Memoirs of a Dutch cavalry officer at Waterloo …

Heuvingh recounts his time serving in the 4th Regiment of Dutch-Belgian Light Dragoons in the 1815 campaign …

… Hardly had the Dutch government been informed that Napoleon, in March 1815, had escaped from the island of Elba and returned to France, when the various military corps soon received orders to advance to the southern regions of Belgium. The last four companies of our regiment (the Light Dragoons, at that time No. 2) already occupied Namur since July 1814. We thus marched on 2 April 1815, from there to the area of Mons in Hainaut, and were quartered in the villages of Harré, St Denis, etc.

On the afternoon of 15 June we received the order to camp that same evening on the field outside Harré. In the early morning of the 16th we moved from there, towards evening, into the bivouac recently abandoned by the British, behind the post office on the main road to Nivelles. About eleven o’clock in the morning of the 17th, we hastily cleared this bivouac and set off for Nivelles at a brisk trot. As we entered the town, I heard the Maréchausées (Dutch military police) say: ‘Hurry, hurry to get through the town, as the French are coming at full speed down the road from Hautain-la-Val and could cut you off on the other side.’ At full trot we moved through the town and up the road to Mont St. Jean. It turned out that this warning and our haste had not been in vain, for soon we found out that, barely half an hour outside the town, our carriages with luggage and food had been arrested by the enemy and had fallen into their hands. Among them were some women who followed the regiment as sutlers; after being robbed of their goods and money by the enemy, they were released and then reached the army again.

Approaching the heights of Mont St Jean, we spotted the entire plain already occupied by English and Dutch troops. Our designated position was a beautiful cornfield, which was inevitably trampled in an instant. After we set up camp on this field, a magnificent panorama appeared before us. To our left, in a downward direction, stood a part of the English and Hanoverian cavalry, estimated at between 4 and 5,000 horses; in front of us, in the distance, stood their infantry; to our right, our infantry stood in squares, with the hussars and the corps of cuirassiers alongside and behind us.

That evening we were able to rest a little. However, due to the loss of our caisson carriages, we lacked food and forage. Fortunately for our horses, however, every cavalryman was provided with a supply of oats and spun hay.

The English were already engaged in hand-to-hand combat with the enemy. Their cavalry corps were continually relieving each other from the valley to our left. A sad sight for us, indeed, when we noticed how battered their regiments returned from the battle. Here we saw heavily wounded horsemen, still half hanging on their horses; there, individual horses, who had lost their rider, and were roaming wildly about, bleeding or maimed; while, amidst all the fierce thundering of the artillery, a grim silence reigned.

Late in the evening of the 17th a heavy rain started to fall, which continued without interruption until the following morning. The weather was rough and cold that night, although it was June. One can imagine how things looked like in our bivouac at night. The place where we were standing, which consisted of clay soil, was almost completely waterlogged and turned into a swamp by the steady, heavy rain. No matter how tightly we wrapped ourselves in our cloaks, the pleasure of sleep was hardly to be thought of, and our poor horses, as wet and cold as we were, stood bent over the ground all night.

At daybreak, the ‘ritmeester’ (cavalry captain) of our company had the men gather some wood and light a fire, which was soon followed by the other companies. However, ever since we had left the previous bivouac, we lacked all refreshment and food. As we sat down by the fire to warm ourselves and dry our soaked clothes a little, the ritmeester came to me, saying: ‘Quartermaster, would you not consider it possible for us to get some bread and brandy? – ‘If you don’t mind,’ I replied, ‘I want to send a man to the farmhouse over there. There might be something to obtain there.’ – ‘Do that,’ was the reply, and immediately I called one of our dragoons, and gave him a five-franc piece, that he might try to acquire some food for it.

The man soon returned with a large round loaf of bread, and one bottle of brandy. What a joy! But hardly had the bread been distributed and every officer had taken a sip, when they were summoned to mount their horses. Our regiment immediately moved forward, almost half an hour away, after which it marched in order of battle. We noticed that on the spot where we were now standing, the previous evening, the battle between the English and the French had taken place, because right in front of our regiment we noticed several English soldiers lying dead. Among them was a superior officer stretched out on his back, from whose (watch) pocket hung a long gold chain. At the sight of this, some men were soon ready to take the chain with the watch from him; however this was immediately forbidden in the strongest possible terms. Also, soon nobody thought of the Englishman any more, as from both sides the cannonade started fiercely, and musket bullets flew incessantly over and past us.

I was assigned to command the third platoon of our squadron, as I said earlier, at the designated spot we were exposed to a steady barrage of bullets. Shortly after we had positioned ourselves there, looking around for my men, I noticed that the horse of a dragoon in the second rank of my platoon stood right behind me, so I asked the rider beside him where the soldier was. He answered me by pointing to the ground. There the dragoon lay lifeless and with his head crushed. Good God, how troubled I was at the thought that the same bullet could have hit me very easily, as it must have passed close to my head in an oblique angle. I tried, as far as possible, to master my emotions and, by keeping my presence of mind, to instil courage and firmness in my men, among whom there were many who had not yet witnessed combat before …

Source : H. Heuvingh, Geschiedverhaal der merkwaardige levensredding van een Nederlandsch onder-officier der kavallerie, Kemink en zoon, 1865, pp. 10-13.