From “Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World.”

BLUCHER and Bulow were beginning to press upon the French right; as early as five o’clock Napoleon had been obliged to detach Lobau’s infantry and Domont’s horse to check these new enemies. This was done for a time; but, as large numbers of the Prussians came on the field, they turned Lobau’s left, and sent a strong force to seize the village of Planchenoit, which, it will be remembered, lay in the rear of the French right. Napoleon was now obliged to send his Young Guard to occupy that village, which was accordingly held by them with great gallantry against the reiterated assaults of the Prussian left under Bulow. But the force remaining under Napoleon was now numerically inferior to that under the Duke of Wellington, which he had been assailing throughout the day, without gaining any other advantage than the capture of La Haye Sainte. It is true that, owing to the gross misconduct of the greater part of the Dutch and Belgian troops, the duke was obliged to rely exclusively on his English and German soldiers, and the ranks of these had been fearfully thinned; but the survivors stood their ground heroically, and still opposed a resolute front to every forward movement of their enemies. Napoleon had then the means of effecting a retreat. His Old Guard had yet taken no part in the action. Under cover of it, he might have withdrawn his shattered forces and retired upon the French frontier. But this would only have given the English and Prussians the opportunity of completing their junction; and he knew that other armies were fast coming up to aid them in a march upon Paris, if he should succeed in avoiding an encounter with them, and retreating upon the capital. A victory at Waterloo was his only alternative from utter ruin, and he determined to employ his Guard in one bold stroke more to make that victory his own.

  Between seven and eight o’clock the infantry of the Old Guard was formed into two columns on the declivity near La Belle Alliance. Ney was placed at their head. Napoleon himself rode forward to a spot by which his veterans were to pass; and as they approached he raised his arm and pointed to the position of the allies as if to tell them that their path lay there. They answered with loud cries of “Vive l’Empereur!” and descended the hill from their own side into that “valley of the shadow of death,” while their batteries thundered with redoubled vigor over their heads upon the British line. The line of march of the columns of the Guard was directed between Hougoumont and La Haye Sainte, against the British right centre; and at the same time, Donzelot and the French, who had possession of La Haye Sainte, commenced a fierce attack upon the British centre, a little more to its left. This part of the battle has drawn less attention than the celebrated attack of the Old Guard; but it formed the most perilous crisis for the allied army; and if the Young Guard had been there to support Donzelot, instead of being engaged with the Prussians at Planchenoit, the consequences to the allies in that part of the field must have been most serious. The French tirailleurs, who were posted in clouds in La Haye Sainte, and the sheltered spots near it, completely disabled the artillerymen of the English batteries near them; and, taking advantage of the crippled state of the English guns, the French brought some fieldpieces up to La Haye Sainte, and commenced firing grape from them on the infantry of the allies, at a distance of not more than a hundred paces. The allied infantry here consisted of some German brigades, who were formed in squares, as it was believed that Donzelot had cavalry ready behind La Haye Sainte to charge them with, if they left that order of formation. In this state the Germans remained for some time with heroic fortitude, though the grapeshot was tearing gaps in their ranks, and the side of one square was literally blown away by one tremendous volley which the French gunners poured into it. The Prince of Orange in vain endeavored to lead some Nassau troops to their aid. The Nassauers would not or could not face the French; and some battalions of Brunswickers, whom the Duke of Wellington had ordered up as re-enforcement, at first fell back, until the duke in person rallied them and led them on. The duke then galloped off to the right to head his men who were exposed to the attack of the Imperial Guard. He had saved one part of his centre from being routed; but the French had gained ground here and the pressure on the allied line was severe, until it was relieved by the decisive success which the British in the right centre achieved over the columns of the Guard.

  The British troops on the crest of that part of the position, which the first column of Napoleon’s Guards assailed, were Maitland’s brigade of British Guards, having Adam’s brigade on their right. Maitland’s men were lying down, in order to avoid, as far as possible, the destructive effect of the French artillery, which kept up an unremitting fire from the opposite heights, until the first column of the Imperial Guard had advanced so far up the slope toward the British position that any further firing of the French artillerymen would endanger their own comrades. Meanwhile, the British guns were not idle; but shot and shell ploughed fast through the ranks of the stately array of veterans that still moved imposingly on. Several of the French superior officers were at its head. Ney’s horse was shot under him, but he still led the way on foot, sword in hand. The front of the massy column now was on the ridge of the hill. To their surprise, they saw no troops before them. All they could discern through the smoke was a small band of mounted officers. One of them was the duke himself. The French advanced to about fifty yards from where the British Guards were lying down, when the voice of one of the band of British officers was heard calling, as if to the ground before him, “Up, Guards, and at them!” It was the duke who gave the order; and at the words, as if by magic, up started before them a line of the British Guards four deep, and in the most compact and perfect order. They poured an instantaneous volley upon the head of the French column, by which no less than three hundred of those chosen veterans are said to have fallen. The French officers rushed forward, and, conspicuous in front of their men, attempted to deploy them into a more extended line, so as to enable them to reply with effect to the British fire. But Maitland’s brigade kept showering in volley after volley with deadly rapidity. The decimated column grew disordered in its vain efforts to expand itself into a more efficient formation. The right word was given at the right moment to the British for the bayonet charge, and the brigade sprang forward with a loud cheer against their dismayed antagonists. In an instant the compact mass of the French spread out into a rabble, and they fled back down the hill pursued by Maitland’s men, who, however, returned to their position in time to take part in the repulse of the second column of the Imperial Guard.

  This column also advanced with great spirit and firmness under the cannonade which was opened on it, and, passing by the eastern wall of Hougumont, diverged slightly to the right as it moved up the slope toward the British position, so as to approach the same spot where the first column had surmounted the height and been defeated. This enabled the British regiments of Adam’s brigade to form a line parallel to the left flank of the French column, so that while the front of this column of French Guards had to encounter the cannonade of the British batteries and the musketry of Maitland’s Guards, its left flank was assailed with a destructive fire by a four-deep body of British infantry extending all along it. In such a position all the bravery and skill of the French veterans were vain. The second column, like its predecessor, broke and fled, taking at first a lateral direction along the front of the British line toward the rear of La Haye Sainte, and so becoming blended with the divisions of French infantry, which, under Donzelot, had been pressing the allies so severely in that quarter. The sight of the Old Guard broken and in flight checked the ardor which Donzelot’s troops had hitherto displayed. They, too, began to waver. Adam’s victorious brigade was pressing after the flying Guard, and now cleared away the assailants of the allied centre. But the battle was not yet won. Napoleon had still some battalions in reserve near La Belle Alliance. He was rapidly rallying the remains of the first column of his Guards, and he had collected into one body the remnants of the various corps of cavalry, which had suffered so severely in the earlier part of the day. The duke instantly formed the bold resolution of now himself becoming the assailant, and leading his successful though enfeebled army forward, while the disheartening effect of the repulse of the Imperial Guard on the French army was still strong, and before Napoleon and Ney could rally the beaten veterans themselves for another and a fiercer charge. As the close approach of the Prussians now completely protected the duke’s left, he had drawn some reserves of horse from that quarter, and he had a brigade of hussars under Vivian fresh and ready at hand. Without a moment’s hesitation, he launched these against the cavalry near La Belle Alliance. The charge was as successful as it was daring; and as there was now no hostile cavalry to check the British infantry in a forward movement, the duke gave the long-wished-for command for a general advance of the army along the whole line upon the foe. It was now past eight o’clock, and for nine deadly hours had the British and German regiments stood unflinching under the fire of artillery, the charge of cavalry, and every variety of assault that the compact columns or the scattered tirailleurs of the enemy’s infantry could inflict. As they joyously sprang forward against the discomfited masses of the French, the setting sun broke through the clouds which had obscured the sky during the greater part of the day, and glittered on the bayonets of the allies, while they in turn poured down into the valley and toward the heights that were held by the foe. Almost the whole of the French host was now in irretrievable confusion. The Prussian army was coming more and more rapidly forward on their right, and the Young Guard, which had held Planchenoit so bravely, was at last compelled to give way. Some regiments of the Old Guard in vain endeavored to form in squares. They were swept away to the rear; and then Napoleon himself fled from the last of his many fields, to become in a few weeks a captive and an exile. The battle was lost by France past all recovery.