The British Infantry Square | Why Napoleon's Cavalry Couldn't Break It

Cavalry could not break an infantry square. Not usually — couldn’t. Then, on a hillside in Spain in 1812, three of them came apart in a single afternoon. What broke the first one was a horse that was already dead. Nine thousand French horsemen threw themselves at British squares at Waterloo for more than two hours. Every square held. This video is about why — and about the one day it didn’t work. What’s inside: • What a square actually was (and why it usually wasn’t square) • Standing in the front rank — kneeling, bayonet braced, forbidden to fire • Why the bayonets weren’t really doing the work • The trade every commander hated: stop the cavalry, become a gift to the artillery • García Hernández, 23 July 1812 — the dying horse, the gap, and the collapse that spread • The charge from the saddle: why circling a square beat charging it SOURCES • Beamish, N.L. (1837), History of the King’s German Legion, Vol. II, pp. 80–87 — archive.org/details/historykingsger00beamgoog • Rickard, J. (20 Feb 2018), Combat of Garcia Hernandez, 23 July 1812 — historyofwar.org/articles/combat_garcia_hernandez.html • Keegan, J., The Face of Battle — erenow.org/ww/thefaceofbattlekeeganjohn/3.php • National Army Museum — nam.ac.uk/explore/battle-waterloo • National Army Museum Collection — collection.nam.ac.uk/detail.php?acc=1975-05-7-2 • Britannica — Battle of Waterloo — britannica.com/event/Battle-of-Waterloo • britishbattles.com — Battle of Waterloo • Bassford, C., Clausewitz in English, Ch. 3 — clausewitzstudies.org Subscribe to Musket & Spear for more from the age of muskets, empires and the armies that met them. #history #napoleonic #waterloo #militaryhistory #peninsularwar #documentary