The British accounts generally divide this tremendous onset of the cavalry into two attacks, the first, between three and four o’clock, when forty squadrons, twenty-one of them being composed of cuirassiers, ascended the heights behind La Haye Sainte; the second perhaps an hour later, when the first assailants, having found it difficult to maintain their ground were rallied behind thirty-seven fresh squadrons sent by Napoleon to their succour. And this agrees with Gourgaud’s account who tells us, first, that “Ney debouched upon the level height, with Milhaud’s Cuirassiers and the light cavalry of the Guard,” and then adds, a little after, that “the Emperor directed Kellerman’s Cuirassiers to support the cavalry on the height lest it should be repulsed.” It is clear, therefore, that the first onset of 5,000 or 6,000 men had failed, or was in danger of failing, when Napoleon sent forward a second until, as he himself says, the whole “twelve thousand select horse” were involved in the struggle.
How it was that this tremendous attack failed, it is not easy at this distance of time to understand. The whole of the infantry in the British line were quickly formed into squares; the front ranks kneeling and presenting fixed bayonets, and the second and third lines keeping up a constant fire of musketry. The artillery, also, saluted the intruders with grape-shot; but many of the British guns were soon taken possession of by the cuirassiers. The Duke, always prepared for every emergency, had instructed the artillerymen that they should, on the approach of danger, take off a wheel and retire with it into the nearest square of infantry. Thus the cuirassiers, when they had seized a gun, found themselves hampered with it, and while they were trying to carry it off, the musketry of the British squares thinned their numbers.
Wellington, in describing the battle in a letter to Marshal Beresford, said, “I had the infantry for some time in squares, and the French cavalry walking about us as if it had been our own.”
There probably never was such a trial of “pluck” as this part of the contest presented. It was a hand-to-hand struggle, lasting two or three hours. Had a regiment of cuirassiers ever found courage enough to throw themselves on the British bayonets, there can be little doubt that some of the weaker squares might have been broken. But this never once occurred. Gourgaud, indeed, says, “Our cavalry penetrated many of the enemy’s squares, and took three standards,” but he must here be speaking of the Belgian or Hanoverian troops, many of whom were unsteady, and some of whom were scattered and cut up. There was, in fact, no absolute reliance to be placed on any but the British troops, and some of the best of the German. A whole Dutch-Belgian brigade, on the approach of the cuirassiers, moved off without firing a shot. After several charges of the British horse upon portions of the French cavalry, Lord Uxbridge put himself at the head of Tripp’s brigade of Dutch-Belgian carabineers, and ordered them to charge; and so they did, but not until they had first turned their backs to the enemy! Somewhat later, he ordered forward the Hanoverian regiment called the Cumberland hussars; but the colonel “did not see what good was to be done” by moving him from his snug position, which was out of reach of the firing. He added, that he could not answer for his men, for that they rode their own horses, and could not afford to lose them! Receiving from Lord Uxbridge the vehement reproof which might have been expected, he and his men moved off to Brussels, where they spread the report that the allied army was destroyed, and that Napoleon was advancing at the head of his Guards!
Yet this tremendous attack failed, as the two preceding attacks had done. And its failure was one chief cause of Napoleon’s ruin. He had risked his cavalry reserve, and had lost it. For it is a remarkable and wonderful fact, that, continuing this struggle for two or three hours, this splendid body of “twelve thousand select cavalry” was wholly destroyed. Individuals, and parties of fugitives, doubtless escaped, and their number in the aggregate might be considerable; but this arm of the service was utterly disabled. In his Bulletin, Napoleon said, “For three hours numerous charges were made, several squares penetrated, and six standards taken;—an advantage bearing no proportion to the loss which our cavalry experienced by the grape-shot and musket-firing.” Fleury de Chaboulon, his secretary, says, “Our cavalry, exposed to the incessant firing of the enemy’s batteries and infantry, sustained and executed numerous brilliant charges, took six flags, and dismounted several batteries; but in this conflict we lost the flower of our intrepid cuirassiers, and of the cavalry of the Guard.” He adds, that on reaching Paris, and describing the battle, the emperor said, “Ney behaved like a madman!—he got my cavalry massacred for me.” And it is the chief complaint of all the French accounts, that when at the close of the day the English horse swept over the field, the Emperor had not a single regiment of cavalry to oppose to them![33] The “twelve thousand select cavalry” had broken into the English position; but, except as scattered fugitives, they never returned!
FIVE O’CLOCK.
But the battle had now lasted six hours, and Napoleon had allowed his opportunity to pass away. Five o’clock brought the Prussians; and after they had entered the field a decisive victory for Napoleon became impossible.
Bent on his object of proving that he had been not so much beaten as overpowered by numbers, Napoleon in his “Book ix,” brings the Prussians into the field at noon-day! In doing this he does not scruple to employ the most direct and obvious falsehood. To give a single instance,—Gourgaud, his aide-de-camp, in his account of the battle, thus writes:
“It was half-past four o’clock, and the most vigorous fire was still kept up on every side. At this moment General Domont informed his Majesty that he observed Bulow’s corps in movement, and that a division of 8,000 or 10,000 Prussians was debouching from the woods of Frischenois.”
Yet in “Book ix” Napoleon does not hesitate to say: At two o’clock in the afternoon General Domont had given notice that Bulow formed in three columns; that the enemy appeared to him to be very numerous,—he estimated the corps at 40,000 men.”