Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 15, 2025
"Easy and steady," said the colonel, as he led him to his armchair. "Thank ye, sir; I was near gone that time. But, Lordy I why, I can scarce believe it. To think of me the corporal of the flank company and you the colonel of the battalion! How things come round, to be sure!" "Why, we are very proud of you in London," said the colonel. "And so you are actually one of the men who held Hougoumont."
Then for a while the fighting slackened, but the artillery duel raged as fiercely as ever. The gunners on both sides had now got the exact range, and the carnage was terrible. The French shells again set Hougoumont on fire, and all the badly wounded who had been carried inside perished in the flames.
Then mounting his favourite charger, Copenhagen, he rode to the positions where his men were posted, and made a careful and thorough inspection. The farm house of Hougoumont, where some of the most furious fighting of the day took place, received his special attention.
At last, at about half-past eleven o'clock, Napoleon began the battle by directing a powerful force from his left wing under his brother, Prince Jerome, to attack Hougoumont. Column after column of the French now descended from the west of the southern heights, and assailed that post with fiery valour, which was encountered with the most determined bravery.
The battle was now raging from the Château de Hougoumont to St. Lambert, where the Prussian tirailleurs, as they issued from the wood, were skirmishing with the advanced posts of Lobau's Brigade. The attack upon the centre, however, engrossed all my attention, and I watched the dark columns as they descended into the plain, while the incessant roll of the artillery played about them.
Napoleon, with his army, was a mile away, his line extending to the right and left beyond La Belle Alliance. We must turn squarely around as we stand alongside the lion if we are to see in the distance the ground he occupied. Our place is nearly in the center of the field. Hougoumont we realize to have been worthy of the prodigious struggle the French made to capture it.
From Hougoumont we walked to La Belle Alliance, crossing the neutral ground between the armies; a few days ago a couple of gold watches had been found, and I daresay many a similar treasure yet remains. At La Belle Alliance, a squalid farm house, we rested to take some refreshment. For a few biscuits and a bottle of common wine the woman asked us five francs, which being paid, I followed her into the house. Not perceiving me at the door, she met her husband, and bursting into a loud laugh, with a fly-up of arms and legs (for nothing in this country is done without gesticulation), she exclaimed, "Only think! ces gens-l
Napoleon determined therefore to try what effect he could produce on the British centre and right by charges of his splendid cavalry, brought on in such force that the Duke's cavalry could not check them. Fresh troops were at the same time sent to assail La Haye Sainte and Hougoumont, the possession of these posts being the Emperor's unceasing object.
After the charge of the cuirassiers, it took a little time for us to re-form: the battle continued at Hougoumont, and the cannonade re-opened on our right, and two batteries had been brought up to sweep the highway in the rear of Haie-Sainte, where the road begins to mount the hill. We all saw that that was to be the point of attack.
This movement, by its precision and beauty, attracted our entire attention, not only from the attack upon Hougoumont, but also from an incident which had taken place close beside us. This was the appearance of a Prussian hussar who had been taken prisoner between Wavre and Planchenoit; he was the bearer of a letter from Bulow to Wellington, announcing his arrival at St.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking