![]() The next cry spelled disaster for any hopes Napoleon might have had for an orderly retreat: " Sauve qui peut!" ("Save yourselves!"). A shocked-indeed, astounded-cry went up from the rest of the French Army, one unheard on any European battlefield in the unit's 16-year history: " La Garde recule!" ("The Guard recoils!") The guard stopped, staggered and fell back. "Bullets and grapeshot left the road strewn with dead and wounded," recalled a French eyewitness. But Wellington had repulsed the assault with a massive concentration of firepower. ![]() Less than an hour earlier, Napoleon had sent eight battalions of his elite Imperial Guard into the attack up the main Charleroi-to-Brussels road in a desperate attempt to break the line of the Anglo-Allied army commanded by the Duke of Wellington. By about 8 p.m., the emperor of France knew he had been decisively defeated at a village called Waterloo, and he was now keen to escape from his enemies, some of whom -such as the Prussians-had sworn to execute him. ![]() "Let us be off." The day was June 18, 1815. "Come general, the affair is over, we have lost the day," Napoleon told one of his officers.
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