WATERLOO
Why had the Emperor been so late in getting into motion on the
morning of the 16th? Why had he not started at five o’clock, and
caught Zieten’s corps unsupported? Why did he give Blücher time to
concentrate? Why did he not press the attack farther on the evening of
the day when the Prussians were in full retreat? Why did he fail to
give Grouchy the customary order to pursue with all the cavalry?
Satisfactory answers cannot be made. That Napoleon’s conceptions were
as grand as ever is apparent, but his failure in matters of detail is
equally clear. Perhaps mental and physical weariness after several
hours of sustained exertion and anxiety, furnish the most plausible
explanation of these errors.
At any rate, when he threw himself on his bed at Fluerus on the night
of the 16th, Napoleon was worn out. Yet he did not know the true state
of the Prussian army, nor what Ney had done at Quatre Bras. Soult sent
no dispatches to Ney, and Ney sent none to Soult.
The Emperor went to sleep _believing_ but not _knowing_ that Blücher
had been so badly battered that it would take him at least two days
to gather together the remnant of his army. More unfortunately still,
Napoleon believed that the Prussians had taken up a line of retreat
which would carry them beyond supporting distance of the English.
To the contrary of both these convictions of the Emperor, the bulk of
the Prussian army was preserving its formation, and Gneisenau, acting
for Blücher, who was believed to be dead or a prisoner, had directed
the retreat on Wavre. Thus the Prussians were keeping within supporting
distance of the English, although this was not Gneisenau’s motive in
issuing the order. He chose Wavre for the reason that at Wavre the
separated corps of the army could best reunite.
* * * * *
The morning of the 17th of June dawns, and Napoleon has Wellington in
his power. _But neither Wellington nor Napoleon knows it._ The Duke
does not know what has become of the Prussians, and the Emperor does
not know that the English are where he and Ney, acting in concert, can
utterly destroy them.
It seems incredible that Ney sent no report to Napoleon, and that the
Emperor sent no courier to Ney. But that is just the fact. It was
not until _after_ Wellington had received the report of the Prussian
retreat, had realized his peril, and was backing away from it, that
Napoleon awoke to a sense of the opportunity which fortune had held
for him all that morning, while he lay supinely upon his bed, or idly
talked Parisian politics with his officers.
When he _did_ realize what might have been, he was ablaze with a fierce
desire to make up for lost time. Too late. Wellington was already at a
safe distance, in full retreat on Brussels, and Ney had not molested
him by firing a single shot.
Soon the Emperor reached Quatre Bras, but what could he do? True, he
could dash after the English cavalry and chase it as the hunter chases
the hare, but even the rearguard of the enemy made good its escape.
They say that as the black storm cloud spread over the heavens to the
North the hills behind were still bathed in sunlight, and that as
the English officer, Lord Uxbridge, looked back, he saw a horseman
suddenly emerge from a dip in the road and appear on the hill in
front--and they knew it to be Napoleon, leading the pursuit.
A battery galloped up, took position, opened fire. And as it did so,
the thunder from the storm-cloud mingled with the thunder of the guns,
and the great rain of June 17th had begun to pour down.
“Gallop faster, men! For God’s sake, gallop, or you will be taken!” It
was Lord Uxbridge speeding his flying cavalry.
After them streamed the French. Almost, but not quite, the English were
overtaken. So close came the French that the English heard their curses
and jeers, just as Sir John Moore’s retreating men heard them as they
took to their boats after the death-grapple at Corunna.
Torrents of rain were pouring down. The roads became bogs. Where
the highways passed between embankments each road was a rushing
stream. Horses mired to their knees. Cannon carriages sank to the
hubs. The infantry was soaked with water and covered with mud. The
labor of getting forward was exhausting to man and beast. But the
French pressed on until they reached the hills opposite the heights
of Mont-Saint-Jean. Upon those heights, and between the French and
Brussels, Wellington had come to a stand.
A reconnaissance in force caused the English to unmask, and Napoleon
was happy. The English army was before him. That he would crush it on
the morrow, he had not the slightest doubt. He not only believed this,
but had good reason to believe it. Had not the Prussians gone away
to Namur, out of supporting distance? Such was his firm conviction,
based partly on the knowledge of what would be the natural course for
the retreating army to take, and partly on the report of his scouts.
Besides, had he not sent Grouchy, Vandamme, and Gérard to take care of
Blücher?
Could the great soldier believe that his lieutenants, trained in his
own school by years of service in the field, could manage so stupidly
as to allow the Prussians to take him in flank, while he was giving
battle to the English?
Regarding the vexed question as to whether the order given to Grouchy
was sufficient, a civilian can but say that it would seem that Grouchy
ought to have known what was expected of him even if he had not been
specially instructed. The very size of the army entrusted to him was
enough to denote its purpose. The fact that Napoleon was going after
Wellington and was sending Grouchy after Blücher said as plainly as
words, “You take care of Blücher, while I take care of Wellington.”
By necessary implication, the mere sending of Grouchy with 33,000 men
after Blücher meant that Grouchy’s mission was to keep the Prussians
off Napoleon while Napoleon was fighting the English.
This was the common sense of it, and the Emperor had every reason
to believe that no intelligent officer of his army could possibly
understand it otherwise.
Therefore, when he saw that Wellington meant to give battle, he felt
the stern joy of the warrior who expects a fair fight and a brilliant
victory.
To Napoleon, a victory there meant even more. It meant the possible
end of arduous warfare, an era of peace for France, the return to
his arms of his son, and the crowning of his wonderful career by the
continuation and completion of that system of internal improvements and
beneficent institutions to which Europe owes so much. Therefore, when
he plowed through the mud, drenched with rain, and went the rounds of
his army posts, peering through the mists toward the English lines,
listening for any sound of an army breaking camp to retreat, he was
happy to be convinced, “They mean to fight.”
No one could shake his belief that the Prussians had gone off toward
Namur. That they had retired by a parallel line with the English was
incredible. That Blücher would appear on the morrow, _and strike his
flank within two hours after the signal for battle was fired_, was a
thought which could not possibly have been driven into Napoleon’s head.
In vain did his brother Jerome tell him of what a servant of the inn
had overheard the English officers say, that very afternoon--that
Blücher was to come to their aid the next day. Napoleon scouted the
story. To his dying day, it is doubtful whether he believed that
Wellington’s decision to stay and fight was based upon the practical
certainty that Blücher would come to his aid. To that effect Blücher
had given his promise--and Wellington knew that Blücher was not the man
to make his ally a false promise to induce him to fight.
Although Napoleon had slept but little on Saturday night (the 17th)
and had been out in the rain and mud for hours making the rounds of
his outposts, a distance of two miles, he seemed fresh and cheerful at
breakfast, and chatted freely with his officers.
There was a question of fixing the hour of the attack. To give the
ground time to become drier and firmer under sun and wind, hour after
hour was suffered to pass. All this while the more energetic Blücher
was plowing his way toward the field, over ground just as wet. To a
civilian it would seem if the soil was firm enough to march on, it was
firm enough to fight on. If the Prussians could drag their artillery
through the defiles of the Lasne, the French should have been able to
handle theirs in the valleys of Smohaine and Braine-L’Alleud.
Therefore, it would seem to this writer that on the morning of June
18th, when Napoleon Bonaparte sat idly in his lines waiting for sun
and wind to harden the ground, he had no one but himself to blame
for giving Blücher time to reach the field. During these hours of
waiting it appears singular that no details of the plan of attack
were discussed. It seems strange that no preparations were made to
cannonade the château of Hougoumont and its outbuildings and walls. It
seems strange that no battery was planted to shell the farmhouses of La
Haye-Sainte. It seems equally strange that nails and hammers were not
provided for the spiking of captured cannon.
* * * * *
One of the most horribly fascinating of historical manuscripts is the
warrant against his enemies which Robespierre was signing when Bourdon
broke into the room and shot him. There is the incomplete signature
of the erstwhile Dictator, and there are the stains made by the blood
which spurted from his shattered jaw.
Even more profoundly interesting are a few words written in pencil by
Marshal Ney, upon an order which Soult was about to send to General
D’Erlon: “Count D’Erlon will understand that the action is to commence
on the left, not on the right. Communicate this new arrangement to
General Reilé.”
Why had the Emperor changed his mind? At St. Helena, he appears not to
have recalled the fact that he changed his plan of battle because Ney
reported that a small stream, which was on the line of advance to the
right, had been swollen by the rains and it was impassable.
Stonewall Jackson was one of the many military experts who studied the
field of Waterloo, and who said that the attack should have been made
on the right. It was there that Wellington was weakest. Had the French
struck him there, Hougoumont would have been worthless to him and would
not have cost such a frightful loss to the French. But the Emperor, at
the last moment, changed his mind.
THE LAST BATTLE
“_Magnificent! Magnificent!_” exclaimed Napoleon as he overlooked the
legions that were moving over the plateau, going into position.
Seated on his white mare, his gray dust-coat covering all but the front
of the green uniform, on his head the small cocked hat of the Brienne
school, silver spurs on the riding-boots which reached the knee, and
at his side the sword of Marengo--the great Captain was never more
radiant, never surer of success than now.
_Vive l’Empereur!_ rolled in thunder tones as the troops marched
before him. The drum-beat was drowned in the mighty shout of the
legions as they went down into the valley of the shadow of death.
It was, on the vastest scale, the old, old cry of the gladiators as
they trooped past the imperial box to take their stations in the
arena--“_Caesar! we, who are about to die, salute you!_”
As the regiments passed in review, the eagles were dipped to the
Emperor, every saber flashed in the sun, every bayonet waved a hat
or cap, every pennon was wildly shaken, every band struck up the
national air, “_Let us watch over the safety of the Empire_”--and over
everything, drowning the roll of the drums and the call of the bugles,
rose that frantic cry of frenzied devotion, “_Vive l’Empereur!_”
Napoleon’s eye dilated, his breast expanded with pride--for the
last time, the very last time. Proud he had often been, and in most
instances he had won the right to be so. On the heights of Rossomme
and on the plateau of La Belle Alliance, he was, this Sunday morning,
deservedly proud. He had reconquered an empire without drawing
the sword, had almost done what Pompey had boasted that he could
do--_called forth an army by the stamp of his foot_; had smitten his
enemies and put them to rout, and now while his lieutenant, on the
right, would “cut off the Prussians from Wellington,”--as Grouchy had
written that he would,--he, Napoleon, would crush the English, and so
win back peace with honor.
A more magnificent army than that which he proudly views has never
been marshalled for battle, for here are heroes whose record reaches
all the way back through Montmirail, Dresden, Wagram, Jena, Borodino,
Austerlitz, Eylau and Friedland, to Marengo.
And Napoleon is proud, this last time.
* * * * *
In the field Napoleon had 74,000 men and 246 guns; Wellington had
67,000 men and 184 guns. But the British position was strong. The
hollow road of Ohain gave them the benefit of its trench for 400 yards.
There were barricades of felled trees on the Brussels and Nivelles
roads. There was a sand-pit which served as an intrenchment, and the
strong buildings and enclosure of Hougoumont, La Haye-Sainte and
Papelotte were formidable defences.
Yet General Haxo, who was sent by Napoleon to inspect the enemy’s
lines, reported that he could not perceive any fortifications!
In addition to the hollow road, the natural advantage of the position
of the English was that, from the crest which they were to defend, the
ground fell away so as to form a declivity behind the crest, and along
this hillside the English were partially sheltered from the French fire
and altogether hidden from view. From where he was, Napoleon could not
see more than half of Wellington’s army. Another natural protection to
the English position were the tall, thick hedges, impassable to the
French cavalry.
All things considered, the attempt of the Emperor to break the center
of an English army, so well posted as this, can be fairly compared to
Lee’s efforts to storm the heights of Gettysburg. And in each case the
attack was made in ignorance of vitally important facts.
Well might Napoleon afterward reproach himself for not having
reconnoitered the English position.
* * * * *
At thirty-five minutes past eleven the first gun was fired.
Reillé had been ordered to occupy the approaches to Hougoumont, and
had entrusted the movement to Jerome Bonaparte. At the head of the
1st Light Infantry he charged the wood held by Nassau and Hanoverian
carbineers. An hour of furious fighting in the dense thickets--in which
General Bauduin was killed--resulted in clearing the woods of the
enemy; but on getting clear of the thicket the French found themselves
coming upon the strong walls and the large buildings of the château.
Jerome had no orders to lead infantry against a fortress like this,
but he did it, nevertheless. Wellington had thrown a garrison into
Hougoumont; the walls were loopholed for musketry; and the French were
led to slaughter. It was impossible for infantry to break these thick
walls of solid masonry, yet Jerome, in spite of the advice of his chief
of staff and the orders of his immediate superior, Reillé, persisted
until Hougoumont had cost the lives of 1,600 Frenchmen and had called
away from the main battle nearly 11,000 men.
Why it was that the walls were not breached with cannon before the
infantry was led against them can only be explained upon the hypothesis
that the Emperor never once thought his brother capable of so mad an
undertaking.
It was nearly one o’clock when Napoleon formed a battery of eighty guns
and was ready to make a great attack on the English center. Before
giving word to Ney, who was to lead it, the Emperor carefully scanned
the entire battlefield through his glass.
_What is that black cloud which has come upon the distant horizon,
there on the northeast?_ Every staff officer turns his glasses to the
heights of Chapelle-Saint-Lambert. “Trees,” say some. But Napoleon
knows better. Those are troops. But whose? Are they his? Is it Grouchy?
Suppose it is the advance guard of Blücher!
A hush, a chill falls upon the staff. A cavalry squad is sent to
reconnoiter; but before it has even cleared itself of the French
lines, a prisoner taken by Marbot’s hussars is brought to the Emperor.
This prisoner was the bearer of a letter from Bülow to Wellington to
announce the arrival of the Prussians! Even now the Emperor does not
realize his danger, does not suspect the truth of the situation, for
he believes that Grouchy is so maneuvering as to protect the French
right and to prevent the Prussians from falling on his flank. Napoleon
sends him the dispatch: “A letter which has just been intercepted tells
us that General Bülow is to attack our right flank. We believe we can
perceive the corps on the heights of Chapelle-Saint-Lambert. Therefore
do not lose a minute to draw nearer to us and to join us and crush
Bülow, whom you will catch in the very act.”
Immediately the Emperor detached the cavalry divisions of Domon and
Subervie to the right to be ready to hold the Prussians in check, and
the 6th Corps (Lobau) was ordered to move up behind this cavalry.
_Thus from half-past one in the afternoon Napoleon had two armies with
which to deal._
Had he suspected that Blücher had left Thielman’s corps to amuse
Grouchy while the bulk of the Prussian army was hastening to join Bülow
on the right flank of the French, the Emperor would probably not have
gone deeper into this fight. Expecting every moment to hear the roar
of Grouchy’s guns in Bülow’s rear, the Emperor now ordered Ney to the
grand attack on the English line.
Eighty cannon thundered against Mont-Saint-Jean, and the English
batteries roared in reply. For half an hour the earth quivered with the
shock, and in Brussels, twenty miles away, every living soul hung upon
the roar of the guns. Merchants closed their stores; business of all
sorts suspended; eager crowds hurried to the Namur gate to listen, to
question stragglers from the front; timid travellers, who had come in
the train of Wellington’s army, hastily secured conveyances and fled by
the Ghent road. In the churches, women prayed.
Is Blücher the only man who could play the game of leaving a part of
his troops to detain the enemy? Cannot Grouchy leave 10,000 men to die,
if necessary, in holding Thielman, while with the remainder he pushes
for the distant battlefield?
There are those who say he could not have arrived in time had he made
the effort. How can anybody know that? Certainly his cavalry could have
covered the distance, and the infantry in all probability would have
arrived in time to take the exhausted English in the rear, after their
advance to La Belle Alliance, and cut the surprised troops to pieces.
Thus while the Prussians were chasing Napoleon, Grouchy would have been
chasing Wellington, with the net result that the Prussians, within a
few days, would have been caught between Napoleon’s rallied troops and
the victorious army of Grouchy. But it was not to be so. Grouchy did
precisely what Blücher wanted him to do--spent the golden hours with
Thielman at Wavre.
After the cannonade of half an hour, Ney and D’Erlon led the grand
attack on the English position. And a worse managed affair it would
be difficult to imagine. Instead of forming columns of attack,
admitting of easy and rapid deployment, the troops were massed in
compact phalanxes, with a front of 166 to 200 files, with a depth
of twenty-four men. The destruction which canister causes on dense
masses like these, exposed in the open field, is something horrible
to contemplate. The error was so glaring that one of the division
commanders, Durutte, flatly refused to allow his men to be formed in
that way.
Where was the eagle glance of Napoleon that he did not detect the
faulty formation which Ney and D’Erlon were making? Is such a detail
beneath the notice of a commander-in-chief?
If the Emperor saw the mistake he gave no sign, and the troops of
D’Erlon, ashamed of not having been in the fights of the 16th, rushed
into the valley shouting, “_Vive l’Empereur!_”
“Into the jaws of death” they marched, for as they crossed the valley
and mounted the slopes beyond, the English batteries cut long lanes
through their deep, dense lines and they fell by the hundreds.
A part of the attacking force was thrown against the walls and
buildings of La Haye-Sainte, and here, as at Hougoumont, infantry were
slaughtered from behind unbreached walls. But the great charge against
the English position went on heedless of such detail as the attack on
La Haye-Sainte. Through the rye, which was breast-high, and over ground
into which they mired at every step, the columns of D’Erlon pressed
upward, crying “_Vive l’Empereur!_”
The defenders of the sand pit were driven out and thrown beyond the
hedges. The Netherlanders and Dutch broke, and in their flight behind
the hedges disordered the ranks of an English regiment. The Nassau
troops, which held the Papelotte farm, were dislodged by the French
under Durutte, and the great charge seemed to be on the point of
succeeding. But the faulty formation of the attacking columns ruined
all. When the attempt was made to deploy, so much time was consumed
that the English gunners had only to fire at the dense mass of men
to litter the earth with the wounded and the dead. The carnage was
frightful.
Picton, the English general, seeing the efforts of the French to
deploy, seized the opportunity, led a brigade against the French
column, delivered a volley, and then ordered a bayonet charge. Pouring
from behind the hedges, the English rushed upon the confused mass of
French, and a terrible fight at close quarters took place. It was here
that Picton was killed.
While the column of Donzelot was engaged in this desperate struggle,
the column of Marcognet had broken through the hedges and was advancing
to take a battery. But as the French shouted “Victory,” the sound of
the bag-pipes was heard, and the Highlanders opened fire. Owing to
their faulty formation, the French could only reply by a volley from
the front line of a single battalion. Their only hope was to charge
with the bayonet. While desperately engaged with the Scotch troops,
Lord Uxbridge dashed upon them with his cavalry.
The issue could not be doubtful. The French could not deploy; the
confused mass could not defend itself against infantry or cavalry. They
were raked by cannon shot, and by musketry, and the English cavalry
hacked them to pieces. The slaughter was pitiable and was mainly due to
a formation which gave these brave men no chance to fight.
In their exultation the English carried their charges too far. The
Scotch Greys, indeed, dashed up the slope upon which the French were
posted, captured the division of batteries of Durutte and attempted
to carry the main battery. Napoleon himself ordered the countercharge
which swept the English cavalry beyond La Haye-Sainte.
All this while, Jerome Bonaparte was still assaulting Hougoumont.
Defenders and assailants had each been reinforced. The Emperor ordered
a battery of howitzers to shell the buildings. Fire broke out, and
the château and its outbuildings were consumed. The English threw
themselves into the chapel, the barn, the farmer’s house, a sunken
road, and continued to hold the position.
It was now half-past three o’clock. Wellington and Napoleon were both
becoming uneasy--the former because Blücher’s troops were not yet in
line, the latter because he had begun to doubt that Grouchy would come.
The Emperor ordered Ney to make another attack on La Haye-Sainte. The
English, from behind hedges of the Ohain road, repulsed it.
While the movement was being made the main French battery of eighty
guns cannonaded the English right center. “Never had the oldest
soldiers heard such a cannonade,” said General Alten.
The English line moved back a short distance so as to get the
protection of the edge of the plateau. Ney, mistaking this movement,
ordered a cavalry charge. At first he meant to use a brigade only, but
owing to some misunderstanding that cannot be cleared up, this intended
charge of a brigade drew into it practically all the cavalry of the
French army. Napoleon himself did not see what was happening. From his
position near the “Maison Decoster” inn, Napoleon did not have a view
of the ground in which the cavalry divisions were forming for this
premature disastrous attack.
The English saw it all, and were glad to see it. What better could they
ask? Their lines had not been disordered by artillery or by infantry;
what had they to fear from cavalry? Nothing. They sprang up, formed
squares and waited. The English gunners, whose batteries were in front,
were ordered to reserve their fire till the last moment, and then to
take shelter within the squares.
As the French advanced, they were exposed to the full fury of the
English batteries. The slope up which the cavalry rode is not steep,
but the tall grain and the deep mud made it extremely difficult.
Yet this magnificent body of horse, in spite of dreadful losses, drove
the gunners from the batteries and took the guns!
But they had nothing to spike them with, they could not drag them away,
they did not even break the cannon sponges.
Therefore when they found that the English infantry was not in
disorder, but in squares upon whose walls of steel no impression could
be made; when they fell into confusion because of their own numbers
crowded in so small a space, when Uxbridge’s five thousand fresh horses
were hurled upon the jaded French, and they fell back before the shock,
the English gunners had but to run back to their guns and renew the
murderous cannonade.
Yet no sooner had the wonderful soldiers of Milhaud and
Lefebre-Desnoette reached the bottom of the valley than they charged
up the muddy slopes again. Once more they drove in the cannoneers:
once more they carried the heights, and fell upon the English squares.
At this moment some of the English officers believed that the battle
was lost. But Napoleon watched the cavalry charge with uneasiness and
called it “premature.” Soult declared that “Ney is compromising us as
he did at Jena.”
The Emperor said, “This has taken place an hour too soon, but we must
stand by what is already done.” Then he sent to Kellerman and Guyot an
order to charge. This carried into action the remaining cavalry. It was
now after five o’clock.
In a space which offered room for the deployment of only one thousand,
eight or nine thousand French cavalry went to fight unbroken infantry!
A storm of cannon balls broke upon these dense masses, and the
slaughter was terrific, but nothing stopped the French. Again they
swept past the guns, again they assaulted the squares, time and again
and again--while an enfilading fire emptied saddles by the hundred
at every volley. Some of the squares were broken, an English flag was
captured, the German Legion lost its colors, the French horse rode
through the English line, to be destroyed by the batteries in reserve.
Wellington had taken refuge within a square, but he now came out and
ordered a charge of his cavalry. For the third time the French were
driven off the plateau.
Yet Ney, losing his head completely, led another cavalry charge! Again
ran the gunners away from the batteries, and again the cavalry broke on
the squares. In fact, the wounded and dead were piled so high in front
of the squares that each had a hideous breastwork before it which made
it almost impossible for the French to reach the English.
Inasmuch as the Emperor had decided to support Ney in his cavalry
charges, it seems strange that neither he nor Ney used the infantry.
The 6,000 men of the Bachelu and Foy division were close by, watching
the cavalry charges and eager to support them. As Ney was personally
leading the cavalry, it is easy to understand how he came to forget
everything else; but the Emperor’s failure to send in this infantry is
not readily understood.
Only after the fourth charge of the cavalry had been repulsed, did Ney
call in the infantry. But he was too late; the English batteries tore
this closely packed body of men to shreds, and in a few minutes 1,500
had fallen and the column was in retreat.
It was now six o’clock. La Haye-Sainte was at length taken, with great
loss of life on both sides. From this point of vantage Ney assailed
the English lines. The sand pit was again abandoned by the enemy, and
Ney used this and a mound near La Haye-Sainte to pour a destructive
fire upon the center of Wellington’s line. The French infantry charged,
drove the English, captured a flag, and there was now a gap in the very
center of the English line. Wellington was in a critical condition, and
had the Old Guard charged _then_, neither Blücher nor night might have
come in time.
Ney saw the opportunity and sent to the Emperor for a few infantry to
complete the work. “Troops?” exclaimed Napoleon to the officer who
brought Ney’s message. “Where do you expect me to get them? Do you
expect me to make them?”
At the same moment, one of Wellington’s lieutenants sent for
reinforcements. “There are none,” he said. Suppose that at this moment
Napoleon could have hurled on the English line the 16,000 men who were
holding back the Prussians!
Yet the fact is that the Emperor had in hand fourteen battalions
which had not been engaged, and what amazes the civilian is that,
after refusing to take advantage of the impression Ney had made upon
the enemy’s line, Napoleon organized another general advance against
Mont-Saint-Jean an hour later.
* * * * *
Ever since two o’clock the Prussians had been operating on the French
right wing. Bülow’s corps was having a bloody struggle with Lobau
and the Young Guard. Time and again the Prussians were thrown back;
time and again they returned to the attack. At the instant when Ney
was demanding more troops, Lobau’s corps was in retreat and the Young
Guard was driven out of Plancenoit. Napoleon’s own position on La Belle
Alliance was threatened. To prevent the Prussians from coming upon his
rear, the Emperor sent in eleven battalions of the Old Guard which,
with fixed bayonets and without firing a shot, drove the Prussians out
of Plancenoit and chased them six hundred yards.
It was now after seven o’clock. There were still two hours of daylight.
In the distance were heard the guns of Grouchy; the sound seemed to
draw nearer. The Emperor, counting too much on Grouchy always, believed
that at last his tardy lieutenant was engaged with the bulk of the
Prussian army, and that he himself would have to deal with the corps of
Bülow only.
The Emperor swept the field of battle with his glass. On the right,
Durutte’s division held Papelotte and La Haye and was advancing up the
slope toward the English line. On the left, Jerome had stormed the
burning château of Hougoumont, and the Lancers had crossed the Nivelles
road. In the center, and above La Haye-Sainte, the French were driving
the enemy along the Ohain road. The valley was crowded with the wrecks
of broken French regiments.
Placing himself at the head of nine battalions of the Old Guard,
Napoleon led it down into the valley, spoke to his men briefly, and
launched them against the enemy. It was too late. A deserter had given
Wellington full notice of the preparations for the attack and he had
thrown reinforcements into the weak portions of his line. The arrival
of Zeiten’s Prussians relieved the flanking squadrons of Vivian and
Vandeleur, and Wellington now had 2,600 fresh horsemen to throw into
the fight.
At full gallop, the Prussian Commissioner to the Allies, Muffling, rode
to Zeiten, exclaiming, “The battle is lost if you do not go to the
Duke’s rescue.”
On came the Prussians, striking the French flank from Smohain, and in
spite of all the personal exertions of the Emperor, a panic spread
throughout that part of his army.
Couriers had been sent all along the line to tell the French that
Grouchy was approaching. Yet the battle on the right where Lobau and
the Young Guard were struggling to keep Bülow back must have been known
to thousands of the troops. Then, when they actually saw the Prussians
taking them in flank, all their fears of treachery were intensified and
they were filled with terror.
But the Emperor had raised his arm to strike the enemy one final blow
and he could not stay his hand. Even had he tried to recall Ney,
D’Erlon, Reillé, it is doubtful whether the situation would have been
improved. There was so much confusion, so many shattered commands,
that an orderly retreat had become impossible.
Encouraged by the report that Grouchy had come, the charging columns
shouted “_Vive l’Empereur!_” and passed on.
Freeing himself from the fifth horse which had been shot under him that
day, the dauntless Ney went forward on foot, sword in hand. Losing
terribly at every step, the French advanced up the slope. They took
some batteries, they almost gained the Crest; but suddenly Maitland’s
Guards, 2,000 strong, sprang up out of the wheat where they had been
lying concealed, and poured a deadly volley into the French. Why was
there no officer with presence of mind enough to cry then, “_Give them
the bayonet_”? That was the one hope of the French. Instead of doing
this, the officers tried to place the men in line so as to exchange
volleys with the enemy. Fatal mistake. Wellington, noting the confusion
and the hesitation, took advantage of it like a good soldier.
“Up, Guards, and at ’em!” cried the Duke.
“Forward, boys, now is your time!” cried Colonel Saltoun.
The French, fighting frantically, were beaten back to the orchard of
Hougoumont.
Here a fresh battalion (4th Chasseurs) came to the relief of the
retreating French, and the English returned rapidly to their own lines.
Once more the Old Guard moves up the muddy slope, under the tremendous
cannonade of the English guns. As they cross the Ohain road, an English
brigade opens four lines of fire upon their flank; Maitland’s Guards
and Halkett’s brigade oppose them in front; and a Hanoverian brigade,
coming from the hedges of Hougoumont, fire upon them from the rear. The
finishing blow is Colborn’s charge with fixed bayonets.
“The guard gives way!” rings over the battlefield--a wail of despair,
of terror.
“Treachery!” is the cry throughout the field.
Now is the time to make an end of this panic-stricken army, and
Wellington, spurring to the crest, waves his hat--the signal for an
advance all along the line.
As night closes in, the English army, 40,000 strong, rush down the
bloody, corpse-strewn slope, trampling the wounded and the dead,
crying, “No Quarter!”
The drum, the bugle, the bagpipe quicken the march of the English and
the flight of the French. Making no stand at La Haye-Sainte, none at
Hougoumont, none anywhere, the French army, already honeycombed with
suspicion, dissolves in terror. Never had so strong a war-weapon shown
itself so brittle.
Napoleon was at La Haye-Sainte, forming another column of attack which
he meant to lead in person, when he looked up and saw the Old Guard
falter and stop.
“They are confused. All is lost!” Hoping to stem the tide of the
English advance and to establish rallying points for his flying troops,
he formed four squares from a column of the Old Guard which had not
been engaged. These he posted above La Haye-Sainte. As the English
horsemen came on, they dashed in vain against these walls of steel and
fire. But nothing so frail as four squares could arrest the advance of
40,000 men. The English cavalry poured through the gaps which separated
the squares and continued their headlong pursuit of the terrified
French.
When the English infantry came up and raked the squares with musketry;
when the English batteries began to hail grapeshot upon them, the
Emperor gave the order to abandon the position. Attended by a small
escort he galloped to the height of La Belle Alliance.
The three squares fell back, slowly, steadily, surrounded on all sides
by the enemy. With the regularity of the paradeground these matchless
soldiers of the Old Guard halted to fire, to reform their ranks, and
then move on again.
“Fugitives from the battlefield looked back from the distance and
marked the progress of the retreat by the regular flash of these guns.”
On that black valley of death and vast misfortune it was the repeated
flashes of lightning irradiating a stormcloud.
Filled with admiration and sympathy, let us hope, an English officer
cried out, “Surrender!”
And Cambronne shot out the word which Victor Hugo indecently glorified,
but which with convincing emphasis spurned the very thought of
surrender. The squares, unbroken, reached the summit of La Belle
Alliance, where Cambronne fell, apparently dead, from a ball which
struck him in the face.
It was here that the Prussians, who had at last broken in on the right,
bore down on the squares. Assailed by overwhelming odds--infantry,
artillery, cavalry--they were destroyed.
Several hundred yards back there were two battalions of the Old Guard,
formed in squares. Within one of these squares was the Emperor.
Planting a battery of 12-pounders, he made a final effort to check the
pursuit and to rally his troops. The Guard’s call to arms was sounded,
but the fugitives continued to pour by and none rallied. The battery
exhausted its ammunition and the gunners, refusing to fly, were cut
down by the English hussars.
Upon the squares themselves the enemy could make no impression until
overpowering masses of Prussian and English infantry came up. Then the
Emperor ordered a retreat. In good order these veterans marched off the
field, stopping from time to time to fire a volley upon their pursuers.
At the farm of Le Caillou the battalion formed in column, and on its
flank slowly rode the Emperor, reeling with fatigue, so that he had
to be supported in the saddle. His bridle reins were loose upon his
horse’s neck.