rrangements for meeting
it.

The opposing armies differed rather in quality than in numbers.
Wellington had, roughly, 50,000 infantry, 12,000 cavalry, a little less
than 6000 artillerymen; a total of 67,000 men and 156 guns. Napoleon
had 49,000 infantry, nearly 16,000 cavalry, over 7000 artillery; a
total of, say, 72,000 men, with 246 guns. In infantry the two armies
were about equal, in cavalry the French were superior, and in guns
their superiority was enormous. But the French were war-hardened
veterans, the men of Austerlitz and of Wagram, of one blood and speech
and military type, a homogeneous mass, on flame with warlike
enthusiasm. Of Wellington's troops, only 30,000 were British and
German; many even of these had never seen a shot fired in battle, and
were raw drafts from the militia, still wearing the militia uniform.
Only 12,000 were old Peninsula troops. Less than 7000 of Wellington's
cavalry were British, and took any part in the actual battle.
Wellington himself somewhat ungratefully described his force as an
"infamous army"; "the worst army ever brought together!" Nearly 18,000
were Dutch-Belgians, whose courage was doubtful, and whose loyalty was
still more vehemently suspected. Wellington had placed some battalions
of these as part of the force holding Hougoumont; but when, an hour
before the battle actually began, Napoleon rode through his troops, and
their tumultuous shouts echoed in a tempest of sound across to the
British lines, the effect on the Dutch-Belgians in Hougoumont was so
instant and visible that Wellington at once withdrew them. "The mere
name of Napoleon," he said, "had beaten them before they fired a shot!"
The French themselves did justice to the native fighting quality of the
British. "The English infantry," as Foy told the Emperor on the
morning of Waterloo, "are the very d---- to fight;" and Napoleon, five
years after, at St. Helena, said, "One might as well try to charge
through a wall." Soult, again, told Napoleon, "Sire, I know these
English. They will die on the ground on which they stand before they
lose it." That this was true, even of the raw lads from the militia,
Waterloo proved. But it is idle to deny that of the two armies the
French, tried by abstract military tests, was far the stronger.

The very aspect of the two armies reflected their different
characteristics. A grim silence brooded over the British position.
Nothing was visible except the scattered cl