Waterloo_ June 18, 1815_ The Battle for Modern Europe - Andrew Roberts [19]
Eighty years ago, the historian Captain A.F. Becke put forward the intriguing theory that an order was garbled from ‘colonne de battalion par divisions’ into ‘colonne de division par battailon’, and that this perhaps accounted for what happened; but since the mass column had been used in the battles of Friedland and Wagram it is possible that d’Erlon actually intended to attack in old-fashioned column. Certainly, the tactics of the Napoleonic Wars altered very little during their course. Whatever the formation ultimately chosen, however, it was disastrous. British infantry had been formed in line to fight advancing French columns for six years in the Peninsula, and they had rarely lost. ‘Napoleon did not manoeuvre at all,’said Wellington after Waterloo. ‘He just moved forward in the old style, in columns, and was driven off in the old style.’1
D’Erlon managed some initial successes: Durutte succeeded in capturing the hamlet of Papelotte, and Donzelot diverted a brigade of his division to try to seize La Haye Sainte from the King’s German Legion, taking its garden and orchard. A German infantry battalion that was sent to support Major Georg Baring in that very isolated position was badly cut up by a cuirassiers brigade on d’Erlon’s left flank. If Donzelot had been supported by enough artillery to blow a breach in the wall of La Haye Sainte, or to set the place on fire, it might have been disastrous for Wellington’s centre at that still early stage of the battle, but this basic act of forethought had not been carried out, as with so many others in the area of inter-arm communication on the French side.
One of the Frenchmen marching towards the British lines in d’Erlon’s corps was Captain Duthilt, who had fought since the Revolutionary Wars and therefore had twenty-two years’ experience of leading men in battle. He was concerned about several factors in the attack, massive though it was. The strength of Wellington’s defences, the muddiness underfoot, the strange formation chosen for the corps by the generals, and the way in which the men’s zealotry had been built up too early, all left him worried.2 ‘This rush and enthusiasm were becoming too disastrous,’ the veteran recorded in his memoirs, admittedly with hindsight, ‘in that the soldier still had a long march to make before meeting the enemy, and was soon tired out by the difficulty of manoeuvring on this heavy churned up soil, which ripped off gaiter straps and even lost shoes … there was soon disorder in the ranks, above all as the head of the column came within range of enemy fire.’3
D’Erlon’s men must be given credit for reaching the very crest of the slope on the Anglo-Allied left-centre, despite the heavy and accurate fire they were soaking up as they marched up the low ridge. To make matters worse for them there was a thick, six-foot-high hedge at the top, but in places they passed both that and the sunken road behind. When they reached von Bijlandt’s Dutch-Belgian brigade it broke and ran, fleeing past Major-General Sir Thomas Picton’s 5th Division. Although the brigade has occasionally been excoriated for cowardice, it ought to be recalled that it had been badly mauled at Quatre Bras, was therefore severely under-strength, had already withstood ninety minutes’ cannonading at short range, and above all was not made up of men whose hearts were in the fight politically, ideologically or racially. If d’Erlon had been capable of consolidating his position on the crest of the ridge he could have turned Wellington’s flank. A crisis of the battle was at hand.
D’Erlon also had the satisfaction of forcing some companies of the 95th Rifle Brigade — whose firepower was far more accurate over far longer distances owing to its employment of Baker rifles rather than