Schiltrom

[Scot's Pike General]

Over the past few days, I have been experimenting on scotlands spearmen in schiltrom formation,defending against cavalry. I have learned that by spacing out the formations, and letting cavalry squeeze its way through random formations spaced evenly apart, the cavalry gets anniahlated(sp). I apologize if a topic like this has already been posted.

[Xehh II]

I use schiltrom if my guys are surrounded, they can usually hold of until help arrives.

[Valdincan]

I use Schiltrom at times, usually if I'm surrounded by large groups of cavalry.

[sapi]

That's an interesting idea; I must try it in field battles at some stage.

To clarify, do you use one or two lines of schiltroms?

[pike master]

its probably has something to do with morale as well. and that the cavalry gets snagged up and ends up fighting in several directions.

[Scot's Pike General]

well, they are just multiple schiltroms scattered out at equal distance , allowing cavalry to get inside of the formation, but they become trapped inside my formation, formally known as " polka-dot death", and are massacared.

[Guyus Germanicus]

Interesting 'Scots'. I was trying out Scotland yesterday and was pleasantly surprised at how effective their pikemen were. I haven't tried using them in a Schiltrom formation yet. But when I'm facing a sally from the gates, I can march them straight into enemy trrops like a phalanx in RTW. They are very effective.

I had an absolutely amazing victory with three militia units and a general holding out in Canaervon (sp?) yesterday. I was surpised by a huge English stack of peasant archers, peasants, militia spearmen, and a regular spearmen. I couldn't get a relief force to them in time and had to fight it out on the walls. My tower's archers burned up their ram, so they had to come over the walls in ladders and siege tower. It was a long long fight, but I beat them off. My general earned four experience chevrons in that Heroic victory.

I just took Scotland on a whim. But they're tough hombres.

My game got bogged down because the Pope threatened me with excommunication if I attacked Britain, even though they attacked me first. Grrrr.

[Zasz1234]

This tactic reminds me of Wellington at Waterloo when resisting the French cavalry charge. Definitely a good idea:2thumbsup:

[Daveybaby]

I've been using schiltroms with great success against the mongols. As spain i've been using cheap and easily replacable stacks of militia spearmen and militia crossbows (3:2 ratio of spears to crossbows), with a couple of units of cav for disruption purposes.

Line the crossbows up in an easily defensible position, ideally somewhere rugged to break up mongol cav charges. Place the spears (already in schiltrom) along in front of the xbows, plus one at each end of the line.

Initially the mongol horse archers will close to duel with you. Your xbows should make mincemeat out of them. At the same time use your cav to disrupt the enemy footsoldiers as much as possible, while keeping themselves out of contact with the mongol heavy cav as much as possible.

Soon the mongol heavy cav will be attacking your spearmen. It will take them a while to wear them down, and they will take heavy losses to do so, both from your spears and from the xbows raining pointy death down on them.

Eventually your spears will rout, and you will lose the battle. This is pretty much inevitable since there will probably be at least 2 full stacks of elite units attacking your one stack of milita. This is perfectly fine, since the point of this battle is not to win, but to reduce the size of the mongol stacks in a battle of attrition. You are losing a lot of men, but they are expendable militia which can be built cheaply and quickly en-masse in pretty much any city. The mongols are losing irreplacable (as long as you havent allowed them to take a lot of cities) elite units.

A good thing to do is to try to withdraw your crossbows before the spears rout, while still leaving them in combat for long enough to inflict severe casualties. If your crossbows escape unscathed, you only have to replace 8 or so units of spears, which 3 cities can easily manage to accomplish every turn. By doing this successfully i find i can take out half a mongol stack, while losing about half a stack of cheap militia.

Once most of the mongol stacks are half depleted, send in full stacks of your own elite troops and you will make quick work of them.

[Slaists]

scott pikemen in schiltrom formation? hmm, how does one do that? i thought pikemen get spearwall formation not schiltrom.

:book:

[pike master]

actually if you use mulitple units you could make a schiltrom from pikes by superimposing units and pointing them in different directions.

i have had some success by taking spear units, superimposing them and placing them in schiltrom. the sheer numbers alone can cause a morale penalty to an attacker.

plus it makes the formation so dense there is no way cavalry can push their way through like the games ai likes to do when coming across bridges or entering a city.

i wondered if their was overlapping of the models when i did this. but if you move your cam to where you are directly over the units and you can only barely see the edge of them. you can push the zoom button and it will look directly down on the cluster and you will see each soldier has found a place without overlapping other models.

[Ramses II CP]

Exactly what I thought of Zasz! There's an excellent scene in one of the Napoleon movies of cavalry swarming around infantry squares. Now I've got to go start a Scotland game just to see it. :dizzy2:

[Guyus Germanicus]

scott pikemen in schiltrom formation? hmm, how does one do that? i thought pikemen get spearwall formation not schiltrom.

:book:

Absolutely right. Old age makes my brain skip direct lines of thought occasionally. You'll see it evidenced in some of my other posts. :laugh4:

[Didz]

Exactly what I thought of Zasz! There's an excellent scene in one of the Napoleon movies of cavalry swarming around infantry squares. Now I've got to go start a Scotland game just to see it. :dizzy2:
It certainly reminds me of the scene from the movie but that had nothing to do with what really happened at Waterloo.:book:

BTW: The key point about the schiltrom formation was that it was mobile and was used to actively herd enemy knights and trap them between formations.

[Scot's Pike General]

when I thought of it, I actually was thinking of french cavalry reboundng off of infantry squares.you see, the more they rebound( hit and run) the more trouble they get into as they become envelloped in the formation.


ss ss ss
ss ss ss ss
ss ss ss ss ss
ss- spearman schiltrom

[Ramses II CP]

Oh no, a movie with a wildly inaccurate presentation of history? Isn't that illegal? :strawman1:

'Pretty, but dumb.' And I'm okay with that, when it comes to movies anyway. I don't think footage from an actual battle or a hyper-realisitc recreation would be in any way entertaining.

[phonicsmonkey]

I sometimes put a schiltrom at each end of a line of spears, all with guard mode on, like a bar bell

that way when the AI cavalry tries to get round the flank it often snags on the schiltrom with devastating results

[Didz]

rebounding off of infantry squares.
I have a vision in my head now of horses bouncing across the battlefield like four-legging space hoppers:laugh4:

In fact, what usually happened is that horses which found themselves faced by a solid wall of men 'baulked' rather than bounced. They would basically stop dead in their tracks and refuse to move, or if they were moving too fast to stop dead they would try to swerve to avoid the obstical. Its the same reaction that you see when watching show jumping events when the horse suddenly decides that its rider it a stupid idiot.

What happened next very much depended upon the exact tactical situation and at Waterloo eyewitness accounts suggest a wide variety of different scenario's occurred.

Around centre of the Allied line the French cavalry approaching the brigades deployed on the ridge behind La Haye Sainte were able to approach in a reasonably ordered and controlled manner as by this point in the battle the farm had been captured and there was little artillery deployed to oppose their advance mainly because the gunners had obeyed Wellingtons order to retire into the squares. These cavalry advanced to the crest of the ridge and halted within 50 paces of the squares formed on the reverse slope where they proceeded to taunt the infantrymen in the hope of getting them to discharge their muskets. A sort of mexican stand-off occurred on this section of the battlefield with the infantry refusing to fire and the French refusing to close. This became more serious when the French with some difficulty managed to drag a small artillery piece up to the crest of the ridge and began firing cannister into some of the squares at close range, and soon afterwards French light infantry also moved forward and began sniping at the squares from the sunken lane to their front. This began to cause major casualties amongst the men in the squares some of whose battalions were already understrength having fought at Quatre Bras the day before and there was a real danger that the Allied line might break in its centre.

However, fortunately the French were driven off by an attack of the surviving allied cavalry cobbled together by Uxbridge. This was the infamous incident when the Dutch Cavalry refused to follow Uxbridge, mainly because Wellington had not formally confirmed that Uxbridge was in command of them. But Uxbridge managed to drive off some of the French without them, and eventually they joined in the attack under the orders of their own commanders.

On the Allied left between La Haye Sainte and Hougoumont the situation was more confused. Anyone who has walked this section of the battlefield, as I have will know, that the forward slope of the ridge here is remarkably steep even though the Belgiums vandalised it by removing the top to build their stupid ant-hill. More importantly it is convex in profile and so produces a significant area of dead-ground at its base which hides and is hidden from the crest. Therefore troops at the base of the slope cannot be fired on effectively from the crest, nor can they see anything deployed on the crest.

Mercer tells us that the French cavalry used this area to form up and launch repeated advances up the slope and confirms that when they were in this area all he could see from the crest of the ridge was the top of their plumes and lance points.

The other feature of this section of the ridge is a small spur which juts out from the main ridge line towards the French positions. This produces an interesting effect when walking up the slope as it serves to divide the ridge into two distinct ampitheatres. If you are walking up the slope to the left of the spur you are unable to see La Hay Sainte which is hidden by the slope of the spur to your right and your inclination is to follow the natural angle of the slope which actually leads you to the left behind Hougoumont rather than directly into the enemies position on its crest.

There is a lot of evidence that the main French Cavalry thrust between the spur and Hougoumont did exactly this, following the angle of the slope across the front of the allied position and sweeping through the infantry lines which were protecting the communication and supply line between the ridge and Hougoumont before circumventing Hougoumont and returning to the foot of the slope for a second attack.

The attack up the steeper part of the slope seems to have been limited to one brigade of Cuirassiers who advanced directly on Mercers guns at the walk/trot (probably the fastest pace that the slope would allow). Unlike the other batteries beyond the spur Mercer had not obeyed the order to withdraw into the squares. The main reason he gives for this decision was that the square behind his position was formed by a Brunswick Battalion consisting almost entirely of young boys who were so petrified that their NCO's were having to hit them to get them to close ranks. Mercer reasoned that if his gunners ran to take cover in this square it would probably cause total panic and that the only reason it had not already run was that his battery was still firing.

Therefore, Mercers gunners carried on firing cannister into the advancing French cavalry as it walked up the slope. This broke up the French formation causing considerable confusion and eventually built up such a mound of dead and dying horses in front of the batteries position that no Frenchman would have been able to reach the battery even if it had stopped firing. Mercer states that the French were so closely packed during their advance that those in the front were unable to go three's about and retire and that as a consequence he could see Frenchmen trying to fight their way back through their own comrades to escape down the slope and avoid his fire, striking at each other and the horses of those still trying to advance with the flats of their swords to try and make a passage.

A few, who were more desperate or more quick-witted, realising that attempting to fight their way to the rear would expose them to another round of cannister did struggle forward and passed between the guns of Mercers battery and past the Brunswicker Square fleeing down the reverse slope of the ridge towards the allied rear.

Mercer has no idea where they went after that, but they certainly never attempted to attack his men or the Brunswickers and they never returned from the direction they fled. Other accounts suggest that these fleeing cavalry attempted to make their way North behind the British ridge and rejoin their comrades who were circumventing Hougoumont and at least thirty are said to have got themselves trapped in a sunken lane where they were slaughtered by British Light infantry fire.

What we don't get from the eyewitness accounts is any descriptions of 'Red Indian' style wagon-circling tactic's being employed as depicted in the film. Nor, is there any reference to French cavalry hurling themselves in suicide charges against the bayonets of a steady square, and bouncing off across the battlefield.:charge: :bounce:

[Zasz1234]

I bow to your superior understanding of the battle of Waterloo:bow:. I must admit I never studied it in depth and only read in passing that the British used infantry squares to repulse the French cavalry charge (hence drawing the connection). At any rate, an inspired use of a unit formation I must admit I have neglected to use, although now I will definitely add it my infantry playbook (can't at the moment since I am playing Hungary:charge:)

[John_Longarrow]

Didz,

As I understood, the infantry squares didn't so much bounce the French Cavalry as take them under fire. They could get off a full line of fire about every 4 to 6 seconds (depending on unit and depth of square) and this, rather than their bayonets kept the French from closing. Please let me know if I'm mistaken.

It is something I'm hoping to try when I finally get a game to gunpowder :devilish:

[ForgotMyOldNick]

Very nice post Didz thanks.

I use schiltrom when facing a lot of cavalry or outnumbered and beset from front and enemy reinforcements coming up from behind army. The problem is I am not very good at cycling through and reseting the units formations during ensuing melee in order to deploy them fast ( as they move sloooooowly in Schiltrom formation). So I deploy them in a staggered pattern with the best experienced units closer to the enemy so they will survive the initial charge ( Hopefully, in most instances) and lesser experienced Schiltrom deployed units closer to the main army for quick redeployment.

The reason I do this staggered pattern is that it disrupts the cavalry and when they engage in melee they have to move around the more forward positioned Schiltrom units and expose their flanks for the rear deployed units.

In summary; schiltrom ties up the enemy for when you need more time to redeploy, as they have a facing to all quarters and not just frontally, so the enemy is forced manoeuveur. Definitely useful for when you need more time in between frantic clicking hehhe.

[Didz]

As I understood, the infantry squares didn't so much bounce the French Cavalry as take them under fire. They could get off a full line of fire about every 4 to 6 seconds (depending on unit and depth of square) and this, rather than their bayonets kept the French from closing. Please let me know if I'm mistaken.
It sounds sensible doesn't it. In fact I assumed exactly the same thing until I began reading the eyewitness accounts from actual battles.

It seems from these accounts that troops formed to receive cavalry in square were routinely ordered to hold their fire. In fact, it seems to have been a matter of regimental pride that despite the provocation from the French they refused to be baited and withheld their fire even under pistol and in one instance close range cannister fire from a field gun.

It is equally interesting to note that the French cavalry went to quite extreme lengths to try and persuade the squares to shoot at them. Including, the hurling of insults and making fake charges. In the most bizarre instance lancers were called up and ordered to ride up to a square an poke at the men with their lances causing several injuries, but the men still it refused to fire back and contented themselves with hurling insults and trying to grab the lance points.

There is no clear and equivocal reason given by any of the eyewitness accounts which explains this behavior. Both the infantry accounts and the cavalry accounts seem to assume that the reasons are self-evident and need no explanation. But I must admit I was somewhat perplexed by the whole scenario, as on the wargames table I had always fired my squares into advancing cavalry.

I don't have a cast iron explanation for this, I just know it to be true.

However, there are a number of possible explanations.

1) It is possible that the officers commanding troops in square knew that if they allowed their men to discharge their muskets they might panic trying to reload it during the next cavalry charge and compromise the cohesion of the square. This fits in with the few examples I have of squares which did fire and were then immediately swamped and broken by cavalry on other battlefields. It certainly seems that the French cavalry were hoping to hold their major attack until just after the infantry had discharge their muskets.

2) It is equally likely that fire was withheld because of the risks associate with friendly fire on the squares to either flank. Though this does not seem to be a major issue in similar situations at other times.

3) A more mundane and less likely, but possible, explanation is that in forming square the men were required to change their formation and in doing so lost the platoon cohesion necessary for fire control and command. Each face of the square only contained two or three companies rather than a line which contained ten and perhaps it was reasoned that officers were unable to direct the fire of this sub-battalion effectively, particularly as they were standing at the back.

4) An equally mundane but much more plausible explanation might have been that the troops were just jammed too close together in a square (it was a much dense formation both spacing per man and per rank) to reload their muskets if they fired, and that rather than risk the loss of cohesion which might result as troops struggled to do so the drill was not to fire at all.

5) The final possible explanation is a really bizarre one. It occurred to me that in almost every example I had read of squares being broken by cavalry the cause had been associated with the square firing. Indeed at the battle of Gilly just two days before Waterloo the French Guard Cavalry had broken a Prussian square and destroyed a battalion of 600 men as a direct result of a junior Prussian Officer ordering his company to fire. The action led to a gap appearing in the Prussian square into which the French cavalry charged. Admittedly at the time this Prussian square was actually moving and so the gap appeared as a result of the Prussian company halting to reload but the lesson was pretty clear. In a much earlier account a British square was the agent of its own destruction by firing into advancing French cavalry and bringing down a fast moving horse which fell on top of them in its death throws creating a gap through which its fellow horses were willing to charge. Its possible that stories like these were being used to develop tactical doctrines for officers on both sides, and that the lessons learned included 'Do NOT fire when in square.' and 'Do NOT charge a square with loaded muskets.'

My personal view is that the reason is a combination of a number of these factors. I think the cohesion of a square would have been compromised not by firing but by the problems of reloading in such a densely packed formation. That lack of cohesion might well become panic if at the time enemy cavalry were closing rapidly on your formation, and there may well have been a body of anecdotal evidence that squares which allowed themselves to be goaded into firing were much more likely to break.

[John_Longarrow]

Didz,

Too bad they didn't have Italian Pikes backed up by Geneoan Crossbows... B-)

Thank you for illuminating answer. I would not be surprised if the English drill for reload wasn't useful in a tight square. Likewise trying to make sure that only the correct line fires and takes a knee would be a nightmare without a lot of practice.

As a cavalry commander, I'd be worried that if I sent anything less than a full regiment charging in, it would be killed to the man before I could reinforce it. I've seen a few shows on what happens to lines of men walking into a line of fire, let alone what a cavalry charge would receive.

My guess is the thinking of the time would be a simple RSP calculation.
If the square fires before the cavalry is at point blank range, the square will fail.
If the square fires when the cavalry is at point blank range, the cavalry will be eliminated.

That would explain why the French would hold back until after the English shot, and why the English wouldn't shoot. Even if the English could reload in a tight formation like that, the French would probably be able to close before the English could get off a second shot. Add in that the English would be giving the French concealment by the smoke from their own shot and its not a situation I'd like to be in.

Net result, the square has only one shot, so it had better make it count.

[Lusted]

The British troops did prefer a shattering close quarter volley, that is probably whilst they held fire. A close range volley into cavalry would be devestating.

[pike master]

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=je-c81wwrpA

[Didz]

The British troops did prefer a shattering close quarter volley, that is probably whilst they held fire. A close range volley into cavalry would be devestating.
That only seems to be true when they were fighting in Line, and strictly speaking it would not have been a single volley.

The standard British drill would have been to fire by platoons and so what would have happened was a rolling series of volleys each of platoon strength. This actually made the effect even worse on the enemy as it would have been similar to a rapid sweep of close range machine gun fire back and forth across their front, whereas a single battalion volley would have wasted a lot of shot by hitting the same men in front rank of the enemy formation several times.

The British line would continue to pour a rolling volley into the enemy formation until the battalion commander decided that the enemy were about to rout. At which point the order was given to charge and the enemy were driven off with the bayonet.

[According to Sharpe this usually required 3 rounds and would have taken one minute to complete:beam: (e.g. about 1,200 shot from a 400 strong battalion, into a column about 80/100 men wide). However, for this to be correct, one would first have to accept that French columns were not intended to close with the bayonet but halted when they came under fire.]


Net result, the square has only one shot, so it had better make it count.
Yes possibly, although that doesn't really explain the incident with the lancers and I found it hard to justify the continued willingness to hold fire even when under close range cannister fire. Personally, I would have thought a few volley's into the gunners would have been sensible unless there was a more compelling reason for not firing. Nevertheless, the anecdotal evidence seems pretty solid and the Waterloo film shots whilst impressive aren't an accurate depiction of the situation as I understand it.


http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=je-c81wwrpA
Nice video clip, though not very accurate historically. What film is it from?

[pike master]

that event in waterloo was a result of hasty and rushed decisions culminating from napoleons detachment to pursue the prussians getting lost.

the battle was going quite well for napoleon up to that point. it was considered the greatest blunder of the entire battle. one of napoleons best generals getting lost after taking directions from the the greatest map navigator (napoleon) of that day.

napoleon didnt have a clue what had happened until the prussians were within a mere few miles of the battle.

so basically going from a situation where napoleon felt he had control of time and space to execute his plan he now found in short order the prussians bearing down on him and roughly a third of his army lost and out of the battle for the remainder of it.

the later problems such as that fatal cavalry charge and the british using a reversed slope ambush would most likely never have taken place.

[Hrafn]

Nice video clip, though not very accurate historically. What film is it from?

It seems to be from a spanish film about a mercenary called Captain Alatriste:
more on imdb.com/title/tt0395119/maindetails (since its my first post i cant make the link)

[Didz]

Umm! not quite...although I accept that what you are quoting is correct according to the accepted British propaganda version of the battle, But even Wellington admitted that if this was true then he obviously hadn't been at the battle.


that event in waterloo was a result of hasty and rushed decisions culminating from napoleons detachment to pursue the prussians getting lost.
Grouchy (who commanded the detachment shadowing the Prussians did not get lost, he remained in contact with the Prussians throughout the period of the battle and actually performed a very effective withdrawal from Belgium once he realised that the main battle had been lost). What actually happened was that Blucher and more probably Zieten performed an excellent reaguard action that allowed a large portion of the Prussian army to move between Gouchy and the main army effectively preventing the Gouchy marching to Waterloo (not that he was expected or ordered to) whilst allowing them to detach two whole Corps to Wellingtons aid.

the battle was going quite well for napoleon up to that point. it was considered the greatest blunder of the entire battle. one of napoleons best generals getting lost after taking directions from the the greatest map navigator (napoleon) of that day.
The British centre was actually on the point of collapse when the Prussians arrived (or more accurately decided to commence their attack). The French had captured La Haye Sainte (the central farm) and had seized the top of the ridge with their cavalry and artillery forcing the weakened allied troops to form square and effectively splitting the Allied army in two. Allied fugitives were already flooding down the road towards Brussels and most British regiments had sent their colours to the rear to avoid them falling into French hands. The arrival of the first Prussian divisions distracted French reserves away from explioting this breach in the British line, whilst freeing up Allied units (particularly cavalry) from the Allied left flank allowing the centre to be stabalised and saving the day.


napoleon didnt have a clue what had happened until the prussians were within a mere few miles of the battle. [This section has been edited to correct my earlier statement having checked my sources]
I just double checked this and it seems that Grouchy's communications with Napoleon were probably interdicted by Prussian cavalry patrols very ealry on the morning of the 18th. The first patrol of Prussian Cavalry arrived on the battlefield of Waterloo at sometime between 9am and 10am on the morning of the battle before it had actually started and met with a patrol of the 10th Hussars commanded by Captain Taylor. He immediately sent Lieutenant Lindsay to Wellingtons headquarters to confirm that Bulow's Corps was at St. Lambert about 4 miles from the battlefield and advancing to join them. By this time the Prussians had established a heavy cavarly screen between Wavre and Waterloo through which Grouchy would have been pretty much unable to get messages. Several French patrols had already been interdicted and driven off or captured, including several from Grouchy's Corps.

However, at 1pm even before the main attacks began Napoleon spotted Bulow's column at St Lambert and immediately wrote to Grouchy ordering him to move his Corps closer in order to prevent the Prussians getting between them and forcing their two formations apart. Before this note could be sent a captured Prussian Hussar carrying a dispatch from Bulow to Muffling was brought into Napoleon's headquarters. The dispatch described in detail Bulow's intentions and Soult added this information as a postscript to the message sent to Grouchy. At this point the battle was in its early stages, Hougoumont had been under attack for a couple of hours, Durette's Division had been attacking Papelotte since 12 noon but De'Erlons main assault on the Allied centre had still not commenced and would not do so for another half and hour or so.

Therefore, at the point when the first main attack commenced both Napoleon and Wellington knew that the Prussians were coming.

so basically going from a situation where napoleon felt he had control of time and space to execute his plan he now found in short order the prussians bearing down on him and roughly a third of his army lost and out of the battle for the remainder of it.
What historians often choose to ignore is that what Napoleon was doing at Waterloo was conducting one of his classic strategic manouvres, 'Penetrating between the divided parts of the enemies strategic front'. In fact, this was his second iteration of this strategy during the campaign. The first had been successfully completed on the 15th June when Ney's containing force had kept the Allied army occupied at Quatre Bras whilst the main French Army defeated the Prussian's at Ligny. The second reached a climax on the 18th June when the main French Army turned on the remnants of the Allied Army whilst Grouchy kept the Prussians occupied.

What went wrong on the 18th was not that Napoleon lost the plot, but that he had underestimated both the resilience of the new Prussian Army and the quality of its general staff. If Blucher had done what Gneisenau advised and concentrated his full strength against Grouchy then Napoleon would have won the campaign. Instead Blucher ordered him to disengage most of the remaining battle ready divisions of the Prussian Army from the battle with Grouchy and march them to join Wellington. This move effectively undermined Napoleons strategy and saved the day, but it was a huge gamble on the part of the Prussians.

If the Allied army had broken before they arrived then Bluchers Prussian army would have been left divided, exposed and sandwiched between Grouchy and Napoleon and found it virtually impossible to escape destruction. That in turn would have left Prussia dangerously exposed having lost its main combat army and Napoleon would probably have regained not only The Netherlands, but Prussia and the German states too.

Blucher therefore, took a big risk, against the advice of his Chief of Staff and was fortunate that it actually paid off.


the later problems such as that fatal cavalry charge and the british using a reversed slope ambush would most likely never have taken place.
The Allies (with the exception of Bijlandts Dutch Brigade) had been deployed on the reverse slope of the ridge all day, and the French Cavalry assault on the ridge far from being fatal almost secured the French victory late in the afternoon. Contrary to British propaganda the French cavalry were supported by both infantry and artillery and placed the Allied position in real danger mainly due to the squandering of the British cavalry during the morning and the command and control confusion over that commanded by the Dutch-Belgians. The myth that the French cavalry attacked unsupported, is part of the British spin introduced after the battle to malign the French and avoid criticism of Wellington over the poor handling of his own cavalry. Eyewitness accounts from this period of the battle include clear references to both artillery and infantry being brought forward to fire into their squares at close range, once the Allied line had been forced into square and its cavalry driven off.

It was only on the right, behind Hougoumont, where this was never fully acheived and even here Mercer recounts the appearance of French skirmishers who spent some time trying to shoot his gunners, forcing him to parade back and forth along the raised track in front of his guns to demonstrate what poor shots the French were. It should also be noted that throughout this period Mercer claims that the square of Brunswickers to his rear was taking casualties, which its NCO's had to fill by thumping the young boys into the gaps. That was why he did not withdraw into the square as ordered, but it also confirms that something was firing into that square during intervals between the cavalry attacks, probably the same skirmishers who were shooting at his gunners, and as skirmishers never operated alone it also follows that there must therefore have been French infantry units on hand somewhere nearby from which these skirmishers were drawn.

[Didz]

It seems to be from a spanish film about a mercenary called Captain Alatriste:
more on imdb.com/title/tt0395119/maindetails (since its my first post I can't make the link)
Thanks....

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0395119/

I'm surprised, its quite a modern movie, looking at the clip I thought that it was one of the classic's. It gets good reviews anyway.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alatriste

I shall have to see if I can find an English version.

[pike master]

he got lost.

and the napoleon did in fact use divide and conquer as you have said and i never contended against. this is why he sent a detachment to keep on the prussians heels after he defeated them after isolating them from the allied contingent.

and evidence in my opinion that he got lost is that the prussians regrouped. if he had remained hard on their heels this would not have happened.

note lost being he did not follow on the prussians as had been planned and ended up off track to the south of them following what he thought was the prussian main body.

grouchy did in fact finally realize his mistake but by then the prussians had bypassed him.

and just hours before the battle ended is a shocker. also i said that the prussians got within a few miles before they were spotted which would still coincide with your record of the battle.

[Didz]

note lost being he did not follow on the prussians as had been planned and ended up off track to the south of them following what he thought was the prussian main body.
Apologies...I thought you meant literally Lost, as in he took the wrong road and didn't know where he was.

Nevertheless, I think the traditional finger-pointing at Grouchy by most school-boy history books is a little misleading and unfair. If one actually looks at the facts its clear that if anyone is to blame for the delay in the pursuit of the Prussians it was Napoleon. The final shots of the battle of Ligny were fired at between 8pm and 8:30pm on the evening of the 16th June, and the last Prussian troops had quit the field of battle by about 2am.

Napoleon actually issued no orders to pursue the Prussians until noon on the 17th, the net result being that the Prussians were given 10 to 14 hours of freedom to escape the battle of Ligny and regroup before Grouchy was even given the task of pursuing them.

Not only that but during this period the French had effectively lost track of the entire Prussian army other than Theilmanns III Corps and its deserters and so Grouchy was actually ordered to march towards Namur, effectively in the wrong direction.

That afternoon, Excelman reported that he had followed the Prussians he saw on the banks of the river Orneau earlier and that the Prussian army was now massing at Gembloux. Grouchy immediately directed his troops in this direction and Vandamme's Corps arrived at the Gembloux at around 7pm. However, Theilmanns III Corps had marched 5 hours earlier having successfully regrouped in the town and they were already marching north towards Wavre together with Bulow's IV Corps.

Excelman had already noticed that they had gone and was conducting a wide search of the roads and villages north of Gembloux to try and find them again. He found them moving north through the villages to the right of the Gembloux to Wavre road and after watching them for an hour reported back to Grouchy in Gembloux who immediately sent an update report to Napoleon. This is the first report that suggests the objective of the Prussian retreat might be Wavre, though it still clings to the idea that a substantial portion of the Prussian army was still retreating on Leige and Namur.

By now it was dark and Grouchys Corps spent the night in and around Gembloux before marching north towards Wavre at 4am the next morning.

So, basically as I see it Napoleon wasted 14 hours after the battle of Ligny during which the French could have been pursuing the Prussians, and in doing so lost at least half the Prussian army. Grouchy assumed responsibility for the pursuit at about noon on the 17th and within 2 hours had correctly located Thielmans Corps at Gembloux and by nighfall had correctly concluded that the Prussians were actually moving North towards Wavre, and yet Grouchy seems to get the full blame for the escape of the Prussian Army.

Quite unfairly in my opinon.

PS: If anyone has access to a decent historical map of the area around Gembloux I would like some help. Excelman mentions sighting Prussian troops on the left bank of the Orneau river, with one battalion stationed on the right bank before Basse Baudecet (which I think must have been a farm). However, I cannot find it on my maps and I want to know if it is on the Sombreffe/Leige or the Sombreffe/Namur Road.