d failed. It had left
behind it many prisoners; certain guns which had advanced with it had been
put out of action; it had lost two colours.

Save for the furious inconsequent and almost purposeless fighting that was
still raging far off to the left round Hougomont, the battle ceased. The
valley between the opposing forces was strewn with the dead and dying, but
no formed groups stood or moved among the fallen men. The swept slopes had
all the appearance during that strange halt of a field already lost or
won. The hour was between three and half-past in the afternoon, and so
ended the first phase of the battle of Waterloo. It had lasted rather
over two hours.

THE SECOND PART OF THE ACTION

The second and decisive phase of the battle of Waterloo differed from the
first in this: In the first phase Napoleon was attacking Wellington's
command alone. It was line against line. By hammering at the line opposed
to him on the ridge of the Mont St Jean, Napoleon confidently expected to
break it before the day should close. His first hammer blow, which was the
charge of the First Army Corps under Erlon, had failed, and failed badly.
The cavalry in support of that infantry charge had failed as well as their
comrades, and the British in their turn had charged the retiring French,
got right into their line, sabred their gunners, only to be broken in
their turn by the counter-effort of further French horse.

This first phase had ended in a sort of halt or faint in the battle, as I
have described.

The second phase was a very different matter. It developed into what were
essentially two battles. It found Napoleon fighting not only against
Wellington in front of him, but against Blucher to his right and almost
behind him. It was no longer a simple business of hammering with the whole
force of the French army at the British and their allies upon the ridge in
front, but of desperately attempting to break the Anglo-Dutch line against
time, with diminishing and perpetually reduced forces; with forces
perpetually reduced by the necessity of sending more and more men off to
the right to resist, if it were possible, the increasing pressure of the
accumulating Prussian forces upon the right flank of the French.

This second phase of the action at Waterloo began in the neighbourhood of
four o'clock.

It is true that the arriving Prussians had not yet debouched from the
screen of wood that hid them two and a half miles away to the east,