“The whole army was in the most appalling disorder,” recalled Gen. In mid-June, darkness would not descend on that part of Europe for hours. Across the three-mile battlefront men threw down their muskets and fled, terrified of the Prussian lancers who were being ordered to pursue them with their eight-foot spears.
The next cry spelled disaster for any hopes Napoleon might have had for an orderly retreat: ' Sauve qui peut!' ('Save yourselves!'). A shocked-indeed, astounded-cry went up from the rest of the French Army, one unheard on any European battlefield in the unit's 16-year history: ' La Garde recule!' ('The Guard recoils!') The guard stopped, staggered and fell back. 'Bullets and grapeshot left the road strewn with dead and wounded,' recalled a French eyewitness. But Wellington had repulsed the assault with a massive concentration of firepower. Less than an hour earlier, Napoleon had sent eight battalions of his elite Imperial Guard into the attack up the main Charleroi-to-Brussels road in a desperate attempt to break the line of the Anglo-Allied army commanded by the Duke of Wellington. By about 8 p.m., the emperor of France knew he had been decisively defeated at a village called Waterloo, and he was now keen to escape from his enemies, some of whom -such as the Prussians-had sworn to execute him. 'Let us be off.' The day was June 18, 1815. 'Come general, the affair is over, we have lost the day,' Napoleon told one of his officers.
