Editing Battle of Waterloo (section)

===The Grand Battery starts its bombardment===
[[File:Battle of Waterloo.svg|thumb|upright=1.35|Map of the battle: Napoleon's units are in blue, Wellington's in red, Blücher's in grey]]
[[File:Battle of Waterloo, 18 June 1815 - sheet 2nd, crisis of the battle (Alison).jpg|thumb|upright=1.35|Detailed map of the crisis of the battle (''Atlas to Alison's history of Europe'')]]
The 80 guns of [[Grand Battery|Napoleon's ''grande batterie'']] drew up in the centre. These opened fire at 11:50, according to [[Rowland Hill, 1st Viscount Hill|Lord Hill]] (commander of the Anglo-allied II Corps),{{efn|"Lord Hill may be credited with having settled this minute question of fact. He took two watches with him into the fight, one a stop-watch, and he marked with it the sound of the first shot fired&nbsp;... At ten minutes to twelve the first heavy gun rang sullenly from the French ridge" {{harv|Fitchett|2006|loc=Chapter: King-making Waterloo}}.}} while other sources put the time between noon and 13:30.{{sfn|Barbero|2005|p=131}} The ''grande batterie'' was too far back to aim accurately, and the only other troops they could see were skirmishers of the regiments of Kempt and Pack, and [[Hendrik George de Perponcher Sedlnitsky|Perponcher]]'s 2nd Dutch division (the others were employing Wellington's characteristic "reverse slope defence").{{sfn|Hamilton-Williams|1993|p=286}}{{efn|The entire 1st brigade of the 2nd Dutch division, that had been on the forward slope during the night, withdrew to a position behind the ridge between the regiments of Kempt and Pack around 12:00 {{harv|Bas|Wommersom|1909|pp=332–333}}.}}

The bombardment caused a large number of casualties. Although some projectiles buried themselves in the soft soil, most found their marks on the reverse slope of the ridge. The bombardment forced the cavalry of the Union Brigade (in third line) to move to its left, to reduce their casualty rate.{{sfn|Hamilton-Williams|1993|p=287}}