More Friendly Fire
at Waterloo

Two Instances Commented On

by Peter Hofschröer

Further to Andrew Uffindell's interesting contribution to FE 42, below are accounts of two incidents of friendly fire at Waterloo that I have come across during the research for the second part of my work on the campaign, "1815: The Waterloo Campaign" (Greenhill Books). Zieten & The Nassauers At 7 p.m. when Zieten was about to close to battle with the French, Napoleon's men now occupied Fichermont and Smohain. Only Papelotte and some parts of Smohain were possibly still in the hands of the Nassauers. Thus, Zieten's first priority would be to come to the aid of the Nassauers in Smohain, then to follow this up by taking the heights opposite the farm. Zieten was aware that every minute counted, so the 1st Brigade, on the heights north of the road from Ohain, deployed as follows. He sent the vanguard under Major von Neumann, consisting of the two companies of Silesian Schützen and the F/12th Regiment diagonally against La Haye and Smohain. Here, it linked up with the second line under Oberst von Hofmann, consisting of the 24th Regiment. Its fusilier battalion was occupying the village of Cheval-de-Bois and attacked Smohain along the line of the Ohain brook in the direction of Smohain and Fichermont. The extreme right of the French positioned was anchored on the group of farms and villages around the source of the Ohain brook, namely Papelotte, La Haye, Smohain and Fichermont. The 1st Brigade was forming a semicircle around them. The Prussian skirmish lines led the attack, the formed troops followed behind. Horse Battery N° 7 and half of Foot Battery N° 7 gave covering fire on Smohain. The other half of Foot Battery N° 7 opened up against La Haye and was soon joined by Horse Battery N° 2. It was at this point that the friendly fire incident occurred. The Nassauers abandoned Smohain and fell back in the direction of the Prussians. The latter mistook this for an attack on their positions by the French and reacted accordingly. Caught between two fires, the Nassauers departed from Smohain at great speed, leaving all its buildings. Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar, their commander and hero of Quatre Bras, needed a quarter of an hour to rally his men, but only after he had rushed through the Prussian fire to tell his allies of their mistake. Reiche, Zieten's chief-of-staff described the scene, 'The Nassauers that were leaving the village fell back in open order on our advancing troops. As the Nassauers were dressed in the French style of that time, our men took them to be the enemy and fired at them. Their commander Prince Bernhard of [Saxe-] Weimar rushed up to General Zieten to clarify the misunderstanding, which he did in no uncertain terms. The General, not knowing the Prince, made no excuses and calmly replied, "My friend, it is not my fault that your men look like French!"' The 1st Westphalians The second incident occurred a little later on the same sector of the front. Major von Gillhausen, ad interim commander of the 1st Westphalian Landwehr Infantry Regiment related, 'In the afternoon, the regiment marched to the right with the 1st Brigade. When the brigade got close to the battlefield, all three of our battalions had to form the reserve. I continued to follow the path towards the enemy. The 1st Battalion was to the right of it, the other two to the left. They were at a suitable distance to deploy as we were in column by the centre and marching at the same level as the second line at 200 paces from it. By moving to the left and right, we were attempting to get the battalions out of the heavy artillery fire whose direction was constantly changing, but without deviation significantly from our objective. However, I could not prevent one cannon ball striking the left of the 3rd Battalion, killing two men and wounding three, and another from killing one Jäger and wounding four from the 2nd Jäger Detachment. 'The 2nd Battalion, the one under Kapitain von Rappard that was performing the role of the fusilier battalion, was, when first deployed, to stay level with the other two battalions in a deep hollow. It followed this to the left, becoming separated from the other two battalions and rejoining them only the next morning. The latter were moving more to the right to keep in contact with the second line. Later, on the orders of the brigade general, the skirmishers of the 1st Battalion linked up with the 1st Jäger Detachment in the broken terrain to their fore, while those of the 3rd Battalion occupied a small copse of tall trees to the right along with the Jäger of the 2nd Detachment. Meanwhile, the two battalions marched with beating drums and at the correct distances to deploy through a marshy valley and up to a ridge that opened out to the left and right. Here, we linked up with a Hanoverian and a Scottish battalion.' The history of the 1st Westphalian Landwehr continued, 'At first, the 1st Westphalian Landwehr Regiment stood in the second line. The English left flank had, as we have seen, been forced back. Thus, Kapitain Bennert was sent forward with the skirmishers of the 1st Battalion and the 1st Jäger Detachment to re-establish contact. The wavering English mistook the Prussian detachment for the enemy and fired. As the Prussians did not reply, they soon noticed their error.' It is unclear from this as to which group of redcoats were responsible for the friendly fire – it may have been the Hanoverian or the Scottish unit Gillhausen mentioned, it may have been another unit. Related Friendly Fire at Waterloo (FE42) Back to Table of Contents -- First Empire #44 Back to First Empire List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1999 by First Empire. This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com