[231] Life of Lord Combermere, i. 38.
[232] The regiments engaged were the Blues, Second, Third, Sixth Dragoon Guards; First, Second, Sixth Dragoons; Seventh, Eleventh, Fifteenth, Sixteenth Light Dragoons. Which were engaged throughout and which came up as reinforcements, I have been unable to discover. The account of the action is drawn chiefly from Calvert, Journal, pp. 203–205. Narrative of an Officer, ii. 41. Ditfurth, ii. 75. Life of Lord Combermere, i. 38–39. The first is the most important.
[233] Sybel, iii. 118–120. Witzleben, iii. 157–167.
[234] Ditfurth, ii. 90. He says actually that there was nearly room for the full width of a company, of course in triple rank.
[235] Great part of the battle-field is now built over. Lille alone covers a vast extent of it, and Roubaix and Lannoy are to all intent part and parcel of Lille. But the general character of the ground, and in particular its blindness, remains unchanged.
[236] Witzleben (iii. 197–198) considers the slowness both of Clerfaye and the Archduke Charles on this day to have been inexcusable.
[237] Brigade of Guards (4 battalions); 14th, 37th, 53rd Foot, 2 Hessian and 5 Austrian battalions; 7th, 15th, 16th Light Dragoons (6 squadrons); 4 squadrons of Austrian Hussars.
[238] Hamilton (History of the Grenadier Guards, ii. 304) says, I know not on what authority, that the pretext for this order was that Clerfaye required assistance. It is certain that the Austrian Headquarters had heard nothing and knew nothing of Clerfaye’s situation at this time, so that, if General Hamilton’s story be more than mere gossip, the order was probably urged by Waldeck or some other of Mack’s enemies, with the object of bringing his elaborate combinations into contempt. The fact that the British would be the chief sufferers in case of mishap, would rather have encouraged this faction in the Austrian Staff to the measure.
[239] The Gazette prints this place as Bouderes; and the mistake has been copied into many regimental histories. It is only one among innumerable instances of the slovenliness of the clerks of the War Office at that time.
[240] Not to be confounded with the village of the same name further north, on the road from Tournai to Lannoy.