The Battle of Waterloo: Europe in the Balance (13 page)

Napoleon threw down his cutlery in anger. ‘Because you have been beaten by Wellington, you consider him a great general. I tell you that he is a bad general, that the English are bad troops and this affair is nothing more serious than eating breakfast.’

A tense silence followed, broken when Reille and Napoleon’s brother Jérôme entered. Napoleon turned to Reille – who had also fought the British in Spain – and asked him for his opinion of the British army. The hapless Reille, unaware of the previous exchange, replied: ‘Well posted, as Wellington knows how to post it, and attacked from the front, I consider the English infantry to be impregnable because of their tenacity and superior firing. Doing that, we can expect to suffer heavy casualties. But the English are less agile, less supple and less skilled in manoeuvring than we are. We cannot defeat them by direct attack, but we can beat them by manoeuvring.’

Napoleon glowered. Sensing something was amiss, Jérôme tried to lighten the mood by passing on some gossip. The waiter who had served him supper the night before at an inn had made the ridiculous statement that an English officer had said that Blücher would arrive by noon next day.

Again Napoleon burst out angrily. ‘I am delighted the English are going to fight. This battle will save France. I will use my preponderance of artillery to batter Wellington, then I will probe with my cavalry to unmask his position, then I will march straight through him with my Guard.’ With that he stormed off, beckoning Soult to join him and began issuing a string of orders.

His first order was to Grouchy. Unaware that the main Prussian army had retreated to Wavre and thinking that only a relatively small group were in that town, Napoleon instructed Grouchy to ‘head for Wavre so that you get close to us and establish close communications with us while pushing ahead of you those portions of the Prussian Army that have gone to Wavre. Do this as soon as possible.’

Napoleon’s second order was to the commanding officer of the 7th Hussars. He was instructed to lead his regiment out to the east and post a screen of scouts over a wide area so as to keep an eye open for any troops – French or Prussian – approaching from Wavre. Finally he turned to issuing detailed orders for the assault on Wellington.

Meanwhile, perturbed by Napoleon’s casual attitude to launching a frontal assault on British infantry, several of the senior French generals went into a huddle to compare notes on fighting the British and seek a way forward. They all had experience of leading infantry in columns against British infantry drawn up in lines. Against other continental armies the massed momentum of large columns had been enough to smash a path to victory. But the better-trained British infantry had stood firm and defeated them with volleys of musketry.

D’Erlon, Reille, Lobau and Drouet decided to adopt an unusual formation known as colonne de division par bataillon, which was used only very occasionally by the French. This was a mixed formation in which some men were arranged in column, while others were in smaller groups that could be deployed into line quickly to add their firepower to the momentum of the columns. The number of muskets that could be fired by a division in this formation was about 350, compared to just 60 in a conventional column. The downside was that the formation was rather cumbersome and difficult to manoeuvre over broken ground.

The mud meanwhile had forced Napoleon to delay his assault. The heavy cannon could not be moved over the muddy fields. The attack was postponed to 11 am, then to 12 noon.

Attack on Hougoumont

To fill in the time, and in the hope of inducing Wellington to weaken his centre, Napoleon told Reille to start a small attack on Hougoumont. Napoleon guessed that Wellington would be anxious about his right wing and the escape route to the Royal Navy. He therefore intended to tease him there. Should Hougoumont be captured it would open the way for a sweeping flank march by Napoleon to get between Wellington and his escape. Napoleon did not intend to make such a move, but by threatening to do so he hoped to get Wellington to move more men to the apparently threatened flank.

The French attack on Hougoumont was led by Napoleon’s brother Jérôme. Barely had the assault begun than Jérôme’s right-hand man, General Bauduin, was shot dead. It took an hour for the French skirmishers to drive the Hanoverian light infantry out of the large wood in front of the chateau itself. The first assault on the buildings was made against the high, loopholed south wall and was beaten off with heavy losses. Jérôme then fell back into the wood, while bringing up more men and ordering them around the west side of the chateau to attack the north wall.
 

The initial assault of Hougoumont. A few British infantry were stationed outside the chateau proper, defending the orchard and walled garden. Once the size of the French attack became clear they fell back into the buildings.

Wellington did not want to change his dispositions until it was clear whether the attack on Hougoumont was a real attack or a feint. He did, however, push forward a battery of howitzers to fire explosive shells over the chateau into the woods beyond. Otherwise he did not fall into the trap that Napoleon had laid.

French cannon

The main battle opened when a massed battery of 84 cannon fired as one a little before noon. The massive noise of so many guns firing at once stunned those on the battlefield and was heard by both Grouchy and Blücher.

Grouchy was, at this point, marching north toward Wavre. His progress was slow, partly because of the poor state of the road but also because he had delayed his departure from Gembloux until he was certain that Blücher had gone to Wavre. He had sent a letter to Napoleon on leaving Gembloux, and this arrived with Napoleon as the attack on Hougoumont got underway. Napoleon was aghast to learn that Grouchy was moving so slowly. He sent an immediate reply telling Grouchy to get a move on, specifically telling him to get between Wavre and Waterloo. Napoleon knew this message would not reach Grouchy for a couple of hours, but speed was now of the essence.

Meanwhile, French scouts had captured a Prussian hussar carrying a message from Blücher to Wellington. It was a routine update on Bülow’s progress, but it was the first time Napoleon realized that the Prussians were marching on Waterloo. Napoleon hurriedly discussed the news with Soult, whereupon the grinning Prussian chipped in, speaking reasonable French, to boast that the entire Prussian army was on the march.

Napoleon moved Lobau’s VI Corps forward to his right flank to face east on a line from Frischermont in the north to Plancenoit in the south. They would halt the Prussians, or at least delay them long enough to allow Napoleon to defeat Wellington.

The vast battery of 84 cannon had, meanwhile, been pounding Wellington’s centre on both sides of the crossroads. They were firing both solid shot and shells to increase the damage done. As usual, Wellington had put his men behind the crest of the hill both to shelter them from cannon fire and to hide his dispositions from the enemy. Nevertheless, Napoleon had guessed where Wellington would have his main force and was directing his fire at it. Although many shot and shell hit the front of the ridge and sank into the mud, many of them went over the ridge to strike the men beyond.

Casualties among Wellington’s army were not so high as they would have been if he had put his men on the forward slope in the continental manner, but they were still high. Infantry regiments were ordered to sit or lie down to try to reduce casualties, while the cavalry were moved back or to the side.

French infantry attack

At 1.30 pm Napoleon judged that Wellington’s army must have suffered enough casualties to have weakened their line and reduced morale. D’Erlon’s I Corps marched forward to attack. More than 15,000 infantry were marching forward, their front protected by a swarm of skirmishers and their flanks by heavy cavalry.

One French brigade was earmarked to attack the farm of La Haye Sainte. After a delay caused by the fire of the British 95th Rifles in the sandpit, the French fell on the farm and its King’s German Legion defenders. Led by Major Baring, the Germans had found the farm in a terrible condition for defence. The main gate had been chopped up for firewood, so only the flimsiest of barricades blocked the main entrance. Baring had 400 men, the French had 2,000.

Before long La Haye Sainte was surrounded by French infantry, who captured the orchard and were battering at the gates. On the ridge behind the farm, the Prince of Orange saw the farm surrounded. Realizing that the main attack of d’Erlon would pass to his east, the prince decided to send a Hanoverian infantry regiment to the rescue. Intent on the French infantry, the prince sent the regiment forward in line formation. Suddenly erupting from the smoke of the fighting around La Haye Sainte came a regiment of French cuirassiers, which charged into the Hanoverians and slaughtered them.

The main French column, meanwhile, had been slogging up the slope towards Wellington’s line. It was formed into three sections. On the left was Quiot’s division, in the centre was Donzelot’s and on the right was Marcognet’s division. For the final few minutes, the French battery redoubled its efforts to deluge the defenders with explosive shells to inflict as many casualties as they could and damage morale as much as possible.

As Donzelot’s French infantry crested the ridge they found themselves facing Dutch troops commanded by Major General van Bijlandt. Using their novel formation, the French could fire more muskets than usual. A crashing volley inflicted heavy casualties on the Dutch, who had already taken losses at Quatre Bras. When the French came on with fixed bayonets it proved to be too much. Bijlandt’s men fled. There was a gap in the line. Seeing this, General Picton began leading forward some British infantry, but was shot dead by a bullet that went through his hat and smashed in his skull.

General Thomas Picton was a blunt, plain-speaking officer who rarely wasted time on small talk or on subtle battlefield manoeuvres. Although shown here in formal uniform, he preferred to wear a civilian outfit on campaign and was in a black frock coat when he was killed at Waterloo.

Quiot’s left-hand French column met the British infantry under Sir James Kempt and a fierce firefight developed. The British had the advantage of lining the hedges along the road that ran east-west along the crest of the ridge. Even so, with the French in their new formations both sides could deploy about 2,000 muskets and were evenly matched.

To Bijlandt’s left, the British redcoats were also being struck by d’Erlon’s novel formation. The 92nd Highlanders took heavy casualties and fell back. As they gave way the 92nd disrupted the formation of the 44th behind them and both units gave ground. With fixed bayonets, Marcognet’s infantry surged forward into the gap. To their left was Donzelot’s division, also marching forward through the gap they had created.

Some of Marcognet’s men began to shout ‘Victoire’ as they saw the open ground ahead of them. The officers began to redeploy their infantry so that they could turn to take those British regiments still fighting in the flank – and defeat them.