Collected Reminiscences of Waterloo

The New Legend of Waterloo

by Edward Low

The reader should note that the following was written at the end of the 19th Century, in response to claims made by the Kaiser whilst rousing the Prussian military machine.

The French, though fewer in number, (than the Allied and Prussian armies) would have won the victory but for the obstinate and unconquerable bravery of the British troops which alone prevented them.

-- NAPOLEON, Correspondence, xxxi. 240

It is becoming daily more apparent that a determined effort is being made in certain quarters on the Continent to write on new lines the history of Waterloo. Since the Emperor William delivered his famous address to his recruits at Hanover, and informed them that their ancestors had, with the assistance of Blücher and the Prussian army, 'saved the British under Wellington from destruction' other new versions varying widely from the accepted accounts of eyewitnesses, have appeared. The allegation of the Kaiser that the Hanoverians rescued the British army from destruction is itself a startling departure from ascertained fact.

All British writers have gladly recognised the services rendered by the Prussian troops; but it cannot be forgotten that the only Hanoverian cavalry regiment present on the field -- namely, the Duke of Cumberland's Hanoverian Hussars, commanded by Colonel Hake, when summoned by Wellington's staff to take up a position during the battle in support of the first line, refused to advance, and ultimately turned tail and rode from the field in the wildest panic without drawing rein till Brussels was reached. They carried with them consternation and the unfounded report -- readily, however, accepted by the Kaiser and the cult of the New Legend -- that the British army which was at that moment engaged in actually driving the French Imperial Guard before them from the field, were about to be routed.

The result of the distinguished services rendered by these gallant allies, to whom we are now to believe the victory was due, is best judged by the reward meted out to them by their contemporaries rather than by the romanticists of a later century. Colonel Hake was promptly cashiered by a court-martial, and his conquering troopers were dispersed among the other cavalry regiments of the allies, so that the very name of this redoubtable corps was erased in ignominy from the army roll.

It may also be recalled that ten thousand men had deserted the Prussian colours after the defeat at Ligny two days before; in addition many prisoners and guns had been taken from the Prussians in that fight and later in the retreat. There is, indeed, something sardonic in the claim now put forward by the Kaiser that these Hanoverian swashbucklers had secured the hard-fought victory for Wellington.

On the other hand, and in vivid contrast to the treatment meted out to the Hanoverians by the German Emperor, is the revised version of the share in the battle taken by the single regiment of Scottish cavalry engaged at Waterloo. Eyewitnesses of all nations have hitherto agreed that the Scots Greys, when they fell upon and dispersed the dense masses of D'Erlon's corps and captured the Imperial Eagle of the French Invincibles, had earned for themselves and the whole British army immortal renown, and had, even amid the strain of the pitched battle, drawn from Napoleon himself the involuntary encomium,' These terrible grey horses, how they fight!'

The visionaries who seek to propagate the New Legend now tell us that Bonaparte's eulogium had no reference to the Scottish dragoons, but was in reality intended to apply to a hitherto overlooked, but magnificent regiment of French cavalry mounted on superb grey horses. The awed astonishment of the Hanoverian soldiers at the Kaiser's apocryphal description of their disgraced ancestors would probably only be surpassed by that of Napoleon himself if he could hear of the existence of this reserve of cavalry which he had been unable to conjure up at the critical moment of the battle!

Fortunately, the belief in the valour of the Scots troopers is founded upon such a sure basis of testimony that it would be beyond the power of even the Kaiser and his entourage of claqueurs to secure evidence in support of this story of the phantom regiment of the revised version.

Again, if there is one phase of the battle which has become settled in the minds of students of the history of the campaign, it is the fact that both at Quatre Bras and Waterloo the Dutch-Belgian brigades (commanded by Perponcher, Bylandt, and Tripp) gave way before the onslaught of the French. Now, however, there has been published 'for the use of schools' a work dedicated with due solemnity to the Prince Albert of Belgium, entitled Waterloo Illustrated, and having for its principal object 'to remove from history the legend that the Belgians took flight at Waterloo.'

The incident of Bylandt's collapse and panic-stricken retreat is recorded in almost every history of the engagement; but we are now told that the Belgian Division of Chassé defeated the Imperial Guard of France! It is not denied that one brigade misbehaved grossly, but we are to believe that the other (Dittmer's) actually repulsed and pursued the Old Guard. Eyewitnesses, however, are agreed that this heroic brigade advanced exactly twenty minutes after the Guard had been dispersed, and fully ten minutes after the British cavalry had swept past the Belgians in the final pursuit.

The Kaiser having sounded the first note, which is intended to produce discord in the universal recognition of Wellington's victory as having been gained by dint of the bravery of the British troops under his command, all the minor participants have now begun to regard themselves as equally, if not more justly, entitled to the laurels won on that day.

The Kaiser, as essential for the purposes of the New Legend no doubt, was compelled to overlook the facts that (1) the Hanoverians and King George's German legion, to whom he referred as combining with the Prussians to rescue the British army, were themselves part of Wellington's army, mercenaries in British pay, serving our and their King George III; and (2) that Prussia herself owed her ability to fight for continued existence as a state to the enormous subsidies, amounting to many millions sterling, provided by the British Government to enable the conquered Prussians to continue their struggle against the French during the long period of the Napoleonic wars. Eleven millions were granted by Britain as subsidies for the allies in 1815 alone, out of ninety millions granted by Parliament that year for this campaign.

Lest the New Legend should assume larger proportions, and appear to be based upon fact, it is well to remember that the battle of the 18th June would not have taken place at or near Waterloo but for the fact that Blücher had in writing (see his despatch of 17th June, 9.30 A.M.) given his undertaking to move at least two of his corps by dawn of day across the short ten miles which separated the Prussian army from their allies.

How came it, then, that the Prussian staff, in giving effect to that promise, caused repeated and needless delays by selecting, as Wellington said, 'the stoutest man in the Prussian army' to carry the despatches to Wellington, and by ordering the most distant of the four corps, worn out by its rapid march after the Prussian defeat at Ligny, to lead the way to the support of Wellington?

Again, it may be asked, why was it necessary that the army corps of Pirch should be called upon to cross the line of march of Ziethen's corps, involving the complete cessation of the Prussian movement in support? No reason has ever been given for these extraordinary tactics; but it may be fully explained when one remembers the words of Müffling, the Prussian attaché on Wellington's staff: 'It was no secret to Europe that old Blücher, who had passed his seventieth year, knew nothing whatever of the conduct of a war. When it was seen that General Gneisenau really commanded the Prussian army and Blücher mere acted as an example of the bravest in battle, the discontent the four (Prussian) generals became louder.' All of the Prussian corps commanders but Blücher were jealous of Wellington. Müffling again says 'I know General Gneisenau's distrust of Wellington, and I was apprehensive that this might influence the impending arrangements.' These officers were apparently prepared to allow the British army to be driven back if thereby the victory could be claimed by them.

The ultimate result of all this was that the Prussians did not 'fall upon the right wing of the enemy,' as was promised by Blücher, 'at the first attack of Napoleon ' upon the British lines. Their failure to do so had led Wellington to despatch officers in search of the Prussians in the early morning of the 18th.

It was only after the engagement had lasted five hours that the Prussian strength was applied, and then it came not as Wellington expected, as a reinforcement on the left flank of the British army, but at Planchenoit many miles distant and almost in the rear of the French army, where for some hours its usefulness was lost. In the attack on Planchenoit they were absolutely unsuccessful and the place was not captured till after the general advance of the British line.

The first Prussians to arrive from Planchenoit found the gallant 52nd piling arms at Rosomme, beyond La Belle Alliance, Napoleon's own headquarters, after our men had pursued the French Guard a distance of two miles. Houssaye, the latest French historian, in his work, '1815 Waterloo,' tells us, after an exhaustive examination of all the evidence, that ' the defeat and retreat of the French army was marked by three very distinct movements, of which the first and third were due to the British troops alone. The defeat of the French Guard occasioned the yielding of more than two-thirds of the French army.

Later on, the approach of the Prussians provoked the disorder on the extreme French right; finally the general forward march of Wellington hastened the disaster to the French left; and, he concludes, it is false to say, with the Prussian Müffling, that Wellington only hurled his troops against the French to appear as if he were winning the victory without the help of the Prussians. Had Wellington at eight o'clock remained in his position, without advancing, the Prussians under Zeithen would very probably have sustained a check'

Müffling himself admits that General Zeithen's advance-guard suddenly turned round and disappeared in retreat from the heights on the British left just as the French Guards advanced against our right centre. It was only with difficulty and on Müffling himself assuring Von Zeithen that the British army was holding its ground and that the Prussians were in safety to continue their advance, that he could be induced to again face the enemy. Müffling proceeds: 'By this retrograde movement of General Von Zeithen the battle might have been lost.'

Further he might have added that even when at the close of the day they advanced to co-operate with Wellington's left wing, the Prussians almost created a disaster for, (in his report dated 19th June) Prince Bernard of Saxe Weimar, who commanded the left wing of the Anglo-Belgian army, has placed it on record that the Prussians opened fire with their artillery upon the allies, whom they mistook for the French army, and drove the Nassau troops, with heavy loss, from the outlying villages for a distance of over half a mile. Captain Seymour (Waterloo Letters) tells us of the Prussian batteries taking up position between the first and second British lines and causing heavy loss.

This incident goes far to confirm the account given by General Mercer (vol. i. p. 328) in his 'Journals,' when he describes the serious injury done to his battery and to the infantry squares around him by the fierce artillery fire opened upon them by the enfilading Prussian battery which suddenly appeared on his left and was only silenced when he retaliated by opening fire with his heavy guns. Such was the extraordinary mode adopted by the Prussian army of 'rescuing the British from destruction!"

The actual share of the honours due to Von Zeithen's junction with the British left may be judged from the fact that only one brigade of Von Zeithen's force was engaged in the fighting, and not a single officer was killed (Rose 298).

Yet it is claimed by the modern German legendaries that Zeithen's advance decided the fate of the day! Napoleon himself declared that 'at the time of the defeat of the French Guard by the British the Prussians were checked, and if the Old Guard had succeeded the day would have been won. Müffling, a Prussian eyewitness, admitted that 'the battle could have afforded no favourable result to the enemy even if the Prussians had never come up.'

The truth of the whole matter seems, as already indicated, to lie in the fact that it was only after receiving Blücher's undertaking to fall upon the French at the first attack by Napoleon that Wellington agreed to hold the position of Waterloo, instead of retiring upon his reserve of eighteen thousand men. These he had stationed seven miles off, at Hal, to which place two brigades were actually despatched on the morning of the 18th (Gurwood, Wellington's Despatches, vol. xii., p. 477)· By thus retiring Wellington's army would have occupied a much stronger position in the immediate neighbourhood of Brussels, where he could have been joined by the reformed force of Blücher on the following day.

That Wellington maintained the fight for nine hours after 'the first attack' was due entirely to the unflinching valour of the troops under his command. It is quite certain that had he retired, as he was entitled to do, on discovering that the Prussians had failed to fulfil their engagement by joining him at the first attack, the whole army of Blücher must have been destroyed, as it would have been caught between two fires while scattered in straggling lines among the narrow defiles of the Dyle and Lasne, and incapable of resistance. Grouchy, with thirty-three thousand men, was pounding away in their rear after defeating the Prussians at Wavre; and Napoleon, relieved of all opposition from the British army, would have been free to strike home with an overwhelming force of seventy thousand men and two hundred and fifty guns.

The conclusion which an impartial writer must draw from these facts is that so far from the Hanoverians and Prussians having, in the Kaiser's words, 'rescued the British army from destruction at Waterloo,' it was solely due to the unflinching tenacity of Wellington and his indomitable squares of infantry that the Prussian army was saved. Saved and that from a fate compared with which the debacle of Sedan would have faded into insignificance; for the moral effect of the surrender of the Prussian army would certainly have decided the fate of Europe, and would have placed Napoleon in a position to dictate his own terms to the allies.

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