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The wounded at Waterloo

In our next book on the battle of Waterloo there will be special attention to the many wounded among the men of Bijlandt's brigade, which received the full brunt of the attack of D'Erlon's corps, fell back for a moment and then countercharged. There are just so many thrilling descriptions of men and officers in the brigade who were wounded, that these cannot be taken into the chapter on the first main French assault, but are nonetheless worthy to present in a seperate sidebar.

Take a further look here for the suffering of Captain van der Brugghen van Croy, who served in the 7th Militia Battalion, and another exciting little news!

Just click the 'read more' button.

 

In 1849 van der Brugghen wrote a brief account of his exploits at Waterloo, where he was severly wounded and needed years to recover:

When the company received order to rejoin, after the loss of a few men and a few wounded, the battalion after some time received order to advance. On that occasion I was hit by a canister ball in the right groin, which after damaging the entrance of the bladder, the intestines and the buttock muscles, exited through the left buttock and ended up in the bread sack of flanker Pruim from Noord-Holland, who stood obliquely behind me, smashed a knife and wrapped itself in a tin spoon. This Pruim handed the canister ball to me, which I hope will be kept as a remembrance. When I had fallen, 4 flankers carried me, among which was my batman Douwe Steenman, and brought me to the rear. They carried me in an English blanket, but I couldn’t continue like that and then they found a plank on which they laid me, which was nevertheless difficult for me as I couldn’t use my right hand to keep me tight. Every now an then a cannon ball whizzed through the carriers without hurting them, but which gave me heavy convulsions. They brought me to a shed full of English wounded and of which the surgeon refused to bandage me. They wanted to leave me there, but I ordered them to either return me to the battlefield or to Brussels. They decided for the last and found a small donkey wagon near a house in which they laid me. Arriving on the road this small wagon was soon jammed between army wagons, which came to and from the battelefield and it became impossible to move an inch. Whenever their was space the army wagons past by in gallop, so that I expected to be crushed each moment. At last we moved, but I was so tired that I asked them to stop at the first house. I was so tortured by a terrible thirst due to the great loss of blood, that I drank the muddy water with lust from a wheeltrack. 

Van der Brugghen kept the cannister ball for the remainder of his life and gave it to the archive where his account is still available today. Unfortunately though the cannister piece seems to be lost nowadays...

Title for Volume Three

Our next book due for May 2014 will be entitled Standing firm at Waterloo.

 

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