Waterloo_ June 18, 1815_ The Battle for Modern Europe - Andrew Roberts [34]
The Guards battalions formed three lines as they advanced up the incline. They marched with their muskets sloped upon their shoulders, almost as if they were on parade at Fontainebleau rather than taking part in the last great military manoeuvre of a hard-fought battle, indeed the last French attack of the Napoleonic Wars. The advance, with the flying flags and the sound of fife and drum, has often been described as ‘unsurpassed’ and ‘sublime’in its initial discipline and pride. It must certainly have been an inspiring sight for a Frenchman, and a daunting one for those who stood waiting to receive its full force and fury. ? black mass of the grenadiers of the Imperial Guard,’ wrote one British observer, ‘with music playing and the great Napoleon at their head, came rolling onward from the farm of la Belle Alliance.’2
It is worth speculating here upon the exact nature of the slope up which the Imperial Guard had to attack, for we can be nearly certain that it was not the gentle gradient that may be walked on the site of the battlefield today. After the battle a 130-foot-high mound of earth was constructed by the Dutch to commemorate the wounding of the Prince of Orange, much to the disapproval of Wellington, who when he saw it complained, ‘They have ruined my battlefield.’3 The earth for what is called the Lion Mound (after the vast stone lion atop it) was taken, it is believed, largely from the area to the north-west of it, thereby indeed wrecking the topography. Using geometric GPS satellite technology, topsoil analysis and a three-dimensional computer model, the landscape archaeologist Paul Hill has shown how there was almost certainly a relatively high ridge in 1815 that is not there today. Furthermore, there was a crop of high-standing corn that both slowed the Guard’s advance and gave the Anglo-Allied forces opportunities for concealment.
It was up to this ridge that the Guard advanced in columns at about 7.30 p.m., close to one another but with enough space apart for two cannon loaded with grapeshot to be drawn up too. The first column attacked at a point roughly midway between Hougoumont and La Haye Sainte. Ney led from the van, along with Generals Friant, Roguet and Michel, and had his fifth horse of the day shot from under him. Undeterred, ‘the bravest of the brave’ proceeded to advance on foot. As one historian has reconstructed the scene:
The sun was sinking, the darkened smoke-laden air made it very difficult to distinguish what was going on … Passing their emperor with their usual tremendous salute, the veterans hurried on, and threw themselves at Wellington’s line.4
Waiting to receive them were more than thirty of Wellington’s cannon, primed with double grapeshot. At such close range it was hard to miss ranks of men so densely packed, and the Anglo-Allied artillery on the crest of the (largely now-missing) La Haye Sainte-Hougoumont ridge ripped huge holes in the French columns. Yet still the Guard came on. The 1st battalion of the 3rd Grenadiers soon overcame a Brunswick unit and captured the guns of Major William Lloyd’s Royal Artillery field brigade and Captain Cleeves’ King’s German Legion field brigade. They then began to engage Sir Colin Halkett’s brigade, pressing back the already badly-mauled 30th and 73rd Regiments.
The advance of the 3rd Grenadiers was halted, and eventually reversed, partly by the speed and courage of a Dutch brigade under General Baron David de Chassé, which Wellington had recalled from Braine l’Alleud as soon as he had recognised that Napoleon did not intend to mount any attacks beyond the Nivelles