 Kennedy formed Von
Alten’s Division, each battalion (or pair of battalions) in column on
a front of two companies, whence they at first formed line to re-form
column and square when attacked by cavalry. The whole of the front was
covered by skirmishers. But it will be noticed again how much stronger
the right wing is than the left, owing to the rooted and unfounded
conviction that Wellington held that his right would be chiefly
assailed. And yet it is evident that if the weak left wing were once
broken through, the battle might be lost. Thus the proposed point of
junction of the Allied armies, the junction that could alone inflict a
telling disaster on the French, this which was all-important to allied
as distinctive from local success, was more or less _en l’air_.

On the French side also there were three lines, and these formed and
marched in eleven columns, of which four were to form the first, four
the second, and three the third line. They executed the movement in the
most perfect order.

The first line was composed of Reille’s Corps, 15,000 strong, in two
lines of columns, ranks three deep, and having on its left the light
cavalry of the corps (fifteen squadrons in three lines); and D’Erlon’s
Corps (16,000 strong and similarly formed), the eleven squadrons of its
own light cavalry in three lines being on its right.

The second line was composed of, from the left, Kellerman’s
Cuirassiers; in two lines fifty feet apart, Lobau’s Corps, in mass of
battalion columns; and the light cavalry of Daumont and Subervie and
Milhaud’s Cuirassiers.

In the third line was Guyot’s heavy cavalry of the Guard, then the
Guard itself, drawn up in a column six lines deep, and on its right the
Lancers and Chasseurs of the Guard under Lefebvre.

When any attack was made, the attacking force formed into a smaller
number of larger columns (D’Erlon’s Corps, for example, forming five),
and all were thickly covered by light infantry skirmishers.

The artillery was more or less massed, especially on the right, and