of Spanish and Portuguese riflemen, who were skilled in taking advantage of the inequalities of the ground; he placed a part of his artillery on the tactical crest of his position, and a part more to the rear, and riddled the advancing columns with a murderous artillery and musketry fire, while his excellent English infantry, sheltered from the fire, were posted a hundred paces in rear of the crest, to await the arrival of these columns; and when the latter appeared on the summit, wearied, out of breath, decimated in numbers, they were received with a general discharge of artillery and musketry and immediately charged by the infantry with the bayonet.
This system, which was perfectly rational and particularly applicable to Spain and Portugal, since he had there great numbers of this kind of troops and there was a great deal of rough ground upon which they could be useful as marksmen, needed some modifications to make it applicable to Belgium. At Waterloo the duke took his position on a plateau with a gentle slope like a glacis, where his artillery had a magnificent field of fire, and where it produced a terrible effect: both flanks of this plateau were well protected. Wellington, from the crest of the plateau, could discover the slightest movement in the French army, while his own were hidden; but, nevertheless, his system would not have prevented his losing the battle if a number of other circumstances had not come to his aid.
Every one knows more or less correctly the events of this terrible battle, which I have elsewhere impartially described. I demonstrated that its result was due neither to the musketry-fire nor to the use of deployed lines by the English, but to the following accidental causes, viz.:—
- To the mud, which rendered the progress of the French in the attack painful and slow, and caused their first attacks to be less effective, and prevented their being properly sustained by the artillery.