Page:The Siege of London - Posteritas - 1885.djvu/76

64 confusion, and were ridden over and cut down by the exultant English.

The advantage thus gained in so extraordinary and probably unparalleled a manner would certainly have enabled them to have driven the enemy back to his original lines could supports have been brought up. But the besieged were too much weakened for this, and no help could be withdrawn from other quarters. Recognising the trap into which he had been driven, the French commander sent every member of his staff to bring up strong reinforcements, and he directed his remaining forces to keeping the English in check, who were not able to turn the confusion of the enemy into a rout, which might easily have been done had a few more battalions been available. The French reinforcements soon began to arrive, and a tremendous fire was opened on the English lines, by which means the ground was cleared for the characteristic fierce charge of two regiments of Zouaves which had been brought up, and now bore down with a wild rush on their enemy's flank. The line was thus thrown into confusion. Facing first one way and then the other, the British forces fell into disorder and could not recover their formation, while the French artillery plied them with a murderous rain of fire.

At the sight of this discomfiture of his men, the English commander galloped to the spot with a Highland brigade of infantry advancing behind him at double time. The French Grenadier regiments rushed forward to cut off his retreat, and a desperate conflict with the bayonet ensued, the English commander being killed in the mêlée.

The struggle had now lasted for six hours, but the end was near. The thick smoke produced by the artillery fire could not rise through the fog, which had partially lifted. The French head-quarter staff had to send up rockets to bring their troops together. Zouaves, Chasseurs, and Grenadiers came up at double time and out of breath. Line battalions followed in more straggling order; and Cuirassiers, Hussars, and Lancers tore along furiously, but not in confusion. The decimated British troops having fought devotedly and with magnificent courage, from an early hour without rest or food, were beginning to wear the