times: the Duke pointed to a scarlet mass in front through the smoke,
and inquired what regiment it was. It was the dead and wounded of those
two corps, huddled together where they had fallen.
The green-faced 73rd was at one time commanded by Lieutenant Stewart,
all the other officers having been killed or wounded; and at half-past
seven the colours of both regiments were sent to the rear.
The 2nd Line Battalion of the German Legion went into action with 300
men, but mustered only six officers and thirty-six privates after
the battle; but Blücher was now nearing the French right rear with
nearly 52,000 troops and 104 guns, and the Emperor was obliged to send
General Duhesme with eight battalions of the young Guard down into the
straggling village of Planchenoit to help to check them.
He had been at La Belle Alliance all day, and Prussian shot were now
falling about him.
Marshal Ney sent for more infantry to renew the attack. “Où voulez
vous que j’en prenne: voulez vous que j’en fasse?” was the Emperor’s
impatient reply--“Where can I get them: do you wish me to make them?”
The long June day was drawing into evening, and shadows began to
lengthen across the fields. Wellington, who had always been seen where
the fire was hottest, rode with a calm, inscrutable face, followed by a
sadly diminished staff, his eagle eye taking note of the strength and
weakness of our line.
The Hussars had been moved in rear of the centre; and Adams’ Brigade
took position immediately behind the ridge. In front of the clover
field where the 52nd stood in square, a pretty little tortoiseshell
kitten, which had been frightened out of Hougoumont by the firing, lay
dead--a strange feature in the scene of destruction.
The men were growing accustomed to the hideous sights and sounds around
them, and became impatient at the inactivity which doomed them to
endure without reprisal. Suddenly the brass guns blazed forth once more
upon us; the _pas de charge_ was rolling from a thousand drums;
a serried line was seen advancing along our entire front, and, led by
the Emperor himself, on his grey charger Marie, his famous _redingote
gris_ open and showing the well-known dark-green chasseur coat, the
Grenadiers of the Guard marched in solid columns into the valley.
Two winding serpents of determined men; ten battalions in tall black
bearskins, white facings and dark-blue pantaloons--that was their dress
at Waterloo--with Friant and Morand, Petit, whom Napoleon had kissed
at Fontainebleau, Poret de Morvan, and old Cambronne. The _élite_
of the French army, the Grenadiers and Chasseurs of the Old and Middle
Guard, marching sternly to victory or death. Marcognet, Alix, and
Donzelot, with their remnants, against our reeling left; Reille, Foy,
and Jérôme renewing on Hougoumont--cavalry in the gaps and spaces--a
simultaneous, mighty LAST ATTACK!
The yet unbroken Imperial Guard set their faces towards the spot
where Maitland’s, Adams’ and Byng’s redcoats looked to their priming
and closed their ranks: had Napoleon hurled them against the cross
road behind La Haye Sainte, the story of Waterloo had been written
differently.
He missed his chance; he threw away his final hope. The greatest of
his many mistakes was committed, and, handing over the leadership to
Ney, he remained on a hillock above the farm, and watched the downfall
of France and the death-blow of his empire! For the last time in this
world their Emperor addressed them, pointing towards the heights with a
gesture all could understand.
“_Déployez les aigles. En avant! Vive l’Empereur!_” and with a
great shout they quickened their pace, passing proudly, unheeding, over
the bodies of those comrades who had gone before.
Red tongues of flame burst from the smoke of our guns; whiz came
the fiery rockets, darting into their ranks, scorching, blinding,
and burning in their course; humming shells dropped among them with
terrible destruction; but the Old Guard pressed on, and began to mount
the ridge.
Ney’s horse fell--the _fifth_ killed under him that day, and the
“bravest of the brave,” went forward on foot. Alas, would that it had
been to death!
Our Guards were lying down to avoid the hurricane from the French
artillery. A shell dropped in one of the squares, and Colonel Colquitt,
picking it up, fizzing and fuming, walked to the edge and flung it
outside to burst harmlessly. Another officer, mortally wounded, said
faintly:
“I should like to see the colours of the regiment again before I quit
them for ever”: they were brought and waved round his body, and with a
smile, he was carried away, to die.
[Illustration: LA HAYE SAINTE.]
It was men like those that the oncoming columns had to face, and
batteries as famous as those of Bull and Bolton, of Norman Ramsay,
Whinyates, and Webber Smith, with guns double shotted and served as on
parade; no need to sight so carefully, for the moving target is a wide
one, and they hit in every time!
Now the skirmishers run out, shouting and firing as before, and when
they have said their say, they fall back leaving all clear for the
others; but the columns seem to get no nearer, though they are marching
steadily; front rank after front rank is blown to shreds--_that is
why they appear stationary_!
The gunners have done their work; the guns recoil, and are left there:
it is the turn of the infantry now, and the time has come for that
historic signal, “Up, Guards, and at ’em!” which in reality was never
said.
But whatever the word was, they _do_ “up,” and they _do_ “at
’em”; and again it is bayonet to bayonet, and man to man.
One Welsh giant, named Hughes, six feet seven inches in height, is seen
to knock over a dozen of the Old Guard single handed; the redcoats and
the blue-coats mingle for a moment and the blue-coats melt away.
The second column, a little behind the other, is in good order: it
has suffered less from the cannonade, and is full of fire and fury;
but so also are our 52nd lads, who advance down the slope with three
tremendous cheers.
Colborne is leading, and when they get abreast of the column he cries--
“Halt! Mark time!”
The men touch in to their left, and regain their dressing; Colborne’s
horse is shot, and he comes forward wiping his mouth with a white
handkerchief, still wearing Ensign Leeke’s blue boat-cloak.
“Right shoulders forward!”
[Illustration: THE UNION BRIGADE CAPTURING THE FRENCH GUNS AT
WATERLOO.
(_From the Picture by W. B. Wollen, R.I._)]
The regiment swings round, and, four deep, faces the column’s flank two
hundred yards away.
“Forward, 52nd--charge!” and the Foot Guards, who are back on the
ridge again, behold a noble spectacle.
The crash is terrific; the Imperial phalanx is taken in flank. The
contest is fierce, but it is soon over.
Brave Michel, in response to our officers, replies with glorious
_esprit de corps_, “The Guard dies, and never surrenders!” his
words instantly fulfilled, as he falls lifeless, sword in hand, while
Cambronne, grown old in the service (to whom these words have been
falsely attributed), gives up his weapon to William Halkett.
Halkett’s horse is shot, and Cambronne hastens away, but his captor is
too quick for him, and seizing his gold aiguillette, hands him to a
sergeant to be taken care of.
On presses the 52nd, driving the broken Guard before it: it is a sight
probably never repeated in history--one regiment traversing the field
alone, in sight of the army; sending the foe like sheep into the
hollow; dispersing and pushing them relentlessly back, until they turn
and fly, and other corps make haste to join in that glorious progress.
There is a movement along the ridge as the setting sun shines out in a
burst of sinking splendour, and the Duke, with cocked hat raised above
his head, gives the magic word, “The whole line will advance!” and then
spurs down after the 52nd.
On the rising ground near La Haye Sainte, Napoleon sits on horseback,
close to a small battalion which has formed square.
Jérôme, his brother, bleeding and exhausted, is with him, with honest
old Drouot in his artillery uniform, in the pocket of which is a
well-worn Bible; Soult and Gourgaud, Bertrand and brave young La
Bédoyère are there, too: but the English Hussars are coming on at a
fast trot.
All day long the waves of valour have been rolling northward, and
breaking against an iron-bound shore; now the tide has turned, and
rushes madly south again.
Nothing but confusion meets the eye: everywhere the French are in full
retreat--solitary men, groups of three and four, ruined regiments, and
the skeletons of squadrons.
Jérôme rides close to his brother, and says in a meaning tone--
“It were well for all who bear the name of Bonaparte to perish here!”
Napoleon orders some guns to open on the Hussars, and one shot hits
Lord Uxbridge on the right knee as, mounted on a troop horse belonging
to a sergeant-major of the 23rd Light Dragoons, he is leading the
pursuit.
“Here we must die on the field of battle,” exclaims the Emperor,
preparing to head the weak column; but Soult seizes his bridle, saying,
“They will not kill you: you will be taken prisoner”; and, held up in
the saddle by two faithful officers, for he is worn out, Napoleon is
galloped away in the gathering darkness.
* * * * *
On the left of the Brussels road some Prussian guns had come up and
fired _on our men_.
They were the sole representatives of Blücher’s force present before
Mont St. Jean until _after_ the retreat had begun; and they had
been far better absent, as their pounding was cruelly felt by Mercer’s
battery and several of our regiments.
They were induced, after some time, to change the direction of their
range, and then all went well. The 52nd still pursued its march,
halting for a moment near La Haye Sainte to face and charge some
rallying squares, where a Belgian soldier was seen killing a wounded
Frenchman, and was run through by an officer of the regiment.
Leeke, who carried the King’s colour, found a foot and a half of the
pole wet with blood; Holman, the brother of the blind traveller, had
three musket balls through his sword blade, and wore it for many years;
Colborne and Major Rowan, being both dismounted, jumped on to two
horses attached to an abandoned gun, calling to their men to cut the
harness; but the advance continuing, they had to dismount with a hearty
laugh and march on again on foot.
It was getting dark, and our Hussars were clearing the field in
splendid style, the 10th, whose sabres were soon red as their scarlet
cuffs, engaging with some strong remnants of the Old Guard and losing
two officers.
Major Murray, of the dashing 18th, met a gun going at full speed, and
leaped his charger over the traces, between the leaders and wheelers,
while his men proceeded to cut the gunners down.
Colquhoun Grant, who had lost five horses and was then mounted on a
magnificent chestnut, sent the gallant remains of his brigade at the
retreating foe; and until it was impossible any longer to pick one’s
way among the vast heaps of dead, disabled cannon, and miserable
wounded--in short, the absolute wreck of an army--our light cavalry
went wheeling and slashing right and left, hurrying on the veteran,
the conscript, the artillery driver and the officer alike, all the
French accounts doing justice to these light horsemen. It is only in
private letters, hardly in the official documents, that England can
learn the heroism of her Hussars at Waterloo.
Meanwhile the 52nd had crossed to the left of the road and scattered a
column debouching from Planchenoit, behind the buildings of La Belle
Alliance, in front of which a mass of guns had been left to their fate.
The regiment passed on, and on its return found them marked with the
numbers of other corps that had succeeded them.
All the causeway was crammed with flying troops: a terrible struggle
for liberty took place, in which discipline gave way to terror. General
officer and baggage waggon fled side by side; rifles and accoutrements
were thrown away that their owners might hurry faster. The fields, the
by-lanes, the woods, were all filled with fugitives--even the Emperor
had to turn aside in order to get past.
Marshal Ney was one of the last to go. He had joined the army on the
15th, without money, without horses, almost without a uniform. He was
to be found everywhere on that dreadful 18th, planting batteries,
heading charges, rallying, raging, facing death at every stride, and
when it was over he tottered exhausted away on foot, leaning on the
shoulder of a compassionate corporal.
Now the Prussians have arrived in force. Planchenoit, its churchyard
and crooked street, its orchards and barnyards, are full of French and
Prussian slain.
The young Guard fought well, but they were outnumbered, and Blücher
rides into the _chaussée_ at La Belle Alliance.
A Uhlan band plays “God Save the King,” and farther along the road they
meet the Duke returning on his way in the dark to write his despatches
announcing the victory.
The two soldiers embrace, and sit talking for ten minutes while the
stream goes hurrying by. Then the fiery old German follows up the
retreat with a fury that is incredible.
At Genappe the Silesians have taken the Emperor’s baggage; Gneisenau
mounts a drummer on one of the cream-coloured carriage horses, and away
they go into the darkness after the fugitives, driving them from seven
bivouacs, slaying, hacking, giving no rest, until the land is strewn
for leagues with dead men, fallen under the Prussian steel.
Merciless it may seem to us, looking back with fourscore years between
us and that moonlit night; but such was the vitality of the French that
the most drastic steps were necessary to prevent their army mustering
again.
* * * * *
What can I say of the battle-field, after the pursuit had rolled away,
and it was left to the searcher and the plunderer?
If I could re-create one tithe of the horror those slopes and roads
revealed you would sicken and turn away in disgust.
Prussian, Belgian, _and_ British, there were, out on the plain
that night, bent on no errand of mercy; stragglers and camp-followers
creeping from group to group, tearing the rings from the fingers, and
the teeth from the jaws!
Many a life was foully taken that tender nursing might have saved; but
there were some groups who sought for a lost comrade or a favourite
officer, and women there were, with woman’s gentle sympathy, soothing
and tending as only they can soothe.
The bulk of the British force had gone to bivouac beyond and about
Rosomme, which was behind the French position; but some detached
portions remained where they had fought, too weary to advance with the
others.
Mercer was one of these, and creeping under the cover of a waggon, worn
out with slaughter, he slept--waking to find a dead man stark and stiff
beneath him! His men came to him in the morning, and asked permission
to bury one of their comrades.
“Why him in particular?” asked the captain, for many a bearskin-crested
helmet was empty in “G Troop.”
Then they showed him the horror of it.
The whole of the man’s head had been carried away, leaving the fleshy
mask of what had been a face, from which the eyes were still staring
wildly.
“We have not slept a wink, sir,” they said. “Those eyes have haunted us
all night!”
With daybreak men stood aghast at the spectacle of that battle-ground.
The losses have never been satisfactorily reckoned; but I have seen
it stated, curiously, that of the redcoats 9,999 were actually killed
there. The French loss for the four days’ campaign has been counted
as 50,000; and you can tell off the survivors of both armies to-day,
perhaps, on the fingers of _one_ hand.
Every house in the neighbourhood was full of wounded. For three days,
the doctors tell us, they were being brought in by the search parties,
a sharp frost having congealed the wounds of many and so saved them,
and lines of carts jolted the shrieking wretches over that dreadful
causeway to Brussels in endless succession.
[Illustration]
At Hougoumont, where the orange-trees were in blossom, they flung
three hundred bodies down a well: it was a simple method, saving time
and trouble; but a dark tradition lingers that voices were heard
afterwards, faintly imploring, from the cavernous depths.
Wild strawberries hung their red clusters, and the little, blue
forget-me-not peeped in the woods; birds of prey came croaking on the
wing; and within twenty-four hours ten thousand horses had been flayed
by the Flemish peasants, many of whom made fortunes by plunder!
Men gathered jewelled decorations and crosses by handfuls: it was
impossible to take three strides without treading on a sword, a broken
musket, a carbine, or a corpse!
Near La Haye Sainte they found a pretty French girl in hussar uniform,
and the farm itself was encrusted with blood; tufts of hair adhered to
the doorways, the yard presenting a sight never to be forgotten. A pole
to which a scrap of torn silk clung was picked up under the body of
Ensign Nettles: it was the King’s colour.
The remains of three French brothers named Angelet were among the
slain, and the history of one was most romantic. Wounded in some of
the Napoleonic wars, where he had lost a leg, he was taunted by a lady
with the fact that he could only talk of what he _had_ done for
France--that he could _do_ no more. The brave fellow seized his
crutches, limped after the army, and met his fate at Waterloo.
Picton’s body--wounded at Quatre Bras, though none but his valet knew
it--was taken to England, and by a strange coincidence was laid, at the
Fountain Inn, Canterbury, on the very table at which he had dined, a
fortnight before, on his way to join the army.
Byng of the Guards said to Sir John Colborne in Paris: “How do your
fellows like our getting the credit of what you did at Waterloo? I
could not advance because our ammunition was all done.”
The Foot Guards got their bearskins as a well-merited reward, only the
Grenadier companies wearing them during the battle. The 52nd, for their
great share in the closing scene, received--_nothing!_ and the
Duke, when approached on the subject of that glaring injustice, said,
“Oh, I know nothing of the services of particular regiments. There was
glory enough for all!”
* * * * *
They are nearly all gathered to the “land o’ the leal” now. The last
of Hougoumont’s defenders--Von Trovich of the Nassauers--died in 1882;
Albemarle, who fought with the 14th Foot, passed away quite recently;
while the Guards turned out to bury a veteran not long since who
paraded for the last time in Caterham workhouse! In 1894 John Stacey,
aged _ninety-six_, of the German Legion, _walked_ from Yorkshire to
London to see if his _tenpence a day_ might not be increased.
For thirty years you could mark, by the deeper colour of the corn,
where they had buried the dead in greatest numbers: they still find
buttons in the plough-land after rain, with bullets cut in half against
our sword-blades, and sometimes bones! Ten thousand people, on an
average, visit the field each year; and, though the land lies dozing
under its wealth of crops, and the lark trills his requiem where the
guns once thundered, and the herdboy’s song rises in place of “Vive
l’Empereur!”--never will the nations forget that fearful Sunday or the
names of WELLINGTON and WATERLOO.
[Illustration: MARSHAL BLÜCHER.
(_After Sir Thomas Lawrence, P.R.A._)]
[Illustration:
_Königgrätz_
_By Charles Lowe_
_King William I of Prussia_
_The Emperor Francis Joseph of Austria_]
Not since the “Völkerschlacht,” or Armageddon of the nations at
Leipzig, in 1813, when the allies overthrew the hosts of Napoleon,
had Europe witnessed such a stupendous conflict as was fought near
Königgrätz, on the Upper Elbe, in Bohemia, on the 3rd July, 1866. This
battle was called of Königgrätz by the Prussians, of Sadowa by the
Austrians; and, as a matter of topographical fact, the latter was the
more correct title, just as the field of Waterloo is known as Mont
Saint Jean to the French, and Belle Alliance to the Prussians--in both
cases with more justice. At Leipzig about 430,000 men had mingled
in fight, while at Königgrätz, as we shall call it in compliment to
our ancient and honoured allies the Prussians, the total number of
combatants was about 435,000, or close on half a million of men.
What had called these armed hosts into the field? Briefly put,
it was the question which was to be the leading Power among the
German-speaking peoples--Austria or Prussia. For centuries the former
had asserted this position of proud pre-eminence, but there came a
time when this claim of the Hapsburgs was no longer allowed by the
great and growing monarchy of the Hohenzollerns. Austria wanted to
have everything in Germany done after her particular way of thinking,
and Prussia began to find it quite incompatible with her honour and
her self-respect to be thus lorded over by a State which in many
respects she deemed to be her inferior in point of light and leading.
Thus it came to pass that these two rival Powers began to lead a very
cat-and-dog life at the council-board of the Germanic Confederation
of States; and Bismarck, who was the rising statesman of his time,
prophesied that this condition of things could go on no longer, and
that the only remedy for this eternal quarrelling between the two was a
policy of “blood and iron” on the part of Prussia.
Once, however, they seemed to have suddenly become the best of
friends. This was when they joined their forces, in 1864, to snatch
Schleswig-Holstein, or the Elbe Duchies, as they were called, from the
rule of the Danes. Bismarck was the great champion of “Germany for the
Germans,” and he thought it scandalous and unreasonable that a foreign
people like the Danes should continue to domineer over the Teutons in
the Elbe Duchies. Prussia and Austria, therefore, at his far-seeing
instigation, combined to oust the Danes from the Duchies, and this they
finally did after storming the Danish redoubts at Düppel.
But the worst of it was that the conquerors could not agree as to their
spoil. Prussia wanted to do one thing with the Duchies, and Austria
another. It is a common enough thing for thieves to fall out over the
distribution of their booty, and this was precisely what the rival
German Powers did with regard to Schleswig-Holstein. Bismarck, the
long-headed statesman that he was, clearly foresaw that they must and
would do so, and this was the very thing he wanted. He wished to have
a good pretext for going to war with Austria, in order that this Power
might be altogether excluded from the German family of nations, and
that Prussia, taking her place, might inaugurate a new and better era
for the Teutonic peoples. Austria had fallen into the trap which he
had laid for her, and she had no choice but to fight. Each, of course,
claimed to be the injured party, and the old game of the wolf and the
lamb was played over again to the amusement of all Europe. Some of the
other German States sided with Austria, and some with Prussia, but the
former were soon defeated and disarmed, and then Prussia was free to
direct her whole strength against the Austrians.