by Iain Gale
As he turned to his front again Ney was stopped by another crash of fire, and when the smoke drifted he saw that he was left alone – officers gone. Rank behind gone. Then he saw the gleam of bayonets. Saw the green flag move towards him, the officer’s mouth open and close in an impossible to hear command. Looked about him and saw the Garde begin to fall back. Slowly at first, and now faster. Moving backwards down the hill. Still in order – mostly. But moving back – around him. Ney steadied his nerve. Best to go with them. Rally out of musket range. Try again. And even as the thought came to him he saw the red troops turn in perfect order and march back towards their own lines. They don’t have the men to follow up. They need to retire. They are exhausted. The French guns opened up again, scythed great furrows through the backs of the British ranks. Ney looked about him.
Fifty cavalry. Give me fifty horsemen. A single squadron of cuirassiers and I shall take the day. He saw the opportunity open up. The line was adrift. The gap visible now. Wide. The confusion palpable. He saw mounted British officers trying to preserve order among the two, no, three regiments which had become one confused mass making its way back up the slope to its position.
‘Cavalry!’
He caught himself shouting the word. But no one heard. No one came. Where in hell’s name were the cavalry? Ney looked around. Looked down, and saw at his feet where they were. He was standing on the cavalry. In them. Treading the lifeless bodies of men who, only two hours before, he himself had led up this same slope. Carabiniers, cuirassiers, lancers, chasseurs, strewn before him in grotesque attitudes and crumpled heaps. Gorgeous uniforms, twisted metal, parts of men and horses together in piles of bright red meat. There was no cavalry. Only a single squadron of cuirassiers near the farm, which had now become entangled in Donzelot’s fleeing division. They could not be reached. There was no one else. No one left. And, as quickly as it had come, the moment vanished. Ahead of him Ney saw the British line close up; the red-coated men turn and re-form.
The Garde was suddenly immobile. Could not move. And then the red ranks fired again. Men fell around him. And he knew. And they began to fall back. Slowly, still facing the enemy. Edging backwards. Incredibly, the Garde began to retreat. In square. Still a unit. Ney did not attempt to stop them. They were the Garde. Knew what they were doing, and he went with them. And then, from behind the redcoats there came other troops, running now towards the French. Men in blue. Belgians. Dutch. Furious faces. Bayonets fixed. Some threw their hats in the air as they descended the slope at double time, their officers galloping at the front. And Ney began to run too, to his left, through the ranks of his own column. And even as he went he saw it disintegrate. Saw the unthinkable. Saw the grenadiers turn and run. He pushed through the mass. Gained the shelter of a battery still firing into the red ranks from lower ground and then he was safe, inside another square of the Garde. Chasseurs now. Here was Michel, and there Malet. Both hatless and horseless. Swords in their hands. Their men were still advancing. Muskets at the port. He heard shouting. Words of command in English. The clear ring of officers’ voices, carrying across the ridge. He could not see their owners at first. And then, in front of him, not thirty paces away, the ground appeared to rise up. From nowhere a mass of men appeared. Red coats, black shakos. Muskets to their shoulders. Three ranks, he reckoned quickly. Perhaps 2,000 men.
Brilliant, he thought. Spain was no chance opportunity. No luck. This was generalship. This was soldiering. This was all that he had feared. This was Bussaco again. Wellington had kept his single strongest battalion in reserve and now revealed it, fresh to the fight. He saw the guns spit. Felt the scud of the balls as they passed around him. Heard the dull thwack as they thudded into the men behind. He half turned. Saw the lines of still-advancing men lower their heads, as if walking into a strong wind. Tried to speak as the front two ranks of the 3rd Regiment of chasseurs just melted away in a sea of agony. He saw officers go down. Michel, Cardinal, Angelet. Others, whose names he did not know, had not known. And then they stopped. Without an order, the French advance just came to a halt.
‘Line. Form line.’
He heard a junior officer shout the words before seeing him hurled round by a musket ball and, desperately, the square began to go through the manoeuvre, the chasseurs helplessly exposed, defenceless. Halfway through the change from square to line the British opened up again. More shot struck the men in blue coats, and the manoeuvre just fell apart. The French began to huddle together in natural groups. Tried to deliver small volleys. Anything to stop the slaughter, as the three red ranks in front of them rose and fell in unceasing fire. Ney knew those men now, with their fluttering crimson standard. Saw the gleam of gold and silver on their tunics, the beauty of the officers’ uniforms. Gentlemen’s uniforms. Guards. English foot guards. Wellington had matched him with the best. Had made his finest troops lie down behind the ridge until Napoleon’s own Garde was at the very crest, and then, only then, had he ordered them to stand up and inflict this devastating fire. Through it all the enemy cannon continued to send in its storms of canister.
A huge grenadier sergeant fell across Ney’s left thigh, right arm severed by cannon shot, face split with musket fire. Ney expected to be hit now. The tightness in his stomach was long gone. Replaced by a hollow feeling. A deep emptiness. Why wasn’t he hit? Surely one shot would find its mark? We must re-form, he thought. Must fall back from all this. It was surely too much to bear. We will all die here. But already it was too late. With a great shout the redcoats came rushing towards him, and what was left of his square turned and ran.
Again Ney looked to his left and saw, again, one solitary square of tall blue-coated men. Stumbling over fallen chasseurs, he found its side. The men, some recognizing him, parted to allow him in. Once inside, Ney caught his breath and looked out at the wreck of the attack. Saw the unimaginable. The Garde in retreat. Yet the square which was now his home continued to advance towards the red ranks. Steady. He heard himself shout an order but could not make out the words. Instinct was taking over. Careful. Walking forward now. Into the fire. On his left there was a sudden commotion. A huge force pushed against the ranks. Forced him physically away from it. In front of him a drummer fell, shot in the back. Ney ran to the left of the square and found carnage. In front of him part of the great red wall of men in tall black shakos – English light infantry-had somehow come towards them. Had wheeled outwards and down the hill, in perfect order, to deliver one more terrible, crashing, thousand-musket volley into the left of the square.
‘Close up.’
Hearing the sergeants, those that were left, he joined the call. ‘Close your ranks. Close up.’
What remained of the left side of the square moved together.
‘Present arms. Fire.’
The chasseurs replied with their own volley. Nicely done, thought Ney. We can still do it. Can make them hurt. He saw men in red double over in their scores. Their officers were shouting. Replacements came from the rear ranks. Prepared to fire again. Spat flame. Ney winced at the impact of the volley. He was not hit. How could it be? All around him men were falling. A great smack of air to his right, and another ten men were down. He saw Malet fall too. He did not get up. Shot through the head. And Major Agnes, riddled with at least five musket balls.
And so it happened.
The last square began to break up. Began to fall back. Across the field. Over the bodies. Towards the burning château. They were close to the orchard now, and in front of them the red mass seemed to grow. Volley after volley crashed into them. For one eternal, suspended moment the redcoats seemed to pause. A break in the volleys, and Ney could not hear. Then a ringing in his ears. And after it a new noise. Like a wave crashing against sand, as gradually a cheer unfurled along the red line and over the hill came column after column, line after line. Flags flying loose in the wind, blue, yellow, green. British music now. The old marches. And so, with the tunes of the Spanish War, on they came.
And with them, passing through the
red ranks, came the rushing blue of the cavalry. Hussars and light dragoons in a whooping charge of blue and yellow, slashing at the retreating bearskins with hungry, razor-sharp sabres. And so, the rout began.
‘Sauve qui peut.’
Ney heard the cry. Found himself caught up in it. Felt the tears chasing down his face. Mingling with the blood from the earlier sabre cut, re-opened now. Wild-eyed boys rushed past him, desperate to escape the merciless hissing of the sabres they knew to be just behind. And still he would not join them. He crossed the battlefield. Half in, half out of reality. Near La Haye Sainte he caught sight of d’Erlon, himself attempting to rally scattered elements of his own divisions. Made his way towards him.
‘D’Erlon. What are you doing? Go back. Don’t you want to die in glory?’
The general stopped. Just gazed at him. ‘I intend to fight. I came here to fight. Not to die.’
Ney smiled. ‘You know, d’Erlon. If you and I ever get out of this alive, you know what they’ll do to us? They’ll hang us both, for sure.’
The general turned away without a word. Continued his impossible task. Ney found a new, unbroken square, yet still in steady retreat. Saw that they were the 95th Line, Garnier’s men. Their commander, though, was nowhere to be seen. They had managed to keep their eagle and the tatters of its tricolour. A big sergeant seemed to be in command. Ney stared at them wildly.
‘Stop. Stop. I command you.’
To his surprise, they stopped. Recognized him, despite the blackened face; the blood. His tunic was open, all the buttons gone, the braid ripped away. One of his epaulettes too. He addressed them:
‘Follow me. Come with me and see how a Marshal of France dies.’
Again, to his surprise, they followed. Walking slowly back up the muddy slope, boots slipping on the mire, Ney led the few last remnants of the 95th in a pitiful attack which never stood a chance of reaching the enemy. Turning, right and left he saw them falling. Boys, just folding in half. And still no shot came for him. He called, silently it seemed, to the survivors to fall back and stumbled blindly down the slope into the valley, past the rear walls of La Haye Sainte, where the tricolour still flew. And there, beside the orchard he had left barely thirty minutes earlier, he found the last three squares of the attack.
They had never come forward. Had witnessed the carnage and remained intact. And now the order came to retreat. Ney moved inside one of the squares where the maimed remains of the Garde now sheltered in bloody chaos. He found a familiar face. Jean-Jacques Pelet – his companion on the retreat from Moscow. Then a colonel of infantry, now a brigade commander of the Garde. Together, less than three years ago, they had taken 5,500 men across the frozen river Dnieper, escaping the Russians. Then too they had been retreating in square.
‘Pelet, dear friend. What next? What are we doing? Where is the Emperor?’
‘It’s hopeless. The Prussians are everywhere. We tried to hold them in Plancenoit but there are too many. Ney. We must retreat. Regroup. Fight again. We can do it again, Ney. We did it in Russia. We can do it again.’
But, even as he spoke, Ney noticed the tears coursing down the officer’s cheeks. He looked out from the ranks, back up at the slope above the farmhouse, and through the smoke he could see the entire Allied army advancing towards them across the field. Their artillery was still firing, and as the square continued to fall back it was losing more men with every step. Ney wiped at his eyes. Looked at Pelet’s eager, pleading, trusting face and just shook his head.
Ney walked away. Deep into the square. Over the bodies of the dead. Past the outstretched hands of the wounded and dying, reaching up to touch him. To touch Ney. Merely to touch, one last time, the ‘bravest of the brave’. This then, he thought, was how it all ended. Here, on this sodden, bloody field. Not in his death. Worse than that. In the death of a dream. The death of the Garde, and with it the death of the Empire. The death of France. The end of the world.
THIRTY
Between Papelotte farm and Mont St Jean, 8.00 p.m. Ziethen
He saw the four men ride out from the blue-coated ranks. Officers. Two with drawn sabres. Aides, presumably, and in front of them two more men. One, he thought, must be their colonel. Perhaps a more senior officer. He did not immediately recognize the uniform, though. Line infantry? Light? Or perhaps some more obscure French unit? Undoubtedly the commander wanted to parlay. A truce. Surrender. They had been firing on each other for some five minutes now and it was clear that the French were getting the worst of it. Steinmetz’s scouts had spotted them first. Around 2,000 men, moving steadily towards Wellington’s flank, away from the farm of Papelotte. It appeared that he had arrived just in time to prevent a massacre. The Prussian jager had opened fire immediately on the rear ranks of the blue column, which had of course to turn and re-form before returning a volley. Naturally, in the course of the manoeuvre the Prussians had taken their toll. Now the French were hemmed in by woods and hedges on either side and, formed as they were in close order, they were falling fast to the accurate fire of the two leading Prussian regiments.
As the man rode closer Ziethen signalled to an aide.
‘Ride quickly to General-Major Steinmetz. Have the men cease fire. In particular don’t shoot those officers. Let them through.’
He would be merciful in these last moments of France’s shattered glory. Would allow this Frenchman to plead for his men. What chance did they have against even his battered corps? Even now Pirch’s brigade was joining Steinmetz on the battlefield. Jagow and Schutter, he knew, were close behind. Five thousand men to shore up Wellington’s flank.
Ziethen drew out his telescope from his valise and putting it to his eye scanned the enemy infantry. Blue coats and white trousers. But what colour were their facings? They looked orange. What the French called ‘aurore’, the colour of the rising dawn. That could only make them infantry of the Garde. But they did not behave like veterans. More like conscripts. Their volleys were ragged and irregular. He saw that they too had now stopped firing. The horsemen were almost with him now. Ziethen could see their faces quite clearly. Three of them blank; the fourth, the commander, a mask of rage and indignation. Rage?
The officer approached him. Shouted as he came. In perfect German. ‘What the devil d’you think you’re doing?’
Ziethen waited until there was no need to shout. ‘Iam firing on your men, sir. Would you kindly explain to me what is wrong with that? But I have ordered my men to cease firing and we will be happy to accept your surrender.’
‘Surrender? Surrender? What business would I have in surrendering to you? You are Prussian, are you not?’
‘General-Lieutenant Hans von Ziethen at your service, sir. And this,’ he gestured, ‘as you so astutely observe, is the First Corps of the Prussian Army of the Lower Rhine. And you are?’
‘We’re Germans, you fool. The Royal Regiment of Orange-Nassau. Can’t you see our uniforms? Don’t you recognize your own allies, man?’
Ziethen bristled. ‘It is not my fault, sir, if your men are dressed like Frenchmen.’
He turned to von Reiche. ‘See that the order to cease firing reaches every regiment. Every battalion. Make sure that the men know.’
He turned back to the distressed German officer. ‘And whom do I have the honour of addressing?’
Von Reiche intervened quickly before the officer had time to speak. ‘Herr General. May I introduce his Grace Prince Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar.’
Ziethen saluted. ‘Excuse me, your Grace. My apologies. But you must understand it was a simple mistake.’
‘Simple, yes. But a mistake which has cost the lives of dozens of my men, Herr General.’
Saxe-Weimar paused. Looked away for a moment. Regained his composure and looked Ziethen straight in the eye. ‘Still, General von Ziethen, you’re here. Thank God for that. And Blücher?’
‘Yes, your Grace. Prince Blücher is at Plancenoit with the Second and Fourth Corps. We are all here.’
Saxe-Weimar rode closer. Ext
ended his hand. Ziethen took it. The Prince spoke.
‘Then we have him at last, this Corsican upstart. And this time, by the grace of God and the will of the German peoples, he will not escape.’
As he watched the Prince return, jubilant, to his command, Ziethen pondered his decision to go against Gneisenau’s orders. He had no doubt now that he had done the right thing. But would the High Command see that? He had broken the cardinal rule. Disobeyed a field order given in battle. It was a hanging offence. A court-martial at least. Even with his family’s reputation among the military. But he had no doubt that it had been the right thing. He would bear the responsibility. Prince Bernhard had informed him that an entire French division was positioned to the rear of Papelotte farm and another brigade in Smohain, poised as they spoke to attack the Allied left wing. Well, they were in for a surprise. His men might have mistaken the Nassauers for their enemy, but, thank God, his gamble had been right. It was as he had supposed. They had arrived in the nick of time.
He scanned the scene directly to his front, beyond the tangle of woods and small farms. Saw only smoke and the flicker of far-distant flames. The noise was incredible. An Armageddon. Ziethen wondered just what had taken place down there in the valley over the past few hours. Soon, no doubt, they would know. Now there was work to be done. He found von Reiche again.
