OPINION:
THE LONGEST AFTERNOON: THE 400 MEN WHO DECIDED THE BATTLE OF WATERLOO
By Brendan Simms
Basic Books, $24.99, 186 pages
As Napoleon Bonaparte’s troops assembled for battle outside the Belgian village of Waterloo in June 1815, the deposed French emperor spoke scornfully of the opposing British commander and his soldiers: “I tell you that [the Duke of] Wellington is a bad general and the English are bad troops. The whole affair will be no more serious than swallowing one’s breakfast!”
Escaped from months of exile, Napoleon had stormed through France, gradually building an army with which he hoped to fulfill his dream of dominating Europe. All that remained in his path was the multinational army assembled under Wellington. “It is up to you to save the world,” Czar Alexander of Russia told Wellington on the eve of battle.
Understandably, most historians have cast the battle as a contest between the renowned commanders. In the book at hand, British historian Brendan Simms focuses on a single unit whose bravery was central to the outcome.
His choice: The Second Light Battalion of the King’s German Legion, which typified the complexities of the anti-Napoleon alliance. The battalion has its origins in the German state of Hanover. Its ruler (known as the Elector) was King George III of Great Britain. But more than half the soldiers were non-German, a mixture of Austrians, Bavarians, Poles and Brits. Battalion offices were British, and the “language of command” was English.
Many of the soldiers enlisted to avoid the scourge of poverty; their service to the Crown dated to the early 1800s, and they shared a fierce hatred of Napoleon, who had ravaged Hanover, along with much else in Europe. Indeed, as Mr. Simms writes, “many men of the King’s German Legion, far from being mere Continental mercenaries in the King’s pay, perceived themselves as ideological warriors against Napoleon and French domination generally.”
Fate put the battalion at a key spot on the battlefield: a crossroads known as La Haye Sainte farm. In command was British Maj. George Baring, a soldier since age 12. (Somewhat of a rake, he was involved in several “affairs of honor” involving women, at least one resulting in a duel. He had also suffered severe combat wounds, including a bullet through his mouth that took out four teeth.)
At Waterloo, Wellington laid out his planned field of battle north of superior numbers of amassed French, hopeful that thousands of Prussians would come to his aid by the end of the day. High ground and sturdy buildings provided excellent defensive positions and fields of fire.
The French line of attack would be up a road toward the La Haye Sainte farmhouse, behind a walled courtyard. Half the force took positions inside the house. Baring himself led the others into an orchard directly facing the French approach.
Napoleon had some 74,000 men at his disposal, “on the average of higher quality” than the 68,000 under Wellington’s command. Napoleon’s scouts warned him of the approaching Prussians; hence he dared not tarry. He must move quickly, and central to victory was his ability to push past the farmhouse obstructing his line of march.
Mr. Simms describes what followed in military writing of the first rank. By centering on a single engagement of a wide-ranging battle, Mr. Simms brings the life the intensity of war on a 19th-century battlefield, and the depth of bravery in both ranks.
Napoleon apparently had little firm intelligence on the physical characteristics of the farm, which was partially concealed by a dip in the ground. Given the limited caliber and number of his artillery, he chose not to precede his assault with a cannonade. Once his artillery did fire, thick mud prevented French cannon balls from bouncing to cause the expected destruction. Rather, Napoleon relied on brute force to sweep past the obstacle.
When three drum beats announced the order to advance, “about 18,000 men moved forward, preceded by a cloud of musket-armed skirmishers,” across a wide frontage.
Although Baring ordered his men to hunker down, thereby providing smaller targets, he chose to remain on horseback, “essential to give a good example to the men and to maintain an overview of the battlefield. Frenchmen fell by the score to the first Hanoverian volleys, and bodies soon littered the battlefield.
Yet the French had superior weapons — muskets that fired two to three rounds per minute — and they pressed on. There ensued a process of attrition: aim, fire and reload — an intricate minuet requiring the soldier to bite off the top of a prepared cartridge containing powder and a ball, and retain the ball in his mouth while he poured powder into the musket firing pan. Even when done flawlessly, “the infantryman was left with blackened lips and a gritty taste in his mouth.”
Baring ordered men to deploy outside the farmhouse to beat back French skirmishers. Chaos ensued as the French kept coming. A French officer recalled, “There were moments when the senses of hearing and sight had in fact shut down, and not just figuratively so.”
In the end, the Second Battalion prevailed, and by dusk the French had no choice but to break off their attack, leaving 2,000 dead. The Hanoverians lost half their 400-man strength. But their bravery and tenacity prevailed until the Prussian contingent swept into the battle and ended Napoleon’s dream of a restored empire.
As Victor Hugo wrote, Waterloo “was not a battle but a change in the direction of the world.” Mr. Simms’ narrative is slim, 130 pages of text (plus 44 of notes), but he tells more about realities of boots-on-the-ground combat than any other Waterloo book I have encountered. A five-gun read.
• Washington writer Joseph Goulden is the author of 18 nonfiction books.
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