Chapter 78 six four o'clock in the afternoon

Nearly four o'clock, the situation of the British army was critical.The Prince of Orange will be in the centre, with Hill on the right and Picton on the left.The brave and fierce Prince of Orange shouted to the Hepi allied forces: "Nassau, Brunswick, never retreat!" Hill was unable to support himself, so he came to seek refuge with Wellington, who was already dead.Just as the British army took away the flag of the French 105th Regiment, the French army shot a bullet through the head and killed the British General Picton.Wellington has two strongholds: Hougoumont and Saint-Lahe. Although Hougoumont resisted, it was on fire, and Saint-Lahe had already fallen.Only forty-two Germans remained in the defense of Saint-Lahe. All the officers were killed or taken prisoner, and only five survived.Three thousand soldiers died in that barn.A sergeant in the British Guards, the foremost boxer in England, and an invulnerable man, whom his comrades called him, was slaughtered there by a little drummer in France.Belling has lost the line of defense, and Alton has died under the knife.

Several banners were taken, among them the banner of Alten's division and that of the Lüneburg battalion, which was in the hands of a Prince of the Twinbridges.The Scottish greys are gone, and Ponsonby's rough cavalry have been cut down by the sword.The valiant cavalry had succumbed to Burrow's spears and Travel's ironclads, and out of twelve hundred horses remained six hundred. Two of the three lieutenants fell to the ground, Hamilton was wounded, and the cavalry Terr died.Ponsonby fell, with seven holes in his body, Gordon was dead, Marchy was dead.Both the Fifth and Sixth Divisions were wiped out.

Hougoumont is trapped, Saint-Lahe is lost, and only the middle knot is tied.The knot was still inextricably linked, and Wellington continued to reinforce it.He transferred Hill from Maple Brown and Chasse from Branlar. The British army's central army has a slightly concave formation, very dense troops, and a good terrain.It occupies the heights of Mount St. John, with a village behind it and a slope in front of it, which was quite steep at the time. The solid stone house was the property of Nivelles at that time and marked the intersection of roads. It is a tall sixteenth-century house. The building is so strong that it will bounce back when hit by a shell, and it will not be damaged in any way. The British Central Army used that stone house as a basis.The British soldiers set up fences everywhere around the highlands, and artillery positions were set up in the hawthorn forest, with cannon muzzles protruding from the trees, using the bushes as cover.Their battery was hidden among the thorns.Soldiers never tire of deceit. That kind of ghost trick is of course allowed in war. It was done so skillfully that Yaxo, who was sent by the emperor at nine o'clock in the morning to scout out the enemy's artillery emplacements, didn't notice anything. He reported to Napoleon: "In addition to defending Nishi Apart from the two fortifications of the Rue de Ville and the Rue de Genappe, there are no other obstacles." It was the season of high wheat, and on the edge of the high ground the soldiers of the 95th Battalion of Lambert's Brigade took With muskets, lying in the wheat field.

The central part of the Anglo-Dutch coalition has those cover and support, and its position is naturally superior. The disadvantage of that terrain was the Suwanin forest, which at that time connected the battlefield with the Gondar and Botsev swamps in between.If the army retreats there, it will surely be wiped out, and the morale of the army will inevitably be weakened.The artillery would be bogged down.The opinion of many experts is that the Anglo-Dutch coalition forces may have suffered a complete defeat in that place, and of course there are people who disagree with this opinion. Wellington brought in Chasse's brigade from the right flank, and Wenck's brigade from the left flank, together with Clinton's division, to reinforce the centre.He sent Brunswick's infantry, Nassau's men, Kilmanreich's Hanoverian corps, and Uptida's Germans to support his British forces, Holkit's regiment, Mitchell's brigade, May Tran Guard.So he had twenty-six battalions under him.According to Sciara: "The right wing turned back to the rear of the center." In what is today called "Waterloo Museum", there was a large battery of artillery concealed behind sandbags.Besides, Wellington had Somerset's dragoons, fourteen hundred men, in the hollow.That's half of those well-deserved British cavalry.Ponsonby's tribe had been wiped out, but Somerset remained.

The artillery's fortifications, if completed, could prove to be a great disaster.The artillery position was set behind a very low garden wall, and a layer of sandbags and a wide earth embankment were added in the busy schedule.The fortification has not yet been completed, and the fence has not yet been installed. Wellington rode on the horse, his heart fluttering, and his expression calm. He stood for a whole day under an elm tree on St. John's Hill, and he never changed his posture. The place not far in front was bought by an Englishman enthusiastically destroying ancient monuments for two hundred francs, sawed off, and transported away.Wellington stood there, grim and heroic.Cannonballs rained down.Lieutenant Gordon had just died beside him.Lord Hill pointed to an exploding cannonball and said to him: "My lord, in case something happens to you, what instructions do you have for us?" "Do as I did." Wellington replied.Facing Clint, he said curtly: "Stay here until the last person." The situation obviously deteriorated that day.Wellington shouted to his old friends in the cities of Talavera, Victoria, and Salamanca: "Boys (children)! Does anyone want to go on a errand? Think of old England!"

Nearly four o'clock the last British line of defense wavered.Only artillery and skirmishers were to be seen in the line of defense on the high ground, the rest disappeared at once.The regiments, under the pressure of French shells and cannonballs, turned back to the St. John's Hill road, which still stands today.The situation of retreat appeared, the British forward fell back, and Wellington retreated. "The retreat begins!" cried Napoleon.