The whole army had watched in admiration when they moved into position at nine o’clock that morning, the dense column with one artillery battery on its flank and another at its centre, deploying in two ranks between the Genappe road and Frischemont to constitute the powerful and shrewdly placed second line which, with Kellermann’s cuirassiers on its left wing and Milhaud’s on its right, had so to speak two wings of iron.

The Emperor’s aide-de-camp, Bertrand, brought them the order. Ney drew his sword and placed himself at the head of the squadrons as they went into action.

It was an awe-inspiring sight.

The great force of cavalry, sabres raised and standards fluttering, formed up in columns by divisions, moved as one man down the slope of the Belle-Alliance hill, vanished into the smoke of that fearsome valley where so many men had already fallen, emerged on the other side still in compact, orderly ranks and rode at a canter through a hail of fire up the muddy slope of the Mont-Saint-Jean plateau. They rode steadily, menacingly, imperturbably, the thunder of their horses resounding in the intervals of musket and cannon-fire. Being two divisions they were in two columns, Wathier’s division on the right, Delord’s on the left.

At a distance they resembled prodigious snakes of steel writhing across the battlefield and up towards the plateau. Nothing like it had been seen since the taking of the great Moskowa redoubt by the heavy cavalry. Murat was absent, but Ney was there. The great mass seemed to have become a monster with a single soul. The separate squadrons rose and fell like the rings of a serpent, disclosing gaps as now and then they became visible through the smoke in a confusion of helmets, cries, sabres, the heaving rumps of horses, amid the cannon and the trumpet-blast, a disciplined and dreadful tumult with breastplates gleaming like a serpent’s scales.

These are tales that seem to belong to another age, legends of centaurs, titans with the heads of men and the bodies of horses galloping to the assault of Olympus, terrible, invulnerable, and sublime, both gods and beasts.

By a strange coincidence the attack of twenty-six squadrons was to be met by the same number of enemy battalions. Behind the ridge of the plateau and in the shadow of the masked battery, Wellington’s infantry was formed up in thirteen squares, two battalions in each, the squares being arrayed in two lines of seven and six. Thirteen squares of motionless, resolute men waiting with levelled muskets for what was to come. They could not see their attackers, nor could the attackers see them. They could only hear the rising tide of men, the growing thunder of hooves, the jingle and the clatter of harness, the growl of a savage breath. There was a dreadful silence, and suddenly there appeared on the crest of the ridge a long line of uplifted arms brandishing sabres, helmets, trumpets, grey-moustached faces. With a cry of ‘Vive l’empéreur!’ the cavalry, like the coming of an earthquake, swept on to the plateau.

And now a tragedy occurred. On the French right, and the English left, the head of the column of cuirassiers suddenly recoiled in indescribable confusion. Having surmounted the crest of the ridge, and as they broke into the full fury of their charge on the guns and the squares, the horsemen perceived that between themselves and the enemy there was a deep ditch – a grave. It was the sunken lane of Ohain.

What followed was appalling. This ravine, some fifteen feet deep between sheer banks, appeared suddenly at the feet of the leading horses, which reared and attempted to pull up but were thrust forward by those coming behind, so that horse and rider fell and slid helplessly down, to be followed by others. The column had become a projectile, and the explosive force generated for the destruction of the enemy was now its own destroyer. That hideous gulf could only be crossed when it was filled. Horses and men poured into it, pounding each other into a solid mass of flesh, and when the level of the dead and the living had risen high enough the rest of the column passed over. In this fashion a third of Dubois’s brigade was lost.

It was the beginning of the defeat.

According to local tradition, which is clearly exaggerated, two thousand horses and fifteen hundred men perished in the sunken lane of Ohain. The figure probably includes bodies which were thrown into it later, on the day after the battle.

Before ordering the charge Napoleon had carefully surveyed the ground, but without seeing the lane, of which nothing was visible above the level of the plateau. But the sight of the white chapel standing at the bend of the Nivelles road had prompted him to put a question to the guide, Lacoste, presumably concerning the possibility of other obstacles. Lacoste had answered in the negative. It can almost be said that the shaking of a peasant’s head was the cause of Napoleon’s downfall.

But there are other considerations. To the question, was it possible for Napoleon to win this battle, our answer is, No. Because of Wellington? Because of Blücher? No. Because of God.

For Napoleon to have won Waterloo would have been counter to the tide of the nineteenth century. Other events were preparing in which he had no part to play, and their opposition to himself had long been apparent.

It was time for that great man to fall.

His excessive weight in human affairs was upsetting the balance; his huge stature overtopped mankind.