Page:15 decisive battles of the world (New York).djvu/365

Rh from each attack, the British artillery-men rushed forward from the centres of the squares, where they had taken refuge, and plied their guns on the retiring horsemen. Nearly the whole of Napoleon's magnificent body of heavy cavalry was destroyed in these fruitless attempts upon the British right. But in another part of the field fortune favored him for a time. Donzelot's infantry took La Haye Sainte between six and seven o'clock, and the means were now given for organizing another formidable attack on the centre of the allies.

There was no time to be lost: Blucher and Bulow were beginning to press upon the French right; as early as five o'clock, Napoleon had been obliged to detach Lobau's infantry and Domont's horse to check these new enemies. This was done for a time; but, as large numbers of the Prussians came on the field, they turned Lobau's left, and sent a strong force to seize the village of Planchenoit, which, it will be remembered, lay in the rear of the French right. Napoleon was now obliged to send his Young Guard to occupy that village, which was accordingly held by them with great gallantry against the reiterated assaults of the Prussian left under Bulow. But the force remaining under Napoleon was now numerically inferior to that under the Duke of Wellington, which he had been assailing throughout the day, without gaining any other advantage than the capture of La Haye Sainte. It is true that, owing to the gross misconduct of the greater part of the Dutch and Belgian troops, the duke was obliged to rely exclusively on his English and German soldiers, and the ranks of these had been fearfully thinned; but the survivors stood their ground heroically, and still opposed a resolute front to every forward movement of their enemies. Napoleon had then the means of effecting a retreat. His Old Guard had. yet taken no part in the action. Under cover of it, he might have withdrawn his shattered forces and retired upon the French frontier. But this would only have given the English and Prussians the opportunity of completing their junction; and he knew that other armies were fast coming up to aid them in a march upon Paris, if he should succeed in avoiding an encounter with them, and retreating upon the capital. A victory at Waterloo was his only alternative from utter ruin, and he determined to employ his Guard in one bold stroke more to make that victory his own.