A Model Victory. Malcolm Balen

MP for Stafford.

      Among the Allied troops were 3300 King’s German Legion infantry, nearly 15,000 cavalry and infantry of Hanover; 6000 Brunswickers; 2880 independent Nassauers; and more than 17,000 infantry, cavalry and artillerymen from the United Netherlands. This army, commanded by the Prince of Orange, was a volatile mixture of Dutch, Belgian and Nassau soldiers, their mutual uneasiness stemming from their forced marriage. The Dutch were Protestant, the Belgians Catholic, and the latter had been hoping for independence from the geopolitical settlement which had decided Holland’s future a year before Waterloo. France had taken control of the country until Napoleon’s defeat at the Battle of Leipzig in 1813, and the subsequent Treaty of London had created the new Kingdom of the Netherlands, to the Belgians’ disgust. Extraordinarily, two out of the three Netherlands divisional commanders had fought for France, and their men even wore blue uniforms which looked similar to those of the French. Many of them were inexperienced, and some of them would have preferred to fight for France. It did not provide a basis of trust within the Anglo-Allied army, before, during or after the battle.

      Wellington had more faith in the crack troops of the King’s German Legion. Although it had been formed by refugees from Hanover, which Napoleon had overrun in 1803, it was less foreign than its name suggested. Indeed, it had been based at Bexhill-on-Sea for the last eleven years, and its increasingly distinguished service record had reached an apogee in the Peninsular War. It was more or less integrated within the British army, adopting its military structures and tactics on the battlefield and wearing the same uniform. But the Duke had less confidence in the men from Nassau and Hanover, and little or none in the Dutch and Belgian battalions which, generally, he placed well away from the front-line. ‘We were, take us all in all, a very bad army,’ thought a jaundiced John Kincaid of the 95th Rifles as he eyed the men. With few exceptions, he rated the foreign auxiliaries as little better than a raw militia. They were, he thought, ‘a body without a soul, or like an inflated pillow, that gives to the touch and resumes its shape again when the pressure ceases – not to mention the many who went clear out of the field, and were only seen while plundering our baggage in their retreat …’ Kincaid looked back enviously at past campaigns. ‘If Lord Wellington had been at the head of his old Peninsula army, I am confident that he would have swept his opponents off the face of the earth immediately after their first attack.’

      In contrast, the French army was battle-hardened and united. Corporal John Dickson, of the 2nd (Royal North British) Dragoons, the Scots Greys, could see the enemy drawn up just a mile away. ‘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.’ Dickson had risen through the ranks from a humble Paisley background and, at the age of twenty-six, had eight years service under his belt. ‘It was a splendid show. Every now and then the sun lit up the whole country. No one who saw it could ever forget it.’ Then there was a sudden roll of drums along the whole of the enemy’s line. ‘A burst of music from the bands of a hundred battalions came to me on the wind. I seemed to recognize the Marseillaise, but the sounds got mixed and lost in the sudden uproar that arose. Then every regiment began to move. They were taking up position for battle.’ Dickson noted the great columns of infantry, and squadron after squadron of cuirassiers, red dragoons, brown hussars and green lancers, with little swallow-tail flags at the end of their lances.

      At nine in the morning the rain finally ceased, though the ground was still boggy underfoot. In the hours ahead, the mud would save lives, becoming the captor of roundshot, a soft cushion for bursting shell. ‘We stood in the right square, not on rye, or wheat trampled down, but, I think, on clover or seeds which had been recently mown,’ William Leeke remembered. ‘I furnished information to Captain Siborne with regard to this crop … when he was forming his beautiful model of the Field of Waterloo, and was very anxious to procure accurate information on the subject. It was generally supposed that there would have been a much greater loss in killed and wounded at Waterloo, if the heavy rain on the nights of the 16th and 17th had not well saturated the ground.’ But the soldiers were not initially disposed to see the wet ground as their ally. It was another inconvenience, one of many, as they waited for their commanders to order them into battle. Napoleon inspected his lines, and the Emperor’s headquarters, under Marshal Soult, dispatched orders to the divisional commanders to be ready for battle. Otherwise, both sides held still as if waiting for the other to show its hand. For Wellington’s part, this was because he approached the battle like a game of chess, and he wanted to see what pieces Napoleon would move first before committing himself. Napoleon himself wanted the earth to dry out so that his troops could cover the ground which separated his forces from the Anglo-Allied army more freely and more quickly.

      A quiet descended: the lull after the night’s storm. As the two sides prepared for action, they were observed by Edmund Wheatley, who, at twenty-one, was an ensign in the 5th Line Battalion of the King’s German Legion. Little is known of Wheatley’s career, though he lived in Hammersmith, and his diary suggests he was brave, if a little moody. He was certainly headstrong: he had already fought a duel with a rival from his schooldays, and he had joined the King’s German Legion at its depot in Bexhill in 1812, although the corps was considered vaguely unsuitable for an English gentleman. For much of the time Wheatley’s thoughts were with his girlfriend, Eliza Brookes, although her family had clearly forbidden her to see him: his diary begins with a secret assignation at Hyde Park Turnpike. Now the battle was upon him, and it was unclear if he would ever see her again. ‘About ten o’clock, the order came to clean out the muskets and fresh load them. Half an allowance of rum was then issued, and we descended into the plain, and took our position in solid Squares. When this was arranged as per order, we were ordered to remain in our position but, if we like, to lay down, which the battalion did.’

      There was a feeling of excitement, almost of being on parade. As Wheatley looked around, ‘shoals of cavalry and artillery’ arrived behind him ‘as if by a magic wand. The whole of the horse guards stood behind us. For my part I thought they were at Knightsbridge barracks or prancing on St James’s Street.’

      Wellington blended his troops carefully into the demands of the land. More than thirteen thousand men in the second line of the Anglo-Allied army, which was made up entirely of British and German cavalry, were concealed behind the reverse slope of the ridge, and in the hollows of the ground. Rather than following conventional military practice by protecting his flanks, he placed most of his cavalry behind the infantry on the centre and right of the ridge, where he thought that the battle would be concentrated.

      The artillery was spread out along the front line, generally half a dozen guns at a time, in a wholly defensive role. The heaviest placements were on the army’s right, behind the two main roads – here, there was a gun or howitzer every twenty metres. To bolster the central defences of Wellington’s army, the horse artillery batteries were taken from the cavalry and made static, by placing them among the foot artillery. Their orders were to conserve ammunition, rather than try to destroy enemy guns. Early on, Captain Mercer disobeyed orders, irritated by the French batteries on the Nivelles road. His fire was returned with interest from guns ‘whose presence I had not even suspected, and whose superiority we immediately recognised by their rushing noise and long reach, for they flew far beyond us. I instantly saw my folly, and ceased firing … But this was not all. The first man of my troop touched was by one of these confounded long shot. I shall never forget the scream the poor lad gave when struck. It was one of the last they fired, and shattered his left arm to pieces as he stood between the waggons. The scream went to my very soul…’