The Napoleon of the Italian campaign had said: “The Austrians lose
battles because they do not know the value of fifteen minutes.”
Alas! Neither the Emperor nor his lieutenants now seemed to know the
value of time.
In former years the French moved forward before dawn. In this final
campaign, upon which all was staked, they started late and they moved
slowly, when the enemy was crowding into every minute the utmost that
human energy could achieve.
Standing upon the roof of the mill-tower, Napoleon could not perceive
the full strength of Blücher’s position. To the Emperor it seemed that
the enemy was posted opposite to him on a slope leading upward to a low
range of hills with the village of Sombreff in the center. From the
tower he could not see the importance of the small river Ligne, with
the ravine formed by the broken ground and the stream itself. In the
center of the valley was the village of Ligny, in which stood an old
castle, and a church surrounded by a cemetery enclosed by brick walls.
Through this village runs the stream of Ligne. There were several other
villages in the valley between the two opposing ranges of hills. The
Prussian position was in reality strong, with this weakness--the open
slope revealed all the movements made over it, and exposed the troops
to the cannon of the French.
It was not till long after two o’clock that the French were ready
to attack. Then the battery of the Guard fired the signal guns, and
Vandamme dashed upon the enemy, while the military bands played
“La victoire enchantant.” The Prussians posted in the village, the
cemetery, the church, the orchards, the houses, fought desperately.
Entrenched in the old castle and in the farm buildings, they raked the
advancing French with a terrible fire, which littered the ground with
the dead and wounded. Under the cannonade of the French, houses burst
into flames. The villages became a roaring hell, in which the maddened
soldiers fought from house to house, in the streets, in the square,
with a ferocity which amazed the oldest officers. No quarter was asked
or given.
Driven over the Ligne, the Prussians lined the left bank, and across
this brook the soldiers shot each other, with guns only a few feet
apart. In the houses wounded men were being burned to death, and their
frightful cries rang out above the roar of battle. The hot day of June
was made hotter by the fierce flames which wrapped the buildings;
clouds hung in the heavens, and the smoke from the guns, dense and
foul, was pierced by tongues of fire from the blazing houses and by the
flashes of the guns as Prussians and Frenchmen shot each other down.
After four charges in force; after sanguinary hand-to-hand fights for
every hedge and wall and house; after the fiercest struggle for the
brook, the Prussians fell back--the French pouring over the bridges.
That Blücher had failed to blow up the bridges was a disastrous mistake.
But this was only the right wing of Blücher’s army; the center and the
left wing were unhurt. Blücher came down from his observatory, on the
roof of the mill of Bussy, to order in person a movement on Wagnalée,
from which the Prussians would take the French in flank. While the
Prussians, reanimated by the presence of “Old Marshal Forwards,” sprang
forward with cheers, and began to drive the French back, Napoleon made
ready for his master-stroke.
Ney at Quatre Bras is in the rear of the Prussians. Let him merely hold
in check whatever force of English is coming from Brussels, and detach
D’Erlon with his 20,000 men to fall upon the Prussian flank and rear.
This done, 60,000 Prussians will be slaughtered or captured.
Directly to D’Erlon flew the order to march to the rear of the Prussian
right. Colonel de Forbin-Janson, who carried the order to D’Erlon, was
instructed to inform Ney, also.
This order had been sent at two o’clock. It was now half-past five.
At six the Emperor expected to hear the thunder of D’Erlon’s cannon
in the rear of the Prussian army. As soon as he should hear that he
would send in his reserves,--hurling them at the enemy’s center,--cut
through, block its retreat on Sombreff, and drive it back upon the
guns of Vandamme and D’Erlon. For the 60,000 men of Zeiten and Pirch
there would be no escape. The Emperor was greatly elated. In order
to annihilate Blücher and end the war with a clap of thunder it was
only necessary that Ney obey orders. So thought Napoleon. He said to
Gérard, “It is possible that three hours hence the fate of the war may
be decided.” To Ney himself he had written, “The fate of France is in
your hands.”
With a soul full of the pride of success, the Emperor made his
dispositions for the final blow.
But what thunder-cloud is that which suddenly darkens the radiant sky?
Away off there to the left, Vandamme’s scouts have caught sight of
a column of twenty or thirty thousand troops who march as if their
intention is to turn the French flank. An aide-de-camp sent by Vandamme
dashes across the field to carry this fateful message to the Emperor.
Thus, with hand uplifted to strike Blücher down, he must not deal the
blow--his own flank is exposed. It does not occur to Napoleon that this
column on the left may be D’Erlon’s corps, going in a wrong direction,
by mistake. Vandamme had said they were the enemy; D’Erlon had no
business to be _there_; the column _must_ be Prussian or English.
Nothing can be done until an aide-de-camp can ride several miles,
reconnoiter, ride back and report. The grand attack is delayed until
this can be done.
At length the aide-de-camp returns and reports that the suspicious
column is D’Erlon’s corps.
Filled with chagrin for not having guessed as much, and with rage for
the precious hour of daylight lost, the Emperor gives the word, the
grand attack begins.
Black clouds have been gathering over the winding stream of Ligne,
along whose banks the fighting has raged for several miles. The
lightning now begins to flash and the thunder to roll, but even the
voice of the storm is lost in the more terrible voice of battle as
Napoleon’s batteries turn every gun on Ligny.
The Old Guard deploys in columns of attack; cuirassiers make ready to
dash forward; the drums beat the charge, and the splendid array moves
onward amid deafening peals of “_Vive l’Empereur!_”
Blücher has stripped his center to feed his right: he has no reserves:
and the whole strength of Napoleon’s power smites the Prussian center.
It is swept away. As Soult wrote Davout: “It was like a scene on the
stage.”
The sun is now about to go down--the storm is over--and Blücher gets
a view of the whole field. His army has been cut in two. Desperately
he calls in the troops on his right; desperately he gallops to his
squadrons on the left to lead them to the charge. Bravely they come
on in the gathering gloom to fling themselves against the French. In
vain--torn by musketry and charged by the cuirassiers, they fall back.
Blücher’s horse is shot down and falls on his rider.
“Nostitz, now I am lost!” cries the old hero to his adjutant.
But the French dash by without noticing these two Prussians, and when
the Prussians, in a countercharge, pass over the same ground, Blücher’s
horse is lifted and the old Marshal borne from the field.
Night puts an end to the conflict and saves the Prussian army
from annihilation. Had the attack been made when Napoleon first
ordered, there would have been no Blücher to rescue Wellington at
Mont-Saint-Jean.
The carnage of the day had been prodigious. Twelve thousand Prussians
and eighty-five hundred Frenchmen strewed the villages, the ravine, and
the plain. At this cost the great Captain won his last victory.
As he returned to Fluerus that night Napoleon’s heart must have been
very heavy. The fortune of France had slipped through his fingers.
The enemy should have been destroyed. Had his orders been obeyed,
Blücher’s army would have been swept off the face of the earth. As it
was, Blücher had simply received one of the ordinary drubbings to which
he was so much accustomed that he was not even discouraged. Neither his
staff nor his troops were demoralized. They had given way to an onset
which they could not withstand; but they meant to reform, retreat to
another position, and fight again.
Most of those who have written of Ligny and of the fatality which
deprived both Ney and the Emperor of D’Erlon,--whose corps would have
accomplished such decisive results had it gone into action at either
Ligny or Quatre Bras,--dwell upon the ignorance and presumption of the
staff-officer, Col. Laurent, who took it upon himself to direct the
march of D’Erlon’s leading column upon Ligny when it was upon its way
to Quatre Bras.
But it seems to me that had the staff-officer not turned D’Erlon’s
corps away from Quatre Bras and toward Ligny, the Emperor’s own order,
sent by Forbin-Janson, would have brought about precisely the same
result.