But there are recorded, also, the opinions of the Generals of other arms, under whose immediate command various troops and brigades served: and who would have known had any misconduct occurred among them, better than the Duke himself, on account of the more limited field of their observation. General Colquhoun Grant’s complimentary Vide p. 436. order with reference to Colonel Webber Smith’s Troop has already been quoted. The following order was issued by Dated Nivelle, 20 June, 1815. Lord Hill: “The highly distinguished conduct of the 2nd Division, and Colonel Mitchell’s Brigade of the 4th Division, who had the good fortune to be employed in the memorable action, merit His Lordship’s highest approbation; and he begs that ... Colonel Gold, commanding Royal Artillery of the 2nd Corps, ... Major Sympher, commanding a troop of Horse Artillery, King’s German Legion, Captain Napier (to whose lot it fell to command the 9-pounder Brigade, 2nd Division, on the death of Captain Bolton), will accept his best thanks for their exemplary conduct, and will be pleased to convey his sentiments to the officers, non-commissioned officers, and men under their command.”
The following extract from the 5th Division orders, by Sir James Kempt, speaks equally favourably of another Dated 19 June, 1815. brigade: “The British Brigade of Artillery commanded by Major Rogers, and the Hanoverian Brigade commanded by Major Heisse, were most nobly served, and judiciously placed; and these officers and men will be pleased to accept of his—i.e. the Major-General’s—particular thanks for their service.”
References to the services of other brigades, and of the Horse Artillery, by the officers of the Corps under whom they served, have already been quoted; and in every case commendation of the warmest description was passed upon them. The following quotation from Sir Augustus Frazer’s correspondence is interesting here, as asserting what was denied by the Duke in his letter to Lord Mulgrave, that the Frazer’s Letters, p. 559. men took shelter in the squares. “The repeated charges of the enemy’s noble cavalry were similar to the first: each was fruitless. Not an infantry soldier moved; and, on each charge, abandoning their guns, our men sheltered themselves between the flanks of the squares. Twice, however, the enemy tried to charge in front; these attempts were entirely frustrated by the fire of the guns, wisely reserved till the hostile squadrons were within twenty yards of the muzzles. In this, the cool and quiet steadiness of the troops of Horse Artillery was very creditable.” This was written two days after the battle; and no man had better opportunity of seeing the conduct of his Corps than the writer. Every historian of the battle endorses this version: and the testimony of an impartial historian always represents the carefully sifted testimony of many. Sir Edward Cust, the laborious military annalist, writes thus: “Suddenly some bugles were heard to sound, and all the Artillerymen, abandoning their guns and tumbrils, ran back into the infantry squares.... In a moment, the Artillery gunners quitted the protection of the squares, and running up to their guns, which were most of them ready loaded, opened heavily with grape and with every species of projectile.... The cavaliers again mounted the plateau; again the gunners abandoned their guns, and took refuge within the squares.” Creasy writes: “As the French receded from each attack, the British Artillerymen rushed forward from the centre of the squares, where they had taken refuge, and plied their guns on the retiring horsemen.” The same is the account given by every historian of the battle. Were they all dreaming? or were they in some conspiracy to conceal the truth? And if so, did the Duke himself join it? In the thirty-seven years of his life after Waterloo, he never contradicted the numerous accounts of the battle, all of which agreed in their statement of the eminent services of the Artillery. Was it consistent in one, who professed belief in an occurrence “known to many,” and who gave that belief as a ground for the refusal of favours,—to allow such passages as the following to be published without contradiction, unless indeed he had subsequently ascertained the worthlessness of his information?[50] “There,” wrote ‘Battle of Waterloo,’ by G. R. Gleig, Chaplain-General. Gleig, “every arm did its duty; the Artillery from the beginning to the close of the day.” Again: “In the course of the day every battery was brought into action; and not even the records of that noble Corps can point to Ibid. an occasion in which they better did their work.” Sir James Shaw Kennedy, in summing up his description of the Sir J. S. Kennedy’s ‘Waterloo,’ p. 179. battle, says: “Full scope was thus given for the British Cavalry and Artillery to display their surpassing gallantry and excellence; and they did not fail to display these qualities in an eminent degree.”
But it has been admitted that Captain Mercer’s troop was an exception to the others; that his men did not take Mercer’s ‘Diary,’ p. 312. shelter within the Infantry squares. Let him tell his own story. “Sir Augustus, pointing out our position between two squares of Brunswick Infantry, left us with injunctions to remember the Duke’s orders (to retire within the squares) and to economise our ammunition. The Brunswickers were falling fast ... these were the very boys whom I had but yesterday seen throwing away their arms and fleeing, panic-stricken, from the very sound of our horses’ feet.... Every moment I feared they would again throw down their arms and flee.... To have sought refuge amongst men in such a state were madness; the very moment our men ran from their guns, I was convinced, would be the signal for their disbanding. We had better, then, fall at our posts than in such a situation.” He accordingly made his men stand to the guns, until the cavalry were within a few feet of them; and on each occasion the havoc he wrought among them—as he drove them back—was frightful. The immense heap of dead, lying in front of Mercer’s guns, was such that Sir Augustus Frazer said that, Ibid. p. 343. in riding over the field next day, he “could plainly distinguish the position of C Troop from the opposite height by the dark mass, which, even from that distance, formed a remarkable feature in the field.”
Captain Mercer’s men, therefore, were those who did not obey the Duke’s order. It was a fortunate act of disobedience, Ibid. p. 313. and it saved the Brunswickers; but Captain Mercer was severely punished for it. He was not recommended for brevet rank; and, on his appointment by Lord Mulgrave to a vacant Troop, he was deprived of it by the Duke of Wellington, who got it summarily reduced in 1816. Did, however, the limbers of Captain Mercer’s battery ever leave the ground? That they did not, can be shown most clearly. In his diary, he describes the state of his Troop after a heavy fire, to which it was exposed after the charges of the French Ibid. p. 326. cavalry. In the description, he says: “The guns came together in a confused heap, the trails crossing each other, and the whole dangerously near the limbers and ammunition waggons.” The same description also proves that the frightful losses suffered by the troop took place during the very time when, according to the Duke’s letter, the men and limbers would have been off the field. In going to take up the position, they moved at a gallop, and in so compact a body, that the Duke cried out: “Ah! that’s the way I like to see Horse Artillery move!” In a short time, such was the havoc committed among men and horses, that Captain Mercer wrote: “I sighed for my poor troop; it was already a wreck.”
With regard to the insinuation as to the lack of artillery at the end of the battle, it is shown clearly by Siborne, in his model of the battle as it was at a quarter before 8 P.M., that thirteen Troops and Brigades of the Royal Artillery were in action, when the final attack took place; this being the entire number with the army. Of these, some were so crippled by losses—as Mercer’s was—that they were unable to join in the pursuit; and possibly some recollection of this fact may have been in the Duke’s mind when he wrote. That the artillery fire, however, at the end of the day was slack from the cause stated in the Duke’s letter is an utter mistake; nor do the French seem to have found it very slack, as will be seen presently.
One word before appealing to a few other historians. If such conduct had taken place, as is described in the letter under consideration, it would have been bruited over the whole army. Concealment, or collusion, would have been impossible; enquiries would have been officially instituted. To believe that such an occurrence could have been kept quiet, requires a considerably greater stretch of credulity, than to believe that the Duke of Wellington was misinformed. In fact, that such unanimity of testimony to one version, and such a general agreement to be silent to another, should be possible, unless the former were true, and the latter imaginary, would be nothing short of a miracle. One or two miracles of this description would demolish all belief in history.
In the earliest and most detailed account of the Battle of Waterloo, the tenth edition of which was published in 1817, and which is called ‘The Battle of Waterloo, also of Ligny, and Quatre Bras, described by the series of accounts published by authority, by a near observer;’ edited by Captain G. Jones, the following passage occurs: “No account yet published of the battle, seen by the Editor, has mentioned in adequate terms the effect of our artillery at Waterloo—no English account at least. The enemy felt it, and in their manner of expressing themselves have passed the greatest compliments. A French account, given in our preceding pages, says: ‘The English artillery made dreadful havoc in our ranks.’... ‘The Imperial Guard made several charges, but was constantly repulsed, crushed by a terrible artillery, that each minute seemed to multiply.’[51] These invincible grenadiers beheld the grape-shot make day through their ranks; they closed promptly and coolly their shattered ranks.”... “In proportion as they ranged up the eminence, and darted forward on the squares, which occupied its summit, the Artillery vomited death upon them, and killed them in masses.... In an account given by an officer of the ‘Northumberland,’ of Napoleon’s conversation on board that ship, he says: ‘Bonaparte gives great credit to our Infantry and Artillery.’” Again: “The artillery on both sides was well served, but Bonaparte had upwards of 250 pieces in the field. Notwithstanding our inferiority in this arm, which was still more apparent from the size of the enemy’s guns (being 12-pounders, ours only 9 and 6), than from their numbers, ours were so well fought, that I believe it is allowed by all they did equal execution.... See also the account of Captain Bolton and Napier’s Brigade of Foot Artillery, from which it appears the Artillery had turned the enemy, previous to the advance of the Guards. The French displayed the greatest rage and fury; they cursed the English while they were fighting, and cursed the precision with which the English grape-shot was fired, which ‘was neither too high nor too low, but struck right in the middle.’”
From the many writers who have done credit to the exertions and courage of the Artillery at Waterloo, three more extracts will be made.
In proof of the activity of the Corps at the end of the day, the following quotation, from an author already mentioned, Gleig. is given. In describing the reception given to the French Imperial Guard, he says: “The English gunners once more plied their trade. It was positively frightful to witness Kennedy, p. 142. the havoc that was occasioned in that mass.” Sir James Shaw Kennedy also describes the strength of the British artillery fire at the end of the day.