Note 68 — Chapter VII

Some French writers state that this hitherto victorious column was seized with a panic. If so, it was not to be wondered at: a crowd of men, heaped helplessly together, exposed to an incessant cross-fire of musketry, round and grape-shot poured in like hail upon both front and flank, and our lines converging to enclose and bayonet them, was enough to occasion a panic. We may here observe, that the attack of the Imperial column is almost incredible, unaccompanied as it was and entirely unsupported by cavalry, with the flanks perpetually exposed, and never attempting to deploy into line, till fired into; halting to engage with musketry against troops in line. They sealed their own doom; for while utterly incapable of deploying or returning their enemy’s fire with any effect, they were attacked by our infantry and turned by our cavalry. I must leave to the talented military historians to prove that this attack displayed Napoleon’s former genius. The cause of the interval of some minutes between the two attacking columns, or why the attacks were not simultaneous, I am at a loss to explain; but it certainly was the cause of their being beaten in detail.