The sun, which all day had been trying to penetrate the clouds, broke through as the attack commenced. Its setting rays bathed the columns of the Imperial Guard in a fiery radiance. Rank upon rank of veterans who had borne the Eagles victorious through a dozen fights advanced to the beat of drums, with bayonets turned to blood- red by the sun's last glow, across the plain into the smoke and heat of the battle.
Owing to their diagonal approach the columns did not come into action simultaneously. Before the battalions marching upon the British Guards had reached the slope leading to the crest of the Allied position, Ney's leading column had struck at Halkett's brigade and the Brunswickers on his left flank.
Over this part of the line the smoke caused by the guns firing from La Haye Sainte lay so thick that the Allied troops heard but could not see the formidable advance upon them. Colin Halkett had fallen, wounded in the mouth, rallying his men round one of the Colours; two of his regiments were operating as one battalion, so heavy had been their losses; and these were thrown into some confusion by their own light troops retreating upon them. Men were carried off their feet in the surge to the rear; the Colonel, on whom the command of the brigade had devolved, seemed distracted, saying repeatedly: 'What am I to do? What would you do?' to the staff officer sent by the Duke to 'See what is wrong there!' The men of the 33rd, fighting against the tide that was sweeping them back, re- formed, and came on, shouting: 'Give them the cold steel, lads! Let 'em have the Brummagum!' A volley was poured in before which the deploying columns recoiled; to the left, the Brunswickers, rallied once more by the Duke himself, followed suit, and the Imperial Guard fell back, carrying with it a part of Donzelot's division.
Those of the batteries on the Allied front which were still in action met the advance with a fire which threw the leading ranks into considerable disorder. Many of the British batteries, however, were useless. Some had been abandoned owing to the lack of ammunition; several guns stood with muzzles bent down, or touch-holes melted from the excessive heat; and more than one troop, its gunners either killed or too exhausted to run the guns up after each recoil, had its guns in a confused heap, the trails crossing each other almost on top of the limbers and the ammunition wagons. Ross's, Sinclair's, and Sandham's were all silent, Lloyd's battery was still firing from in front of Halkett's brigade; so was Napier, commanding Bolton's, in front of Maitland; and a Dutch battery of eight guns, belonging to Detmer's brigade, brought up by Chasse in second line, had been sent forward to a position immediately to the east of the Brunswick squares, and was pouring in a rapid and well-directed fire upon the Grenadiers and the men on Donzelot's left flank.
As the Brunswickers and Halkett's men momentarily repulsed the two leading columns, which, on their march over the uneven ground, had become merged into one unwieldy mass, the Grenadiers and the Chasseurs on the French left advanced up the slope to where Maitland's Guards lay silently awaiting them. The drummers were beating the pas de charge, shouts of 'Vive L'Empereur!' and 'En avant a la boi'onett!' filled the air. The Duke, who had galloped down the line from his position by the Brunswick troops, was standing with Maitland on the left flank of the brigade, not far from General Adam, whose brigade lay to the right of the Guards. Adam had ridden up to watch the advance, and the Duke, observing through his glass the French falling back before Halkett's men exclaimed: 'By God, Adam, I believe we shall beat them yet!'
At ninety paces, the brass 8-pounders between the advancing battalions opened fire upon Maitland's brigade. They were answered by Krahmer de Bichin's Dutch battery, but though the grape shot tore through the ranks of the Guards the Duke withheld the order to open musketry fire. Not a man in the British line was visible to the advancing columns until they halted twenty paces from the crest to deploy.
'Now, Maitland! Now's your time!' the Duke said at last, and called out in his deep, ringing voice: 'Stand up, Guards!'
The Guards leaped to their feet. The crest, which had seemed deserted, was suddenly alive with men, scarlet coats standing in line four-deep, with muskets at the present. Almost at the point of crossing bayonets they fired volley after volley into the Grenadiers. The Grenadiers, in column, had only two hundred muskets able to fire against the fifteen hundred of Halkett's and Maitland's brigades, deployed in line before them. They tried to deploy, but were thrown into confusion by a fire no infantry could withstand.
On Maitland's left, General Chasse had brought up Detmer's brigade of Dutch-Belgians in perfect order. When the word to charge was given, and the sound of the three British cheers was heard as the Guards surged forward, the Dutch came up at the double, and, with a roar of 'Oranje boven!' drove the French from the crest in their front.
The Guards, scattering the Grenadiers before them, advanced until their flank was threatened by the second attacking column of Chasseurs. The recall was sounded, and the order given to face-about and retire.
In the din of clashing arms, crackling musketry, groans, cheers, and trumpet calls, the order was misunderstood. As the Guards regained the crest, an alarm of cavalry was raised. Someone shrieked: 'Square, square, form square!' and the two battalions, trying to obey the order, became intermingled. A dangerous confusion seemed about to spread panic through the ranks, but it was checked in a very few moments. The order to 'Halt! - Front! - Form up!' rang out; the Guards obeyed as one man, formed again four-deep, and told off in companies of forty.
In the immediate rear of Maitland's and Halkett's brigades, D'Aubremee's Dutch-Belgians, formed in three squares, appalled by the slaughter in their front, began to retreat precipitately upon Vandeleur's squadrons. The dragoons closed their ranks until their horses stood shoulder to shoulder; Vandeleur galloped forward to try to stem the rout; and an aide-de-camp went flying to the Duke on a foaming horse, gasping out that the Dutch would not stand, and could not be held.
'That's all right,' answered his lordship coolly. 'Tell them the French are retiring!'
Meanwhile, to the right, where Adam's brigade held the ground above Hougoumont, Sir John Colborne, without waiting for orders, had acted on his own brilliant judgment. As the columns advanced upon Maitland, he moved the 52nd Regiment down to the north-east angle of Hougoumont, and right-shouldered it forward, until it stood in line four-deep parallel to the left flank of the second column of Chasseurs.
Adam, seeing this deliberate movement, galloped up, calling out: 'Colborne! Colborne! What are you meaning to do?'
'To make that column feel our fire,' replied Sir John laconically.
Adam took one look at the Chasseurs, another at the purposeful face beside him, and said: 'Move on, then! The 71st shall follow you,' and rode off to bring up the Highlanders.
The Chasseur column, advancing steadily, was met by a frontal fire of over eighteen hundred muskets from the 95th Rifles and the 71st Highlanders, and as it staggered, the Fighting 52nd, the men in third and fourth line loading and passing muskets forward to the first two lines, riddled its flank. It broke, and fell into hideous disorder, almost decimated by a fire it could not, from its clumsy formation, return. A cry of horror arose, taken up by battalion after battalion down the French lines: 'La Guarde recule!'
Before the column could deploy, Sir John Colborne swept forward in a charge that carried all before it. The officer carrying the Colour was killed, and a hundred and fifty men on the right wing, but the advance was maintained, right across the ground in front of the Allied line, the Imperial Guard being driven towards the chaussee in inextricable confusion. The 2nd and 3rd battalions of the Rifles, with the 71st Highlanders, followed the 52nd in support; the Imperial Guard, helpless under the musketry fire, cast into terrible disorder through their inability to deploy, lost all semblance of formation, and retreated pele-mele to the chaussee, till the ground in front of the Allied position was one seething mass of struggling, fighting, fleeing infantry.
Hew Halkett brought up his Hanoverians into the interval between Hougoumont and the hollow road; the 52nd advanced across the uneven plain until checked by encountering some squadrons of Dornberg's 23rd Light Dragoons, whom, in the dusk, they mistook for French cavalry and fired upon.
The Duke, who had watched the advance from the high ground beside Maitland, galloped up to the rear of the 52nd, where Sir John, having ordered his adjutant to stop the firing, was exchanging his wounded horse for a fresh one.
'It is our own cavalry which has caused this firing!' Colborne told him.
'Never mind! Go on, Colborne, go on!' replied the Duke, and galloped back to the crest of the position, and stood there, silhouetted against the glowing sky on his hollow-backed charger. He raised his cocked hat high in the air, and swept it forward, towards the enemy's position, in the long-looked-for signal for a General Advance. A cheer broke out on the right, as the Guards charged down the slope. The crippled forces east of the chaussee, away down to their left, heard it growing louder as it swelled all along the line towards them, took it up by instinct, and charged forward out of the intolerable smoke surrounding them, on to a plain strewn with dead and dying, lit by the last rays of a red sun, and covered with men flying in confusion towards the ridge of La Belle Alliance.
