Bourbons and kept it, for, on the return of Napoleon from Elba, he
withdrew to Ghent with Louis XVIII. On the second Restoration he was
created a peer of France and nominated one of the four major-generals of
the Royal Guard. Though never an imperialist, and at heart a republican,
it was Napoleon's treatment of him at Montereau which recalled the old
grievance of his disgrace in 1800 and turned him into a royalist. The
Marshal earned the undying hatred of many of his old comrades by the
severity he displayed when "charged with examining the conduct of
officers of all grades who had served under the usurpation." But, though
steadfast in his adherence to the monarchy, the Duke of Belluno still
clung to his liberal ideals, and it was for this reason that in 1821
Villele invited him to join the Cabinet as Minister for War. It was a
strange position for the ex-sergeant of artillery, but he filled it
admirably, and brought considerable strength to the Ministry, in that as
a soldier of fortune, a self-made man, he conciliated the Liberals, and
as a resolute character, a firm royalist, and a man of intrepidity and
honour, he had the confidence and esteem of the Conservative party. It
was during his term of office that a French army once again invaded
Spain, and thanks in no small degree to his knowledge of the country
and to his business capacity that it suffered no reverse. When the
Bourbon dynasty fell in July, 1830, the Duke of Belluno took the oath of
allegiance to the new Government, but never again entered public life,
and on March 1, 1841, he died in Paris at the age of seventy-seven.
XX
EMMANUEL DE GROUCHY, MARSHAL
When the Revolution broke out in 1789 the young Count Emmanuel de
Grouchy was serving as lieutenant-colonel in the Scotch company of the
Gardes du Corps. Born on October 23, 1766, the only son of the Marquis
de Grouchy, the representative of an old Norman family which could trace
its descent from before the days of William the Conqueror, Emmanuel de
Grouchy had entered the army at the age of fourteen. After a year's
service in the marine artillery he had been transferred to a cavalry
regiment of the line, and on his twentieth birthday had been selected
for the Gardes du Corps. A keen student of military history and devoted
to his profession, the young Count had read widely and thought much.
Impressionable and enthusiastic, a philosophical liberal by nature, he
eagerly absorbed the teaching of the Encyclopedists. As events
developed, he found that his position in the Gardes du Corps was
antagonistic to his principles, and, at his own request, at the end of
1791 he was transferred to the twelfth regiment of chasseurs as
lieutenant-colonel commanding. After a few months' service with this
regiment he was promoted brigadier-general, and served successively
under General Montesquieu with the Army of the Midi, and under
Kellermann with the Army of the Alps. At the commencement of 1793, while
on leave in Normandy, he was hurriedly despatched to the west to take
part in the civil war in La Vendee. No longer Comte de Grouchy but plain
Citizen-general Grouchy, for the next three years he saw almost
continuous service in the civil war, with the exception of a few months
when, like all ci-devant nobles, he was dismissed the service by the
decree of the incompetent Bouchotte. But Clanclaux, who commanded the
Army of La Vendee, had found in him a most useful subordinate and a
sound adviser; and accordingly, at his instance, the ci-devant noble was
restored to his rank, and sent back as chief of the staff to the Army of
the West, and in April, 1795, promoted general of division.
Clear-headed, firmly convinced of the soundness of his opinions, without
being bigoted or revengeful, Grouchy saw that the cruel methods of many
of the generals did more to continue the war than the political tenets
of the Vendeens and Chouans, and he used his influence with Clanclaux,
and later with Hoche, to restrain useless reprisals and crush the
rebellion by overwhelming the armed forces of the rebels, not by
insulting women and shooting prisoners. The problem to be solved was a
difficult one, as he pointed out in a memoir written for Clanclaux. "It
is the population of the entire country which is on your hands, a
population which suddenly rushes together to fight, if it is strong
enough to crush you; which hurls itself against your flanks and rear,
and then as suddenly disappears, when not strong enough to resist you."
His solution of the difficulty was to wear down resistance by light
mobile columns, and to starve the enemy out by devastating the country.
In September, 1795, on Clanclaux's retirement, the Commissioners
attached to the Army of the West wished to invest Grouchy with the
command, but the general refused the post; for, clear counsellor and
good adviser as he was, he lacked self-confidence, and knew that he was
not fit for the position. It was this horror of undertaking
responsibility which dragged him down during all his career, and which,
on the two occasions when fortune gave him his chance to rise, made him
choose the safe but inglorious road of humdrum mediocrity. In 1796 came
his first chance: after a brief period of service with the Army of the
North in Holland he was once again at his old work under Hoche in the
west, when the Directory determined to try to retaliate for the English
participation in the Chouan revolt by raising a hornet's nest in
Ireland. At the end of December a force of fifteen thousand men under
Hoche, with Grouchy as second in command, set sail for Ireland.
Unfortunately the expedition met with bad weather, the ship on which
Hoche sailed got separated from the rest of the fleet, and, when Grouchy
arrived at the rendezvous in Bantry Bay, he found the greater part of
the expedition, but no general-in-chief. In spite of this he rightly
determined to effect a landing, but had not the necessary force of
character to ensure his orders being carried out, and after six days'
procrastination Admiral Bouvet, pleading heavy weather, refused to allow
his ships to remain off the coast, and the expedition returned to
France. If Grouchy had been able to get his orders obeyed, all would
have been well, for on the very day after his squadron left Bantry Bay,
Hoche himself arrived at the rendezvous. As Grouchy said, if he had only
flung that ---- Admiral Bouvet into the sea all would have been right.
Where Grouchy hesitated and failed a Napoleon would have acted and
conquered.
[Illustration: EMMANUEL DE GROUCHY, MARQUIS
FROM AN ENGRAVING AFTER THE PAINTING BY ROUILLARD]
Hoche died, and Grouchy, who under his influence had disapproved of the
policy of France towards the Italian States, at once accepted employment
in Italy. He soon had to rue his decision, for he found himself
entrusted with the task of using underhand means to drive the King of
Sardinia from his country. Still, he obeyed his orders to the letter.
During negotiations he secretly introduced French troops into the
citadel at Turin and then seized the fortresses of Novara, Alessandria,
and Chiasso. Meanwhile he terrified the unfortunate monarch by
announcing the arrival of imaginary columns of troops, suborned the
King's Council, and so worked on the feelings of the bewildered
sovereign that he escaped by night from his palace and fled across the
sea. But though their King had deserted them, the Piedmontese did not
tamely submit, and for the next few months the general was busy tracking
out and capturing the numerous members of the secret societies who were
avenging their country by cutting the throats of Frenchmen. While
striking with a heavy hand at these conspirators, Grouchy was
level-headed enough to understand that the proper method of tackling the
problem was to remove the grievance. In his opinion it was not the
people so much as the Church which was opposed to the French, and
accordingly he did his best to get Joubert to issue a proclamation that
there should be no interference with religion. Still, the situation must
have been galling to a man of culture and a theoretical liberal, for,
while forcing democratic institutions on an unwilling people, he had at
the same time to strip their capital of all objects of art; and while
issuing proclamations for the freedom of religion he had to arrange for
the passage of the Pope on his way to captivity. In May, 1799, the
general was recalled from his governorship of Turin, for the Austrians
and Russians were invading Lombardy and Joubert was concentrating his
forces. The campaign, as far as Grouchy was concerned, was short, for
while attempting to stem the flight of the left wing after the battle of
Novi he was ridden over and captured by the Allies. Four sabre cuts, one
bullet wound, and several bayonet thrusts kept him in hospital for some
time; when he was well enough to be moved he was sent to Graetz, and it
was not till a year later--in June, 1800--that his exchange was
effected. But he soon had his revenge on the Austrians, for in the
autumn he was despatched to join the army under Moreau, which was
operating on the Danube, and arrived at headquarters in time to take
part in the battle of Hohenlinden. In the face of a blinding snowstorm
Grouchy's division drove back the main column of the enemy, and after
hours of murderous hand-to-hand fighting in the forest, he shared with
Ney the honour of the last charge which drove the enemy in hopeless
rout.
It was on his return from Hohenlinden that the ex-Count met Bonaparte.
The First Consul, who aimed at conciliating the old nobility, made much
of him, employed him on a confidential mission to Italy, and nominated
him inspector-general of cavalry. This post admirably suited Grouchy,
who was a horseman by nature and a cavalry soldier by instinct. Later,
on the formation of the Army of the Ocean, he was appointed to the
command of an infantry division in Marmont's corps in Holland, and it
was with Marmont that he made the campaign of 1805. In October, 1806, he
was summoned from Italy to a more important command. The Grand Army was
advancing on Prussia, and Napoleon had need of capable leaders to
command his vast masses of cavalry. Grouchy was entrusted with the
second division of dragoons of the cavalry corps under Murat and played
a prominent part in the battle of Prinzlow and the pursuit to Luebeck. At
Eylau he had a narrow escape: his charger was killed in the middle of
the melee and he was only saved by the devotion of his aide-de-camp;
though much shaken, he was able to resume command of his division, and
distinguished himself by his fierce charges in the blinding snow. At
Friedland a chance occurred for which his capacity proved fully equal.
Murat was absent at Koenigsberg trying to get across the enemy's rear,
and Grouchy was in command of all the reserve cavalry at the moment the
advance guard interrupted the Russian retreat. It was his admirable
handling of the cavalry under Lannes's directions which held the
Russians in check for sixteen hours, until Napoleon was able to
concentrate his divisions and give the Russians the coup-de-grace. The
Emperor showed his gratitude by presenting the general with the Grand
Cross of Baden, investing him with the Cordon of the Legion of Honour,
and granting him the domain of Nowawies, in the department of Posen.
The following year, 1808, saw Grouchy, now a Count of the Empire, with
Murat in Spain, acting as governor of Madrid. But when, in the autumn,
Joseph evacuated all the western provinces, Grouchy, whose health had
been much shaken by the Polish campaign, was granted leave of absence
and took care not to be sent back, for he had seen enough of the Spanish
to foresee the terrible difficulties of guerilla warfare; moreover, the
annexation of the country was contrary to his ideas of political
justice. When the war with Austria was imminent Napoleon sent him to
Italy to command the cavalry of the viceroy's army. With Prince Eugene
he fought through Styria and Carinthia and distinguished himself greatly
at the battle of Raab. At Wagram his cavalry was attached to Davout's
corps, and his fierce charges, which helped to break the Austrian left,
brought him again under the notice of the Emperor, who showed his
appreciation by appointing him colonel-general of chasseurs.
In 1812 the Count was summoned once again to the field, to command the
third corps of reserve cavalry with the Grand Army in Russia. At Moskowa
his cuirassiers, sabre in hand, drove the Russians out of the great
redoubt, but Grouchy himself was seriously wounded. During the retreat
from Moscow he commanded one of the "Sacred Bands" of officers who
personally guarded the Emperor, but his health, never good, completely
broke down under the strain and he was allowed to return straight home
from Vilna. A year elapsed before he had sufficiently recovered to take
the field, and it was not till the beginning of 1814 that he was fit for
service. During the campaign in France, first under Victor and later
with Marmont, he commanded the remnant of the reserve cavalry; but on
March 7th at Craonne he was once again so badly wounded that he had to
throw up his command.
During the Restoration Grouchy remained at his home; his relations with
the Bourbons were not cordial, and he bitterly resented the loss of his
title of colonel-general of chasseurs. Accordingly, when Napoleon
returned from Elba and France seemed to welcome him with open arms, in
spite of having accepted the Cross of St. Louis, he had no scruple in
answering the Emperor's summons. He was entrusted with the operations
against the Duc d'Angouleme round Lyons, but disliked the task, for he
remembered the fate of the Duc d'Enghien, and in spite of Napoleon's
protests that he only desired to capture the Duke in order to make the
Austrians send back the Empress, Grouchy determined that, if possible,
while doing everything to defeat the royalists, he would not capture
d'Angouleme. Unfortunately, the Duke refused the opportunity to escape
which was offered him, and Grouchy had to make him a prisoner. However,
Napoleon, anxious to stand well with the Powers of Europe, at once
ordered him to be set free. At the same time he sent Grouchy to command
the Army of the Alps, giving him his Marshal's baton. The new Marshal
was delighted with his promotion; he had now served for twenty years as
general of division, and although only forty-nine, had practically given
up all hope of promotion. But scarcely had he reached his new command
when he was recalled to Paris.
With Murat in disgrace and Bessieres dead, the Emperor had no great
cavalry leader on whom he could rely, and, remembering the new Marshal's
exploits at Friedland and Wagram, and his staunchness in 1814, he
determined to entrust him with the command of the reserve cavalry.
Unfortunately for Napoleon and Grouchy, the exigencies of the campaign
forced the Emperor to divide his army; so, while entrusting Ney with a
part of his troops, with orders to pursue the English, and keeping the
Guard and reserves under his immediate control, he gave Grouchy the
command of two corps of infantry and one of cavalry; in all, some
thirty-three thousand men. The appointment was an unfortunate one, for
the Marshal, though in many respects a good cavalry leader, had never
before had the command of a large body of mixed troops, and even his
cavalry successes had been obtained when under the orders of a superior:
at Friedland he was under Lannes; at Wagram under Davout; at Moskowa
under Eugene; and in 1814 under either Victor or Marmont. But what was
most unfortunate about the selection was that Grouchy had not enough
personal authority to enforce his orders on his corps commanders, and
the fiery Vandamme not only despised but hated him because he had
received the baton which he hoped was to have been his, while Girard was
a personal enemy. At Ligny, where Napoleon himself supervised the
attack, all went well, but from the moment fighting ceased difficulties
began. Immediately after the battle the Emperor entrusted the Marshal
with the pursuit of the Prussians, but Pajol, who commanded his light
cavalry, carried out his reconnaissance in a perfunctory manner, and
reported that the Prussians had retreated towards Namur. Grouchy
received this news at 4 a.m. on June 17th, but he did not dare to
disturb the Emperor's rest, and it was 8 a.m. before he could see him
and demand detailed orders. Napoleon, trusting to Pajol's report,
thought that the Prussians were absolutely demoralised and were leaving
the theatre of war, and so he kept the Marshal talking about Paris and
politics till 11 a.m. Consequently it was 11.30 before he received exact
orders, penned by Bertrand, which told him to proceed to Gembloux,
keeping his forces concentrated; to reconnoitre the different roads
leading to Namur and Maestricht, and to inform the Emperor of the
Prussians' intentions, adding, "It is important to know what Bluecher and
Wellington mean to do, and whether they prefer to unite their armies in
order to cover Brussels and Liege, by trying their fortunes in another
battle." Bad staff directions and heavy rains retarded the advance, and
it took six hours for the troops to cover the nine miles to Gembloux,
where at eight in the evening Grouchy heard that part of the Prussians
had fallen back on Wavre, which meant that they might still unite with
the English to cover Brussels. He at once reported this to the Emperor,
adding that Bluecher had retired on Liege and the artillery on Namur.
But, in spite of the fact that on the evening of the seventeenth
Napoleon knew that this was a mistake, and that the Prussians were
actually massed round Wavre, it was not till 10 a.m. on the morning of
Waterloo that he sent to the Marshal informing him of the Prussians'
concentration, and telling him that "he must therefore move thither
(_i.e._, to Wavre) in order to approach us, and to push before him any
Prussians who may have stopped at Wavre." This was the exact course
which Grouchy had determined to pursue. It is therefore quite clear that
neither the Emperor nor the Marshal had dreamed that Bluecher would
attempt to give any assistance to the English in their position at
Waterloo. At 11 a.m., when his columns were just approaching Wavre, the
Marshal heard the commencement of the cannonade at Waterloo. Girard
entreated him to march to the sound of the cannon, but Grouchy had what
he considered distinct orders to pursue the Prussians; he was now in
touch with them, and with a force of thirty-three thousand men he did
not dare to make a flank march in the face of what, he was becoming
convinced, was the whole Prussian army. At 5 p.m. he received Napoleon's
despatch, hastily written at 1 p.m., ordering him to turn westward and
crush the Prussian corps which was marching on the Emperor's right rear,
but by then his main force was heavily engaged at Wavre, and even if he
had been able to despatch part of his force it could not have arrived at
Mont St. Jean till long after the end of the battle.
On the morning of the nineteenth the Marshal was preparing to pursue
Thielmann's corps, which, on the previous evening, he had driven from
Wavre, when he heard of the catastrophe at Waterloo. He immediately
stopped the pursuit, and, by rapid marching, reached Namur before the
Allies could cut him off, and, by a skilful retreat, brought back his
thirty-three thousand men to Paris before the enemy arrived at the
gates. But instead of the thanks he had expected he found himself
saddled with the blame of the loss of Waterloo. The disaster, however,
clearly rested on the Emperor, whose orders were vague, and who had not
realised the extraordinary moral courage of Bluecher and the stubbornness
of the Prussians, and if Napoleon did not foresee this he could not
blame Grouchy for being equally blind. The Marshal did all that a
mediocre man could do. He carefully carried out the orders given him,
trusting, no doubt, too much to the letter, too little to the spirit.
But long years spent in a subordinate position under a military
hierarchy like that of the Empire were bound to stifle all initiative,
and it was not to be supposed that the man who, twenty years earlier,
had failed to rise to the occasion in Ireland would, after at last
gaining his Marshal's baton, risk his reputation by marching, like
Desaix at Marengo, to the sound of the guns, across the front of an
enemy vastly superior to himself, through a difficult country partially
waterlogged and intercepted by deep broad streams, contrary to what
seemed his definite orders.
The Marshal's career really ended on the abdication of the Emperor,
though he was appointed by the Provisional Government to the command of
the remains of the Army of the North, and in this capacity proclaimed
the Emperor's son as Napoleon II. On gaining Paris he found himself
subordinate to Davout, an old enemy. Accordingly he threw up his command
and retired into private life. After his conduct during the Hundred Days
he could expect no mercy from the returned Bourbons, and was glad to
escape abroad. Included in the general pardon, he returned to France in
1818, but his marshalate was annulled, and he never regained his baton,
though on the accession of Charles X. he was actually received at court.
But though the King might forgive, his favourites and ministers could
not forget, and in December, 1824, he was included among the fifty
generals of Napoleon who were placed on the retired list, an action
which General Foy shrewdly remarked was "a cannon-shot charged at
Waterloo, fired ten years after the battle, and pointed direct at its
mark." Like many another of the Marshals, the veteran retained his
health and faculties for many years, and defended his character and
actions and criticised his enemies with the same clear logic which had
so powerfully contributed to his early advancement; for the ex-Marshal
wielded the pen as easily as the sword. It was not till 1847 that death
carried off the sturdy old warrior at the age of eighty-one.
XXI
FRANCOIS CHRISTOPHE KELLERMANN, MARSHAL, DUKE OF VALMY
When old institutions suddenly collapse with a crash; when all is
confusion and chaos, and the lines of reconstruction are as yet veiled
in uncertainty; when people suspect their old rulers and are shy of
those who would set themselves up as their new directors, there comes an
interval before genius and wile can organise their forces, when
character, and character alone can shepherd the people scattered like
sheep on the mountains. Such was the case in France in September, 1792.
The old constitution had foundered, sweeping away in its ruin the order
and discipline of the royal army. The officers had either fled or been
deposed by their men, and such few as remained were held "suspect." The
new officers, chosen by their fellows, had but little authority. The
staff of the army was changed weekly to suit the whim of some civil or
military self-seeker, at a time when France was at war with the great
military powers of Europe. It was little wonder, therefore, that the
Prussians and Austrians looked forward to the campaign of 1792 as a
military promenade. They knew better even than the War Minister at Paris
how debauched were the regular troops of France, how unreliable and
contemptible were the few thousand old men and boys who rejoiced in the
name of volunteers, and they never for a moment believed that the
French generals would be able to force their men to stand and fight. But
they had calculated wrongly. They had not learned that in war a man is
everything; they had not grasped how deeply the spirit of discipline had
been engrained in the old royal army. Fortunately for France she had two
men of character to fall back upon; and aided by their example, on
September 20th the regulars of France stood firm before the famous
Prussian army. The two men were Dumouriez and Kellermann. Dumouriez had
brains and character, Kellermann character and stolid imperturbability.