"Beneath their fire, in full career,
Rush'd on the ponderous cuirassier,
The lancer couch'd his ruthless spear,
And hurrying as to havoc near,
The cohorts' eagles flew.
In one dark torrent, broad and strong,
The advancing onset roll'd along,
Forth harbinger'd by fierce acclaim
That, from the shroud of smoke and flame,
Peal'd wildly the imperial name!"
--SCOTT.
The attack of the Household and Union Brigades at Waterloo is one of
the most dazzling and dramatic incidents of the great fight. For
suddenness, fire, and far-reaching results, it would be difficult to
parallel that famous charge in the history of war. The Household
Brigade, consisting of the 1st and 2nd Life Guards, and the Dragoon
Guards, with the Blues in support, moved first. Lord Uxbridge,
temporarily exchanging the functions of general for those of a
squadron-leader, heading the attack. They leaped the hedge, or burst
through it, crossed the road--at that point of shallow depth--and met
the French cuirassiers in full charge. The British were bigger men on
bigger horses, and they had gained the full momentum of their charge
when the two lines met. The French, to do them justice, did not
shrink. The charging lines crashed together, like living and swiftly
moving walls, and the sound of their impact rang sharp, sudden, deep,
and long drawn out, above the din of the conflict. The French wore
armour, and carried longer swords than the British, but they were swept
away in an instant, and went, a broken and shattered mass of men and
horses, down the slope. Some of them were tumbled into the sand-pit,
amongst the astonished Rifles there, who instantly bayoneted them.
Others were swept upon the masses of their own infantry, fiercely
followed by the Life Guards.
The 2nd Life Guards and the Dragoons, coming on a little in the rear,
struck the right regiment of the cuirassiers and hurled them across the
junction of the roads. Shaw, the famous Life Guardsman, was killed
here. He was a perfect swordsman, a man of colossal strength, and is
said to have cut down, through helmet and skull, no fewer than nine men
in the _mêlée_. How Shaw actually died is a matter of dispute.
Colonel Marten says he was shot by a cuirassier who stood clear of the
_mêlée_, coolly taking pot-shots at the English Guardsmen. Captain
Kelly, a brilliant soldier, who rode in the charge beside Shaw, says
that Shaw was killed by a thrust through the body from a French colonel
of the cuirassiers, whom Kelly himself, in return, clove through helmet
and skull.
Meanwhile the Union Brigade on the left, consisting of the Royals and
the Inniskillings, with the Scots Greys in support, had broken into the
fight. The Royals, coming on at full speed over the crest of the
ridge, broke upon the astonished vision of the French infantry at a
distance of less than a hundred yards. It was an alarming vision of
waving swords, crested helmets, fierce red nostrils, and galloping
hoofs. The leading files tried to turn, but in an instant the Royals
were upon them, cutting them down furiously. De Lacy Evans, who rode
in the charge, says, "They fled like a flock of sheep." Colonel Clark
Kennedy adds that the "jamb" in the French was so thick that the men
could not bring down their arms or level a musket, and the Dragoons
rode in the intervals between their formation, reaching forward with
the stroke of their long swords, and slaying at will. More than 2000
Frenchmen flung down their arms and surrendered; and on the next
morning the abandoned muskets were still lying in long straight lines
and regular order, showing that the men had surrendered before their
lines were broken. The charge of the Inniskillings to the left of the
Royals was just as furious and just as successful. They broke on the
front of Donzdot's divisions and simply ground them to powder.
The Scots Greys were supposed to be "in support"; but coming swiftly
up, they suddenly saw on their left shoulder Marcognet's divisions, the
extreme right of the French. At that sight the Greys swung a little
off to their left, swept through the intervals of the 92nd, and smote
the French battalions full in front. As the Greys rode through the
intervals of the footmen--Scotch horsemen through Scotch infantry--the
Scotch blood in both regiments naturally took fire. Greetings in
broadest Doric flew from man to man. The pipes skirled fiercely.
"Scotland for ever!" went up in a stormy shout from the kilted lines.
The Greys, riding fast, sometimes jostled, or even struck down, some of
the 92nd; and Armour, the rough-rider of the Greys, has told how the
Highlanders shouted, "I didna think ye wad hae saired me sae!" Many of
the Highlanders caught hold of the stirrups of the Greys and raced
forward with them--Scotsmen calling to Scotsmen--into the ranks of the
French. The 92nd, in fact, according to the testimony of their own
officers, "went half mad." What could resist such a charge?
The two British cavalry brigades were by this time riding roughly
abreast, the men drunk with warlike excitement and completely out of
hand, and most of their officers were little better. They simply rode
over D'Erlon's broken ranks. So brave were some of the French,
however, that again and again a solitary soldier or officer would leap
out of the ranks as the English cavalry came on, and charge them
single-handed! One French private deliberately ran out as the
Inniskillings came on at full gallop, knelt before the swiftly
galloping line of men and horses, coolly shot the adjutant of the
Inniskillings through the head, and was himself instantly trodden into
a bloody pulp! The British squadrons, wildly disordered, but drunk
with battle fury, and each man fighting for his "ain hand," swept
across the valley, rode up to the crest of the French position, stormed
through the great battery there, slew drivers and horses, and so
completely wrecked the battery that forty guns out of its seventy never
came into action again. Some of the men, in the rapture of the fight,
broke through to the second line of the French, and told tales, after
the mad adventure was over, of how they had come upon French artillery
drivers, mere boys, sitting crying on their horses while the tragedy
and tumult of the _mêlée_ swept past them. Some of the older officers
tried to rally and re-form their men; and Lord Uxbridge, by this time
beginning to remember that he was a general and not a dragoon, looked
round for his "supports," who, as it happened, oblivious of the duty of
"supporting" anybody, were busy fighting on their own account, and were
riding furiously in the very front ranks.
Then there came the French counter-stroke. The French batteries opened
on the triumphant, but disordered British squadrons; a brigade of
lancers smote them on the flank and rolled them up. Lord Edward
Somerset, who commanded the Household Brigade, was unhorsed, and saved
his life by scrambling dexterously, but ignobly, through a hedge. Sir
William Ponsonby, who commanded the Union Brigade, had ridden his horse
to a dead standstill; the lancers caught him standing helpless in the
middle of a ploughed field, and slew him with a dozen lance-thrusts.
Vandeleur's Light Cavalry Brigade was by this time moving down from the
British front, and behind its steady squadrons the broken remains of
the two brigades found shelter.
Though the British cavalry suffered terribly in retiring, nevertheless
they had accomplished what Sir Evelyn Wood describes as "one of the
most brilliant successes ever achieved by horsemen over infantry."
These two brigades--which did not number more than 2000 swords--wrecked
an entire infantry corps, disabled forty guns, overthrew a division of
cuirassiers, took 3000 prisoners, and captured two eagles. The moral
effect of the charge was, perhaps, greater than even its material
results. The French infantry never afterwards throughout the battle,
until the Old Guard appeared upon the scene, moved forward with real
confidence against the British position. Those "terrible horsemen" had
stamped themselves upon their imagination.
The story of how the eagles were captured is worth telling. Captain
Clark Kennedy of the Dragoons took one. He was riding vehemently in
the early stage of the charge, when he caught sight of the cuirassier
officer carrying the eagle, with his covering men, trying to break
through the _mêlée_ and escape. "I gave the order to my men," he says,
"'Right shoulders forward; attack the colours.'" He himself overtook
the officer, ran him through the body, and seized the eagle. He tried
to break the eagle from the pole and push it inside his coat for
security, but, failing, gave it to his corporal to carry to the rear.
The other colour was taken by Ewart, a sergeant of the Greys, a very
fine swordsman. He overtook the officer carrying the colour, and, to
quote his own story, "he and I had a hard contest for it. He made a
thrust at my groin; I parried it off, and cut him down through the
head. After this a lancer came at me. I threw the lance off by my
right side, and cut him through the chin and upwards through the teeth.
Next, a foot-soldier fired at me, and then charged me with his bayonet,
which I also had the good luck to parry, and then I cut him down
through the head. Thus ended the contest. As I was about to follow
the regiment, the general said, 'My brave fellow, take that to the
rear; you have done enough till you get quit of it.'"