The French, for their part, now revealed another division set up in line on the left hand side of the ridge. They therefore effectively had an unbroken line of infantry across the entire table's edge.
The artillery of the left hand division now switched targets to the enemy infantry on the ridge, and immediately forced one battalion to retreat in disorder. Excellent!
This left not only a hole in the French line, but led to the more central of two brigades facing my left retreating back behind the ridge in the face of the advance of the corps artillery in the centre.
This obviously left the other brigade isolated, so my left hand division moved forward and prepared to assault. A round of fire peppered my line, but I still had plenty of troops for the attack.
Unfortunately, the corps artillery were then told to move immediately to the right (a "blunder"), meaning that the French brigade that had moved back could now move forward again. In tactical terms, my left hand division could now punch up the hill and destroy one French brigade, but would then be destroyed in turn by the other.
This was not something I was prepared to accept, so my infantry fired one round with their Needle Guns, and then retreated back out of Chassepot range.
This doesn't seem in keeping with my orders, but the good news was that I had received reinforcements in the shape of another division of infantry behind my right flank.
This division kept in column and punched up the right hand side of the battlefield, aiming to hit the left hand brigade of French infantry. Behind my reinforcements were the four regiments of Corps cavalry, Cuirrassiers to the front.
