La Haye Sainte
La Haye Sainte is a manor at the foot of a small hill on the road between Charleroi and Brussels . He has hardly changed since the Battle of Waterloo on June 18, 1815, when he played an important role.
The road leads from Le Caillou , Napoleon's headquarters on the day of the battle, via Belle-Alliance , which was to give the Prussian name for the battle, through the center of the French line to a crossroads on the back of a hill and then on to Brussels . The Duke of Wellington placed the bulk of his troops behind the hill on either side of the road towards Brussels. As a result, most of his troops were not visible to the French artillery .
Before the battle began, the courtyard had to be fortified as some troops had used a gate as firewood the night before. La Haye Sainte was occupied by the 2nd Light Battalion of the King's German Legion (Königlich Deutsche Legion, KGL) under the command of Major Georg Baring . The unit was supported by the 1st Light Battalion KGL under Major Dietrich Wilhelm Stolte , the light company of the 5th Line Battalion KGL and two companies of the Nassau Infantry Regiment .
Since Napoleon and Wellington recognized the strategic position of the court, it was contested throughout the day.
The large battery of French heavy artillery opened fire at 1:00 p.m. before d'Erlon's corps advanced in column. He succeeded in enclosing La Haye Sainte and, despite heavy losses from its occupation, attacked the center left of Wellington's line. When La Haye Sainte's defense threatened to give way, Picton's division was sent forward to fill the void. After the French were repulsed by La Haye Sainte, they were attacked by the heavy cavalry brigades under Somerset and Ponsonby . This advance took the pressure off the position.
At around 3:00 p.m., Napoleon ordered Marshal Ney to seize the court. While Ney unsuccessfully attacked the Allied squares on the side of the hill facing Brussels with 8,000 cavalry (without the support of infantry or artillery ), he failed to capture La Haye Sainte.
Around 5:30 p.m., Napoleon Ney again ordered the capture of La Haye Sainte. The French had worked their way up to the building at this point.
With strong support from artillery and some cavalry, Marshal Ney personally took command of an infantry regiment and a pioneer troop around 6:00 p.m. and captured La Haye Sainte in a furious attack. The KGL light battalions ran out of ammunition for their Baker Rifles because there was no supply. The poorly repaired gate was stormed and fire broke out. The shooters used their rifle butts for defensive combat. The last 42 men out of 400 (including Baring and the troop doctor) had to withdraw. The Allies could not counterattack immediately because they were standing in squares on the opposite side . The French now brought cannons forward; the riflemen of the 1 / 95th Rifles , who were in position in the "sand hole" east of La Haye Sainte, were able to turn off the gunners so that the cannons were useless.
With the help of the now French occupation of La Haye Sainte, the Old Guard was able to climb the hill and attack the Allies on the Brussels side (the opposite side). However, this last attack failed and after the attack by the Prussians in the east around 8:10 p.m. gave the French the assurance that they were defeated.
During the French retreat, La Haye Sainte was retaken before 9:00 p.m. when Blücher and Wellington met at La Belle Alliance.
Today La Haye Sainte is privately owned and inhabited. On the outer wall there are memorial plaques for the KGL and the French troops. There is a monument to the King's German Legion across the street.
"An attempt by the British Queen, during her ... state visit in May 1965, almost 150 years after the events, to lay a wreath on the Waterloo Column in Hanover [for the KGL], was thwarted by the West German government." (Brendan Simms, dt . Edition p. 140, see below - Simms cites Jasper Heinzen as the source for this communication: A Negotiated Truce: The Battle of Waterloo in European Memory Since the Second World War; in: History and Memory 26, 1/2014, p. 39-74).
literature
- Mark Adkin: The Waterloo Companion. Aurum Press, London 2001, ISBN 1-85410-764-X .
- North Ludlow Beamish: History of the King's German Legion. Volume 2. Boone, London 1837, ( digitized version ).
- Mike Chappell: The King's German Legion. Volume 2: 1812-1816 (= Men-at-arms Series. 339). Osprey, Oxford 2000, ISBN 1-85532-997-2 .
- Peter Hofschröer: 1815, the Waterloo Campaign. The German Victory. From Waterloo to the fall of Napoleon. Greenhill Books et al., London 1999, ISBN 1-85367-368-4 .
- Jens Mastnak, Michael-Andreas Tänzer: This memorable and murderous battle. The Hanoverians at Waterloo. Bomann-Museum, Celle 2003, ISBN 3-925902-48-1 .
- Bernhard Schwertfeger: History of the Royal German Legion 1803-1816. Volume 2. Hahn'sche Buchhandlung, Hannover et al. 1907, ( digitized ).
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Brendan Simms : The Longest Afternoon. The four hundred men who decided the Battle of Waterloo. Allen Lane, London 2014, ISBN 978-0-241-00460-9 .
- In German: The longest afternoon. 400 Germans, Napoleon and the Waterloo decision. Translated from the English by Wiebke Meier. CH Beck, Munich 2014, ISBN 978-3-406-67003-9 .
- Peter Wacker: The ducal-Nassau military 1813–1866. Military history in the field of tension between politics, economy and social conditions of a small German state (= The ducal-Nassau military 1806–1866. 2). Schellenberg'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, Taunusstein 1998, ISBN 3-922027-85-7 .
Remarks
- ↑ Adkin: The Waterloo Companion. 2001, p. 172.
Web links
- King's German Legion
- Beamish N. Ludlow: 'History of the King's German Legion' Volume 1 (en)
- Memoirs of Baron von Ompteda (en)
Coordinates: 50 ° 40 ′ 41 ″ N , 4 ° 24 ′ 42.7 ″ E