Napoleon: A Life

by Andrew Roberts

Larrey amputated two hundred limbs that day. After the battle the 2nd Light Horse Lancers of the Guard, known as the Dutch Red Lancers, spent the night in woods that had been captured by Poniatowski’s infantry, where the ground around the trees was so heavily littered with corpses that they were forced to carry scores out of the way before they could clear a space for their tents.112 ‘In order to get some water it was necessary to travel far from the field of battle,’ wrote the veteran Major Louis Joseph Vionnet of the Middle Guard in his memoirs. ‘Any water to be found on the field was so soaked with blood that even the horses refused to drink it.’113 When the next day Napoleon arrived to thank and reward the remains of the 61st Demi-Brigade for capturing the Grand Redoubt, he asked its colonel why its third battalion wasn’t on parade. ‘Sire,’ came the reply, ‘it is in the redoubt.’114