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muskets — out of the Sandpit to join the rest of their battalion behind the Wavre road. (It is an interesting fact of the Napoleonic Wars that other than the rifling of gun-barrels — which was in its infancy and which had the disadvantage of making reloading slower — there had been hardly any technological advance in firearms since the campaigns of Marlborough. The Brown Bess musket had been introduced in 1745, and a grognard of the Wars of Spanish Succession would have been perfectly at home working the muskets of 1815.) The fleeing Dutch and Belgians of von Bijlandt’s brigade fortunately had no effect on the morale of Picton’s 5th Division as it prepared to meet the onslaught of d’Erlon’s corps. The 5th was composed of the brigades of Major-General Sir James Kempt and Major-General Sir Denis Pack and Colonel von Vincke’s Hanoverian brigade. Of the 5,170 men who had marched out of Brussels with it two days earlier, no fewer than 1,569 had been lost at Quatre Bras. The remaining 3,600 — supported by two Hanoverian brigades to their left with a total of 5,000 men — faced a far larger number of Frenchmen. Yet this did not prevent General Picton, after his troops had fired a murderous volley at about one hundred yards’ range, from ordering a bayonet charge.

Picton himself was killed almost immediately afterwards, shot through the right temple with the words ‘Charge! Charge! Hurrah!’on his lips, as the brigades of Donzelot and Quiot clashed with Kempt’s, Marcognet’s with Pack’s, and Durutte attempted to deal with the Hanoverians.4 (It was only after Picton’s body was laid out at Brussels the day after the battle that it was discovered that he had received a severe contusion at Quatre Bras on 16 June that he had kept secret.)

‘Ninety-second, everything has given way on your right and left and you must charge this column!’ cried Pack. With cheers the 92nd Regiment — which had been reduced to only 220 men — responded to the call. The fixing of the bayonet is the work of a moment, and as one British officer recalled, ‘When the Scots Greys charged past the flanks of the 92nd, both regiments cheered, and joined in the heart-touching cry of “Scotland forever!’” For it was at this key psychological moment, when d’Erlon’s advance had seemed to lose its momentum, that Lord Uxbridge ordered a mass cavalry attack upon it.

Uxbridge had had a difficult relationship with Wellington ever since he had run away with Wellington’s sister-in-law (whom he did at least subsequently marry). Wellington nevertheless appreciated his abilities and appointed him to command the cavalry in the Waterloo campaign, albeit with the joke to another officer: ‘I’ll take good care he doesn’t run away with me!’5 Uxbridge had served with distinction under Sir John Moore in the Peninsula, but had to give up the command of the cavalry when Wellington arrived there. This was to be the first time the two men had served together since the scandal. Apart from Wellington’s refusal to discuss his plans for the battle with his second-in-command, merely letting drop a few semi-sarcastic remarks, they got on well enough.

Wellington had been harsh about the cavalry arm in the Peninsula, once accusing it of ‘galloping at everything’ without proper thought to the consequences, and the charge of the Union and Household Brigades at Waterloo also gave him opportunity for criticism. At the moment of the initial attack on d’Erlon, however, Uxbridge’s action met with superb success as it charged through gaps in the hedge and around it to fall upon the French infantry.

The French cavalry protecting d’Erlon’s corps on its left flank were swept away by the Household Brigade. Now, totally exposed and caught by surprise, d’Erlon’s corps reeled from the combined onslaught of Picton’s division, Major-General Sir William Ponsonby’s Union Brigade (Royals, Scots Greys and Inniskillings dragoons) and, 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