La Haye Sainte

La Haye Sainte
La Haye Sainte
	La Haye Sainte as seen from the road
General information
Location	N5 road (Belgium), near Waterloo, Belgium
Coordinates	50°40′40″N4°24′43″E / 50.677906°N 4.412066°E
Owner	Private
Technical details
Material	Sandstone and red brick
Known for	Battle of Waterloo

Last updated May 26, 2024

La Haye Sainte (named either after Jesus' crown of thorns or a nearby bramble hedge^[1]) is a walled farmhouse compound at the foot of an escarpment near Waterloo, Belgium, on the N5 road connecting Brussels and Charleroi. It has changed very little since it played a crucial part in the Battle of Waterloo on 18 June 1815.

La Haye Sainte was defended by about 400 King's German Legion troops during the Battle of Waterloo. Being greatly outnumbered by attacking French forces, the defenders held out until the late afternoon when they retired as their ammunition had run out. If Napoleon Bonaparte's army had captured La Haye Sainte earlier in the day, he would have almost certainly broken through the allied centre and defeated the Duke of Wellington's army.^[2]

The capture of La Haye Sainte in the early evening then gave the French the advantage of a defensible position from which to launch a potentially decisive attack on the Allied centre. However, Napoleon was too late—by this time, Blücher and the Prussian army had arrived on the battlefield and the outnumbered French army was defeated.

History

La Haye Sainte was originally built before 1536. Much of the complex was rebuilt in the 1700s.^[3]

Battle of Waterloo

The road leads from La Belle Alliance, where Napoleon had his headquarters on the morning of the battle, through where the centre of the French front line was located, to a crossroads on the ridge which is at the top of the escarpment and then on to Brussels. The Duke of Wellington placed the majority of his forces on either side of the Brussels road behind the ridge on the Brussels side. This kept most of his forces out of sight of the French artillery.

Both Napoleon and Wellington made crucial mistakes about La Haye Sainte as it was fought over and around during most of the day. Napoleon failed to allocate enough forces to take the farm earlier in the day while Wellington only realized the strategic value of the position when it was almost too late.^[4]

Defensive preparations

Wellington ordered the 2nd Light Infantry Battalion of the King’s German Legion, commanded by Major Georg Baring, to garrison La Haye Sainte the evening before the battle. Upon arriving at 19:30 amidst heavy rain, Baring ordered the men to begin fortifying the farm complex for defence, in anticipation of an attack the next morning.^[3]

Defensive preparations began again before dawn, however it was found the main door to the courtyard of the farm was removed for use as firewood by the occupying troops during the night. In addition, there were few suitable tools to construct defences and Baring's pioneers had been sent to aid the fortification of the nearby Hougoumont farmhouse. This meant that the strengthening of the farm’s defences would have to be largely improvised.^[3]^[5]

The majority of the King's German Legion troops were armed with the Baker rifle with rifled barrels, as opposed to the standard smoothbore Brown Bess musket of the British Army. The French troops also used muskets which were quicker to load than the Baker rifle but the latter was more accurate and had about twice the range of a musket.^[6]

French attacks

At 13:00, the French Grand Battery of heavy artillery opened fire before d'Erlon's Corps (54th and 55th Ligne) marched forward in columns. The French managed to surround La Haye Sainte and despite taking heavy casualties from the garrison, they attacked the centre left of Wellington's line. As the centre began to give way and La Haye Sainte became vulnerable, Picton's division was sent to plug the gap.^[7] As the French were beaten back from La Haye Sainte, the heavy cavalry brigades under Somerset and Ponsonby attacked.^[8] This action relieved the pressure on the fortress farm.

At 15:00, Napoleon ordered Marshal Ney to capture La Haye Sainte.^[9] While Ney was engaged in the glorious but futile 8,000-man cavalry attack, unsupported by infantry or cannon, on Allied squares on the Brussels side of the ridge, he failed to take La Haye Sainte.^[10] During the battle, the KGL were supported by the 1/2 Nassau Regiment and the light company of the 5th Line Battalion KGL.

At 17:30, Napoleon re-issued orders for Ney to take La Haye Sainte.^[11] The French had worked up close to the buildings by this time.

French capture and final assault

At 18:00 Marshal Ney, heavily supported by artillery and some cavalry, took personal command of an infantry regiment (13th Legere) and a company of engineers and captured La Haye Sainte with a furious assault. "The light battalion of the German Legion, which occupied it, had expended all its ammunition" and had to retreat.^[12]

Allied forces were unable to counterattack immediately as they were in squares over the ridge. The French brought up guns to fire from its cover however British riflemen of the 1/95 in the "sand pit" to the east of the farm picked off all the gunners, so the guns were ineffective.

At 19:00, thanks to the French garrison in La Haye Sainte, the Imperial Guard was able to climb the escarpment and attack the Allies on the Brussels side of the ridge. This final attack was beaten back and became a rout around 20:10 as the French forces realised that with the arrival of the Prussians from the east, they were beaten. During the French retreat, La Haye Sainte was recaptured by the Allies,^[13] some time before 21:00, when Blücher met Wellington at La Belle Alliance.

Modern La Haye Sainte

La Haye Sainte has changed very little since the Battle of Waterloo.^[3] Today it is privately owned.^[14] On the walls are memorials to the King's German Legion and the French. Opposite the house is a monument for the officers and the soldiers of the KGL.

Plaque embedded in 1847 in honour of the King's German Legion and all those who died in the battle
Plaque for the KGL on the outer wall of La Haye Sainte
Monuments next to La Haye Sainte - the one on the left, the Monument aux Hanovriens, is for the KGL while the one on the right, the Gordon Monument, is dedicated to Wellington's ADC.

Related Research Articles

The Battle of Waterloo was fought on Sunday 18 June 1815, near Waterloo, marking the end of the Napoleonic Wars. A French army under the command of Napoleon was defeated by two armies of the Seventh Coalition. One of these was a British-led force with units from the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Hanover, Brunswick, and Nassau, under the command of the Duke of Wellington. The other comprised three corps of the Prussian army under Field Marshal Blücher; a fourth corps of this army fought at the Battle of Wavre on the same day. The battle was known contemporarily as the Battle of Mont Saint-Jean in France and La Belle Alliance in Prussia.

Waterloo is a 1970 English-language epic historical war film about the Battle of Waterloo. A co-production between Italy and the Soviet Union, it was directed by Sergei Bondarchuk and produced by Dino De Laurentiis. It stars Rod Steiger as Napoleon Bonaparte and Christopher Plummer as the Duke of Wellington with a cameo by Orson Welles as Louis XVIII of France. Other stars include Jack Hawkins as General Sir Thomas Picton, Virginia McKenna as the Duchess of Richmond and Dan O'Herlihy as Marshal Ney.

The Battle of Ligny, in which French troops of the Armée du Nord under the command of Napoleon I defeated part of a Prussian army under Field Marshal Blücher, was fought on 16 June 1815 near Ligny in what is now Belgium. The result was a tactical victory for the French, but the bulk of the Prussian army survived the battle in good order, was reinforced by Prussian troops who had not fought at Ligny, and played a role two days later at the Battle of Waterloo. The Battle of Ligny was the last victory in Napoleon's military career.

The Hundred Days, also known as the War of the Seventh Coalition, marked the period between Napoleon's return from eleven months of exile on the island of Elba to Paris on 20 March 1815 and the second restoration of King Louis XVIII on 8 July 1815. This period saw the War of the Seventh Coalition, and includes the Waterloo Campaign and the Neapolitan War as well as several other minor campaigns. The phrase les Cent Jours was first used by the prefect of Paris, Gaspard, comte de Chabrol, in his speech welcoming the king back to Paris on 8 July.

Michel Ney, 1st Prince de la Moskowa, 1st Duke of Elchingen was a French military commander and Marshal of the Empire who fought in the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">King's German Legion</span> British military force of the Napoleonic Wars

The King's German Legion was a British Army unit of mostly expatriated German personnel during the period 1803–16. The legion achieved the distinction of being the only German force to fight without interruption against the French during the Napoleonic Wars.

The Battle of Quatre Bras was fought on 16 June 1815, as a preliminary engagement to the decisive Battle of Waterloo that occurred two days later. The battle took place near the strategic crossroads of Quatre Bras and was contested between elements of the Duke of Wellington's Anglo-allied army and the left wing of Napoleon Bonaparte's French Armée du Nord under Marshal Michel Ney. The battle was a tactical victory for Wellington, but because Ney prevented him going to the aid of Blucher's Prussians who were fighting a larger French army under the command of Napoleon Bonaparte at Ligny it was a strategic victory for the French.

The Waterloo campaign was fought between the French Army of the North and two Seventh Coalition armies, an Anglo-allied army and a Prussian army. Initially the French army had been commanded by Napoleon Bonaparte, but he left for Paris after the French defeat at the Battle of Waterloo. Command then rested on Marshals Soult and Grouchy, who were in turn replaced by Marshal Davout, who took command at the request of the French Provisional Government. The Anglo-allied army was commanded by the Duke of Wellington and the Prussian army by Field Marshall Graf von Blücher.

<i>Sharpes Waterloo</i> 1990 historical novel by Bernard Cornwell

Sharpe's Waterloo is a historical novel in the Richard Sharpe series by Bernard Cornwell. Originally published in 1990 under the title Waterloo, it is the eleventh novel of the Sharpe series and the twentieth novel in chronological order. Cornwell stated that he intended to end the series here, but later changed his mind.

The Lion's Mound is a large conical artificial hill in the municipality of Braine-l'Alleud, Walloon Brabant, Belgium. King William I of the Netherlands ordered its construction in 1820, and it was completed in 1826. It commemorates the spot on the battlefield of Waterloo where the king's elder son, Prince William of Orange, is presumed to have been wounded on 18 June 1815, as well as the Battle of Quatre Bras, which had been fought two days earlier.

The Brunswick Ducal Field-Corps, commonly known as the Black Brunswickers in English and the Schwarze Schar or Schwarze Legion in German, were a military unit in the Napoleonic Wars. The corps was raised from volunteers by German-born Frederick William, Duke of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel (1771–1815). The Duke was a harsh opponent of Napoleon Bonaparte's occupation of his native Germany. Formed in 1809 when war broke out between the First French Empire and the Austrian Empire, the corps initially comprised a mixed force, around 2,300 strong, of infantry, cavalry and later supporting artillery.

Sharpe's Waterloo is a British television drama, the 14th part of a series that follows the career of Richard Sharpe, a fictional British soldier during the Napoleonic Wars. The adaptation is based on the 1990 novel of the same name by Bernard Cornwell.

Konrad Ludwig Georg Baring was an officer in the army of the Electorate of Hanover and the British army's King's German Legion. Some sources also give his name as Baron Georg(e) von Baring.

François Étienne de Kellermann, 2nd Duke of Valmy was a French cavalry general noted for his daring and skillful exploits during the Napoleonic Wars. He was the son of François Christophe de Kellermann and the father of the diplomat François Christophe Edmond de Kellermann.

Van Bylandt's brigade is the nickname, used in military historiography for the 1st brigade of the 2nd Netherlands division of the Mobile Army of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands, a Dutch and Belgian infantry brigade led by Major General Willem Frederik Graaf van Bylandt which fought in the Waterloo Campaign (1815).

After the fighting at Quatre Bras the two opposing commanders Marshal Ney and the Duke of Wellington initially held their ground while they obtained information about what had happened at the larger Battle of Ligny. They received intelligence that the Prussian army under the command of Prince Blücher had been defeated by the French Army of the North under the command of Napoleon Bonaparte.

Papelotte Farm is located at Rue Du Dimont a rural road in the Municipality of Braine-l'Alleud around 15 km (9.3 mi) south of Brussels, Belgium. On June 18, 1815, during the pivotal Battle of Waterloo it served as one of the advanced defensible positions of the Anglo-allied army under the command of the Duke of Wellington. Along with the walled farm compounds of Hougoumont and La Haye Sainte, it proved to be instrumental to the delay and the disruption of the opposing Napoleonic army's progress on the battlefield. Napoleon diverted disproportionately large numbers of troops in order to capture or eliminate these perimeters, while he failed to achieve a decisive break through in one of several attacks on the lines of the Allies.

<i>Waterloo: The History of Four Days, Three Armies and Three Battles</i> 2014 nonfiction history book by Bernard Cornwell

Waterloo: The History of Four Days, Three Armies and Three Battles is a history book written by Bernard Cornwell, first published in Great Britain by William Collins on 11 September 2014, and by Harper Collins Publishers on 5 May 2015 in the United States. It is Cornwell's first work of nonfiction, after publishing more than forty novels in the historical fiction genre, including the popular Richard Sharpe series taking place during the Napoleonic Wars. The book recounts the Battle of Waterloo on 18 June 1815, including preceding events from the campaign of the same name and The Hundred Days.

References

↑ Simms, Brendan (2014). The Longest Afternoon, The Four Hundred Men who Decided the Battle of Waterloo. Allen Lane. p. 2. ISBN 978-0-241-00460-9.
↑ Simms, Brendan (2014). The Longest Afternoon, The Four Hundred Men who Decided the Battle of Waterloo. Allen Lane. pp. 63–64. ISBN 978-0-241-00460-9.
1 2 3 4 Hough, Jonny (3 June 2018). "Struggle for La Haye Sainte". The Waterloo Association. Retrieved 14 May 2024.
↑ Simms, Brendan (2014). The Longest Afternoon, The Four Hundred Men who Decided the Battle of Waterloo. Allen Lane. p. 64. ISBN 978-0-241-00460-9.
↑ Buttery, David. "The Fall of La Haye Sainte". Erenow. ISBN 9781783035137 . Retrieved 14 May 2024.
↑ Simms, Brendan (2014). The Longest Afternoon, The Four Hundred Men who Decided the Battle of Waterloo. Allen Lane. pp. 26–27. ISBN 978-0-241-00460-9.
↑ Houssaye, Henry (1900). Euan-Smith, A. (ed.). 1815, Waterloo. Translated from the 31st edition by Arthur Emile Mann. London: Adam and Charles Black. p. 196. LCCN 05004776.
↑ Houssaye, Henry (1900). Euan-Smith, A. (ed.). 1815, Waterloo. Translated from the 31st edition by Arthur Emile Mann. London: Adam and Charles Black. pp. 197–199. LCCN 05004776.
↑ Houssaye, Henry (1900). Euan-Smith, A. (ed.). 1815, Waterloo. Translated from the 31st edition by Arthur Emile Mann. London: Adam and Charles Black. p. 202. LCCN 05004776.
↑ Houssaye, Henry (1900). Euan-Smith, A. (ed.). 1815, Waterloo. Translated from the 31st edition by Arthur Emile Mann. London: Adam and Charles Black. pp. 211–215. LCCN 05004776.
↑ Houssaye, Henry (1900). Euan-Smith, A. (ed.). 1815, Waterloo. Translated from the 31st edition by Arthur Emile Mann. London: Adam and Charles Black. p. 216. LCCN 05004776.
↑ Coppens, Bernard; Courcelle, Patrice (2000). La Haie-Sainte. Waterloo 1815 - Carnets de la Campagne (in French). Les Éditions de la Belle-Alliance. pp. 30–32. ASIN B00B26XYRC.
↑ Coppens, Bernard; Courcelle, Patrice (2000). La Haie-Sainte. Waterloo 1815 - Carnets de la Campagne (in French). Les Éditions de la Belle-Alliance. p. 35. ASIN B00B26XYRC.
↑ "Visitor Guide to Waterloo". The Waterloo Association. Retrieved 14 May 2024.

Barbero, Alessandro (2005), The Battle of Waterloo , Walker and Company, ISBN 0-8027-1453-6
Chappell, Mike (2000), The King's German Legion (2) 1812–1815, Botley, Oxford: Osprey Publishing, ISBN 1-85532-997-2
Hofschröer, Peter (1999), The Waterloo Campaign – The German Victory, London: Greenhill Books, ISBN 1-85367-368-4
Ludlow, Beamish, N. (1997) [1832–1837], History of the King's German Legion, vol. 2 (reprint ed.), Naval and Military Press, ISBN 0-9522011-0-0 {{citation}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)

La Haye Sainte

Contents