A soldier’s musket, if not exceedingly ill-bored (as many are), will strike the figure of a man at 80 yards; it may even at a hundred; but a soldier must be very unfortunate indeed who shall be wounded by a common musket at 150 yards, provided his antagonist aims at him; and as to firing at a man at 200 yards with a common musket, you may as well fire at the moon.
Estimates were made during the Napoleonic Wars of the musket’s efficiency. At the battle of Talavera it was reckoned that in half an hour 1,300 French were either killed or wounded, but it had taken 30,000 musket balls to achieve that! 3,675,000 rounds were fired by Wellington’s army at Vitoria and caused 8,000 casualties, which is one hit in every 459! At close range the results were much better, and the British especially were trained to wait until the enemy was very close before opening fire.
The French too were clearing their muskets. Their weapon, the Charleville musket, was about a pound lighter than the Brown Bess, and just as inaccurate. The bore was smaller, and this meant that French infantry could not use British cartridges which they might find on their dead or wounded enemies, while British troops could, and did, use scavenged French ammunition. French powder was of significantly worse quality than British, which led to quicker fouling of the barrel and touch-hole. The normal way to rid a barrel of caked powder was to swill it out with hot water, but urine was almost as effective.
Dawn found the soldiers of both armies cold, damp and stiff. ‘If I look half as bad as you do,’ Captain William Verner of the British 7th Hussars said to a fellow officer, ‘then I must be a miserable looking fellow!’ Sergeant Duncan Robertson of the 92nd Highlanders reckoned ‘I never felt colder in my life,’ but revived a little when the battalion was issued with a gin ration. ‘Everyone was covered with mud,’ Assistant-Surgeon Haddy of the 1st Life Guards recalled:
And it was with the greatest difficulty that the men managed to get fires lit, some breakfast cooked, and their arms cleaned and their ammunition dried. Several hours passed quietly, the weather improved and later the sun came out … mostly we were waiting and still.
‘We were ordered to bridle up and prepare for action,’ Assistant-Surgeon William Gilbey of the 15th Hussars remembered:
This we did in darkness, wet, and discomfort, but a night spent in pouring rain, sitting up to the hips in muddy water, with bits of straw hanging about him, does make a man feel and look queer on first rising. Indeed, it was almost ludicrous to observe the various countenances of us officers, as, smoking cigars and occasionally shivering, we stood around a watch fire giving out more smoke than heat. It was tedious work waiting for orders. We were anxious to be put into motion, if it were only to circulate the blood, for both horses and men were shaking with cold.
The Duke of Wellington left his quarters in Waterloo at 6 a.m. and rode the short distance to the ridge of Mont St Jean, pausing along the way to scrounge that mug of hot tea from Kincaid’s riflemen. Once at the ridge he rode along the crest, inspecting the positions. He ordered more loopholes hacked through the big exterior wall of Hougoumont. Müffling, the Prussian liaison officer, was worried that the Duke had put so few men into the big château with its wide gardens, orchard and farm buildings. ‘Ah you don’t know Macdonell,’ the Duke answered, ‘I’ve thrown Macdonell into it.’ Lieutenant-Colonel James Macdonell was a Scotsman, thirty-four years old, who had transferred to the Coldstream Guards in 1811. His task that Sunday was to defend Hougoumont with 1,500 guardsmen and 600 Dutch–German allies.
And so all along the ridge men tried to dry their uniforms and their ammunition, they snatched what small food they could find – some lucky soldiers discovered a plot of potatoes and dug them up – they cleaned their muskets, and they waited.
And they waited.
And still the French attack did not come.
* * *
Napoleon made the decision. His gunners declared the ground was too wet for their artillery. The big cannon would recoil with every shot and dig themselves into the morass and then it would be a fearful struggle to get the heavy guns back out of the sucking mud and pointing correctly again, and so the Emperor decided he would wait two or three hours and let the ground dry. There would still be time enough to destroy Wellington’s army. Marshal Soult, the Emperor’s Chief of Staff, suggested that it would be better to attack sooner for fear that the Prussians might be coming, but Napoleon scorned the idea. The Prussians had been beaten, had they not? They could not possibly recover in time to assist Wellington and, besides, was not Marshal Grouchy occupying them?
The Emperor did not waste the hours as the ground dried. He knew the value of psychological warfare and so he deliberately set out to overawe the army waiting to his north. The tale is best told by one of Wellington’s men, a corporal in the Royal Scots Greys. John Dickson was on picquet duty, posted on the crest of the ridge, just behind the hedged road that ran along the ridge’s summit, and so some yards ahead of his regiment which was formed on the reverse slope, and he had a splendid view of the French display.
It was daylight, and the sun was every now and then sending bright flashes of light through the broken clouds. As I stood behind the straggling hedge and low beech trees that skirted the high banks of the sunken road on both sides, I could see the French army drawn up in heavy masses opposite me. They were only a mile from where I stood, but the distance seemed greater, for between us the mist still filled the hollows. There were great columns of infantry, and squadron after squadron of Cuirassiers, red Dragoons, brown Hussars, and green Lancers with little swallow tail flags on the end of their lances. The grandest sight was a regiment of Cuirassiers dashing at full gallop over the brow of the hill opposite me, with the sun shining on their steel breastplates. It was a splendid show … No one who saw it could ever forget it.
There was a sudden roll of drums along the whole of the enemy’s line, and a burst of music from the bands of a hundred battalions came to me on the wind … Then every regiment began to move. They were taking up position for the battle.
They were also trying to overawe the British–Dutch army. To an extent it worked, some observers said that young untried troops stared pale-faced and trembling at the serried glory of France that was being paraded in the fitful sunlight, but others, veterans of the Peninsula, had seen it all before.
And still they waited. Nine o’clock, ten o’clock. Both armies had stood to their arms, the bands were playing, no one moved. Napoleon was still waiting for the ground to dry, though he took care to send new orders to Marshal Grouchy. Those orders were drawn up by Marshal Soult, and they were intended to make certain that Blücher had no chance of interfering with the day’s great battle. The document was headed ‘In front of the farm of Caillou, 18th June, 10 am’, and it seemed Grouchy was still unsure exactly where the Prussians were, because Soult has to tell him that reports have finally arrived confirming that at least part of Blücher’s army is heading for Wavre:
The Emperor directs me to tell you that at this moment his Majesty is going to attack the English army, which has taken position at Waterloo … Thus his Majesty desires that you direct your movements on Wavre in order to draw near to us, place yourself in touch with our operations, and link up your communications with us, driving before you those portions of the Prussian army that have taken this direction and may have stopped at Wavre, where you should arrive as soon as possible. You will follow the enemy’s column on your right, using some light troops to observe their movements and gather up their stragglers. Inform me immediately about your dispositions and your march, also about any news of the enemy, and do not neglect to link up your communications with us. The Emperor desires to have news from you very often.
The order is worth quoting at length because it is almost impenetrable nonsense, and Grouchy, instead of asking for elucidation, seized on the single command to direct his movements towards Wavre. What Napoleon seemed to have wanted was for Grouchy to position his army between Blücher and the field of Waterloo. That would have drawn Grouchy near
er to Napoleon, in which case the order to drive ‘before you those portions of the Prussian army that have taken this direction’ makes little sense, because Grouchy would merely be herding those Prussians towards Wellington. If Blücher had withdrawn to Wavre, and the document does not make it clear that the French were certain of this, then Grouchy should shadow them by keeping their ‘column on your right’, and that does make sense because, by keeping the Prussians to his right, to the east of him, Grouchy would be placing himself between Blücher and Napoleon. But Grouchy is also ordered to march to Wavre ‘as soon as possible’. By marching directly on Wavre, which was the option Grouchy chose, the Prussians were not on his right but to his front and, increasingly, way off to his left. Between Wavre and Mont St Jean was a steep-banked defile through which the River Lasne flowed, and Grouchy’s 33,000 men and 96 guns could have delayed an army ten times their size for hours at that obstacle. Yet presumably the French did not know of this defile, so did not ask Grouchy to defend it. Instead he was expected to direct his movements on Wavre, where he should arrive as soon as possible, and also drive the enemy before him, keep the enemy on his right, and draw near to Napoleon, and how was he to do all those contradictory things at once? Grouchy, who was already some miles east of Napoleon, decided his job was to march north to Wavre, and so he did, and that meant the country lanes and the deep Lasne valley between Wavre and Mont St Jean were undefended.
But what did it matter? Napoleon was certain that the Prussians could not join Wellington for at least two days, he believed he had nine chances in ten of winning the battle, and at last, close to eleven in the morning, the ground was reckoned firm enough to let the cannons fire.
And so it begins. You might think, with so many memoirs of the battle, so many eyewitnesses who were to record their memories of that dreadful day, that we would know exactly how and when the battle commenced, but some say it was a British cannon that fired first, and others that it was the French, and no one can agree on the time that one or other of those guns fired. The best estimate is that it was about twenty minutes past eleven, and that the cannon on the left of Napoleon’s line fired first. And once they did, the rest of the Emperor’s beautiful daughters opened fire, wreathing the ridge of La Belle Alliance with thick powder smoke. Johnny Kincaid and his riflemen had taken post in the sandpit just across the road from La Haie Sainte, which was garrisoned by fine King’s German Legion troops. His position, well forward of the British–Dutch line, gave him a splendid view of the battle’s first moves. He saw a mass of blue-coated French infantry advancing through the woods towards Hougoumont, then the guns opened fire. ‘A cannon ball came from the Lord knows where,’ he said, ‘and took the head off our right-hand man.’ In front of him now were ‘innumerable specks’ which he recognized as artillery pieces. Those specks vanished behind their own smoke as the cannonballs rumbled overhead to strike the ridge’s top.
We saw Buonaparte himself take post at the side of the road, immediately in our front, surrounded by a numerous staff; and each regiment, as they passed him, rent the air with shouts of ‘Vive l’Empereur!’, nor did they cease after they had passed; but, backed by the thunder of their artillery, and carrying with them the rubidub of drums, and the tantarara of trumpets, in addition to their increasing shouts, it looked, at first, as if they had some hope of scaring us off the ground.
It was, Kincaid said, ‘in singular contrast to the stern silence reigning on our side’.
But the stern silence was over. The battle had begun.
* * *
Blücher decided to send his IV Corps to Wellington’s aid first, which made sense because that part of his army had not been involved in the defeat at Ligny. It was battle-ready, unwounded, but, awkwardly, farthest away from Mont St Jean. It marched at dawn and almost immediately it ran into problems because a baker lighting his oven in Wavre managed to set his house and shop on fire. The only road wide enough to take the guns and ammunition wagons ran past the burning house. The town’s two fire engines, manual pumps, were dragged to the scene, and Prussian soldiers assisted in extinguishing the flames, but the fire delayed the march by at least two hours because the inferno was too hot to allow the ammunition wagons to pass safely.
The delay meant that the second Corps of Blücher’s men to march were forced to wait while General von Bülow’s IV Corps marched past. Blücher, meanwhile sent a messenger to Baron von Müffling, the liaison officer who was in close attendance to Wellington: ‘I request your lordship to tell the Duke of Wellington, in my name, that, ill as I am, I intend to put myself at the head of my troops.’ Blücher was still suffering from the fall from his horse at Ligny, but, as he wrote later, ‘I would rather have been tied to my horse than miss the battle.’ His Chief of Staff, von Gneisenau, was much more guarded, and added a cautionary note to the despatch asking von Müffling whether, in his opinion, Wellington really meant to fight or simply wanted Napoleon to turn on the arriving Prussians and use that distraction as a cover for his escape.
Once out of Wavre the roads to Mont St Jean were atrocious, mere country lanes that twisted across the hilly landscape. A local shepherd guided the troops, but the march was inevitably slow and difficult. ‘Hollow tracks cut into deep defiles had to be negotiated,’ Lieutenant-Colonel von Reiche, a staff officer, recalled:
On each side were almost impenetrable woods so that we had no opportunity of avoiding the road. Progress was very slow, especially as at many places men and horses could only pass in single file and artillery moved only with enormous trouble. As a result the columns became extremely stretched and, wherever the ground permitted, the front of the column had to halt to give the rearmost men time to close up.
And ahead was the desperately difficult and steep ravine of the River Lasne, a place where a small body of French troops could have stopped an army in its tracks. But Blücher’s cavalry patrols had already crossed the ravine and discovered it unguarded. The road to Waterloo was open.
And late morning, just after Blücher himself left Wavre to ride westwards, the sound of gunfire rolled across the hills.
Eight miles south of Wavre, Marshal Grouchy was finishing a late breakfast when he heard the guns. He abandoned his dish of strawberries and took his staff into the garden, where they listened to the distant sound. Some, perhaps suspecting they were hearing thunder, went on all fours and put their ears to the ground. It was gunfire they were hearing right enough, and it was coming from the west. General Gérard urged the Marshal to turn about and march towards the sound, but the Marshal dismissed the suggestion. ‘It is merely an affair of the rearguard,’ he responded, supposing that Wellington was retreating from Mont St Jean just as he had retreated from Quatre-Bras the day before. Gérard, who was an able and experienced soldier, insisted they should march towards the sound of gunfire, but Grouchy adamantly refused. Gérard was having a bad campaign. He commanded Napoleon’s 4th Corps and it had been by his recommendation that General Louis-Auguste-Victor Bourmont was given a brigade in that Corps, and Bourmont, a Royalist, had deserted as soon as the French crossed the frontier. He had ridden to the Prussians, taking whatever he knew of Napoleon’s intentions with him. Now Grouchy ignored Gérard’s excellent advice. Grouchy had been ordered to ‘direct your movements on Wavre’, and so, breakfast over, he obeyed. He kept his troops marching north.
While 12 miles to the west the long day’s killing had begun.
The French centre was at the tavern called La Belle Alliance, aquatint by James Rouse. A man standing by the tavern and looking north along the road would see the valley spread left and right in front of him.
Every other redcoat carried a Brown Bess musket, though in truth there was no such weapon: there were Land Pattern muskets, India Pattern muskets and New Land Pattern muskets, all carrying the nickname of Brown Bess. An expert marksman wrote: ‘… as to firing at a man at 200 yards with a common musket, you may as well fire at the moon.’
A French Infantry carbine, for officers, corporals and
fouriers of the voltigeurs.
‘17th June 1815, 7 O’Clock’, by John Lewis Brown. On the eve of the battle, Napoleon was still supremely confident. General Foy remembered Napoleon’s prediction: ‘We shall be only too glad if the English decide to stay because the battle that is coming will save France and be celebrated in world history!’
General Baron von Müffling, the Prussian liaison officer who was in close attendance to Wellington, was later promoted to Field Marshal. For a time he was commander of the allied garrison that occupied Paris, then he was appointed chief of the general staff of the Prussian military. He died in 1851.
Portrait of Marshal Grouchy, by Jean Sebastien Rouillard. Despite his otherwise successful military career, Grouchy was blamed for the French loss at Waterloo. On the morning of 18 June, confronted with impenetrable and contradictory orders from Marshal Soult, Grouchy seized on a single command and directed his movements towards Wavre.