Battles of English History

by H. B. George

The field of Waterloo has probably been visited by more travellers than any other battle-field in the world: but its aspect has been changed in some respects since 1815, so that the description to be given of it will not be found to tally exactly with what is to be seen to-day. Wellington's army was posted on a slight ridge, running about east and west, and occupied a front of over two miles. The ridge is crossed about the centre of the position by the high road from Charleroi to Brussels, and a country road runs along it, a little below the top on the southern side. Less than three miles to the northward the Brussels road enters the forest of Soignies; and Wellington calculated that this would protect him in case of defeat. There were roads enough to withdraw the artillery, &c.; and the forest, being thick but free of underwood, would present no obstacle to infantry retiring, and would assist them in keeping off pursuit. At the extreme western end of the ridge lies a small village called Merbe Braine, somewhat sunk in a hollow: this protected Wellington's extreme right from being easily turned. The front of his right was covered by the château of Hougomont, a good-sized country house with gardens and orchard, enclosed by a wall. This lay down in the valley separating the two armies; and it is obvious that no attack could be made on Wellington's right unless the assailants had first seized this château, while on the other hand their possession of Hougomont would have given them great facilities for further advance. Similarly, in advance of Wellington's left, lay two farms, La Haye and Papelotte, and a little hamlet called Smohain, but the ground gave no protection to the left flank of the position. Close to the Charleroi-Brussels road, near the bottom of the slope lies the farm of La Haye Sainte; this also formed some little protection to the centre. The ground was practically all open, and the slope down into the little valley that divided the two armies before the battle not very steep, but still an unmistakable descent. The slope up the opposite side was at about the same inclination, so that the fronts of the two armies, a little over three-quarters of a mile apart, lay on two roughly parallel ridges. The English ridge was narrow enough for it to be feasible to place the troops, when not actually standing to repel attack, on the reverse or northern slope leading towards the village of Waterloo, so that they were partially sheltered from the French artillery. To complete the picture of Wellington's position, it is necessary to add that the road which runs along it leads to Ohain and thence to Wavre: this was one of the routes by which Prussian succour might come, and was in fact the road by which Ziethen arrived shortly before the close of the battle. The shortest way from Wavre, by which the first Prussians came, leads through the valley and up against the eastern end of the French line.

The position was an excellent one for defence, considering the range of artillery and infantry fire of that date, and would have fully compensated for the slight advantage of numbers which Napoleon possessed, had the quality of the two armies been equal. They were substantially equal in infantry, a little under 50,000 each: but Napoleon had 15,000 cavalry as against 12,000, and many more guns, 246 to 156. Wellington however could not place much reliance on the Dutch-Belgian contingent, nearly 18,000 strong. The sympathies of many of them were with the French, and none of them had seen service, unless perchance in the emperor's army before his first abdication. Consequently the duke thought it expedient to distribute these troops among the English and Germans: he would obviously have done better, assuming that he was convinced of the necessity of leaving a strong body at Hal, to have posted none but Dutch and Belgians there, the more so as the command at Hal was entrusted to a Dutch prince, and to have had Colville's English on the field of Waterloo.

Wellington's army was distributed as follows, the front being generally behind the country road from Wavre. On the extreme left, which was unprotected by any natural features, were two brigades of light cavalry, Vivian's and Vandeleur's. Next came two Hanoverian brigades, Vincke's and Best's: then, a little further back, Pack's brigade consisting of the 1st, 42nd, 44th and 92nd British regiments. To the right of Pack, extending as far as the high road, was Kempt's brigade, comprising the 28th, 32nd, 79th and 1st battalion 95th. A Dutch-Belgian division was posted in front of this, the left half of the line. One brigade occupied the hamlet and farms that partially protected the front: the other, Bylandt's, was posted on the slope facing the south, where it was exposed to crushing fire from the French artillery, which so shook it that early in the battle it gave way, retired in confusion over the ridge, and could be used no more. This was almost the only mistake made by Wellington in the actual tactics of the battle: one other only can be cited against him, and that as it happened was in the same part of the field. The farm of La Haye Sainte, a large courtyard with solid walls and buildings round it, just on the high road and protecting the very centre of the whole position, was garrisoned but slightly, and was not prepared for defence, nor were the troops in it supplied, as they should have been, with ample stores of ammunition. La Haye Sainte was garrisoned from one of two German brigades, Ompteda's and Kielmansegge's, which lay immediately to the right of the high road. Next to them came Sir Colin Halkett's English, these three brigades forming Count Alten's division. To the right, more or less behind Hougomont, and furnishing a great part of its garrison, was posted General Cooke's division, consisting of Maitland's and Byng's brigades of guards. To the right of the guards, Mitchell's English brigade lined the cross road which runs north-west from near Hougomont to Braine-la-Leud, a couple of miles off, where a Belgian division was posted; they thus guarded the right of the position. In rear of the guards lay Clinton's division, one brigade of which, Adam's, played a very important part in the last stage of the battle: this division was well placed to act as a reserve for any part of the line. The regular reserve of about 10,000 men, of which over one-third were cavalry, was placed a mile or so in rear of the centre. The rest of the cavalry formed a second line in rear of the right and centre, the heavy cavalry, Somerset's brigade of guards and Ponsonby's Union brigade (the Royal Dragoons, Scots Greys, and Inniskillings), being close to right and left of the high road. The artillery was not massed together after the fashion which has generally prevailed in recent wars; the field batteries were distributed along the front, in the proportion of about one battery to each brigade, and the horse artillery was similarly joined to the cavalry. It remains to add that Hougomont had been very fully prepared for defence. The entire property, about one-third of a mile square, was generally enclosed only with hedges: but the farmyard and garden adjoining the house in the north-west corner had good walls: and the orchard at the north-east had also a wall on the north, which enabled the defenders to drive the French out of the orchard again, when once they penetrated to it.

As the French army were the assailants, it is needless to describe with any particularity their original formation. The first line, consisting of D'Erlon's corps on the right, and Reille's on the left, faced the English on rather a longer extent, with their powerful artillery ranged in front of the infantry, their left being thrown rather forward so as to enwrap Hougomont. Behind were the cavalry in a double line. On the Charleroi road, in rear of the centre, Lobau's corps was drawn up in close columns. Further back again was Napoleon's guard of all arms to serve as the last reserve. About half a mile to the east of the position of the guard, nearly a mile behind the right front of the French, is the village of Planchenoit: it is obvious that when late in the battle the Prussians reached Planchenoit, they were attacking the French at a most dangerous point, as they threatened to cut off nearly the whole army, for which the Charleroi road was the only line of retreat.

If Napoleon had even surmised that one Prussian corps had started at daybreak to join Wellington, and that two others were to follow, he would assuredly have begun the battle of Waterloo some hours earlier than he in fact did. The rain had ceased in the night, but the ground was soaked, and the artillery could hardly move until it had dried a little. The emperor, confident of victory, was in no hurry. To quote his own account given at St. Helena—At eight o'clock, during his breakfast, the emperor said: "The enemy's army is superior in numbers by at least one-fourth;[81] nevertheless we have at least ninety chances in a hundred in our favour." Ney at this moment came up to announce that Wellington was in full retreat.[82] "You are mistaken," replied the emperor, "he has no longer time, he would expose himself to certain destruction." About nine o'clock the French army began to take up its position for the coming battle. Every movement was visible to the English line, and formed a superb spectacle: indeed it is suggested that Napoleon expected by this display, which continued for some two hours before the signal was given, to impress the Belgians in Wellington's army, already half-hearted to say the least. There was always a touch of the theatrical in Napoleon's character, and it came out conspicuously before this, his last battle. To Wellington, who relied for victory on the co-operation of the Prussians, still a long way off, every minute's delay must have been an additional reason for trusting that his bold venture would succeed.

The battle began at 11.30 with a cannonade along the whole line, and an attack on Hougomont made by a division of Reille's corps commanded by Napoleon's brother Jerome. It is obvious that, whatever the general plan of the battle might be, Hougomont, which projected like a bastion from Wellington's line, must be attacked, if only to prevent its garrison from firing into the flank of any columns that might assail the English centre. But it is also obvious that Hougomont, unless weakly held, could not be taken except at very great cost, and that success there would not be nearly so valuable as elsewhere. Every man lost in assailing Hougomont, beyond what was necessary for keeping the English right employed, was wasted. But Reille, and the generals under him, failed to realise this, and the whole of the corps was drawn into the conflict. The fighting was of the most desperate character, especially at first, and was renewed at intervals, but the French never succeeded in penetrating the house or walled garden. Hougomont was in fact worth many thousands of men to Wellington.

The map shows plainly that the part of Wellington's line where a successful attack would be most ruinous was near the centre. A comparatively small part of his army stood east of the high-road: if the centre could be pierced, the left might be destroyed, and the right, cut off from the great road, would have to retreat how it could, leaving the way to Brussels open, and losing all chance of connection with Blucher. Wellington's reserves were naturally behind the centre: but it was here if anywhere that the French could gain the battle, and it was here, as it happened, that Wellington had failed to utilise La Haye Sainte. During the first two hours of the battle the French merely cannonaded this part of the line: their artillery was half as strong again as the English, but the infantry were partially protected by lying down on the northern side of the ridge they held, and were not seriously shaken, except Bylandt's brigade.

About 1.30 began the first great attack on the English centre, the whole of D'Erlon's corps advancing together. Durutte's division on the right succeeded in getting temporary possession of Papelotte. Donzelot on the left seized the orchard and garden of La Haye Sainte, and a body of heavy cavalry on his left flank nearly destroyed a Hanoverian battalion that attempted to reinforce the farm. The two centre divisions, with Donzelot's second brigade on their left and a little ahead, advanced in columns of unusually close and cumbrous formation. Bylandt's brigade gave way in confusion, but Kempt's and Pack's stood firm in their places. As the French halted close to the English line, and attempted to deploy, Picton, who commanded the English division, ordered Kempt's brigade to fire a volley, and charge. Picton was shot dead, but the left column of the French was driven back in utter rout. Meanwhile Marcognet's division was pressing Pack hard, and Alix's was forcing its way between Kempt and Pack. At this juncture Lord Uxbridge ordered forward the English heavy cavalry. The household brigade charged the French cuirassiers as they came up the slope from La Haye Sainte, and completely defeated them. The Union brigade charged and drove back with great loss the French divisions which were pressing on, but which in their crowded formation were almost helpless against cavalry well led. Continuing its career, Ponsonby's brigade attacked the French artillery on the opposite slope (74 guns were here massed together), and inflicted considerable loss, but being charged in its turn by fresh French cavalry, was badly cut up. The defeat of the central columns carried with it the repulse or withdrawal of the flanks, so that this great attack attained absolutely nothing. Wellington however found it necessary to order up a brigade from his reserve, to fill the gap in his front formed by the flight of the Belgians and the losses in Kempt's and Pack's brigades.

Meanwhile Blucher had been doing his best. The country between Wavre and the battle-field is formed in rounded hills and deep hollows, traversed by mere lanes, and the soil was soft and miry from the heavy rain. At noon Bulow's leading division reached St. Lambert, the highest point on the road, whence the battle-field was visible at some four miles' distance: Napoleon within an hour ascertained that they were Prussians, and too late recognising his danger, sent off a useless despatch to summon Grouchy to his aid. He also sent some cavalry to meet the Prussians, but it was not for at least two hours more that the latter came into action. The roads naturally grew worse with use, and the artillery could scarcely be moved at all. It needed all the energy of hatred which inspired the whole Prussian army, it needed all the pressure Blucher in person could put on the soldiers, for the task to be accomplished. "Kinder, ihr wollt doch nicht dass ich wortbrüchig werden soll," was the old marshal's often repeated appeal: and Englishmen ought never to forget it. At length Bulow was strong enough to push down into the valley, and occupy the wood of Pâris, whence he could assail Planchenoit. If he succeeded in this, the French would be defeated in a most ruinous fashion. Hence Napoleon not only sent Lobau's corps to face the Prussians, but himself attended to the new danger.