Waterloo_ June 18, 1815_ The Battle for Modern Europe - Andrew Roberts [26]
The eighty squadrons comprised 10,000 horsemen, and they swiftly renewed their attack on the squares. The fighting on the plateau has been described as ‘an hour of pandemonium and confused, chaotic mêlée’, as every one of the squares was charged time and again. The squares took severe casualties from the horse artillery when they could find space to fire, and from mounted carabiniers and sharpshooters on foot who got close and fired their carbines at virtually point-blank range, but they also exacted a high price from the French cavalry that tried and failed to break through their close-knit ranks, bristling as they were with bayonets. Ensign Gronow recorded how he ‘shall never forget the strange noises our bullets made against the breastplates of Kellermann’s and Milhaud’s cuirassiers … who attacked us with great fury’. (Although they could turn sword thrusts, breastplates were not bulletproof at short range.)
For two hours, roughly between 4 p.m. and 6 p.m., wave after wave of French heavy cavalry crashed against Wellington’s infantry, but not a single square broke. Wellington himself spent the whole of the battle of Waterloo riding on his horse Copenhagen to wherever the situation was most fraught — except for Hougoumont, where he might have been trapped and unable to oversee the rest of the battle. He rode many miles that day, backwards and forwards down the line giving orders, directing batteries, looking for gaps to fill and opportunities to exploit.
It is an indication of how close Wellington came to mortal danger during the course of the battle that almost all his staff suffered death or injury. Fitzroy Somerset’s left arm was actually touching Wellington’s right arm when it was hit by a sharpshooter. (It later had to be amputated. ‘Hallo!’ Somerset cried to the surgeon, ‘don’t carry away that arm till I’ve taken off my ring.’It had been given him by Wellington’s niece Emily on their wedding day.) On two occasions the Duke ran so short of aides de camp to carry messages that he had to rely on civilians, a young Swiss on one occasion and a London commercial traveller on another.9
During one of Ney’s attacks, Wellington entered the square formed by the 73rd Regiment, part of the 3rd Division. Also inside were gunners whose cannon were in French hands outside the square, but which the French had fortuitously (and negligently) neither spiked nor towed away. As the cavalry attacks receded, these men simply ran out of the squares and resumed firing at the French, only to run back into them when the cuirassiers returned.
Not everyone followed Wellington’s orders; the gallant Captain Mercer of the horse artillery disobeyed him and resolved not to command his troops to sprint into a nearby square of Brunswickers for protection. He feared that the sight of his men running might demoralise the unsteady Brunswickers, whose square he thought looked like breaking anyhow, so he ordered his men to stand firm by the guns come what may. He fired case-shot into the cavalry at only a hundred yards’ range, exacting terrible carnage, and at the last moment the cavalry turned and bolted back. This was most fortunate for Mercer and his troops, since gunners caught beside their cannon by cavalry faced almost certain death.
It was during this period that Wellington was reported to have asked General Halkett, ‘Well, Halkett, how do you get on?’, only to receive the reply, ‘My Lord, we are dreadfully cut up. Can you not relieve us for a little while?’’ Impossible,’ said the Duke. ‘Very well, my Lord,’ answered the General stoically, ‘we’ll stand until the last man falls.’10 Nor was this mere