Waterloo Uncovered – Reading to Remember 2017 Text kindly provided by Bernard Cornwell. Excerpt from ‘Waterloo’ by Bernard Cornwell, chapter 4, about the 16 June battle at Quatre-Bras Skirmishers play a large part in the story of Waterloo. Essentially they are specialist infantrymen who fight neither in line, nor in column (though they could and often did do both), but fought ahead of a line or column. They formed a skirmish line, a scatter of troops spread wide, whose job was to snipe at the enemy’s formation. Every battalion possessed a Light Company, and some whole battalions were light troops like the battalions of the 95th Rifles. The French had expanded the numbers of their skirmishers because, like the artillery, they were useful for weakening an enemy line before the column attacked. The best defence against skirmishers was other skirmishers, so in battle both sides had their light troops in extended order way ahead of their formations. Their scattered formation made them difficult targets for inaccurate muskets and not worth the price of a cannon ball, though they were vulnerable to canister, an artillery round which turned the cannon into a giant shotgun. They fought in pairs, one man firing while his companion loaded. In an ideal world the French skirmishers, who were called voltigeurs or tirailleurs, would go ahead until they were in musket range of the enemy line and then they would open fire, hoping to bring down officers. Tirailleur, the official name, simply means a shooter, from the verb tir, to shoot, while a voltigeur is a vaulter, or gymnast, because the ideal skirmisher was an agile, quick-moving man. They knelt or lay down to fire, making themselves small targets, and enough skirmishers could seriously hurt a line of troops, but only if they could get close. French skirmishers usually outnumbered the British, though the British had the advantage that many of their skirmishers were armed with rifles, a weapon that Napoleon refused to employ. The rifle’s drawback was that it was slow to load because the bullet, usually wrapped in a leather patch, had to be forced down the rifled barrel, and that took far longer than ramming a musket ball down a smoothbore barrel, but the advantage of the rifle was its accuracy. The British used the Baker Rifle, a superb and dependable weapon, that was accurate far beyond the range of any musket. Skirmishers dared not get too far ahead of their parent battalions because, in the deadly game of scissors, stone and paper which characterizes artillery, infantry and cavalry in the Napoleonic era, they were totally vulnerable to horsemen. Their scattered formation meant they could not form square or offer volley fire, so a few cavalrymen could decimate a skirmish line in a matter of seconds. But when Picton’s Division arrives at Quatre Bras there is no cavalry to scour the French skirmishers away. The Black Legion of Brunswick reached the battlefield at the same time as Picton’s men, but the rest of the Duke’s cavalry regiments are still hurrying to reach the battlefield and so Wellington decides to attack the French skirmishers with his line of infantry. There were columns of French infantry beyond the enemy skirmishers, but British lines had never had trouble defeating French columns and so the six battalions were ordered forward. They were severely outnumbered. The French were coming in three columns, the largest with over 8,000 men was attacking northwards close to the Bossu wood. The central column, advancing along the highway, had 5,400 men while to their right were another 4,200 infantry, all of them supported by over fifty cannon and by troops of cavalry. The six battalions of British infantry had around 3,500 men between them who had to face at least 1 Waterloo Uncovered – Reading to Remember 2017 Text kindly provided by Bernard Cornwell. 17,000 infantry, as well as the artillery and cavalry, but these battalions were among the best and most experienced in Wellington’s army. What followed was typical of the day’s confused fighting. One of those battalions was the kilted Highlanders, just over 500 men of the 42nd, the Black Watch. James Anton was a sergeant in the battalion that first had to advance through the field of rye where the Dutch skirmishers were being overwhelmed by the heavy French attack. The stalks of the rye, like some reeds that grow on the margins of some swamp, opposed our advance; the tops were up to our bonnets, and we strode and groped our way through as fast as we could. By the time we reached the field of clover on the other side we were very much straggled; however, we united in line as fast as time and our speedy advance would permit. The Belgic skirmishers retired through our ranks, and in an instant we were on their victorious pursuers. Our sudden appearance seemed to paralyse their advance. The singular appearance of our dress, combined no doubt with our sudden début, tended to stagger their resolution: we were on them, our pieces were loaded, and our bayonets glittered, eager to drink their blood. Those who had so proudly driven the Belgians before them turned now to fly . we drove on so fast that we almost appeared like a mob (and) Marshal Ney, who commanded the enemy, observed our wild unguarded zeal and ordered a regiment of lancers to bear down upon us. (We) took them for Brunswickers. The Black Watch was now in an open field and still in line. There was cavalry on their flank, but they assumed they were the Brunswick horsemen who had arrived at Quatre Bras about the same time as the 42nd. Brunswick was a German state which had fallen to the French and in revenge the Duke of Brunswick had raised a regiment which had joined Wellington in Spain. They wore black uniforms and were known as the Black Legion, and were led at Quatre Bras by their young Duke, Friedrich Wilhelm. The Brunswickers, though they had been allies of the British in Spain, were not popular, mainly because of their taste for dogmeat. The Irish Rifleman, Private Edward Costello of the green-jacketed 95th Rifles, remembered a dog called Rifle who had accompanied his battalion in Spain; A dog which had attached itself to our regiment and which could never be induced to leave us. We lost him on one or two occasions, but he always managed to rejoin us. We used to joke among ourselves at Rifle’s antipathy to a red coat, for he had a decided preference for green. The poor fellow survived many of our skirmishes, in which he used to run about barking and expressing his delight as much as a dog could. Then one day Rifle vanished altogether, and it was discovered that he had been eaten by the Black Legion. Legend insists that the Rifles got their revenge by slicing the buttocks from some dead Frenchmen, smoking them and then selling them as hams to the Brunswickers. 2 Waterloo Uncovered – Reading to Remember 2017 Text kindly provided by Bernard Cornwell. --------CHANGE READERS--------- Sergeant James Anton and the 42nd Highlanders were still advancing in line across the open field of clover, ignorant that the cavalry to their right were not dog-eating Germans, but Frenchmen. Then a German staff officer galloped past the battalion shouting that the approaching cavalry were ‘Franchee! Franchee!’ The horsemen were lancers. We instantly formed a rallying square; no time for particularity; every man’s piece was loaded, and our enemies approached at full charge; the feet of their horses seemed to tear up the ground. This was desperate work. A battalion in line was fearfully vulnerable to a cavalry charge, but an infantry square could defeat almost any attack by horsemen. Yet it took time to make a square and the Highlanders had no time and so the order was shouted to rally. This was almost a panic. Instead of the careful ordering of the companies into a rectangle bristling with bayonets, the 42nd simply ran towards the colours and formed a huddle with the men facing outwards. Some lancers were even trapped inside the hastily forming rally- square and were dragged from their horses and killed. The skirmishers, who were deployed ahead of the battalion, stood no chance and were ridden down by the lancers, as was the battalion commander, Sir Robert Macara. Sir Robert’s death was witnessed by the 42nd and it enraged them. He had been wounded earlier and, just before the lancers appeared, was being stretchered to the rear in search of a surgeon. The stretcher was either two jackets with their sleeves threaded over a pair of muskets or, more likely, a blanket held by the four men carrying him. The French saw the wounded man’s medals and braid and, presumably in search of plunder, callously slaughtered all five men. That was murder, not warfare, and it enraged the Scots. They drove off the lancers with musketry, but later in the day the officers of the 42nd had to restrain their men who were slaughtering surrendering Frenchmen with shouts of ‘Where’s Macara?’ Captain Archibald Menzies, who commanded the Grenadier Company of the 42nd, was also trapped outside the rally square. He was a man of legendary strength who, preferring to fight on foot, had handed off his horse to a drummer boy. Menzies (pronounced Mingis) was wounded and fell next to Private Donald Mackintosh. The drummer boy abandoned the horse and ran to help, upon which a lancer tried to seize the valuable animal.