Waterloo

The French Perspective

Andrew W. Field

• Publisher: Pen & Sword Military
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9781526752505
• eBook ISBN: 9781781599983
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: 19th Century History
• Index: History

From the author of Talavera, an extensive history of the Battle of Waterloo from the losing side's point of view.
The story of the Battle of Waterloo—of the ultimate defeat of Napoleon and the French, the triumph of Wellington, Blücher, and their allied armies—is most often told from the viewpoint of the victors, not the vanquished. Even after 200 years of intensive research and the publication of hundreds of books and articles on the battle, the French perspective and many of the primary French sources are under-represented in the written record. So, it is high time this weakness in the literature—and in our understanding of the battle—was addressed, and that is the purpose of Andrew Field's thought-provoking new study. He has tracked down over ninety first-hand French accounts, many of which have never been previously published in English, and he has combined them with accounts from the other participants in order to create a graphic new narrative of one of the world's decisive battles. Virtually all of the hitherto unpublished testimony provides fascinating new detail on the battle and many of the accounts are vivid, revealing, and exciting.

SECTION THREE

11.30am to 1.30pm

Chapter Five

The First Attacks on Hougoumont

The first act in the great battle was the French assault on the chateau and farm of Hougoumont, which anchored the allied right. The building complex, and the wood to its south, was a formidable bastion which made a conventional assault on this flank of the allied army impossible. Although British historians portray the battle for Hougoumont as a triumph of the British guards, its initial garrison was almost exclusively German. The majority of these men, about 800, came from the 1st Battalion of the 2nd Nassau Regiment. The commanding officer of this unit, Captain Bügsen, describes Hougoumont thus:

The farm was in the shape of a long, closed rectangle. The building made up three of the sides and the fourth, on the left, was made up partly by the garden wall and partly by other buildings. This rectangle was divided in two internally by the living accommodation and a wall. The upper part contained not just the big house, but also various farm buildings. The lower part contained the stalls and barns. Each section had one large gate, the upper facing towards the enemy positions, the lower towards their opponents. Joining the farm to the left was a vegetable garden with a wall five to six feet high along its front and left, and a hedge to its rear. The front wall ran into a wood and was masked by an incomplete hedge planted a few paces ahead. Left of the garden was an orchard. The vegetable garden and orchard were not joined, but the latter had a hedge along its front, running along the same line as the wall of the garden. The buildings and the vegetable garden were covered against the enemy by the wood to the south.¹

In Napoleon’s order of eleven o’clock it will be noted that no mention was made of the farm or wood of Hougoumont. Indeed, Reille’s II Corps had specific orders to support d’Erlon’s attack on the allied centre ‘towards one o’clock’. That this did not happen betrays the fact that it was only after that order had been issued that the emperor decided to carry out some sort of manoeuvre against the bastion upon which Wellington had anchored his right. There can be no doubt that the order was verbal; whether it was delivered directly to Reille by Napoleon or via an ADC is immaterial. An order there must have been, because it is inconceivable that the commander of the II Corps would have launched an attack on his own initiative and in direct contravention of the orders he had already received. Claims by some historians that the attack on Hougoumont was an integral part of his support to the I Corps attack are undermined by the fact that the rest of II Corps carried out no movement as d’Erlon’s men moved forward.

All historians are agreed that the attack was to be a diversion, perhaps to draw some of Wellington’s reserves away from the point of the main French assault. This theory is supported by Adjutant-Commandant Petiet, a member of the French General Headquarters under the orders of Marshal Soult, who tells us:

The second letter from the army chief of staff, addressed to the corps commanders, informed them that, towards 1pm, Marshal Ney would commence the attack on the village of Mont-Saint-Jean, at the cross-roads, suggesting that the emperor’s project was to open up the Brussels road and to make a diversionary attack on the left, at the Hougoumont farm, in order to draw English forces there continually and to separate the centre of the Anglo-Belgian army from its wings.²

That Napoleon thought this attack of little importance is suggested by the fact that it gets no mention in his first report on the battle (that published in the Moniteur on 20 June) and that even in his memoirs the attack merits little comment. Reille states that Jérôme was only required, ‘to keep in the hollow behind the wood, meanwhile maintaining a strong line of tirailleurs in front.’³ In fact, British reports state that throughout the night before the battle, French piquets were as far forward as the edge of the wood, ‘but gave us no molestation’.⁴ However, an officer of the British Guards reports, ‘A tirailleur [skirmisher] came within ten yards … previous to the action, and the corn concealed him until within that distance, by which path the Duke and his staff left the wood half an hour before the commencement’.⁵ Who can try to imagine the events of that day if this lone French soldier had taken an opportunity to kill the allied commander-in-chief!?

Recalling the emperor’s eleven o’clock order, Reille also states:

Towards 11 o’clock, Napoleon gave his instructions for the attack; it was to be made in echelons formed ahead by the right. The I Corps to the right of the main road, and the II Corps to its left; in this manner I Corps, that had still not been engaged with the enemy, was to lead, whilst the Second was to support this movement covering the left of the Hougoumont wood …

Prince Jérôme, commanding the 9th [6th] Division, was directed on this latter point, having behind his left Piré’s cavalry division.⁶

Jérôme had had a rather chequered and intermittent career as a senior military commander and we can only speculate as to why Reille chose him to direct this attack. His was certainly one of the strongest divisions in the army and hardly the right choice for what was supposed to be a diversionary attack. However, it is quite possible that Reille, suspicious of Napoleon’s youngest brother’s capabilities, felt that this secondary role was well designed to keep him out of trouble and away from more decisive action.

Either way, Jérôme was given the honour of ‘opening the ball’; although from his own account he appears to have had no notion of this being any sort of honour:

At 12.15, I received the order to begin the attack: I marched on the wood and I occupied the majority after a lively resistance, killing and losing many men; at 2pm I was master of the entire wood, and the battle was engaged along the whole line: but the enemy who realised the importance of this point, rushed forward a reserve and took it from me. I advanced with my whole division, and at 3pm, after a bloody fight, I took it again, and from then held it to the end of the battle.⁷

This short and simplistic account does little credit to the many men, on both sides, that fought desperately over this small, but strategically important piece of ground.

Contemporary maps used by Napoleon clearly show buildings behind the wood, but it appears that the chateau and outbuildings of Hougoumont were initially hidden by the tall trees from Jérôme’s troops as they moved forward, and they did so ignorant of what lay beyond them. Any advance of this sort would normally have had a preliminary artillery bombardment to soften up the enemy. Although Reille had been ordered to send his corps reserve battery of powerful twelve-pounders to the grand battery Napoleon was preparing to support the main attack, he still had plenty of this arm available for what was supposed to be a limited attack: each division had its own integral six-pounder battery, which by this stage would certainly have been deployed in a position to support their own units, and we know the horse battery of Piré’s cavalry division also supported the attack on Hougoumont.

However, no artillery preparation is mentioned by French accounts and, although it is possible that Jérôme’s troops moved forward without preliminary artillery fire, it is unlikely. Certainly, the target was a poor one – some few hundred light infantry spread throughout a wood – and it is uncertain whether any allied troops could be seen amongst the trees at all. However, Captain Büsgen reported, ‘Hardly had this deployment finished [his own] when the enemy began their attack on the wood with a heavy bombardment of shell and canister.’⁸ Private Clay of the 3rd Guards also states:

We remained in a kneeling position under this cover, but annoyed by a most galling fire from our opponent’s guns to the left of our position so near to us, indeed that the spreading of their small shots rarely escaped contact with our knapsacks and accoutrements, even the heels of our shoes (whilst kneeling) were struck by them.’⁹

This suggests not only a preliminary artillery barrage, but the fact that some of the French were firing case shot.

Lieutenant Pontécoulant, being an experienced artillery officer, was sure that the French should have made better use of their artillery superiority in this attack.

The attack on the château of Hougoumont, behind the walls of which were entrenched the best shots of the English army, should have been an affair of artillery rather than a badly directed infantry battle that killed our bravest soldiers without profit. This episode of the great battle would then have lasted half an hour instead of dragging on for several hours.¹⁰

Although his frustration is understandable, the thick wood that surrounded the farm would have made manoeuvring artillery into a position where they could have a clear field of fire extremely difficult, if not impossible.

The French themselves credit the allies with the opening shots of the battle, as the allied artillery fired on Jérôme’s advancing troops from the ridge above Hougoumont. British reports that it was the French artillery that was first to open fire originated from the main position on top of the ridge and no doubt presumed that as the French were first to take the offensive it was they who initiated it. British accounts from Hougoumont itself report, ‘There was but little cannonade directed against Hougoumont …’ although, ‘Several cannon shots went into the centre building …’¹¹ However, at this stage British troops were stationed in and around the buildings and not forward in the wood, so it is no surprise that they were unaware of what was happening in front of them.

The real artillery duel took place over the top of the buildings as an increasing number of allied guns were deployed to engage the French massing in the valley below to attack the wood; French and British witnesses report the efficacy of this fire, and the commanding officer of a French unit involved in the attack later wrote:

I deployed the rest of my battalion to the left of the 69th that formed the left of the 5th division [this must be an error as the 69th were not at Waterloo; however, the 61st were in Bachelu’s 5th Division]. A fold in the ground hid this battalion from the view of the English, and also my battalion. A sunken lane which cut through this fold seemed to serve as shelter for our second battalion: but in establishing itself there it made a small kink in the line and our general of brigade [Bauduin] (who was killed a short time later) ordered the 2nd battalion to establish itself in front of the sunken lane. This put it in view of the enemy. Hardly had the first division got into position than the English batteries established in front of their line, opened a lively fire which knocked over 20 men of the second battalion, and more balls followed so rapidly that it was obliged to drop back down into the shelter of the lane. This cannon fire seemed to give the signal for the principal action and fire opened along the whole line.¹²

Even those not committed to the attack did not escape; Lerréguy de Civrieux, a sergeant major aged just nineteen in the 93rd de ligne of Foy’s Division tells us:

My regiment remained in a critical position for a long time, though out of range of the musketry. It suffered from the enemy artillery. The balls reached us after an occasional ricochet from a fold in the ground that allowed us to distinguish the arc the projectiles took before decimating our ranks. Our true courage was put to the test; and it is very trying to wait for death in such circumstances, the most complete inaction, surrounded by death and horribly mutilated bodies.¹³

Not only Reille’s corps were in range of the allied artillery in this part of the field, as Lemonnier-Delafosse, also of Foy’s Division, recalls:

Behind and in reserve, was the brigade of carabineers, on which fell all the balls that passed over us. To avoid their attention, this brigade moved towards the left, which provoked the mocking response of General Foy: ‘Ah! Ah! The big heels do not like “le brutal”’. We received this fire stoically; they covered us with mud, and the soaked ground, showing the mark where they struck, made it look like a field that had been ploughed up by the wheels of a vehicle. This was good for our men, because many projectiles buried themselves or lost their power striking this muddy ground.¹⁴

As the French attack developed, Wellington gradually increased the number of batteries engaged until the ridge above Hougoumont was lined with allied guns. The British general realised that artillery in itself was not a battle-winning arm; that required infantry or cavalry. As Captain Tomkinson of the British 16th Light Dragoons tells us:

They [the artillery] were ordered by the Duke not to fire at the enemy’s guns, but direct all shot against their columns. We might run a chance of losing the position from a severe attack of one of their columns, but could not by their cannonade.¹⁵

But the artillery fire was not all one way and neither was the French fire ineffective. Short of infantry targets, the French were less restrained in targeting their opposite numbers:

L...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Dedication
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Maps
• List of Illustrations
• Preface
• Introduction
• Section One: Setting the Scene
• Section Two: Prelude to Battle
• Section Three: 11.30am to 1.30pm
• Section Four: 1.30pm to 3.30pm
• Section Five: 3.30pm to 6.00pm
• Section Six: 6.00pm to 8.00pm
• Section Seven: 8.00pm to 1.00am
• Section Eight: Tactical Notes
• Section Nine: Summary: The French Perspective
• Appendix 1: The French Army at Waterloo
• Appendix 2: Anecdotes
• Appendix 3: Eye-witnesses Consulted
• Notes
• Select Bibliography