Waterloo_ June 18, 1815_ The Battle for Modern Europe - Andrew Roberts [28]
British cavalry brigades, such as Lord Edward Somerset’s, managed to negotiate this so-called ‘Ravine of Death’ without ill-effect, and Shaw Kennedy, who was just above La Haye Sainte, recorded how ‘the ground between them and us [the 3rd Division] presented no natural obstacles whatever’.14 Nor were Ney, Milhaud, Dubois or any of the other generals who led the charge subsequently criticised for launching an attack into an impassable hollow or ravine. In his report to Soult, Milhaud made no mention of the ravine, and we ought to accept it as, in Thomas Carlyle’s words, ‘the largest … piece of blague manufactured for some centuries by any man or nation’. In fact the legend of the chemin creux was simply created out of wounded Bonapartist pride, like so many other ex post facto explanations for the defeat, ranging from Bourmont’s treachery, via the weather, to imperial haemorrhoids. (There is a memorial at Waterloo to Hugo, who argued that Napoleon had been defeated by God, not by the Duke of Wellington.)
By 6.30 p.m. the cavalry charges had ceased. The number of French cavalry losses has not been established. Ney’s error had been to try to squeeze 10,000 cavalrymen with forty horse artillery guns into a narrow space of 1,100 yards to attack over 13,000 infantry in squares who were protected by 7,000 horsemen and seventy-five guns and howitzers. With the very difficult nature of the terrain, sucking large numbers of French cavalry into its folds and dips, in truth there was no need for an Act of God.
During Ney’s cavalry assaults on the British squares, across to the east, the Prussians were advancing in force, and by 5.30 p.m. von Bülow’s front two brigades (the 15th and 16th) were heavily engaged in trying to capture the château of Frischermont from General Lobau, whom Napoleon had ordered to hold up the Prussians for as long as possible while he tried to break Wellington’s line. Von Gneisenau adopted a manoeuvre for arriving on the battlefield that passed the rear corps to the east through the others, which rested by the roadside. This meant that although the advance was slightly slowed when they did hit the battlefield there were no gaps in the Prussian line.
Von Bülow’s entire corps numbered around 30,000 men against 10,000 under Lobau’s command (of whom only 7,000 were infantry), but Lobau was a tough and resourceful general who had proved himself redoubtable in rearguard actions before, notably at the battle of Essling. His infantrymen were the 5th Line Regiment, the same men who were sent to arrest Napoleon near Grenoble when he returned from Elba, but who had acclaimed him instead.
Sheer weight of numbers began to tell, however, as brigade after brigade issued forth out of the Bois de Paris, and Lobau was forced out of Frischermont and back to the village of Plancenoit. Later he was forced out of that too, and his force was particularly vulnerable once it was out in the open, particularly to von Bülow’s plentiful infantry, cavalry and artillery. Seeing the danger of being cut off from his line of retreat, Napoleon ordered Duhesme to recapture Plancenoit with the Young Guard Division, which he managed to do by about 6.45 p.m.
The arrival of the Prussians on the battlefield in large numbers emboldened and encouraged Wellington’s army as much as it demoralised Napoleon’s. When at 4.30 p.m. two Prussian aides de camp passed in front of the British line in search of Wellington they were heartily cheered on their way by the Anglo-Allied soldiers. Fourteen thousand of Napoleon’s reserve had to be drawn off to try to contain the Prussians, severely limiting his options and weakening his assault in the centre. As the two Prussian corps of von Pirch and von