Blog Number 37

Reading an interesting account of Waterloo from the French perspective. Rereading it in fact. The quotes of the French survivors  shed a contrasting light on what I had always assumed to be just another fling of the dice for Le Grande Armee. In fact it seems Napoleon's Army of the North was riven with self doubt and mistrust between the lower ranks and the upper. The high ranking commanders, like Ney, scrambling to join their troops in time, adjusting their allegiances and their cockades.

And whereas Wellington's hotchpotch composite army was once compared to an old rope that kept breaking, requiring knots to be tied simply to keep it intact, Napoleon's was likened to a girder of iron that was immensely strong and seemingly unbreakable. Except that if it ever did snap it would be beyond repairing. So much for outward impressions. It was a girder beset with a morale of rust. Haunted by the ghosts of thousands of men wasted in pursuit of 'La Gloire' on the plains of Russia and Europe.

Waterloo is of course famous for its cavalry charges. The British 'heavies, including the Scots Greys, charging to self destruction caused by enthusiasm and lack of discipline, but sweeping aside an entire French infantry corps along the way and saving the left flank of the allied forces from being rolled up early on in the day. Then, in the afternoon, the turn of the opposition; the launching of repeated French heavy and light cavalry charges against allied infantry squares. Completely futile.

The names of the various French cuirassier commanders: Milhaud, Excellmans, Guyot, Kellerman have an elan of their own.  In amongst  the pages of quotes from long dead Frenchmen I came across this painting of Guyot. Very much the cavalryman. Rising from common trooper to the highest ranks. He had been sacked previously by Napoleon yet returned to fight for him at Waterloo. Wounded twice that day. Another example of the undying commitment Napoleon engendered in his men.

I remember watching and hearing the vastly impressive Household cavalry going for a morning trot in Hyde Park, in London, years ago. Guyot's portrait carries that same sound.