ute whether the Guard attacked in two
columns or in one. The truth seems to be that the eight battalions
were arranged in echelon, and really formed one mass, though in two
parallel columns of companies, with batteries of horse artillery on
either flank advancing with them. Nothing could well be more majestic,
nothing more menacing, than the advance of this gallant force, and it
seemed as if nothing on the British ridge, with its disabled guns and
shot-torn battalions, could check such an assault. Wellington,
however, quickly strengthened his centre by calling in Hill's division
from the extreme right, while Vivian's Light Cavalry, surrendering the
extreme left to the advancing Prussians, moved, in anticipation of
orders, to the same point. Adams's brigade, too, was brought up to the
threatened point, with all available artillery. The exact point in the
line which would be struck by the head of the Guard was barred by a
battery of nine-pounders. The attack of the Guard was aided by a
general infantry advance---usually in the form of a dense mass of
skirmishers--against the whole British front, and so fierce was this
that some Hanoverian and Nassau battalions were shaken by it into
almost fatal rout. A thread of British cavalry, made up of the scanty
remains of the Scots Greys and some of Vandeleur's Light Cavalry, alone
kept the line from being pierced.

All interest, however, centred in the attack of the Guard. Steadily,
on a slightly diagonal line, it moved up the British slope. The guns
smote it fiercely; but never shrinking or pausing, the great double
column moved forward. It crossed the ridge. Nothing met the eyes of
the astonished French except a wall of smoke, and the battery of horse
artillery, at which the gunners were toiling madly, pouring case-shot
into the approaching column. One or two horsemen, one of whom was
Wellington himself, were dimly seen through the smoke behind the guns.
The Duke denied that he used the famous phrase, "Up Guards, and at
'em!" "What I may have said, and possibly did say," he told Croker,
"was, 'Stand up, Guards!' and then gave the commanding officers the
order to attack."

An officer who took part in the fight has described the scene at the
critical moment when the French Old Guard appeared at the summit of the
British ridge: "As the smoke cleared away, a most superb sight opened
on us. A close column of the Guard, about seventies in front, and not
less than six t