Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 15, 2025
At Waterloo the Hougoumont farm held us up all day, cost us dear and disorganized us into a mad mob, until Napoleon finally sent eight mortars to smash and burn the chateau. This is what should have been done at the commencement of the general attack. A rational and ordered method of combat, or if not ordered, known to all, is enough to make good troops, if there is discipline be it understood.
The place was held at first by 376 men of the King's German Legion, who threw up a barricade at the barn-door, as also on the high-road outside the orchard; but, as the sappers and carpenters were removed to Hougoumont, little could be done. Far stronger was the château of Hougoumont, which had been built with a view to defence.
Until far into the night the air reverberated with incessant cannonade from the direction of Genappe and from that of Wavre but just before dawn all was still. The stream of convoys which bore the wounded along the road to Brussels from Mont Saint Jean and Hougoumont and La Haye Sainte had momentarily ceased its endless course.
The stronghold is more than once nearly lost, but it is defended with "prodigies of valor" and firmly held to the last. Had Hougoumont been taken, the result of the battle "would probably have been very different." Meanwhile, the Emperor has ordered a second attack elsewhere this time against the left wing of Wellington.
"You see it's from this side that we have to expect the Prussians." Cousin Hans noticed that the captain picked up a stone and placed it in the grass with an air of mystery. "Here at Hougoumont," the old man continued, "the battle began. It was Jerome who made the first attack. He took the wood; but the château held out, garrisoned by Wellington's best troops.
A body of light troops left the French line, and, descending the hill at a sling trot, broke into scattered parties, keeping up an irregular fire as they advanced toward the Château of Hougoumont. These were closely followed by three divisions nearly thirty thousand strong; and the dropping fire was soon changed into one continued roll of musketry.
It was just such a morning as ours, except that it was then June and is now January. If the battle began at 8 o'clock, as one account reads, we are here on the Lion's Mound at that same hour. Even if this be January, daisies are in blossom at our feet. Jerome Bonaparte, leading the attack, moves on Hougoumont, where the Allies, who have come down from Mont St. Jean, repulse him.
While this was going on the battle was still raging round Hougoumont and La Haye Sainte, against which a portion of Reille's division had advanced; but the Germans resisted as obstinately as did the guards, and as the French cavalry retired for the second time the infantry fell back, and for a time the slope of the English position was again clear of the enemy.
The gardens that touch the railroad and extend to the rear of houses in the little towns are filled with graves. Each enclosure has been fought for at the point of the bayonet, and every garden wall recalls the Château of Hougoumont, at Waterloo. All this was two years ago, but there is to-day, also. East of Bar-le-Duc the main line is cut by German shell fire now.
The troops of D'Erlon and Reille once more clutched at victory on the crest behind La Haye Sainte or beneath the walls of Hougoumont, while the squares of the Guard struck obliquely across the vale in the track of the great cavalry charges.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking