The battles of the British Army

by Robert Melvin Blackwood

The appearance of the British brigades as they filed from the Park and took the road to Soignies, was most imposing. The martial air of the Highland regiments, the bagpipes playing at their head, their tartans fluttering in the breeze, and the early sunbeams flashing from their glittering arms, excited the admiration of the burghers who had assembled to see them march. During the winter and spring, while they had garrisoned Brussels, their excellent conduct and gentle demeanour had endeared them to the inhabitants; and “they were so domesticated in the houses where they were quartered, that it was no uncommon thing to see the Highland soldier taking care of the children, or keeping the shop of his host.”

Regiment after regiment marched—the organisation of all most perfect; the Rifles, Royals, 28th, each exhibiting some martial peculiarity, on which the eye of Picton appeared to dwell with pride and pleasure as they filed off before him. To an intelligent spectator a national distinction was clearly marked. The bearing of the Scotch bespoke a grave and firm determination, while the light step and merry glance of the Irish militiaman told that war was the game he loved, and a first field had no terrors for him.

Eight o’clock pealed from the steeple clocks; all was quiet—the brigades, with their artillery and equipages, were gone—the crash of music was heard no longer—the bustle of preparation had ceased—and an ominous and heart-sinking silence succeeded the noise and hurry that ever attends a departure for the field of battle.

Napoleon’s plan of penetrating into Belgium was now so clearly ascertained, that Wellington determined to concentrate on the extreme point of his line of occupation. His march was accordingly directed on Quatre Bras, a small hamlet situated at the intersection of the road to Charleroi, by that leading from Namur to Nivelles.

This village, which was fated to obtain a glorious but sanguinary celebrity, consists of a few mean houses, having a thick and extensive wood immediately on the right called Le Bois de Bossu. All around the wood and hamlet, rye-fields of enormous growth, and quite ready for the sickle, were extended.

After a distressing march of twenty miles in sultry weather, and over a country destitute of water, the British brigades reached the scene of action at two o’clock. They found the Prince of Orange with a division of his army endeavouring to hold the French in check, and maintain a position of whose great importance he was so well aware. The prince, unable to withstand the physical superiority of Ney’s corps, had gradually lost ground, the Hanoverians had been driven back, and the Bois de Bossu was won and occupied by the enemy.

To recover this most important wood, from which the French could debouche upon the road to Brussels, was the duke’s first object. The 95th were ordered to attack the tirailleurs who held it; the order was gallantly executed, and after a bloody and sustained resistance, the French were forced to retire.

On the left, the Royals and 28th were hotly engaged, and on the right the 44th and Highland regiments were simultaneously assailed. The battle now became general. Before the British could deploy, the French cavalry charged furiously, the tall rye masking their advance and favouring the attack. Generally these charges were unsuccessful, and the perfect discipline and steady courage of the British enabled them to repel the enemy. Lancers and cuirassiers were driven back with desperate slaughter—while whole squadrons, shattered in their retreat, and leaving the ground covered with their dead and dying, proved with what fatal precision the British squares sustained their fusilade.

The efforts of the French to break the squares, however, were fierce and frequent. Their batteries poured upon these unflinching soldiers a storm of grape, and when an opening was made by the cannon, the lancers were ready to rush upon the devoted infantry. But nothing could daunt the lion-hearted British—nothing could shake their steadiness. The dead were coolly removed, and the living occupied their places. Though numbers fell, and the square momentarily diminished, it still presented a serried line of glittering bayonets, through which lancer and cuirassier endeavoured to penetrate, but in vain.

One regiment, after sustaining a furious cannonade, was suddenly, and on three different sides, assailed by cavalry. Two faces of the square were charged by the lancers, while the cuirassiers galloped down upon another. It was a trying moment. There was a death-like silence; and one voice alone, clear and calm, was heard. It was their colonel’s, who called upon them to be “Steady!” On came the enemy; the earth shook beneath the horsemen’s feet, while on every side of the devoted band, the corn bending beneath the rush of cavalry disclosed their numerous assailants. The lance blades nearly met the bayonets of the kneeling front rank, the cuirassiers were within a few paces, yet not a trigger was drawn. But, when the word “Fire!” thundered from the colonel’s lips, each side poured out its deadly volley, and in a moment the leading files of the French lay before the square, as if hurled by a thunderbolt to the earth. The assailants, broken and dispersed, galloped off for shelter to the tall rye, while a constant stream of musketry from the British square, carried death into their retreating squadrons.