Pelet made for the group, shouting at the top of his voice: “Rally, Chasseurs! Rally on me! Save your Eagle or die round it!” (“A moi, Chasseurs! A moi! Sauvons l’Aigle ou mourons autour d’elle!”)
In the midst of the frenzied tumult his cry for help was somehow heard by the men ahead. They turned back in their flight and fought their way to the threatened Eagle. Others pressed round to join them, until by degrees was formed a compact body between two and three hundred in number, who with their bayonets kept the cavalry back as they fought their way towards the high-road step by step.
More than once they had to halt and face about, as the Prussian horsemen in their repeated attempts to capture the Eagle circled round them, and dashed in at them again and again, but, “forming what is usually termed a rallying square, and lowering their bayonets, they succeeded in repulsing the charges of the cavalry.” At one point in the retreat “some guns were brought to bear upon them, and subsequently a brisk fire of musketry; but notwithstanding the awful sacrifice which was thus offered up in defence of their precious charge, they succeeded in reaching the main line of retreat, and saved alike the Eagle and the Honour of the Regiment.”
* * * * *
The Eagles of the Guard all came safely through the turmoil and horrors of the night of the rout after Waterloo. And—it seems incredible, but the fact is vouched for by several officers—so did the other Eagles of the army. All at Waterloo, it is declared, were brought back to France, except the two taken from the ill-fated 45th and the 105th of the Line by the Scots Greys and the Royals. Those two only remained as trophies in the hands of the victors. General Charras, whose good faith we have no right to impugn, declares the fact in explicit language, and another officer relates how, on the day after the battle, when the rallied remains of the army assembled at Phillippeville and Maubeuge, “the soldiers wept tears of joy at learning how many of their Eagles had been saved.”
“MAKE WAY FOR THE EAGLE!”
Says General Charras, describing how the Eagles were saved that night: “Two standards had been lost on the battlefield. There was none other lost. In the crowd of disbanded horsemen and foot-soldiers, marching and running pell-mell, some still armed, others having thrown away or broken their sabres and guns under the impulse of rage, of despair, of terror, there were to be seen, by the pale light of the moon, little groups of officers of every grade, and of soldiers, spontaneously collected round the standard of each regiment, and advancing sabre in hand, bayonet on the gun, resolute and imperturbable in the midst of the general disorder. ‘Place au drapeau!’ cried they when the rout arrested their march, and this cry always sufficed to cause the very men who had become deaf to every word of command and to all discipline to stand aside before them and open a passage. They had often to endure peril, they had often to repulse the enemy’s attacks, but they saved their conquered flags from the attempts and hands of the conqueror.”
Grouchy also saved all his Eagles—although one had its adventures in the attack on Wavre, and was nearly lost to the Prussians. The story this time is not exactly creditable to some of those concerned; but the regiment in question, it must be said, had but few old soldiers in its ranks, having been made up almost entirely of recently levied and half-trained conscripts. Also, it had just previously been very roughly handled by the Prussians on the battlefield of Ligny. There, indeed, it had been charged by cavalry, and had suffered severely. The unfortunate regiment was the 70th of the Line.
In Grouchy’s fighting at Wavre they were in Vandamme’s Division, which had orders to carry the bridge over the Dyle and storm the town, held by the Prussians in considerable force. To give the 70th a chance of getting their revenge for Ligny, and winning back the old good name of the regiment, Vandamme specially chose them for the post of honour in the attack; appointing the 70th to lead the van in the preliminary storming of the bridge. They led the attack, dashing forward bravely enough at the outset, and got halfway across. Then they stopped short, their ranks decimated by the furious fire with which the Prussians received them from the houses on the opposite bank, hesitated, went on a few paces, stopped again, and finally ran back in panic.
SAVED BY ANOTHER REGIMENT