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Updated: June 21, 2025
Not until midday, when the cannonade on the west grew to a roar, did Gneisenau decide to send forward Ziethen's corps towards Ohain, on Wellington's left; but thereafter the defence of the Dyle against Grouchy was left solely to Thielmann's corps. While this storm was brewing in the east, everything in front of the Emperor seemed to portend a prosperous day.
The Emperor, greatly pleased, shouted to him: "You are a colonel, you are a baron, you are an officer of the Legion of Honor!" Pontmercy replied: "Sire, I thank you for my widow." An hour later, he fell in the ravine of Ohain. Now, who was this Georges Pontmercy? He was this same "brigand of the Loire." We have already seen something of his history.
The night raid, the wall of Hougoumont, the hollow way of Ohain, Grouchy deaf to the cannon, Napoleon's guide deceiving him, Bulow's guide enlightening him all this cataclysm is marvelously managed. There is more of a massacre than of a battle in Waterloo. Waterloo, of all pitched battles, is the one which had the smallest front for such a number of combatants.
They were facing Death and knew it but still they cried: "Vive l'Empereur!" Heads down the British charge, whilst from Ohain comes the roar of Blücher's guns, and up from the east, Zieten with the Prussians rushes up to join in the assault.
Yonder was the ravine of Ohain, where the French cavalry, not knowing there was a hollow in the ground, rolled over and down, troop after troop, tumbling into one awful mass of suffering, hoof of kicking horses against brow and breast of captains and colonels and private soldiers, the human and the beastly groan kept up until, the day after, all was shoveled under because of the malodor arising in that hot month of June.
Wellington was rigid; he gave orders that any one caught in the act should be shot; but rapine is tenacious. The marauders stole in one corner of the battlefield while others were being shot in another. The moon was sinister over this plain. Towards midnight, a man was prowling about, or rather, climbing in the direction of the hollow road of Ohain.
Every one knows the rest, the irruption of a third army; the battle broken to pieces; eighty-six mouths of fire thundering simultaneously; Pirch the first coming up with Bulow; Zieten's cavalry led by Blucher in person, the French driven back; Marcognet swept from the plateau of Ohain; Durutte dislodged from Papelotte; Donzelot and Quiot retreating; Lobau caught on the flank; a fresh battle precipitating itself on our dismantled regiments at nightfall; the whole English line resuming the offensive and thrust forward; the gigantic breach made in the French army; the English grape-shot and the Prussian grape-shot aiding each other; the extermination; disaster in front; disaster on the flank; the Guard entering the line in the midst of this terrible crumbling of all things.
After Waterloo, Pontmercy, who had been pulled out of the hollow road of Ohain, as it will be remembered, had succeeded in joining the army, and had dragged himself from ambulance to ambulance as far as the cantonments of the Loire. The Restoration had placed him on half-pay, then had sent him into residence, that is to say, under surveillance, at Vernon.
The opening of the country roads leading directly from Wavre to Mont St. Jean, through the wood of Ohain, was guarded by the British left; while those running through Souhain and Frichemont, further in advance, might be expected to bring the first of the Prussians on the right flank of the French, during their expected attack.
I am going pearl hunting in the South Seas the thing I dreamed of when I was a boy." "But why commit piracy? Why didn't you hire a steamer?" "Oh, I must have my joke, too. But I hadn't counted on you. In every campaign there is the hollow road of Ohain. Napoleon lost Waterloo because of it. Your presence here has forced me to use a hand without velvet.
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