by David Rooney
Chapter 5
Waterloo
March 1815 to January 1829
When Harry returned to Whittlesey that March, he found Juana surrounded by an affectionate and loving family, but excited at the prospect of serving once again under the Duke – after all, he had given her away at her wedding in Badajoz. Harry wrote: ‘All was now excitement, joy, hope and animation, and preparation of riding-habits, tents, canteens etc, my sisters thinking of all sorts of things for my wife’s comfort, which we could as well have carried as our parish church.’ Harry had to purchase horses both for himself and for Juana, and to organize their whole trip. Sir John Lambert wrote to confirm that Harry would be his Brigade Major, and suggested that as he was in Cambridgeshire he should cross to Brussels via Harwich and Ostend. The night before they left, the whole family went for a ride on their horses. Harry was riding an old favourite and – always liable to show off – rode at a high fence, but the horse failed, rolled on top of him and pinned down his leg. He had visions of the end of his military career but, amazingly, he emerged unharmed except for severe bruising, and so they set off to take part in what would be the final showdown with Napoleon – the Battle of Waterloo.
Waterloo was, without question, the epic battle of the nineteenth century, and, although it lasted only a day and was fought over ground not much bigger than Hyde Park, it resulted in the final destruction of the Napoleonic Empire. To Harry’s chagrin, he did not fight with his beloved 95th (after the battle to be renamed the Rifle Brigade), but found himself on the staff in Lambert’s Brigade Headquarters. Nevertheless, he played a not insignificant role, as we shall see.
On 1 March 1815, Napoleon had escaped from Elba and landed in France. Nineteen days later he was in Paris and resumed his title as Emperor; his army rallied to him. The soldiers who had been captured during the years of earlier fighting had been released and they enabled Napoleon to reform his Grande Armée. The European allies reassembled their armies and prepared to resume the war to overthrow the Emperor yet again. Napoleon resolved to attack the British, Prussian, Belgian and Dutch armies before the other powers could come to their assistance, and marched into Belgium.
Harry and Juana, together with his brother, Charles, arrived in Ghent, having spent some frustrating days waiting for good weather in Harwich. Harry was raring to go but also reported that Juana was ‘delighted to be once more in campaigning trim’. Having met up with General Lambert, Harry was pleased to see that the Brigade consisted of what he called the New Orleans regiments, including three of the best battalions, in his view, of the old Peninsula regiments. Shortly, the Brigade was ordered to march towards Brussels and arrived at Asche on the afternoon of 16 June, from where gunfire from Quatre Bras could be clearly heard. This action was due to an early move by Napoleon to have Marshal Ney sever the forward link between Wellington and Blücher. The result was some heavy fighting, but any French success was thwarted by Wellington’s tactical withdrawal, bar a rearguard, towards his favoured position along the line of the Mont St Jean ridge to the south of Waterloo. He was now well set as long as the Prussians turned up. Meanwhile, the fog of war had descended on Harry’s Brigade. Soldiers rushed to alarm positions, bugles sounded and troopers galloped hither and thither in a high state of excitement. Rumours of French penetration of their positions were rife, but the experienced troops kept cool heads, including Harry and his Brigade Commander who calmly sat down to dinner with Juana and the ADC.
At nightfall it poured with rain and this was to have a significant effect on the coming battle. Roads and villages became a muddy, seething mass of guns and their limbers, struggling horses, bogged-down wagons and swearing soldiery trying to make their way forward. On the morning of 18 June, having consolidated the Brigade position, Lambert sent Harry to locate the Duke and obtain orders. About 11.00am, he found him with his staff, near the Hougoumont farm, later to be the scene of some of the heaviest fighting by the Brigade of Guards in the battle. Recognizing Harry, the Duke asked him news of his Brigade. Harry replied in his characteristically robust and confident way, emphasizing the qualities of his regiments. At that point, one of Wellington’s staff officers suggested that the French were unlikely to attack that day. ‘Nonsense,’ the Duke replied, ‘the columns are already forming and we shall be attacked within the hour.’ How right he was. Turning to Harry, he asked if he had noted the junction of the main roads between Genappe and Nivelles, on his way up. Harry indeed had and so the Duke told him to bring the Brigade forward to that crossroads. Thereafter, Lambert was to be prepared to assume a position on the left, between the Nassau Brigade and Picton’s Division, taking under command a newly raised brigade of Hanoverians. Despite all the pressures on him, Wellington took great care, coolly and deliberately, to ensure that Harry understood exactly what was required and, furthermore, Harry himself was to reconnoitre the shortest and most suitable route for Lambert’s Brigade to move, when ordered, to this new position.
No sooner had Harry returned to the Brigade Headquarters than the battle started. Lying behind the ridge, it was difficult to see what was going on and at one stage a whole lot of panicking Dutch soldiers ran through the ranks of Lambert’s Brigade, making it look as though retreat was a possibility. Some dragoons, charging through their lines with prisoners and captured French Eagles, caused added confusion. However, the Brigade was soon ordered to take up the position that the Duke had given Harry earlier that morning. Historians, with the benefit of hindsight and careful analysis, are tempted to write tidy accounts of battles and manoeuvres, but the reality, for ordinary soldiers, is one of fear, anxiety, muddle, disorientation and lack of communication. Half the time they had no idea of what was happening. Despite his position in the Brigade Headquarters, Harry was no exception. The smoke lay so thick over the battlefield, it was impossible to see where any formed body of troops was or, for that matter, the difference between friend or foe. Towards the end of the day, although firing had ceased, Harry admitted he had no idea who had won. It was not until he identified a French column withdrawing in disarray before some Redcoats, and heard a very British cry of triumph, that he realized the day was theirs. Through the smoke, Harry was spotted by the Duke of Wellington. ‘Where are your people? Tell them to form companies and move on immediately.’ Harry replied, ‘In which direction, my lord?’ He had completely lost his bearings in the fog. Wellington pointed, ‘Why, right ahead.’ Harry did so, but the battle was over. (Possibly one of the last cannon balls to be fired by the French took off Lord Uxbridge’s leg, leading to the probably apocryphal remark of Wellington’s, ‘Have you, by God?’ in response to Uxbridge’s ‘By God, I’ve lost my leg!’ It is sometimes quoted to demonstrate Wellington’s hard-heartedness, but this is to misunderstand soldiers’ reactions in the heat of battle when there is little room for emotion and the niceties of good manners or sympathy.)
Then came the dreadful reckoning. Harry, having had two horses shot under him but not killed, remained unscathed, as were his two brothers, Charles and Tom, fighting respectively in the 1st and 2nd Battalions of the 95th, although Charles received a minor flesh wound in the neck. However, the carnage overall was appalling: dead were piled upon dead, the screams of the wounded and dying rent the air, and scavengers were already at work, stripping bodies of anything of value. One of the regiments in Harry’s Brigade, the 27th (later the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers) lost all their officers bar two, and they were wounded. When the Battalion was down to barely 120 men, legend has it that the initiative was seized by an officer in the 95th which was close by, a Lieutenant Archie Stewart, who rallied the remnants and led them in a charge against the French. The officer’s descendants have his medals among which, together with the Waterloo medal and the order of the Knight of Hanover, there is, curiously, a French Legion d’Honneur. Family history fails to record how he came by the latter.
Harry gave his own description of Waterloo:
I had been over many a field of battle, but with the exception of one
spot at New Orleans, and the breach of Badajoz, I had never seen anything to be compared with what I saw. At Waterloo the whole field from right to left was a mass of dead bodies. In one spot, to the right of La Haye Sainte, the French Cuirassiers were literally piled on each other; many soldiers not wounded lying under their horses; others, fearfully wounded, occasionally with their horses struggling upon their wounded bodies. The sight was sickening, and I had no means or power to assist them. Imperative duty compelled me to the field of my comrades, where I had plenty to do to assist many who had been left out all night; some had been believed to be dead, but the spark of life had returned. All over the field you saw officers, and as many soldiers as were permitted to leave the ranks, leaning and weeping over some dead or dying brother or comrade.
A number of Harry’s friends were killed or wounded. He found Captain McCulloch, an old colleague from Peninsula days, in great agony from wounds in the arm and back, wounds that were over and above the seven sabre cuts he had sustained at the Coa, where Harry had been shot in the ankle. Amazingly, McCulloch recovered, but sadly died of dysentery some time later. For Harry, the post-trauma drop in adrenaline level and the appalling losses (Allies 22,000, French 41,000) put him into a dark mood of dejection when, as many soldiers do in similar circumstances, he had his doubts and asked himself whether he was doing the right thing. However, the body and mind can recover swiftly and, after a good night’s sleep, Harry regained his usual cheerful and ebullient nature.
Predictably, Harry had his own forthright views on why the battle was won. He takes the Prussians to task for arriving late, thereby seriously jeopardizing the Allies’ left flank. This is not quite how Wellington saw it though, writing: ‘I should not do justice to my own feelings, or to Marshal Blücher and the Prussian army, if I did not attribute the successful result of this arduous day to the cordial and timely assistance I received from them. The operation of General Bulow upon the enemy’s flank was a most decisive one.’ Harry roundly criticizes Napoleon for: ‘fighting the battle badly’; partial and isolated attacks; sacrificing his cavalry too early; and failing to turn the Allies’ flank. However, he goes on to praise the French artillery and cavalry, but denigrates the infantry. He was right that Waterloo lacked the brilliant manoeuvring of Salamanca and Vitoria, but at Waterloo there was no time for the famous Napoleonic sweep, due to boggy and difficult terrain – he had to act swiftly but Wellington was stolidly ready for him. Wellington’s army was composed of relatively raw troops and unreliable allies, not the seasoned veterans of the Peninsula, apart from a few battalions, such as the 95th, of course; but they stood their ground and did what they had to do. At the end of the day, Wellington’s infantry lines held together better than Napoleon’s, his firepower was better organized and his generals were better than Napoleon’s marshals. Let Wellington have the last word: ‘Never did I see such a pounding match. Both were what boxers call gluttons. Napoleon did not manoeuvre at all. He just moved forward in the old style, in columns, and was driven off in the old style.’ From then on, officers appearing in the Army List, who had fought at Waterloo, were to have a Gothic ‘w’ in front of their names.
Harry’s thoughts now naturally turned to Juana. He had left her in Brussels early on 18 June and knew she would be worried about him. How had she been and what fears would she have suffered? He was desperate to reach her and assure her of his safety. On 17 June, when the preliminary battles had already been fought, Harry and Juana had dinner with Sir John Lambert, Harry’s Brigade Commander. Harry – well informed as ever – realized that the final showdown between Wellington and Napoleon was about to take place, and ordered Juana and West to go back to Brussels to await the outcome of the battle. All the fears and agony which she suffered when her Enrique went into a battle were instantly revived. She pleaded not to be sent back, but the steely note in his voice when he said ‘That is an order’ made her realize that she had to obey, and after a final embrace they parted.
Juana and West left at once and returned to Brussels, where in the centre of the city there was complete chaos, because orders had been given for all civilians and all the army baggage to be moved off towards Antwerp. They rode on along the crowded road and in the early evening reached a village where they hoped to stay the night. Suddenly the alarm was raised and the rumour spread that the French were advancing upon them. In a scene of high tension, West brought her horse for Juana, but the horse was frantic. She tried to calm it, but when West handed her faithful little pug, Vitty, up to her the rein slipped from her grasp and the horse galloped off, crashing through crowds of horses, wagons and frightened people. This desperate ride went on for about 8 miles until the horse, suddenly facing an overturned wagon, finally came to an abrupt halt, nearly pitching Juana and Vitty off on to the ground. This at least allowed her to control the horse and stop the gallop. When she set off again, a group of horsemen rode up; she assumed that they were French and would take her prisoner, but fortunately they were British troops, including an Hussar officer who, without stopping, said that the French were close behind and that they should hurry on towards Antwerp. Another man told her to throw away the dog, which infuriated her.
Juana reached Antwerp with the Hussar, and he did try to find her a billet, but the town was choked with civilians – mostly British – who had fled from Brussels, and she had to go to the Hotel de Ville to seek accommodation. She waited, feeling acutely embarrassed, later describing her appearance: ‘I was wet from head to foot with the black mud of the high-road. On my face the mud had dried, and a flood of tears chasing each other through it down my cheeks must have given me an odd appearance indeed.’ Then another officer approached and, seeing her plight, offered to take her to the family home of Colonel Craufurd, Commandant of the garrison. To her great relief, Mrs Craufurd, who had two daughters, gave her a warm welcome, a bath, dry clothes and a meal.
The following morning, 19 June, the officer who had brought Juana to the Craufurds returned with West, their horses and their baggage. All through the day came news of a great battle with very heavy casualties, and Juana became increasingly alarmed and apprehensive. In spite of the entreaties of her kind hostess, she determined to leave at 3.00am next day to ride to the battlefield and find news of Harry. Before they left, she and West had a mild dispute with the innkeeper over where their goods had been left, and managed to recover a valuable dressing case and other items. Then, travelling light, they galloped off and reached Brussels by 7.00am. There they found soldiers of the Rifles who, to Juana’s horror, told her that Brigade Major Smith had been killed. Juana later wrote:
In a state approaching desperation I urged the horse to the utmost speed to the field of battle to seek my husband’s corpse … the road was nearly choked which was to lead me to the completion, as I hoped, of my life; to die on the body of the only thing I had on earth to love, and which I loved with a faithfulness which few can or ever did feel. In my agony of woe, I approached the awful field of Sunday’s carnage, in a mad search for Enrique.
When she reached the battlefield, she soon saw the carnage, with wagons, guns, uniforms and equipment all destroyed, and everywhere the smell of death. Then, adding to her horror, she saw deep pits full of corpses and other hastily dug graves, and dreaded the thought that Harry was already buried and she would never see him again. In the extremity of her grief, she recalled her convent upbringing and she prayed to God through Jesus Christ. Soon afterwards – not exactly claiming a miracle – she came face to face with one of their closest friends from the Peninsula, Charlie Gore. She rushed to him, begging to be told where she could find Harry’s body.
Charlie replied that Harry was a few miles away, unwounded and as fit as he had ever been. Juana, having been told of his certain death, begged Charlie not to deceive her. Sensing her frantic and overwrought state, he quickly confirmed that the Brigade Major of another brigade – also called Smith – had indeed been killed, but Harry and both his brothers had all come through safely. He swore on his
honour that Harry was well and even then was riding his favourite horse Lochinvar. Charlie was about to ride off to Mons to find Harry and so Juana accompanied him. Through a day of anguish and emotional turmoil, she had been in the saddle since 3 o’clock that morning, and when they reached Mons she had ridden for 60 miles. They found shelter and she slept briefly. Then at daybreak on 21 June, they hurried on to Bavay where she saw Sir John Lambert, who told her where she would find Harry. She wrote:
Until I saw him, I could not persuade myself that he was well, such a hold had my previous horror taken of my every thought and feeling. Soon, O gracious God, I sank into his embrace, exhausted, fatigued, happy, and grateful – oh how grateful – to God who had protected him and sustained my reason through such scenes of carnage, horror, dread, and belief in my bereavement.
As Europe now settled into a long peace of nearly forty years, Harry and Juana were to have one of the happiest periods of their lives – a round of parties, hunting, good food and wine, fine clothes and mingling with the aristocracy, in particular, Harry’s hero, the Duke of Wellington. Harry now became a senior staff officer in General Lowry Cole’s 6th Division, being responsible for the administration of some 17,000 men. Although by nature more of a front-line soldier, he clearly enjoyed the job and could get his teeth into real day-to-day problems of an Army of Occupation. Juana and he settled comfortably into the country residence in Neuilly of a Parisian lady with whom they made firm friends. To Harry’s great satisfaction he was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel and made a Companion of the Order of the Bath – a fitting reward for his considerable wartime experience and, by any standards, exemplary service.