The Battle (36 page)

Hardly had the French infantry disappeared back into the smoke when the Scotsmen of the Seventy-first saw cavalry bearing down upon them; they barely managed to form square in time, and General Adam himself was obliged to take refuge in their midst. After the cavalry, impotent against a square, beat a retreat, the Scots officers realized that the enemy
tirailleurs
were still stationed in the vicinity and had the Seventy-first under fire. The regiment accomplished a miracle: It advanced in line, driving the enemy before it, sent its skirmishers forward to occupy part of the orchard, and then quickly formed square again as soon as the enemy cavalry showed itself. Less experienced soldiers—the Brunswickers, for example—would never have been able to maneuver like this, in the face of the enemy and under fire; the troops of the Seventy-first, a veteran light infantry regiment, completed the maneuver and stood firm. Due in large part to this regiment's steadfastness, the French, despite the incessant charges of the Guard cavalry and the repeated attempts of Reille's infantry, never succeeded in isolating the perimeter of Hougoumont. More or less at this point in the struggle, General Adam heard Wellington mutter, almost to himself, "I believe we shall beat them after all."

This was not the only case in which the British infantry showed itself capable of changing coolly from line into square and of advancing or retreating as needed, still keeping square. Lord Saltoun, who had returned to the high ground with the survivors of his light company, watched the 3/1 st Foot Guards maneuver to escape the combined action of the cavalry and the
tirailleurs.
"During the Cavalry attacks on the centre a great number of the Enemy's sharpshooters had crept up the slope of the hill, and galled the 3rd Battalion, who were in square, very severely. . . .The Third Battalion, who suffered severely from this fire, wheeled up into line and drove them down the hill and advanced to a point. . . and there reformed square."

Historians have often stated, that the French attack against Hougoumont was a gigantic waste, in which a small number of defenders kept engaged and eventually defeated an immensely superior enemy host. However, from Napoleon's point of view, the offensive against the perimeter wall of the Hougoumont chateau represented only one aspect of a much broader maneuver, whose objective was to drive in Wellington's entire right wing, and the duke, knowing what was at stake, responded in kind. While the Hougoumont defenders never had, at any given moment, more than two thousand muskets within the perimeter of the chateau, the total number of soldiers in all the battalions that were committed to this action was much higher. Early in the day, the position was defended by Major von Busgen's l/2nd Nassau, reinforced by a few companies of Hanoverian
fdger;
almost immediately, the Germans were joined by the two Guards battalions of Sir John Byng's brigade; during the course of the action, Du Plat's brigade and the Brunswick light infantry brigade sent all their companies into the chateau; and at the end of the day, these troops were in such bad shape that Wellington found it necessary to reinforce them with the last reserve he had available in that sector, the Hanoverian
Landwehr
brigade commanded by Colonel Hew Halkett, Sir Colin Halkett's brother. Since this officer outranked the various lieutenant-colonels of the Guards Division who were present at the scene, he assumed command of the chateau late in the afternoon, posting a battalion in the orchard, two in the hollow way, and one outside the grounds but near the wall.

Reille's corps exerted pressure not only on the troops inside the perimeter of the chateau but also on all the Allied infantry deployed in that sector, keeping them constantly engaged until the very last phase of the battle. Clearly, the disproportion of the forces involved in the struggle for Hougoumont is nothing but a legend of historiography. In the course of the day, the French employed the three divisions of II Corps in this sector, for a total of thirty-three battalions and some fourteen thousand muskets. Against them, Wellington committed the brigades of Byng, Du Plat, Adam, and Hew Halkett, five Brunswick battalions, one from Nassau, three companies of Hanoverian
fdger,
and two companies from Maitland's brigade, amounting to twenty-one battalions—six British and fifteen German—and a total of twelve thousand muskets. Moreover, during the afternoon various artillery batteries that were in action around La Haye Sainte, including those of Rogers and Sinclair, were ordered to redeploy in the Hougoumont sector, a sign that the chateau continued to be of such concern to Wellington that for its sake he weakened his center, not without unfortunate consequences. Therefore, the downside for Napoleon did not consist in the fact that Hougoumont had kept a disproportionately high number of his troops engaged against a paltry enemy force, but rather in the fact that the chateau, in the end, did not fall.

The buildings were the key, and there the garrison stood firm, even though at certain moments they felt isolated and almost abandoned. At one point, Lieutenant Colonel Hepburn, who was inside the chateau, found himself commanding Byng's entire brigade, the general having been obliged to take over command of the Guards Division after General Cooke was wounded. Nevertheless, Hepburn later admitted, "I knew nothing of what was passing elsewhere." According to Major von Biisgen, who commanded the Nassauers, "Neither when I was detached to Hougoumont, nor during the combat, did anyone tell me from whom I was supposed to take orders. Given the intensity of the fighting and the limited field of vision, which was obstructed by trees, hedges, and walls, I was unable to see anything that was happening beyond them." But in the midst of the smoking ruins, among heaps of charred rubble where the ground underfoot was still burning hot, in the boggy mud of the hollow way, and amid the disfigured remains of the orchard's apple trees, the defenders of the chateau stood fast to the end, while along the south wall every attempt on the part of the
tirailleurs
to penetrate the enclosure resulted in fresh piles of corpses. Napoleon's final attack would not pass through Hougoumont.

FIFTY-FOUR

THE CAPTURE OF

LA HAYE SAINTE

Moreover, Wellington had massed his men in such numbers behind Hougoumont that the French cavalry charges never were able to cut off the garrison from the bulk of the Allied army, even though the chateau was far from the duke's main line; all afternoon, reinforcements and ammunition carts continued to enter the farmyard through the north gate. By contrast, behind La Haye Sainte, where the bombardment of the Grande Batterie was most intense, Wellington's line had grown so thin that the combined pressure of the cavalry charges and the swarm of skirmishers sent forward by Donzelot continually brought the garrison to the verge of isolation. As long as the Allied cavalry conserved enough forces to be able to launch occasional countercharges, the situation remained fairly fluid, and the German battalions of Ompteda and Kielmansegge carried out counterattacks from time to time, sending reinforcements into the farm. But as the interventions of the Allied cavalry grew less frequent, Ompteda's and Kielmansegge's troops were reduced to playing a purely passive role, formed in square on the ridge behind La Haye Sainte and trying to stand fast. From the late afternoon on, Baring and his men, besieged inside La Haye Sainte, received no more orders or reinforcements; the Baker rifle ammunition, which the major had most insistently requested, never came.

Left:
Marshal Ney

Below: French cuirassiers charging a Highlanders' square.
Painting by Eelix
Philippoteaux, 1874.

Left:
Colonel von Ompteda.

Below: Nassauers defending their position at La Belle Alliance.
Painting by R. Knotel.

Above:
Blucher orders his men to attack Plancenoit. Painting
by Adolf Northern.

Below:
An officer of the mounted chasseurs of the Imperial Guard.
Painting by Gericault.

Above:
Napoleon, viewing the attack on his Imperial Guards through a spyglass.
Painting
by James Atkinson.

Below:
Colonel Hew Halkett captures the French general Cambronne.
Painting by
R. Knotel.

Above: "No cheering, my lads, but forward, and complete your victory!" Wellington signals the general advance on Waterloo.

Painting by James Atkinson.

Right:
The Earl of Uxbridge, commander of the Allied cavalry. He lost his leg at Waterloo when it was shattered by a piece of shot that narrowly missed Wellington.
Painting by Peter
Edward Stroehling,
c.
1816

Below:
The surgeon's saw used to amputate Lord Uxbridge's leg.

Left:
The famous meeting between Wellington and Blucher, depicted here in front of the inn at La Belle Alliance.

Below: General von Gneisenau.

Below: Napoleon among his men as he faces defeat. His carriage awaits his flight.
Painting
by Ernest Crofts.

Above:
Napoleon Bonaparte burning the eagles and standards of his Imperial Guard after the battle.

Above:
A burial party at work near La Belle Alliance, seven days after the battle.
Engraving
by E.
Walsh,
drawn on the spot.

Below:
British soldiers removing French cannons, July 1815.

At that moment, Baring's situation became desperate. A count of the ammunition remaining to his men revealed that they each had only three or four shots left. The newest arrivals, the Nassauers, had much more ammunition than this, but it did no good, because their musket cartridges were unusable in Baker rifles; as to the Nassauers themselves, Major Baring preferred, in his account, not to elaborate on their performance, but they were inexperienced recruits, surely incapable of adequately replacing the riflemen. The farm was enveloped in the thick smoke of the fire, and the French, having successfully brought forward some artillery pieces to within sight of the external wall, were beginning to breach it. Although the defenders were taking advantage of every moment of respite to fill up the breaches with debris, it was evident to Baring that, under these conditions, they would not be able to last very long.

Baring ordered one of his officers to try to deliver a message to Colonel von Ompteda, explicitly putting him on notice that the garrison would not be able to withstand another attack. When the
tirailleurs
started making a fresh attack on the barn and the fire flared up again, and while his soldiers were using up their last grains of powder, Baring wrote another note, insisting that if he didn't receive some ammunition he would be forced to abandon his position. Meanwhile, the French, seeing that the defenders' fire was growing steadily lighter, attacked the side of the farm nearest the road, and some sappers armed with axes started knocking down the carriage gate. Finally, as the men of the Thirteenth Legere were scaling the walls and bursting into the farmyard, Major Baring made the most difficult decision of his life: "Inexpressibly painful as the decision was to me of giving up the place, my feeling of duty as a man overcame that of honor, and I gave the order to retire through the house into the garden."

This turned into not so much a retreat as a disorganized flight, with the French, enraged by the defenders' obstinate resistance and determined to give no quarter to any of them, hot on their heels. The passage through the house was narrow, and many prisoners were taken; the most fortunate suffered a thrashing, followed by a brutal march to the rear of the French lines, but others did not fare so well. Some of the wounded vainly cried out in French,
"Pardon!"
—the conventional plea of one begging for his life—but they were finished off with bayonets. Ensign Frank, with one broken arm, took refuge in the house, hid behind a bed, and stayed in his hiding place until evening; when two fusiliers tried to hide in the same room, the French burst in behind them, crying out,
"Pas
de pardon a ces coquins verts!"
and shot both of them to death. Lieutenant Graeme found his way blocked by an officer and four men; the officer grabbed him by the collar while one of the men thrust at him with his bayonet, but Graeme was still holding his sword and parried the blow. The officer, who had let him go, seized his collar again and gave him a jerk, whereupon Graeme twisted out of his grasp and took to his heels. With shouts of
"Coquin!"
the French fired after him, but they did not pursue him, and Graeme was able to rejoin his commanding officer. Baring led the lieutenant and the few other survivors of the garrison in a sprint up the slope and into the two companies of the First KGL Light Battalion, which were formed up in a small square behind the hollow way. "Although we could not fire a shot," he remembered, "we helped to increase the numbers."

Private Lindau took refuge with some comrades and an officer behind the fence that closed off a corner of the farmyard, and there they surrendered to the French. Pricking them with bayonets, their captors made them jump the fence to exit their hiding place, all the while furiously screaming,
"En avant, couillons!"
As soon as they reached the road, they were stripped of all they had, and Lindau lost his bag of gold, as well as two watches. The violence of their treatment exasperated the prisoners to such a degree that a few of them began to stoop down and gather stones to defend themselves; but the officer, a captain, managed to calm them, thus saving the whole lot from being massacred. Among their captors, the prisoners recognized an officer whom they themselves had captured a year before "in the Jewish cemetery in Bayonne." In an effort to protect the prisoners, this man ordered that they were not to be robbed, but his soldiers responded to this prohibition with catcalls and whistling. At last, the prisoners were turned over to a group of cuirassiers, survivors of the afternoon's fighting, who were ordered to escort them to the rear. "Most of the French cuirassiers had bandaged heads. They forced us to run as fast as their horses, and when a man from the first battalion couldn't run fast enough, they killed him with a saber blow."

As was the case in the Hougoumont sector, around La Haye Sainte the French succeeded in coordinating their infantry with their cavalry much more effectively than they managed to do in any other part of the battlefield. Despite hours of charging, the cuirassier squadrons of Milhaud and Kellermann appeared once again at the crest of the slope as soon as Donzelot's skirmishers took possession of the farm. Lieutenant Graeme had no time to take a breath before the cavalry charged the square he had just taken refuge in. To his relief, the riflemen stationed in the hollow way still had enough ammunition to keep the French at a distance, but meanwhile the
tirailleurs
had approached so close under the protection of the cavalry that the position of the square was rapidly becoming untenable. At this moment, Graeme was standing with other officers on the edge of the hollowing road, swinging his cap in the air to cheer on his men, when a musket ball shattered his right hand and he was obliged to quit the battlefield.

The
tirailleurs'
advance after the fall of La Haye Sainte was so sudden as to provoke panic and consternation among the Allied troops. Noticing that the defenders' fire was lessening, Wellington had ridden to a dangerously advanced position well past the sunken lane in order to see if he could discern a way to send the garrison more ammunition, and he remained there until the first enemy skirmishers appeared from around the corner of the house, close enough to take aim at him. Only then did the duke and his aides decide that the time had come for them to withdraw, but there was only one passage in the thick hedge bordering the chemin d'Ohain, and it took several moments for everyone to get through. As Lieutenant Cathcart, the last man, was awaiting his turn and keeping an uneasy eye on the approaching
tirailleurs,
only two hundred yards away, one of them fired at him. The ball struck his horse, which crashed to the ground; Cathcart tried frantically to make the animal rise again, but then he realized that it was too badly wounded. Leaving it there to die, Cathcart bolted through the hedge behind the others.