The Victories of Wellington and the British Armies

by W. H. Maxwell

BATTLE OF WATERLOO.

Morning of the 18th.—Armies in each other’s presence.—Opening, progress, and close of the battle.—Losses sustained.—Subsequent operations.—Conclusion.

Morning broke—the rain still continued, but with less severity than during the preceding night; the wind fell, but the day lowered, and the dawn of the 18th[299] was gloomy and foreboding. The British soldiers recovered from the chill cast over them by the inclemency of the weather; and, from the ridge of their position, calmly observed the enemy’s masses coming up in long succession, and forming their numerous columns on the heights in front of La Belle Alliance.

The bearing of the French was very opposite to the steady and cool determination of the British soldiery. With the former, all was exultation and arrogant display; while, with characteristic vanity, they boasted of an imaginary success at Quatre Bras, and claimed a decisive victory at Ligny!

Although, in point of fact, beaten by the British on the 16th, Napoleon tortured the retrograde movement of the Duke on Waterloo into a defeat; and the winning a field from Blucher, attended with no advantage beyond the capture of a few disabled guns, afforded a pretext to declare in his dispatches that the Prussian army was routed and disorganized, without a prospect of being rallied.

The morning passed in mutual dispositions for battle—and the French attack commenced soon after eleven o’clock. The first corps, under Count D’Erlon, was in position opposite La Haye Sainte, its right extending towards Frichemont, and its left leaning on the road to Brussels. The second corps, uniting its right with D’Erlon’s left, extended to Hougomont, with the wood in its front.

The cavalry reserve (the cuirassiers) were immediately in the rear of these corps; and the Imperial Guard, forming the grand reserve, were posted on the heights of La Belle Alliance. Count Lobau, with the sixth corps, and D’Aumont’s cavalry, were placed in the rear of the extreme right, to check the Prussians, should they advance from Wavre, and approach by the defiles of Saint Lambert. Napoleon’s arrangements were completed about half-past eleven, and immediately the order to attack was given.

The place from which Buonaparte viewed the field, was a gentle rising ground[300] beside the farm-house of La Belle Alliance. There he remained for a considerable part of the day, dismounted, pacing to and fro with his hands behind him, receiving communications from his aides-de-camp, and issuing orders to his officers. As the battle became more doubtful, he approached nearer the scene of action, and betrayed increased impatience to his staff by violent gesticulation, and using immense quantities of snuff. At three o’clock he was on horseback in front of La Belle Alliance; and in the evening, just before he made his last attempt with the Guard, he had reached a hollow close to La Haye Sainte. Wellington, at the opening of the engagement, stood upon a ridge immediately behind La Haye, but as the conflict thickened, where difficulties arose and danger threatened, there the duke was found. He traversed the field exposed to a storm of balls, and passed from point to point uninjured—and on more than one occasion, when the French cavalry charged the British squares the duke was there for shelter.

A slight skirmishing between the French tirailleurs and English light troops had continued throughout the morning, but the advance of a division of the second corps, under Jerome Buonaparte, against the post of Hougomont, was the signal for the British artillery to open, and was, in fact, the commencement of the battle of Waterloo. The first gun fired on the 18th was directed by Sir George Wood upon Jerome’s advancing column; the last was a French howitzer, at eight o’clock in the evening, turned by a British officer against the routed remains of that splendid army with which Napoleon had begun the battle.

Hougomont[301] was the key of the duke’s position, a post naturally of considerable strength, and care had been taken to increase it. It was garrisoned by the light companies of the Coldstream and 1st and 3rd Guards;[302] while a detachment from General Byng’s brigade was formed on an eminence behind, to support the troops defending the house and the wood[303] on its left. Three hundred Nassau riflemen were stationed in the wood and garden; but the first attack of the enemy dispersed them.