Deeds that Won the Empire Part 12

They were instantly bayoneted, and Macdonnell, with a cl.u.s.ter of officers and a sergeant named Graham, by sheer force shut the gate again in the face of the desperate French. In the fire which partially consumed the building, some of the British wounded were burned to death, and Mercer, who visited the spot the morning after the fight, declared that in the orchard and around the walls of the farmhouse the dead lay as thick as on the breach of Badajos.

More than 2000 killed and wounded fell in the long seven hours' fight which raged round this Belgian farmhouse. More than 12,000 infantry were flung into the attack; the defence, including the Dutch and Belgians in the wood, never exceeded 2000 men. But when, in the tumult of the victorious advance of the British at nightfall, Wellington found himself for a moment beside m.u.f.fling, with a flash of exultation rare in a man so self-controlled, he shouted, "Well, you see Macdonnell held Hougoumont after all!" Towards evening, at the close of the fight, Lord Saltoun, with the wreck of the light companies of the Guards, joined the main body of their division on the ridge. As they came up to the lines, a scanty group with torn uniforms and smoke-blackened faces, the sole survivors of the gallant hundreds who had fought continuously for seven hours, General Maitland rode out to meet them and cried, "Your defence has saved the army! Every man of you deserves promotion." Long afterwards a patriotic Briton bequeathed 500 pounds to the bravest soldier at Waterloo, the Duke of Wellington to be the judge. The Duke named Macdonnell, who handed the money to the sergeant who was his comrade in the struggle at the gate of Hougoumont.

III. PICTON AND D'ERLON

"But on the British heart were lost The terrors of the charging host; For not an eye the storm that view'd Changed its proud glance of fort.i.tude.

Nor was one forward footstep staid, As dropp'd the dying and the dead."

--SCOTT.

Meantime a furious artillery duel raged between the opposing ridges.

Wellington had ordered his gunners not to fire at the French batteries, but only at the French columns, while the French, in the main, concentrated their fire on the British guns. French practice under these conditions was naturally very beautiful, for no hostile bullets disturbed their aim, and the British gunners fell fast; yet their fire on the French ma.s.ses was most deadly. At two o'clock Napoleon launched his great infantry attack, led by D'Erlon, against La Haye Sainte and the British left. It was an attack of terrific strength. Four divisions, numbering 16,000 men, moved forward in echelon, with intervals between them of 400 paces; seventy-two guns swept as with a besom of fire the path along which these huge ma.s.ses advanced with shouts to the attack, while thirty light guns moved in the intervals between them; and a cavalry division, consisting of lancers and cuira.s.siers, rode on their flank ready to charge the broken ma.s.ses of the British infantry. The British line at this point consisted of Picton's division, formed of the shattered remains of Kempt's and Pack's brigades, who had suffered heavily at Quatre Bras. They formed a mere thread of scarlet, a slender two-deep line of about 3000 men.

As the great ma.s.s of the enemy came slowly on, the British line was "dressed," the men ceased to talk, except in monosyllables, the skirmishers lying flat on the trampled corn prepared to fire. The grape of the French guns smote Picton's red lines with fury, and the men fell fast, yet they closed up at the word of command with the most perfect coolness. The French skirmishers, too, running forward with great speed and daring, drove in the British skirmishers, who came running back to the main line smoke-begrimed and breathless.

As the French ma.s.ses began to ascend the British slope, the French guns had to cease their fire for fear of striking their own forces. The British infantry, too, being drawn slightly back from the crest, were out of sight, and the leading French files saw nothing before them but a cl.u.s.ter of British batteries and a this line of quickly retreating skirmishers. A Dutch-Belgian brigade had, somehow, been placed on the exterior slope of the hill, and when D'Erlon's huge battalions came on, almost shaking the earth with their steady tread, the Dutch-Belgians simply took to their heels and ran. They swept, a crowd of fugitives, through the intervals of the British lines, and were received with groans and hootings, the men with difficulty being restrained from firing upon them.

A sand-pit lay in the track of the French columns on the left. This was held by some companies of the 95th Rifles, and these opened a fire so sudden and close and deadly that the huge ma.s.s of the French swung almost involuntarily to the right, off its true track; then with fierce roll of drums and shouts of "En avant!" the Frenchmen reached the crest. Suddenly there rose before them Picton's steady lines, along which there ran, in one red flame from end to end, a dreadful volley.

Again the fierce musketry crackled, and yet again. The Frenchmen tried to deploy, and Picton, seizing the moment, ordered his lines to charge.

"Charge! charge!" he cried. "Hurrah!"

It is yet a matter keenly disputed as to whether or not D'Erlon's men actually pierced the British line. It is alleged that the Highlanders were thrown into confusion, and it is certain that Picton's last words to his aide-de-camp, Captain Seymour, were, "Rally the Highlanders!"

Pack, too, appealed to the 92nd. "You must charge," he said; "all in front have given way." However this may be, the British regiments charged, and the swift and resolute advance of Picton's lines--though it was a charge of 3000 men on a body four times their number--was irresistible. The leading ranks of the French opened a hurried fire, under which Picton himself fell shot through the head; then as the British line came on at the double--the men with bent heads, the level bayonets one steady edge of steel, the fierce light which gleams along the fighting line playing on them--the leading battalions of the French halted irresolute, shrunk back, swayed to and fro, and fell into a shapeless receding ma.s.s.

There were, of course, many individual instances of great gallantry amongst them. Thus a French mounted officer had his horse shot, and when he struggled from beneath his fallen charger he found himself almost under the bayonets of the 32nd. But just in front of the British line was an officer carrying the colours of the regiment, and the brave Frenchman instantly leaped upon him. He would capture the flag! There was a momentary struggle, and the British officer at the head of the wing shouted, "Save the brave fellow!" but almost at the same moment the gallant Frenchman was bayoneted by the colour-sergeant, and shot by a British infantryman.

The head of the French column was falling to pieces, but the main body was yet steady, and the cuira.s.siers covering its flank were coming swiftly on. But at this moment there broke upon them the terrific counterstroke, not of Wellington, but of Lord Uxbridge, into whose hands Wellington, with a degree of confidence quite unusual for him, had given the absolute control of his cavalry, fettering him by no specific orders.

IV. "SCOTLAND FOR EVER!"

"Beneath their fire, in full career, Rush'd on the ponderous cuira.s.sier, 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 cuira.s.siers 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 ma.s.s 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 ma.s.ses 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 cuira.s.siers 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 _melee_. How Shaw actually died is a matter of dispute.

Colonel Marten says he was shot by a cuira.s.sier who stood clear of the _melee_, 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 cuira.s.siers, 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 hors.e.m.e.n 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 b.l.o.o.d.y 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 _melee_ 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 ign.o.bly, 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 hors.e.m.e.n 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 cuira.s.siers, 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 hors.e.m.e.n" 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 cuira.s.sier officer carrying the eagle, with his covering men, trying to break through the _melee_ 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.'"

V. HORs.e.m.e.n AND SQUARES

"But yet, though thick the shafts as snow, Though charging knights like whirlwinds go, Though bill-men ply the ghastly blow, Unbroken was the ring; The stubborn spearmen still made good Their dark impenetrable wood, Each stepping where his comrade stood, The instant that he fell.

No thought was there of dastard flight; Linked in the serried phalanx tight, Groom fought like n.o.ble, squire like knight, As fearlessly and well."

--SCOTT.

Napoleon's infantry had failed to capture either Hougoumont or La Haye Sainte, which was stoutly held by Baring and his Hanoverians. The great infantry attack on the British left had failed, and though the stubborn fight round the two farmhouses never paused, the main battle along the ridge for a time resolved itself into an artillery duel.

Battery answered battery across the narrow valley, nearly four hundred guns in action at once, the gunners toiling fiercely to load and fire with the utmost speed. Wellington ordered his men to lie down on the reverse of the ridge; but the French had the range perfectly, and sh.e.l.ls fell thickly on the ranks of rec.u.mbent men, and solid shot tore through them. The thunder of the artillery quickened; the French tirailleurs, showing great daring, crept in swarms up the British slope and shot down the British gunners at their pieces. Both Hougoumont and La Haye Sainte were on fire at this stage of the battle. The smoke of the conflict, in an atmosphere heavy with moisture, hung like a low pall of blackest c.r.a.pe over the whole field; and every now and again, on either ridge, columns of white smoke shot suddenly up and fell back like gigantic and vaporous mushrooms--the effect of exploding ammunition waggons. "Hard pounding this, gentlemen," said Wellington, as he rode past his much-enduring battalions. "Let us see who will pound longest."

At four o'clock came the great cavalry attack of the French. Through the gap between, not merely the two farmhouses, but the two farmhouses plus their zone of fire--through a gap, that is, of probably not more than 1000 yards, the French, for two long hours, poured on the British line the whole strength of their magnificent cavalry, led by Ney in person. To meet the a.s.sault, Wellington drew up his first line in a long chequer of squares, five in the first line, four, covering their intervals, in the second. In advance of them were the British guns, with their sadly reduced complement of gunners. Immediately behind the squares were the British cavalry brigades; the Household Brigade, reduced by this time to a couple of squadrons; and behind them, in turn, the Dutch-Belgian infantry, who had fort.i.tude enough not to run away, but lacked daring sufficient to fill a place on the fire-scourged edge of actual battle. When the British front was supposed to be sufficiently macadamised by the dreadful fire of the French batteries, Ney brought on his huge ma.s.s of cavalry, twenty-one squadrons of cuira.s.siers, and nineteen squadrons of the Light Cavalry of the Guard.

At a slow trot they came down the French slope, crossed the valley, and, closing their ranks and quickening their stride, swept up to the British line, and broke, a swirling torrent of men and horses, over the crest. Nothing could be more majestic, and apparently resistless, than their onset--the gleam of so many thousand helmets and breastplates, the acres of wind-blown horse-hair crests and many-coloured uniforms, the thunder of so many galloping hoofs. Wellington had ordered his gunners, when the French cavalry reached their guns, to abandon them and run for shelter beneath the bayonets of the nearest square, and the brave fellows stood by their pieces pouring grape and solid shot into the glittering, swift-coming human target before them till the leading horses were almost within touch of the guns, when they ran and flung themselves under the steady British bayonets for safety.

The French hors.e.m.e.n, as they mounted the British slope, saw nothing before them but the ridge, empty of everything except a few abandoned guns. They were drunk with the rapture of victory, and squadron after squadron, as it reached the crest, broke into tempests of shouts and a mad gallop. All the batteries were in their possession; they looked to see an army in rout. Suddenly they beheld the double line of British squares--or, rather, "oblongs"--with their fringe of steady steel points; and from end to end of the line ran the zigzag of fire--a fire that never slackened, still less intermitted. The torrent and tumult of the hors.e.m.e.n never checked; but as they rode at the squares, the leading squadron--men and horses--smitten by the spray of lead, tumbled dead or dying to the ground. The following squadrons parted, swept past the flanks of the squares, scourged with deadly volleys, struggled through the intervals of the second line, emerged breathless and broken into the s.p.a.ce beyond, to be instantly charged by the British cavalry, and driven back in wreck over the British slope. As the struggling ma.s.s left the crest clear, the French guns broke in a tempest of shot on the squares, while the scattered French re-formed in the valley, and prepared for a second and yet more desperate a.s.sault.

Foiled in his first attack, Ney drew the whole of Kellerman's division--thirty-seven squadrons, eleven of cuira.s.siers, six of carabineers, and the Bed Lancers of the Guard--into the whirlpool of his renewed a.s.sault, and this time the ma.s.s, though it came forward more slowly, was almost double in area. Gleaming with lance and sword and cuira.s.s, it undulated as it crossed the broken slopes, till it seemed a sea, shining with 10,000 points of glancing steel, in motion.

The British squares, on the reverse slope, as they obeyed the order, "Prepare to receive cavalry!" and fell grimly into formation, could hear the thunder of the coming storm--the shrill cries of the officers, the deeper shouts of the men, the clash of scabbard on stirrup, the fierce tramp of the iron-shod hoofs. Squadron after squadron came over the ridge, like successive human waves; then, like a sea broken loose, the flood of furious hors.e.m.e.n inundated the whole slope on which the squares were drawn up. But each square, a tiny, immovable island of red, with its fringe of smoke and steel and darting flame, stood doggedly resolute. No French leader, however daring, ventured to ride home on the very bayonets. The flood of maddened men and horses swung sullenly back across the ridge, while the British gunners ran out and scourged them with grape as they rode down the slope.

From four o'clock to six o'clock this amazing scene was repeated. No less than thirteen times, it was reckoned, the French hors.e.m.e.n rode over the ridge, and round the squares, and swept back wrecked and baffled. In the later charges they came on at a trot, or even a walk, and they rode through the British batteries and round the squares, in the words of the Duke of Wellington, "as if they owned them." So dense was the smoke that sometimes the British could not see their foes until, through the whirling blackness, a line of lances and crested helmets, or of tossing horse-heads, suddenly broke. Sometimes a single horseman would ride up to the very points of the British bayonets and strike at them with his sword, or fire a pistol at an officer, in the hope of drawing the fire of the square prematurely, and thus giving his comrades a chance of breaking it. With such cool courage did the British squares endure the fiery rush of the French cavalry, that at last the temper of the men grew almost scornful. They would growl out, "Here come these fools again," as a fresh sweep of hors.e.m.e.n came on.

Sometimes the French squadrons came on at a trot; sometimes their "charge" slackened down to a walk. Warlike enthusiasm had exhausted itself. "The English squares and the French squadrons," says Lord Anglesey, "seemed almost, for a short time, hardly taking notice of each other."

In their later charges the French brought up some light batteries to the crest of the British ridge, and opened fire at point-blank distance on the solid squares. The front of the 1st Life Guards was broken by a fire of this sort, and Gronow relates how the cuira.s.siers made a dash at the opening. Captain Adair leaped into the gap, and killed with one blow of his sword a French officer who had actually entered the square!

The British gunners always ran swiftly out when the French cavalry recoiled down the slope, remanned their guns, and opened a murderous fire on the broken French. Noting this, an officer of cuira.s.siers drew up his horse by a British battery, and while his men drew off, stood on guard with his single sword, and kept the gunners from remanning it till he was shot by a British infantryman. Directly the broken cavalry was clear of the ridge, the French guns opened furiously on the British lines, and men dropped thick and fast. The cavalry charges, as a matter of fact, were welcomed as affording relief from the intolerable artillery fire.

For two hours 15,000 French hors.e.m.e.n rode round the British squares, and again and again the ridge and rear slope of the British position was covered with lancers, cuira.s.siers, light and heavy dragoons, and hussars, with the British guns in their actual possession; and yet not a square was broken! A gaily dressed regiment of the Duke of c.u.mberland's (Hanoverian) Hussars watched the Homeric contest from the British rear, and Lord Uxbridge, as the British cavalry were completely exhausted by their dashes at the French hors.e.m.e.n as they broke through the chequer of the squares, rode up to them and called on them to follow him in a charge. The colonel declined, explaining that his men owned their own horses, and could not expose them to any risk of damage! These remarkable warriors, in fact, moved in a body, and with much expedition, off the field, Seymour (Lord Uxbridge's aide) taking their colonel by the collar and shaking him as a dog shakes a rat, by way of expressing his view of the performance.

VI. THE FIGHT OF THE GUNNERS

"Three hundred cannon-mouths roar'd loud; And from their throats with flash and cloud Their showers of iron threw."

--SCOTT.