lay behind the house, and a large double door opened from the yard into
the fields on the Hougoumont side, half of which door had been burned
for bivouac fires the night previous. The 2nd Rifles of the German
Legion, dressed like our own in green with slate-coloured pantaloons,
held the post, and held it like the heroes of old, three companies in
the orchard, two in the building, and one in the garden, Major Baring,
who had two horses shot under him, being in command.
The post was not as strong as Hougoumont, all the pioneers having been
sent to fortify the latter place, and the “Green Germans” had a very
insufficient supply of ammunition; Wellington afterwards admitting that
he had neglected to make the most of the position there.
At 1:30 p.m. Marshal Ney had gathered seventy-four guns, mostly
12-pounders, on a ridge very near to La Haye Sainte on the French
_right_ of the road, and this was known as the “Great Battery.”
Behind the guns the whole of D’Erlon’s Corps, together with Bachelu’s
Division, was massed in columns for the attack twenty regiments,
Bachelu being in reserve. Ney sent to the Emperor to tell him all was
ready, and with an appalling cannonade on our left and centre, they
commenced the SECOND ATTACK.
When the smoke which hung about the guns had drifted slowly away across
the slopes we could see four massive columns, led by the brave Ney,
pouring steadily forward straight for our ridge.
The firing became general as we opened on the advance; men had to shout
to be audible to their neighbours; long lanes were ploughed through
Picton’s Division, and the balls went tearing through our cavalry
in reserve, many of them striking the hospital farm, and some even
travelling into the village beyond.
Bylandt’s Dutch Belgians, posted in front of the cross-road, forgot
their gallantry at Quatre Bras, and bolted, almost running over the
Grenadiers of our 28th, who were restrained with difficulty from firing
into them. One ball cut a tall tree into half at the hedgerow above the
sandpit, bringing the feathery top down and half-smothering two doctors
of the 95th, who had stationed themselves beneath it.
[Illustration: “SOME GOT AS FAR AS THE LOOPHOLES AND
SEIZED THE BAYONETS” (_p._ 59).]
Nearly 24,000 men advanced, with loud cries and the hoarse rolling of
drums, in four masses: Durutte against Papelotte, Alix and Marcognet in
front of Kempt and Pack, Donzelot upon the devoted Rifles in La Haye
Sainte, the shock taking place about two o’clock, and lasting for more
than an hour.
Durutte took Papelotte, but was driven out again; Alix and Marcognet
breasted the rise, and gained the ridge under a murderous discharge;
the smell of trampled corn mingling with the powder smoke as the Great
Battery ceased firing lest it should kill its comrades, and with shouts
of “Vive l’Empereur!” the two columns hurled themselves against the
steel barrier of bayonets on the hedge-lined bank above them.
Hand to hand, no quarter asked or given, veteran and conscript came on
yelling like mad, Picton’s Division meeting them in line.
Some of Marcognet’s fellows crossed the Wavre road and blazed into the
92nd; but our men advanced, after a withering volley, and, jumping into
the cross-road, went at them with a will. Cameron Highlanders, 32nd and
28th, Scots Royals, and Black Watch, Gordons and 44th, with colours
waving and courage high, over the causeway they rushed, into the wheat
and barley.
“Charge, charge! Hurrah!” cried Picton, his little black eyes
sparkling, his florid complexion redder with excitement--a ball struck
his right temple, he fell dead from his horse, and his men passed over
him driving the foe down hill.
A mounted French officer had his horse shot, and getting to his feet
seized the regimental colour of the 32nd, which was nearly new.
Belcher, who carried it, grasped the silk and the Frenchman groped
for his sabre hilt, but Colour-sergeant Switzer thrust a pike at his
breast. “Save the brave fellow!” was the cry, but it came too late; a
private, named Lacy, fired point blank into him, and he fell lifeless.
Ney stood in the road beyond La Haye Sainte watching Donzelot’s attack
on the farm, where the “Green Germans” were forced, after a struggle,
out of the long orchard into the buildings, and simultaneously a mass
of Cuirassiers tore past the Hougoumont side and rode at the ridge.
Our Household Cavalry and Ponsonby’s Heavies had walked on foot to the
height overlooking the struggle; the trumpets rang out “Mount,” and
swinging into their saddles they swooped down into the thick of it.
With a clatter across the causeway, and the muffled thunder of hoofs
on the ground beyond it, the scarlet-coated Life Guards, wearing no
armour then, and mounted on black horses, dashed past the Wellington
tree into the potato field, with the Blues and King’s Dragoon Guards,
swinging, slashing, stirrup to stirrup, to meet Kellermann’s troopers
and Ordoner’s Cuirassiers. There was the snort of eager horses, the
creaking of leather, the clash of sword on steel cuirass, the yell
of passion and the scream of agony; a seething mass of fighting-men
and steeds, glinting and gleaming, swaying this way and that way, but
always onward, jostling down the hill.
The 1st Lifes got jammed in the road beyond the farm with a body of
Cuirassiers, on the spot where Ney had just before been standing,
voltigeurs firing into them, on friend and foe alike!
Their Colonel, Ferner, led eleven charges, although badly wounded by
sabre and lance.
The King’s Dragoons jumped their horses over a barrier of trees which
our Rifles had built across the causeway and went thundering along
that way, while the Blues were reaping a harvest of glory in another
direction, and the 2nd Life Guards charged to the left for a great
distance beyond the sandpit alongside the farm, where Corporal Shaw met
his fate after slaying _nine_ of the enemy singlehanded.
After the battle men remembered this mighty swordsman, and told in
solemn voices his deeds of derring-do. One cuirassier sat, out of the
_mêlée_, coolly loading his carbine and picking off our troopers,
and it is believed he gave Shaw his mortal hurt.
A survivor narrated how, exhausted at nightfall, he had lain down on a
dung-heap, when Shaw crawled beside him, bleeding from many wounds. In
the morning the life-guardsman was still there, his head resting on his
arm as if asleep, but it was the sleep which knows no waking.
Ponsonby’s Union Brigade was meanwhile making its immortal onslaught,
more towards Papelotte, the ground they went over being billowy, and
the troops before them infantry of the line.
The Royals gave a ringing cheer; “Scotland for ever!” was the war-cry
of the Greys; and the Inniskillings went in with an Irish howl.
As they passed the 92nd, many of the Highlanders caught hold of their
stirrup-leathers and charged down with them; the very ground seemed
trembling under the iron hoofs; Marcognet and Alix were broken and
trampled, and in three minutes more than 2,000 prisoners were wending
their disconsolate way to the rear.
“Those beautiful grey horses!” said Napoleon, as he watched the charge.
Did he see that struggle round the Eagle of his 45th, I wonder--that
famous “Battle for the Standard” which Ansdell has painted so well?
What says Sergeant Ewart, the hero of the incident? “It was in the
charge I took the Eagle from the enemy. He and I had a hard contest for
it. He made a thrust at my groin; I parried it off, and cut him down
through the head. After this a lancer came at me; I threw the lance off
by my right side, and cut him through the chin and upwards through the
teeth. Next a foot-soldier fired at me, and then charged me with his
bayonet, which I also had the good luck to parry, and then I cut him
down through the head. Thus ended the contest.”
[Illustration: Sergeant Ewart Capturing the Eagle at Waterloo
(_p._ 62).
(_From a Painting by W. B. Wollen, R.I._)]
Captain Clarke and Corporal Styles, of the Royals, took an Eagle from
the 105th between them--a glorious gilded thing, embroidered with the
names of Jéna, Eylau, Eckmühl, Essling, and Wagram--the gallant captain
losing the tip of his nose in the struggle.
A man of the Inniskillings named Penfold claimed to have taken that
colour; but his story is vague, and I incline to think that a blue silk
camp-colour of the 105th, now at Abbotsford, was the one that Penfold
seized and afterwards lost in the fray.
Sir William Ponsonby led the charge on a restive bay hack, and was
killed; while some of the Greys got as far as the Great Battery,
disabling many of the guns, and getting slain in the end.
Part of the 28th lost its head, and charged with the brigade;
Lieutenant Deares of that regiment being taken prisoner, stripped of
his clothes, rejoining at night in nothing but shirt and trousers.
Tathwell, of the Blues, tore off a colour, but his horse was shot and
he lost it; and the greater part of the two brigades rode along the
battery until heavy bodies of Cuirassiers and Lancers came to drive
them back.
Vandeleur charged to their relief with his Light Dragoons--the 12th
with bright yellow lancer facings, the 16th with scarlet, the buff 11th
remaining in reserve.
“Squadrons, right half-wheel! Charge!” and the sabres of our light
horsemen were soon busy in the valley below. The ground was very soft,
for a month after the battle some of the holes made by horses’ feet
were measured, and found to be _eighteen_ inches deep, and in
speaking of artillery movements it must be remembered that the guns
were at times up to the axle in clay.
The heavy cavalry regained our position; but so much had they
suffered that, later in the day, when they were drawn up in line
to show a bold front, there were only fifty of them; Somerset, who
led the “Households,” losing his hat, and wearing the helmet of a
life-guardsman, with its red and blue worsted crest, until nightfall.
The attack had failed, and there was a long pause, broken only by the
firing at Hougoumont and some feeble attempts on La Haye Sainte; but it
was now the turn of our troops in the centre, from the _chaussée_
to the back of the château; and a terrible time they had!
A renewal of the cannonade--a forming of our regiments into squares
and oblongs--and then the grandest cavalry affair in history, as
_forty_ squadrons of Cuirassiers and Dragoons crossed from the
French right in beautiful order, wheeled up until they almost filled
the space from Hougoumont to La Haye Sainte, and, about four o’clock,
put spurs to their horses and began the THIRD ATTACK!
A forest of sword-blades, an undulating sea of helmets, a roar of
mighty shouting as they came through the yet untrampled grain.
Wave after wave, far as the eye could scan, now glinting with thousands
of bright points as the sullen sun shone for a moment upon them, now
grey and sombre as the clouds closed together again. Nearer! nearer!
nearer! Men clutched their muskets tighter and breathed hard; gunners
rammed home and hastened to re-load before the smoke had drifted from
the cannon.
Suddenly they left their guns, and ran to the infantry for protection
as the sea burst upon us, and our ridge became alive with furious
horsemen, surging and foaming round and round the squares. There were
many who thought that all was over, but the little clumps of scarlet
fringed with steel were impenetrable.
In vain the moustached troopers cut desperately at the bayonets;
in vain they rode up and fired their pistols into the faces of our
lads. For three-quarters of an hour they expended their strength in a
hopeless task; and when our fresh cavalry from Dörnberg’s and Grant’s
Brigades charged them, they went down the slope again, leaving the
ground dotted with dead and dying.
A moment’s respite to re-form in the hollows below, and back they came
once more, in the face of a fearful fire from our artillery, whose guns
were double-shotted--some loaded with scattering grape and canister.
Lanes, sickening to behold, were torn through the squadrons; but
Milhaud’s men were not to be daunted, and the same strange scene was
repeated many times.
A small body of Cuirassiers that had surrendered was being escorted to
the rear by a weak party of the 7th Hussars, when they made a bold dash
for liberty along the Nivelle road, stampeding, _ventre à terre_,
until they reached the _abattis_ at the end of the Hougoumont
avenue.
Here they met Ross’s company of the 51st, who killed eight men and
twelve horses, the rest--about sixty--surrendering again.
One artilleryman was seen, under his gun, dodging a French trooper, who
tried to reach him with his long sword.
After some moments the cuirassier’s horse was shot, and the gunner,
sallying out, hit him over the head with his rammer, and packed him off
to the rear with a parting kick.
[Illustration: DEFENCE OF LA HAYE SAINTE BY THE GERMAN
LEGION (_p._ 66).]
The ridge was once more cleared, and Mercer’s battery brought into
the front line. The whole field was now littered with corpses and
accoutrements. Gaily-dressed trumpeters, and officers on whose breasts
hung crosses of the Legion of Honour, lay bleeding in the barley among
hundreds of dead and wounded horses. Here a lancer in green and light
blue, there a heap of cuirassiers of the 1st Regiment, mown down by
grape shot; yonder a _chasseur-à-cheval_, propped against his
charger, while swords and cuirasses were almost as numerous as the
stalks of corn.
All the slope was torn and trampled; flies were busy in the now
loathsome hollows; there was constant firing still at Hougoumont
and La Haye Sainte, when the trumpets sounded again, and with
_seventy-seven_ squadrons, including the cavalry of the Guard,
France returned to the charge. Every arm of the mounted service
was represented in this attack, the beauty and brilliancy of the
uniforms baffling description. Carabiniers, white-coated, with brass
cuirasses and red-crested helmets; Lancers, Dragoons, and Chasseurs
in green, with facings of every hue; the Red Lancers of the Guard,
clad in scarlet from head to heel, and Napoleon’s own favourite
_Chasseurs-à-cheval_, with hussar caps and red pelisses, richly
braided with orange lace; tall bearskinned Horse Grenadiers, with white
facings to their blue coats; the Cuirassiers, dark and sombre looking;
the high felt shakoes of the Hussars--it was as though a flower garden
in all its summer dress were moving at a slow trot upon us, heralded by
the thunder of hell from the batteries behind it.
When the thunder stopped, which it always did as the leading files
reached the crest of the ridge, our men could hear in the momentary
intervals of their own firing the jingling of bits and scabbards, and
the heavy breathing of the horses. Mounted skirmishers came close to
the batteries and commenced firing at the gunners, who were literally
dripping with perspiration from the exertions they made. One fellow
took several pot-shots at Captain Mercer, who was coolly walking his
horse backwards and forwards along a bank to set an example to his
men. He missed each time, and grinned grimly as he reloaded, but as
the head of the squadrons closed up the skirmishers vanished and were
succeeded by the rush which threatened death to every soul on the
plateau. Wellington’s orders were to retire into the squares and leave
the batteries, but Mercer’s men stuck to their guns, repulsing three
charges of the Horse Grenadiers, and dealing such slaughter that the
position of “G Troop” was known next day by the enormous heap of slain
lying before it, visible from a considerable distance.
The carnage on the slope was shocking--the oldest soldiers had seen
nothing like it: men and horses lay piled one on another, five and six
in a heap, every fresh discharge adding to the ghastly pyramid. The
1st Cuirassiers numbered 300 of the Legion of Honour in its ranks--it
lost 117, including two lieutenants and the brave Captain Poinsot, page
to the Emperor in 1807, wounded at Moscow and Brienne. One officer,
finding the fire from a particular gun playing havoc with his men, rode
straight at it and was blown to atoms.
[Illustration: “A GALLANT ARTILLERY DRIVER RUSHED HIS
HORSES TO THE WALL” (_p._ 66).]
The horses during the battle suffered cruelly, and some of the details
are heartrending: the charger of a very stout officer with the Duke’s
staff, probably Müffling, was seen to rear for some time without the
rider being able to bring it down--its front legs had been both shot
off. Another trooper’s horse was seen next morning sitting on its tail,
its hind legs gone; and one poor beast ran for sympathy to six guns in
succession, and was driven off from each with exclamations of horror
until it reached “G Troop,” where they mercifully killed it: the whole
of its face below the great brown pleading eyes had been carried away
by a round shot!
After a repulse and a re-attack, the remnant of the seventy-seven
squadrons reeled back to their own lines: the cavalry of France,
magnificent, irresistible, brave as lions, and nobly led, had shattered
itself without result, and _the third great attempt had failed_!
* * * * *
All the afternoon there had been great doings at Hougoumont. About one
o’clock Colonel Hepburn had relieved Saltoun in the large orchard with
a battalion of the 3rd--now the Scots Guards--and the combat on that
side became a long succession of advances with the bayonet to the front
hedge and retirings into a green dry ditch, which is known to us as the
“friendly hollow-way.” When our men fell back, a terrific fire from the
short east wall would stagger the foe, and the Scots, having formed
again, would scramble out of the hollow and clear the orchard of all
but the dead.
Along the terrible south wall a staff-officer, who had been through all
the Peninsula battles, afterwards said that the slain lay thicker than
he had ever seen them elsewhere.
The château and barns were now burning furiously, fired by Haxo’s
howitzers at Napoleon’s orders, and many of our wounded perished in
the flames; some officers’ horses tore out of the barn, galloped madly
round the yard, and rushed into the fire again to be destroyed.
Twice the enemy got in: once by a little door in the west wall,
through which they never got out alive; and the second time, when
our Guardsmen had sallied out into the lane to drive off a body of
infantry, about fifty French entered on their heels through the north
gate. Then, by main strength of arm, Colonel Macdonell, Sergeant
Graham, and three or four more, shut and barred the wooden gate in the
faces of the others, and those inside were all shot down.
A brave fellow climbed on to the beam that crossed the gateway; but
Graham fired, and he dropped with a scream on to the heads of his
comrades outside the wall.
The fire stopped at the door of the château chapel, which was full of
wounded, and a wooden figure of our Saviour had the feet nibbled by the
flames, at which the superstitious marvel greatly to this day.
Columns of smoke hung over everything. A gallant artillery driver
rushed his horses to the wall, and flung a barrel of welcome cartridges
over into the yard. At the corner, before the gardener’s house, Baron
de Cubières lay wounded under his horse; afterwards, when Governor of
Ancona, he expressed himself very grateful that we had not fired on him!
Crawford of the 3rd Guards was killed in the kitchen garden, Blackman
of the Coldstreams died in the orchard; but the attack and repulse grew
gradually weaker, as both sides tired of the hideous slaughter.
Meanwhile, a serious trouble which had been menacing the Emperor on his
right flank for some time at last grew terribly imminent.
The Prussians were coming in spite of Grouchy, who had been sent in
their pursuit.
They should have arrived about one o’clock; but, thanks to the bad
roads, a fire in the town of Wavre, which had to be extinguished before
the ammunition-waggons could be got through, and some hesitation on the
part of Gneisenau, Blücher’s Chief of Staff, who doubted Wellington’s
good faith, it was _half-past four_ when part of Bülow’s corps
came out of the woods at St. Lambert and confirmed Napoleon’s
previously awakened fears.
In the hazy weather they thought it was Grouchy, and a false report
was afterwards sent through the French army to cheer the wearied men;
but the Emperor and Soult knew otherwise, and the line of battle was
weakened by a strong force being detached to meet the new arrivals.
There was no time to be lost; drums rolled and trumpets sounded again,
and the last remnants of the cavalry had not regained their position
when the Fourth Grand Attack began with a fury that even exceeded the
others.
While fresh bodies of horse and foot advanced up the ridge, a most
determined rush was made on La Haye Sainte. Baring had been reinforced,
it is true; but, although he sent time after time for more ammunition,
not a single cartridge was forthcoming!
A feeble excuse has been made that there were no means of getting it
into the building; but a large door and several windows faced our line
at the back of the house then, as now. They may still be seen by the
visitor to Waterloo.
A horde of French infantry flung themselves on the buildings, setting
the barn on fire, and besieging the broken gateway.
While the brave Germans filled their camp-kettles from the pond and
extinguished the flames, others, with their bayonets only, kept the
door leading into the field. Seventeen corpses they piled up there
in a few minutes, one gallant fellow defending a breach with a brick
torn from the wall! The individual acts of heroism on authentic record
would fill many pages: but, without ammunition, they were at a fearful
disadvantage.
The voltigeurs climbed on to the roof of the stable, and shot them down
at their ease: the half barn-door is preserved to the present day,
with eighty bullet-holes in it! Alten sent the brave Christian Ompteda
to their aid, if practicable, with the 5th Battalion. He pointed to
an overwhelming force; but the irrepressible Orange repeated Alten’s
suggestion in a tone that brooked no delay, and Ompteda went down with
his 5th Battalion, and they died, almost to a man!
Baring dismounted to pick up his cap, knocked off by a shot; four balls
had lodged in the cloak rolled on his saddle-bow, and a fifth then
pierced the saddle itself, while the Scotch Lieutenant Græme, sitting
on the rafters of the piggery, in which a calf was lowing, raised his
shako to cheer his men, and his right hand was taken off at the wrist.
He was only eighteen.
It was hopeless. “If I receive no cartridges,” said Baring in his last
appeal, “I not only must, but _will_ abandon the post!” And very
soon those neglected heroes retreated slowly through the house and out
through the garden beyond, the French, bursting into the yard, chasing
the remnant round and round and bayoneting them on the dungheaps.
A roar of cheering rang above the battle. At last they were
victorious, and the French had taken La Haye Sainte.
Without a moment’s hesitation their conquest was turned to the best
possible advantage. Smart red-braided Horse Artillery galloped down
the causeway, dragging their guns to the knoll above the sandpit,
from which our 95th had been driven, and, unlimbering, opened fire at
_sixty yards range_ on to our line.
Skirmishers filled the hedgerows and the farm buildings. The Great
Battery renewed its work of death, and in a few moments there was a
serious gap in the centre of our position.
Lambert’s brigade had been brought up before this, and suffered
terribly.
The 27th, which had lain down and slept soundly behind Mont St. Jean
until after three o’clock, lost 478 out of 698 in its new quarters; and
the 40th thirteen officers and 180 rank and file, one round shot taking
off the head of Captain Fisher and killing twenty-five men.
Ompteda’s brigade mustered a mere handful, Kielmansegge was almost
destroyed, Halkett had two weak squares, one of his regiments being
very shaky indeed, and, altogether, things were unpleasant when the
Duke came up with reinforcements to patch our front as best he could.
Far off on our right Chassé’s Dutch Belgians had arrived, shouting and
singing, from Braine l’Alleud, _very drunk_, narrowly escaping
a volley from us, as they wore the French uniform; and at this time,
by reason of the bolting of Hake’s Cumberland Hussars and some of our
supports, with the enormous losses from the six hours of carnage, the
British affairs were in bad case.