WATERLOO

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 7929, 12 October 1911, Page 4

WATERLOO

AS NAPOLEON SAW THE FIELD

A VISIT TO THE FAMOUS BATTLE-GROUND

(By tho llcv. W. H. Fitchott.)

Xo. I.

LOXUOA, .September 1

Thu most interesting way of studying tin- livid of Waterloo is to take the lamb-capo in. so to sneak, the order of history. It is oa ay to keep in memory tlio actual timetable of the brio: cami'ictoii's regiments started irom the market place at Brussels on their march to guatre liras at about 3 a.in. on Juno Kith; they reached guatro liras at 3.30 p.m., utter ai march of twontytwo miles. Jlalkett'A brigade reached the held irom Nivelles at 5.30, the Guards came up at C. 30, and tlie fighting died away about 9 p.m. At 10 a.ni. on the mu AVel ling ton's infantry columns were falling back to Waterloo; his whole force was on the ridge by 0.30 p.m. The first gun at Waterloo was fired at 11.30 on the 18th: the battle practically lasted-ten hours, and, by a little after 9 p.m. the French army was pouring, in all tumult of flight, along the Gcnappo road. An interval of less than seventy hours parts the time when the first files of Protons Highlanders, to the tune of "Highland Laddie,” began their march from Brussels to Quatro Bras, and the moment when their worn-out survivors halted in the dusk beyond La Bello Alliance with tho lust of Mapolcon-’s armies in flight before them. . Into a space of time so brief was packed a drama so tremendous !

Tho pre.9ent writer had already twice vis ted Waterloo; on this, his third visit, his plan was to visit tho localities of tho campaign in- their historical order. This meant taking tho market place in Brussels as a starting point, and following tho route of I’ictou's men to Quatro Bras. Napoleon was across tho Sambro, and his strategy was, at last, clear. Ho was striking at tho point whero tho Prussian and British armies touched each other. Wellington had hardly yet been forgiven—-by tho critics at least—for his delay in setting his troops in motion; but, to uso his own words, "ho would not move a corporal’s guard/’ till ho was certain of Napoleon’s plans. Ho paid a great price for that certainty; but at last ho had it; and now his divisions wero moving at speed to tho threatened point. Quatro Bras, as everyone remembers, was being held, not by Wellington s orders, but in spite of them, and byßutchBelgian troops; and Pictoa's columns wero moving at speed to their help; for Key was attacking them with overwhelming forco. Picton’s columns starte4 while the stars wero still shining. Tho road runs in easy gradients, and quickly plunges into' tho great forest of Soignes; and it must have been for the British regiments, at first; a march.under easy conditions—deep with shade, cool with the freshness of. dew; and, as tho sunrise came, musical with tho song of birds,. Wellington started from Brussels at 5 a.in., and must have overtaken. Picton’s columns soon after they had entered the forest. The track is what is called a

"paved" road; but the word “paved"! gives an idea of smoothness which is quite misleading. The road is still, in great stretches, tho actual trade along which tho British battalions trudged; it is constructed of rough cobblo stones, with a very harsh and uneven surface; and towards tho end of their twelve lum'ii;' march on such a xoad and in "contract" boots, Picton's footsore men must have limped painfully. Tho June sun, too, grow hot, and not a few stragglers must have fallen out. But far ahead oould bo heard deep waves of sound, tho thunder of Key’s artillery at Quatro Bras. The British were "marching to the guns" with Picton's fierce spirit urging them on, and we may be sure tho perspiring, footsore battalions did not loiter. By noon Mont St. Jean was reached, and the dusty columns went tramping down the long sloping road towards La Bello Alliance. They were crossing, though they knew it not, tho actual field of Waterloo. It was at that moment a landscape of peace; The crops stood thick on slope and ridge; a few peasants were at work in the fields; La Haye Sainte, as they went past, was on their right, with open gates and the hum of bees from its yard, for it was a June noon. Further on their right tho dark green of a wood shut with a screen of tender foliage, round a chateau, whoso ancient brick walls pricked with red tho green of the whispering leaves. It was Hougonmontl Picton's soldiers little guessed how quickly that peaceful landscape was . to be submerged beneath the red flood of battle, , The’ dusty columns had meanwhile climbed tho low ridge heyond La Belle Alliance, and tho road now dips towards "Genappe. Through tho centre of tho little stony, town flows the muddy Dyle, a thin brown trickle of water, with treacherous banks. It was at that period crossed by an ’ absurdly narrow bridge, a bridge only eight feet wide, and the bridge itself was approached by streets almost as narrow, and of a distracted crookedness. Picton's tired columns must have found some difficulty in getting through these streets and across a bridge whoso narrowness broke their files. It is easy to realise what a trap Genappo must have been to Xaooleon's broken army in its flight through the .darkness from Waterloo, sixty hours later. Quatro Bras at last is reached. It stands to-day very much as it did on that fan-off afternoon in June, when Picton's regiments flung themselves into the flight with Key. Tho cross roads run —one north and south, from Brussels to Frasnes, from which place Key's columns were coming np in attack; tho other from Xivelles on tho west along which Halkett’s brigades—and later tho . guards—were to come. Ligny, on tho cast, where French and Prussians were already exchanging musketry volleys. Tho wood of Bossu has gone, but the main features of tho little village, and its sloping farm lands, are exactly as they were on June 16th, 1815, Gemincourt, the farmhouse captured by the French, still stands at a little distance down the gentle slope across which the spectator looks.. Tho narrow ditch where the 92nd lay runs eastward from tho Brussels road, with a lino of trees in its front. The fifth tree from tho intersection of the roads marks tho spot whore—on tho authority of Colonel Henderson—Wellington. pursued by the French cavalry, called on his Highlanders to "lie still” and leaped his horse over their line. It is. looked at to-day in cold blood, a very steep and difficult jump, and tho experience Wellington must have had in “negotiating" many a stiff fence in his hunting days no doubt served him well at that moment. Some COO or 700 yards in advance of tho crossroads is—not a hill, but a low and gentle undulation, green ami lush (6-day with voung clover. It was tothatridge Picton, with the high daring so characteristic of him, took forward his regi-

merits, pushing his way deep into the rye. The French lancers rode fiercely oil the red coats. They caught the 42n<l in tho act of forming square, broke one of its faces, and slew its colonel. But tho stubborn Hoots shook themselves into shape again, and bayoneted every Frenchman that broke into their formation. The 44th was attacked on its roar face; and -its rear rank rimply turned “right about’* and drove oft tiio French with a close and deadly volley. A little later, near tho same spot, tho 6'Jtli, while forming square to receive cavalry was ordered by the Prince of Orange to deploy into lino again. Kellerjnan's alert squadrons caught tho unfortunate regiment in the very act of deploying, and well nigh destroyed it, canturing its colours. A little to the loft tho Brunswick Hussars wore ridden over by Key’s Cuirassiers, and a stately monument marks the .spot where “Brunswick’s fated chief”—to quote Byron’s phrase—was slain. Wellington himself long afterwards told, in after-dinner gossip, a curious incident of the tight. Ho watched some squadrons of French Cuirassiers come charging up the Brussels road; they roached the cross-road, but tho volleys of a line of infantry on their flank made them swing off to their right. A broad gateway stood open before them; and tho French horse dashed into it to escape. There was no exit; the broad, gate was a trap. "To my great surprise/’ said Wellington, “on looking ■ again ten minutes afterwards I saw them all come out at full gallop through tho gateway, returning by tho very road on which they had come. . . . Had we thought it possible that they were still there we could have captured every one of them without fail/’ And still tho broad gateway stands, exactly as when the impetuous French horsemen rodo through it, with a vast stone paved courtyard behind, in which tho astonished cuirassiers found themselves trapped.

To-day the spectator stands at the intersection of tho roads and looks over the scene. Along that road to the loft, all through tho hours of June 16th, rolled tho thunder of tho guns at Ligny. Down that road on the morning of the 17tb, while tho stars still hung faint in the sky, Gordon, with his Hussars, rode to ascertain what had befallen Bluchcr. Six hours later a moving patch of red on that grey track was the signal for retreat to the British. The red lancers of Napoleon’s guard were coming up. Basil Jackson, in his "Notes of a Staff Officer/ - ' tells how a group of British officers—themselves little more than boys gathered round a hastily dug grave at : Quatro Bras in which lay the bodies of [ two of their comrades. Lord Hay and Captain Barrington. That spot can still be identified, it is on the right _ hand side of the Nivelles road, a few score yards from its intersection with tho Brussels road. But wo have now to retrace.the road to Genappe, and study it as the lino of the British retreat. Wellington's cool unhurried movements on the morning of the 17th are'very interesting. _ Blucher had disappeared beyond the skyline; Napoleon was on his flank. Key in his front. And yet ‘Wellington held his position, hour after hour. His infantry columns did not begin their march on the road to Genappe till 10 o’clock*, his cavalry and guns maintained their, front till 12 o'clock. Then; when the red lancers of the guard and a brigade of cuirassiers were coming up from Ligny, Wellington's cavalry out-posts were called in, and, covered by; the fire of the horse-artillery, his'squadrons fell back. For the British cavalry and guns, it was an easy road os far as Genappe; but the skies had furious rain storms were gathering; Napoleon himself was riding with the foremost French guns, and urging them to speed. It is .easy to picture tho scene at Genappe—the furious rain, the clatter of the British squadrons through the narrow streets, tho quick flash of the French guns from tho slope beyond, the fierce faces of the French lancers, crowding across the narrow bridge, to overtake their foes. Beyond Genappe is the scene of a sharp cavalry fight, whon the 7th Hussars rode at the files of tlio French Lancers as they emerged from the main streets of the little town. The Hussars, as everybody remembers, failed in their charge. Tho Lancers were a solid mass in the narrow street, their long lance points formed a bar of sharp steel across it, which the Hussars, with their short swords, could not break. The Hussars fell back up the slope, the Laiicei-K broke out of Genappe oxultingly, and came up in pursuit. Tien the English. Life Guards—big men on big horses —rode in on them. The ground lends itself to a successful cavalry charge. It is a smooth and easy descent: the turf is level with the road. on cither side; and it is no wonder that the French lancers wero broken and swept back iu ruin to the shelter of the narrow Genappe streets. But the British fell hack, and the French horsemen came on again, and this time a mounted battery with galloping horses was with them. It had struggled, gun after gun, across tho harrow bridge of 1 tho Dyle, and tho moment it was clear of tho town it swung into lino and opened fire on the British cavalry. Napoleon himself rode with that Battery. He was splashed with mud, soaked with heavy rain, but as he drew rein by the guns ho urged his gunners, with furious gestures, to' open fire. The last time he had trained his guns oh the British was at Toulon; and on tho slope outside Genappe, with the British rearguard in sight, he was tho artillery officer of Toulon onco more.

From Genappe there was practically no further pursuit of Wellington's rearguard. Tho rain had turned tho whole landscape into an expanse of mud, and made swift movements or horses and guns impossible. Tho British columns kept on their leisurely way to the long low ridge at Mont St. Jean, and at 6.30 Napoleon had reached the farm house near La Belle Alliance where ho slept. But far into the night his weary columns, wet, hungry and footsore, wero pushing on through tho darkness towards Waterloo.

The spectator lingers to-day on tho little bridge across the Dyle and calls up in imagination the scenes these narrow streets have witnessed. The British retreat, with the clash of the lancers on their rear; tho tramp of the French infantry columns, under the pitiless rain, and through the darkness of the night, to Waterloo. Then, the tumult and terror of Napoleon's broken army in flight all through tho night after the battle, with tho Prussians riding and slaying in their rear. It was exactly, here, in the crooked streets of Genappe, that tho distraction and passion of tho flight reached its climax. It was just beyond that little bridge that Napoleon leaped from his carriage in order to escape his Prussian pursuers. Perhaps no other six miles of road anywhere have witnessed, in a space of time so brief, such an ebb and flow of victory and defeat—of pursuit and flight —as that betwixt Waterloo and Quatre Bras. It is interesting to study the actual ground at Waterloo, as Napoleon saw it, and to call into imagination tho stages of the great fight, as ho watched them. Wo must’leave the Brussels road at a point a little south of La Belle Alliance and walk some 400 or 500 yards across tho field to reach the point from which Napoleon watched the long struggle. A table was brought to this spot, a map spread upon it; and at this table Napoleon sat during most of the fight. Sometimes even ho slept! To-day a tramway track runs within a few score yards of the spot where Napoleon sat: bnt tho general landscape is unchanged. We have only to dismiss—or forget—the Belgian -wald—a pile of earth on the

scale of the great Pyramid—and a few other details, ;uu! the whole scene is maetiealh' "'hat it was when the mists cleared nfi on the morning of June 18th (To Vie concluded to-morrow.)