Note 519 — Chapter I

Lumley in his very modest dispatch (Wellington, Supplementary Dispatches, xiii. pp. 654-6) under-estimates the damage he had done to the enemy. He states his 78 prisoners, and notes that 29 French dead had been counted, but only speaks of 50 wounded. There were really over 200. In combats with the arme blanche, the number of killed is always very small compared with that of the wounded, which here was about 8 to 1—not at all an unusual proportion in cavalry fights. A good account from the French side may he found in Picard’s Histoire de la Cavalerie, 1792-1815, vol. ii. pp. 315-16.