackson, ‘Recollections’, 3–4; Müffling, Memoirs, 214–15.
3 Jackson, ‘Recollections’, 3–4. Müffling, Memoirs, 221.
4 Playford, Lifeguardsman, 45–6.
5 James, Journal, 12–14.
6 Ponsonby in Bessborough, Lady Bessborough, 240; Mercer, Journal, 127–9. None of Mercer’s officer’s or RHA colleagues were invited to the ball, though many cavalry officers were absent.
7 Glover, Waterloo Archive, II, 38.
8 Robertson, Journal, 143.
9 Costello, Campaigns, 149.
10 Waldie, Residence in Belgium, 42–3.
11 Waldie, Near Observer, 1815, 3.
12 Winchester and Ross of the 92nd (Siborne no. 169; Glover, Letters, 279) confirm that they formed in the park and not the Place Royale where the Hanoverians gathered.
13 Jackson, Notes and Reminiscences, 14–15.
14 Cappel and Langenstrassen in 1815 Limited On-line Archive; Herzberg in Glover, Waterloo Archive, V, 148 and Schutte in Glover, Waterloo Archive, II, 206–7.
15 Gronow, Reminiscences, 126–7.
16 George Hemingway in Glover, Waterloo Archive, I, 166; Scriba in Glover, Waterloo Archive, II, 99; Bülow in Glover, Waterloo Archive, V, 61; Morris, Memoirs, 67.
19 The Emperor’s Orders
1 Latimer, Talks of Napoleon, 185–6.
2 Marshal Grouchy later published reports he had sent of Prussian columns approaching Brye from Namur at 5 a.m., but there were no Prussians doing so at that time. If the reports that he published are at all genuine they must have been sent later, towards 10 a.m. at the earliest. Grouchy, Relation Succincte, 2nd series, 2–3; de Wit, ‘The French Right Wing’, 2–3.
3 Pontécoulant, Napoléon à Waterloo, 193.
4 Grouchy’s later recollection that he had been ordered to destroy the Prussian cavalry and push through to cut the road from Sombreffe to Namur, so as to prevent Prussian reinforcements arriving, refers to this plan (Grouchy, Mémoires, IV, 23; Relation succincte, first series, 16).
5 Gérard, Quelques documens, 48–9.
6 Nyevelt report of 25 October 1815 in Franklin, Netherlands Correspondence, 45; Robertson (Journal, 145) reported that inhabitants of Genappe told him a French patrol had been there that morning. These reports contest Houssaye’s assertion that Ney made no effort to find out what he had in front of him.
7 Houssaye (1815: Waterloo, 142n) thinks Reille sent this report with reference to Girard’s observations, but Houssaye was anxious to prove that Ney carried out no reconnaissance and it seems far more likely that it was Lefèbvre-Desnouëttes.
8 Forbin-Janson in BL Add Mss 30147A, account dated London December 1817.
20 The Prince of Orange at Quatre Bras
1 Marco Bijl, ‘History and organisation of the Dutch 8th Militia’, http://www.napoleon-series.org/military/organization/Dutch/8thMilitia/c_8thMilitia3.html
2 Costello, Campaigns, 149.
3 Nyevelt in Franklin, Correspondence, 45.
4 Dörnberg in Glover, Waterloo Archive, V, 11; Robinson, Quatre Bras, 155–6.
5 Morris, Memoirs, 67.
6 Fraser, ‘First Guards’, 19; Powell in Siborne, Letters, no. 108.
7 Franklin, Netherlands Correspondence, 81.
21 The View from Brye
1 Reiche, Memoiren, 183–4.
2 See Uffindell, Eagle’s Last Triumph, 74.
3 Reiche, Memoiren, II, 174; Niemann in Thorpe, ‘Two Diaries of Waterloo’, 541.
4 See Reiche, Memoiren, II, 175.
5 Busse, Geschichte, 163; Ammon, Leben … Nagel’s, 125; Lieber, Letters, 102; Schmidt, Prussian Regular Infantryman, 24.
6 Schmidt, Prussian Regular Infantryman, 24; Lieber, Letters, 102.
7 Hofschröer, German Allies, 218–9.
8 This allows for the loss of 1200 men to which the Prussians admitted. They may have lost five guns, although Reiche says they didn’t. Uffindell gives 83,000 men and 224 guns, following Wagner, and allowing for the failure to make the battlefield of two battalions of infantry and a regiment and four squadrons of cavalry.
9 Ollech, Feldzuges von 1815, 65–7; de Wit, ‘Blucher’s plan’.
10 Müffling wrote that he expected the army too be concentrated at Nivelles and Quatre Bras by four (History, 3); Fitzroy Somerset wrote that he expected Orange’s corps and the cavalry by two (Owen, Waterloo Papers, 8–9).
11 Müffling, History, 4; Owen, Waterloo Papers, 9; Reiche, Memoiren, 184, wrote that he promised support, not knowing that he would himself face Ney. Damitz (Geschichte des Feldzuges von 1815, I, 118), whose account was based on the documents of Grolmann, another eye-witness, wrote that Wellington said he thought he would have enough troops in place by 2 p.m. to take the offensive and that Blücher decided to give battle in the expectation of this help in the afternoon. Gneisenau to Hardenberg, 22 June 1815, in Delbrück, Leben, IV, 530. See Uffindell, Eagle’s Last Triumph, 74–6 and Hofschroër, German Allies, 233–42.
12 Dörnberg in Glover, Waterloo Archive, V, 12.
22 Napoleon Changes his Plan
1 Uffindell, Eagle’s Last Triumph, 252, n.13.
2 Forbin-Janson in BL Add Mss 30147A.
3 De Wit, ‘The morning of the 16th of June’, 10.
4 Rumigny, Souvenirs, 99–100; Mauduit, Derniers jours, II, 51.
5 The original and a duplicate in AN, fonds Ney 137 AP18 (one sent via the Bois de Lombuc and one sent via Ransart); copies in Registre du major-général BNP, FR.Nouv.acq.4366 and in SHD C15, nr. 5 according to de Wit, ‘Napoleon’s plan at Ligny’, note 4; Mauduit, Derniers jours, II, 54; Houssaye, 1815: Waterloo, 162–3.
6 Petit, ‘Waterloo Campaign’, 323.
7 Bowden (Waterloo Campaign, 323) gives 65,731, de Wit 66,600. Mauduit, Derniers jours, II, 54 gives 65,241 for the force that took part. Uffindell, Eagle’s Last Triumph, 79, 63,000 and 230 guns.
8 Mauduit, Derniers jours, II, 40.
9 Elting, Swords around a Throne, 338–40, 615–16.
23 Ney Attacks the Netherlanders
1 Dallas, ‘the enemy posted in an immense wood’ in Glover, Waterloo Archive, I, 178; Stephens, ‘their position which was a very formidable one in a thick wood’ in Glover, Waterloo Archive, III, 134.
2 According to Martinien, the lancers suffered two officers wounded during the day, so they were evidently engaged somewhere, though not heavily. There were no officer casualties among the chasseurs. Gustave de Pontécoulant did not list the batteries as having been left behind with the cavalry, and since he was an officer with one of these batteries he should have known (Pontécoulant, Napoléon à Waterloo, 120).
3 Girod de l’Ain, Vie Militaire du Général Foy, 271.
4 Glover, Corunna to Waterloo, 257; Ferrior in Glover, Waterloo Archive, III, 20; Surgeon James wrote of ‘riding through fields of rye as tall as ourselves on horseback’, Journal, 24; Ross-Lewin of the 32nd infantry recalled ‘amazingly tall rye’ at Quatre Bras, Thirty-second, 256; ‘The rye in the fields was so high that to see anything beyond our own ranks was almost impossible’, Colonel Llewellyn, 28th Foot, Siborne, Letters, no. 149.
5 Robinson, Quatre Bras, 167.
6 Nyevelt in Franklin, Netherlands Correspondence, 46.
7 Brunswick report in Glover, Waterloo Archive, V, 148; Robertson, Journal, 145; Cappel in 1815 Limited On-line Archive.
8 Clay, ‘Narrative of Adventures’, 139.
9 ‘Rectification de quelques faits’ in Souvenirs et correspondance, 94–5; Nyevelt in Franklin, Netherlands Correspondence, 47.
10 Robinson, Quatre Bras, 1
81.
24 Probing Attacks on Saint-Amand and Ligny
1 Urban, Rifles, 34.
2 Haythornthwaite, Waterloo Armies, 18; Hanger, To All Sportsmen, 209–10.
3 Two men are said to have thrown shells out of squares at the battle of Waterloo (Haythornthwaite, Waterloo Armies, 65).
4 Martin, Souvenirs, 110.
5 Hofschröer, German Allies, 264–5.
6 Elting, Swords around a Throne, 477.
7 Report of Major von Hymmen in 1815 Limited On-line Archive.
8 Henckel, Erinnerungen, 353.
9 A revolutionary volunteer in 1791, Gérard fought with the Grande Armée except for a period in the Peninsula in 1810–11. His promotion had been slow, and he only got a division after Borodino in 1812. He commanded a corps at Leipzig where he was seriously wounded and had distinguished himself further in 1814.
10 Haythornthwaite, Waterloo Men, 47 and 64; Howard, Napoleon’s Doctors, 77.
11 François, Journal, 734; Rumigny, Souvenirs, 100.
12 Henckel, Erinnerungen, 655.
13 Mauduit, Derniers jours, II, 65.
25 Don’t Hesitate a Moment
1 Original in AN, fonds Ney 137 AP18, being a duplicate message sent 3.30; copy in Registre du major-général BNP, FR.Nouv.acq.4366 and SHD C15, nr. 5, de Wit, part 3, 4; Mauduit, Derniers jours, II, 57–8; Houssaye, 1815: Waterloo, 165.
2 Original in SHD C15, nr. 5; de Wit, part 3, 4; Houssaye, 1815: Waterloo, 165–6. As Houssaye points out, Janin’s estimate of the enemy force at Frasnes was a gross over-estimate of what he can have seen there. Either he was misled by the Dutch attempt to make their line appear stronger than it was or he had heard reports from prisoners or patrols of imminent reinforcement.
3 Houssaye, 1815: Waterloo, 166 and 205–9, who quotes most sources, assumes there were two messages but d’Erlon took the wrong route. Uffindell, Eagle’s Last Triumph, believes that Forbin-Janson carried both the message and the pencil note.
4 D’Erlon named La Bédoyère as the messenger in 1829, but possibly because he was dead and could not reply, having been executed by the royalists in 1815. The ingenious theory that La Bédoyère forged the order can be dismissed out of hand (see Uffindell, Eagle’s Last Triumph, 153). The reasons for supposing that Napoleon might not have issued the order himself are that, as we shall see later, he was puzzled when d’Erlon’s corps appeared and that when d’Erlon later received a conflicting order, he was not sure which to obey.
5 Soult to Ney in SHD C15, nr. 1–5; Soult to Davout in Grouchy, Mémoires, IV, 173–4.
6 Uffindell, Eagle’s Last Triumph, 154.
7 Houssaye, 1815: Waterloo, 166–7n. In Uffindell’s view (Eagle’s Last Triumph, 156), he sent Baudus to Ney after Forbin-Janson returned and admitted he had not seen Ney. This makes sense of Baudus’ late arrival with Ney, though it seems unlikely that much could have been done to rectify matters by that stage.
8 Latimer, Talks of Napoleon, 186–9; Bonaparte, Memoirs, trans. O’Meara, 152. Some complaints relate to the non-arrival of mythical, invented orders that Napoleon claimed in his memoirs to have sent but which in reality were never dispatched. On the other hand, events on 16 June and on other days indicate a genuine problem.
9 Bonaparte, Memoirs, trans. O’Meara, 83.
26 Thin Red Line
1 Kincaid, Adventures, 323–4.
2 Costello, Campaigns, 151.
3 Gronow, Reminiscences, 126.
4 Robertson, Journal, 146
5 Rogers in Siborne, Letters, no. 101; Rogers fired 11 shells and 90 shot to Rettberg’s 24 and 270 (BL Add Mss 19,590).
6 Cléty de Witterzee and van Doren in 1815 Limited On-line Archive.
7 The French chasseurs only lost one officer wounded during the day (Martinien, Tableaux, 587–8), so either the fire of the 92nd was relatively ineffective or it hit the Belgians.
8 Hope, Military Memoirs, 398–9.
9 Anton, Retrospect, 191–2; Burney in Glover, Waterloo Archive, III, 139.
10 Muir, Tactics, 205.
11 Crowe in Glover, Letters, 271; Mudie, Operations of the Fifth, 183.
12 Mauduit, Derniers jours, II, 149; Trefcon, Carnets de Campagne, 84.
13 Martin, Souvenirs, 169.
14 Stephens in Glover, Waterloo Archive, III, 134.
15 Vallance from Robinson, Quatre Bras, 245.
16 Calvert in Siborne, Letters, no. 153; Mauduit, Derniers jours, II, 149.
27 Clubbed Muskets and Bayonets
1 Waldie, Near Observer, 1817 edition, II, 109.
2 Marshal Macdonald, quoted in Haythornthwaite, Waterloo Armies, 103.
3 Henckel, Erinnerungen, 354.
4 Hofschröer, German Allies, 311.
5 René Bourgeois or François Thomas Delbarre, The journal of the three days of the battle of Waterloo, by an eye-witness, 28–9.
6 François, Journal, 735.
7 Lieber, Letters, 103. Bagensky, Geschichte, 237.
8 Lieber, Letters, 104–5.
28 Ney’s Second Assault
1 Swiney, Historical Records, 116. Ross-Lewin, 261, remembered his death differently: ‘A captain of my regiment, toward the close of the day, was remarking what a number of escapes he had had, and showing how his clothes had been shot through in several places, when a musket-ball entered his mouth and killed him on the spot.’
2 Tomkinson, Diary, 280.
3 Martin, ‘Lettre’, 503.
4 Llewellyn in Siborne, Letters, no. 149; Black in Glover, Waterloo Archive, I, 182; Patton in Glover, Waterloo Archive, I, 176–7.
5 The German dragoon comes from Anton, whose account is not all that reliable; McEween in Siborne Letters, no. 165.
6 Mauduit, Derniers jours, II, 152; O’Malley and Riddock in Siborne, Letters, nos 166–7.
7 Riddock in Siborne, Letters, no. 167; Fletcher, Desperate Business, 60–1.
8 Mauduit, Derniers jours, II, 151–2. Martinien adds sub-lieutenants to give three officers killed and eight wounded out of thirty-four. Robinson, Quatre Bras, 369. Elsewhere the initial figure is 561. The Adjutant-General’s return for 17 June (prior to battle casualties) was 577 rank and file (WSD, X, 500).
9 Herzberg’s report in Glover, Waterloo Archive, V, 150 (BL Add Mss 34706, f. 23).
10 Forbin-Janson in BL Add Mss 30147A. Uffindell believes Forbin-Janson carried the 3.15 message, but his account seems to make more sense if he carried the first one.
11 Bourdon de Vatry in Grouchy, Mémoires, IV, 101–2.
12 Langenstrassen in 1815 Limited On-line Archive.
13 Mauduit, Derniers jours, II, 153; Jolyet in Souvenirs et correspondence, 75; Büsgen in 1815 Limited On-line Archive.
14 Leonhard in 1815 Limited On-line archive.
15 Morris, Memoirs, 67.
16 Rudyard in Siborne, Letters, no. 98.
17 They were temporarily in possession of the enemy but were recovered and remounted next day (Frazer, Letters, 541 and 545).
18 According to Martinien they lost five officers killed and twenty-two wounded, casualties matched on the day only by the 4th Light who lost six killed and twenty-three wounded. Losses sustained by Bachelu’s division were significantly lighter – 2nd: eleven wounded; 61st: three killed, eleven wounded; 72nd: two killed, three wounded; 108th: three killed, fourteen wounded.
19 See Laudy, ‘Mort de Frederic Guillaume’ and Herzberg in Glover, Waterloo Archive, V, 151–2.
20 Winchester in Siborne, Letters, no. 169. It has also been said that Cameron was shot by one of his own men, whom he had flogged a few days before (Muir, Tactics, 178 citing Richard Holmes, Firing Line (London, Cape, 1985), 330–1).
21 Macready in Glover, Waterloo Archive, I, 162 thought they were broken but he was not in a position to see it, and to judge from his own and other accounts most of the losses of the 92nd were suffered around La Bergerie. Köhler in 1815 Limited On-line Archive said they were broken attacking La Bergerie.
22 Angus McDonald to his father, Antwerp, 20 June
1815, private collection.
23 Finlayson in Glover, Waterloo Archive, III, 220.
24 Petty, First Napoleon, 116 and 119.
25 Forbin-Janson in BL Add Mss 30147A.
29 Saint-Amand
1 Damitz, Geschichte des Feldzuge von 1815, 136.
2 Ammon and Herold, Leben … Nagel’s, 122, 126; Stawitzky, Geschichte, 37–9.
3 De Wit, Campaign of 1815, ‘Ligny part 3’, 6.
4 Ammon and Herold, Leben … Nagels, 127–8; see Muir, Tactics, 184–5.
5 Henckel, Erinnerungen, 354.
6 Müffling, Memoirs, 238.
7 Müffling, History, 5–6; Memoirs, 238; Ollech, Feldzuges von 1815, 139–40.
8 De Wit section 6 and Hofschröer, German Allies, 287, citing Hans von Förster, Geschichte des königlich preussischen Ulanen-Regiments Graf zu Dohna nr.8 (Berlin: Mittler 1890), p. 66.
9 Mauduit, Derniers jours, II, 82–3; Duuring in d’Avout, ‘Documents’, 115.
10 Pétiet, 195, said that Vandamme identified the column as Prussian cavalry; Mauduit, Derniers jours, II, 83. According to Piérart, Le Drame de Waterloo, 134, an aide sent by Vandamme was too frightened to approach the column sufficiently closely and misidentified it as English.
30 D’Erlon’s March
1 Ney’s letter to Reille and report to Soult of 11 a.m. from de Wit.
2 The identity of the messenger is mysterious. In one version d’Erlon said it was La Bédoyère, possibly because La Bédoyère was conveniently dead. In his autobiography, d’Erlon said that the messenger was an officier d’ordonnance (Vie Militaire, 95). Pétiet (Souvenirs Militaires, 198) named Colonel Laurent. Colonel Baudus, who claimed to have taken the duplicate message, named Forbin-Janson. Uffindell, Eagle’s Last Triumph, 157, blamed Forbin-Janson for the entire fiasco, calling him ‘disastrously inexperienced, totally inefficient and monumentally incompetent’.
3 The letter is quoted in full, p. 169. It is interesting that there is only one copy of the message in Ney’s archive, in contrast to the two copies of the 2 p.m. order, since this might suggest that he really did only receive the duplicate.