9,000 cavalry vs small ditch

Context: Marshal Ney led repeated, massive cavalry charges against the British center at Waterloo, but without infantry or artillery support, his forces were unable to break the defensive squares and suffered heavy losses. French author Victor Hugo’s novel *Les Misérables* famously includes a dramatic scene about the Battle of Waterloo, where a hidden “sunken lane” supposedly swallows up a quarter of Neys cavalry charge, leading to its failure. It’s a powerful moment in literature… but not in history. Historians later showed that Hugo greatly exaggerated—if not entirely invented—the myth of the lane turning into a cavalry trap. TLDR: Victor Hugo was a massive Napoleon fan so he invented a story about a ditch that stopped a brilliant cavalry charge and denied the French a victory

Hugo just couldnt accept that everything has its limit. Neys cavalry was great, but in the end it was still cavalry and subject to its weaknesses. Looking at it from another way, its quite the compliment that it took Wellington himself to defeat Napoleon/Ney.

Reminds me of the scene in Waterloo 1977 where Napoleon clearly critisizes his maneuver

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