understand. Every general must, in the nature of war, misjudge to some
extent the nature of his opponent's movements, but the shocking errors
into which bad staff work led him in this his last campaign are quite
exceptional.
Wellington wrote to Blucher, on his arrival at the field of Quatre Bras,
at about half-past ten in the morning, a note which distinctly left
Blucher to understand that he might expect English aid during his
forthcoming battle with Napoleon at Ligny. He did not say so in so many
words, but he said: "My forces are at such and such places," equivalent,
that is, to saying, "My forces can come up quite easily, for they are
close by you," adding: "I do not see any large force of the enemy in front
of us; and I await news from your Highness, and the arrival of troops, in
order to determine my operations for the day."
In this letter, moreover, he said in so many words that his reserve, the
large body upon which he mainly depended, would be within three miles of
him by noon, the British cavalry within seven miles of him at the same
hour.
Then he rode over to see Blucher on the field of Ligny before Napoleon's
attack on that general had begun. He got there at about one o'clock.
An acrimonious discussion has arisen as to whether he promised to come up
and help Blucher shortly afterwards or not, but it is a discussion beside
the mark, for, in the first place, Wellington quite certainly _intended_
to come up and help the Prussians; and in the second place, he was quite
as certainly _unable_ to do so, for the French opposition under Ney which
he had under-estimated, turned out to be a serious thing.
But his letter, and his undoubted intention to come up and help Blucher,
depended upon his belief that the units of his army were all fairly close,
and that by, say, half-past one he would have the whole lot occupying the
heights of Quatre Bras.
Now, as a fact, the units of Wellington's command were scattered all over
the place, and it is astonishing to note the discrepancy between his idea
of their position and their real position on the morning of the day when
Quatre Bras was fought. When one appreciates what that discrepancy was,
one has a measure of the bad staff work that was being done under
Wellington at the moment.
[Illustration]
The plan (p. 127)[12] distinguishes between the real positions of
Wellington's command on the morning of the 16th when he was writing his
letter to Blucher and the positions which Wellington, in that letter,
erroneously ascribes to them. It will show the reader the wide difference
there was between Wellington's idea of where his troops were and their
actual position on that morning. It needs no comment. It is sufficient in
itself to explain why the action at Quatre Bras consisted not in a set
army meeting and repelling the French (it could have destroyed them as
things turned out, seeing Erlon's absence), but in the perpetual arrival
of separate and hurried units, which went on from midday almost until
nightfall.
IV
THE ALLIED RETREAT AND FRENCH ADVANCE UPON WATERLOO AND WAVRE
When the Prussians had concentrated to meet Napoleon at Ligny they had
managed to collect, in time for the battle, three out of their four army
corps.
These three army corps were the First, the Second, and the Third, and, as
we have just seen, they were defeated.
But, as we have also seen, they were not thoroughly defeated. They were
not disorganised, still less were the bulk of them captured and disarmed.
Most important of all, they were free to retreat by any road that did not
bring them against their victorious enemy. In other words, they were free
to retreat to the north as well as to the east.
The full importance of this choice will, after the constant reiteration of
it in the preceding pages, be clear to the reader. A retreat towards the
east, and upon the line of communications which fed the Prussian army,
would have had these two effects: First, it would have involved in the
retirement that fresh Fourth Army Corps under Bulow which had not yet come
into action, and which numbered no less than 32,000 men. For it lay to the
east of the battlefield. In other words, that army corps would have been
wasted, and the whole of the Prussian forces would have been forced out of
the remainder of the campaign. Secondly, it would have finally separated
Blucher and his Prussians from Wellington's command. The Duke, with his
western half of the allied forces, would have had to stand up alone to the
mass of Napoleon's army, which would, after the defeat of the Prussians at
Ligny, naturally turn to the task of defeating the English General.
Now the fact of capital importance upon which the reader must concentrate
if he is to grasp the issue of the campaign is the fact that the French
staff fell into an error as to the true direction of the Prussian retreat.
Napoleon, Soult, and all the heads of the French army were convinced that
the Prussian retreat _was_ being made by that eastern road.
As a fact, the Prussians, under the cover of darkness, had retired _not_
east but north.
The defeated army corps, the First, Second, and Third, did not fall back
upon the fresh and unused Fourth Corps; they left it unhampered to march
northward also; and all during the darkness the Prussian forces, as a
whole, were marching in roughly parallel columns upon Wavre and its
neighbourhood.
It was this escape to the north instead of the east that made it possible
for the Prussians to effect their junction with Wellington upon the day of
Waterloo; but it must not be imagined that this supremely fortunate
decision to abandon the field of their defeat at Ligny in a northerly
rather than an easterly direction was at first deliberately conceived by
the Prussians with the particular object of effecting a junction with
Wellington later on.
In the first place, the Prussians had no idea what line Wellington's
retreat would take. They knew that he was particularly anxious about his
communications with the sea, and quite as likely to move westward as
northward when Napoleon should come against him.
The full historical truth, accurately stated, cannot be put into the
formula, "The Prussians retreated northward in order to be able to join
Wellington two days later at Waterloo." To state it so would be to read
history backwards, and to presuppose in the Prussian staff a knowledge of
the future. The true formula is rather as follows:--"The Prussians retired
northward, and not eastward, because the incompleteness of their defeat
permitted them to do so, and thus at once to avoid the waste of their
Fourth Army Corps and to gain positions where they would be able, if
necessity arose, to get news of what had happened to Wellington."
In other words, to retreat northwards, though the decision to do so
depended only upon considerations of the most general kind, was wise
strategy, and the opportunity for that piece of strategy was seized; but
the retreat northwards was not undertaken with the specific object of at
once rejoining Wellington.
It must further be pointed out that this retreat northwards, though it
abandoned the fixed line of communications leading through Namur and Liege
to Aix la Chapelle, would pick up in a very few miles another line of
communications through Louvain, Maestricht, and Cologne. The Prussian
commanders, in determining upon this northward march, were in no way
risking their supply nor hazarding the existence of their army upon a
great chance. They were taking advantage of one of two courses left open
to them, and that one the wiser of the two.
This retreat upon Wavre was conducted with a precision and an endurance
most remarkable when we consider the fact that it took place just after a
severe, though not a decisive, defeat.
Of the eighty odd thousand Prussians engaged at Ligny, probably 12,000 had
fallen, killed or wounded. When the Prussian centre broke, many units
became totally disorganised; and, counting the prisoners and runaways who
failed to rejoin the colours, we must accept as certainly not exaggerated
the Prussian official report of a loss of 15,000.[13]
In spite, I say, of this severe defeat, the order of the retreat was well
maintained, and was rewarded by an exceptional rapidity.
The First Corps marched along the westerly route that lay directly before
them by Tilly and Mont St Guibert. They marched past Wavre itself, and
bivouacked about midday of Saturday the 17th, round about the village of
Bierges, on the other side of the river Dyle.
The Second Corps followed the First, and ended its march on the southern
side of Wavre, round about the village of St Anne.
The Third Corps did not complete the retreat until the end of daylight
upon the 17th, and then marched through Wavre, across the river to the
north, and bivouacked around La Bavette.
Finally, still later on the same evening, the Fourth Corps, that of Bulow,
which had come to Ligny too late for the action, marching by the eastward
lanes, through Sart and Corry, lay round Dion Le Mont.
By nightfall, therefore, on Saturday the 17th of June, we have the mass of
the Prussian army safe round Wavre, and duly disposed all round that town
in perfect order.
With the exception of a rearguard, which did not come up until the morning
of the Sunday, all had been safely withdrawn in the twenty-four hours that
followed the defeat at Ligny.
It may be asked why this great movement had been permitted to take place
without molestation from the victors.
[Illustration]
Napoleon would naturally, of course, after his defeat of the Prussians,
withdraw to the west the greater part of the forces he had used against
Blucher at Ligny and direct them towards the Brussels road in order to use
them next against Wellington. But Napoleon had left behind him Grouchy in
supreme command over a great body of troops, some 33,000 in all, whose
business it was to follow up the Prussians, to find out what road they had
taken; at the least to watch their movements, and at the best to cut off
any isolated bodies or to give battle to any disjointed parts which the
retreat might have separated from support. In general, Grouchy was to see
to it that the Prussians did not return.
In this task Grouchy failed. True, he was not given his final instructions
by the Emperor until nearly midday of the 17th, but a man up to his work
would have discovered the line of the Prussian retreat and have hung on to
it. Grouchy failed, partly because he was insufficiently provided with
cavalry, partly because he was a man excellent only in a sudden tactical
dilemma, incompetent in large strategical problems, partly because he
mistrusted his subordinates, and they him; but most of all because of an
original prepossession (under which, it is but fair to him to add, all the
French leaders lay) that the Prussian retreat had taken the form of a
flight towards Namur, along the eastern line of communications, while, as
a fact, it had taken the form of a disciplined retreat upon Wavre and the
north.
At ten o'clock in the evening of Saturday the 17th, twenty-four hours
after the battle of Ligny, and at the moment when the whole body of the
Prussian forces was already reunited in an orderly circle round Wavre,
Grouchy, twelve miles to the south of them, was beginning--but only
beginning--to discover the truth. He wrote at that hour to the Emperor
that "the Prussians had retired in several directions," one body towards
Namur, another with Blucher the Commander-in-chief towards Liege, _and a
third body apparently towards Wavre_. He even added that he was going to
find out whether it might not be the larger of the three bodies which had
gone towards Wavre, and he appreciated that whoever had gone towards Wavre
intended keeping in touch with the rest of the Allies under Wellington.
But all that Grouchy did after writing this letter proves how little he,
as yet, really believed that any great body of the enemy had marched on
Wavre. He anxiously sent out, not northward, but eastward and
north-eastward, to feel for what he believed to be the main body of the
retreating foe.
During the night he did become finally convinced by the mass of evidence
brought in by his scouts that round Wavre was the whole Prussian force,
and the conclusion that he came to was singular! He took it for granted
that through Wavre the Prussians certainly intended a full retreat on
Brussels. He wrote at daybreak of the 18th of June that he was about to
pursue them.
That Blucher could dream of taking a short cut westward, thus effecting an
immediate junction with Wellington, never entered Grouchy's head. He did
not put his army in motion until after having written this letter. He
advanced his troops in a decent and leisurely manner up the Wavre road
through the mid hours of the day, and himself, just before noon, wrote a
dispatch to the Emperor; he wrote it from Sart, a point ten miles south of
Wavre. In that letter he announced "his intention to be massed at Wavre
_that night_," and begging for "orders as to how he should begin his
attack of the _next day_."
The next day! Monday!
Already, hours before--by midnight of Saturday--Blucher had sent his
message to Wellington assuring him that the Prussians would come to his
assistance upon Sunday, the morrow.
Even as Grouchy was writing, the Prussian Corps were streaming westward
across country to appear upon Napoleon's flank four hours later and decide
the campaign.
Having written his letter, Grouchy sat down to lunch. As he sat there at
meat, far off, the first shots of the battle of Waterloo were fired.
* * * * *
So far, we have followed the retreat of the Prussians northwards from
their defeat at Ligny. With the exception of the rearguard, they were all
disposed by the evening of Saturday the 17th in an orderly fashion round
the little town of Wavre. We have also followed the methodical but tardy
and ill-conceived pursuit in which Grouchy felt out with his cavalry to
discover the line of the Prussian retreat, and continued to be in doubt of
its nature at least until midnight, and probably until even later than
midnight, in that night between Saturday the 17th, evening, and Sunday the
18th of June.
We have further seen that during the morning of Sunday the 18th of June he
was taking no dispositions for a rapid pursuit, but, being now convinced
that the Prussians merely intended a general retreat upon Brussels,
proposed to follow them in order to watch that retreat, and, if possible,
to shepherd them eastwards. He wrote, as we have just said, to the Emperor
in the course of that morning of the Sunday, announcing that he meant to
mass his troops at Wavre by nightfall, and asking for orders for the next
day.
What the Prussians were doing during that Sunday morning when Grouchy was
so quietly and soberly taking for granted that they could not or would not
rejoin Wellington, and was so quietly shielding his own responsibility
behind the Emperor's orders, we shall see when we come to talk of the
action itself--the battle of Waterloo.
Meanwhile we must return to the second half of the great strategic move,
and watch the retreat of the Duke of Wellington during that same Saturday,
and the stand which he made on the ridge called "the Mont St Jean" by the
nightfall of that day, in order to accept battle on the Sunday morning.
An observer watching the whole business of that Saturday from some height
in the air above the valley of the Sambre, and looking northwards, would
have seen on the landscape below, to his right, the Prussians streaming in
great parallel columns upon Wavre from the battlefield of Ligny. He would
have seen, scattered upon the roads, small groups of mounted men, here in
touch with the last files of a Prussian column, there lost and wandering
forward into empty spaces where no soldiers were. These were the cavalry
scouts of Grouchy. South of these, and far behind the Prussian rear,
separated from them by a gap of ten miles, a dense body of infantry, drawn
up in heavy columns of route, was the corps commanded by Grouchy.
What would such an observer have seen upon the landscape below and before
him to his left? He would have seen an interminable line of men streaming
northward also, all afternoon, up the Brussels road from Quatre Bras; and
behind them, treading upon their heels, another column, miles in length,
pressing the pursuit. The retreating column, as it hurried off, he would
see screened on its rear by a mass of cavalry, that from time to time
charged and checked the pursuers, and sometimes put guns in line to hold
them back. The pursuers, after each such check, would still press on. The
first, the thousands in retreat, were Wellington's command retiring from
Quatre Bras; the second, the pursuers, were a body some 74,000 strong
formed by the junction of Ney and Napoleon, and pressing forward to bring
Wellington to battle.
* * * * *
At Quatre Bras, Wellington had not been able, as he had hoped, to join the
Prussians and save them from defeat. The French, under Ney, had held him
up. He would even have suffered a reverse had Ney attacked promptly and
strongly earlier in the day of Friday the 16th, but Ney had not acted
promptly and strongly.
All day long reinforcements had come in one after the other, much later
than the Duke intended, but in a sufficient measure to meet the tardy and
too cautious development of Ney's attack. Finally, the real peril under
which the Duke lay (though he did not know it)--the junction of Erlon and
his forces with Ney--had not taken place until darkness fell, and Erlon's
20,000 had been wasted in the futile fashion which has been described and
analysed.
The upshot, therefore, of the whole business at Quatre Bras was, that
during the night between Friday and Saturday the 16th and the 17th the
English and the French lay upon their positions, neither seriously
incommoding the other.
During that night further reinforcements reached Wellington where his
troops had bivouacked upon the positions they had held so well. Lord
Uxbridge, in command of the British cavalry, and Ompteda's brigade both
came up with the morning, as did also Clinton's division and Colville's
division, and so did the reserve artillery.
In spite of all these reinforcements, in spite even of the great mass of
horse which Uxbridge had brought up, and of the new guns, Wellington's
position upon that morning of Saturday the 17th of June was, though he did
not yet know it, very perilous.
He still believed that the Prussians were holding on to Ligny, and that
they had kept their positions during the night, which night he had himself
spent at Genappe, to the rear of the battlefield of Quatre Bras.[14]
When Wellington awoke on the morning of Saturday in Genappe, there were
rumours in the place that the Prussians had been defeated the day before
at Ligny. The Duke went at once to Quatre Bras; sent Colonel Gordon off
eastward with a detachment of the Tenth Hussars to find out what had
happened, and that officer, finding the road from Ligny in the hands of
the French, had the sense to scout up northwards, came upon the tail of
the Prussian retreat, and returned to Wellington at Quatre Bras by
half-past seven with the whole story: the Prussians had indeed been
beaten; they were in full retreat; but a chance of retreat had lain open
towards the north, and that was the road they had taken.
Wellington knew, therefore, before eight o'clock on that Saturday morning,
that his whole left or eastern flank was exposed, and it was common-sense
to expect that Napoleon, with the main body of the French, having defeated
the Prussians at Ligny, would now march against himself, come up upon that
exposed flank (while Ney held the front), and so outnumber the Anglo-Dutch
under the Duke's command. At the worst that command would be destroyed; at
the best it could only hope, if it gave time for Napoleon to come up, to
have to retreat westward, and to lose touch, for good, with the
Prussians.
In such a plight it was Wellington's business to retreat towards the
north, so as to remain in touch with his Prussian allies, while yet that
line of retreat was open to him, and before Napoleon should have forced a
battle.
[Illustration: Sketch showing the situation in which Wellington was at
Quatre Bras on the morning of the 17th.]
The Duke was in no hurry to undertake this movement, for as yet there was
no sign of Napoleon's arrival. The men breakfasted, and it was not until
ten o'clock that the retreat began. He sent word back up the road to stop
the reinforcements that were still upon their way to join him at Quatre
Bras, and to turn them round again up the Brussels road, the way they had
come, until they should reach the ridge of the Mont St Jean, just in front
of the village of Waterloo, where he had determined to stand. This done,
he made his dispositions for retirement, and a little after ten o'clock
the retreat upon Waterloo began. His English infantry led the retreat, the
Netherland troops following, then the Brunswickers, and the last files of
that whole great body of men were marching up the Brussels road northward
before noon. Meanwhile, Lord Uxbridge, with his very considerable force of
cavalry and the guns necessary to support it, deployed to cover the
retreat, and watched the enemy.
That enemy was motionless. Ney did not propose to attack until Napoleon
should come up. Napoleon and his troops, arriving from the battlefield of
Ligny, were not visible until within the neighbourhood of two o'clock. As
he came near the Emperor was perceived, his memorable form distinguished
in the midst of a small escorting body, urging the march; and the English
guns, during one of those rare moments in which war discovers something of
drama, fired upon the man who was the incarnation of all that furious
generation of arms. In a military study, this moment, valuable to civilian
history, may be neglected.
The flood of French troops arriving made it hard for Uxbridge, in spite of
his very numerous cavalry and supporting guns, to cover Wellington's
retreat.
The task was, however, not only successfully but nobly accomplished. Just
as the French came up the sky had darkened and a furious storm had broken
from the north-west upon the opposing forces. It was in the midst of a
rain so violent that friend could be hardly distinguished from foe at
thirty yards distance that the pursuit began, and to the noise of limbers
galloped furiously to avoid capture, and of all those squadrons pursuing
and pursued, was joined an incessant thunder.
Things are accomplished in war which do not fit into the framework of its
largest stories, and tend, therefore, to be lost. Overshadowed by the
great story of Waterloo, the work which Lord Uxbridge and his Horse did on
that afternoon of Saturday the 17th of June is too often forgotten.
The ability and the energy displayed were equal.
The first deployment to meet the French advance, the watching of the
retirement of Wellington's main body, the continual appreciation of ground
during a rapid and dangerous movement and in the worst of weather, the
choice of occasional artillery positions--all these showed mastery, and
secured the complete order of Wellington's retreat.[15]
The pursuit was checked at its most important point (where the French had
to cross the river Dyle at Genappe) by a rapid deployment of the cavalry
upon the slope beyond the stream, a rapid unlimbering of the batteries in
retreat, and a double charge, first of the Seventh Hussars, next of the
First Life Guards.
These charges were successful, they checked the French, and during the
remainder of the afternoon the pursuit to the north of the Dyle slackened
off until, before darkness, it ceased altogether.
Indeed, there was by that time no further use in it. The mass of
Wellington's army had reached, and had deployed upon, that ridge of the
Mont St Jean where he intended to turn and give battle. They were in a
position to receive any immediate attack, and the purposes of mere pursuit
were at an end.