The Cavalry that Broke Napoleon by Richard Goldsbrough

Author:Richard Goldsbrough
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780750969598
Publisher: The History Press

13

WATERLOO III: THE FIRST CHARGE OF THE HOUSEHOLD BRIGADE

The Household Brigade was deployed into two lines by its brigade commander by wheeling by threes. The regiments were arrayed with the 2nd Life Guards in the east, with its left-hand squadron’s left-hand men on the Charleroi road. These men were within sight of the Royals on the east of that road, who were in the right-hand or westernmost squadron of the Union Brigade. To the 2nd Life Guards’s right was the KDG, which was the centre regiment of the brigade. To the KDG’s right was the 1st Life Guards, who were the westernmost regiment in the Household Brigade. In the rear of the three front-line regiments were the Blues, who were supposed to have stayed behind the front line in reserve but moved into the front rank early in this first charge. Uxbridge positioned himself in the same place as ‘the Officer leading the left squadron of the 2nd Life Guards (perhaps a little more to the right)’;1 Somerset placed himself in the centre of his brigade, in front of the centre squadrons of the KDG, as, according to Elton, they charged together.2

The left-hand KDG squadron was probably commanded by Captain Turner. The two commanders of the KDG’s centre squadrons were Captain Naylor on the left, or east, bordering Turner’s squadron, and Captain Elton on the right, or west, whose squadron bordered the right-hand or easternmost squadron under Graham. According to Naylor, the KDG’s commanding officer, William Fuller, positioned himself next to him in the left-hand of the centre squadrons.3 Records of the soldiers’ pay show in which troops the privates and NCOs were posted. As far as the officers were concerned, apart from the squadron commanders, we cannot be sure which officer was where, with the exception of those in Graham’s right-hand squadron, as Elton recorded in his letter, ‘Major Graham, Bringhurst, Battersby, Brooke and Bernard were the officers of the right squadron’.

The number of KDGs present at the Battle of Waterloo was 606 all ranks. After deductions for sickness there were 592 all ranks. This comprised twenty-seven officers and 565 other ranks.4 If the double-counting of the regiment’s farriers in The Digest and in the Official Return were to be excluded, as has been argued was the case in note 4, then this number of 592 tallied exactly with the net number after adjustments of KDG all ranks in both the aforementioned documents. The net numbers of other ranks for the other Household Brigade regiments reported in this dispatch were as follows: 1st Life Guards, 210; 2nd Life Guards, 197; and Royal Horse Guards, 213.5

Unless further information should come to light that will show what the numbers in the KDG’s rear party were, it will not be possible to calculate how many men actually charged. However, it has been possible to assess the maximum amount of men who could have charged, which was 554 all ranks after the farriers had been taken off as they would not have charged.6 From this number must be deducted the rear party.

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