AT WATERLOO
“AVE CAESAR! MORITURI TE SALUTANT!”
The Eagles figure in four episodes in the story of Waterloo.
They had their part at the outset in that intensely dramatic display
on the morning of the battle, when, before the eyes of Wellington’s
soldiers, drawn up with muskets loaded and bayonets fixed, and guns
in position ready to open fire, Napoleon passed his army in review;
the last parade of the Last Army on the day of its last battle. Said
Napoleon himself afterwards, in words that are in keeping with the
resplendent spectacle: “The earth seemed proud to bear so many brave
men!” (“La terre paraissait orgueilleuse de porter tant de braves!”)
It was a little after nine in the morning that the Last Army of
Napoleon moved out from its bivouacs of the night before to take up
its station for the battle. This is how a British hussar, who was
looking on, describes the opening of the wonderful show: “Marching in
eleven columns they came up to the front and deployed with rapidity,
precision, and fine scenic effect. The drums beat, the bands played,
the trumpets sounded. The light troops in front pressed forward, and
the rattle of musketry was followed by the retreat of our horsemen and
foot soldiers. Light wreaths of smoke curled upwards into the misty
air, and through this thin veil the dense dark columns of the French
infantry and the gay and gleaming squadrons of French horse were seen
moving into their positions. Before them was the open valley, yet green
with the heavy crops; behind them dark fringes of wood, and a thick
curtain of dreary cloud.
“The French bands struck up so that we could distinctly hear them. Not
long after, the enemy’s skirmishers, backed by their supports, were
thrown out; extending as they advanced, they spread over the whole
space before them. Now and then they saluted our ears with well-known
music, the whistling of musket-balls. Their columns, preceded by
mounted officers to take up the alignments, soon began to appear; the
bayonets flashing over dark masses at different points, accompanied by
the rattling of drums and the clang of trumpets.
“They took post, their infantry in front, in two lines, 60 yards apart,
flanked by lancers with their fluttering flags. In rear of the centre
of the infantry wings were the cuirassiers, also in two lines. In
rear of the cuirassiers, on the right, the lancers and chasseurs of
the Imperial Guard, in their splendid but gaudy uniforms: the former
clad in scarlet; the latter, like hussars, in rifle-green, fur-trimmed
pelisse, gold lace, bearskin cap. In rear of the cuirassiers, on the
left, were the horse-grenadiers and dragoons of the Imperial Guard,
with their dazzling arms. Immediately in rear of the centre was the
reserve, composed of the 6th Corps, in columns; on the left, and on
the right of the Genappe road, were two divisions of light cavalry. In
rear of the whole was the infantry of the Imperial Guard in columns, a
dense dark mass, which, with the 6th Corps and cavalry, were flanked by
their numerous artillery. Nearly 72,000 men, and 246 guns, ranged with
matches lighted, gave an awful presage of the approaching conflict.”
[Sidenote: AS THEY MARCHED ON TO THE FIELD]
Napoleon rode out to watch them as they deployed into position. He took
his stand at the point where the columns reached the field and wheeled
off to right and left to form up in readiness for the signal that
should launch their massed ranks forward across the intervening valley
against the British position in front. Marshal Soult, Chief of the
General Staff, rode close behind Napoleon on one side; Marshal Ney, in
charge of the main attack that day, was on the other. In rear followed
in glittering array the cavalcade of staff officers, with, dragged
along after them, tied by a rope to a dragoon orderly, Napoleon’s
Waterloo guide, the innkeeper De Coster.
Hardly had Napoleon himself ever witnessed before the like of the
tremendous display of enthusiasm that greeted his presence on the
field on the morning of that final day. “The drums beat; the trumpets
sounded; the bands struck up ‘Veillons au salut de l’Empire.’ As they
passed Napoleon the standard-bearers drooped the Eagles; the cavalrymen
waved their sabres; the infantrymen held on high their shakos on their
bayonets. The roar of cheers dominated and drowned the beat of the
drums and the blare of the trumpets. The ‘_Vive l’Empereurs!_’ followed
with such vehemence and such rapidity that no commands could be heard.
And what rendered the scene all the more solemn, all the more moving,
was the fact that before us, a thousand paces away perhaps, we could
see distinctly the dull red line [“la ligne rouge sombre”] of the
English army.”
So one French officer (Captain Martin of the 45th of the Line)
describes. The shouts of “Vive l’Empereur!” says another, a veteran of
Count d’Erlon’s First Army Corps, “rose more vehemently, louder and
longer than I ever heard before, for our men were determined that they
should be heard among the brick-red lines which fringed the crest of
Mont Saint-Jean.”
It was for the Eagles the counterpart of the Day of the Field of Mars,
the culminating act of homage to Napoleon from the soldiers of the
Grand Army.
[Sidenote: HIS IN LIFE AND DEATH]
“The sight of him,” if we may use the words of Lamartine, “was for some
a recompense for their death, for others an incitement to victory! One
heart beat between these men and the Emperor. In such a moment they
shared the same soul and the same cause! When all is risked for one
man, it is in him his followers live and die. The army was Napoleon!
Never before was it so entirely Napoleon as now. He was repudiated by
Europe, and his army had adopted him with idolatry; it voluntarily
made itself the great martyr of his glory. At such a moment he must
have felt himself more than man, more than a sovereign. His subjects
only bowed to his power, Europe to his genius; but his army bent in
homage to the past, the present, and the future, and welcomed victory
or defeat, the throne or death with its chief. It was determined on
everything, even on the sacrifice of itself, to restore him his Empire,
or to render his last fall illustrious. Accomplices at Grenoble,
Pretorians at Paris, victims at Waterloo: such a sentiment in the
generals and officers of Napoleon had in it nothing that was not in
conformity with the habits and even the vices of humanity. His cause
was their cause, his crime their crime, his power their power, his
glory their glory. But the devotion of those 80,000 soldiers was more
virtuous, for it was more disinterested. Who would know their names?
Who would pay them for the shedding of their blood? The plain before
them would not even preserve their bones! To have inspired such a
devotion was the greatness of Napoleon; to evince it even to madness
was the greatness of his Army!”
[Sidenote: SOME WHO HAD MET BEFORE]
They knew, too, not a few of them, the stamp of men they were about
to meet. Never before that day, of course, had Napoleon met British
soldiers on the battlefield; but there were others present who had, and
a good many of them.
Many a French regiment at Waterloo had old scores of their own to
settle, past days to avenge. The 8th of the Line, the fate of whose
“Eagle with the Golden Wreath” at Barrosa has been recorded, were on
the field, and dipped their glittering new Eagle, received at the
“_Champ de Mai_,” in salute as they passed Napoleon that morning. So
too did the 82nd, whose former battalion Eagles from Martinique are
at Chelsea now; the 13th of the Line and the 51st, who lost their
regimental Eagles in the Retiro arsenal of Madrid; the 28th, who met
their fate, and lost their Eagle under the bullets of the British 28th
in the Pyrenees. Others were there who had fought against Wellington
in Spain, and, more fortunate, had preserved their Eagles. Among these
were the 47th, who on the battlefield at Barrosa lost and regained
their Eagle; and the 105th, mindful yet of their terrible Salamanca
experience of what dragoon swords in strong hands could do. The 105th
were destined, soldiers and Eagle alike, to undergo a fate more
fearful still, ere the sun should set that day.
Two of the regiments that paraded before Napoleon to meet the soldiers
of Wellington had met under fire the sailors of Nelson at Trafalgar:
the 2nd of the Line, now in Jerome Bonaparte’s division of Reille’s
Army Corps, and the 16th, serving with the Sixth Corps. A third
regiment, the 70th, which did duty as marines at Trafalgar, was with
Grouchy, not many miles away; as was the 22nd of the Line, whose
Eagle, taken at Salamanca, is at Chelsea Hospital, and the 34th, whose
drum-major’s staff is to this day a prized trophy of the British 34th
(now the First Battalion of the Border Regiment), won in Spain, when,
as it so befell, two regiments bearing the same number crossed bayonets
on the battlefield.[42]
The famous 84th of the Line were at Waterloo, with their proud legend,
“Un contre dix,” restored at the “_Champ de Mai_,” flaunting proudly
on their new silken flag as the Eagle bent in salute to Napoleon;
also, the hardly less widely renowned 46th, the corps of the First
Grenadier of France, La Tour d’Auvergne, whose name was called at the
head of the list at that morning’s roll-call and answered with the
customary answer, “Dead on the Field of Honour”; also, too, Napoleon’s
former-time favourite, the 75th, mindful still on that last day of
their glorious youth when “Le 75me arrive et bât l’ennemi”--a motto
that an earlier colonel of the corps had proposed once to replace on
the flag by “Veni, Vidi, Vici.”
The Old Guard paraded in their fighting kit, with, as usual, in their
knapsacks their full-dress uniforms, carried in readiness to be put on
for Napoleon’s triumphal entry into Brussels.
Drouet d’Erlon rode past at the head of the First Army Corps; Count of
the Empire in virtue of his rank as a general; once upon a time the
little son of the postmaster at Varennes, where Louis Seize and Marie
Antoinette so pitifully ended their attempted flight, harsh old Drouet,
ex-sergeant of Condé dragoons, from whom he inherited his talent for
soldiering. General Reille led past the Second Corps. He, curiously,
had had something of a naval past. He had hardly forgotten that other
battle-day morning, when he galloped on to the field of Austerlitz, and
reported himself to the Emperor as having come direct from Cadiz, put
ashore from the doomed French fleet of Admiral Villeneuve just a week
before it sailed to fight Trafalgar. Both Reille and his men, above
all others, were burning with excitement and eagerness that day to get
at the enemy. They had missed taking part either at Ligny or Quatre
Bras, through contradictory orders which had kept them marching and
counter-marching between the two battlefields; unable to reach either
in time. Smarting under the reproach that they had been useless in the
campaign, though the pick of the Line was in their ranks, the men one
and all were burning to retrieve their reputation.
Count Lobau--he took his name from the island in the Danube which
played so vital a part in the battle of Aspern--was at the head of the
Sixth Corps, the third of Napoleon’s grand divisions of the army at
Waterloo. Formerly General Mouton, Napoleon renamed him when he made
him a Count for his skill and heroism at Aspern. “Mon Mouton,” said
Napoleon of him once as he watched the general in action, “est un lion.”
[Sidenote: NAPOLEON IN HIGH SPIRITS]
Napoleon himself was in the highest spirits, full of pride and
confidence. In that mood had he announced his intention of holding the
review. There was no need to hurry, he said; Blücher and Wellington
had been driven apart. The parade would pass the time while waiting
for the soaked ground to get dry, and make it easier for the guns to
move from point to point. And there was also this. The spectacle would
have assuredly a disquieting effect on the Dutch and Belgians in
Wellington’s army. Many of the men in front of him had served with the
Eagles in former days: all stood nervously in awe, it was notorious, of
the mighty name and reputation of Napoleon. Hesitating, as some were
known to be, between their fears and their patriotism, the influence of
the imposing spectacle might well--believed Napoleon--turn the scale
and induce them to come over.
This was Napoleon’s plan for the battle, as outlined that morning to
his brother Jerome. First would be the general preparation for attack
by a tremendous cannonade all along the line from massed batteries.
On that, the two army corps of D’Erlon and Reille would advance
simultaneously and assault in front, supported by cavalry charges
of cuirassiers. Then, if the English had not yet been beaten, would
follow the final assault, the crushing blow that it would be impossible
to resist; to be delivered by the remaining army corps of Lobau and
the Young Guard, supported by the Middle Guard and the Old Guard. So
Napoleon planned to fight and win at Waterloo.
[Sidenote: “THE GAME IS WITH US”]
Of the ultimate issue of the day he flattered himself there could be
no two opinions. “At the last I have them, these English!” “(Enfin je
les tiens, ces Anglais!”) he exclaimed jubilantly as he reconnoitred
Wellington’s position in the early morning. At breakfast with the two
Marshals, Soult and Ney, he declared that the odds were 90 to 10 in his
favour. “Wellington,” he said to Ney, “has thrown the dice, and the
game is with us.”
He turned fiercely on Soult, who, knowing the mettle of the British
soldier from experience, had entreated him to recall Grouchy’s 30,000
men from watching the Prussians near Wavre.
“You think because Wellington has defeated you, that he must be a very
great general! I tell you he is a bad general, and the English are but
poor troops! This, for us, will only be an affair of a _déjeuner_--a
picnic!”
“I hope so,” was all that Soult said in reply.
At that moment Reille and General Foy, experienced Peninsular veterans
both, whose opinions should have had weight, were announced. Said
Reille, in reply to Napoleon’s asking what he thought: “If well placed,
as Wellington knows how to draw up his men, and if attacked in front,
the English infantry is invincible, by reason of its calm tenacity and
the superiority of its fire. Before coming to close quarters with the
bayonet we must expect to see half the assaulting troops out of action.”
Interposed Foy: “Wellington never shows his troops, but if he is
yonder, I must warn your Majesty that the English infantry in close
combat is the very devil!” (“L’infanterie Anglaise en duel c’est le
diable!”)
Napoleon lost his temper. With an exclamation of angry incredulity he
rose hastily from the breakfast table, and the party broke up.
He spent a great part of the day watching the battle from a little
mound, a short distance from the farm of Rossomme; mostly pacing to
and fro, his hands behind his back; at times violently taking snuff,
occasionally gesticulating excitedly. Near by was a kitchen table
from the farmhouse, covered with maps weighted down with stones, with
a chair placed on some straw, on which at intervals he rested. Soult
kept ever near at hand, and the staff remained a little in rear. It was
not until the afternoon was well advanced that Napoleon got again on
horseback.
As related by the guide De Coster in conversation with an English
questioner a few months after Waterloo, this is what passed:
“He had frequent communications with his aides de camp during the day?”
“Every moment.”
“And when they reported what was going on?”
“His orders were always ‘Avancez!’”
“Did he eat or drink during the day?”
“No!”
“Did he take snuff?”
“In abundance.”
“Did he talk much?”
“Never, except when he gave orders.”
“What was the general character of his countenance during the day?”
[Sidenote: WHEN THE LAST CHARGE FAILED]
“_Riante!_--till the last charge failed.”
“How did he look then?”
“_Blanc-mort!_”
“Did he say ‘_Sauve qui peut_’?”
“No! When he saw the English infantry rush forward, and the cavalry in
the intermediate spaces coming down the hill, he said: ‘_A present il
est fini. Sauvons-nous!_’”[43]
HOW WELLINGTON’S TROPHIES WERE WON
It was in Napoleon’s second grand attack that our two Waterloo
Eagle-trophies, the most famous spoils ever won by the British Army,
came into Wellington’s hands.
The first attack began about half-past eleven, when Reille’s corps, on
the French left, made its opening effort against Hougoumont. Intended
by Napoleon at the outset rather as a feint to mislead Wellington into
fixing his attention on that side, the stubborn defence of Hougoumont
involved the Second Corps in a struggle that kept it fully occupied for
the whole day; unable to take part or be of use elsewhere.
The second grand attack took place shortly after two in the afternoon,
when Marshal Ney made his tremendous onslaught with thirty-three
battalions of Drouet d’Erlon’s First Army Corps on the left-centre of
the British position, to the east of the Charleroi road, where Picton’s
men held the ground.
[Sidenote: A DARK OBJECT IN THE HAZE]
The launching of Ney’s attack just then came about as the result of
Napoleon’s sudden and disquieting discovery that the Prussians were
approaching. It was to have opened an hour earlier, but, because
of that, had been held back at the last moment. Napoleon, while
looking round with the idea that Grouchy’s troops might be in sight
in that quarter, made the discovery with his own eyes. Those round
him, indeed, at first doubted what the dark object--which appeared
in the hazy atmosphere like a shadow on the high ground near Mont
Saint-Lambert, some six miles off to the north-east--really was. Soult
at first could make out nothing; then he was positive it was a column
of troops--probably Grouchy’s. The staff, scanning the suspicious
neighbourhood with their telescopes, asserted that what the Emperor saw
was only a wood. The arrival of some hussars with a Prussian prisoner,
whom they had just captured while trying to get round with a despatch
from Bülow to Wellington to announce the approach of the Prussian
Fourth Corps, settled the question.
Napoleon paced backwards and forwards for a minute, taking pinches
of snuff incessantly. Then he ordered off his Light Cavalry to
reconnoitre; dictated to Soult an urgent message recalling Grouchy; and
sent off an aide de camp to tell Lobau to wheel the Sixth Corps to the
right, facing towards Saint-Lambert. After that he gave Ney orders to
open his attack.
Ney took in hand his work forthwith, and at once a terrific cannonade
opened. Eighty French field-guns, a third of Napoleon’s artillery on
the field, began firing together from the plateau in front of La Belle
Alliance; storming furiously with shot and shell to break down the
British resistance, and clear the way for the onset of the charging
columns. Without slackening an instant the guns thundered incessantly
for nearly an hour; getting back from the British artillery in reply a
fire that was at least as vigorous and no less effective.
[Sidenote: “EN AVANT!” “VIVE L’EMPEREUR!”]
Then Ney gave the word to advance.
Immediately the French infantry were on the move. They went forward
massed in four divisions; in four solid columns of from four to
five thousand men each, advancing _en échelon_ from the left, with
intervals between of about four hundred paces. Eight battalions made
up each column, except that of the second division, which had nine.
The battalions stood drawn up in lines, three deep, with a front of
two hundred files. They were packed closely, one behind the other;
with intervals between, from front to rear, of only five paces. So
closely were they wedged together, that there was barely room between
the battalions for the company officers. Two brigadiers, Quiot and
Bourgeois, led the left column, General Allix, their chief, being
elsewhere; General Donzelot, a keen soldier and universally popular as
the best hearted and most genial of good fellows, headed the second
column; Marcognet, a grim, hard-bitten veteran, a prime favourite with
Marshal Ney for his dogged determination in action, had the third;
General Durutte was in charge of the fourth, away to the right.
With their battalion-drums jauntily rattling out the _pas de charge_,
amid excited cries and loud exultant shouts of “En avant!” “Vive
l’Empereur!” the columns stepped off. Ahead of them raced forward at a
run swarming crowds of _tirailleurs_; extending fan-wise as they went,
spreading out widely across the front in skirmishing array. The four
massed columns surged quickly forward and over the edge of the plateau
down the slope on to the space of shallow valley between the armies.
As they did so, from the moment they crossed the crest-line and dipped
below, a fierce hurricane of fire beat in their faces. Round-shot and
shrapnel swept the columns through and through, tearing long bloody
lanes through the densely packed masses of men.
Marshal Ney accompanied the first column for some part of the way,
riding by the side of Drouet d’Erlon.
As they crossed the intervening ground below, the death-dealing
British guns fired down on them incessantly, but in spite of all, they
stoutheartedly moved forward, without checking their pace. It was
terribly toilsome work in places: now they had to plough laboriously
over sodden and slippery ground; now to trample their way through
cornfields with standing grain-crops nearly breast-high, or, where
trodden down, tangling round the men’s feet.
Quiot’s brigade turned off to attack La Haye Sainte, but the rest of
the division, Bourgeois’ men and the three other columns, held on their
way, moving in dense phalanxes of gleaming bayonets up the slopes.
The second column, Donzelot’s, reached the top a little in advance of
the others, and was met by Kempt’s brigade of Picton’s troops, which
charged it and forced it to yield ground.
A moment later Marcognet’s column reached the British line, coming up
over the crest of the hill immediately in front of Picton’s Highland
Brigade.
Received with a furious outburst of musketry from all along the
extended British line, Marcognet’s leading files were thrown into some
confusion by the hail of bullets. They were, however, veterans, and
though their ranks were shaken, they still pressed on, amid a tumult of
fierce cries and shouts of “Vive l’Empereur!” and the wild clash and
rattle of their drums.
But they got no farther. The British brigadier on the spot, Sir Dennis
Pack, called on the nearest Highland regiment, the 92nd, to charge them
with the bayonet. A moment after that, all unexpectedly, the cavalry of
the Union Brigade were on them.
[Sidenote: THE HIGHLANDERS DASH FORWARD]
The Highlanders dashed forward with exultant cheers and levelled
bayonets, taking the French volley that met them without firing back a
shot. They did not, however, get up to the French, nor actually cross
steel on steel. As the Highlanders got within a dozen yards the column
suddenly stopped short, and some of the men in front seemed suddenly
to be panic-stricken. A moment before all were madly yelling out:
“Forward!” “Victory!” Now they began to turn their backs in disorder.
It was not, though, at the sight of the bayonets. They had seen and
heard something else. The thundering beat of approaching horse-hoofs
shook the ground.
With a trampling turmoil of horse-hoofs the cavalrymen of the British
Union Brigade burst on the scene, galloping forward from their former
post in rear of Picton’s infantry. The Scots Greys were on the left;
the Inniskillings in the centre; the Royal Dragoons on the right.
Marcognet’s men heard their approach, and the next moment saw the
horsemen coming at them. The unexpected sight startled and staggered
them; and some of those in the front line gave way. The alarm spread
at once, as most of the rest realised what was approaching. The whole
column swayed to and fro violently. Then it lost cohesion and began to
roll back in mingled ranks down-hill.
A moment later the Greys were among them. “The smoke in which the head
of the French column was enshrouded had not cleared away when the Greys
dashed into the mass.
“Highlanders and Greys charged together, while shrill and wild from
the Highland ranks sounded the mountain pipe, mingled with shouts of
‘Scotland for ever!’” So an officer describes. The men of the 92nd
seized hold of the stirrup-leathers of the horsemen, and charged with
them. “All rushed forward, leaving none but the disabled in their
rear.”
[Illustration: WATERLOO
The Charge of the Union Brigade]
[Sidenote: A SHOUT OF “ATTENTION! CAVALRY!”]
“The dragoons,” describes Captain Siborne, “having the advantage of
the descent, appeared to mow down the mass, which, bending under the
pressure, quickly spread itself outwards in all directions. Yet in
that mass were many gallant spirits who could not be brought to yield
without a struggle; and these fought bravely to the death.”
Says some one on the French side: “We heard a shout of ‘Attention!
Cavalry!’ Almost at the same instant a crowd of red dragoons mounted on
grey horses swept down upon us like the wind. Those who had straggled
were cut to pieces without mercy. They did not fall upon our columns to
ride through and break us up--we were too deep and massive for that;
but they came down between the divisions, slashing right and left with
their sabres and spurring their horses into the flanks of the columns
to cut them in two. Though they did not succeed in this, they killed
great numbers and threw us into confusion.”
The foremost French battalion of Marcognet’s column was the 45th of
the Line, one of Napoleon’s favourite corps, recruited in the capital,
and always spoken of by him as “Mes braves Enfants de Paris.” Said he
of them indeed once, when pointing them out to the Russian Envoy at
the grand review of June 1810: “Mark those soldiers, Prince: that is
my 45th--my brave children of Paris! If ever cartridges are burned
between my brother the Emperor of Russia and me, I will show him the
efficiency of my 45th. It was they who stormed your Russian batteries
at Austerlitz. They are scamps [“des vauriens”] off duty, but lions
on campaign; you should see their dash, their intrepidity; above all,
their cheerfulness under fire!” Small men--“ideal voltigeurs” Napoleon
also called the 45th--they stood a poor chance against the stalwart
swordsmen of the Scots Greys.
[Illustration: THE FIGHT FOR THE STANDARD.
Sergeant Ewart of the Scots Greys taking the Eagle of the 45th at
Waterloo.
From the picture by R. Andsell, A.R.A., at Royal Hospital, Chelsea.]
It was they who were to yield up the first of our British
Eagle-trophies of Waterloo. The prize fell to a non-commissioned
officer of the Greys, Sergeant Charles Ewart, a Kilmarnock man, who
achieved the feat of taking it single-handed. Ewart, an athletic fellow
of splendid physique and herculean strength, six feet four in his
stockings, and a notable _sabreur_, was plunging through the struggling
press of infantry, slashing out to right and left, when he caught sight
of the Eagle of the 45th, with its gorgeous new silken flag, bearing
the glittering inscription in letters of gold--“Austerlitz, Jena,
Friedland, Essling, Wagram.” It was being hurried away to the rear for
safety in the middle of a small band of devoted men who surrounded
it, and were fighting hard with their bayonets to keep the British
off. Sergeant Ewart saw that and rode straight for the Eagle-bearer.
Parrying the bayonet-thrusts at him as he got up, he cut down the
French officer who carried the Eagle, and then had a fight with two
others. These, first one and then the other, were killed or disabled
by the sergeant, who in the end carried off the splendid trophy
triumphantly.
[Sidenote: HOW EWART TOOK THE EAGLE]
Ewart himself, in a letter to his father, tells his own story of the
taking of the Eagle:
“He and I had a hard contest for it. He thrust for my groin; I parried
it off and cut him through the head, after which I was attacked by one
of their lancers, who threw his lance at me, but missed the mark by my
throwing it off with my sword, at my right side. Then I cut him from
the chin upwards, which went through his teeth. Next I was attacked by
a foot-soldier, who, after firing at me, charged me with his bayonet;
but he very soon lost the combat, for I parried it and cut him down
through the head. That finished the contest for the Eagle.”
Napoleon was watching the progress of the fight through his glasses. He
witnessed the charge of the Scots Greys--unaware, of course, that it
was his pet “Enfants de Paris” who were undergoing their fate. “Qu’ils
sont terribles ces chevaux gris!” was the exclamation that, according
to the guide De Coster, fell from Napoleon’s lips at the sight. The
Greys cut his unlucky 45th to pieces, and had overthrown the rest of
Marcognet’s Division in three minutes. “In three minutes,” says a
British officer in the charge, “the column was totally overthrown and
numbers of them taken prisoners.”
Sabring their way through the remnants of the 45th, and leaving the
prisoners to be secured by the Highlanders, the Greys then charged the
supporting regiment, the 25th of the Line. These, “lost in amazement
at the suddenness and wildness of the charge and its terrific effect
on their comrades on the higher ground in front,” were caught in the
act of trying to form square. Some of them fired a few shots at the
dragoons, but the impetus of the first charge carried the Greys in
among them with a rush, driving in the foremost ranks and making the
rest of the column in rear roll back and break up. In panic and despair
they threw down their muskets and, according to a British officer,
“surrendered in crowds.” The Eagle of the 25th, however, was saved.
It was carried safely off the field, and is now one of the Napoleonic
relics at the Invalides.
Ewart was at once sent to Brussels with the trophy, and on his arrival
carried it through the crowded streets “amidst the acclamations of
thousands of spectators who saw it.” He was given an ensigncy in the
3rd Royal Veteran Battalion in recognition of his exploit. The sword he
used at Waterloo is now among the treasures of Chelsea Hospital, and
Ewart’s old regiment bears embroidered on its standard a French Eagle,
with the legend “Waterloo.”[44]
[Sidenote: THE CHARGE OF THE “ROYALS”]
Within a few moments of Sergeant Ewart capturing the Eagle of the 45th,
an officer of the Royal Dragoons, Captain A. K. Clark (afterwards Sir
A. K. Clark-Kennedy) took, also in hand-to-hand fight, the other Eagle
sent home by Wellington from Waterloo--that of the 105th of the Line,
the leading regiment of Bourgeois’ Brigade.
The Royals, on the right of the Union Brigade, came down on the French
left column. That, as yet, had had no enemy in front of it, and was
advancing with cheers and shouts of triumph across the crest-line of
the ridge. It overlapped and extended beyond the flank of what had been
Picton’s line, and so far had only been fired at from a distance by
artillery and part of the 95th. Suddenly the French were startled by
the apparition of a mass of cavalry quite near; coming on within eighty
or ninety yards of them--emerging from the battle-smoke at a gallop.
The sight took them completely by surprise. The loud shouts of
triumph stopped abruptly. “The head of the column,” describes one of
the Royals, “appeared to be seized with a panic, gave us a fire which
brought down about twenty men, went instantly about, and endeavoured
to regain the opposite side of the hedges.” They had just crossed the
Wavre road along the slope, about halfway up.
It was the men of one corps, the 105th of the Line, who so turned back.
They, of all in the regiments of Napoleon’s army, knew what it was to
be charged by cavalry. They had had one fearful experience of what
cold steel in strong hands could do, and wanted no second. They were
the same 105th whom Wellington’s Hanoverian Dragoons, in the pursuit
after Salamanca, had ridden down and slaughtered so mercilessly. Once
more the fearful fate was about to overtake them--was at hand, was on
them! In the ranks were many veterans who had served in the 105th in
Spain before 1814, and had rejoined on Napoleon’s return from Elba.
The slaughter after Salamanca was a grim and horrifying memory in the
regiment that every man shuddered to recall. It all came back vividly
to them now, as the flashing sabres of the Royal Dragoons burst into
view, making for them across the ridge. The whole regiment gave back
and broke, turning for help to the supporting 28th in rear.
But they were not able to reach their refuge in time. Without drawing
rein the Royals pressed home their charge. They were into the 105th in
a moment, cutting them down on all sides.
[Sidenote: HOW THE SECOND EAGLE WAS TAKEN]
In that _mêlée_ the Eagle of the 105th met its fate. Captain
Clark-Kennedy himself describes how that came about--how he came to
take the Eagle. He was in command of the centre squadron, leading
through the thick of the ill-fated infantrymen.
“I did not see the Eagle and Colour (for there were two Colours, but
only one with an Eagle) until we had been probably five or six minutes
engaged. It must, I should think, have been originally about the centre
of the column, and got uncovered from the change of direction. When I
first saw it, it was perhaps about forty yards to my left, and a little
in my front. The officer who carried it, and his companions, were
moving with their backs towards me, and endeavouring to force their way
through the crowd.
“I gave the order to my squadron, ‘Right shoulders forward! Attack the
Colour!’ leading direct on the point myself. On reaching it I ran my
sword into the officer’s right side, a little above the hip-joint. He
was a little to my left side, and he fell to that side, with the Eagle
across my horse’s head. I tried to catch it with my left hand, but
could only touch the fringe of the flag; and it is probable it would
have fallen to the ground, had it not been prevented by the neck of
Corporal Styles’ horse, who came close up on my left at the instant,
and against which it fell. Corporal Styles was standard-coverer: his
post was immediately behind me, and his duty to follow wherever I led.
“When I first saw the Eagle, I gave the order ‘Right shoulders forward!
Attack the Colour!’ and on running the officer through the body I
called out twice together, ‘Secure the Colour! Secure the Colour! It
belongs to me!’ This order was addressed to some men close to me, of
whom Corporal Styles was one.
“On taking up the Eagle I endeavoured to break the Eagle off the pole,
with the intention of putting it into the breast of my coat, but I
could not break it. Corporal Styles said, ‘Pray, sir, do not break it,’
on which I replied, ‘Very well. Carry it to the rear as fast as you
can. It belongs to me!’”
Taking hold of the Eagle, Corporal Styles turned away. He had a fight
to get through with it, and had, we are told, literally to cut his way
back to safety.
Captain Clark-Kennedy, who received two wounds and had two horses
killed under him, was given the C.B. He was granted later, as an
augmentation to his family arms, the representation of a Napoleonic
Eagle and flag; with for crest a “demi-dragoon holding a flag with an
Eagle on it.” Corporal Styles was appointed to an ensigncy in the West
India Regiment. The Royal Dragoons wear the device of a Napoleonic
Eagle as collar-badge, and bear an Eagle embroidered on their standard.
[Sidenote: WHERE ANOTHER FLAG WAS FOUND]
As with the 45th, so with the 105th--both battalions of each regiment
lost their colours; the regimental Eagle and the “fanion” of the second
battalion. The “fanion” of the 105th, described as “a dark blue silken
flag, with on it the words ‘105me Régiment d’Infanterie de Ligne,’”
came into British possession in a manner that is not clear. It was not
taken in fight by the Royals. Was it picked up on the field after the
battle by some camp-follower and sold? Its existence and whereabouts
remained unknown until some twenty-four years afterwards. As it
happened, curiously, General Clark-Kennedy, as he then was, himself
lighted upon it by chance, hanging in the hall of Sir Walter Scott’s
home at Abbotsford. How it got there, in spite of all inquiries, the
general was unable to discover.
Two other Eagles, it would appear, had adventures at Waterloo.
One, according to an unconfirmed story, was taken and lost by the
Inniskillings, who charged the 54th and 55th of the Line, stationed
at the rear of Bourgeois’ Brigade, just after the Royals attacked the
leading battalion of that column. A trooper named Penfold claimed to
have taken the Eagle of one of the two regiments. “After we charged,”
he said, “I saw an Eagle which I rode up to, and seized hold of it.
The man who bore it would not give it up, and I dragged him along by
it for a considerable distance. Then the pole broke about the middle,
and I carried off the Eagle. Immediately after that I saw a comrade,
Hassard, in difficulties, and, giving the Eagle to a young soldier of
the Inniskillings, I went to his aid. The Eagle got dropped and lost.”
The second of these two Eagles is said to have been captured by the
Blues, the Royal Horse Guards, and then lost in much the same way. “A
private in the Blues,” records Wellington’s Supplemental Despatches,
“killed a French officer and took an Eagle; but his own horse being
killed, he could not keep it.” A French officer also mentions the
taking of the Eagle by the Blues and its recovery.
About the time that the ill-fated 45th of the Line and the 105th lost
their Eagles in front of Picton’s Division, another Eagle elsewhere had
a narrow escape from capture, being saved by its colonel’s personal
act. That took place in front of Hougoumont, with the Eagle of the
1st of the Line. The regiment was in Jerome Bonaparte’s Division in
front of Hougoumont, and had made an attack on the outbuildings of
the château, which the defenders had beaten off. At the last moment,
as the French assault recoiled, the Eagle-bearer and his two fellows
were shot down together. The battalion fell back, leaving the Eagle
lying on the ground in the open, beside its dead guardians. For the
moment, apparently, the British defenders did not see the trophy thus
left within their reach. Before they did so Colonel Cubières, of the
1st of the Line, discovered its loss and saw where it had fallen. He
ran out by himself, picked up the Eagle, and, escaping harm of any
kind, carried it back to the regiment. According to M. Thiers, “the
English officers checked the fire of their men while the deed was being
performed, in admiration of his courage”--an interesting detail in the
story if true!
THE LAST ATTACK AND AFTER: THE EAGLES OF THE GUARD
[Sidenote: THE EAGLES OF THE GUARD]
In the third episode in the story of Waterloo we strike another note.
How the Eagles of the Guard fared in the closing hour of the battle,
when Napoleon staked his last desperate throw and lost--that final
phase remains to tell.
Fourteen Eagles of the Guard were on the field. All came safely through
the battle and survived the risks and perils of the night retreat that
followed, to recross the frontier with the rallied remnants of the
stricken host. Only three, however, are now in existence: one at the
Invalides; the other two in private keeping in France. The remaining
eleven were, some of them at any rate, destroyed by the officers
on the final disbanding of the Grand Army, refusing to give them up
to the emissaries of the Bourbon _régime_ sent to receive them for
conveyance to Vincennes, where as many as could be got hold of among
the regimental Eagles underwent their fate by fire.
Five Eagles went forward in the great last-hope attack of the Guard
against the centre of Wellington’s position, the overthrow of which
cost Napoleon the battle. They were the Eagles of the 3rd and 4th
Grenadiers of the Guard, and of three regiments of the Chasseurs of
the Guard, the 1st, 3rd, and 4th. All five are among those that have
disappeared since Waterloo.
Close beside the Eagle of the 3rd Grenadiers it was that Marshal Ney
fought so heroically, as he led in person the historic grand attack of
the Imperial Guard. His fifth horse was shot under Ney in the advance,
and he then drew his sword and strode forward on foot alongside the
Eagle-bearer. So he led until the column reeled back and broke under
the sudden attack of the British Guards across the crest-line of the
slope. At that moment Ney lost his footing, and fell in the confusion.
“He disappeared,” says a French officer, “just at the moment that
the Guard gave way. But he was up again in a moment, and with voice
and gesture strove his hardest to rally them.” It was to no purpose.
The great column wavered, swayed, and then fell apart in disorder.
“Mitraillée, fusillée, reduit à quinze ou seize cent hommes, la
Garde recule!” Ney was swept off his feet in the retreat, and borne
backwards; carried away in the rush of the fugitives, struggling
helplessly in the crowd. “Bathed in perspiration, his eyes blazing with
indignation, foaming at the mouth, his uniform torn open, one of his
epaulets cut away by a sabre-slash, his star of the Legion of Honour
dented by a bullet, bleeding, muddy, heroic, holding a broken sword in
his hand, he shouted to the men, ‘See how a Marshal of France dies on
the battlefield!’ But it was in vain: he did not die.”
[Sidenote: NEY’S LAST HEROIC EFFORT]
Then Ney, mounting a trooper’s horse, made for a regiment near, whose
men were falling back in fair order, with their Eagle borne defiantly
in their midst--the 8th of the Line. With them was a battalion of
the 95th, also displaying their Eagle gallantly as they, too, tried
to withdraw in regular formation. Ney made them face about, and put
himself at their head. He appealed to them in the words he had used
just before, when trying to rally the Guard: “Suivez moi, camarades. Je
vais vous montrer comment meurt un Maréchal de France sur le champ de
bataille!” The men turned to face the enemy, with a shout of “Vive le
Maréchal Ney!” They charged forward towards where some of the red-coats
of Kempt’s and Pack’s infantry showed themselves in the van of the
pursuers. But at the same instant some horsemen of a Prussian hussar
regiment dashed at them at a gallop. The sight of the horsemen was too
much for their shattered nerves. They turned their backs and ran off
panic-stricken. Ney’s last rallied band broke and fled, with cries of
“Sauve qui peut!”
Yet not quite all. A small band of the men of the 8th kept round their
Eagle, and retired in order, still holding it up. _Chef de Bataillon_
Rullière, of the 95th, snatched the Eagle of that regiment from its
bearer, broke the staff, and carried off the Eagle concealed under his
coat.
Ney’s sixth horse was shot under him as the men turned. Again getting
to his feet he staggered on in the midst of the crowd of fugitives
until he at last found his way into one of the rallying squares formed
in rear by some of the survivors of the Guard. There now, beside the
Eagle of the 4th Chasseurs of the Guard, Ney made his last stand at
Waterloo--at bay, desperate. He fought in the square, “shoulder to
shoulder with the rest, shooting and thrusting with a musket and
bayonet he got hold of,” as the square slowly made its retreat off the
field, until in the darkness it broke up, and the men dispersed. The
devotion of a mounted officer who met the marshal on foot, utterly worn
out and by himself, and gave up his horse to him, enabled Ney in the
end to reach a place of safety.
Napoleon was watching the Second Column of the Guard at the moment
of its disaster. How the overwhelming catastrophe burst on his gaze,
abruptly and all unexpectedly, makes one of the most dramatic of
historic scenes. At that moment Napoleon was about to lead in person
the reserve of the Guard, three battalions which he had retained near
him throughout, to reinforce the fighting line.
“While they were being marshalled for the attack--one battalion
deployed, with a battalion in close column on either side--he kept his
glass turned upon the conflict in which he intended to bear a part.
“Suddenly his hand fell.
[Sidenote: NAPOLEON IS HORROR-STRICKEN]
“‘Mais ils sont mêlée!’ he ejaculated in a tone of horror, his voice
hollow and quavering. He addressed his aide de camp, Count Flahault,
who was under no illusion as to what troops were meant. The sun had
just set. There was no radiance to prevent all men seeing what was
going on out there in the north-west.”
Immediately on that followed the general collapse: the almost
instantaneous break up of the French army all along the line.
“First the trampled corn in rear was sprinkled, then it was covered,
with a confused mass of men moving south; behind and among them the
sabres of Vivian’s hussars and Vandeleur’s dragoons rose and fell,
hacking and hewing on every side.
“‘La Garde recule!’ sounded like a sob in the motionless ranks of
the Old Guard (the three battalions near Napoleon), and sped with
astonishing swiftness to every part of the field. ‘La Garde recule!’
cried the men of Allix, Donzelot, and Marcognet, and began to melt
away from the vantage ground they had recently so nobly won. ‘La Garde
recule!’ whispered Reille’s columns, still unbroken on the left. Far
on the right, Durutte’s battalions, suddenly confronted by the heads
of Ziethen’s columns, where they had been told to look for Grouchy’s,
caught up the word. Next, the uneasy murmur, ‘Nous sommes trahis!’ was
heard--for was there not treason? Had not General Bourmont and his
staff, and other officers, openly gone over to the enemy? ‘La Garde
recule!’ Oh fatal cry! soon swelling into one still more dreadful--last
tocsin of the soldier’s agony--‘Sauve qui peut!’ Papelotte and La Haye
were abandoned, and from the east, as already from the west, the wreck
of the Last Army rolled towards the Charleroi road.”
The Eagle that was close beside Napoleon at that most awful moment of
his life, as he saw his Guard break and fall back in confusion, is at
the Invalides now. It is the Eagle of the 2nd Grenadiers of the Guard;
one of the three reserve battalions that were forming up to go forward
at the moment of the catastrophe.
[Illustration: WATERLOO
THE FINAL PHASE
Sketch Plan to show the attack and the defeat of the columns of the
Guard.]
Napoleon watched the panic begin to spread over the field for a brief
moment. Then he roused himself to try to meet the impending crash.
First he formed the Guard battalions nearest him into square. Then he
sent off his last remaining gallopers, in the futile hope that it might
be possible to rally the men of the nearest divisions to him before
they had time to scatter. But the effort was hopeless: it was beyond
possibility to stem the raging torrent of frantic soldiers, now in full
flight on every side, racing past in the direction of Jemmapes. The lie
that he had sent round just before the Guard started on its charge,
that Grouchy had arrived, recoiled on his own head. The panic-stricken
soldiers would not be stopped. “They had been told that Grouchy had
arrived. They had found instead Ziethen’s terrible Prussians. Now they
would listen to nothing. The fugitives streamed past, rushing on and
bellowing as they went that they had been betrayed and that all was
lost!”
[Sidenote: NAPOLEON SHELTERS IN A SQUARE]
After that Napoleon rode into the nearest square, and took shelter in
its midst. It was that of the Second Battalion of the 2nd Chasseurs
of the Guard. The square moved off at once towards La Belle Alliance,
and, turning there into the Charleroi road, took its way back towards
Rossomme, half a mile in rear, where the two battalions of the 1st and
2nd Grenadiers of the Old Guard had remained all day.
At Rossomme Napoleon passed to the square of the First Battalion of the
1st Grenadiers of the Old Guard. The two battalions of the Guard there
had already formed in squares of their own accord, with their Eagles
held on high in their midst. They were joined by the 1st Chasseurs of
the Guard, coming up from Caillou, a short distance in rear. The three
squares held their ground firmly, beating off the headmost of the
Prussian attacks. They remained halted until, on some of the Prussian
artillery nearing the place, Napoleon himself gave the order to move
away in retreat.
At a slow step, the drums rolling out the stately “Grenadier’s March,”
sullen and defiant, the Old Guard, with Napoleon in the midst of the
square of the 1st Grenadiers, set forth on their last journey. Their
Eagle was still borne on high in their midst--close beside Napoleon.
It is the Eagle that is now treasured in Paris by the descendants of
General Petit, the commander of the Grenadiers at Waterloo--the Eagle
of the Adieu of Fontainebleau; the same Eagle that led the Guard at
Austerlitz and Jena, at Eylau and Friedland, at Wagram, and throughout
all the horrors of the retreat from Moscow. It escorted Napoleon off
the field after Waterloo.
[Illustration: THE SQUARE OF THE OLD GUARD AT BAY AFTER WATERLOO.
From the picture by H. Bellangé.]
[Sidenote: THE OLD GUARD MARCH AWAY]
The Grenadiers of the Guard escorted Napoleon for four miles from the
battlefield, beating back repeated efforts that were made by Prussian
cavalry to break up their ranks. To maintain their formation to the
last was their only hope of safety; and terrible were the measures
they took to safeguard themselves and keep their ranks intact. Friend
or foe who attempted to get in among them was mercilessly shot down.
“Nous tirons,” describes General Petit, “sur tout ce qui presentaient,
amis et ennemis, de peur de laisser entrer les uns avec les autres.”
They took their way along the Charleroi road; the 2nd Grenadiers
marching on the _chaussée_ itself, the 1st Grenadiers to the left of
the road. With marvellous calmness and cool courage did the veterans
proceed on their way. “Every few minutes they stopped to rectify the
alignment of the faces of the square, and to keep off pursuit by means
of rapid and well-sustained musketry.”
Erckmann-Chatrian’s soldier of the 25th, who was amongst the fugitives
streaming across country on either side of the high-road, tells how
he heard from afar the stately drum-beat of their march. “In the
distance _La Grenadière_ sounded like an alarm-bell in the midst of a
conflagration. Yet, indeed, this was much more terrible--it was the
last drum-beat of France! This rolling of the drums of the Old Guard
sounding forth in the midst of disaster had in it something infinitely
pathetic as well as terrible.”
And of the scene with Napoleon in the square of the Grenadiers as it
tramped its way along, we have this from Thiers: “With sombre but calm
countenance, he rode in the centre of the square, his far-seeing glance
as it were probing futurity and realising that more than a battle
had been lost that day. He only interrupted his gloomy meditations to
inquire now and again for his lieutenants, some of whom were among
the wounded near him. The soldiers all round seemed stupefied by the
disaster. The men moved stolidly on, almost without a word to one
another. Napoleon alone seemed to be able to speak; occasionally
addressing a few words to the Major-General (Soult), or to his brother
Jerome, who rode beside him. Now and again, when harassed by the
Prussian squadrons, the square would halt, and the side that was
attacked fired on the assailants, after which the sad and silent march
was resumed.”
Throughout the march, keeping their position at a little distance
from the squares of the Grenadiers, rode the Horse-Grenadiers and the
Mounted Chasseurs of the Guard. One of the finest displays of soldierly
endurance ever made, perhaps, was that given by the Horse-Grenadiers
of the Guard as the magnificent regiment left the field, “moving at a
walk, in close columns and in perfect order; as if disdaining to allow
itself to be contaminated by the confusion that prevailed around it.”
So describes a British officer who saw them ride away. They beat off
all attacks and kept steadily and compactly together. “They literally
walked from the field in the most orderly manner, moving majestically
along, with their Eagle in their midst, as though merely marching to
take up their ground for a field-day.” This, further, is what a British
officer of Light Dragoons, who came up with them in the pursuit, says
of their heroic demeanour: “Seeing the men of our brigade approach,
they halted, formed line, and fired a volley--a rare thing for
dragoons--and waited a few minutes, as much as to say, ‘We are ready to
receive your charge if you are so disposed’; then finding we did not
advance, they again continued their slow retreat.”
[Sidenote: A FAMOUS EAGLE NOW IN FRANCE]
The Eagle of the Horse-Grenadiers has disappeared since Waterloo: that
of the Mounted Chasseurs of the Guard is in existence, in France, in
the custody of a member of the Bonaparte family. It was preserved by
General Lefebvre-Desnouettes, Colonel-in-Chief of the regiment, who
commanded the Chasseurs at Waterloo. Carried in safety to France, the
Eagle was then taken to America, when the General, on whose head a
price had been placed, escaped across the Atlantic in the autumn of
1815. He presented it later to Joseph Bonaparte, in the possession of
whose representatives the Eagle is now. It still bears attached to the
staff the green silk guidon-shaped flag, inscribed “Chasseurs de la
Garde,” and embroidered with gold and silver laurel-leaves, which it
bore at Waterloo.
Napoleon quitted the square of Grenadiers about two miles from
Jemmapes. By that time the Prussians had ceased their attacks on the
Guard for easier prey elsewhere. He rode on at a little distance
ahead; the battalions of the Guard at the same time re-forming into
columns of march. They kept with the Emperor until the neighbourhood of
Jemmapes was reached. There Napoleon and Soult and the others quitted
the road, betaking themselves across the fields to make their way as
best they could to Charleroi, whence Napoleon was able to continue his
flight in a post-chaise.
Yet another of the Waterloo Eagles of the Guard with a story to be told
of it was that of the 2nd Chasseurs--one of the Eagles that have now
disappeared. How the Eagle was saved from capture, and finally brought
through to safety, recalls a remarkable and dramatic incident of the
battle.
The 2nd Chasseurs was one of the twelve battalions of the Young Guard
detached by Napoleon late in the afternoon to assist General Lobau and
the Sixth Army Corps to keep off the Prussian flank attack. Between
them they saved the army from an even worse catastrophe than that which
actually befell Napoleon at Waterloo--from having to surrender. For
nearly an hour after the rout had become general, the Sixth Corps,
and the battalions of the Young Guard assisting it, by their heroic
resistance, prevented the Prussians from breaking in on the only line
of retreat open to the defeated army, and enabled Napoleon to get clear
away.
[Sidenote: TO SAVE THE REST OF THE ARMY]
“Lobau,” to quote the words of a modern military writer, “recognised
to the full that he alone interposed between the Prussians and the
French line of retreat. If he failed, retreat would be cut off, and the
army taken in rear as well as in front and flank; not a man would get
away. The fate of the Army, the Emperor, of France, rested on Lobau at
the supreme moment, and splendidly he did his duty. Dusk had given way
to dark, only illuminated by the blazing ruins of Planchenoit, before
Lobau retired, but by that time the rear of the flying army had cleared
the point of peril, and comparative safety was assured. Still steady,
and in good order, he took post on the high-road to close the line of
flight and block pursuit, and the gallant remnant of the Sixth Corps
and the Young Guard had to bear the full fury of the combined advance
of the enemy. Nothing at Waterloo can surpass for coolness, courage,
and determination the heroic resistance of Lobau.”
It was in the village of Planchenoit that the 2nd Chasseurs fought
side by side with the other battalions of the Guard in that quarter
under the leadership of General Pelet, to whom Napoleon had specially
entrusted the defence of the post. Planchenoit was defended foot by
foot at the point of the bayonet against ever-increasing numbers of the
Prussians. The 2nd Chasseurs were the last troops of all to quit, after
contesting the village house by house, cottage by cottage, fighting the
Prussians man to man among the bushes and walls of the gardens, and
finally in the churchyard, where they made their last stand at bay,
desperately combating among the tombstones. Fresh Prussians kept coming
up to join in the attack, but the 2nd Chasseurs, their Eagle defiantly
displayed in the midst of the battling throng, resisted stubbornly.
When at the last they drew off, the whole of Planchenoit was a mass of
flames, blazing from end to end.
There remained a rough half-mile of open ground before they could get
to the Charleroi road--the line of retreat along which, by that time,
a large proportion of the fugitives from the main army had got away.
The 2nd Chasseurs, in rear of all, as they left their last shelter in
Planchenoit and were beyond the churchyard walls, were swept down on
by a furious rush of Prussian cavalry, and half the regiment was cut
to pieces. The moon was rising by that time, and the Prussians had
sufficient light for their deadly work.
The survivors, broken up, and thrown in irremediable disorder, could
after that only run for their lives. But they still bore their Eagle
among them. It was draped under a black cloth. Somebody, in some house
in the village, as they were falling back to the churchyard, had, it
would appear, caught up a strip of crape or black cloth, and hastily
wrapped it round the Eagle to conceal it in that way from hostile
eyes. The Eagle-bearer refused to break the Eagle from the staff, and
hide it under his coat, as others had done elsewhere with other Eagles.
With the Eagle so covered, a small party of devoted soldiers were
accompanying their standard as the survivors of the Prussian charge
hastened towards the Charleroi road, when there came yet another attack
from the Prussian horse, who charged among them and trampled them down
as the troopers slashed mercilessly at the fugitives. At that moment
the Eagle and its guardians found themselves near the General. They
were isolated and cut off in the midst of the wild _mêlée_. Pelet
caught sight of them, desperately striving to protect the Eagle-bearer,
who was frantically clutching at the Eagle-staff as he held on to it
and tried to get through.
[Sidenote: “SAVE YOUR EAGLE OR DIE ROUND IT!”]
Pelet made for the group, shouting at the top of his voice: “Rally,
Chasseurs! Rally on me! Save your Eagle or die round it!” (“A moi,
Chasseurs! A moi! Sauvons l’Aigle ou mourons autour d’elle!”)
In the midst of the frenzied tumult his cry for help was somehow heard
by the men ahead. They turned back in their flight and fought their
way to the threatened Eagle. Others pressed round to join them, until
by degrees was formed a compact body between two and three hundred in
number, who with their bayonets kept the cavalry back as they fought
their way towards the high-road step by step.
More than once they had to halt and face about, as the Prussian
horsemen in their repeated attempts to capture the Eagle circled round
them, and dashed in at them again and again, but, “forming what is
usually termed a rallying square, and lowering their bayonets, they
succeeded in repulsing the charges of the cavalry.” At one point in the
retreat “some guns were brought to bear upon them, and subsequently a
brisk fire of musketry; but notwithstanding the awful sacrifice which
was thus offered up in defence of their precious charge, they succeeded
in reaching the main line of retreat, and saved alike the Eagle and the
Honour of the Regiment.”
* * * * *
The Eagles of the Guard all came safely through the turmoil and horrors
of the night of the rout after Waterloo. And--it seems incredible, but
the fact is vouched for by several officers--so did the other Eagles of
the army. All at Waterloo, it is declared, were brought back to France,
except the two taken from the ill-fated 45th and the 105th of the Line
by the Scots Greys and the Royals. Those two only remained as trophies
in the hands of the victors. General Charras, whose good faith we have
no right to impugn, declares the fact in explicit language, and another
officer relates how, on the day after the battle, when the rallied
remains of the army assembled at Phillippeville and Maubeuge, “the
soldiers wept tears of joy at learning how many of their Eagles had
been saved.”
[Sidenote: “MAKE WAY FOR THE EAGLE!”]
Says General Charras, describing how the Eagles were saved that night:
“Two standards had been lost on the battlefield. There was none other
lost. In the crowd of disbanded horsemen and foot-soldiers, marching
and running pell-mell, some still armed, others having thrown away or
broken their sabres and guns under the impulse of rage, of despair, of
terror, there were to be seen, by the pale light of the moon, little
groups of officers of every grade, and of soldiers, spontaneously
collected round the standard of each regiment, and advancing sabre in
hand, bayonet on the gun, resolute and imperturbable in the midst of
the general disorder. ‘Place au drapeau!’ cried they when the rout
arrested their march, and this cry always sufficed to cause the very
men who had become deaf to every word of command and to all discipline
to stand aside before them and open a passage. They had often to endure
peril, they had often to repulse the enemy’s attacks, but they saved
their conquered flags from the attempts and hands of the conqueror.”
Grouchy also saved all his Eagles--although one had its adventures in
the attack on Wavre, and was nearly lost to the Prussians. The story
this time is not exactly creditable to some of those concerned; but
the regiment in question, it must be said, had but few old soldiers in
its ranks, having been made up almost entirely of recently levied and
half-trained conscripts. Also, it had just previously been very roughly
handled by the Prussians on the battlefield of Ligny. There, indeed, it
had been charged by cavalry, and had suffered severely. The unfortunate
regiment was the 70th of the Line.
In Grouchy’s fighting at Wavre they were in Vandamme’s Division, which
had orders to carry the bridge over the Dyle and storm the town, held
by the Prussians in considerable force. To give the 70th a chance of
getting their revenge for Ligny, and winning back the old good name
of the regiment, Vandamme specially chose them for the post of honour
in the attack; appointing the 70th to lead the van in the preliminary
storming of the bridge. They led the attack, dashing forward bravely
enough at the outset, and got halfway across. Then they stopped short,
their ranks decimated by the furious fire with which the Prussians
received them from the houses on the opposite bank, hesitated, went on
a few paces, stopped again, and finally ran back in panic.
[Sidenote: SAVED BY ANOTHER REGIMENT]
The sight of the sudden rout maddened their leader, Colonel Maury.
Stooping from his charger, he snatched hold of the Eagle from its
bearer, and held it up before the men. “What! you scoundrels! You
dishonoured me two days ago; you are again disgracing me to-day!
Forward! Follow me!” (“Comment, canaille! Vous m’avez deshonoré
avant-hier, et vous recidiviez aujourdhui! En avant! Suivez moi!”)
Brandishing the Eagle the colonel turned his horse to ride back across
the bridge. The drums beat the charge: the regiment followed. But all
was to no purpose. As fate willed it, the gallant colonel fell, shot
dead before he could get across, and at the sight of his fall panic
again seized the regiment. They ran wildly back again, leaving the dead
colonel’s body and the Eagle lying halfway across the bridge. The Eagle
was rescued and brought back by the men of another regiment. Had it not
been for the sudden rush forward of the leading company of the 22nd of
the Line, the regiment supporting the 70th in the attack, the Eagle
would have been taken. Several Prussian soldiers had indeed already
run forward to pick it up, and their leader was in the act of doing so
when the foremost of the rescuers arrived, beat back the Prussians, and
recovered the fallen Eagle.
The failure of this one regiment at Wavre is the only recorded instance
of bad behaviour before the enemy in the Waterloo campaign. And for
it too, in view of the composition of the regiment in question, some
allowance may surely be made.
THE EAGLES ANNOUNCE VICTORY TO LONDON
The last of the four episodes is supplemental: the story of how
Wellington’s Eagle-trophies themselves first announced Waterloo to
London.
The two Eagles were sent to England immediately after the battle,
together with Wellington’s Waterloo despatch, by Major the Hon. Henry
Percy, of the 11th Light Dragoons, who was almost the only member of
Wellington’s staff who went through the battle unwounded. He arrived
in London, displaying the Eagles from his post-chaise as he travelled
through the streets, on the stroke of eleven o’clock on the night of
Wednesday, June 21.
Up to then not a word had come from Wellington: not a word of reliable
news as to what had happened had reached England. Rumours of an early
check to the French had arrived, from unofficial sources, during the
previous day, but nothing more had been heard, and all London was on
tenterhooks of suspense.
[Sidenote: THE FIRST RUMOURS IN LONDON]
The battle was fought on Sunday the 18th. But no news of it, or in
regard to it, of any kind reached England during either Monday or
Tuesday. There was no intelligence from the seat of war at all. On
the Wednesday morning the _Times_ announced vaguely that Napoleon had
struck the first blow unsuccessfully. A Mr. Sutton, of Colchester, it
said, the owner of packet-boats running between Harwich and Ostend,
had forwarded a message to the effect that there had been fighting on
the 15th and 16th and skirmishing on the 17th, and that a fresh battle
was beginning on the morning of the 18th. His informant at Brussels had
sent that news. There was no more news until Wednesday afternoon, when
the _Sun_ came out with a special edition stating that the Government
had received no despatches, but that “a gentleman who left Ghent on
Monday, and two others from Brussels, brought word that Sunday’s battle
had been successful.” All London was in the streets until between ten
and eleven that night, in a state of eager expectation; but repeated
inquiries at the Horse Guards, at the War Office, and at the Mansion
House only met with the answer--“No news yet.”
It was just as the crowds were dispersing, tired of waiting, and taking
it as certain that nothing could be known until the morning, as the
clocks were on the stroke of eleven, that Major Percy arrived in London.
“He left the Duchess of Richmond’s ball,” says his niece, Lady Bagot,
in whose words the story may best be told, “on the night before the
battle, and had no time to change his dress, or even his shoes, before
going into action. When he received orders to go to England with the
despatches, he posted to Antwerp, and there took the first sailing
boat he could find to convey him to Dover, where he landed in the
afternoon. He found that a report of the victory had preceded him
there. The Rothschilds had chartered a fast sloop to lie off Antwerp,
and bring the first news of the battle to the English shore--news which
was to be used for Stock Exchange purposes.
“My uncle’s confirmation of the rumour of a great victory was received
with the greatest relief and enthusiasm. At that time the hotel-keeper
at Dover, a certain Mr. Wright, had the monopoly of the posting
arrangements between that port and London. He immediately placed his
best horses at my uncle’s disposal, and despatched an express to order
fresh relays all along the road. Besides the despatches my uncle took
the two captured Eagles of the Imperial Guard with him. These, being
too large to go into the carriage, were placed so as to stick out of
the windows, one on each side. In this manner he drove straight to
the Horse Guards, where he learnt that the Commander-in-Chief, at
that time the Duke of York, was dining out. He next proceeded to Lord
Castlereagh’s, and was told that he and the Duke of York were both
dining with a lady in St. James’s Square. To this house he drove, and
there learnt that the Prince Regent was also of the dinner-party.
[Sidenote: PRESENTED TO THE PRINCE REGENT]
“Requesting to be shown immediately into the dining-room, he entered
that apartment bearing the despatches and the Eagles with him. He was
covered with dust and mud, and, though unwounded himself, bore the
marks of battle upon his coat. The dessert was being placed upon the
table when he entered, and as soon as the Prince Regent saw him he
commanded the ladies to leave the room. The Prince Regent then held out
his hand, saying, ‘Welcome, Colonel Percy!’ ‘Go down on one knee,’ said
the Duke of York to my uncle, ‘and kiss hands for the step you have
obtained.’ Before the despatch could be read, my uncle was besieged
with inquiries of various prominent officers engaged, and had to answer
‘Dead’ or ‘Severely wounded’ so often that the Prince Regent burst into
tears. The Duke of York, though greatly moved, was more composed.
“By this time my uncle was exhausted from fatigue, and begged the
Prince’s permission to go to his father’s house in Portman Square. The
crowd was so great in St. James’s Square, that he had the greatest
difficulty in getting through it and reaching my grandfather’s house,
which was soon surrounded by anxious multitudes begging for news
of relations and friends. My uncle told them that the victory was
complete, but that the number killed and wounded was very large. He
told them that he would answer more questions next morning.”
The Eagles themselves in fact announced the victory in London. People
in the streets saw the chaise as it passed on its way with its horses
at a gallop, racing at full speed along the Old Kent Road, across
Westminster Bridge, and through Parliament Street to Whitehall, “the
gleaming lamps showing a French Eagle and the French flags projecting
from each window.”
The news spread like wild-fire, and before Colonel Percy could reach
the house where the Prince Regent was dining--Mrs. Boehm’s, in St.
James’s Square--South London was flocking over Westminster Bridge to
Whitehall. The West End heard the news immediately afterwards, and
everybody hurried out again into the streets.
It became quickly known where the chaise had gone after leaving the
Horse Guards, and promptly an ever-increasing crowd hurried off
there. Before the despatch had been read an enormous mass of people
had assembled in St. James’s Square, outside the house. They were
in time to hear the cheering by the company inside the house that
greeted the reading of the despatch; the cheers were instantly echoed
back, accompanied by an outburst of vociferous shouting followed
by a tremendous chorus of “God save the King!” The windows of the
dining-room were open, and a moment later the two Eagles with their
tricolor flags were thrust through. They were held up, with candles
at either side, to show them plainly, so that all might know that the
victory had been decisive.
“For a few minutes dustmen’s bells and watchmen’s rattles were sprung
all over London. Liquor was produced at many a street-corner, and
toasts were drunk to Wellington and confusion to Bonaparte.”[45]
[Sidenote: HOW PARIS HEARD THE NEWS]
The closing scene took place on Thursday, January 18, 1816--on the
“General Thanksgiving Day for the Restoration of Peace.” The two
Eagles were on that day publicly paraded at the Horse Guards and laid
up in the Chapel Royal, Whitehall, with ceremonies similar to those
that attended the reception of the Barrosa and Salamanca trophies.
Again the battalions of the Brigade of Guards in England, with their
bands “in State clothing,” turned out to take part in the display,
the Eagles, as before, being made to march round the square and do
formal obeisance to the British flag by being prostrated in the dust
before the Colour of the King’s Guard of the day, at which sight, as
on the former occasions, both the troops and the crowd of spectators
“instantaneously gave three loud huzzas with the most enthusiastic
feeling.” The Duke of York, as Commander-in-Chief, presided this time
at the parade. Two sergeants of the Grenadier and Third Guards who had
been wounded at Waterloo were selected to carry the Eagles; escorted by
a picked company of eighty-four officers and men “drawn from among the
heroic defenders of Hougoumont on the field of battle.” Lifeguardsmen
and Blues just arrived from the Army of Occupation, in France, assisted
the Foot Guards on parade.
[Sidenote: IN THE CHAPEL ROYAL, WHITEHALL]
The escort entered the Chapel Royal by the two doors in equal
divisions, the band playing and marching up to the steps of the
Communion Table, where they filed off to right and left. As soon as
the band had ceased, the two sergeants bearing the Eagles approached
the Altar and fixed upon it their consecrated banners. Both the
Chaplain-General to the Forces (Archdeacon Owen) and the Bishop of
London, with two Royal Chaplains (“the Rev. Mr. Jones and the Rev. Mr.
Howlett”), officiated in the service; the Bishop preaching a special
sermon, with for his text Psalm xx. verses 7 and 8:
“_Some trust in chariots and some in horses: but we will remember
the name of the Lord our God._
“_They are brought down and fallen: but we are risen and stand
upright._”
“After the customary blessing, the band played ‘God save the King!’
the whole congregation standing. Among those who attended were a
considerable number of persons of fashion and distinction in public
life, the Dukes of Gloucester and York, and the Earl of Liverpool,
and several officers of the Army and Navy, with many elegant and
distinguished females.”