WATERLOO TO-DAY

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1157, 19 June 1911, Page 6

WATERLOO TO-DAY

THE FIELD OF PATRIOTS. "AND A GLORIOUS STORY." A COLONIAL'S HLGIiIMAGE. (By "Tim.") Yesterday was the ninety-sixth anniversary of the Battle ot Waterloo, and a member of The Dominion, staff who visited the field recently gives, in the following article, his impressions of the historic piece of ground as it appears to-day. It is a. charming ride by road from Brussels to Waterloo. The way is through a most glorious beech forest—a great, mass of magnificent trees, spreading their lofty verdure over many miles of country. It is a placo where the imagination seeks full play. Every sylvan retreat hides a past romance, some pretty story of wooing in the olden days, when knights in armour plighted troth with maidens in knightly fashion. Here for centuries have hunted, walked, and loved generation after generation of a romantic people. Aye, but for us Englishmen, there is an infinitely greater, nobler, and a, sadder memory. Here, on this very road we are treading, are the footprints, bloodstained and heavy, of the remnant of tho grand and glorious army which returned nearly ona hundred years ago victorious from "Waterloo. These branches above us, they bore the leaves that drooped:

"Dewy with nature's tear-drops as they passed " And the same stillness of the forest that now holds us in its spell came as the breath of peace to the sated hero-souls—a presage of that long heritage of priceless peace which they had won. for us and for countless others. It is a glorious road to travel—glorious in tradition as in nature's beautiful adornment Out of the Forest. Leaving, at length, the forest paths, you pass through the picturesque, if dirty, villages which cluster on' the outskirts. In gentle undulations, the road runs on to the village of Waterloo. It was here, at this cluster of old-fashioned houses—the village of Waterloo—that Wellington slept the night, before the battle. Tho "field lies yet three or four miles away. Noting your arrival an obsequious old Belgian approaches and implores you, of your British patriotism (and charity) to step inside his inn and see the room, the bed, the sheets, in which slept Wellington! Yes, the house undoubtedly is the .house which sheltered the great general, of that you can be certain, though in those days it, was a posting inn. But of the sheets and blankets—well, ono can pay nil and smilo superciliously. Because Napoleon slept hero tho battle takes its namo from tho village. Near by, in the village, stands a. nretty little English church, portions of which were dedicated by Queen Victoria to the heroes who fell on that day for their country. '

The Battlefield. For some time the location of the battlefield has been apparent. Straight on in the distance, rising over farmstead and village, towers a stupendous monument. This is the Won Mound—a great earth eminence, surmounted by a large lion, cast from ■ cannons found on the field after the battle. The mound itself is built of the. earth of .the battlefield. It stands oh the- spot where men fell thickest on the great day. This lasting monument', indeed, marks (ho identical place where the British squares so'bravely resisted the repeated onslaughts of the French. A few yards away the Scots Greys made their historic charge. Tho mound, erected in 1820, is the vantage ground from. which the battlefield may be surveyed. From its top tho vision has a Jar horizon over tho lint cou'ntrv. Mounting about two hundred concrete steps, you reach the top of tho pyramid. To get there you run the gauntlet of importuning guides, mendicants, relic-ven-dors, and .post-card sellers, who speak, in every, tongue a tourist is likely to require. Once at the top, you come under tho care of a British ex-sergeant-major of respectability, a man well-qualified to direct you. He lays out the battlefield as it was when 60,000 men were meeting death. Yes, on this bright, peaceful field, bearing now yellow, waving com, tilled here and there by lonely peasant, dotted with humble dwellings, fell 60,000. The soil is hallowed. Over yonder dwelt Victor Hugo, where he wrote his great descriptive work, but even his pen cannot convey the story as you now both see and hear it from the monument.

Beneath those munching cows lie tho bones of friend and foe, of the great, and of the humble. Briefly, correctly, succinctly, the soldierguido places the armies. We live again in tho past. The "field" is much the same as it was a hundred years ago. Corn, in Reason, spread over it then. The battle was a square front-to-front fight between two opposing armies, a trial of strength rather than of and its 'details are therefore, easy to follow and understand. The casual reader of history and romance is apt to picture the battlescene as he would one of modern times; consequently •it is with much' surprise that'the smallncss of the field of operations comos before one. The headquarters of Napoleon and Wellington, both well-known houses now, were scarcely three-quarters of a mile apart. The opposing armies, from flank to flank, did not extend out three miles—one mile and a half on cither side of where we stand. Towards tho closo of the battle, Wellington perceiving • the timely arrival of tho Prussians on his left, concentrated tho whole of his left wing on the centre and right, thus still reducing the extent of operations. The armies were within a stone's throw of each other all the day, and the battle, until the' evening, when the French rout set in, scarcely moved. ■ A Terrible Scene.

Such a battle-scene will never again be presented. Imagine it! One hundred and twenty thousand men in this prescribed area, at close grips, in all the panoply, the grimness, the deadlincss, the awfu'lness of battle! Let the imagination play a little, while you stand quiet and gaze. Let it supply the details. We mark where Blucher came up. "Though he did not win the battle," comments the guide," Blucher caused tho rout of the French. But for him Napoleon would have drawn off and fought again next day." The place where the French tried to rally—a sacred spot, over which a nation has bitterly wept—is marked by a monument representing a torn, agonised eagle. There died not France, but. Despotism. The place is two. miles from the Mound. It is a. sacred spot, the' Gethsemane of a glorious foe. Not far away is La Belle Alliance, and almost beneath us the Chateau de Goumont. We. leave the monument deeply impressed. Again we run the gauntlet of mendicants and irnposters; we were shown countless spurious relics of the fieldthough some, such as flintlocks, daggers, pistols, etc., etc., undoubtedly are genuine. But these are trifling details. Above everything stands out the stupendous living interest of the field, and its story—a story, in the words of a hardened Indian colonel who had stood silent on the Mound beside us listening to its recital, "the most glorious a Britisher could ever wish to hear." And Waterloo is a heritage of the colonial also. It is the Fold, of Patriots. And here, also, to the memory of our gallant' foe we murmur: "Vive la France/'