without firing a shot. And now, Joseph would fight for his
kingdom in this, his second position. But his Generals examined
the country, and disliked the prospect. Meanwhile Wellington
pushed on, conducting his operations continually on the same
principle,--pushing forwards his left wing, and out-flanking and
turning the French right. Again perplexed, Joseph now abandoned his
second purpose, as he had abandoned his first. Burgos must be given
up, and the retreat must be continued on Vittoria. Into Vittoria
there was poured, therefore, the artillery depôts of Madrid, of
Valladolid, and of Burgos, and the baggage and stores of several
armies; with the King’s valuables, the archives, and papers of the
State and of the army, and a large amount of treasure.
Vittoria is only 26 miles from Irun, on the French frontier. Here,
therefore, had been driven together, like a flock of sheep, the
intruders and plunderers of Spain, and one vigorous assault only
was needed to rid the land of them altogether. It was not long
delayed.
It was about the 15th of June when King Joseph found his army
assembled round Vittoria, reckoning, Napier tells us, from 60,000
to 70,000 men. Wellington had left his sixth division at Medina de
Pomar, and therefore had 60,000 English and Portuguese, besides
some Spanish troops. In the number and calibre of their guns the
French had the advantage.
From the mountain-region through which the British army was
marching, the way to Vittoria lay over many a rugged steep, and
through many dangerous defiles; but no difficulty was allowed to
stop their march. “Six days they toiled unceasingly; but on the
seventh, swelled by a Spanish reinforcement, they burst like raging
streams from every defile, and went foaming into the basin of
Vittoria.”
The French army was drawn up round this basin, which is a small
plain about 10 miles in length, by 8 in breadth, through which runs
the river Zadora. As this battle-field was approached by various
mountain-passes, Wellington resolved to enter it from three sides
at once, forming three distinct combats. General Graham, with a
corps of about 20,000 men, was to attack from the British left, and
to pass the Zadora at Ariaga, near the city of Vittoria. Hill was
to attack from the right with an equal force. Wellington stationed
himself in the centre, with a rather larger force, which was to
descend from the mountain ridges, to cross the Zadora by various
roads, and to march straight upon Vittoria. In fact, the whole
battle was merely an attack on a strong army hemmed in, by an army
equally strong, and marching to the attack on three sides at the
same moment.
At daybreak the English began to move; but the distance to Vittoria
was several miles, and every step was to be contended for. Hill
reached the village of Puebla about ten in the morning; pushed on,
fighting hard, till he gained the village of Subijana de Alava,
and so placed himself in communication with the English centre.
Graham had to make a march of several miles to reach Ariaga, near
Vittoria; but about one o’clock his attack began to tell. This was
a serious one for the French; for, if successful, it would cut
them off from the great road to Bayonne. King Joseph, finding both
his flanks thus threatened, sent an order to the centre to retire.
But the troops were fiercely engaged, and retreat was difficult.
Meanwhile, however, three attacks of the English, right, left, and
centre, were all succeeding; and step by step, the French were
being pushed back upon Vittoria.
“At six o’clock,” says Napier, “the French reached the last
defensible height in front of Vittoria. Behind them was the plain
in which the city stood, and beyond the city were thousands of
carriages and animals, and of men, women, and children, crowded
together in all the madness of terror; and as the English shot
went booming overhead, the vast crowd started and swerved with a
convulsive movement, while a dull and horrid cry of distress arose;
but there was no hope, no stay for army or multitude, it was the
wreck of a nation!” Still the courage of the French soldiers was
unquelled. Their artillery for a time kept the Allies in check, but
suddenly the fourth English division, rushing forward, carried a
hill on the left, and the heights were at once abandoned. Joseph
finding the main road so completely blocked up by carriages that
the artillery could not pass, indicated the road of Salvatierra
as the line of retreat, and the army went off in a confused and
yet compact body on that side, leaving Vittoria on its left. The
British infantry followed hard, and the light cavalry galloped
through the town to intercept the new line of retreat. All became
disorder and confusion, the guns were left, while the artillerymen
fled with the horses. Vehemently and closely did the British
pursue, and nothing could stop their victorious career until night
and the disappearance of the flying masses had ended the struggle.
The French lost all their artillery, all their baggage, all their
equipages, all their stores, treasures, and papers, “so that no
man,” says a French writer, “could prove even how much pay was due
to him. Generals and subordinate officers were alike reduced to the
clothes on their backs, and many of them were barefooted.”
“Never was victory more complete. The trophies were innumerable.
Marshal Jourdan’s baton of command was brought to Lord Wellington,
who sent it to the Prince Regent, from whom he quickly received
one of an English marshal in return. The loss of the French was
never ascertained; that of the Allies was 3,567 English, 1,059
Portuguese, and 550 Spanish. The spoil taken was enormous. “The
soldiers of the army,” wrote Lord Wellington, “have got among them
about 1,000,000 sterling in money, with the exception of about
100,000 dollars found in the military chest. Rich vestures of all
sorts, gold and silver plate, pictures, jewels, parrots, monkeys,
and children, lay scattered about the field amidst weeping mothers
and wailing children. Joseph himself narrowly escaped; a squadron
of dragoons pursued his carriage and fired into it.”
All the remaining bodies of the French in Spain fell in the fall
of Vittoria. They escaped out of the kingdom by various roads
as quickly as possible. “Joseph’s reign was over, the crown had
fallen from his head, and after years of toil and combats, which
had rather been admired than understood, the great English leader,
emerging from the chaos of the Peninsular struggle, stood on the
summit of the Pyrenees a recognized conqueror. From those lofty
pinnacles the clangour of his trumpets pealed clear and loud, and
the splendour of his genius appeared as a flaming beacon to warring
nations.”[15]
Thus, in some five or six weeks, had a great kingdom been cleared
of its invaders and oppressors--not by the power of superior
numbers, but by the natural ascendency of a consummate military
genius. “Here,” remarks Napier, “was a noble army driven like sheep
before prowling wolves, although in every action the officers
had been prompt and skilful, and the soldiers brave, firm, and
obedient. The French troops were excellent and numerous, and the
country strong and favourable for defence; but the soul of a great
Commander was wanting; and hence, the Esla, the Tormes, the Douro,
the Pisuerga, seemed to be all dried up, the mountains to be
levelled; and 60,000 veteran soldiers, willing to fight at every
step, were hurried with all the tumult and confusion of defeat
across the Ebro.”
The deliverance of the Peninsula, by a force so far inferior to
that of the French, must always remain one of Wellington’s greatest
glories. The same French writer, whom we have already quoted, Jules
Maurel, remarks this surprising fact. He says: “The truth is,
that from 1808 to 1813, Wellington never had 30,000 English under
his orders, even at a period when the Imperial armies deluged the
Peninsula with no fewer than 370,000 men.”
Nor were the results of this great day confined to the Spanish
peninsula. Like its predecessor, the victory of Salamanca, the
battle of Vittoria shook the whole continent of Europe. Napoleon
himself, holding his ground at Dresden, had, up to this moment,
succeeded in withholding Austria from any actual participation in
the confederacy against him. He had even succeeded, on the 30th
of June, in obtaining a convention for the restoration of peace
between himself, Russia and Prussia. But the very next day the news
of the expulsion of the French from Spain reached Dresden, filling
Napoleon and his ministers with consternation, and giving new
life and vigour to the Russian and Prussian councils. The Allies
regretted that any cessation of arms had been agreed to, and they
began to long for its termination. The very moment it expired by
lapse of time, Austria joined the Allies; war was actively resumed,
and the autumn had not ended before Napoleon had been driven across
the Rhine, and Germany freed from the presence of the French armies.
The French writer from whom we have just quoted, Jules Maurel, thus
notices this remarkable passage in modern history:
“Scarcely had the armistice been signed when intelligence arrived
that the French had lost everything in Spain. In 40 days Wellington
had turned, one after another, all the positions occupied by the
French armies of the centre, of the south and of the north, and had
crossed the Tormes, the Douro, the Esla, the Carrion, and the Ebro.
He had reached Vittoria; he had gained a decisive battle; he had
expelled King Joseph from the Peninsula, and had planted his army
on the Pyrenees. In the beginning of May he was in Portugal; on
the 23rd of June he was on the frontiers of France. The defeat of
Vittoria entirely neutralized the victories of Lutzen and Bautzen,
and at once restored the coalition.”
VOUGLE, BATTLE OF.--Fought between Alaric II and Clovis of France.
Alaric was entirely overthrown, and the whole country subdued.
Clovis afterwards made Paris the capital, and became the founder of
the French Monarchy.
W.
WAGRAM, BATTLE OF.--Fought, July 5th, 1809, between the Austrians
and French, in which the former were completely overthrown; 20,000
were taken by the French. The slaughter on both sides was dreadful.
The defeated army retreated into Moravia.
WAKEFIELD, BATTLE OF.--Fought, December 31st, 1460, between Queen
Margaret, the wife of Henry VI, and the Duke of York, in which the
latter was slain, and 3000 Yorkists fell in the field. This was one
of the bloodiest battles between the houses of York and Lancaster.
WALCHEREN EXPEDITION.--This important expedition consisted of
thirty-five ships of the line, and 200 smaller vessels, and 40,000
troops, under the command of the Earl of Chatham. The fleet was
commanded by Sir Richard Strachan. A large number of the forces
died, and the whole expedition came to nothing, December 28th, 1809.
WARSAW, BATTLES OF.--The Poles suffered a great defeat here from
the Russians, October 10th and 12th, 1794. Suwarrow, the Russian
General, after the siege of Warsaw, cruelly butchered 30,000 Poles,
November 8th, 1794. The battle preceding the surrender of Warsaw
was fearfully bloody; of 26,000 men, more than 10,000 were killed;
nearly 10,000 were made prisoners, and only 2000 escaped the
merciless fury of the Russian butcher. Another battle fought here,
and the Poles again defeated, September 7th and 8th, 1831.
WASHINGTON.--Taken, August 24th, 1814, in the war between Great
Britain and the United States, by General Ross, when all the superb
national structures were consumed, in a general conflagration--the
troops not sparing the national library.
WATERLOO, BATTLE OF.--The greatest of all British engagements,
fought June 18th, 1815, between the Duke of Wellington and
Napoleon. The carnage on both sides was immense. The account of
this great battle is taken from the “Twelve Great Battles of
England.” The following is a fine account of the visit of Scott
to the field of Waterloo after the battle, and also Alison on the
defeat of the Old Guard:
WATERLOO AT NOON ON THE DAY AFTER THE BATTLE.
“On a surface of two square miles, it was ascertained that 50,000
men and horses were lying! The luxurious crop of ripe grain which
had covered the field of battle was reduced to litter, and beaten
into the earth; and the surface, trodden down by the cavalry, and
furrowed deeply by the cannon wheels, was strewn with many a relic
of the fight. Helmets and cuirasses, shattered fire-arms and broken
swords; all the variety of military ornaments; Lancer caps and
Highland bonnets; uniforms of every colour, plume, and pennon;
musical instruments, the apparatus of artillery, drums, bugles;
but, good God! why dwell on the harrowing picture of a foughten
field? Each and every ruinous display bore mute testimony to the
misery of such a battle. * * * Could the melancholy appearance
of this scene of death be heightened, it would be by witnessing
the researches of the living midst its desolation for the objects
of their love. Mothers, and wives, and children, for days were
occupied in that mournful duty; and the confusion of the corpses,
friend and foe intermingled as they were, often rendered the
attempt at recognising individuals difficult, and in some cases
impossible. * * * In many places the dead lay four deep upon each
other, marking the spot some British square had occupied, when
exposed for hours to the murderous fire of a French battery.
Outside, lancer and cuirassier were scattered thickly on the earth.
Madly attempting to force the serried bayonets of the British,
they had fallen, in the bootless essay, by the musketry of the
inner files. Farther on, you traced the spot where the cavalry
of France and England had encountered. Chasseur and hussar were
intermingled; and the heavy Norman horse of the Imperial Guard were
interspersed with the grey chargers which had carried Albion’s
chivalry. Here the Highlander and tirailleur lay, side by side,
together; and the heavy dragoon, with Green Erin’s badge upon his
helmet, was grappling in death with the Polish lancer. * * * On
the summit of the ridge, where the ground was covered with death,
and trodden fetlock-deep in mud and gore, by the frequent rush
of rival cavalry, the thick-strewn corpses of the Imperial Guard
pointed out the spot where Napoleon had been defeated. Here, in
column, that favoured corps, on whom his last chance rested, had
been annihilated; and the advance and repulse of the Guard was
traceable by a mass of fallen Frenchmen. In the hollow below, the
last struggle of France had been vainly made; for the Old Guard,
when the middle battalion had been forced back, attempted to meet
the British, and afford time for their disorganised companions to
rally. Here the British left, which had converged upon the French
centre, had come up; and here the bayonet closed the contest.”
DEFEAT OF THE OLD GUARD AT WATERLOO.
“The Imperial Guard was divided into two columns, which, advancing
from different parts of the field, were to converge to the decisive
point on the British right centre, about midway between La Haye
Sainte and the nearest enclosures of Hougoumont. Reille commanded
the first column, which was supported by all the infantry and
cavalry which remained of his corps on either flank, and advanced
up the hill in a slanting direction, beside the orchard of
Hougoumont. The second was headed by Ney in person, and moving down
the _chaussée_ of Charleroi to the bottom of the slope, it then
inclined to the left, and leaving La Haye Sainte to the right,
mounted the slope, also in a slanting direction, converging towards
the same point whither the other column was directing its steps.
Napoleon went with this column as far as the place where it left
the hollow of the high road, and spoke a few words--the last he
ever addressed to his soldiers--to each battalion in passing. The
men moved on with shouts of _Vive l’Empereur!_ so loud as to be
heard along the whole British line, above the roar of artillery,
and it was universally thought the Emperor himself was heading the
attack. But, meanwhile, Wellington had not been idle. Sir Frederick
Adam’s brigade, consisting of the 52nd, 71st, and 95th, and General
Maitland’s brigade of Guards, which had been drawn from Hougoumont,
with Chasse’s Dutch troops, yet fresh, were ordered to bring up
their right shoulders, and wheel inward, with their guns in front,
towards the edge of the ridge; and the whole batteries in that
quarter inclined to the left, so as to expose the advancing columns
coming up to a concentric fire on either flank: the central point,
where the attack seemed likely to fall, was strengthened by nine
heavy guns; the troops at that point were drawn up four deep, in
the form of an interior angle: the Guards forming one side, the
73rd and 30th the other;--while the light cavalry of Vivian and
Vandeleur was brought up behind the line, at the back of La Haye
Sainte, and stationed close in the rear, so as to be ready to make
the most of any advantage which might occur.
It was a quarter past seven when the first column of the Old
Guard, under Reille, advanced to the attack; but the effect of the
artillery on its flank was such, that the cavalry were quickly
dispersed: and the French battalions uncovered, showed their long
flank to Adam’s guns, which opened on them a fire so terrible, that
the head of the column, constantly pushed on by the mass in the
rear, never advanced, but melted away as it came into the scene of
carnage. Shortly after, Ney’s column approached with an intrepid
step; the veterans of Wagram and Austerlitz were there; no force
on earth seemed capable of resisting them; they had decided every
former battle. Drouot was beside the Marshal, who repeatedly said
to him they were about to gain a glorious victory. General Friant
was killed by Ney’s side: the Marshal’s own horse was shot under
him; but bravely advancing on foot, with his drawn sabre in his
hand, he sought death from the enemy’s volleys. The impulse of
this massy column was at first irresistible; the guns were forced
back, and the Imperial Guard came up to within forty paces of the
English Foot Guards, and the 73rd and 30th regiments. These men
were lying down, four deep, in a small ditch behind the rough road,
which there goes along the summit of the ridge. “Up Guards, and at
them!” cried the Duke, who had repaired to the spot; and the whole,
on both sides of the angle into which the French were advancing,
springing up, moved forward a few paces, and poured in a volley
so close and well directed, that nearly the whole first two ranks
of the French fell at once. Gradually advancing, they now pushed
the immense column, yet bravely combatting, down the slope; and
Wellington, at that decisive instant, ordered Vivian’s brigade to
charge the retiring body on one flank, while Adam’s foot advanced
against it on the other. The effect of this triple attack, at once
in front and on both flanks, was decisive: the 52nd and 71st,
swiftly converging inward, threw in so terrible a volley on their
left flank, that the Imperial Guard swerved in disorder to the
right; and at that very instant the 10th, 18th, and 21st dragoons,
under Vivian, bore down with irresistible fury, and piercing right
through the body, threw it into irrevocable confusion. The cry,
“Tout est perdu--la Garde recule!” arose in the French ranks, and
the enormous mass, driven headlong down the hill, overwhelmed
everything which came in its way, and spread disorder through the
whole French centre.”
DESCRIPTION OF WATERLOO FROM THE TWELVE BATTLES.
“We have seen the three several stages by which the Duke of
Wellington had conducted the British army to that elevated position
in which the peace of 1814 left it. We have seen how it had, first,
on the broad fields of Castile, boldly encountered a French army
of twice its strength, and had sent it back in defeat. Next, at
Salamanca, meeting an army of equal force, it had scattered it by
an assault of a single hour, annihilating at a blow one-half of
its strength. And lastly, falling upon the intrusive King himself
in his final position of retreat and defence at Vittoria, it had
driven his entire array, like a flock of frightened sheep, over the
Pyrenees. After those triumphs, by which a whole realm of great
extent had been delivered from its invaders, there seemed scarcely
any way by which the fame and honour of the British army and its
illustrious Commander could be enhanced, except by an event not to
be anticipated--an encounter with the great conqueror of modern
times, now an exile at Elba; and a triumph over him.
This event, however unlikely it might seem, was reserved for
England’s soldiers and her General; and it occurred in less than
a year after the apparent restoration of peace. Napoleon suddenly
left his island-home, reappeared in France, gathered his soldiers
round him, and re-entered Paris as once more its Emperor. Naturally
enough, the Sovereigns who had compelled his retirement, scarcely
nine months before, resolved to maintain their position; and
they covenanted with each other to place armies amounting to
600,000 men on the soil of France in the course of July, 1815.
The British portion of this force was collecting together in the
months of May and June, under the Duke’s command; when Napoleon
determined not to wait for the attack, but to carry the war into
the allied territories; and, accordingly, in the second week in
June he entered Belgium. Before he had proceeded twenty miles he
encountered both the English and the Prussian armies, and on the
fourth day, at a distance of about thirty miles from the French
frontier, was fought the great and decisive battle of Waterloo.
This momentous contest will require of us a more lengthened
description than we have given of any of the great battles; both
because it was an event of the highest possible importance to the
fate of England, of Europe, and of the world; and also because it
was, so to speak, a succession of battles fought on one field, and
on the same day. In a former case we have seen “an army of forty
thousand men defeated in forty minutes;” but here the deadly strife
occupied nearly ten hours. The French opened the attack at eleven
in the morning, and at nine o’clock at night the last of their
battalions had not yet quitted the field. In the course of these
ten hours four or five desperate and prolonged contests had taken
place; each of which might have been justly called a battle. It
will be impossible, therefore, to give any fair or complete idea of
this long continued struggle, without occupying much greater space
than is required for an ordinary battle.
It is also a history which is thickly strewn with controversies.
The defeated General himself was the first to open this wordy
strife. The loss of the fight of Waterloo was a fact to which he
never could be reconciled. That battle hurled him, finally, from
the throne on which he had for the second time seated himself,
and sent him to wear out the few remaining years of his life on
the rock of St. Helena. In that retirement he occupied himself,
for the most part, in a series of efforts to resuscitate his
extinguished “glory.”[16] In these attempts he was hampered by
no moral scruples; for, as Emerson has remarked, “this, the
highest-placed individual in the world, had not the merit of common
truth and honesty; he would steal, slander, assassinate, as his
interest indicated.” Any reasonable man, therefore, will read his
“Historical Memoir,” book ix, written at St. Helena, and published
in London in 1820, with that caution which is so plainly called for
when a document is confessedly an _exparte_ statement, and written
by one who is known to be of unscrupulous character.
Yet that document has been received in many quarters with a
credulity which is somewhat surprising. It is true that this
credulity may be accounted for in the case of the French
historians--who, obliged to confess that their defeat at Waterloo
was “horrible”--a “massacre”--a “deluge of blood”--are glad to have
supplied to them, under Napoleon’s own hand, the apology that he
was overmatched and greatly outnumbered; and that yet, after all,
he would have proved victorious if one of his Generals had not
disobeyed his commands.