and through the evening, Wellington's troops were already taking up their
positions, was another ridge, best remembered by the name of a farm upon
its crest, the "Belle Alliance." This ridge formed the natural
halting-place of the pursuers. From the height above Genappe to the ridge
of the Belle Alliance was but 5000 yards; and if a further reason be
quoted for the cessation of the pursuit and the ranging into battle array
of either force, the weather will provide that reason.
The soil of all these fields is of a peculiar black and consistent sort,
almost impassable after a drenching rain. The great paved high road which
traverses it was occupied and encumbered by the wheeled vehicles and by
the artillery. A rapid advance of infantry bodies thrown out to the right
and left of the road, and so securing speed by parallel advance, was made
impossible by mud, and the line grew longer and longer down the main road,
forbidding rapid movement. From mud, that "fifth element in war" (as
Napoleon himself called it), Wellington's troops--the mass of them at
least--had been fairly free. They had reached their positions before the
downpour. Only the cavalry of the rearguard and its batteries had felt the
full force of the storm. Dry straw of the tall standing crops had been cut
on the ridge of the Mont St Jean, and the men of Wellington's command
bivouacked as well as might be under such weather.
With the French it was otherwise. Their belated units kept straggling in
until long after nightfall. The army was drawn up only at great expense of
time and floundering effort, mainly in the dark, drenched, sodden with
mud, along the ridge of the Belle Alliance. It was with difficulty that
the wood of the bivouac fires could be got to burn at all. They were
perpetually going out; and all that darkness was passed in a misery which
the private soldier must silently expect as part of his trade, and which
is relieved only by those vague corporate intuitions of a common peril,
and perhaps a common glory, which, down below all the physical business,
form the soul of an army.
Napoleon, when he had inspected all this and assured himself that
Wellington was standing ranged upon the opposite ridge, returned to sleep
an hour or two at the farm called Le Caillou, a mile behind the line of
bivouacs. Wellington took up his quarters in the village of Waterloo,
about a mile and a half behind the bivouacs of his troops upon the Mont St
Jean.
In such a disposition the two commanders and their forces waited for the
day.
* * * * *
There must, lastly, be considered, before the description of action is
entered on, the nature of the field upon which it was about to be
contested. That field had been studied by Wellington the year before. He,
incomparably the greatest tactical defensive commander of his time, and
one of the greatest of all time, had chosen it for its capacities of
defence. They were formidable. Relying upon them, and confident of the
Prussians coming to his aid when the battle was joined, he rightly counted
upon success.
* * * * *
Let us begin by noting that of no battle is it more important to seize the
exact nature of the terrain, that is, of the ground over which it was
fought, than of Waterloo.
To the eye the structure of the battlefield is simple, consisting
essentially of two slight and rounded ridges, separated by a very shallow
undulation of land.
But this general formation is complicated by certain features which can
only be grasped with the aid of contours, and these contours, again, are
not very easy to follow at first sight for those who have not seen the
battlefield.
In the map which forms the frontispiece of this volume, and to which I
will beg the reader to turn, I have indicated the undulations of land in
pale green lines underlying the other features of the battle, which are in
black, red, and blue. The contours are drawn at five metres (that is 16
feet 4 inches) distance; no contours are given below that of 100 metres
above the sea. The valley floors below that level are shaded. Up to the
120-metre line the contours are indicated by continuous lines of
increasing thickness. Above the 120-metre line they are indicated by faint
dotted or dashed lines. I hope in this manner, though the task is a
difficult one, to give a general impression of the field.
The whole field, both slight ridges and the intervening depression, lies
upon a large swell of land many square miles in extent, while it slopes
away gradually to the east on one side and the west on the other. The
highest and hardly distinguishable knolls of it stand about 450 feet above
the sea. The site of the battle lies actually on the highest part, the
water-parting; and the floors of the valleys, down which the streams run
to the east and to the west, are from 150 to 200 feet lower than this
confused lift of land between. To one, however, standing upon any part of
the battlefield, this feature of height is not very apparent. True, one
sees lower levels falling away left and right, and the view seems oddly
wide, but the eye gathers the impression of little more than a rolling
plain. This is because, in comparison with the scale of the landscape as a
whole, the elevations and depressions are slight.
Upon this rolling mass of high land there stand out, as I have said, those
two slight ridges, and these ridges lie, roughly speaking, east and
west--perpendicular to the great Brussels road, which cuts them from south
to north. It was upon this great Brussels road that both Wellington and
Napoleon took up, at distances less than a mile apart, their respective
centres of position for the struggle. Though this line of the road did not
precisely bisect the two lines of the opposing armies, the point where it
crossed each line marked the tactical centre of that line: both Wellington
and Napoleon remained in person upon that road.
Now it must not be imagined that the shallow depression between the ridges
stretches of even depth between the two positions taken up by Wellington
and Napoleon, with the road cutting its middle; on the contrary, it is
bridged, a little to the west of the road, by a "saddle," a belt of fields
very nearly flat, and very nearly as high as each ridge. The eastern half
of the depression therefore rises continually, and gets shallower and
shallower as it approaches the road from east westward, and the road only
cuts off the last dip of it. Then, just west of the road there is the
saddle; and as you proceed still further westward along the line midway
between the French and English positions you find a second shallow valley
falling away. This second valley does not precisely continue the direction
of the first, but turns rather more to the north. In the first slight
decline of this second valley, and a few hundred yards west of the road,
lies the country-house called Hougomont, and just behind it lay the
western end of Wellington's line. The whole position, therefore, if it
were cut out as a model in section from a block of wood, might appear as
does the accompanying plan.
[Illustration]
In such a model the northern ridge P--Q some two miles in length is that
held by Wellington. The southern one M--N is that held by Napoleon.
Napoleon commanded from the point A, Wellington from the point B, and the
dark band running from one to the other represents the great Brussels High
Road. The subsidiary ridge O--O is that on which Napoleon, as we shall
see, planted his great battery preparatory to the assault. The enclosure H
is Hougomont, the enclosure S is La Haye Sainte.
Of the two ridges, that held by Napoleon needs less careful study for the
comprehension of the battle than that held by Wellington.
The latter is known as the Ridge of the Mont St Jean, from a farm lying a
little below its highest point and a little behind its central axis. This
ridge Wellington had carefully studied the year before, and that great
master of defence had noted and admired the excellence of its defensive
character. Not only does the land rise towards the ridge through the whole
length of the couple of miles his troops occupied, not only is it almost
free of "dead"[16] ground, but there lie before it two walled enclosures,
the small one of La Haye Sainte, the large one of Hougomont, which,
properly prepared and loopholed as they were, were equivalent to a couple
of forts standing out to break the attack. There is, again, behind the
whole line of the ridge, lower ground upon which the Duke could and did
conceal troops, and along which he could and did move them safely during
the course of the action.
Anyone acquainted with Wellington's various actions and their terrains
will recognise a common quality in them: they were all chosen by an eye
unequalled for seizing, even in where an immediate decision was necessary,
all the capabilities of a defensive position. That taken up on the 18th of
June 1815, in the Duke's last battle, had been chosen, not under the
exigencies of immediate combat, but with full leisure and after a complete
study. It is little wonder, then, that it is the best example of all. Of
all the defensive positions which the genius of Wellington has made famous
in Europe, none excels that of Waterloo.
V
THE ACTION
In approaching this famous action, it is essential to recapitulate the
strategical conditions which determined its result.
I have mentioned them at the outset and again in the middle of this study;
I must repeat them here.
The only chance Napoleon had when he set forward in early June to attack
the allies in Belgium, the vanguard of his enemies (who were all Europe),
was a chance of surprising that vanguard, of striking in suddenly between
its two halves, of thoroughly defeating one or the other, and then turning
to defeat as thoroughly its colleague.
Other chances than this desperate chance he had none; for he was fighting
against odds of very nearly two to one even in his attack upon this mere
vanguard of the armed kings; their total forces were, of course,
overwhelmingly superior.
He did succeed, as we have seen, in striking suddenly in between the two
halves of the allied army in Belgium. He was not as quick as he had
intended to be. There were faults and delays, but he managed, mainly
through the malinformation and misjudgment of Wellington, to deal with the
Prussians unsupported by Wellington's western wing.
He attacked those Prussians with the bulk of his forces; and although he
was outnumbered even upon that field, he defeated the Prussians at Ligny.
But the defeat was not complete. The Prussians were free to retire
northward, and so ultimately to rejoin Wellington. They took that
opportunity, and from the moment they had taken it Napoleon was doomed.
We have further seen that Grouchy, who had been sent after the Prussian
retreat, might, if he had seen all the possibilities of that retreat, and
had seen them in time, have stepped in between the Prussians and
Wellington, and have prevented the appearance of the former upon the field
of Waterloo.
Had Grouchy done so, Waterloo would not have been the crushing defeat it
was for Napoleon. It would very probably have been a tactical success for
Napoleon.
But, on the other hand, we have no ground for thinking that it would have
been a final and determining success for the Emperor. For if Wellington
had not known quite early in the action that he could count upon the
arrival of the Prussians, he would not have accepted battle. If, as a
fact, he had found the Prussians intercepted, he could have broken contact
and retreated before it was too late.
Had he done so, it would simply have meant that he would later have
effected a junction with his allies, and that in the long-run Napoleon
would still have had to fight an allied army immensely superior to his
own.
All this is as much as to say once more what has been insisted upon
throughout these pages; Waterloo was lost, not upon Sunday, June 18th, but
two days before, when the 63,000 of Napoleon broke and drove back the
80,000 of Blucher but failed to contain them, failed to drive them
eastward, away from Wellington, or to cause a general surrender, and
failed because the First French Army Corps, under Erlon, a matter of
20,000 men, failed to come up in flank at the critical moment.
We have seen what the effect of that failure was; we have discussed its
causes, and we must repeat the main fact for military history of all
those four days: the breakdown of Napoleon's last desperate venture turned
upon Erlon's useless marching and countermarching between Quatre Bras and
Ligny, two days before the final action of Waterloo was fought.
This being so, the battle of Waterloo must resolve itself into two main
phases: the first, the beginning of the struggle with Wellington before
the Prussians come up; the second, the main and decisive part of the
action, in which both Prussians and English are combined against the
French army.
This second phase develops continually as the numbers of the arriving
Prussians increase, until it is clinched by the appearance of Ziethen's
corps at the very end of the day, and the break-up of the French army;
this second part is therefore itself capable of considerable subdivision.
But in any large and general view of the whole action, we must regard it
as divided into these two great chapters, during the first of which is
engaged the doubtful struggle between Napoleon and Wellington; during the
second of which the struggle, no longer doubtful, is determined by the
arrival of the Prussians in flank upon the field.
[Illustration: ELEMENTS OF WATERLOO.]
THE FIRST PART OF THE ACTION
_Before the Arrival of the Prussians_
The action was to take the form of an assault by Napoleon's forces against
this defensive position held by Wellington. It was the business of
Wellington, although his total force was slightly inferior to the enemy in
numbers,[17] and considerably inferior in guns, to hold that defensive
position until the Prussians should come up in flank. This he had had word
would take place at latest by one or two o'clock. It was the business of
Napoleon to capture the strong outworks, Hougomont and La Haye Sainte;
and, that done, to hammer the enemy's line until he broke it. That delay
in beginning this hammering would be fatal; that the Prussians were
present upon his flank, could arrive in the midst of the battle, and were
both confidently and necessarily expected by his enemy; that his simple
single battle would turn into two increasingly complex ones, Napoleon
could have no idea. Napoleon could see no need for haste. A long daylight
was before him. It was necessary to let the ground dry somewhat after the
terrible rain of the day before if artillery was to be used effectively;
nor did he press his columns, which were moving into position all through
the morning, and which had not completely deployed even by eleven o'clock.
It was a little after that hour that he dictated to Soult the order of
battle. Its first and effective phrases run as follows:--
"Once the whole army is deployed, that is, at about half-past one, at the
moment when the Emperor shall send the order to Marshal Ney, the attack is
to be delivered. It will have for its object the capture of the village of
Mont St Jean and the cross-roads...."
The remainder of the order sets out forces to be engaged in this first
attack.
The French forces consisted in the IInd Army Corps deployed to the left or
west of the road, the Ist to the right or east of it, and behind Napoleon,
in the centre and in reserve, the VIth Corps and the Guard.
The plan in the Emperor's mind was perfectly simple. There was to be no
turning of the right nor of the left flank of the enemy, which would only
have the effect of throwing back that enemy east or west. His line was to
be pierced, the village of Mont St Jean which lay on the ridge of
Wellington's position and which overlooks the plateau on every side was
to be carried, and this done Napoleon would be free to decide upon his
next action, according to the nature and extent of the disorder into which
he had thrown the enemy's broken line.
As a fact, Napoleon made a movement before that hour of half-past one
which he had set down in his order for the beginning of the assault. That
movement was a movement against the advanced and fortified position of
Hougomont.
He sent orders to his left, to the body on the east of the high road, the
Second Army Corps, under Reille, to send troops to occupy the outer
gardens, wood, and orchards of the country-house, and at twenty-five
minutes to twelve the first gun fired in support of that movement was also
the first cannonshot of Waterloo.
After a brief artillery duel and exchange of cannonshots between the
height on the French left, which overlooks Hougomont, and the
corresponding height upon the English right, the French infantry began to
march down the slope to occupy the little wood which stands to the south
of the chateau. These four regiments were commanded by the Emperor's
brother Jerome, who was--as we have seen at Quatre Bras--under the orders
of Reille. The clearing of the wood was no very desperate affair, but it
was a difficult one, and it took an hour. The Germans of Nassau and
Hanover, who were charged with the defence of Hougomont and its
approaches, stubbornly contested the standing trees and the cut-clearing
which lay between them and the garden wall of the chateau.
It must be clearly seized, at this early and even premature point in the
action, that Napoleon's object in making this attack upon Hougomont was
only to weaken Wellington's centre.
Hougomont lay upon Wellington's right. Wellington had always been nervous
of his right, and feared the turning of his line there, because, should he
have to retreat, his communications would ultimately lie in that
direction. It was for this reason that he had set right off at Braine
l'Alleud, nearly a mile to the west of his line, the Dutch-Belgian
Division of Chasse and sixteen guns, which force he connected with a
reserve body at Hal, much further to the west.
Napoleon judged that an attack on Hougomont before the action proper was
begun, coming thus upon Wellington's right, would make him attempt to
reinforce the place and degarnish his centre, where the Emperor intended
the brunt of the attack to fall.
Napoleon had no other intention that history can discover in pressing the
attack against Hougomont so early. It was almost in the nature of a
"feint." But when, towards half-past twelve, his brother's division had
cleared the wood and come up against the high garden wall of the farm, for
some reason which cannot be determined, whether the eagerness of the
troops, the impulsiveness of Jerome himself, or whatever cause, instead of
being contented with holding the wood according to orders, the French
furiously attacked the loopholed and defended wall. They attempted to
break in the great door, which was recessed, and therefore protected by a
murderous cross-fire. They were beaten back into the wood, leaving a heap
of dead. At this point Reille, according to his own account (which may
well enough be accurate), sent orders for the division to remain in the
wood, and not to waste itself against so strong an outpost. But Jerome and
his men were not to be denied. They marched round the chateau, under a
heavy artillery fire from the English batteries above, and attempted to
carry the north wall. As they were so doing, four companies of the
Coldstreams, the sole reinforcement which Wellington could be tempted to
part with from his main line, came in reinforcement to the defence, and,
after a sharp struggle, the French were thrust back once more.
It was by that time past one o'clock, and this first furious attempt upon
Hougomont, unintended by the Emperor, and a sheer waste, had doubly
failed. It had failed in itself--the house and garden still remained
untaken, the post was still held. It had failed in its object, which had
been to draw Wellington, and to get him to send numerous troops from his
centre to his right in defence of the threatened place.
Meanwhile the Emperor, for whom this diversion of a few regiments against
Hougomont was but a small matter, had prepared and was about to deliver
his main attack.
The reader will see upon the contours of the coloured map a definite spur
of land marked with a broad green band in front of the French order of
battle, and further marked by the green letter "B" in the very centre of
the map. It was along this spur and at about one o'clock that the Emperor
drew up a great battery of eighty pieces in order to prepare the assault
upon the opposing ridge, which was to be delivered the moment their fire
had ceased. Napoleon at that moment was watching his army and its
approaching engagement from that summit upon the great road marked "A" in
green upon my coloured map, whence the whole landscape to the north and
west lies open.[18]
There he received the report of Ney that the guns were ready, and only
waiting for the order.
A little while before the guns were ready and Ney had reported to that
effect, Napoleon had received Grouchy's letter, in which it was announced
that the mass of the Prussian army had retreated on Wavre. He had replied
to it with instructions to Grouchy so to act that no Prussian corps at
Wavre could come and join Wellington. Hardly had the Emperor dictated this
reply when, looking northward and then eastward over the great view, he
saw, somewhat over four miles away, a shadow, or a movement, or a stain
upon the bare uplands towards Wavre; he thought that appearance to be
companies of men. A few moments later a sergeant of Silesian Hussars,
taken prisoner by certain cavalry detachments far out to the east, was
brought in. He had upon him a letter sent from Bulow to Wellington
announcing that the Prussians were at hand, and the prisoner further told
the Emperor that the troops just perceived were the vanguard of the
Prussian reinforcement. Thus informed, the Emperor caused a postscript to
be added to his dictated letter, and bade Grouchy march at once towards
this Prussian column, fall upon it while it was still upon the march and
defenceless and destroy it.
Such an order presupposed Grouchy's ability to act upon it; Napoleon took
that ability for granted. But Grouchy, as a fact, could not act upon it in
time. Hard riding could not get Napoleon's note to Grouchy's quarters
within much less than an hour and a half. When it got there Grouchy
himself must be found, and that done his 33,000 must be got together in
order to take the new direction. Further, the Emperor could not know in
what state Grouchy's forces might be, nor what direction they might
already have taken. It should be mentioned, however, to explain Napoleon's
evident hope at the moment of things going well, that _the prisoner had
told the Emperor it was commonly believed in the Prussian lines that
Grouchy was actually marching to join him, Napoleon, at that moment_.
Napoleon sent some cavalry off eastward to watch the advent of the
Prussians; he ordered his remnant of one army corps, the Sixth, which he
had kept in reserve behind his line,[19] to march down the hill to the
village of Plancenoit and stand ready to meet the Prussian attack; and
having done all this, he made ready for the assault upon the ridge which
Wellington's troops held.
That assault was to be preceded, as I have said, by artillery preparation
from the great battery of eighty guns which lay along the spur to the
north and in front of the French line. For half an hour those guns filled
the shallow valley with their smoke; at half-past one they ceased, and
Erlon's First Corps d'Armee, fresh to the combat, because it had so
unfortunately missed both Ligny and Quatre Bras, began to descend from its
position, to cross the bottom, and to climb the opposite slope, while over
the heads of the assaulting columns the French and English cannon answered
each other from height to height.
The advance across the valley, as will be apparent from the map, had upon
its right the village of Papelotte, upon its left the farm of La Haye
Sainte, and for its objective that highway which runs along the top of
the ridge, and of which the most part was in those days a sunken road, as
effective for defence as a regular trench.