The Battle of Waterloo by Jeremy Black

Author:Jeremy Black [Black, Jeremy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-58836-996-3
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2010-01-01T16:00:00+00:00

Returning to the afternoon of Waterloo, Ney moved forward to observe the situation and, as have many other generals in the confusion and smoke of battle, appears to have misunderstood developments. He saw Wellington moving some of his units, as well as wounded and prisoners, back to reverse-slope positions, where they were protected from the French cannon, and wrongly concluded from this withdrawal that the British were tottering. To exploit this perceived opportunity, and to prevent the British from recovering and creating a new front line, Ney called on his cavalry, although it has also been suggested that the attack initially owed much to the forward movement of some of the cavalry sensing the possibility for action. This explanation was certainly asserted after the battle by a French participant who claimed responsibility.

The motivation of commanders in the battle is difficult to establish beyond doubt, not least, in this case, because Napoleon devoted much of his subsequent career to asserting his rectitude, while Ney, shot by a firing squad in December 1815, was not in a position to challenge and explain. Given that Ney did make mistakes in both campaign and battle and was certainly highly overwrought on the day of Waterloo, it is all too easy to argue that he was responsible for even more mistakes. Nevertheless, Napoleon might have done better had he had the services of Murat.

Cavalry certainly offered a force able to break a weak defense and to catch up with retreating troops, and Waterloo, following Quatre Bras, demonstrated that it was important not to allow the British to retire and regroup. Instead, any rear guard would have to be overcome. At Waterloo, the British, however, were not retreating. Instead, in defensive positions, they resolutely faced the first of a series of cavalry attacks that continued until nearly 6:00 P.M. These attacks were very different from those successfully launched by the French at the overextended British cavalry earlier in the afternoon, not least in their methodical and sustained character. Indeed, during the period from 4:00 P.M. until nearly 6:00 P.M., the French deployed a total of about 9,000 to 10,000 cavalry, supported by about seventy-six cannon. At about 4:00 P.M. on June 18, over 4,800 French cavalry from Milhaud’s IV Reserve Cavalry Corps, which was composed of two divisions of cuirassiers, and General Charles Lefèbvre-Desnoëttes’s Guard Light Cavalry Division, attacked, and, soon after 5:00 P.M., they were joined by about another 4,500 men, as Kellermann’s III Reserve Cavalry Corps and General Claude-Étienne Guyot’s Guard Heavy Cavalry Division were, at Ney’s insistence, fed into the attack.

The French force was formidable, but it faced several major hurdles. First, there were the serious disadvantages of cavalry attacks on unbroken and prepared infantry. Secondly, the French were outnumbered, and indeed heavily so in the contact zone. Although there were ancillary French infantry assaults on Hougoumont and La Haie Sainte, the cavalry attacked without infantry support and faced a formidable force: about 14,000 infantry supported by sixty-five cannon, and with nearly 8,000 cavalry available in support.

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