On the morning of the 17th the 42nd marched from Quatre Bras to the undulating height of Mont St. Jean. On arriving there Wellington said, “We shall retire no farther.” This was the first occasion on which the English Commander had come into personal contact with Napoleon. Not since Scipio and Hannibal at Zama had two such military giants met face to face—Napoleon, who had swept victorious over Europe; Wellington, who, on a lesser scale, had, upon the fields of Spain, driven the greatest French marshals before him. And now, upon the eve of this great battle, Wellington stood upon high ground perfectly imperturbable, while not so far away Napoleon passed along his line, receiving tumultuous cheers, inspiriting his soldiers to carry the English position by assault, firm in the belief that if his veteran troops by their very prestige could fling back the English lines, the victory was as good as won. Certainly it was a manœuvre that had always, or nearly always proved successful against the armies of other nations, but had always failed in the Peninsular against the British soldier. The French formation on this occasion can best be compared to and was inspired by the same motive as the Prussian formation a hundred years later—it relied upon the discipline of men advancing in mass to carry a position at the point of the bayonet. The British army was in line. Much has been made in recent years of the part that the Belgians played at Quatre Bras and Waterloo, and it is only fair to a nation so closely associated with us to-day to point out that had not the Dutch-Belgian forces withstood Ney’s first furious attack at Quatre Bras, British aid might have come too late to stem a disaster. Upon the field of Waterloo the Dutch-Belgian brigade went into the action 18,000 strong, and lost 90 officers and 2000 odd men. The Dutch-Belgian troops were placed in front of Picton’s division, a hopeless position to withstand the full weight of the French bombardment and d’Erlon’s attack. That they failed is no reflection upon their gallantry. After their retirement past Picton’s division they returned to take an important share in the action.