THE BATTLE OF QUATRE BRAS.
1815.
A few months passed away; Europe was apparently at rest; its military
attitude was gradually softening down, and all the belligerent Powers,
weary of a state of warfare that, with slight intermission, had lasted
for a quarter of a century, enjoyed the repose which the overthrow
of Napoleon’s power had produced. But this state of quietude was
delusory; it was the treacherous calm that precedes a tempest. Untamed
by adversity, that ambitious spirit was gathering strength for another
effort; France was ready to receive him; past victories would thus be
rendered useless, Europe convulsed again, and none could foresee what
strange events the descent of Napoleon might produce.
No recorded career parallels that of Napoleon Buonaparte; and in
the history of kings and conquerors, the strangest story was his
own. He seemed the shuttlecock of Fortune--and she placed him “on a
pinnacle of pride merely to mark her own mutability.” Hurled from
the sovereignty of half the world, his star had lost its ascendancy,
apparently to rise no more, when, by the happiest accident, his voyage
from Elba was uninterrupted, his landing unopposed, an enthusiastic
welcome everywhere was given to the intruder, legions congregated
at his bidding, the empire was offered and accepted, and the first
intelligence of his descent was closely followed by a formal
acknowledgment of his restoration to the sovereignty of France.
Napoleon landed in the Var on the 1st of March, and on the 19th he
slept in the palace of Fontainbleau. Louis had abandoned the capital,
and in a few hours the dynasty of the Bourbons seemed forgotten. None
opposed the return of the exile; his decrees were absolute, his wishes
were anticipated. The splendour of military parade delighted the
soldiery, while the theatric glitter of a _champ de Mai_ was admirably
adapted to catch the fancies, and win the momentary attachment of a gay
and thoughtless people. The whole pageant, in scenic effect, was suited
for those whom it was designed to lure, and on the 17th of April,
Napoleon was formally restored to that empire, from which the same
“sweet voices” had, but a few months before, so formally deposed him.
Parisian adulation, and the military devotion he received from the
moment his foot touched the shore at Cannes, did not blind him to
“coming events.” A vain effort to make terms with the allied Powers
was scornfully rejected. At Vienna, his overtures were treated with
disdain, and his letter to the British regent was returned with the
seal unbroken. He saw from all these premonitory occurrences, that
a storm was about to burst, and lost no time in preparing for a
determined resistance. A powerful army alone could avert the danger;
and, with his customary tact, Napoleon made prodigious efforts to
restore the military strength of the empire, which the Russian, German,
and Peninsular campaigns had during the last years so miserably
weakened.
French vanity was successfully appealed to, the memory of past
victories recalled, and martial glory, that powerful touchstone of
national feeling, successfully employed to win the people to his
standard. The younger of the male population were called out by
_ordonnances_, and the retired veterans collected once more around
those eagles, which, in prouder days, had entered half the European
capitals in triumph.
The military power of France was organised anew. Commissioners,
specially employed, enforced the operations of Napoleon’s decrees in
every department of the kingdom. The Imperial Guard was re-established,
the cavalry increased and remounted, that powerful arm, the artillery,
by which half the victories of the French army had been achieved, was
enlarged and improved, and, in a time inconceivably short, a most
splendid _corps d’armée_ perfect in every department, was ready for the
field.
While Napoleon was thus engaged, Wellington arrived at Brussels on the
5th of April, to take command of the British army. There, the troops of
the Prince of the Netherlands, with those of Nassau and Brunswick, were
placed under his orders, the whole forming the Anglo-Belgic army.
The Prussian _corps d’armée_ were cantoned in and about Namur and
Charleroi--while Ostend, Antwerp, Tournay, Ypres, Mons, and Ghent,
were occupied by the allies. The position of the Anglo-Belgic army was
extended and detached, for the preceding harvest in the Low Countries
had been unusually deficient, and, of course, the British and Belgic
cantonments covered an additional surface to obtain the requisite
supplies.
The allied corps in June were thus disposed. Lord Hill, with the
right wing, occupied Ath. The left, under the Prince of Orange, was
posted at Braine-le-Comte and Nivelles. The cavalry under the Marquis
of Anglesea, were established round Grammont; and the reserve and
headquarters, under the duke, were quartered in Brussels.
Belgium, for centuries, had been the seat of war, and every plain,
every fortress, had its tale of martial achievement to narrate. Within
its iron frontier there were few places which had not witnessed some
affair of arms; the whole country was rife with military reminiscences,
and it was destined to prove the scene where the greatest event
in modern warfare should be transacted. As a country, Belgium was
admirably adapted for martial operations--the plains, in many places
extensive, terminated in undulated ridges or bolder heights; while the
surface generally admitted the movements of masses of infantry. Canals,
rivers, morasses, and villages, presented favourable positions to abide
a battle, and difficult ones for an advancing army to force, while
the fortresses everywhere afforded facilities for retiring upon, and
presented serious obstacles to those who must mask or carry them when
advancing.
To a commander circumstanced like Wellington, great perplexity as to
the distribution of his army must arise, for the mode and point of
Napoleon’s attack were alike involved in mystery. He might decide
on adopting a defensive war, and permit the allies to become the
assailants. This course, however, was not a probable one; but where he
would precipitate himself was the difficulty.
The dangerous proximity of Brussels to the point where Napoleon’s
_corps d’armée_ were concentrating, naturally produced an anxious
inquietude among the inhabitants and visitants. The city was filled
every hour with idle rumours, but time alone could develope Napoleon’s
plans.
The first intelligence of a threatening movement on the part of the
French emperor was forwarded to the Duke of Wellington, when Blucher
learned that Zeithen’s corps was attacked. The despatch reached
Brussels at half-past four, but, as it merely intimated that the
Prussian outposts had been driven back, the information was not of
sufficient importance to induce the British commander to make any
change in the cantonments of the allied army.
A second despatch reached the duke at midnight, and its intelligence
was more decisive than the former. Napoleon was across the Sambro,
and in full march on Charleroi and Fleurus. Orders were instantly
issued for the more detached corps to break up from their cantonments
and advance upon Nivelles, while the troops in Brussels should march
direct by the forest of Soignies, on Charleroi. Thus there would be a
simultaneous reunion of the brigades as they approached the scene of
action, while their communication with the Prussian right should be
carefully secured.
Blucher’s second despatch was delivered to the British general in the
ballroom of the Duchess of Richmond. That circumstance most probably
gave rise to the groundless report that Wellington and the Prussian
marshal were surprised; but nothing could be more absurd than this
supposition. Both commanders were in close and constant communication,
and their plans for mutual co-operation were amply matured.
Where the intended attack--if Napoleon would indeed venture to become
aggressor--should be made, was an uncertainty, and it had been
arranged that if Blucher were assailed, Wellington should move to his
assistance, or, in the event of the British being the first object
with Napoleon, then the Prussian marshal should sustain the duke with
a corps, or with his whole army, were that found necessary. Nothing
could be more perfect than the cordial understanding between the allied
commanders, and the result proved how faithfully these mutual promises
of support were realised.
Two hours after midnight the gaiety of “fair Brussels” closed, the
drums beat to arms, and all was hurry and preparation. Momentarily
the din increased, “and louder yet the clamour grew” as the Highland
pibroch answered the bugle-call of the light infantry. The soldiery,
startled from their sleep, poured out from the now deserted dwellings;
and the once peaceful city exhibited a general alarm.
The sun rose on a scene of confusion and excitement. The military
assembled in the Place Royale; and the difference of individual
character might be traced in the respective bearings of the various
soldiery. Some were taking a tender, many a last, leave of wives and
children; others, stretched upon the pavement, were listlessly waiting
for their comrades to come up, while not a few strove to snatch a few
moments of repose, and appeared half insensible to the din of war
around them. Waggons were loading and artillery harnessing; orderlies
and aides-de-camp rode rapidly through the streets; and in the gloom
of early morning the pavement sparkled beneath the iron feet of the
cavalry, as they hurried along the causeway to join their respective
squadrons, which were now collecting in the Park.
The appearance of the British brigades as they filed from the Park
and took the road to Soignies, was most imposing. The martial air of
the Highland regiments, the bagpipes playing at their head, their
tartans fluttering in the breeze, and the early sunbeams flashing from
their glittering arms, excited the admiration of the burghers who had
assembled to see them march. During the winter and spring, while they
had garrisoned Brussels, their excellent conduct and gentle demeanour
had endeared them to the inhabitants; and “they were so domesticated in
the houses where they were quartered, that it was no uncommon thing to
see the Highland soldier taking care of the children, or keeping the
shop of his host.”
Regiment after regiment marched--the organisation of all most perfect;
the Rifles, Royals, 28th, each exhibiting some martial peculiarity,
on which the eye of Picton appeared to dwell with pride and pleasure
as they filed off before him. To an intelligent spectator a national
distinction was clearly marked. The bearing of the Scotch bespoke a
grave and firm determination, while the light step and merry glance of
the Irish militiaman told that war was the game he loved, and a first
field had no terrors for him.
Eight o’clock pealed from the steeple clocks; all was quiet--the
brigades, with their artillery and equipages, were gone--the crash of
music was heard no longer--the bustle of preparation had ceased--and an
ominous and heart-sinking silence succeeded the noise and hurry that
ever attends a departure for the field of battle.
Napoleon’s plan of penetrating into Belgium was now so clearly
ascertained, that Wellington determined to concentrate on the extreme
point of his line of occupation. His march was accordingly directed on
Quatre Bras, a small hamlet situated at the intersection of the road to
Charleroi, by that leading from Namur to Nivelles.
This village, which was fated to obtain a glorious but sanguinary
celebrity, consists of a few mean houses, having a thick and extensive
wood immediately on the right called Le Bois de Bossu. All around the
wood and hamlet, rye-fields of enormous growth, and quite ready for the
sickle, were extended.
After a distressing march of twenty miles in sultry weather, and over a
country destitute of water, the British brigades reached the scene of
action at two o’clock. They found the Prince of Orange with a division
of his army endeavouring to hold the French in check, and maintain a
position of whose great importance he was so well aware. The prince,
unable to withstand the physical superiority of Ney’s corps, had
gradually lost ground, the Hanoverians had been driven back, and the
Bois de Bossu was won and occupied by the enemy.
To recover this most important wood, from which the French could
debouche upon the road to Brussels, was the duke’s first object. The
95th were ordered to attack the tirailleurs who held it; the order was
gallantly executed, and after a bloody and sustained resistance, the
French were forced to retire.
On the left, the Royals and 28th were hotly engaged, and on the
right the 44th and Highland regiments were simultaneously assailed.
The battle now became general. Before the British could deploy, the
French cavalry charged furiously, the tall rye masking their advance
and favouring the attack. Generally these charges were unsuccessful,
and the perfect discipline and steady courage of the British enabled
them to repel the enemy. Lancers and cuirassiers were driven back with
desperate slaughter--while whole squadrons, shattered in their retreat,
and leaving the ground covered with their dead and dying, proved with
what fatal precision the British squares sustained their fusilade.
The efforts of the French to break the squares, however, were fierce
and frequent. Their batteries poured upon these unflinching soldiers
a storm of grape, and when an opening was made by the cannon, the
lancers were ready to rush upon the devoted infantry. But nothing could
daunt the lion-hearted British--nothing could shake their steadiness.
The dead were coolly removed, and the living occupied their places.
Though numbers fell, and the square momentarily diminished, it still
presented a serried line of glittering bayonets, through which lancer
and cuirassier endeavoured to penetrate, but in vain.
One regiment, after sustaining a furious cannonade, was suddenly, and
on three different sides, assailed by cavalry. Two faces of the square
were charged by the lancers, while the cuirassiers galloped down upon
another. It was a trying moment. There was a death-like silence; and
one voice alone, clear and calm, was heard. It was their colonel’s,
who called upon them to be “Steady!” On came the enemy; the earth
shook beneath the horsemen’s feet, while on every side of the devoted
band, the corn bending beneath the rush of cavalry disclosed their
numerous assailants. The lance blades nearly met the bayonets of the
kneeling front rank, the cuirassiers were within a few paces, yet not
a trigger was drawn. But, when the word “Fire!” thundered from the
colonel’s lips, each side poured out its deadly volley, and in a moment
the leading files of the French lay before the square, as if hurled
by a thunderbolt to the earth. The assailants, broken and dispersed,
galloped off for shelter to the tall rye, while a constant stream of
musketry from the British square, carried death into their retreating
squadrons.
But, unhappily, these furious and continued charges were not always
inefficient. On the right, and in the act of forming square, the 42nd
were attacked by the lancers. The sudden rush, and the difficulty of
forming in corn reaching to the shoulder, gave a temporary success to
the assailants. Two companies, excluded from the square, were ridden
over and cut down. The colonel was killed, half the regiment disabled,
but the remainder formed and repulsed the charge, while those detached
in the _mêlée_ fought back to back with desperate coolness, until the
withering fusilade of their companions dispersed the cavalry, and
enabled them to rejoin their ranks.
The remaining regiments of the Highland brigade were hotly pressed by
the enemy; they had not a moment’s respite; for no sooner were the
lancers and cuirassiers driven back, than the French batteries opened
with a torrent of grape upon the harassed squares, which threatened
to overwhelm them. Numbers of officers and men were already stretched
upon the field, while the French, reinforced by fresh columns,
redoubled their exertions, while the brave and devoted handful of
British troops seemed destined to cover with their bodies that ground
their gallantry scorned to surrender. Wellington, as he witnessed the
slaughter of his best troops, is said to have been deeply affected; and
repeated references to his watch, showed how anxiously he waited for
reinforcements.
The Bois de Bossu had continued to be the scene of a severe and
fluctuating combat. The 95th had driven the French out, but under a
heavy cannonade, and supported by a cavalry movement, the rifles were
overpowered by numbers and forced to retire, fighting inch by inch,
and contesting every tree. Ney established himself at last within the
wood, and ordered up a considerable addition to the light troops, who
had already occupied this important point of the position.
The contest was at its height. The incessant assaults of the enemy
were wasting the British regiments, but, with the exception of the
Bois de Bossu, not an inch of ground was lost. The men were falling
in hundreds, death was busy everywhere, but not a cheek blanched, and
not a foot receded! The courage of these undaunted soldiers needed no
incitement, but, on the contrary, the efforts of their officers were
constantly required to restrain the burning ardour that would, if
unrepressed, have led to ruinous results. Maddened to see their ranks
thinned by renewed assaults which they were merely suffered to repel,
they panted for the hour of action. The hot blood of Erin was boiling
for revenge, and even the cool endurance of the Scotch began to yield,
and a murmur was sometimes heard of, “Why are we not led forward?”
And yet, though forward movements were denied them, the assailants
paid dearly for this waste of British blood. For a long hour the 92nd
had been exposed to a destructive fire from the French artillery
that occasioned a fearful loss. A regiment of Brunswick cavalry had
attempted to repel a charge of cuirassiers, and repulsed with loss,
were driven back upon the Highlanders in great disorder. The hussars
galloped down a road on which part of the regiment was obliqued--the
remainder lining the ditch in front. The rear of the Brunswickers
intermingled with the headmost of the French horsemen, and for a
while the 92nd could not relieve them with their musketry. At last
the pursuers and pursued rode rapidly past the right flank of the
Highlanders, and permitted them to deliver their volley. The word
“Fire!” was scarcely given, when the close and converged discharge
of both wings fell with terrible effect upon the advanced squadron.
The cuirassiers were literally cut down by that withering discharge,
and the road choked up with men and horses rolling in dying agony,
while the shattered remnant of what but a few moments before had been
a splendid regiment, retreated in desperate confusion to avoid a
repetition of that murderous fusilade.
At this period of the battle, the guards, after a march of
seven-and-twenty miles, arrived from Enghein, from whence they had
moved at three in the morning. Exhausted by heat and fatigue, they
halted at Nivelles, lighted fires, and prepared to cook their dinners.
But the increasing roar of cannon announced that the duke was seriously
engaged, and a staff officer brought orders to hurry on. The bivouac
was instantly broken up, the kettles packed, the rations abandoned, and
the wearied troops cheerfully resumed their march.
The path to the field of battle could not be mistaken; the roar of
cannon was succeeded by the roll of musketry, which at every step
became more clearly audible; and waggons, heaped with wounded British
and Brunswickers interspersed, told that the work of death was going on.
The Guards, indeed, came up at a fortunate crisis. The Bois de Bossu
was won, and the tirailleurs of the enemy, debouching from its cover,
were about to deploy upon the roads that it commanded, and would thus
intercept the duke’s communication with the Prussians. The fifth
division, sadly reduced, could hardly hold their ground, any offensive
movement was impracticable, and the French tirailleurs were actually
issuing from the wood, but on perceiving the advancing columns, they
halted. The first brigade of Guards, having loaded and fixed bayonets,
were ordered to advance, and, wearied as they were with a fifteen
hours’ march, they cheered, and pushed forward. In vain the thick trees
impeded them, and although every bush and coppice was held and disputed
by the enemy, the tirailleurs were driven in on every side. Taking
advantage of a rivulet which crossed the wood, the enemy attempted to
form and arrest the progress of the Guards. That stand was momentary;
they were forced from their position, and the wood once more was
carried by the British.
Their success was, however, limited to its occupation; the broken
ground and close timber prevented the battalion from forming; and when
it emerged, and of course in considerable disorder, from its cover,
the masses of cavalry drawn up in the open ground charged and forced
it back. At last, after many daring attempts to debouch and form, the
first brigade fell back upon the third battalion, which, by flanking
the wood, had been enabled to form square, and repulse the cavalry,
and there the brigade halted. Evening was now closing in, the attacks
of the enemy became fewer and feebler, a brigade of heavy cavalry with
horse artillery came up, and, worn out by the sanguinary struggle of
six long hours, the assailants ceased their attack, and the fifth and
third divisions took a position for the night upon the ground their
unbounded heroism had held through this long and bloody day.
Thus terminated the fight of Quatre Bras, and a more glorious victory
was never won by British bravery. Night closed the battle, and when the
limited number of the allied troops actually engaged is considered,
this sanguinary conflict will stand almost without a parallel. At the
opening of the action at half-past two, the Duke’s force could not have
exceeded sixteen thousand, his whole army consisting of some Brunswick
hussars, supported by a few Belgian and Hanoverian guns, and the great
distance of their cantonments from the field of battle prevented
the British cavalry and horse artillery arriving until late in the
evening. Vivian’s brigade (1st Hanoverian, and 10th and 18th hussars)
came up at seven o’clock, but the rest only reached Quatre Bras at the
close of the action, having made a forced march from behind the Dender,
over bad roads for more than forty miles. Ney, by his own account,
commenced the battle with the second corps and Excelman’s cavalry, the
former numbering thirty thousand strong in artillery, and its cavalry,
that of the second corps included, amounting to three thousand six
hundred.
The French marshal complains that the first corps, originally assigned
to him, and which he had left at Frasnes in reserve, had been withdrawn
by Napoleon without any intimation, and never employed during the
entire day, and thus, as Ney writes to Fouche, “twenty-five or thirty
thousand men were, I may say, paralysed, and idly paraded during
the battle, from the right to the left, and the left to the right,
without firing a shot.” All this admitted, surely his means were amply
sufficient to have warranted a certain victory. In numbers his cavalry
were infinitely superior, his artillery was equally powerful, while in
those important arms, Wellington was miserably weak, and all he had
to oppose to his stronger antagonist were the splendid discipline and
indomitable courage of British infantry.
The loss sustained by the British and their allies in this glorious
and hard-contested battle amounted to three thousand seven hundred
and fifty, _hors de combat_. Of course, the British suffered most
severely, having three hundred and twenty men killed, and two thousand
one hundred and fifty-five wounded. The Duke of Brunswick fell in the
act of rallying his troops, and an immense number of British officers
were found among the slain and wounded. During an advanced movement,
the 92nd, while repulsing an attack of both cavalry and infantry,
met a French column, retreating to the wood, which halted and turned
its fire on the Highlanders, already assailed by a superior force.
Notwithstanding, the regiment bravely held its ground until relieved by
a regiment of the Guards, when it retired to its original position. In
this brief and sanguinary conflict, its loss amounted to twenty-eight
officers, and nearly three hundred men.
The casualties, when compared with the number of the combatants, will
appear enormous. Most of the battalions lost their commanding officers,
and the rapid succession of subordinate officers on whom the command
devolved, told how fast the work of death went on. Trifling wounds
were disregarded, and men severely hurt refused to retire to the rear,
or rejoined their colours after a temporary dressing. Picton’s was a
remarkable instance of this disregard of suffering; he was severely
wounded at Quatre Bras, and the fact was only ascertained after his
glorious fall at Waterloo.
The French loss, according to their own returns, was “very
considerable, amounting to four thousand two hundred killed or
wounded”; and Ney in his report says, “I was obliged to renounce my
hopes of victory; and in spite of all my efforts, in spite of the
intrepidity and devotion of my troops, my utmost efforts could only
maintain me in my position till the close of the day.”
Ney fell back upon the road to Frasnes. The moon rose angrily, still a
few cannon-shot were heard after the day had departed; but gradually
they ceased. The fires were lighted, and such miserable provisions as
could be procured were furnished to the harassed soldiery; and while
strong pickets were posted in the front and flanks, the remnant of
the British, with their brave allies, piled their arms and stretched
themselves on the field.
While the British held their battleground, the Prussians had been
obliged to retire in the night from Ligny. This, however, was not
ascertained until morning, as the aide-de-camp despatched with the
intelligence to Quatre Bras had unfortunately been killed on the
road. Corps after corps arrived during the night, placing the Duke of
Wellington in a position to have become assailant next morning had
Blucher succeeded in maintaining his position, and repulsed Napoleon’s
attack.
The night passed, the wounded were removed, the dead partially buried;
disabled guns were repaired, ammunition served out, and all was ready
for “a contest on the morrow.”
The intelligence of the Prussian retreat, of course, produced a
correspondent movement, and the Duke of Wellington, to maintain his
communications with Marshal Blucher, decided on falling back upon a
position in front of the village of Waterloo, which had been already
surveyed, and selected by the allied leader as the spot on which he
should make a stand.