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.