A Waterloo mystery unsolved

[Didz]

There are still a lot of unsolved mysteries related to the battle of Waterloo, and having studied this battle as an amateur historian and wargamer for most of my life I still have several that I haven't fathomed out yet. So, I though just for fun I'd post one here and see what you guys think actually happened.

Trooper Penfold's missing Eagle.

This mystery relates to the famous charge of the Union Brigade, usually referred to inaccurately as 'The Charge of the Scots Greys' because of the famous painting (also inaccurate) and the theatre production of the history of the battle which featured the Sergeant Ewart from the Scots Grey's leading the charge.

In fact, the entire brigade of three regiments (Scots Greys, Inniskillens and Royals) attacked and to their right Somersets Household Brigade (Life Guards, Horse Guards and Kings Dragoon Guards) also attacked. So, six British heavy cavalry regiments attacked more or less at the same time, although Somersets were slightly delayed by the sunken road to their front and Ponsonby's Union Brigade was similarly delayed by the masses of French infantry who were taking time to deal with. We know that they took place together because we have letters from officers in the both brigades who mention the confusion caused by the similar uniforms which led to some of them trying to order each others men about when the brigades became intermingled.

However this mystery arises from the left of the attack where Ponsonby's Union Brigade advanced into the head of D'Erlon's Infantry Corps taking it's leading battalions by surprise and throwing it's advance into chaos.

In theory, the British were using a standard two forward one in reserve deployment for their cavalry, so two regiments should have attacked and the third was supposed to be held back as a reserve and rallying point. On the right in Somersets Brigade the Horse Guards (The Blues) were the designated reserve and so held back and did their job leaving the Life Guards and Kings to attack. On the Left something went wrong.

In Ponsonby's Brigade the Scots Greys were the designated reserve and should have been deployed behind the Inniskillen's and Royals. However, their position was being hit by shot from the enemy artillery dropping over the ridge crest to their front, and so they had been moved forward and to their left so that they were more or less in line with the Inniskillen's on their left. When the order to advance was given they should have moved to their right and adopted their correct supporting position, but two events contrived to change their role that day and seal the fate of the Union Brigade.

The first was the collapse of the Scottish infantry immediately to their front, and the sudden appearance of French infantry pushing through the hedged bank of the road that ran along the ridge crest directly in front of them. The second is another Waterloo mystery in it's own right, but not the one we are discussing here. According to several officers of the Scots Greys, as they sat watching the crisis develop in front of them the order was given for the Union Brigade to advance and the Inniskillens and Royals stepped off as planned, but at almost the same time a mysterious figure dressed like a staff officer rode up to them and pointing at the French emerging from the hedged road raised his hat and shouted 'Now's your time Grey's, drive them back.' Nobody has actually claimed to have been that person. Wellington was nowhere near and would have probably have been recognized. Whilst the official order to advance was passed to Ponsonby by an ADC from Uxbridge who was with Somersets Brigade at the time and this order was executed simply by him raising and waving his hat in a pre-arranged signal.

So, who ordered the Greys to advance?

The best guess is that it was the Duke of Richmond, who had hosted the ball in Brussels the previous night and had traveled to Waterloo with his son to see a battle. He was dressed in a similar fashion to Wellington, and his son riding with him could easily have been mistaken for an ADC. He gets mentioned in several letters from the battle and it appears he hovered around the battle most of the day talking to officers and commenting on events. Perhaps on this occasion he just got a bit over-excited, though if he did he never admitted it afterwards.

Whoever it was the Scots Grey's didn't need a second excuse and without waiting for confirmation of their orders they advanced.

But here's where it gets confusing.

We know that the Scot's Greys collided with the head of Marcognet's Division because Sergeant Ewart captured the Eagle of the 45th Line Regiment from that column.

We also assume that we know the Royals collided with Quiot's Division (often referred to as Allix's Division, although he had defected to the allies earlier in the campaign General de Brigade Quiot was actually in command), because Captain Kennedy-Clarke captured the eagle of the 105th Line from that column.

But the Inniskillen's in the centre of the advance also collided with a column, and Trooper Penfold claims to have taken an Eagle from that column. But in theory there should have been nothing there for them to attack, and what actually happened to Penfold's Eagle.

Siborne seems content to cover this mystery in his battlefield maps by inserting an un-named French column between that of Marcognet's and Quiot's, and others including the writer of the official history resolved it by changing the order of the French attack moving Quiot's Brigade to the head of the advance and swapping it with Donzelot's which according to the French was attacking La Haie Saint at the time.

It is also possible that the Inniskillens collided with part of one of Marcognet's or Quiot's column which was trying to deploy into the gaps between the two columns.

We are told that these columns were ranged on a battalion frontage (150 paces) seven to eight battalions deep with a 400 pace gap between each column. So, Marcognet and Quiot would have been approaching the allied line on a combined frontage of about 700 paces with quite a huge gap between them (easily large enough to accommodate the Inniskillens).

It is perfectly possible that at this point in the advance these columns were beginning to shake out from the rear to fill that gap and form a line. There was enough room between them to squeeze another battalion, or two small columns of division. Perhaps the Inniskillen's simply advanced into the gap and ran into one of these battalions trying to deploy. They may even have ended up attacking the flanks of Marcognets and Quiots Columns, as we are told that after the Union Brigade crossed the road it quickly fragmented into independent squadrons, troops and knots of men all acting separately to chase down and attack different groups of Frenchmen. It was this confusion that led to officers from the Union Brigade trying to order men from Somerset's Brigade about and it is clear from letters written by those who took part that some squadron's had become completely scattered that men like Sergeant Ewart, and Trooper Penfold were basically making their own tactical decisions.

Whoever, the Inniskilen's did attack Trooper Penfold claims that he took their Eagle. Major Miller of the Inniskillens records that in charging into the French he had been bayoneted twice and had his horse killed under him. He was walking back to the rear when he met Sergeant Small who had also lost his horse and was leading one which he had captured from a French Lancer, and he took it off him and rode it for the rest of the battle. He first rode back to find Rickatt's the regimental surgeon and get his wounds dressed and was told at that time that Trooper Penfold from the regiment had taken a French Eagle, but had somehow lost or dropped it, and that it had been recovered and carried back by a man from the Royals or Greys.

After the battle Miller seems to have suspected foul play and delved into the details further talking to others involved about the incident. The story according to Penfold was that during the initial charge he had spotted a man carrying an eagle, and riding straight at him he grabbed the pole trying to pull it out of his hands. However, the owner refused to let go and Penfold was forced to drag him along for quite some distance attached to the eagle until finally the pole broke leaving Penfold in possession of the eagle and the Frenchman with the stump of the pole.

Penfold was making his way back with his prize when he saw his friend Hazzard alone and being attacked by several Frenchmen and handing the eagle over to a young trooper from the Inniskillen's to look after, he rushed over to help him. Another correspondent called Penn then relates the story that this young trooper was approached by a Corporal from the Royals who persuaded him to hand the eagle over to him for safe keeping and rode off with it.

Now obviously this could be construed as an attack on the honor of Captain Kennedy-Clarke of the Royals who claimed the credit for capturing the eagle of the 105th Line. He says that he ordered the attack on the eagle bearer of the 105th Line and after a struggle lasting five or six minutes he stabbed the eagle bearer who dropped the eagle and it fell against his horse where it was propped up by the neck of Corporal Styles horse next to him allowing him to grab it before it fell to the ground. He then attempted to break the eagle from the rest of the staff to make it easier to carry, but was persuaded not to by Corporal Styles who said 'Pray! do not break it sir' and he said 'Very well carry it to the rear as fast as you can, it belongs to me.' At which point the Corporal rode off with the Eagle.

So, Miller's account is correct in that a Corporal of the Royals did carry an eagle off the field for the Royals. The question is whether it was the same one that Penfold captured and handed to the young lad from his regiment when he went to save his friend.

There would be one sure way of confirming this if proper records were kept of the eagles that were captured. Because by his own admission Penfold's eagle was broken, the staff snapped or came apart when he was dragging the eagle bearer behind his horse, whereas Kennedy-Clarkes eagle was whole and unbroken, and it is unlikely that Corporal Styles would have broken it later having pleaded with Clarke not to do so.

But, if it isn't the same eagle then what happened to Penfolds eagle?

Did the young trooper lose it, was the Corporal from the Royals just an invention to cover up his incompetence?

Or did the Corporal exist but lose the eagle before he could deliver it to the rear?

Or perhaps someone just decided to keep it. There was a mistaken belief amongst the soldiers of the time that these eagles were made of gold, so perhaps someone thought they had just become rich.

Of course if Penfold did actually capture the eagle of the 105th Line, then the mystery of the extra column is solved as the Inniskillens obviously attacked Quiots Column and the Royals probably closed with Aulard's smaller brigade column from Donzelot's Brigade nearer La Haie Sainte. that interestingly ties in better with the reports of the Royals becoming mixed in with troopers from the Kings and Life Guards who were forced to circumvent the farm and were also attacking infantry from Donzelots Division.

But the obvious implications of that theory for Captain Kennedy-Clarkes honor were too serious to contemplate and so it looks like the issue got discreetly dropped.

[nothern fleche]

This posting has come at a very useful time for me as I’mformulating & starting my Waterloo diorama (www.borodino-to-waterloo.co.uk)in 1:72 scale based on the counter-attack on d’Erlon by Dutch troops and theInniskilling dragoons.The uncertainty asto whom and what occurred has been amazing: even the French Divisional sequencefrom west to east is debated in great depth, including on this Site in 2007. Donzelotto the left, Quiot to the right, or vice versa!? I’m nowconvinced that Donzelot's division started as the second group but moved to theleft and its 13^th light & 17^th line attacked La HayeSainte whilst 51^st & 19^th took on the English underKempt. To the far right it appears that the 45^th (leading in abattalion wide attack approx 160 men wide x 3 ranks deep with the secondbattalion right behind) and 25^th immediately behind in a similar 6line formation. In echelon behind and to their right are the 21^st& 46^th in the same basic formation.The 45^th appeared to have foughtoff both the right side of the Dutch 7^th Militia and the British 92^nd.
In between we have Quoit’s Division.The left (from French perspective) brigadehas a similar formation with the 105^th leading and 28^thimmediately behind.They have firefought the Dutch and most probably British 1^st /44^th. Theother brigade comprising the 54^th & 55^th is inechelon behind and to the right (of 105/28^th) but did they manage tomove up and effectively fill the gap between 105/28^th and 45/25^th?ie give Quiot a 2 battalion width front line of some 320 men.I would have thought so to give the Frenchsufficient firepower at the road but this does not correlate with the Inniskillingdragoons hitting their own ‘column’ unlike the Greys who walked into their leadingFrench body (45^th).
Thus they ride down a short distance and attack the 54^th& 55^th whilst at the same time take flanks of Marcognets’s 45/25^thand Quiot’s 105/28^th.The Royalswere attacking from the west, so the Inniskilling’s may have got the 105’seagle first, or got one from either the 54^th or 55^th –albeit only on a temporary basis.
The use of the skirmish screen would have confused accountsat the time.This would have amounted toat least 1/6of the Frenchforce and would normally fall back when the main body was getting too close tothe enemy main force.But in this attackthe French did not know where the Allies were so presumably the first firefights at the road were with the French skirmishers? Did they ever manage tofall back? And to where in this unusual column set-up?

[Didz]

I’m now convinced that Donzelot's division started as the second group but moved to the left and its 13^th light & 17^th line attacked La HayeSainte whilst 51^st & 19^th took on the English underKempt.

That seems unlikely to me. The French had all night and most of the morning to prepare D'Erlons Corps for this opening attack, and it seems unlikely that they would have decided to make a last minute adjustment on this scale just before, or after the attack commenced. It would be rank incompetence on their part of they had failed to noticed that La Haie Sainte was occupied and suddenly needed to redirect the light infantry from Donzelots Division to screen it and protect their left flank. My personal belief is that the placing of Donzelot's Division in the centre was an attempt by British historians to resolve the issues created by the reports of the three columns found in the letters of British eyewitnesses.

The most likely explanation in my opinion is that Penfold either captured a third eagle, perhaps from a different regiment in Quiots or Marcognets Division, or that what he captured was not an eagle at all, but perhaps a porte-fannon or some other banner carried by French regiments. If so, then it would seem that the young trooper he handed it to, lost it at some point after it was passed to him.

What we do know from letters written at the time is that on the left flank of the attack Donzelots light infantry surrounded the farm buildings penetrating across the field to west and round into the Kitchen garden to the rear and the sunken road. This was the motivation of the Prince of Orange to detach the Luneberg Battalion from Keilmannsegges 1st Hannoverian Brigade and order it forward to drive the French back down the slope. Major Baring seeing this attack developing also ordered a sally out of the farm to drive the French light infantry from the 13th Legere out of the field to the west.

In the meantime, with the farm effectively neutralised by Schmitz Brigade, Donzelot ordered Aulards Brigade (19th and 51st Line 4bn's) to continue to follow the line of the road and drive the 95th from the sand pit and the wooded hill behind it. This column took the sandpit and drove the 95th back up the slope onto the wooded hill, but then appears to have angled eastwards and begun to move away from the road perhaps to avoid becoming disorganised by the steep slope and tree's to their front until they were blocked by fire from Kempt's Brigade above them.

It was at about this point that Colonel Crabbe who had been watching the advance of the Luneberg Battalion from his vantage point on the spur to the west of the farm launched his special force of Cuirassiers over the crest and into the flank of the Luneberg battalion. Major Baring reports seeing the French cavalry suddenly appear and ordering his men to run for their lives, before spurring his own horse as fast as he could from the safely of the Allied ridge and Keilmansegges Brigade which was already forming square. But the Luneberg battalion was caught in line and effectively destroyed along with most of the men from the 60th Rifles who had sallied from the farm.

Uxbridge witnessing the slaughter and fearing that the French cavalry might overwhelm Keilmannsegges Brigade ordered Somersets Household cavalry forward to drive off the French Cuirassiers. However, having crossed the sunken lane the Kings and Royals found the frontage too narrow to deploy properly so their squadrons formed and attacked independently as soon as they were ready. They must have begun their attack to from the west as the pressure continued to drive Crabbe's Cuirassiers eastwards rather back down the slope. Some of them were forced to make their escape around the upper face of the farm overrunning and destroying two guns from Ross's Battery RHA which had been stationed on a small rise north of the sunken road. They then turned north down the road leading back to the French positions, with the Life Guards, and later the Royals, close on their heels and harrassing them all the way.

Letters from Lt Weymouth of the 2nd Life Guards on the left of the attack confirms that as his squadron advanced he could see Ponsonby's Union Brigade moving forward to their left further down the ridge, so the two brigades attacked together on a wide front. He was taken prisoner soon afterwards but states that Lt Kelly of the Royals told him that the Royals joined the Life Guards in pursuing these cuirassiers down the road and that their was considerable slaughter of them when they became trapped by a narrow defile in the road north of La Haie Sainte.

This would seem to suggest that Aulards Column must have been caught up in all that chaos at some point, and witnesses from the 95th report seeing a French column engulfed by British cavalry both from above and in the flanks which suggests that the Royals and Life Guards may have combined to destroy it. Certainly Sub-Lieutenant Marten of the Life Guards claims that on descending the forward slope the Life Guards of his squadron met and charged though a line of French Cuirassiers killing or wounding most of them, and then found themselves in the midst of a large multitude of French infantry most of whom threw themselves on the ground as soon as they realised they were under cavalry attack. This he claims was to the left of Genappe Road (the road which runs past the farm of La Haie Sainte) confirming that at least part of the 1st Life Guards found themselves on the wrong side of La Haie Sainte and in the midst of the French infantry. Another officer writes that he had trouble negotiating the farms kitchen garden on his horse especially as it was being used as a refuge by a number of French skirmishers.

So, it seems that the left flank of the Life guards and the right flank of the Royals became intermingled and probably met each other during the attack on Aulards column. So, the question is how much of the Royals charge struck Quiots Column and how much hit Aulards, and would that have made room for the Inniskillens to join in the attack on Quiot's column?

It might also explain the third column if British witnesses assumed that Aulard's column was a separate force.

[nothern fleche]

Such a comprehensive answer & further information too; your knowledge base is obviously verygood.Probably, then, the startingsequence remained in play.What isimportant is the sequence when the British & Dutch lines were encounteredand you are agreeing (I believe) that Donzelot’s two brigades were on the(French) left and consequently it was Quoit who hit the Dutch.
Unfortunately I cannot help in the 2 or 3 Eaglesquestion. My open question to ‘history’would be: if most of the French regiments were, at best broken-up, at worstdestroyed, how did not more Eagles become captured?They would be an obvious ‘want’.

[Didz]

I think the simple answer to your question is that they weren't, which is why I think there is a big question mark over the supposed success of the Union Brigades charge. British history claims that this charge pretty much destroyed D'Erlons Corps, but subsequent events undermine that assertion. There was no doubt that it caused widespread panic amongst the leading elements of Aulard's , Quiots and Marcognets columns. A first had account by one of the French infantry officers in the 45th Line confirms that the Scots Greys caught his battalion in the process of reforming after pushing through the hedge bordering the Chemin road. He was personally oblivious to the danger until the soldier he was manhandling back into the ranks was suddenly cut down, after which it was a case of every man for himself and he appears to have taken to his heels, as the Scots Greys lept the hedge to landed amongst the men still waiting to cross it.

Likewise it seems Aulard's column was engulfed by both the Royals and Life Guards and eyewitnesses report that troopers pushed their horses in amongst the soldiers hacking left and right and literally prising the column apart. (A perfect example of how horses will exploit gaps in a formation.)

However, there were problems reported which seem to have been ignored by British historians, but the clues are in the letters written by the men who were there.

First of all there is the report of Lt Marten I mentioned earlier which confirms that many of the French soldiers simply went to ground, as soon as they realised they were under cavalry attack. Throwing themselves flat and relying on the reluctance of horses to tread on objects under their feet to survive the attack. Other letters go on to complain that these same Frenchmen then had the nasty habit of leaping back to their feet after the cavalry had passed and shooting troopers in the back. This meant that many troopers were forced to turn and retrace their steps several times to try and subdue the enemy.

There is also plenty of evidence that the initial panic did not last long, and whilst many of the British cavalry busied themselves chasing the less experienced French soldiers back and forth across the slope and hacking away at the easier victims, there were numerous knots of French soldiers who rallied to their eagles, officers and NCO's and formed rallying squares to fend off the British cavalry. Even three men standing back to back could expect to protect themselves from enemy cavalry with reasonable success and these knots of men were proving a real problem for the Union Brigade to break up and deal with.

Ponsonby sent his ADC back up to the ridge with a request that Kempt advance his infantry brigade down the slope in support of his cavalry and help his men break up these rallying squares, and a small detachment did advance down the road near La Haie Sainte and accepted the surrender of about 1,500 Frenchmen who were trapped in a square near the farm. These may have been survivors form Aulards column of men from Quiots Division, the units were not mentioned and may in fact have been a mix of men from several regiments.

Elsewhere the chaos became general with officers and men from several regiments getting scattered as they chased individual Frenchmen or got blocked by knots of resistance. We know that at some point things got so confused that Officers from the Royals were trying to order men from the Kings to follow them just because of similarities in uniform. It must have also taken a long time, much longer than the few minutes one would expect for a galloping horse to cover 1,000 metres of so across the valley. It was certainly long enough for Ponsonby to send a message back to Kempt and get a reply, and for the detachment of infantry to be organised to accept the surrender of the French square near the farm.

It was also long enough for Napoleon to organise the counter attack by Jacqinot's lancers, which would have required messengers to travel over half a mile from La Belle Alliance. It certainly doesn't equate with the image portrayed by Lady Butlers painting of the Scots Greys in full gallop which would have resulting in the whole charge being over in about 10 minutes. The impression given by the events described in the letters suggests that this was a prolonged struggle which may have lasted an hour or more as as troopers galloped back and forth, and squadrons faced off against stubborn knots of French resistance.

However, long it took the fact is that D'Erlons Corps was back in action a couple of hours later and was ultimately successful in capturing La Haie Sainte and penetrating the Allied centre. In fact, they were almost continuously in action for the rest of the day, only finally being forced to give ground when they had fired off the last of their ammunition, and having been denied the support they needed to exploit the breach they had made in the Allied line by Napoleon.

[nothern fleche]

http://www.borodino-to-waterloo.co.uk/diorama.html I have just finished the diorama; as it portrays the impact happening, the leading French regiment still retains their Eagle and 2nd battalion flag. The mystery remains ........

[Spitfire -WONDERBOLT!]

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