after their attack on the French cuirassiers, Lord Edward Somerset’s Household Brigade (1st and 2nd Life Guards and Royal Horse Guards). Uxbridge himself took the head of Somerset’s force. Within minutes d’Erlon’s men had broken and run back down the slope, utterly demoralised and leaving 2,000 prisoners behind them. Two eagle’ standards were captured, even though they were prized so highly in the French army as to have attained almost mythical status. Sergeant Charles Ewart of the 2nd North British Dragoons (‘Scots Greys’) captured the eagle of the 45th Line Regiment (Marcognet’s division), and Captain Alexander Clark-Kennedy of the Royal Dragoons took that of the 105th (Quiot’s division). (A third, that of the 55th Regiment, was also taken, but was recaptured soon afterwards.)
Sergeant Ewart later recalled how he captured the coveted French standard:
I took the Eagle from the enemy: he and I had a hard contest for it; he thrust for my groin — I parried it off, and I 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 throwing it off with my sword by my right side; then I cut him from the chin upwards, which cut 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; so that finished the combat for the Eagle.6
This was the point at which the British cavalry ought to have stopped, regrouped and returned to their posts. For many, however, this was their first battle experience, and instead, exhilarated by their success over d’Erlon’s corps, they disastrously charged onwards. In a sense, therefore, Uxbridge did indeed ‘run away’ with Wellington, or at least with a good proportion of his cavalry arm. Although they had some success in cutting down some gunners of the Grand Battery, Ponsonby’s Union Brigade went far beyond the point that the rest of the Anglo-Allied army was able to protect them. Despite Ponsonby and his staff’s efforts they could not halt their troops. It was said that one officer was heard to cry out ‘To Paris!’as he charged by.
French retribution was swift and merciless; spotting their opportunity, Jacquinot’s lancers and Farine’s cuirassiers attacked from both right and left and exacted a terrible toll on the British cavalry, killing or wounding one-third of their number. Ponsonby himself paid for his inability to rein back his over-enthusiastic troopers with his life, killed by a French lancer after he had surrendered.
Although Somerset’s Household Brigade also went on too far after dispersing d’Erlon’s corps, it reined in long before Ponsonby had done. The cavalry retreat was covered by Major-General Sir John Vandeleur’s 4th Cavalry Brigade and Ghigny’s Belgian and Dutch Light Dragoons, who managed to repulse bodies of French lancers that were chasing troopers of the Scots Greys back to the British lines. Of the 2,500 cavalry who had charged, over a thousand did not return.
Captain Tomkinson of the 16th Light Dragoons recorded the destruction in his
Towards the close of the evening the whole brigade did not form above one squadron … There was one squadron of the 1st Dragoon Guards in which not above one or two returned. They rode completely into the enemy’s reserve, and were killed. The enemy, I suspect, did not spare a single prisoner who fell into their hands. It is impossible to suppose a whole squadron killed without one man surrendering.7
Although the aftermath had been disastrous — the Union Brigade’s remaining strength meant that it could not contribute further as a functioning unit — nonetheless d’Erlon had been completely and demoralisingly repulsed, and had lost a quarter of his men, with around 2,000 captured. Napoleon’s original plan of how to achieve victory had been foiled. With the struggle continuing over Hougoumont, and La Haye Sainte still in Major Baring’s hands, if only just, Napoleon had not so far managed to impose his will upon any section of the battlefield. Meanwhile the Prussians were arriving in ever-increasing numbers from the east, directed to the vital points by Wellington’s Prussian liaison officer, the redoubtable Baron Philipp von Muffling.
Nor had Picton’s 5th Division succumbed to the same hubristic temptation as the cavalry. After their bayonet charge they obeyed orders to return to their line on the crest of the slope on the Anglo-Allied centre-left, thereby closing any gaps that Napoleon might have exploited if they had — maddened by blood-lust — followed d’Erlon’s corps to the bottom of the slope and beyond. Three companies of the 95th returned to the Sandpit. Even the success of Durutte was reversed when Prince Bernhard’s troops retook the farm of Papelotte.
At this point in the battle, soon after 3 p.m., there seems to have been a relative lull in the hostilities — except at the hard-pressed farmhouses — while both armies drew breath. Wellington used this short respite to bring General Sir John Lambert’s 10th Brigade into the line where the von Bijlandt brigade had been, as Kempt took over from Picton as commander of the 5th Division.
Wellington certainly needed every moment; he had expected the Prussians to begin arriving at noon, but it was not really until after 4 p.m. that they could be deployed in large enough numbers to aid him significantly. Thankfully though, by that time the sound of Blucher’s cannon could be clearly heard in the east.
Meanwhile Napoleon finally received a reply from Grouchy, which had been sent from Walhain on the Gembloux—Wavre road at 11 a.m. This stated that he was heading for Wavre, but was still some way off. The story goes that he was eating strawberries with some of his senior commanders at a farm on the road when the roar of the Grand Battery’s guns was heard a few miles to the west. His subordinates, especially General Gerard, implored him to give up the Prussian chase and march immediately towards the sound of the guns, which could only mean that Napoleon was engaging the Anglo-Allied army.
Fearing the consequences of directly contravening the Emperor’s verbal and written orders, Grouchy overruled them and insisted upon continuing the march on to Wavre. An officer with more initiative or imagination — Kellermann, say, or Pajol — would almost certainly have behaved differently, but Napoleon had given Grouchy his marshal’s baton in the knowledge that he was not of that particular stamp. Grouchy’s message made it clear to Napoleon that he would not be appearing on the battlefield that day, just as the charge of the Heavy and Union Brigades had dispersed any lingering suspicions he might have had that Wellington was merely fighting a rearguard action while he withdrew his main force through the Forest of Soignes.
With the Prussians starting to arrive in force from about 4.30 p.m. onwards, this was the time when the French could have — indeed should have — ended their attacks and gone onto the defensive. By withdrawing to a safe distance to await Grouchy’s arrival the next day, Napoleon might have salvaged his throne, at least for a little while longer. Yet he was a gambler; his career had seen him escape from tough spots time and again, often merely by upping the stakes.
Napoleon had been imprisoned during the Revolution, outnumbered in Italy, stranded in Egypt, assaulted during the Brumaire coup, plotted against by Talleyrand and Fouche, opposed by no fewer than seven European coalitions, humiliated in Russia, forced to abdicate, and exiled to Elba. Yet he had come back from every reverse.
D’Erlon’s corps was now beginning to regroup, and infantrymen were replacing the killed and wounded gunners of the Grand Battery. Quiot’s troops were trying to force their way into La Haye Sainte. It was hardly surprising, therefore, that at 4 p.m. on Sunday, 18 June 1815, when forced to decide between retreating and trying once again to break Wellington’s line before the Prussians could alter the course of the battle, Napoleon Bonaparte ordered Marshal Ney to do whatever it took to capture the walled farm that lay at the heart of the battlefield.
3
The Third Phase
THE THIRD PHASE of the battle started at 3.30 p.m., as soon as d’Erlon’s bedraggled corps had stopped running and were formed back into something approaching order. Ney personally took charge of the regiments that seemed the least demoralised by their experience at the hands of the British cavalry, and led them up towards La Haye Sainte in a bid to capture the farmhouse whose possession had become as much of a talisman and a strategic necessity as was that of Hougoumont. Yet despite his best efforts, ‘the bravest of the brave’ initially failed to take the key point in Wellington’s centre.
Meanwhile the Grand Battery and the rest of the French artillery continued pounding the Anglo-Allied lines, if anything harder than before, and despite Wellington’s orders to his infantry to lie down, the cannonading caused heavy losses in the ranks. Next came a massive cavalry attack on the Anglo-Allied centre; like d’Erlon’s infantry assault it was statistically one of the largest battle movements of the Napoleonic Wars.
There are a number of explanations for why the main French cavalry charge at Waterloo commenced when it
