British Documentary Voice
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EnglishVoice Age
Young Adult (18-35)Accents
British (General)Transcript
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So at the Battle of Waterloo pivotal moment, Wellington's infantry has been receiving extreme French artillery fire, and he orders his men 100 paces to the rear behind the crest of Mount ST John. And, of course, the Polian is experiencing a moment of later be known. It's stomach cancer. He's sick in his retires from the field to his headquarters. For a brief time on during this time, Marshal Ney observes, Wellington's army retire 100 paces to the really interprets this as Wellington's retreating from the battle field. And in all fairness, it did appear that way. Wellington's army had had honestly taken quite a beating. Ah, hard, good pounding, as he said. And Nee, being a brave rash commander, obviously thought, Well, this must be retreat. So he orders a massive cavalry charge. To his dismay, though, when the cavalry top of the crest of maps ST John, he discovers that the British have formed a square. Now a square formation sounds antiquated. But in the musket tree period of 17th 18th century Napoleonic War, for it was the only practical way for infantrymen to withstand a cavalry charge. Now, of course, the different manuals and different armies dealt with the square and the way it was formed in various ways. For example, even this shape may not be a square in the English army, the British army. It was close the square. Some armies form oblong shape. Some armies formed a rectangular shape, some even closed for was was known as a clump of a cluster. And the whole idea of this was to make it difficult for the cavalry to penetrate the formation and use their Sabres. Of the only way for cavalry to penetrate the square would be for the square to lose morale and break. This was done mostly with the use of artillery. When all the infantry are clustered together in tight formation, they make a wonderful target for the artillery. And, of course, the artillery has shooting solid shot, which will roll through the men like essentially a bowling ball from somewhere you don't want to meet. And the bowling ball effect is that we take our arms and limbs and heads, and it would cause mass panic, and the men would run and break of square. And, of course, when they broke the square, the cavalry would be waiting off on the flanks and would rush in and just chop them to bits. But the problem for Nee is that at Waterloo, the British squares were extremely disciplined and, as it editor's note at the time in the programme it will for certain armies did better with the sweat and others. The British army, of course, was the best known practitioner of the square formation. The Austrian army, for example, was known to be notoriously slow it, forming them, but the roasted quite well, and that Waterloo May was forced to watch his cavalry run around the squares because the average horse will not charge into a clump of men, not this particular breed of horses that were being used this time. They're not like the Great's war steins of the mediaeval periods that would charge into line ranks of men. Therefore, the British have full directions of musket tree fire they can unload on the French cavalry and, as a result of the casualties for the French, were enormous. And even more unfortunately for Marshal Ney is in his haste to order this cavalry charge. He had failed to direct the infantry to follow him and give support which meant that the British were free to simply sit in their square formations and give fire and sexually until the ammunition ran out. And this is four schools dressed in chaos for the French and the French cavalry. Eventually, after multiple trials was sit back. And of course, at that time it is that the Prussian army arrived at Plus Anwar and the battle took a fatal turn against Napoleon. And Napoleon was, of course, furious that they had done this. But at this point, it was too late. And there are many factors that go into the victory at Waterloo but searching the nun Khun B, as appreciated as the British squares of Waterloo.