From The European Association of History Teachers, by Francesco Scatigna
A 32- page pdf file can be downloaded from the link above.
This looks interesting (not yet read). Historical memory and 'ego-documents' - beyond the national perspective.
"Waterloo, as previously noted, was much more than a confrontation between Napoleon, Wellington, and Blucher. It was also more than a battle between German, French, British, Dutch, and Belgian troops. We are used to learn about Waterloo with a focus on our national narrative; so that French students learn about the glorious defeat, British learn about the definitive victory, Germans about the beginning of their process of unification, Dutch about the participation in the battle of the future King William II, and so on".
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS
Thou sayest well. Thy full meridian-shine
Was in the glory of the Dresden days,
When well-nigh every monarch throned in Europe
Bent at thy footstool.
NAPOLEON
Saving always England's—
Rightly dost say “well-nigh.”—Not England's,—she
Whose tough, enisled, self-centred, kindless craft
Has tracked me, springed me, thumbed me by the throat,
And made herself the means of mangling me!
(From Hardy, The Dynasts)
Thou sayest well. Thy full meridian-shine
Was in the glory of the Dresden days,
When well-nigh every monarch throned in Europe
Bent at thy footstool.
NAPOLEON
Saving always England's—
Rightly dost say “well-nigh.”—Not England's,—she
Whose tough, enisled, self-centred, kindless craft
Has tracked me, springed me, thumbed me by the throat,
And made herself the means of mangling me!
(From Hardy, The Dynasts)
See also, 'Thomas Hardy and Napoleon'
The Battle of Waterloo, Wikipedia account
'Waterloo'(1970)
"Warfare mere,
Plied by the Managed for the Managers;
To wit: by frenzied folks who profit naught
For those who profit all!"
Thomas Hardy's account of the battle, in The Dynasts, reads like a film-script:
SCENE VIII THE ROAD TO WATERLOO [The view is now from Quatre-Bras backward along the road by which the English arrived. Diminishing in a straight line from the foreground to the centre of the distance it passes over Mont Saint-Jean and through Waterloo to Brussels. It is now tinged by a moving mass of English and Allied infantry, in retreat to a new position at Mont Saint-Jean. The sun shines brilliantly upon the foreground as yet, but towards Waterloo and the Forest of Soignes on the north horizon it is overcast with black clouds which are steadily advancing up the sky. To mask the retreat the English outposts retain their position on the battlefield in the face of NEY'S troops, and keep up a desultory firing: the cavalry for the same reason remain, being drawn up in lines beside the intersecting Namur road.
Enter WELLINGTON, UXBRIDGE [who is in charge of the cavalry], MUFFLING, VIVIAN, and others. They look through their field- glasses towards Frasnes, NEY'S position since his retreat yesternight, and also towards NAPOLEON'S at Ligny.]
WELLINGTON The noonday sun, striking so strongly there, Makes mirrors of their arms. That they advance Their glowing radiance shows. Those gleams by Marbais Suggest fixed bayonets.
UXBRIDGE Vivian's glass reveals That they are cuirassiers. Ney's troops, too, near At last, methinks, along this other road.
WELLINGTON One thing is sure: that here the whole French force Schemes to unite and sharply follow us. It formulates our fence. The cavalry Must linger here no longer; but recede To Mont Saint-Jean, as rearguard of the foot. From the intelligence that Gordon brings 'Tis pretty clear old Blucher had to take A damned good drubbing yesterday at Ligny, And has been bent hard back! So that, for us, Bound to the plighted plan, there is no choice But do like.... No doubt they'll say at home That we've been well thrashed too. It can't be helped, They must!... [He looks round at the sky.] A heavy rainfall threatens us, To make it all the worse! [The speaker and his staff ride off along the Brussels road in the rear of the infantry, and UXBRIDGE begins the retreat of the cavalry. CAPTAIN MERCER enters with a light battery.]
MERCER [excitedly] Look back, my lord; Is it not Bonaparte himself we see Upon the road I have come by?
UXBRIDGE [looking through glass] Yes, by God; His face as clear-cut as the edge of a cloud The sun behind shows up! His suite and all! Fire—fire! And aim you well. [The battery makes ready and fires.] No! It won't do. He brings on mounted ordnance of his Guard, So we're in danger here. Then limber up, And off as soon as may be. [The English artillery and cavalry retreat at full speed, just as the weather bursts, with flashes of lightning and drops of rain. They all clatter off along the Brussels road, UXBRIDGE and his aides galloping beside the column; till no British are left at Quatre-Bras except the slain. The focus of the scene follows the retreating English army, the highway and its and margins panoramically gliding past the vision of the spectator. The phantoms chant monotonously while the retreat goes on.]
CHORUS OF RUMOURS [aerial music] Day's nether hours advance; storm supervenes In heaviness unparalleled, that screens With water-woven gauzes, vapour-bred, The creeping clumps of half-obliterate red— Severely harassed past each round and ridge By the inimical lance. They gain the bridge And village of Genappe, in equal fence With weather and the enemy's violence. —Cannon upon the foul and flooded road, Cavalry in the cornfields mire-bestrowed, With frothy horses floundering to their knees, Make wayfaring a moil of miseries! Till Britishry and Bonapartists lose Their clashing colours for the tawny hues That twilight sets on all its stealing tinct imbues. [The rising ground of Mont Saint-Jean, in front of Waterloo, is gained by the English vanguard and main masses of foot, and by degrees they are joined by the cavalry and artillery. The French are but little later in taking up their position amid the cornfields around La Belle Alliance. Fires begin to shine up from the English bivouacs. Camp kettles are slung, and the men pile arms and stand round the blaze to dry themselves. The French opposite lie down like dead men in the dripping green wheat and rye, without supper and without fire. By and by the English army also lies down, the men huddling together on the ploughed mud in their wet blankets, while some sleep sitting round the dying fires.]
CHORUS OF THE YEARS [aerial music] The eyelids of eve fall together at last, And the forms so foreign to field and tree Lie down as though native, and slumber fast!
CHORUS OF THE PITIES Sore are the thrills of misgiving we see In the artless champaign at this harlequinade, Distracting a vigil where calm should be! The green seems opprest, and the Plain afraid Of a Something to come, whereof these are the proofs,— Neither earthquake, nor storm, nor eclipses's shade!
CHORUS OF THE YEARS Yea, the coneys are scared by the thud of hoofs, And their white scuts flash at their vanishing heels, And swallows abandon the hamlet-roofs. The mole's tunnelled chambers are crushed by wheels, The lark's eggs scattered, their owners fled; And the hedgehog's household the sapper unseals. The snail draws in at the terrible tread, But in vain; he is crushed by the felloe-rim The worm asks what can be overhead, And wriggles deep from a scene so grim, And guesses him safe; for he does not know What a foul red flood will be soaking him! Beaten about by the heel and toe Are butterflies, sick of the day's long rheum, To die of a worse than the weather-foe. Trodden and bruised to a miry tomb Are ears that have greened but will never be gold, And flowers in the bud that will never bloom.
CHORUS OF THE PITIES So the season's intent, ere its fruit unfold, Is frustrate, and mangled, and made succumb, Like a youth of promise struck stark and cold!... And what of these who to-night have come?
CHORUS OF THE YEARS The young sleep sound; but the weather awakes In the veterans, pains from the past that numb; Old stabs of Ind, old Peninsular aches, Old Friedland chills, haunt their moist mud bed, Cramps from Austerlitz; till their slumber breaks.
CHORUS OF SINISTER SPIRITS And each soul shivers as sinks his head On the loam he's to lease with the other dead From to-morrow's mist-fall till Time be sped! [The fires of the English go out, and silence prevails, save for the soft hiss of the rain that falls impartially on both the sleeping armies.]
ACT SEVENTH
SCENE I THE FIELD OF WATERLOO [An aerial view of the battlefield at the time of sunrise is disclosed. The sky is still overcast, and rain still falls. A green expanse, almost unbroken, of rye, wheat, and clover, in oblong and irregular patches undivided by fences, covers the undulating ground, which sinks into a shallow valley between the French and English positions. The road from Brussels to Charleroi runs like a spit through both positions, passing at the back of the English into the leafy forest of Soignes. The latter are turning out from their bivouacs. They move stiffly from their wet rest, and hurry to and fro like ants in an ant-hill. The tens of thousands of moving specks are largely of a brick-red colour, but the foreign contingent is darker. Breakfasts are cooked over smoky fires of green wood. Innumerable groups, many in their shirt-sleeves, clean their rusty firelocks, drawing or exploding the charges, scrape the mud from themselves, and pipeclay from their cross-belts the red dye washed off their jackets by the rain. At six o'clock, they parade, spread out, and take up their positions in the line of battle, the front of which extends in a wavy riband three miles long, with three projecting bunches at Hougomont, La Haye Sainte, and La Haye. Looking across to the French positions we observe that after advancing in dark streams from where they have passed the night they, too, deploy and wheel into their fighting places—figures with red epaulettes and hairy knapsacks, their arms glittering like a display of cutlery at a hill-side fair. They assume three concentric lines of crescent shape, that converge on the English midst, with great blocks of the Imperial Guard at the back of them. The rattle of their drums, their fanfarades, and their bands playing “Veillons au salut de l'Empire” contrast with the quiet reigning on the English side. A knot of figures, comprising WELLINGTON with a suite of general and other staff-officers, ride backwards and forwards in front of the English lines, where each regimental colour floats in the hands of the junior ensign. The DUKE himself, now a man of forty- six, is on his bay charger Copenhagen, in light pantaloons, a small plumeless hat, and a blue cloak, which shows its white lining when blown back. On the French side, too, a detached group creeps along the front in preliminary survey. BONAPARTE—also forty-six—in a grey overcoat, is mounted on his white arab Marengo, and accompanied by SOULT, NEY, JEROME, DROUOT, and other marshals. The figures of aides move to and fro like shuttle-cocks between the group and distant points in the field. The sun has begun to gleam.]
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES Discriminate these, and what they are, Who stand so stalwartly to war.
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS Report, ye Rumourers of things near and far.
SEMICHORUS I OF RUMOURS [chanting] Sweep first the Frenchmen's leftward lines along, And eye the peaceful panes of Hougomont— That seemed to hold prescriptive right of peace In fee from Time till Time itself should cease!— Jarred now by Reille's fierce foot-divisions three, Flanked on their left by Pire's cavalry.— The fourfold corps of d'Erlon, spread at length, Compose the right, east of the famed chaussee— The shelterless Charleroi-and-Brussels way,— And Jacquinot's alert light-steeded strength Still further right, their sharpened swords display. Thus stands the first line.
SEMICHORUS II Next behind its back Comes Count Lobau, left of the Brussels track; Then Domon's horse, the horse of Subervie; Kellermann's cuirassed troopers twinkle-tipt, And, backing d'Erlon, Milhaud's horse, equipt Likewise in burnished steelwork sunshine-dipt: So ranks the second line refulgently.
SEMICHORUS I The third and last embattlement reveals D'Erlon's, Lobau's, and Reille's foot-cannoniers, And horse-drawn ordnance too, on massy wheels, To strike with cavalry where space appears.
SEMICHORUS II The English front, to left, as flanking force, Has Vandeleur's hussars, and Vivian's horse; Next them pace Picton's rows along the crest; The Hanoverian foot-folk; Wincke; Best; Bylandt's brigade, set forward fencelessly, Pack's northern clansmen, Kempt's tough infantry, With gaiter, epaulet, spat, and {philibeg}; While Halkett, Ompteda, and Kielmansegge Prolong the musters, near whose forward edge Baring invests the Farm of Holy Hedge.
SEMICHORUS I Maitland and Byng in Cooke's division range, And round dun Hougomont's old lichened sides A dense array of watching Guardsmen hides Amid the peaceful produce of the grange, Whose new-kerned apples, hairy gooseberries green, And mint, and thyme, the ranks intrude between.— Last, westward of the road that finds Nivelles, Duplat draws up, and Adam parallel.
SEMICHORUS II The second British line—embattled horse— Holds the reverse slopes, screened, in ordered course; Dornberg's, and Arentsschildt's, and Colquhoun-Grant's, And left of them, behind where Alten plants His regiments, come the “Household” Cavalry; And nigh, in Picton's rear, the trumpets call The “Union” brigade of Ponsonby. Behind these the reserves. In front of all, Or interspaced, with slow-matched gunners manned, Upthroated rows of threatful ordnance stand. [The clock of Nivelles convent church strikes eleven in the distance. Shortly after, coils of starch-blue smoke burst into being along the French lines, and the English batteries respond promptly, in an ominous roar that can be heard at Antwerp. A column from the French left, six thousand strong, advances on the plantation in front of the chateau of Hougomont. They are played upon by the English ordnance; but they enter the wood, and dislodge some battalions there. The French approach the buildings, but are stopped by a loop-holed wall with a mass of English guards behind it. A deadly fire bursts from these through the loops and over the summit. NAPOLEON orders a battery of howitzers to play upon the building. Flames soon burst from it; but the foot-guards still hold the courtyard.]
SCENE II THE SAME. THE FRENCH POSITION [On a hillock near the farm of Rossomme a small table from the farmhouse has been placed; maps are spread thereon, and a chair is beside it. NAPOLEON, SOULT, and other marshals are standing round, their horses waiting at the base of the slope. NAPOLEON looks through his glass at Hougomont. His elevated face makes itself distinct in the morning light as a gloomy resentful countenance, blue-black where shaven, and stained with snuff, with powderings of the same on the breast of his uniform. His stumpy figure, being just now thrown back, accentuates his stoutness.]
NAPOLEON Let Reille be warned that these his surly sets On Hougomont chateau, can scarce defray Their mounting bill of blood. They do not touch The core of my intent—to pierce and roll The centre upon the right of those opposed. Thereon will turn the outcome of the day, In which our odds are ninety to their ten!
SOULT Yes—prove there time and promptitude enough To call back Grouchy here. Of his approach I see no sign.
NAPOLEON [roughly] Hours past he was bid come. —But naught imports it! We are enough without him. You have been beaten by this Wellington, And so you think him great. But let me teach you Wellington is no foe to reckon with. His army, too, is poor. This clash to-day Is more serious for our seasoned files Than breakfasting.
SOULT Such is my earnest hope.
NAPOLEON Observe that Wellington still labours on, Stoutening his right behind Gomont chateau, But leaves his left and centre as before— Weaker, if anything. He plays our game! [WELLINGTON can, in fact, be seen detaching from his main line several companies of Guards to check the aims of the French on Hougomont.] Let me re-word my tactics. Ney leads off By seizing Mont Saint-Jean. Then d'Erlon stirs, And heaves up his division from the left. The second corps will move abreast of him The sappers nearing to entrench themselves Within the aforesaid farm. [Enter an aide-de-camp.]
AIDE From Marshal Ney, Sire, I bring hasty word that all is poised To strike the vital stroke, and only waits Your Majesty's command,
NAPOLEON Which he shall have When I have scanned the hills for Grouchy's helms. [NAPOLEON turns his glass to an upland four or five miles off on the right, known as St. Lambert's Chapel Hill. Gazing more and more intently, he takes rapid pinches of snuff in excitement. NEY'S columns meanwhile standing for the word to advance, eighty guns being ranged in front of La Belle Alliance in support of them.] I see a darkly crawling, slug-like shape Embodying far out there,—troops seemingly— Grouchy's van-guard. What think you?
SOULT [also examining closely] Verily troops; And, maybe, Grouchy's. But the air is hazed.
NAPOLEON If troops at all, they are Grouchy's. Why misgive, And force on ills you fear!
ANOTHER MARSHAL It seems a wood. Trees don bold outlines in their new-leafed pride.
ANOTHER MARSHAL It is the creeping shadow from a cloud.
ANOTHER MARSHAL It is a mass of stationary foot; I can descry piled arms. [NAPOLEON sends off the order for NEY'S attack—the grand assault on the English midst, including the farm of La Haye Sainte. It opens with a half-hour's thunderous discharge of artillery, which ceases at length to let d'Erlon's infantry pass. Four huge columns of these, shouting defiantly, push forwards in face of the reciprocal fire from the cannon of the English. Their effrontery carries them so near the Anglo-Allied lines that the latter waver. But PICTON brings up PACK'S brigade, before which the French in turn recede, though they make an attempt in La Haye Sainte, whence BARING'S Germans pour a resolute fire. WELLINGTON, who is seen afar as one of a group standing by a great elm, orders OMPTEDA to send assistance to BARING, as may be gathered from the darting of aides to and fro between the points, like house-flies dancing their quadrilles. East of the great highway the right columns of D'ERLON'S corps have climbed the slopes. BYLANDT'S sorely exposed Dutch are broken, and in their flight disorder the ranks of the English Twenty-eighth, the Carabineers of the Ninety-fifth being also dislodged from the sand-pit they occupied.]
NAPOLEON All prospers marvellously! Gomont is hemmed; La Haye Sainte too; their centre jeopardized; Travers and d'Erlon dominate the crest, And further strength of foot is following close. Their troops are raw; the flower of England's force That fought in Spain, America now holds.— [SIR TOMAS PICTON, seeing what is happening orders KEMPT'S brigade forward. It volleys murderously DONZELOT'S columns of D'ERLON'S corps, and repulses them. As they recede PICTON is beheld shouting an order to charge.]
SPIRIT OF RUMOUR I catch a voice that cautions Picton now Against his rashness. “What the hell care I,— Is my curst carcase worth a moment's mind?— Come on!” he answers. Onwardly he goes! [His tall, stern, saturnine figure with its bronzed complexion is on nearer approach discerned heading the charge. As he advances to the slope between the cross-roads and the sand-pit, riding very conspicuously, he falls dead, a bullet in his forehead. His aide, assisted by a soldier, drags the body beneath a tree and hastens on. KEMPT takes his command. Next MARCOGNET is repulsed by PACK'S brigade. D'ERLON'S infantry and TRAVERS'S cuirassiers are charged by the Union Brigade of Scotch Greys, Royal Dragoons, and Inniskillens, and cut down everywhere, the brigade following them so furiously the LORD UXBRIDGE tries in vain to recall it. On its coming near the French it is overwhelmed by MILHAUD'S cuirassiers, scarcely a fifth of the brigade returning. An aide enters to NAPOLEON from GENERAL DOMON.]
AIDE The General, on a far reconnaissance, Says, sire, there is no room for longer doubt That those debouching on St. Lambert's Hill Are Prussian files.
NAPOLEON Then where is General Grouchy? [Enter COLONEL MARBOT with a prisoner.] Aha—a Prussian, too! How comes he here?
MARBOT Sire, my hussars have captured him near Lasnes— A subaltern of the Silesian Horse. A note from Bulow to Lord Wellington, Announcing that a Prussian corps is close, Was found on him. He speaks our language, sire.
NAPOLEON [to prisoner] What force looms yonder on St. Lambert's Hill?
PRISONER General Count Bulow's van, your Majesty. [A thoughtful scowl crosses NAPOLEONS'S sallow face.]
NAPOLEON Where, then, did your main army lie last night?
PRISONER At Wavre.
NAPOLEON But clashed it with no Frenchmen there?
PRISONER With none. We deemed they had marched on Plancenoit.
NAPOLEON [shortly] Take him away. [The prisoner is removed.] Has Grouchy's whereabouts Been sought, to apprize him of this Prussian trend?
SOULT Certainly, sire. I sent a messenger.
NAPOLEON [bitterly] A messenger! Had my poor Berthier been here Six would have insufficed! Now then: seek Ney; Bid him to sling the valour of his braves Fiercely on England ere Count Bulow come; And advertize the succours on the hill As Grouchy's. [Aside] This is my one battle-chance; The Allies have many such! [To SOULT] If Bulow nears, He cannot join in time to share the fight. And if he could, 'tis but a corps the more.... This morning we had ninety chances ours, We have threescore still. If Grouchy but retrieve His fault of absence, conquest comes with eve! [The scene shifts.]
SCENE III SAINT LAMBERT'S CHAPEL HILL [A hill half-way between Wavre and the fields of Waterloo, five miles to the north-east of the scene preceding. The hill is wooded, with some open land around. To the left of the scene, towards Waterloo, is a valley.]
DUMB SHOW Marching columns in Prussian uniforms, coming from the direction of Wavre, debouch upon the hill from the road through the wood. They are the advance-guard and two brigades of Bulow's corps, that have been joined there by BLUCHER. The latter has just risen from the bed to which he has been confined since the battle of Ligny, two days back. He still looks pale and shaken by the severe fall and trampling he endured near the end of the action. On the summit the troops halt, and a discussion between BLUCHER and his staff ensues. The cannonade in the direction of Waterloo is growing more and more violent. BLUCHER, after looking this way and that, decides to fall upon the French right at Plancenoit as soon as he can get there, which will not be yet. Between this point and that the ground descends steeply to the valley on the spectator's left, where there is a mud-bottomed stream, the Lasne; the slope ascends no less abruptly on the other side towards Plancenoit. It is across this defile alone that the Prussian army can proceed thither- a route of unusual difficulty for artillery; where, moreover, the enemy is suspected of having placed a strong outpost during the night to intercept such an approach. A figure goes forward—that of MAJOR FALKENHAUSEN, who is sent to reconnoitre, and they wait a tedious time, the firing at Waterloo growing more tremendous. FALKENHAUSEN comes back with the welcome news that no outpost is there. There now remains only the difficulty of the defile itself; and the attempt is made. BLUCHER is descried riding hither and thither as the guns drag heavily down the slope into the muddy bottom of the valley. Here the wheels get stuck, and the men already tired by marching since five in the morning, seem inclined to leave the guns where they are. But the thunder from Waterloo still goes on, BLUCHER exhorts his men by words and eager gestures, and they do at length get the guns across, though with much loss of time. The advance-guard now reaches some thick trees called the Wood of Paris. It is followed by the LOSTHIN and HILLER divisions of foot, and in due course by the remainder of the two brigades. Here they halt, and await the arrival of the main body of BULOW'S corps, and the third corps under THIELEMANN. The scene shifts.
SCENE IV THE FIELD OF WATERLOO. THE ENGLISH POSITION [WELLINGTON, on Copenhagen, is again under the elm-tree behind La Haye Sainte. Both horse and rider are covered with mud-splashes, but the weather having grown finer the DUKE has taken off his cloak. UXBRIDGE, FITZROY SOMERSET, CLINTON, ALTEN, COLVILLE, DE LANCEY, HERVEY, GORDON, and other of his staff officers and aides are near him; there being also present GENERALS MUFFLING, HUGEL, and ALAVA; also TYLER, PICTON'S aide. The roar of battle continues.]
WELLINGTON I am grieved at losing Picton; more than grieved. He was as grim a devil as ever lived, And roughish-mouthed withal. But never a man More stout in fight, more stoical in blame!
TYLER Before he left for this campaign he said, “When you shall hear of MY death, mark my words, You'll hear of a bloody day!” and, on my soul, 'Tis true. [Enter another aide-de-camp.]
AIDE Sir William Ponsonby, my lords, has fallen. His horse got mud-stuck in a new-plowed plot, Lancers surrounded him and bore him down, And six then ran him through. The occasion sprung Mainly from the Brigade's too reckless rush, Sheer to the French front line.
WELLINGTON [gravely] Ah—so it comes! The Greys were bound to pay—'tis always so— Full dearly for their dash so far afield. Valour unballasted but lands its freight On the enemy's shore.—What has become of Hill?
AIDE We have not seen him latterly, your Grace.
WELLINGTON By God, I hope I haven't lost him, too?
BRIDGMAN [just come up] Lord Hill's bay charger, being shot dead, your Grace, Rolled over him in falling. He is bruised, But hopes to be in place again betimes.
WELLINGTON Praise Fate for thinking better of that frown! [It is now nearing four o'clock. La Haye Sainte is devastated by the second attack of NEY. The farm has been enveloped by DONZELOT'S division, its garrison, the King's German Legion, having fought till all ammunition was exhausted. The gates are forced open, and in the retreat of the late defenders to the main Allied line they are nearly all cut or shot down.]
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES O Farm of sad vicissitudes and strange! Farm of the Holy Hedge, yet fool of change! Whence lit so sanct a name on thy now violate grange?
WELLINGTON [to Muffling, resolutely] Despite their fierce advantage here, I swear By every God that war can call upon To hold our present place at any cost, Until your force cooperate with our lines! To that I stand; although 'tis bruited now That Bulow's corps has only reached Ohain. I've sent Freemantle hence to seek them there, And give them inkling we shall need them soon.
MUFFLING [looking at his watch] I had hoped that Blucher would be here ere this. [The staff turn their glasses on the French position.]
UXBRIDGE What movement can it be they contemplate?
WELLINGTON A shock of cavalry on the hottest scale, It seems to me.... [To aide] Bid him to reinforce The front line with some second-line brigades; Some, too, from the reserve. [The Brunswickers advance to support MAITLAND'S Guards, and the MITCHELL and ADAM Brigades establish themselves above Hougomont, which is still in flames. NEY, in continuation of the plan of throwing his whole force on the British centre before the advent of the Prussians, now intensifies his onslaught with the cavalry. Terrific discharges of artillery initiate it to clear the ground. A heavy round- shot dashes through the tree over the heads of WELLINGTON and his generals, and boughs and leaves come flying down on them.]
WELLINGTON Good practice that! I vow they did not fire So dexterously in Spain. [He calls up an aide.] Bid Ompteda Direct the infantry to lie tight down On the reverse ridge-slope, to screen themselves While these close shots and shells are teasing us; When the charge comes they'll cease. [The order is carried out. NEY'S cavalry attack now matures. MILHAUD'S cuirassiers in twenty-four squadrons advance down the opposite decline, followed and supported by seven squadrons of chasseurs under DESNOETTES. They disappear for a minute in the hollow between the armies.]
UXBRIDGE Ah—now we have got their long-brewed plot explained!
WELLINGTON [nodding] That this was rigged for some picked time to-day I had inferred. But that it would be risked Sheer on our lines, while still they stand unswayed, In conscious battle-trim, I reckoned not. It looks a madman's cruel enterprise!
FITZROY SOMERSET We have just heard that Ney embarked on it Without an order, ere its aptness riped.
WELLINGTON It may be so: he's rash. And yet I doubt. I know Napoleon. If the onset fail It will be Ney's; if it succeed he'll claim it! [A dull reverberation of the tread of innumerable hoofs comes from behind the hill, and the foremost troops rise into view.]
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES Behold the gorgeous coming of those horse, Accoutered in kaleidoscopic hues That would persuade us war has beauty in it!— Discern the troopers' mien; each with the air Of one who is himself a tragedy: The cuirassiers, steeled, mirroring the day; Red lancers, green chasseurs: behind the blue The red; the red before the green: A lingering-on till late in Christendom, Of the barbaric trick to terrorize The foe by aspect! [WELLINGTON directs his glass to an officer in a rich uniform with many decorations on his breast, who rides near the front of the approaching squadrons. The DUKE'S face expresses admiration.]
WELLINGTON It's Marshal Ney himself who heads the charge. The finest cavalry commander, he, That wears a foreign plume; ay, probably The whole world through!
SPIRIT IRONIC And when that matchless chief Sentenced shall lie to ignominious death But technically deserved, no finger he Who speaks will lift to save him.!
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES To his shame. We must discount war's generous impulses I sadly see.
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS Be mute, and let spin on This whirlwind of the Will! [As NEY'S cavalry ascends the English position the swish of the horses' breasts through the standing corn can be heard, and the reverberation of hoofs increases in strength. The English gunners stand with their portfires ready, which are seen glowing luridly in the daylight. There is comparative silence.]
A VOICE Now, captains, are you loaded?
CAPTAINS Yes, my lord.
VOICE Point carefully, and wait till their whole height Shows above the ridge. [When the squadrons rise in full view, within sixty yards of the cannon-mouths, the batteries fire, with a concussion that shakes the hill itself. Their shot punch holes through the front ranks of the cuirassiers, and horse and riders fall in heaps. But they are not stopped, hardly checked, galloping up to the mouths of the guns, passing between the pieces, and plunging among the Allied infantry behind the ridge, who, with the advance of the horsemen, have sprung up from their prone position and formed into squares.]
SPIRIT OF RUMOUR Ney guides the fore-front of the carabineers Through charge and charge, with rapid recklessness. Horses, cuirasses, sabres, helmets, men, Impinge confusedly on the pointed prongs Of the English kneeling there, whose dim red shapes Behind their slanted steel seem trampled flat And sworded to the sward. The charge recedes, And lo, the tough lines rank there as before, Save that they are shrunken.
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES Hero of heroes, too, Ney, [not forgetting those who gird against him].— Simple and single-souled lieutenant he; Why should men's many-valued motions take So barbarous a groove! [The cuirassiers and lancers surge round the English and Allied squares like waves, striking furiously on them and well-nigh breaking them. They stand in dogged silence amid the French cheers.]
WELLINGTON [to the nearest square] Hard pounding this, my men! I truly trust You'll pound the longest!
SQUARE Hip-hip-hip-hurrah!
MUFFLING [again referring to his watch] However firmly they may stand, in faith, Their firmness must have bounds to it, because There are bounds to human strength!... Your, Grace, To leftward now, to spirit Zieten on.
WELLINGTON Good. It is time! I think he well be late, However, in the field. [MUFFLING goes. Enter an aide, breathless.]
AIDE Your Grace, the Ninety-fifth are patience-spent With standing under fire so passing long. They writhe to charge—or anything but stand!
WELLINGTON Not yet. They shall have at 'em later on. At present keep them firm. [Exit aide. The Allied squares stand like little red-brick castles, independent of each other, and motionless except at the dry hurried command “Close up!” repeated every now and then as they are slowly thinned. On the other hand, under their firing and bayonets a disorder becomes apparent among the charging horse, on whose cuirasses the bullets snap like stones on window-panes. At this the Allied cavalry waiting in the rear advance; and by degrees they deliver the squares from their enemies, who are withdrawn to their own position to prepare for a still more strenuous assault. The point of view shifts.]
SCENE V THE SAME. THE WOMEN'S CAMP NEAR MONT SAINT-JEAN [On the sheltered side of a clump of trees at the back of the English position camp-fires are smouldering. Soldiers' wives, mistresses, and children from a few months to five or six years of age, sit on the ground round the fires or on armfuls of straw from the adjoining farm. Wounded soldiers lie near the women. The wind occasionally brings the smoke and smell of battle into the encampment, the noise being continuous. Two waggons stand near; also a surgeon's horse in charge of a batman, laden with bone-saws, knives, probes, tweezers, and other surgical instruments. Behind lies a woman who has just given birth to a child, which a second woman is holding. Many of the other women are shredding lint, the elder children assisting. Some are dressing the slighter wounds of the soldiers who have come in here instead of going further. Along the road near is a continual procession of bearers of wounded men to the rear. The occupants of the camp take hardly any notice of the thundering of the cannon. A camp-follower is playing a fiddle near. Another woman enters.]
WOMAN There's no sign of my husband any longer. His battalion is half-a- mile from where it was. He looked back as they wheeled off towards the fighting-line, as much as to say, “Nancy, if I don't see 'ee again, this is good-bye, my dear.” Yes, poor man!... Not but what 'a had a temper at times!
SECOND WOMAN I'm out of all that. My husband—as I used to call him for form's sake—is quiet enough. He was wownded at Quarter-Brass the day before yesterday, and died the same night. But I didn't know it till I got here, and then says I, “Widder or no widder, I mean to see this out.” [A sergeant staggers in with blood dropping from his face.]
SERGEANT Damned if I think you will see it out, mis'ess, for if I don't mistake there'll be a retreat of the whole army on Brussels soon. We can't stand much longer!—For the love of God, have ye got a cup of water, if nothing stronger? [They hand a cup.]
THIRD WOMAN [entering and sinking down] The Lord send that I may never see again what I've been seeing while looking for my poor galliant Joe! The surgeon asked me to lend a hand; and 'twas worse than opening innerds at a pig-killing! [She faints.]
FOURTH WOMAN [to a little girl] Never mind her, my dear; come and help me with this one. [She goes with the girl to a soldier in red with buff facings who lies some distance off.] Ah—'tis no good. He's gone.
GIRL No, mother. His eyes are wide open, a-staring to get a sight of the battle!
FOURTH WOMAN That's nothing. Lots of dead ones stare in that silly way. It depends upon where they were hit. I was all through the Peninsula; that's how I know. [She covers the horny gaze of the man. Shouts and louder discharges are heard.]—Heaven's high tower, what's that?
[Enter an officer's servant.[24]]
SERVANT Waiting with the major's spare hoss—up to my knees in mud from the rain that had come down like baccy-pipe stems all the night and morning—I have just seen a charge never beholded since the days of the Amalekites! The squares still stand, but Ney's cavalry have made another attack. Their swords are streaming with blood, and their horses' hoofs squash out our poor fellow's bowels as they lie. A ball has sunk in Sir Thomas Picton's forehead and killed him like Goliath the Philistine. I don't see what's to stop the French. Well, it's the Lord's doing and marvellous in our eyes. Hullo, who's he? [They look towards the road.] A fine hale old gentleman, isn't he? What business has a man of that sort here? [Enter, on the highway near, the DUKE OF RICHMOND in plain clothes, on horseback, accompanied by two youths, his sons. They draw rein on an eminence, and gaze towards the battlefields.]
RICHMOND [to son] Everything looks as bad as possible just now. I wonder where your brother is? However, we can't go any nearer.... Yes, the bat- horses are already being moved off, and there are more and more fugitives. A ghastly finish to your mother's ball, by Gad if it isn't! [They turn their horses towards Brussels. Enter, meeting them, MR. LEGH, a Wessex gentleman, also come out to view the battle.]
LEGH Can you tell me, sir, how the battle is going?
RICHMOND Badly, badly, I fear, sir. There will be a retreat soon, seemingly.
LEGH Indeed! Yes, a crowd of fugitives are coming over the hill even now. What will these poor women do?
RICHMOND God knows! They will be ridden over, I suppose. Though it is extraordinary how they do contrive to escape destruction while hanging so close to the rear of an action! They are moving, however. Well, we will move too. [Exeunt DUKE OF RICHMOND, sons, and MR. LEGH. The point of view shifts.]
SCENE VI THE SAME. THE FRENCH POSITION [NEY'S charge of cavalry against the opposite upland has been three times renewed without success. He collects the scattered squadrons to renew it a fourth time. The glittering host again ascends the confronting slopes over the bodies of those previously left there, and amid horses wandering about without riders, or crying as they lie with entrails trailing or limbs broken.] NAPOLEON [starting up] A horrible dream has gripped me—horrible! I saw before me Lannes—just as he looked That day at Aspern: mutilated, bleeding! “What—blood again?” he said to me. “Still blood?” [He further arouses himself, takes snuff vehemently, and looks through his glass.] What time is it?—Ah, these assaults of Ney's! They are a blunder; they've been enterprised An hour too early!... There Lheritier goes Onward with his division next Milhaud; Now Kellermann must follow up with his. So one mistake makes many. Yes; ay; yes!
SOULT I fear that Ney has compromised us here Just as at Jena; even worse!
NAPOLEON No less Must we support him now he is launched on it.... The miracle is that he is still alive! [NEY and his mass of cavalry again pass the English batteries and disappear amid the squares beyond.] Their cannon are abandoned; and their squares Again environed—see! I would to God Murat could be here! Yet I disdained His proffered service.... All my star asks now Is to break some half-dozen of those blocks Of English yonder. He was the man to do it. [NEY and D'ERLON'S squadrons are seen emerging from the English squares in a disorganized state, the attack having failed like the previous ones. An aide-de-camp enters to NAPOLEON.]
AIDE The Prussians have debouched on our right rear From Paris-wood; and Losthin's infantry Appear by Plancenoit; Hiller's to leftwards. Two regiments of their horse protect their front, And three light batteries. [A haggard shade crosses NAPOLEON'S face.]
NAPOLEON What then! That's not a startling force as yet. A counter-stroke by Domon's cavalry Must shatter them. Lobau must bring his foot Up forward, heading for the Prussian front, Unrecking losses by their cannonade. [Exit aide. The din of battle continues. DOMON'S horse are soon seen advancing towards and attacking the Prussian hussars in front of the infantry; and he next attempts to silence the Prussian batteries playing on him by leading up his troops and cutting down the gunners. But he has to fall back upon the infantry of LOBAU. Enter another aide-de-camp.]
AIDE These tiding I report, your Majesty:— Von Ryssel's and von Hacke's Prussian foot Have lately sallied from the Wood of Paris, Bearing on us; no vast array as yet; But twenty thousand loom not far behind These vanward marchers!
NAPOLEON Ah! They swarm thus thickly? But be they hell's own legions we'll defy them!— Lobau's men will stand firm. [He looks in the direction of the English lines, where NEY'S cavalry-assaults still linger furiously on.] But who rides hither, Spotting the sky with clods in his high haste?
SOULT It looks like Colonel Heymes—come from Ney.
NAPOLEON [sullenly] And his face shows what clef his music's in! [Enter COLONEL HEYMES, blood-stained, muddy, and breathless.]
HEYMES The Prince of Moscow, sire, the Marshal Ney, Bids me implore that infantry be sent Immediately, to further his attack. They cannot be dispensed with, save we fail!
NAPOLEON [furiously] Infantry! Where the sacred God thinks he I can find infantry for him! Forsooth, Does he expect me to create them—eh? Why sends he such a message, seeing well How we are straitened here!
HEYMES Such was the prayer Of my commission, sire. And I say That I myself have seen his strokes must waste Without such backing.
NAPOLEON Why?
HEYMES Our cavalry Lie stretched in swathes, fronting the furnace-throats Of the English cannon as a breastwork built Of reeking copses. Marshal Ney's third horse Is shot. Besides the slain, Donop, Guyot, Lheritier, Piquet, Travers, Delort, more, Are vilely wounded. On the other hand Wellington has sought refuge in a square, Few of his generals are not killed or hit, And all is tickle with him. But I see, Likewise, that I can claim no reinforcement, And will return and say so. [Exit HEYMES]
NAPOLEON [to Soult, sadly] Ney does win me! I fain would strengthen him.—Within an ace Of breaking down the English as he is, 'Twould write upon the sunset “Victory!”— But whom may spare we from the right here now? So single man! [An interval.] Life's curse begins, I see, With helplessness!... All I can compass is To send Durutte to fall on Papelotte, And yet more strongly occupy La Haye, To cut off Bulow's right from bearing up And checking Ney's attack. Further than this None but the Gods can scheme! [SOULT hastily begins writing orders to that effect. The point of view shifts.]
SCENE VII THE SAME. THE ENGLISH POSITION [The din of battle continues. WELLINGTON, UXBRIDGE, HILL, DE LANCEY, GORDON, and others discovered near the middle of the line.]
SPIRIT OF RUMOUR It is a moment when the steadiest pulse Thuds pit-a-pat. The crisis shapes and nears For Wellington as for his counter-chief.
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES The hour is shaking him, unshakeable As he may seem!
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS Know'st not at this stale time That shaken and unshaken are alike But demonstrations from the Back of Things? Must I again reveal It as It hauls The halyards of the world? [A transparency as in earlier scenes again pervades the spectacle, and the ubiquitous urging of the Immanent Will becomes visualized. The web connecting all the apparently separate shapes includes WELLINGTON in its tissue with the rest, and shows him, like them, as acting while discovering his intention to act. By the lurid light the faces of every row, square, group, and column of men, French and English, wear the expression of that of people in a dream.]
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES [tremulously] Yea, sire; I see. Disquiet me, pray, no more! [The strange light passes, and the embattled hosts on the field seem to move independently as usual.]
WELLINGTON [to Uxbridge] Manoeuvring does not seem to animate Napoleon's methods now. Forward he comes, And pounds away on us in the ancient style, Till he is beaten back in the ancient style; And so the see-saw sways! [The din increases. WELLINGTON'S aide-de-camp, Sir A. GORDON, a little in his rear, falls mortally wounded. The DUKE turns quickly.] But where is Gordon? Ah—hit is he! That's bad, that's bad, by God. [GORDON is removed. An aide enters.]
AIDE Your Grace, the Colonel Ompteda has fallen, And La Haye Sainte is now a bath of blood. Nothing more can be done there, save with help. The Rifles suffer sharply! [An aide is seen coming from KEMPT.]
WELLINGTON What says he?
DE LANCEY He says that Kempt, being riddled through and thinned, Sends him for reinforcements.
WELLINGTON [with heat] Reinforcements? And where am I to get him reinforcements In Heaven's name! I've no reinforcements here, As he should know.
AIDE [hesitating] What's to be done, your Grace?
WELLINGTON Done? Those he has left him, be they many or few, Fight till they fall, like others in the field! [Exit aide. The Quartermaster-General DE LANCEY, riding by WELLINGTON, is struck by a lobbing shot that hurls him over the head of his horse. WELLINGTON and others go to him.]
DE LANCEY [faintly] I may as well be left to die in peace!
WELLINGTON He may recover. Take him to the rear, And call the best attention up to him. [DE LANCEY is carried off. The next moment a shell bursts close to WELLINGTON.]
HILL [approaching] I strongly feel you stand too much exposed!
WELLINGTON I know, I know. It matters not one damn! I may as well be shot as not perceive What ills are raging here.
HILL Conceding such, And as you may be ended momently, A truth there is no blinking, what commands Have you to leave me, should fate shape it so?
WELLINGTON These simply: to hold out unto the last, As long as one man stands on one lame leg With one ball in his pouch!—then end as I. [He rides on slowly with the others. NEY'S charges, though fruitless so far, are still fierce. His troops are now reduced to one-half. Regiments of the BACHELU division, and the JAMIN brigade, are at last moved up to his assistance. They are partly swept down by the Allied batteries, and partly notched away by the infantry, the smoke being now so thick that the position of the battalions is revealed only by the flashing of the priming- pans and muzzles, and by the furious oaths heard behind the cloud. WELLINGTON comes back. Enter another aide-de-camp.]
AIDE We bow to the necessity of saying That our brigade is lessened to one-third, Your Grace. And those who are left alive of it Are so unmuscled by fatigue and thirst That some relief, however temporary, Becomes sore need.
WELLINGTON Inform your general That his proposal asks the impossible! That he, I, every Englishman afield, Must fall upon the spot we occupy, Our wounds in front.
AIDE It is enough, your Grace. I answer for't that he, those under him, And I withal, will bear us as you say. [Exit aide. The din of battle goes on. WELLINGTON is grave but calm. Like those around him, he is splashed to the top of his hat with partly dried mire, mingled with red spots; his face is grimed in the same way, little courses showing themselves where the sweat has trickled down from his brow and temples.]
CLINTON [to Hill] A rest would do our chieftain no less good, In faith, than that unfortunate brigade! He is tried damnably; and much more strained Than I have ever seen him.
HILL Endless risks He's running likewise. What the hell would happen If he were shot, is more than I can say!
WELLINGTON [calling to some near] At Talavera, Salamanca, boys, And at Vitoria, we saw smoke together; And though the day seems wearing doubtfully, Beaten we must not be! What would they say Of us at home, if so?
A CRY [from the French] Their centre breaks! Vive l'Empereur! [It comes from the FOY and BACHELU divisions, which are rushing forward. HALKETT'S and DUPLAT'S brigades intercept. DUPLAT falls, shot dead; but the venturesome French regiments, pierced with converging fires, and cleft with shells, have to retreat.]
HILL [joining Wellington] The French artillery-fire To the right still renders regiments restive there That have to stand. The long exposure galls them.
WELLINGTON They must be stayed as our poor means afford. I have to bend attention steadfastly Upon the centre here. The game just now Goes all against us; and if staunchness fail But for one moment with these thinning foot, Defeat succeeds! [The battle continues to sway hither and thither with concussions, wounds, smoke, the fumes of gunpowder, and the steam from the hot viscera of grape-torn horses and men. One side of a Hanoverian square is blown away; the three remaining sides form themselves into a triangle. So many of his aides are cut down that it is difficult for WELLINGTON to get reports of what is happening afar. It begins to be discovered at the front that a regiment of hussars, and others without ammunition, have deserted, and that some officers in the rear, honestly concluding the battle to be lost, are riding quietly off to Brussels. Those who are left unwounded of WELLINGTON'S staff show gloomy misgivings at such signs, despite their own firmness.]
SPIRIT SINISTER One needs must be a ghost To move here in the midst 'twixt host and host! Their balls scream brisk and breezy tunes through me As I were an organ-stop. It's merry so; What damage mortal flesh must undergo! [A Prussian officer enters to MUFFLING, who has again rejoined the DUKE'S suite. MUFFLING hastens forward to WELLINGTON.]
MUFFLING Blucher has just begun to operate; But owing to Gneisenau's stolid stagnancy The body of our army looms not yet! As Zieten's corps still plod behind Smohain Their coming must be late. Blucher's attack Strikes the remote right rear of the enemy, Somewhere by Plancenoit.
WELLINGTON A timely blow; But would that Zieten sped! Well, better late Than never. We'll still stand. [The point of observation shifts.]
SCENE VIII THE SAME. LATER [NEY'S long attacks on the centre with cavalry having failed, those left of the squadrons and their infantry-supports fall back pell-mell in broken groups across the depression between the armies. Meanwhile BULOW, having engaged LOBAU'S Sixth Corps, carries Plancenoit. The artillery-fire between the French and the English continues. An officer of the Third Foot-guards comes up to WELLINGTON and those of his suite that survive.]
OFFICER Our Colonel Canning—coming I know not whence—
WELLINGTON I lately sent him with important words To the remoter lines.
OFFICER As he returned A grape-shot struck him in the breast; he fell, At once a dead man. General Halkett, too, Has had his cheek shot through, but still keeps going.
WELLINGTON And how proceeds De Lancey?
OFFICER I am told That he forbids the surgeons waste their time On him, who well can wait till worse are eased.
WELLINGTON A noble fellow. [NAPOLEON can now be seen, across the valley, pushing forward a new scheme of some sort, urged to it obviously by the visible nearing of further Prussian corps. The EMPEROR is as critically situated as WELLINGTON, and his army is now formed in a right angle [“en potence”], the main front to the English, the lesser to as many of the Prussians as have yet arrived. His gestures show him to be giving instructions of desperate import to a general whom he has called up.]
SPIRIT IRONIC He bids La Bedoyere to speed away Along the whole sweep of the surging line, And there announce to the breath-shotten bands Who toil for a chimaera trustfully, With seventy pounds of luggage on their loins, That the dim Prussian masses seen afar Are Grouchy's three-and-thirty thousand, come To clinch a victory.
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES But Ney demurs!
SPIRIT IRONIC Ney holds indignantly that such a feint Is not war-worthy. Says Napoleon then, Snuffing anew, with sour sardonic scowl, That he is choiceless.
SPIRIT SINISTER Excellent Emperor! He tops all human greatness; in that he To lesser grounds of greatness adds the prime, Of being without a conscience. [LA BEDOYERE and orderlies start on their mission. The false intelligence is seen to spread, by the excited motion of the columns, and the soldiers can be heard shouting as their spirits revive. WELLINGTON is beginning to discern the features of the coming onset, when COLONEL FRASER rides up.]
FRASER We have just learnt from a deserting captain, One of the carabineers who charged of late, That an assault which dwarfs all instances— The whole Imperial Guard in welded weight— Is shortly to be made.
WELLINGTON For your smart speed My thanks. My observation is confirmed. We'll hasten now along the battle-line [to Staff], As swiftest means for giving orders out Whereby to combat this. [The speaker, accompanied by HILL, UXBRIDGE, and others—all now looking as worn and besmirched as the men in the ranks—proceed along the lines, and dispose the brigades to meet the threatened shock. The infantry are brought out of the shelter they have recently sought, the cavalry stationed in the rear, and the batteries of artillery hitherto kept in reserve are moved to the front. The last Act of the battle begins. There is a preliminary attack by DONZELOT'S columns, combined with swarms of sharpshooters, to the disadvantage of the English and their Allies. WELLINGTON has scanned it closely. FITZROY SOMERSET, his military secretary, comes up.]
WELLINGTON What casualty has thrown its shade among The regiments of Nassau, to shake them so?
SOMERSET The Prince of Orange has been badly struck— A bullet through his shoulder—so they tell; And Kielmansegge has shown some signs of stress. Kincaird's tried line wanes leaner and more lean— Whittled to a weak skein of skirmishers; The Twenty-seventh lie dead.
WELLINGTON Ah yes—I know! [While they watch developments a cannon-shot passes and knocks SOMERSET'S right arm to a mash. He is assisted to the rear. NEY and FRIANT now lead forward the last and most desperate assault of the day, in charges of the Old and Middle Guard, the attack by DONZELOT and ALLIX further east still continuing as a support. It is about a quarter-past eight, and the midsummer evening is fine after the wet night and morning, the sun approaching its setting in a sky of gorgeous colours. The picked and toughened Guard, many of whom stood in the ranks at Austerlitz and Wagram, have been drawn up in three or four echelons, the foremost of which now advances up the slopes to the Allies' position. The others follow at intervals, the drummers beating the “pas de charge.”]
CHORUS OF RUMOURS [aerial music] Twice thirty throats of couchant cannonry— Ranked in a hollow curve, to close their blaze Upon the advancing files—wait silently Like to black bulls at gaze. The Guard approaches nearer and more near: To touch-hole moves each match of smoky sheen: The ordnance roars: the van-ranks disappear As if wiped off the scene. The aged Friant falls as it resounds; Ney's charger drops—his fifth on this sore day— Its rider from the quivering body bounds And forward foots his way. The cloven columns tread the English height, Seize guns, repulse battalions rank by rank, While horse and foot artillery heavily bite Into their front and flank. It nulls the power of a flesh-built frame To live within that zone of missiles. Back The Old Guard, staggering, climbs to whence it came. The fallen define its track. [The second echelon of the Imperial Guard has come up to the assault. Its columns have borne upon HALKETT'S right. HALKETT, desperate to keep his wavering men firm, himself seizes and waves the flag of the Thirty-third, in which act he falls wounded. But the men rally. Meanwhile the Fifty-second, covered by the Seventy-first, has advanced across the front, and charges the Imperial Guard on the flank. The third echelon next arrives at the English lines and squares; rushes through the very focus of their fire, and seeing nothing more in front, raises a shout.
IMPERIAL GUARD The Emperor! It's victory!
WELLINGTON Stand up, Guards! Form line upon the front face of the square! [Two thousand of MAITLAND'S Guards, hidden in the hollow roadway, thereupon spring up, form as ordered, and reveal themselves as a fence of leveled firelocks four deep. The flints click in a multitude, the pans flash, and volley after volley is poured into the bear-skinned figures of the massed French, who kill COLONEL D'OYLEY in returning fire.]
WELLINGTON Now drive the fellows in! Go on; go on! You'll do it now! [COLBORNE converges on the French guard with the Fifty-second, and The former splits into two as the climax comes. ADAM, MAITLAND, and COLBORNE pursue their advantage. The Imperial columns are broken, and their confusion is increased by grape-shot from BOLTON'S battery.] Campbell, this order next: Vivian's hussars are to support, and bear Against the cavalry towards Belle Alliance. Go—let him know. [Sir C. CAMPBELL departs with the order. Soon VIVIAN'S and VANDELEUR'S light horse are seen advancing, and in due time the French cavalry are rolled back. WELLINGTON goes in the direction of the hussars with UXBRIDGE. A cannon-shot hisses past.]
UXBRIDGE [starting] I have lost my leg, by God!
WELLINGTON By God, and have you! Ay—the wind o' the shot Blew past the withers of my Copenhagen Like the foul sweeping of a witch's broom.— Aha—they are giving way! [While UXBRIDGE is being helped to the rear, WELLINGTON makes a sign to SALTOUN, Colonel of the First Footguards.]
SALTOUN [shouting] Boys, now's your time; Forward and win!
FRENCH VOICES The Guard gives way—we are beaten! [They recede down the hill, carrying confusion into NAPOLEON'S centre just as the Prussians press forward at a right angle from the other side of the field. NAPOLEON is seen standing in the hollow beyond La Haye Sainte, alone, except for the presence of COUNT FLAHAULT, his aide-de-camp. His lips move with sudden exclamation.
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS He says “Now all is lost! The clocks of the world Strike my last empery-hour.” [Towards La Haye Sainte the French of DONZELOT and ALLIX, who are fighting KEMPT, PACK, KRUSE, and LAMBERT, seeing what has happened to the Old and Middle Guard, lose heart and recede likewise; so that the whole French line rolls back like a tide. Simultaneously the Prussians are pressing forward at Papelotte and La Haye. The retreat of the French grows into a panic.]
FRENCH VOICES [despairingly] We are betrayed! [WELLINGTON rides at a gallop to the most salient point of the English position, halts, and waves his hat as a signal to all the army. The sign is answered by a cheer along the length of the line.]
WELLINGTON No cheering yet, my lads; but bear ahead, Before the inflamed face of the west out there Dons blackness. So you'll round your victory! [The few aides that are left unhurt dart hither and thither with this message, and the whole English host and it allies advance in an ordered mass down the hill except some of the artillery, who cannot get their wheels over the bank of corpses in front. Trumpets, drums, and bugles resound with the advance. The streams of French fugitives as they run are cut down and shot by their pursuers, whose clothes and contracted features are blackened by smoke and cartridge-biting, and soiled with loam and blood. Some French blow out their own brains as they fly. The sun drops below the horizon while the slaughter goes on.]
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES Is this the last Esdraelon of a moil For mortal man's effacement?
SPIRIT IRONIC Warfare, mere, Plied by the Managed for the Managers; To wit: by frenzied folks who profit nought For those who profit all!
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES Between the jars Of these who live, I hear uplift and move The bones of those who placidly have lain Within the sacred garths of yon grey fanes— Nivelles, and Plancenoit, and Braine l'Alleud— Beneath the unmemoried mounds through deedless years Their dry jaws quake: “What Sabaoath is this, That shakes us in our unobtrusive shrouds, As though our tissues did not yet abhor The fevered feats of life?”
SPIRIT IRONIC Mere fancy's feints! How know the coffined what comes after them, Even though it whirl them to the Pleiades?— Turn to the real.
SPIRIT OF RUMOUR That hatless, smoke-smirched shape There in the vale, is still the living Ney, His sabre broken in his hand, his clothes Slitten with ploughing ball and bayonet, One epaulette shorn away. He calls out “Follow!” And a devoted handful follow him Once more into the carnage. Hear his voice.
NEY [calling afar] My friends, see how a Marshal of France can die!
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES Alas, not here in battle, something hints, But elsewhere!... Who's the sworded brother-chief Swept past him in the tumult?
SPIRIT OF RUMOUR D'Erlon he. Ney cries to him:
NEY Be sure of this, my friend, If we don't perish here at English hands, Nothing is left us but the halter-noose The Bourbons will provide!
SPIRIT IRONIC A caustic wit, And apt, to those who deal in adumbrations! [The brave remnant of the Imperial Guard repulses for a time the English cavalry under Vivian, in which MAJOR HOWARD and LIEUTENANT GUNNING of the Tenth Hussars are shot. But the war-weary French cannot cope with the pursuing infantry, helped by grape-shot from the batteries. NAPOLEON endeavours to rally them. It is his last effort as a warrior; and the rally ends feebly.]
NAPOLEON They are crushed! So it has ever been since Crecy! [He is thrown violently off his horse, and bids his page bring another, which he mounts, and is lost to sight.]
SPIRIT OF RUMOUR He loses his last chance of dying well! [The three or four heroic battalions of the Old and Middle Guard fall back step by step, halting to reform in square when they get badly broken and shrunk. At last they are surrounded by the English Guards and other foot, who keep firing on them and smiting them to smaller and smaller numbers. GENERAL CAMBRONNE is inside the square.]
COLONEL HUGH HALKETT [shouting] Surrender! And preserve those heroes' lives!
CAMBRONNE [with exasperation] Mer-r-rde!... You've to deal with desperates, man, today: Life is a byword here! [Hollow laughter, as from people in hell, comes approvingly from the remains of the Old Guard. The English proceed with their massacre, the devoted band thins and thins, and a ball strikes CAMBRONNE, who falls, and is trampled over.]
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS Observe that all wide sight and self-command Desert these throngs now driven to demonry By the Immanent Unrecking. Nought remains But vindictiveness here amid the strong, And there amid the weak an impotent rage.
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES Why prompts the Will so senseless-shaped a doing?
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS I have told thee that It works unwittingly, As one possessed, not judging.
SEMICHORUS I OF IRONIC SPIRITS [aerial music] Of Its doings if It knew, What It does It would not do!
SEMICHORUS II Since It knows not, what far sense Speeds Its spinnings in the Immense?
SEMICHORUS I None; a fixed foresightless dream Is Its whole philosopheme.
SEMICHORUS II Just so; an unconscious planning, Like a potter raptly panning!
CHORUS Are then, Love and Light Its aim— Good Its glory, Bad Its blame? Nay; to alter evermore Things from what they were before.
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS Your knowings of the Unknowable declared, Let the last pictures of the play be bared. [Enter, fighting, more English and Prussians against the French. NEY is caught by the throng and borne ahead. RULLIERE hides an eagle beneath his coat and follows Ney. NAPOLEON is involved none knows where in the crowd of fugitives. WELLINGTON and BLUCHER come severally to the view. They meet in the dusk and salute warmly. The Prussian bands strike up “God save the King” as the two shake hands. From his gestures of assent it can be seen that WELLINGTON accepts BLUCHER'S offer to pursue. The reds disappear from the sky, and the dusk grows deeper. The action of the battle degenerates to a hunt, and recedes further and further into the distance southward. When the tramplings and shouts of the combatants have dwindled, the lower sounds are noticeable that come from the wounded: hopeless appeals, cries for water, elaborate blasphemies, and impotent execrations of Heaven and hell. In the vast and dusky shambles black slouching shapes begin to move, the plunderers of the dead and dying. The night grows clear and beautiful, and the moon shines musingly down. But instead of the sweet smell of green herbs and dewy rye as at her last beaming upon these fields, there is now the stench of gunpowder and a muddy stew of crushed crops and gore.]
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS So hath the Urging Immanence used to-day Its inadvertent might to field this fray: And Europe's wormy dynasties rerobe Themselves in their old gilt, to dazzle anew the globe! [The scene us curtained by a night-mist.[25]]
SCENE IX THE WOOD OF BOSSU [It is midnight. NAPOLEON enters a glade of the wood, a solitary figure on a faded horse. The shadows of the boughs travel over his listless form as he moves along. The horse chooses its own path, comes to a standstill, and feeds. The tramp of BERTRAND, SOULT, DROUOT, and LOBAU'S horses, gone forward in hope to find a way of retreat, is heard receding over the hill.]
NAPOLEON [to himself, languidly] Here should have been some troops of Gerard's corps, Left to protect the passage of the convoys, Yet they, too, fail.... I have nothing more to lose, But life! [Flocks of fugitive soldiers pass along the adjoining road without seeing him. NAPOLEON'S head droops lower and lower as he sits listless in the saddle, and he falls into a fitful sleep. The moon shines upon his face, which is drawn and waxen.]
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS “Sic diis immortalibus placet,”— “Thus is it pleasing to the immortal gods,” As earthlings used to say. Thus, to this last, The Will in thee has moved thee, Bonaparte, As we say now.
NAPOLEON [starting] Whose frigid tones are those, Breaking upon my lurid loneliness So brusquely?... Yet, 'tis true, I have ever know That such a Will I passively obeyed! [He drowses again.]
SPIRIT IRONIC Nothing care I for these high-doctrined dreams, And shape the case in quite a common way, So I would ask, Ajaccian Bonaparte, Has all this been worth while?
NAPOLEON O hideous hour, Why am I stung by spectral questionings? Did not my clouded soul incline to match Those of the corpses yonder, thou should'st rue Thy saying, Fiend, whoever those may'st be!... Why did the death-drops fail to bite me close I took at Fontainebleau? Had I then ceased, This deep had been umplumbed; had they but worked, I had thrown threefold the glow of Hannibal Down History's dusky lanes!—Is it too late?... Yes. Self-sought death would smoke but damply here! If but a Kremlin cannon-shot had met me My greatness would have stood: I should have scored A vast repute, scarce paralleled in time. As it did not, the fates had served me best If in the thick and thunder of to-day, Like Nelson, Harold, Hector, Cyrus, Saul, I had been shifted from this jail of flesh, To wander as a greatened ghost elsewhere. —Yes, a good death, to have died on yonder field; But never a ball came padding down my way! So, as it is, a miss-mark they will dub me; And yet—I found the crown of France in the mire, And with the point of my prevailing sword I picked it up! But for all this and this I shall be nothing.... To shoulder Christ from out the topmost niche In human fame, as once I fondly felt, Was not for me. I came too late in time To assume the prophet or the demi-god, A part past playing now. My only course To make good showance to posterity Was to implant my line upon the throne. And how shape that, if now extinction nears? Great men are meteors that consume themselves To light the earth. This is my burnt-out hour.
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS Thou sayest well. Thy full meridian-shine Was in the glory of the Dresden days, When well-nigh every monarch throned in Europe Bent at thy footstool.
NAPOLEON Saving always England's— Rightly dost say “well-nigh.”—Not England's,—she Whose tough, enisled, self-centred, kindless craft Has tracked me, springed me, thumbed me by the throat, And made herself the means of mangling me!
SPIRIT IRONIC Yea, the dull peoples and the Dynasts both, Those counter-castes not oft adjustable, Interests antagonistic, proud and poor, Have for the nonce been bonded by a wish To overthrow thee. SPIRIT OF THE PITIES Peace. His loaded heart Bears weight enough for one bruised, blistered while!
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS Worthless these kneadings of thy narrow thought, Napoleon; gone thy opportunity! Such men as thou, who wade across the world To make an epoch, bless, confuse, appal, Are in the elemental ages' chart Like meanest insects on obscurest leaves, But incidents and grooves of Earth's unfolding; Or as the brazen rod that stirs the fire Because it must. [The moon sinks, and darkness blots out NAPOLEON and the scene.]
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