Dirty Work at the Crossroads

The light cavalry and the British regime in 1815

Waterloo and London

By Andrew Lydon

'Stop them!' a cavalry colonel shouted. He pointed, not at the French, but at the British infantry.        

Sabres rasped from scabbards and the horsemen spurred forward to threaten their own infantry.'

                                                        Sharpe's Waterloo P. 409

This is how the British faced the final French assault of the Napoleonic Wars, in the novel that has probably done most to shape what the British today know of the Napoleonic Wars.  The fictitious officer Richard Sharpe then has his infantry held in line at the point of a rather gruesome volley gun.

In  a  history  he  wrote  later  for the  bicentennial of the battle,  the same author Bernard Cornwell,  does not describe anything like this. But we should welcome the fact that he raised the issue of how the infantry were handled at the climax of the battle.  Because the story the generals told afterwards was really rather absurd.General Sir Richard (Hussey) Vivian was the commander of the brigade of hussars who made the trek from the edge of the battlefield to the centre, when the battle was coming to a climax. When they got there, this is how he saw his role.

 In this state of affairs I wheeled my brigade into line close (within ten yards) in the rear of our infantry, prepared to charge the instant they retreated through my intervals. (The three squadron officers of the 10th were wounded at this instant.) My doing this, however, gave them confidence, and the brigade, which was literally running away, halted on our cheering them, and again began firing.

                                                                                                                                          Vivian P.303

His  own  closest  assistant  in organising this deployment,  just  west of the crossroads  on which Wellington's position centred,  makes it clear  the intervals were not left open, but kept closed. They were not allowing infantry any retreat.  Vivian in later exchanges let his original above claim drop. But Captain Shakespear further makes clear how noise throughout prevented him even talking to Vivian without having to shout in his ear. (Shakespear P.100) That should be kept in mind in any reference to cheering.

Little Glory was to be found by British generals in pushing what were actually young German infantrymen forward between themselves and a supposedly ferocious enemy.  Battles are not always a matter of glory and heroism. For this reason, Wellington was very negative about anyone writing a history of this battle, as early as in a letter of August 1815. Wellington wrote

'It is better for the general interests to leave those parts of the story untold, than to tell the whole truth.'

Wellington Dispatches P.231

But now the historical interest must be in the truth.

18th Hussars

Maybe it was because he was suffering some degree of concussion, but the commander of this regiment was not properly focussed on the mission by the time his regiment had completed the trek to the centre.

When asked about the events of the day by the historian William Siborne, Colonel Murray mentioned that he had been hit by debris from bombardment during the trek. Hence the vagueness of some of his written answers.

I cannot determine the time, nor exactly what we were doing, when some Nassau troops with white caps fell back upon us, and were forced forward, in which I remember my adjutant instrumental; nor can I state when it was that I ...heard...the infantry was advancing.

 1835. Siborne letters P.180. 

But we do have some further elaboration of the ‘forcing forward’ in other writings that have since come to light. One document, Murray himself wrote.  There is also a letter by his supposedly 'instrumental' adjutant, from the day after the battle.      

In a manuscript that was never published in his lifetime the colonel himself specified

     Lord Uxbridge at this time joined Sir Hussey Vivian and rode up and down in front of the line.     An order was received for the regiment to advance; the Belgians were falling back and had to be driven forward with the flats of the swords. 

                                                                         General Murray (Malet. P.67)

Hussars had never really had a role in the centre of a battlefield before.  Their role was to find the enemy, to screen their own army so as to stop the enemy interfering in its movements - especially in retreat. This was exactly what this regiment had been doing up till now in this campaign.  And no one knew this better than Adjutant Duperier. He had first been made an officer when his then light cavalry regiment was first supposedly reformed as a hussar regiment.  

When the blue jacketed hussars arrived behind the Nassau infantry at Waterloo, the adjutant wrote

I conjectured, and I find I was right.

                                                                Duperier 19 June 1815, Duperier Papers P.13

In modern parlance the adjutant had a prompt grasp of the tactical situation and purpose. He could see how control of a battle is a kind of crowd control, He grasped this more than the confused colonel, who would then have been riding right next to him.

Duperier clearly saw what he took to be Belgian officers 'leathering' what were actually wavering Nassau (German) troops in order to 'make them smell the gunpowder’. Once the hussar squadrons were drawn up, probably without 'intervals', the horsemen moved up on the infantry ranks

           .... close to their heels, and them almost nose to nose with the French. 

Now the leadership of the regiment would seem to lose focus. Duperier says the leaders of the regiment stood passing round cigars. Some effort was made to involve him.  However, as he was not really a smoker he found it ‘disagreeable’.

Duperier anticipates the orders the colonel says they were soon to get. To ' pass the time away' Adjutant Duperier wandered over to the rear of the infantry they were supposedly supporting and intimidated any that 'turned about'. This he did by laying his sword across their shoulders and supposedly verbally threatening them.

Manhandling junior soldiers is second nature to experienced NCOs, which is what Lieutenant Duperier had been. And his coming from the ranks, was probably a major reason why he did not fit into the officers smoking circle - probably even when not in battle.

Being already busy personally intimidating infantry, Duperier clearly was not there when the chain of command told the colonel that, rather like our adjutant was already attempting, the infantry needed driving forward. But now swords were clearly needed. And the lead of Duperier, which the colonel had sort of noticed, should have been followed up.

The regiment had had some recent experience, that if he had been fully functional, Colonel Murray could have channelled.  But before going into that, we should look at how the neighbouring hussars handled 'supporting' the infantry.

10th Hussars

That Colonel Murray was not properly functioning probably does explain some of how crude things got in his regiment's support of the supposedly 'Belgian' infantry. Things did not get so crude when the neighbouring hussar regiment was supporting those infantry that stood in front of them.

The officers of this regiment were much better able to explain themselves to the historian William Siborne.

A history of the regiment draws on Siborne and clearly states 

The allied infantry were, however, once more on the point of giving way. The Nassauers were  falling back en masse right against the horses’ heads of the 10th, but these, by keeping their files closed, prevented further retreat. Vivian, and Captain Shakespear of the Tenth (who was acting as his extra aide de camp), rendered themselves conspicuous at this moment by their endeavours to halt and encourage the Nassauers. 

The Hanoverians, and the Kings German Legion on the left..., now resolutely dashed forward at the double, their drums beating. The Brunswickers took up the movement, as did also the Nassauers; Vivian and his aide-de-camp cheering them on, whilst the 10th Hussars followed in close support.

                                                                                                                              Liddell P.153

But there is no reason to doubt that the 10th would also have resorted to the flats of swords if need had arisen. But it did not.

General Vivian seems to have been much more involved with the 10th. In the Vivian letter quoted in opening, Vivian tells how he was aware of officers of this regiment being out of action. Colonel Quentin, the commander was wounded soon after arriving in the centre, around the time the neighbouring colonel was probably lighting up his cigar. Command devolved to Lord Manners. Vivian seems, from this regimental history, to have spent more critical time around the 10th Hussars. Maybe later when he found the 18th Hussars had let infantry begin to crumble he recognised that the leadership of the 18th had probably needed just as much micro-management.

Vivian

In his August 1815 letter, already referred to, the Duke of Wellington was also cautioning enquirers that one can no more write a history of a battle than you can write a history of a ball – as in a ballroom. (Wellington P.  231) This was not unlike how Tolstoy later thought of battles. However, while you can never be sure of any sequence of events, one can come to conclusions about why a particular side fails or does not. That is what we can now do.

We can recognise what would have happened if the French had broken the German infantry, under their various flags, at this centre of Wellington’s line. Elite French cavalry were lurking nearby, who could have charged through the gap and broke Wellington’s army in two. Most historians have therefore been persuaded, originally by General Vivian himself, that this was the crisis of the battle.

Wellington is also credited with saying that the Battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton. But you could say, the street corners of central London were even more important.

London March 1815

A couple of months before he was working so closely with Vivian to hold together Wellington's front next to the Waterloo crossroads, Captain Shakespear was deployed at another crossroads.

He was leading hussars in London.  Deployed at the crossroads in what we now call the City of London. He was leading a detachment stationed outside what is called the Mansion House – the official residence of its ‘Lord Mayor’ (Shakespear P.86). Shakespear’s regiment, the 10th Hussars were serving under General Vivian in the light cavalry part of a counter-insurgency operation (Bonar P.351). An operation in which there would be two Captain Shakespears, but only one Adjutant Duperier.

Food prices and shortages come with wars. But at the beginning of March 1815 there had been a full scale assault on the ruling order over food. During the Napoleonic Wars there had been repeated upsurges of working class resistance to the war regime and war prices. In the North of England there had also been attacks on factories that were mechanising in what was going to just simply drive down wages. In London there had been a populist MP, Sir Francis Burdett who was at the centre of protest in the very heart of London. (London Morning Post. 9 April 1810)

Once Napoleon was imprisoned on Elba, there were hopes that the price of food could now be brought down. The ports could start importing grain from the continent bringing these prices down. But in March, just as Napoleon was beginning his escape, key leaders of the ruling class revealed their intention to continue excluding cheap foreign grain from the UK. The landed aristocracy who controlled the 'rotten boroughs' which controlled a rotten parliament, - did not want to lose profits they had got used to during the war. 

Revolution in London

Huge crowds surrounded Parliament. They lobbied by stopping carriages and demanding to know how the Members of Parliament were intending to vote on the Corn Laws. But things seemed organised. Crowds turned up at the central London homes of important politicians and brought wheel barrows full of stones and flammables. And quite a number of houses were wrecked in the very home neighbourhoods of the ruling class.

There were no police in those days, so it had always been the army that had had to be brought in. And brought in they were. 

Small groups of guardsmen were stationed in the homes of the most important people, while the cavalry were to take back control of the streets. This emergency was more existential for the ruling class than any machine breaking attacks in the North, or the Burdett Riots of 1810.

Counter-insurgency 

Back in 1810 the mere attempted arrest of one troublesome radical Member of Parliament had brought confrontation on the streets for days around Piccadilly. The heavy cavalry had seemed to have been very clumsy. This time, though, the light cavalry were going to lead the counter-insurgency. 

Lord Uxbridge was effectively made the military governor of London. He had been the first commander of what back in 1806 had been called the Hussar Brigade. Under his command now he would have infantry, and both the Guard heavy cavalry and units of light cavalry. The light cavalry component was put under his friend and hussar protégé, our General Vivian.

(Bonar P. 352)

Light Horse

Vivian was given the 10th Hussars straight away. They had been training at Romford just outside London. Captain Shakespear recorded that they rushed into the city and ended up based at a riding school. Later the 18th Hussars, would also be given to Vivian. The regiments he would later take to Waterloo.

Vivian would also have a volunteer unit, called the London and Westminster Light Horse Volunteers (LHV). The LHV had been involved in all the civil 'disturbances' in London since before the French Revolution. They, and their regimental committee, had become the institutional memory of what until 1810 was successful crowd control in London.

‘Merchants, Bankers, Ship Owners and other men of business’ was how a history written by their last adjutant characterised them (Collyer P.v). That Adjutant/history did not hide the class basis of how they saw events. The Gentlemen volunteers were the super-rich of London. They clubbed together to buy horses and stables and weapons.  They could be armed, uniformed and deployed as promptly as any regular cavalry could get into London. Arthur Shakespear’s older cousin, Matthew Shakespear was a captain in the regiment since 1812.

The regiment was often a family affair. For example, the Berens. This family were a major power in the British Canadian venture (The Hudson Bay Company), and like the Shakespears, did also figure in the East India Company. During the period we are examining, there were two captain Berens active. One of them obtained a couple of artillery pieces for the regiment in 1814. The other Captain Berens had been assistant adjutant and at the heart of another LHV project.

1810

Back in 1810, the red-jacketed, and helmeted, heavy cavalry had ended up laying siege to the populist MP's big house in Piccadilly. Crowds gathered and counter-blockaded these heavies. In this close up and static confrontation, tensions were exacerbated - especially when there were civilian casualties. (London Morning Post. 9 April 1810)

The leaders of the LHV were side-lined in this 1810 operation and alarmed by what they saw.  Heavy cavalry clumsiness had let Londoners get the idea that they could congregate again. The LHV leaders thought the government made it worse by being visibly rattled and bringing in forces not normally based in London. The LHV had to play host to some troops of the 10th Hussars and some militia infantry at their Grays Inn Lane base. (Collyer… P.174) How far their misgivings were shared with their hussar guests we do not know. But it is unlikely they would not discuss with them how they might have to work together if disturbances continued. The adjutant of the hussars would have been the most likely hussar involved in such exchanges. And the Hussar adjutant was Lieutenant Duperier.

The LHV were going to have to accept working with outside cavalry in the future. In the years afterwards one can see the LHV preparing to work with even larger numbers of such cavalry guests. In 1812 they expanded their complex at Gray’s Inn Lane, after already having begun developing a hussar troop. (Collyer…P.178)

This hussar troop idea was developed by their LHV adjutant, John Bamford (…P.155). Bamford would develop an unusually keen interest in the development of cavalry tactics. In later years he published a diagrammatic book on the subject. He had done four years as adjutant of one of the regiments that would go on to be in the first wave of those converted to Hussar regiments. In 1804, he was strongly recommended to the LHV as adjutant by his former colonel and also by the officer who would be known to history as Lord Uxbridge.

1815

This new Hussar Troop trained in the reconnaissance role of hussars. Their hussar guests  would have had far more recent experience to impart of how this was done. Duperier had been a hussar adjutant in 1808 when the Hussar brigade debuted in the Spanish intervention led by Sir John Moore - which ended in the retreat to Corunna. But the techniques developed for an open landscape would need to be supplemented by ones for an urban townscape.

With such techniques, the LHV would get a new lease of life, by inserting themselves into the guidance and leadership of regular cavalry in their movements on the streets of London, rather than the cavalry’s traditional theatres of war. Ordinary LHV volunteers had always been treated as if officers by other military. This would ease this guidance role. The LHV were so keen to develop this hussar troop, that they declared their willingness to forego some government funding they had been promised to be allowed to do this. (LHV minutes 1811)

Retraining of the volunteers for hussar work was driven by the troop commander, and Bamford’s former assistant adjutant, the elder of the Berens captains (P.179). Thus the thinking of 1810 would not be calling the shots in 1815.

Throughout the whole of yesterday, the streets and squares were crowded with people, and in every direction the military were out, for the purposes of dispersing the populace whenever they attempted to form in groups, the later inevitably yielding with hisses and hooting, but manifesting no disposition to resistance. ...

        Morning Post. 8 March 1815.

These activities would have been a learning experience for both the regiments that Vivian would later have on ‘the heels’ of allied infantry at Waterloo.

During the London operation the 10th Hussars were again lodged at the LHV base, and maybe others too. The riding school where Arthur Shakespear was based may have been the one attached to the LHV complex. Most patrols ran from here.

From what has been outlined earlier about Waterloo, an obvious question occurs. Did learning to use horses to intimidate a disorderly crowd impact more on one hussar regiment than the other one ? This question can be answered.

10th Hussars

When the 10th rushed into London, they had recently been the subject of a purge of junior officers by the military authorities. Almost all their captains and lieutenants had been replaced by handpicked new officers. But almost none of these had been hussars before. Few had even commanded a troop of cavalry. This intervention in London would be the first time most of this new officer corps had commanded a troop of horse.  It was the first time they had worked together as a regimental body. (Officers listed in Liddell P. 515)  This very first regimental tasking was - crowd control.

Of those officers that later ended up at Waterloo, four out of the seven captains had been staff officers of some sort up until the ‘end’ of the earlier war in 1814. (Dalton P.68) Some had interesting experiences. One had been at the huge Battle of Leipzig on the British liaison staff in Germany.(Liddell P.189) Shakespear had been an aide to Wellington’s cavalry commander in the Peninsula War since 1812. But they did not have any command experience themselves, being instead the impressive protégés of influential senior officers who had influence in the selection of the new officers for this regiment.

So it is not surprising that at Waterloo, even with their senior officers put out of action, the rest of them understood the importance of control. A control that could stop the German infantry turning into a mob. A mob that could wreck Wellington’s position.

Interestingly one of the majors who survived the 1814 purge was one who did have some experience in intervention in the north against the machine wreckers. Major, the Honourable Frederick Howard was from the aristocratic family that owned Castle Howard near York. Howard led operations against Luddites in that area when most of the regiment were in France in 1813. This included policing the hanging of 13 Luddite ringleaders (Liddell P.100).

18th Hussars

The 18th came late to the London operation when it was already running down. Of their captains who later ended up at Waterloo, all had been in the regiment when the war ended in 1814 (Dalton P.90).  Plus most of their lieutenants too. They had had experience of leading troops and squadron’s in the traditional Hussar functions of scouting and advance guarding. They did not have to impress in a new regiment in this strange London operation in the way that the new officers of the 10th may well have felt necessary. It was never likely that they would take so much away from these London streets as their much fresher counterparts in the 10th.

Adjutants would have had to engage more with the London cavalry operation than any other officer. The adjutant has a crucial organisational role in a regiment. When the counter insurgency first began there were morning meetings at Horse Guards. The regimental commanders were expected to attend, and soon after there would be a meeting of their adjutants. (Bonar P.351) We cannot be sure that there would have been meetings every morning at the point when the 18th and Adjutant Duperier turned up, but there would have been some - and clearly, induction of a new unit into the operation would involve both the commander and the adjutant. Adjutant Duperier, however was maybe easier to induct because of when his earlier regiment had been guests of the LHV in 1810. And Captain Bamford, the Adjutant of the LHV, had actually won his spurs in the adjutancy of this very regiment, the exact same post as Duperier now had.

As we saw above, dealing with a potential unruly fleeing mob came to mind, when Duperier first turned up riding next to his concussed colonel at the crossroads at Waterloo. But it would seem that the officers that ended up smoking with the colonel did not have control on their mind.

Heroic charges had long loomed too large in the minds of British cavalry officers. Wild charges had, hours before, wrecked the heavy cavalry that had previously been at the centre of the field of Waterloo. In 1812 Wellington had privately accused the cavalry of ‘galloping at everything’. But this was not the case with the cavalry officers who had worked alongside the LHV in London in 1815. They could control a situation by controlling themselves, unlike the cavalry that were later responsible for the infamous ‘Peterloo Massacre’ of 1819.

Victory

Anyhow, although the 18th Hussars may have come close to dropping the ball that early evening at Waterloo - they did not. They did not end up carrying out a Waterloo massacre of young German infantrymen. That could well have been the beginning of disintegration on every level. So, Vivian’s brigade held the line.

Had they not done so Wellington’s army could well have been split in two.  Vivian’s brigade could never have then stopped other units, even British ones, breaking in such a disaster.  There had already been another Dutch-Belgian brigade showing signs of being about to flee the field that evening - even though it was not even in the front line. Effort was needed getting it to stand. The 16th Light Dragoons got behind them and closed up their ‘intervals’ so as to block any retreat. Wellington came upon this scene himself as the French were collapsing. We must note that this regiment had also worked under Vivian in his London operation, although it was not under his command at Waterloo. There are no reports of other cavalry units doing anything like this. (Siborne. Letters P.121)

Had collapse set in across Wellington’s army the regime in London may well have had to crumble under new popular unrest. But as it was - Vivian’s brigade helped stabilise the regime in Westminster, both in their work at Waterloo as much as on the street corners of central London. Wellington was still to be a victorious general who would later become a strongman prime minister. The London regime would be able to fend off democratic reform for almost two further decades. And the reform of 1832 was almost certainly more limited than one forced on the regime in 1816 would have been. The work next to the Waterloo crossroads was something that was little explained, even by Vivian and Shakespear, until after 1832. 

Below are some Thumbnail sketches of my most important but least well-known sources, details which were by-passed above in tackling operational detail.

Captain Arthur Shakespear   1789-1845

Shakespear was transferred into the 10th Hussars soon after a visit to General Vivian at his home during the peace of 1814.

His family wealth was mainly India trade. His uncle Arthur, the father of Matthew Shakespear, was an MP during 1815. He had basically bought a ‘rotten borough’ seat.

Waterloo Arthur was originally in the heavy dragoons, and was involved in the Piccadilly disturbances of 1810. Then he was an aide-de-camp to the Governor of Ireland and then Stapleton Cotton, Wellington’s chosen cavalry commander in his Spanish campaign. That is when he met Vivian, who pulled Arthur out of his regiment at Waterloo to be his aide.

Shakespear’s uncle could take some surprisingly radical positions when he was in the Commons. His nephew, was surprisingly, and seriously critical, of Uxbridge’s performance in Belgium in 1815, which may have cut his army career short.  The hoof of the horse Arthur rode at Waterloo is on display at the National Army Museum.

Lieutenant Henry Duperier   1772-1846

Duperier was made adjutant of the 18th Hussars after the purge of the regiment in 1813, which was conducted by Major Hughes, to appease Wellington. Duperier was new to the regiment. Brought out from England.  But he was already an experienced Adjutant.

After being deployed with the 10th Hussars in 1810 when they were brigaded with the LHV at the latter’s base, he had within a couple of months transferred to the infantry. The 10th had relocated to the Prince Regent’s court at Brighton. Duperier had come up from the ranks – as adjutants often did. He had been the 10th’s sergeant-major until 1806, and court life and expense might not have attracted him.

Having seen action in Spain during the Corunna campaign, he was too useful to be left in the infantry when Major Hughes needed a new adjutant. Duperier was originally French.  He seems to have left his native Bordeaux around 1795, after it fell under the bloody rule of Representative on Mission Tallien.

Sources – in order of appearance.

Bernard Cornwell. Sharpe's Waterloo (1990)

Bernard Cornwell. Waterloo. The History of Four Days… (2014)

Hon. Claud Vivian. Richard Hussey Vivian, First Baron Vivian, a memoir (1897)

Arthur Shakespear. Biographical Memorandum. (1841). National Army Museum.  London.               NAM 1977-06-17-1

Wellington Dispatches. Volume 8.  Edited by John Gurwood  (1847).                                      Available at The Dispatches of Field Marshal the Duke of Wellington: During His Various ... - Arthur Wellesley Duke of Wellington, John Gurwood - Google Books

Major-General Herbert T. Siborne. Waterloo Letters  (1891)   See Google books     https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Waterloo_Letters.html?id=FEWaBgAAQBAJ&redir_esc=y

Harold Malet. Historical Records of the Eighteenth Hussars (1869). See Google books       https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Historical_Records_of_the_Eighteenth_Hus/mfxhIavj-csC?hl=en

Henry Duperier.  Duperier Papers.  National Army Museum.      NAM 2014-11-5

Colonel R S Liddell. The Memoirs of the Tenth Royal Hussars (1891)     See Google books   https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/The_Memoirs_of_the_Tenth_Royal_Hussars_P/2BpEAAAAYAAJ?hl=en

Charles Dalton. The Waterloo Roll Call. (1904)

James Bonar. The Disposition of Troops in London, March 1815.  -   The English Historical Review.   Vol.16, No. 62   (April 1901)               Can be accessed on-line       http://www.jstor.org/stable/548659.

James Collyer & John Pocock.   An Historical Record of the Light Horse Volunteers of

        London and Westminster (1843)

                 Available online     https://data.historicaltexts.jisc.ac.uk/view?pubId=bl-000749848&pageId=bl-000749848-1148503-209

John Bamford. Illustrations of the Field Movements of Cavalry (1824)

LHV AGM Minutes July 1811.   in the Herries Papers.   National Army Museum

          NAM  1977 – 04 – 82  (106)

London Morning Post. Articles as cited.   Available online.

Acknowledgements of assistance

Penny Hutchins, Head of Archives Library & Information, National Army Museum         Daisy Ashton, Archives, National Army Museum        Patricia Gilhooley, National Library of Scotland.

Abstract

Done as a video lasting less than 2 minutes. Can be accessed from my Dropbox

https://www.dropbox.com/s/0vasv9a4bc5mjyx/My%20Sharpes%20Waterloo.mp4?dl=0