THIS WEEK'S ANNIVERSARY

Stratford Evening Post, Issue 73, 21 June 1928, Page 4

THIS WEEK'S ANNIVERSARY

THE BATTLE OF WATERLOO.

FRENCH INFANTRY ATTACK

Interest will always attach to the great battle of Waterloo, fought on June 18th, 1815, ..because it marked the conclusion of Napoleon’s bid for dominion on the continent of Europe. “It is clear, understanding where Napoleon stood, to call up .a mental picture of the great French infantry attack,” wrote the Rev. W. Hj Fitchett in a newspaper article describing a visit to the field of the great battle. “As seen from this position it would have a broader front and a more menacing aspect than even as seen from the British ridge. The four great divisions, each StKJO strong, with intervals for deploying, cpulj be seen to their last file, and must hive felt sure of. its success. It was a great battle-wave, rising, taking shape, breaking into movement and sound l —the sound of fiffi and drum and shrill voices; a landscape of steel, and of sloping muskets, sweeping forward to that low, green ridge that seemed almost empty. D’Erlon’s attack, in a word, as Napoleon watched, must have seemed an overwhelming expression of battlepower. What could stop such a mass undbr such > leaders P The slope was easy; the white road at on© point had a farmhouse on one side, a sandpit, with a fringe of trees on the other; hut what resisting power could they have? Some Hanoverian, troops stood, a black patch on the green slope, a little below the ridge, but they dissolved ihto flight before the coming French columns touched them. As Napoleon and his , staff officers watched that attack they must have felt sure of its cusses sAll that was visible on the ridge was a thin, faint thread of red. It was only a thread to stop a tidal wave! D’Erlon’s great, four-headed mass ot infantry moved without pause up the slope; the left echelon swirled round La Haye Sainte; the obstinate, stinging splutter of fire from the sandpit was submerged; the head's of the French! columns begin, at 'irregular intervals, to deploy. Then Pictons slender, extended line spoke! There is a far-running sparkle of musketry fire, red, deadly, repeated, pulse after pulse of flame. It seems to scorch the heads of the French columns. They halt; they are slowly deploy• mg. ’ The red line on the ridge this tube is advancing; here and there Is an outward sparkle of its bayonets beyond the hedge. Then tomes the counter-stroke of thei, British Cavalry! The low ridge is suddenly covered with tossing horseheads and swift-riding squadrons. They come round La Haye Sainte in glittering line and dash at speed on the French cuirassiers, and the far-heard ring of steel floats up to where Napoleon stands. Then to the left of the Life Guards come the Dragoons, then the Greys, the Inniskillings; swift, sudden, spurring furiously, they crash on masses of French infantry- The so T M columns seem to crumble ; they falf back down the slope ’under the liefoo impact of the charge. They disßol • e into flight. Napoleon is familial- with 'all the changing landscape of battle, but he had never before looked upon a sight like that. The fierce-riding British cavalry must have flung its human spray—grey horses and red coats —almost tq the very point where Napoleon war died.