A most destructive fire was opened; riders cased in heavy armour fell tumbling from their horses; the horses reared, plunged, and fell on the dismounted riders; steel helmets and cuirasses rang against unsheathed sabres as they fell to the ground.
The murder of the wounded Macara had inflamed the Scots and is a reminder of how good relations were between officers and men in Britain’s army. Again and again, in letters, diaries and memoirs, that mutual affection shines through. Too often the British army of the early nineteenth century is depicted as a mass of whipped soldiers led by aristocratic fops, a picture which is utterly misleading. Most officers came from the middle classes, clergymen’s sons being especially prominent, and the long wars had honed their skills. The 42nd killed defenceless Frenchmen late in the day because they had been maddened by Macara’s murder, they wanted revenge, and that reaction sprang from their affection for their commanding officer. There was more than affection, there was admiration. An officer might be wealthy, certainly wealthier than the average private, he was privileged and even, sometimes, aristocratic, yet he still shared the dangers of the battlefield. Officers were expected to lead by example. Rifleman Costello, of the 95th, said the troops divided officers into two classes, the ‘come on’ and the ‘go on’, ‘and with us,’ he said, ‘the latter were exceedingly few in numbers’. Rifleman Plunket once told an officer, ‘The words “go on” don’t befit a leader, Sir.’
Not all officers were respected. Private Thomas Patton was an Irishman in the 28th Foot, a Gloucestershire regiment, and at Quatre-Bras they were in square and had been ordered to hold their fire. Enemy horsemen had surrounded the square, but were making no effort to break the red-coated ranks; it was a stand-off, but then Patton recalled how a French officer, he thinks he was a general, ‘came over our bayonets with his horse’s head and encouraged his men to break into our square’. Patton, who was in the third rank, lifted his musket and shot the enemy officer dead, whereupon Lieutenant Irwin struck Patton over the face with the flat of his sword. Patton protested and was told he was being punished ‘for firing without orders’. General Sir James Kempt was in the square and he quashed the Lieutenant: ‘Silence … let the men alone; they know their duty better than you!’
The duty of the British infantry was now to stave off increasingly heavy attacks from cavalry, infantry and artillery. Lancers had led the French cavalry attacks, but they were reinforced by Kellerman’s cuirassiers. General François Étienne de Kellerman, a long name for a diminutive man, was one of the most celebrated of Napoleon’s cavalry commanders. When he arrived at Quatre-Bras he was immediately ordered by Ney to charge the enemy, an order Kellerman questioned, as he only had 700 cuirassiers under command, but Ney insisted. ‘Partez!’ he shouted. ‘Mais partez donc!’ Go! Go now! Kellerman did not want his men to see just how many enemy they were being ordered to charge and so, unusually, he took them straight into the gallop: ‘pour charger au galop! En avant!’
The cuirassiers first charged the Highlanders and were driven off. One French trumpeter, a lad just fifteen years old, was so astonished by the kilted regiments that he thought the British cantinières were fighting. Cantinières were women who followed the French army and sold food, drink and, often, other comforts to the troops. Kellerman led his men past the squares, storming on towards the crossroads that the French had been ordered to capture.
Reinforcements were arriving for both sides and had to be fed almost immediately into the chaos at the field’s centre. The 44th, a regiment from East Essex, came to support the Highlanders and, like them, was surprised by cavalry. They had no time to form square so their commanding officer turned his rear rank about and saw the lancers off with a volley, though not before some of the horsemen reached the centre of the line where they tried to capture the colours. One of the battalion’s officers recalled how:
A French lancer severely wounded Ensign Christie, who carried one of [the colours], by a thrust of the lance which, entering his left eye, penetrated to the lower jaw. The Frenchman then endeavoured to seize the standard, but the brave Christie, notwithstanding the agony of his wound, with a presence of mind almost unequalled, flung himself upon it, not to save himself, but to preserve the honour of the regiment. As the Colour fluttered in its fall, the Frenchman tore off a portion of the silk with the point of his lance; but he was not permitted to bear even the fragment beyond the ranks. Both shot and bayoneted by the nearest of the soldiers of the 44th, he was borne to the earth, paying with his life for his display of unavailing bravery.
The 30th, a battalion from a Cambridgeshire regiment, came up behind the 44th. Ensign Edward Macready, just seventeen years old, had noted the smoke hanging thick over the battlefield as he approached and he also remarked on the birds flying in panic above the Bossu Wood. He described:
The roaring of great guns and musketry, the bursting of shells, and shouts of the combatants raised an infernal game, while the squares and lines, the galloping of horses mounted and riderless, the mingled crowds of wounded and fugitives, the volumes of smoke and flashing of fire …
Macready and the 30th marched into that chaos, and passed some wounded of the 44th. The two battalions had fought alongside each other in Spain, and as the newcomers advanced, the wounded men of the 44th:
Raised themselves up and welcomed us with faint shouts, ‘Push on old three tens, pay ’em off for the 44th, you’re much wanted, boys, success to you, my darlings.’ Here we met our old Colonel riding out of the field, shot through the leg; he pointed to it and cried, ‘They’ve tickled me again, my boys, now one leg can’t laugh at the other!’
The wounded colonel was a Scotsman, Alexander Hamilton, and the surgeons decided to amputate the leg, but every time they readied for the operation they were called away to deal with a more urgent case and, in the end, they simply left the wounded limb alone. Hamilton walked on it until his death in 1838.
While Colonel Hamilton waited for the knife which never came, Macready was reinforcing the British line. They came up alongside the 42nd, and Macready remembers having to step over dead and wounded Highlanders:
We reached [the 42nd] just as a body of lancers and cuirassiers had enveloped two faces of its square. We formed up to the left and fired away. The tremendous volley our square, which in the hurry of formation was much overmanned on the sides attacked, gave them, sent off those fellows with the loss of a number of men, and their commanding officer. He was a gallant soldier, and fell while crying to his men, ‘Avancez, mes enfants, courage, encore une fois, Français!’
‘Advance, my children, have courage, one more time, Frenchmen!’ No one knows how many cavalry charges were made by the French. Some accounts of the battle list four, others five, six or seven, and the truth is no one knows, and probably did not know even when they were on the battlefield. Quatre-Bras was a confusing fight. There was no vantage point for either side to gain an impression of what was happening in the cauldron where men fought, suffered and died. Wellington’s troops arrived all afternoon and he fed them into the fight where British line opposed French columns, and British lines were threatened by the ever-present cavalry and so formed square which made them an easy target for the efficient French artillery that was smothering the farmland with thick skeins of smoke. Wellington needed to reconnoitre the fighting for himself and was almost caught by Kellerman’s cuirassiers, who had charged close to the crossroads. The Duke turned his horse, Copenhagen, and galloped towards the Gordon Highlanders, the 92nd, who were in four ranks just in front of the Nivelles road. The Duke bellowed at the Highlanders to duck, they crouched, and Copenhagen soared over their heads to carry his rider to safety. That was the closest the French came to the vital road, and the horsemen suffered for it, being slaughtered by the Highlanders’ volleys. Over 250 of Kellerman’s 700 men were dead or wounded, and the ferocious little general was himself unhorsed. He tried to rally his men, but they had taken enough and retreated. Kellerman grabbed the bridles of two horses and ran between them as t
hey rode back through the red-coated squares that kept firing at them.
Lines and squares. British infantry made a line two ranks deep, though if there was cavalry around they would sometimes double the line and so make four ranks. If a battalion was in four ranks then usually only the first two ranks fired, while the men behind reloaded the muskets and handed them forward. A British line invariably defeated a French column, even one containing three, four or five times its number, simply because every British musket could fire and only the outer ranks of the French could return the musketry, but the line was horribly vulnerable to cavalry. If horsemen managed to reach the open flank of the line they would swiftly reduce it to a panicked mob, but if the battalion had formed square then it was the cavalry who became vulnerable. It is a deadly game of paper, scissors and stone.
A square (which was often an oblong) had four ranks. The front rank was kneeling and did not fire their muskets; instead they rammed the butts of their muskets into the ground and held them out with fixed bayonets to make a hedge of blades, augmented by the second rank which crouched with fixed bayonets. The two inner ranks could fire over the heads of the men holding bayonets. Horsemen thus faced a formidable and usually insurmountable obstacle. There was no open flank to attack, instead they had to charge into a wall of steel from which bullets were flying. A horseman takes up at least a yard of space and, if he is facing an average-sized British battalion of around 500 men, then only sixteen or seventeen horsemen can be in the front rank of the charge and they are faced with at least 200 men, half of whom are firing muskets at very close range. No wonder that cavalry rarely broke a square. It had happened. The King’s German Legion broke two French squares at Garcia Hernandez in Spain, but it was only achieved through sacrifice. It is thought that the first square broke when a dying horse and man skidded into its face and drove a hole into the French ranks through which the following horsemen galloped. Once inside, of course, they could attack the rear of the ranks, and at Garcia Hernandez the first square broke apart in panic and ran to the second, clawing at it to find safety, and so shattered its cohesion, and the deadly horsemen rode into the panic with the survivors of the first square. A third square, seeing the danger, used their musketry to keep both panicked fugitives and exultant horsemen at bay.
So cavalry prayed to find infantry in line, because that would give them an easy victory, and at Quatre-Bras that prayer was answered. It happened when Wellington’s line of infantry was suffering and defeat looked not just possible, but likely. The 42nd and 44th, like many other battalions, were running low on ammunition. The cavalry might be seen off, but as soon as the French horsemen disappeared from view the artillery opened up on the tight British squares, while hordes of French skirmishers shot from the cover of the trampled rye. The 42nd began the day with 526 men, but ended with just 238. The rest were killed or wounded. The battalion was too hurt to form a single square and so the Highlanders and the Essex men joined together.
On the British left the 95th Rifles were being pushed relentlessly backwards, while still more Frenchmen now assaulted the Bossu Wood on the right. Fortuitously new troops arrived and Wellington could reinforce the beleaguered Riflemen and send three more battalions to hold the ground beside the Bossu Wood. One of these was the 69th, a Lincolnshire battalion, which formed square close to the 42nd and 44th, but on this right flank they were supposedly under the command of Slender Billy, the 23-year-old Prince of Orange, and he decided the three newly arrived battalions would be more effective in line. He ordered them to redeploy. There were protests from the battalion officers, but Slender Billy would have his way and so the 69th, the 33rd and the 73rd spread into line.
The order to form line came when Kellerman’s cuirassiers were still rampaging among the British units. They saw the redcoats’ vulnerability and attacked. The 73rd was close enough to the Bossu Wood to scramble for cover among the thick undergrowth, the 33rd just had time to form square, but the 69th was marooned in the centre of the field and was caught by the horsemen. Lieutenant Frederick Pattison, of the 33rd, described what happened in a letter to his brother:
The ground through which we had to advance was much undulated, and in full crop of rye, which in that rich and luxuriant country grows exceedingly high, and on this account obstructed observation. As we advanced the leading company of our regiment … observed the French cavalry advancing to the charge. Orders were then given to form square … the enemy perceiving we were prepared for them, instead of advancing, made a movement to the left, broke in upon the open columns of the 69th Regiment, which being on a low part of the field had not observed them.
The 69th was destroyed, its King’s Colour was captured, and only a few of its men managed to reach the safety of a nearby square. Losing a colour was a terrible disgrace. For some men the flags had an almost mystical significance. William Miller was an officer in the 1st Foot Guards and was mortally wounded at Quatre-Bras. His dying wish was to see the colours for the last time, so the Regimental Colour was brought to where he lay dying and, an eyewitness said, ‘his countenance brightened, he smiled’. Men fought like demons to protect the flags and Ensign Christopher Clarke of the 69th killed three cuirassiers in his successful attempt to save the Regimental Colour, but he took twenty-two separate sword cuts in the fight. He survived and later joined the 42nd Highlanders.
The 33rd had almost as hard a time as the 69th. They were in square because of the presence of the cavalry, but they were also in clear view of a French gun battery. Lieutenant Pattison saw his company commander cut in two by a roundshot, ‘and poor Arthur Gore’s brains were scattered upon my shako and face’. George Hemingway was a private in the battalion and, two months after the battle, he wrote to his mother:
The enemy got a fair view of our regiment at that time, and they sent cannon shot as thick as hail stones. Immediately we got up on our ground and seen a large column of the French cavalry, named the French cuirassiers, advancing close up on us, we immediately tried to form square to receive the cavalry, but all in vain, the cannon shot from the enemy broke down our square faster than we could form it; killed nine and ten men every shot; the balls falling down amongst us … and shells bursting in a hundred pieces … had it not been for a wood on our right, about 300 yards, we should have every man been cut in pieces with the cavalry, and trampled upon by their horses.
The 33rd, which had been the Duke’s old regiment, made it to the wood where some cuirassiers were foolish enough to follow, and now it was the redcoats’ turn to kill and, in the tangling trees, they cut down their pursuers.
The destruction of the 69th and capture of their flag was the high point of the battle for the French. They had been advancing on both flanks and steadily destroying the British centre, but still more troops were arriving from Brussels and the Duke at last had sufficient men and artillery. He decided it was time to attack, but first a stone house beside the main road had to be cleared of its French garrison. Colonel Cameron, of the 92nd Highlanders, was itching to get rid of that garrison and had repeatedly asked the Duke’s permission to attack the house. ‘Take your time, Cameron,’ the Duke had answered, ‘you’ll get your fill of it before night.’ Now Wellington released the Scotsmen. A regimental history records the words of one Highland soldier:
It was hot work then. They were in the hoose like as mony mice, and we couldna get at them wi’ our shot when their fire was ca’in’ doon mony a goot man among us, but … oot o’ that they had to come, or dee where they were, so we ower the hedge an’ through the garden ’til the hoose was fair surrounded, an’ they couldna get a shot oot where we couldna get ane in. In the end they were driven oot, an’ keepit oot. Ay, but the French were brave men, an’ tried again and again to take it from us, but they only got beaten back for their pains, and left their dead to fatten the garden ground.
The flanks of the British position were stiffened by the newly arrived reinforcements which included the Guards Division which had marched from Nivelles. As they neared
Quatre-Bras they:
met constantly waggons full of men, of all the various nations under the Duke’s command, wounded in the most dreadful manner. The sides of the road had a heap of dying and dead, very many of whom were British.
That is from the recollections of Robert Batty, who was an Ensign in the 3rd battalion of the 1st Foot Guards. He was twenty-six, old for an Ensign, which was the lowest commissioned rank in the British army, but Batty had been in uniform for only two years. He had been studying medicine at Caius College, Cambridge, but left the university to fight in Spain and was now marching towards the Bossu Wood where the heavy French column was driving back the tired defenders. The 600 men of the 1st Foot Guards were on the right of the British line and advanced close to the wood until they saw the French.
The moment we caught a glimpse of them we halted, formed, and having loaded and fixed bayonets, advanced … at this instant our men gave three glorious cheers, and though we had marched fifteen hours without anything to eat and drink, save the water we procured on the march, we rushed to attack the enemy.