A Bloody Day. Dan Harvey
if not most, British units with absolutely no formal Irish affiliation, they were involved in all the battle’s significant actions. Like himself, a number of Wellington’s key subordinates in his command and control structure as brigade commanders were Irish. This was true also of the next hierarchical level in Wellington’s chain-of-command, with Irishmen among his battalion and regimental commanders. Irish officers liberally populated these battalion and regimental establishments, and others held important central staff and support appointments.
These Irish were there when the irresistible force of Napoleon’s Armée de Nord (Army of the North) hit Wellington’s immovable defensive line along the ridge of Mont-St-Jean on the compressed battlefield of Waterloo, with hostilities commencing at 35 minutes past eleven on 18 June 1815. At stake was the future shape of Europe. Repeated, determined attacks throughout the day met a stiff stubborn defence, resulting in carnage. Wellington had nailed himself to the ridge and Napoleon threw everything he had to move him off it. Deadly assaults against a desperate defence. Concentrated artillery bombardments, close-quarter volleys of infantry musket-fire, courageous cavalry charges, all tore blood from flesh, flesh from bone, bone from body, and breath from life. There was bloodshed, mutilation, and violent death on both sides. Napoleon unleashed multiple cannonades, massive columns of infantry, and massed cavalry to smash Wellington’s will by sheer weight of numbers, while the latter replied with staunch defence and ferocious counter-attacks. Both generals knew the battle would be decisive. Both were highly skilled, experienced commanders in the field. Neither had faced the other before. Both were winners, but one must lose. The space over which the battle raged was compact, the battle space densely populated, and time was critical. The battlefield was 5 kilometres long and 3 kilometres wide. There were 180,000 troops, 35,000 horses and 500 cannons on it. It was a fiercely fought and formidable battle. Both commanders were determined to win, and each possessed the wit and lethal means to achieve it. The result was an enormous cost in dead and wounded. Many Irish were amongst the battle’s casualties. Of the Irish wounded at Waterloo, there were many who recovered with little ill effects; others were maimed for life; and others still did not rally from wounds received, dying days, weeks, months, even years later. Of those among the fatalities, most were buried at Waterloo. The overall extent of the casualties on all sides was staggering, the Irish suffering severely. When the battle’s death toll was increasing by the minute, its outcome far from decided, at day’s end with dusk descending, both armies shattered and near collapse, they remained evenly matched. With the issue still deadlocked, the battle in the balance, the fighting continuing, the Prussians arriving in force from the east, the French pressed harder and the bodies literally mounted. Standing with Wellington, holding the line with the battle-shocked, exhausted, and battered Anglo-Allies, only just, and at enormous cost were thousands of soldiers from Ireland, fighting bravely. This is their story.
CONTENTS
The Battle Of Waterloo
The Aftermath
Afterword – So What?
The 100 Days’ Campaign, 1815
Appendices
Bibliography
Acknowledgements
Index
List of Illustrations
Page 5: Group of Cavalry in the snow by Jean Louis Earnest Meissonier, National Gallery of Ireland
Page 5: The French in Killala Bay by William Saddler the Younger, National Gallery of Ireland
Page 6: The Robust engaging the, Hoche off Tory Island by John Thomas, National Gallery of Ireland
Page 22: The Duke of, Wellington National Gallery of Ireland
Pages 66 & 67: Closing the Gate at, Hougoumont by Robert Gibb, National Museums Scotland
Page 95: Ensign Edward Hodder in later life
Page 124: Cannon Shot removed from the leg of Ensign Edward Hodder.
Page 128: Royal Hospital Kilmainham Dublin
Page 129: The Wellington Monument Phoenix Park Dublin
Page 132: Sergeant, James Graham in Pensioner Uniform, Royal Hospital Kilmainham Dublin, National Gallery of Ireland
Page 134: The Waterloo Medal
Page 167: National Day of Commemoration Royal Hospital Dublin, Defence Forces Press Office
List of Maps
Page 18: Routes of British Troops to Belgium
Page 29: Ligny and Quatre Bras
Page 60: The Dispositions of the Armies at the Battle’s Beginning
Page 72: Massed French Infantry Attack
Page 85: Massive French Cavalry Attacks
Page 103: Assault of the Imperial Guard
INTRODUCTION
IF THERE is a place on earth that has defined its identity against the British, it is Ireland. So how was it that the Irish whom the British suppressed for centuries should have contributed so much to the Waterloo campaign and why has this participation largely escaped notice to date?
Ireland’s involvement in the Waterloo campaign was significant. The Irish engagement with this hugely historic epic event at the turn of the 19th century has yet to become popularly appreciated and properly applauded. Thousands of Irish soldiers both by birth and descent were eagerly engaged on the battlefield, among the ranks, high up, and all the way throughout the chain-of-command, some even conspicuous by individually noteworthy and otherwise gallant actions. Overall, the presence, posture, and performance of the Irish at the Battle of Waterloo is a proud and compelling story.
The Irish involvement at the Battle of Waterloo is a true story which has not figured prominently, if at all, in the cultural narrative of an independent Ireland to-date. It has been a story lost within the accounts of the magnificence of the suspense, the anxious uncertainty, the excitement of the action, central to the relating of the causes, course, and consequences of the battle itself. It is timely and important at the book’s outset to remind ourselves of the magnitude of such an encounter. The battle was a hostile confrontation involving vast groups using lethal means. It was the violent imposition of will, one man’s madness manifest in might proving right. The battle was raw, frightening and ugly, it was noisy, bloody and confused. It was the ruthless killing in great numbers of its participants. It was where the feared momentum of a French attacking manoeuvre met the steely strength of Anglo-Allied static defence, a thrusting energy hitting unyielding resilience, impetus against steadfastness. Butchery was done and slaughter resulted. The attrition of hideous death was horrible and widespread, the woundings atrocious. Heads, bodies, and arms were atomised by cannon balls, the brutal breaking of bone, mangling of limbs and torsos, men and horses,