Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 13, 2025
The Austrians, attacked in Flanders, and threatened with a surprise in the rear by Jourdan, soon abandoned their positions on the Somme. Clairfait and the duke of York allowed themselves to be beaten at Courtrai and Hooglede by the army of Pichegru; Coburg at Fleurus by that of Jourdan, who had just taken Charleroi. The two victorious generals rapidly completed the invasion of the Netherlands.
Our anguish is all the more poignant in that they are at this moment fighting in the most ancient and most precious portion of Flanders. Above all countries, this is historic and hallowed land. They have destroyed Termonde, Roulers, Charleroi, Mons, Namur, Thielt and more besides; happy, charming little towns, which will rise again from their ashes, more beautiful than before.
After a scrap meal, he pulled out some maps to study the country which lay before them, and what should meet his eye but the field of Waterloo, with all its familiar names: Charleroi, Ligny, Quatrebras, Genappes, the names which he had studied a year ago at Sandhurst. Surely these names of the victory of ninety-nine years ago were a good omen!
It was heart-breaking to see the scenes of desolation as we passed along the road. Jumet the working-class suburb of Charleroi was entirely burnt down, there did not seem to be one house left intact.
In the evening they reached the town of Charleroi, on the Sambre, where the Count of Crevecoeur had determined to leave the Countess Isabelle, whom the terror and fatigue of yesterday, joined to a flight of fifty miles since morning, and the various distressing sensations by which it was accompanied, had made incapable of travelling farther with safety to her health.
After further futile efforts at Charleroi, he hurried on towards Paris, followed at some distance by groups amounting to about 10,000 men, the sorry remnant still under arms of the host that fought at Waterloo: 25,000 lay dead or wounded there: some thousands were taken prisoners: the rest were scattering to their homes.
Napoleon needed these snatches of sleep as a relief to prolonged mental tension. At night he returned to Charleroi, "overcome with fatigue." On the next day he was still very weary, says Ségur; he did not exert himself until the battle of Ligny began at 2.30; but he then rode about till nightfall, through a time of terrible heat.
He must have drifted into a dream and an extravagant one for he was master of Charleroi and Adèle was his wife. She was coming out to him now; he could hear her steps; he could feel her hand upon his shoulder "Pardon moi, M'shi Grande" it was Absalom's hand touching him, it was Absalom's voice, speaking the patois of the blacks "but it is eight o'clock." Eight o'clock. Grandemont sprang up.
One of the wounded, who was taken to hospital at Dieppe, said of the fighting at Charleroi: "Our army was engaging what we believed to be a section of the German forces commanded by the crown prince when I was wounded. The Germans at one stage of the battle seemed lost. They had been defending themselves almost entirely with howitzers from strongly intrenched positions.
The men raised their shakos on their bayonets and shouted: "Forward! Vive l'Empereur!" Many of the old soldiers wept, and over all that great plain there was one immense shout; when one regiment had ceased another took it up. The cannon thundered incessantly. We quickened our steps. We had been marching on Charleroi since seven o'clock, when an order reached us by an orderly to support the right.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking