The war drama of the Eagles

by Edward Fraser

How Wellington’s Trophies were won

It was in Napoleon’s second grand attack that our two Waterloo Eagle-trophies, the most famous spoils ever won by the British Army, came into Wellington’s hands.

The first attack began about half-past eleven, when Reille’s corps, on the French left, made its opening effort against Hougoumont. Intended by Napoleon at the outset rather as a feint to mislead Wellington into fixing his attention on that side, the stubborn defence of Hougoumont involved the Second Corps in a struggle that kept it fully occupied for the whole day; unable to take part or be of use elsewhere.

The second grand attack took place shortly after two in the afternoon, when Marshal Ney made his tremendous onslaught with thirty-three battalions of Drouet d’Erlon’s First Army Corps on the left-centre of the British position, to the east of the Charleroi road, where Picton’s men held the ground.

A DARK OBJECT IN THE HAZE

The launching of Ney’s attack just then came about as the result of Napoleon’s sudden and disquieting discovery that the Prussians were approaching. It was to have opened an hour earlier, but, because of that, had been held back at the last moment. Napoleon, while looking round with the idea that Grouchy’s troops might be in sight in that quarter, made the discovery with his own eyes. Those round him, indeed, at first doubted what the dark object—which appeared in the hazy atmosphere like a shadow on the high ground near Mont Saint-Lambert, some six miles off to the north-east—really was. Soult at first could make out nothing; then he was positive it was a column of troops—probably Grouchy’s. The staff, scanning the suspicious neighbourhood with their telescopes, asserted that what the Emperor saw was only a wood. The arrival of some hussars with a Prussian prisoner, whom they had just captured while trying to get round with a despatch from Bülow to Wellington to announce the approach of the Prussian Fourth Corps, settled the question.

Napoleon paced backwards and forwards for a minute, taking pinches of snuff incessantly. Then he ordered off his Light Cavalry to reconnoitre; dictated to Soult an urgent message recalling Grouchy; and sent off an aide de camp to tell Lobau to wheel the Sixth Corps to the right, facing towards Saint-Lambert. After that he gave Ney orders to open his attack.

Ney took in hand his work forthwith, and at once a terrific cannonade opened. Eighty French field-guns, a third of Napoleon’s artillery on the field, began firing together from the plateau in front of La Belle Alliance; storming furiously with shot and shell to break down the British resistance, and clear the way for the onset of the charging columns. Without slackening an instant the guns thundered incessantly for nearly an hour; getting back from the British artillery in reply a fire that was at least as vigorous and no less effective.

“EN AVANT!” “VIVE L’EMPEREUR!”

Then Ney gave the word to advance.

Immediately the French infantry were on the move. They went forward massed in four divisions; in four solid columns of from four to five thousand men each, advancing en échelon from the left, with intervals between of about four hundred paces. Eight battalions made up each column, except that of the second division, which had nine. The battalions stood drawn up in lines, three deep, with a front of two hundred files. They were packed closely, one behind the other; with intervals between, from front to rear, of only five paces. So closely were they wedged together, that there was barely room between the battalions for the company officers. Two brigadiers, Quiot and Bourgeois, led the left column, General Allix, their chief, being elsewhere; General Donzelot, a keen soldier and universally popular as the best hearted and most genial of good fellows, headed the second column; Marcognet, a grim, hard-bitten veteran, a prime favourite with Marshal Ney for his dogged determination in action, had the third; General Durutte was in charge of the fourth, away to the right.

With their battalion-drums jauntily rattling out the pas de charge, amid excited cries and loud exultant shouts of “En avant!” “Vive l’Empereur!” the columns stepped off. Ahead of them raced forward at a run swarming crowds of tirailleurs; extending fan-wise as they went, spreading out widely across the front in skirmishing array. The four massed columns surged quickly forward and over the edge of the plateau down the slope on to the space of shallow valley between the armies. As they did so, from the moment they crossed the crest-line and dipped below, a fierce hurricane of fire beat in their faces. Round-shot and shrapnel swept the columns through and through, tearing long bloody lanes through the densely packed masses of men.

Marshal Ney accompanied the first column for some part of the way, riding by the side of Drouet d’Erlon.

As they crossed the intervening ground below, the death-dealing British guns fired down on them incessantly, but in spite of all, they stoutheartedly moved forward, without checking their pace. It was terribly toilsome work in places: now they had to plough laboriously over sodden and slippery ground; now to trample their way through cornfields with standing grain-crops nearly breast-high, or, where trodden down, tangling round the men’s feet.

Quiot’s brigade turned off to attack La Haye Sainte, but the rest of the division, Bourgeois’ men and the three other columns, held on their way, moving in dense phalanxes of gleaming bayonets up the slopes.

The second column, Donzelot’s, reached the top a little in advance of the others, and was met by Kempt’s brigade of Picton’s troops, which charged it and forced it to yield ground.

A moment later Marcognet’s column reached the British line, coming up over the crest of the hill immediately in front of Picton’s Highland Brigade.

Received with a furious outburst of musketry from all along the extended British line, Marcognet’s leading files were thrown into some confusion by the hail of bullets. They were, however, veterans, and though their ranks were shaken, they still pressed on, amid a tumult of fierce cries and shouts of “Vive l’Empereur!” and the wild clash and rattle of their drums.

But they got no farther. The British brigadier on the spot, Sir Dennis Pack, called on the nearest Highland regiment, the 92nd, to charge them with the bayonet. A moment after that, all unexpectedly, the cavalry of the Union Brigade were on them.

THE HIGHLANDERS DASH FORWARD

The Highlanders dashed forward with exultant cheers and levelled bayonets, taking the French volley that met them without firing back a shot. They did not, however, get up to the French, nor actually cross steel on steel. As the Highlanders got within a dozen yards the column suddenly stopped short, and some of the men in front seemed suddenly to be panic-stricken. A moment before all were madly yelling out: “Forward!” “Victory!” Now they began to turn their backs in disorder.

It was not, though, at the sight of the bayonets. They had seen and heard something else. The thundering beat of approaching horse-hoofs shook the ground.

With a trampling turmoil of horse-hoofs the cavalrymen of the British Union Brigade burst on the scene, galloping forward from their former post in rear of Picton’s infantry. The Scots Greys were on the left; the Inniskillings in the centre; the Royal Dragoons on the right.

Marcognet’s men heard their approach, and the next moment saw the horsemen coming at them. The unexpected sight startled and staggered them; and some of those in the front line gave way. The alarm spread at once, as most of the rest realised what was approaching. The whole column swayed to and fro violently. Then it lost cohesion and began to roll back in mingled ranks down-hill.

A moment later the Greys were among them. “The smoke in which the head of the French column was enshrouded had not cleared away when the Greys dashed into the mass.

“Highlanders and Greys charged together, while shrill and wild from the Highland ranks sounded the mountain pipe, mingled with shouts of ‘Scotland for ever!’” So an officer describes. The men of the 92nd seized hold of the stirrup-leathers of the horsemen, and charged with them. “All rushed forward, leaving none but the disabled in their rear.”

WATERLOO

The Charge of the Union Brigade

A SHOUT OF “ATTENTION! CAVALRY!”

“The dragoons,” describes Captain Siborne, “having the advantage of the descent, appeared to mow down the mass, which, bending under the pressure, quickly spread itself outwards in all directions. Yet in that mass were many gallant spirits who could not be brought to yield without a struggle; and these fought bravely to the death.”

Says some one on the French side: “We heard a shout of ‘Attention! Cavalry!’ Almost at the same instant a crowd of red dragoons mounted on grey horses swept down upon us like the wind. Those who had straggled were cut to pieces without mercy. They did not fall upon our columns to ride through and break us up—we were too deep and massive for that; but they came down between the divisions, slashing right and left with their sabres and spurring their horses into the flanks of the columns to cut them in two. Though they did not succeed in this, they killed great numbers and threw us into confusion.”

The foremost French battalion of Marcognet’s column was the 45th of the Line, one of Napoleon’s favourite corps, recruited in the capital, and always spoken of by him as “Mes braves Enfants de Paris.” Said he of them indeed once, when pointing them out to the Russian Envoy at the grand review of June 1810: “Mark those soldiers, Prince: that is my 45th—my brave children of Paris! If ever cartridges are burned between my brother the Emperor of Russia and me, I will show him the efficiency of my 45th. It was they who stormed your Russian batteries at Austerlitz. They are scamps [“des vauriens”] off duty, but lions on campaign; you should see their dash, their intrepidity; above all, their cheerfulness under fire!” Small men—“ideal voltigeurs” Napoleon also called the 45th—they stood a poor chance against the stalwart swordsmen of the Scots Greys.

THE FIGHT FOR THE STANDARD.

Sergeant Ewart of the Scots Greys taking the Eagle of the 45th at Waterloo.

From the picture by R. Andsell, A.R.A., at Royal Hospital, Chelsea.

It was they who were to yield up the first of our British Eagle-trophies of Waterloo. The prize fell to a non-commissioned officer of the Greys, Sergeant Charles Ewart, a Kilmarnock man, who achieved the feat of taking it single-handed. Ewart, an athletic fellow of splendid physique and herculean strength, six feet four in his stockings, and a notable sabreur, was plunging through the struggling press of infantry, slashing out to right and left, when he caught sight of the Eagle of the 45th, with its gorgeous new silken flag, bearing the glittering inscription in letters of gold—“Austerlitz, Jena, Friedland, Essling, Wagram.” It was being hurried away to the rear for safety in the middle of a small band of devoted men who surrounded it, and were fighting hard with their bayonets to keep the British off. Sergeant Ewart saw that and rode straight for the Eagle-bearer. Parrying the bayonet-thrusts at him as he got up, he cut down the French officer who carried the Eagle, and then had a fight with two others. These, first one and then the other, were killed or disabled by the sergeant, who in the end carried off the splendid trophy triumphantly.

HOW EWART TOOK THE EAGLE

Ewart himself, in a letter to his father, tells his own story of the taking of the Eagle:

“He and I had a hard contest for it. He thrust for my groin; I parried it off and cut him through the head, after which I was attacked by one of their lancers, who threw his lance at me, but missed the mark by my throwing it off with my sword, at my right side. Then I cut him from the chin upwards, which went through his teeth. Next I was attacked by a foot-soldier, who, after firing at me, charged me with his bayonet; but he very soon lost the combat, for I parried it and cut him down through the head. That finished the contest for the Eagle.”

Napoleon was watching the progress of the fight through his glasses. He witnessed the charge of the Scots Greys—unaware, of course, that it was his pet “Enfants de Paris” who were undergoing their fate. “Qu’ils sont terribles ces chevaux gris!” was the exclamation that, according to the guide De Coster, fell from Napoleon’s lips at the sight. The Greys cut his unlucky 45th to pieces, and had overthrown the rest of Marcognet’s Division in three minutes. “In three minutes,” says a British officer in the charge, “the column was totally overthrown and numbers of them taken prisoners.”

Sabring their way through the remnants of the 45th, and leaving the prisoners to be secured by the Highlanders, the Greys then charged the supporting regiment, the 25th of the Line. These, “lost in amazement at the suddenness and wildness of the charge and its terrific effect on their comrades on the higher ground in front,” were caught in the act of trying to form square. Some of them fired a few shots at the dragoons, but the impetus of the first charge carried the Greys in among them with a rush, driving in the foremost ranks and making the rest of the column in rear roll back and break up. In panic and despair they threw down their muskets and, according to a British officer, “surrendered in crowds.” The Eagle of the 25th, however, was saved. It was carried safely off the field, and is now one of the Napoleonic relics at the Invalides.

Ewart was at once sent to Brussels with the trophy, and on his arrival carried it through the crowded streets “amidst the acclamations of thousands of spectators who saw it.” He was given an ensigncy in the 3rd Royal Veteran Battalion in recognition of his exploit. The sword he used at Waterloo is now among the treasures of Chelsea Hospital, and Ewart’s old regiment bears embroidered on its standard a French Eagle, with the legend “Waterloo.”[44]

THE CHARGE OF THE “ROYALS”

Within a few moments of Sergeant Ewart capturing the Eagle of the 45th, an officer of the Royal Dragoons, Captain A. K. Clark (afterwards Sir A. K. Clark-Kennedy) took, also in hand-to-hand fight, the other Eagle sent home by Wellington from Waterloo—that of the 105th of the Line, the leading regiment of Bourgeois’ Brigade.

The Royals, on the right of the Union Brigade, came down on the French left column. That, as yet, had had no enemy in front of it, and was advancing with cheers and shouts of triumph across the crest-line of the ridge. It overlapped and extended beyond the flank of what had been Picton’s line, and so far had only been fired at from a distance by artillery and part of the 95th. Suddenly the French were startled by the apparition of a mass of cavalry quite near; coming on within eighty or ninety yards of them—emerging from the battle-smoke at a gallop.

The sight took them completely by surprise. The loud shouts of triumph stopped abruptly. “The head of the column,” describes one of the Royals, “appeared to be seized with a panic, gave us a fire which brought down about twenty men, went instantly about, and endeavoured to regain the opposite side of the hedges.” They had just crossed the Wavre road along the slope, about halfway up.

It was the men of one corps, the 105th of the Line, who so turned back. They, of all in the regiments of Napoleon’s army, knew what it was to be charged by cavalry. They had had one fearful experience of what cold steel in strong hands could do, and wanted no second. They were the same 105th whom Wellington’s Hanoverian Dragoons, in the pursuit after Salamanca, had ridden down and slaughtered so mercilessly. Once more the fearful fate was about to overtake them—was at hand, was on them! In the ranks were many veterans who had served in the 105th in Spain before 1814, and had rejoined on Napoleon’s return from Elba. The slaughter after Salamanca was a grim and horrifying memory in the regiment that every man shuddered to recall. It all came back vividly to them now, as the flashing sabres of the Royal Dragoons burst into view, making for them across the ridge. The whole regiment gave back and broke, turning for help to the supporting 28th in rear.

But they were not able to reach their refuge in time. Without drawing rein the Royals pressed home their charge. They were into the 105th in a moment, cutting them down on all sides.

HOW THE SECOND EAGLE WAS TAKEN

In that mêlée the Eagle of the 105th met its fate. Captain Clark-Kennedy himself describes how that came about—how he came to take the Eagle. He was in command of the centre squadron, leading through the thick of the ill-fated infantrymen.

“I did not see the Eagle and Colour (for there were two Colours, but only one with an Eagle) until we had been probably five or six minutes engaged. It must, I should think, have been originally about the centre of the column, and got uncovered from the change of direction. When I first saw it, it was perhaps about forty yards to my left, and a little in my front. The officer who carried it, and his companions, were moving with their backs towards me, and endeavouring to force their way through the crowd.

“I gave the order to my squadron, ‘Right shoulders forward! Attack the Colour!’ leading direct on the point myself. On reaching it I ran my sword into the officer’s right side, a little above the hip-joint. He was a little to my left side, and he fell to that side, with the Eagle across my horse’s head. I tried to catch it with my left hand, but could only touch the fringe of the flag; and it is probable it would have fallen to the ground, had it not been prevented by the neck of Corporal Styles’ horse, who came close up on my left at the instant, and against which it fell. Corporal Styles was standard-coverer: his post was immediately behind me, and his duty to follow wherever I led.

“When I first saw the Eagle, I gave the order ‘Right shoulders forward! Attack the Colour!’ and on running the officer through the body I called out twice together, ‘Secure the Colour! Secure the Colour! It belongs to me!’ This order was addressed to some men close to me, of whom Corporal Styles was one.

“On taking up the Eagle I endeavoured to break the Eagle off the pole, with the intention of putting it into the breast of my coat, but I could not break it. Corporal Styles said, ‘Pray, sir, do not break it,’ on which I replied, ‘Very well. Carry it to the rear as fast as you can. It belongs to me!’”

Taking hold of the Eagle, Corporal Styles turned away. He had a fight to get through with it, and had, we are told, literally to cut his way back to safety.

Captain Clark-Kennedy, who received two wounds and had two horses killed under him, was given the C.B. He was granted later, as an augmentation to his family arms, the representation of a Napoleonic Eagle and flag; with for crest a “demi-dragoon holding a flag with an Eagle on it.” Corporal Styles was appointed to an ensigncy in the West India Regiment. The Royal Dragoons wear the device of a Napoleonic Eagle as collar-badge, and bear an Eagle embroidered on their standard.

WHERE ANOTHER FLAG WAS FOUND

As with the 45th, so with the 105th—both battalions of each regiment lost their colours; the regimental Eagle and the “fanion” of the second battalion. The “fanion” of the 105th, described as “a dark blue silken flag, with on it the words ‘105me Régiment d’Infanterie de Ligne,’” came into British possession in a manner that is not clear. It was not taken in fight by the Royals. Was it picked up on the field after the battle by some camp-follower and sold? Its existence and whereabouts remained unknown until some twenty-four years afterwards. As it happened, curiously, General Clark-Kennedy, as he then was, himself lighted upon it by chance, hanging in the hall of Sir Walter Scott’s home at Abbotsford. How it got there, in spite of all inquiries, the general was unable to discover.

Two other Eagles, it would appear, had adventures at Waterloo.

One, according to an unconfirmed story, was taken and lost by the Inniskillings, who charged the 54th and 55th of the Line, stationed at the rear of Bourgeois’ Brigade, just after the Royals attacked the leading battalion of that column. A trooper named Penfold claimed to have taken the Eagle of one of the two regiments. “After we charged,” he said, “I saw an Eagle which I rode up to, and seized hold of it. The man who bore it would not give it up, and I dragged him along by it for a considerable distance. Then the pole broke about the middle, and I carried off the Eagle. Immediately after that I saw a comrade, Hassard, in difficulties, and, giving the Eagle to a young soldier of the Inniskillings, I went to his aid. The Eagle got dropped and lost.”

The second of these two Eagles is said to have been captured by the Blues, the Royal Horse Guards, and then lost in much the same way. “A private in the Blues,” records Wellington’s Supplemental Despatches, “killed a French officer and took an Eagle; but his own horse being killed, he could not keep it.” A French officer also mentions the taking of the Eagle by the Blues and its recovery.

About the time that the ill-fated 45th of the Line and the 105th lost their Eagles in front of Picton’s Division, another Eagle elsewhere had a narrow escape from capture, being saved by its colonel’s personal act. That took place in front of Hougoumont, with the Eagle of the 1st of the Line. The regiment was in Jerome Bonaparte’s Division in front of Hougoumont, and had made an attack on the outbuildings of the château, which the defenders had beaten off. At the last moment, as the French assault recoiled, the Eagle-bearer and his two fellows were shot down together. The battalion fell back, leaving the Eagle lying on the ground in the open, beside its dead guardians. For the moment, apparently, the British defenders did not see the trophy thus left within their reach. Before they did so Colonel Cubières, of the 1st of the Line, discovered its loss and saw where it had fallen. He ran out by himself, picked up the Eagle, and, escaping harm of any kind, carried it back to the regiment. According to M. Thiers, “the English officers checked the fire of their men while the deed was being performed, in admiration of his courage”—an interesting detail in the story if true!