THE FIFTEENTH OF JUNE: BLÜCHER AND WELLINGTON.
Marshal Blücher had long since fixed upon Sombreffe as the point of
concentration for his army, in the event of the French crossing the
Sambre at or near Charleroi, and he had even chosen the line of the
brook of Ligny, which borders the villages of St. Amand, Ligny, and
Balâtre, as a possible battlefield.[134]
On the night of the 13th of June, Zieten, who commanded the Ist
Prussian Corps, and whose headquarters were at Charleroi, saw the
French bivouac fires at Beaumont and Solre;[135] and, on the evening of
the 14th, Blücher ordered the IId, IIId and IVth Corps to concentrate
at or near Sombreffe. Zieten with the Ist Corps was to make as
obstinate resistance as possible and fall back to and hold the village
of Fleurus, thus gaining time for the concentration of the whole
army.[136]
These measures, it is admitted by all writers, were taken without any
consultation being had with the Duke of Wellington at the moment. But
it is claimed that there existed a definite understanding between the
two commanders, in pursuance of which Blücher acted.[137]
There had been a meeting between Wellington and Blücher at Tirlemont
on May 3d, which the Duke[138] in a letter to the Prince of Orange
pronounces “very satisfactory.” Baron Müffling, who was the Prussian
military _attaché_ at the Duke’s headquarters, states[139] that
the lines of march which the English and Prussian armies should
respectively pursue _in case France should be invaded_, were definitely
agreed upon and laid down in writing. This agreement may have been
arrived at at that interview, though Müffling does not say so. He then
goes on to say:—[140]
“The junction of the English and Prussian armies for a
_defensive_[141] battle * * * was so distinctly _prescribed by
circumstances and by the locality_ that no doubt whatever could be
raised on the point.”
He then proceeds to give his views, and ends by saying:—
“The point of concentration for the Prussian army was accordingly
marked out between Sombreffe and Charleroi, and for the English, _en
dernier lieu_, between Gosselies and Marchiennes.”
We do not think[142] that Müffling intends here to state that Blücher
and Wellington had made any agreement as to their respective action
in case Napoleon should be the invader; he only tells us what in his
judgment was the true course for them to take,—the course marked out,
as he thought, by the circumstances and the locality. That we are
right in this, will appear when the likelihood of Wellington’s having
definitely agreed to advance his army to the very borders of the Sambre
and the immediate vicinity of Charleroi, in view of his well-known
anxiety for his communications, is considered for a moment.[143] We
believe that the Duke, although doubtless informed of Marshal Blücher’s
intention to concentrate his army at Sombreffe in case the enemy
advanced by way of Charleroi, made no agreement whatever with him as to
his own movements. The two commanders no doubt fully intended to act in
concert, and expected and relied upon the hearty support of each other,
but there was not, as we believe, any definite agreement as to the
particular steps to be taken in the event of a French invasion.
This matter is an important one to settle, because some Prussian
historians claim that Blücher gave battle at Ligny relying on
Wellington’s agreement to support him. We cannot decide on this
question at the present stage of our narrative; but we have already
seen that Blücher gave orders for his four corps to concentrate
at Sombreffe without any definite agreement or understanding with
Wellington that he was to be assisted by the English in the battle that
was almost certain to occur as a consequence of this concentration.
All he had a right to expect was, that the Duke, as soon as he was
informed of the situation, would at once assemble his forces, and, if
he could safely and wisely do so, would march to the assistance of
his ally.[144] But the Prussian Marshal took the risk of the English
general’s not coming to his support in the next day’s battle; for, in
the first place, he knew the scattered situation of the Anglo-Dutch
troops, and that it would take a couple of days or so to get them
together; and, secondly, he could not be sure that Napoleon might not,
by operating with a part of his army by way of Mons and Hal, induce the
Duke to concentrate his forces so far to the westward as to put it out
of his power to render any help to an army that was fighting in front
of Sombreffe.
We have stated that, on the evening of the 14th, Blücher ordered the
IId, IIId and IVth Corps to concentrate at or near Sombreffe. In
compliance with these directions the IId and IIId Corps respectively
concentrated, and marched rapidly towards Sombreffe. But Bülow, whose
headquarters were at Liége, and who had, in obedience to his first
orders, concentrated his corps, took it upon himself to disobey a
subsequent order which he received about eleven o’clock in the morning
of the 15th, directing him to march at once upon Hannut, and to put
off the execution of this order until the next day. It is hardly
worth while to undertake to decide how far Gneisenau, Blücher’s
chief-of-staff, was, as has been often asserted, partly to blame for
this mischance, by not inserting in the order a statement to the
effect that hostilities were imminent. The matter has been often
discussed;[145] it would seem that Bülow ought to bear the largest
share of the blame; but why Gneisenau, upon whose shoulders lay the
burden of effecting a concentration of the entire army by the morning
of the 16th, should have omitted, when a battle was imminent, to put
the commander of his most distant corps in possession of the facts of
the situation and of Marshal Blücher’s intentions, it is certainly not
easy to see. In such an exigency, the chief-of-staff must be held to
the duty of omitting nothing that would tend to accomplish his task.
The Duke of Wellington had been, as had Marshal Blücher, aware for the
last few days of the movement of large masses of French troops near the
frontier, but he had not deemed it necessary or desirable in any way to
alter his dispositions. He felt that his army was the force relied upon
to protect Brussels, where the King of the Netherlands was, and Ghent,
where the King of France was, and that it was of the utmost importance
that Napoleon should not be allowed to gain the political advantage of
putting those newly made sovereigns to flight,[146] and repossessing
himself of Belgium and Holland. Moreover, of the importance of
preserving his own communications with Antwerp and Ostend the Duke was
well aware. He believed that Napoleon’s best move would be against his
communications;[147] and he felt that, under this belief, he ought to
hesitate before concentrating his army and moving it by its left to
gain a union with that of Marshal Blücher.[148]
Hence he retained his own headquarters at Brussels, thirty-four
miles[149] from Charleroi. His army, as has been already stated, lay
in cantonments to the westward of the Charleroi-Brussels turnpike.
It is well known that Wellington looked for a movement of the French
either on the road from Mons to Brussels or to the westward of that
road. He had repaired the fortifications of Mons, Ypres, Tournay and
other places, and put them in a state of defence.[150] It is also to be
observed that for the last three days before the opening of hostilities
the information that came to him of the enemy’s movements indicated a
probable concentration of their forces near Mons.[151] Wellington’s
troops, if they remained in the positions which they occupied on
June 12th, for instance, could be concentrated at Braine-le-Comte
or Hal,—towns on the road from Mons to Brussels,—much more readily
than at Quatre Bras or Gosselies,—that is, they were well situated to
oppose such a movement of the French as that which the Duke thought
it most likely Napoleon would make. They were, it is true, still in
their cantonments, scattered about in the towns and villages, but the
Duke evidently thought that he would have time enough to assemble his
various detachments and concentrate his army after the movements of
his adversary should have been clearly ascertained. For holding this
opinion he has been sharply criticised, but this we will consider in
another place.
We must, therefore, bear in mind, first, that Wellington thought it
likely that Napoleon would advance, if he advanced at all, by way of
Mons, or to the westward of it, and, secondly, that he thought his
own army was well placed to meet such an advance. In fact we may go
further, and say that Wellington having this opinion about the line
which the French would probably take, felt it all the more necessary to
retain his troops in their existing positions, from which they could,
as he judged, easily be assembled to meet such an attack, because he
saw clearly that no assistance, certainly no immediate assistance,
could be expected from the Prussians, in such an emergency, so remote
were they from the Mons-Brussels route. If Napoleon was to be met or
baffled in such a movement it must be by the Anglo-Dutch army. And the
Duke also saw with equal clearness that nothing could serve the purpose
of the French, if they were making their main attack by way of Mons,
better than a premature movement of the Anglo-Dutch army towards Quatre
Bras and Sombreffe, by which the communications of that army would be
exposed throughout their whole length. Hence it was to be expected that
the Duke would be most careful not to make such a premature movement,
and, therefore, that he would insist on being convinced that the main
French attack was by way of Charleroi before doing more than effecting
the assembling of his scattered troops at their respective places of
rendezvous.
It so happened that the Prince of Orange, who commanded, as we have
said, the 1st Corps, left his headquarters at Braine-le-Comte early on
the morning of the 15th, rode to the outposts, heard some firing in the
direction of Thuin, a village some ten miles west of Charleroi, and
then rode straight to Brussels[152] without stopping on his way at his
own headquarters. During his absence[153] reports had been forwarded to
him from Generals Dörnberg and Behr, who were at Mons, to the effect
that all was quiet in their front, and from Van Merlen, whose command
lay a little to the eastward of Mons, that Steinmetz’s Prussian brigade
had been attacked early in the morning[154] and that the enemy’s
movements seemed to be directed on Charleroi. These reports remained
some hours at the Prince’s headquarters, and were then forwarded to
the Duke at Brussels, where they arrived in the evening. But before
that time, in fact by or before 3 o’clock in the afternoon, the
Prince himself had arrived, bringing his own report, which was a very
indefinite one, and which was to the effect that the enemy had attacked
the Prussian outposts near Thuin. This was the first information which
the Duke received of the outbreak of hostilities.[155] About the
same time, also, a dispatch[156] sent by Zieten to Müffling arrived,
announcing that he had been attacked before Charleroi.
Wellington gave sufficient credence to these reports to issue
orders[157] for the immediate concentration of the different
divisions[158] at the points designated for them respectively, and for
their being in readiness to march at a moment’s notice, but waited till
further reports from Mons should come in before doing more.[159] These
orders were despatched between five and seven o’clock.[160]
They provided simply, as we have said above, for the assembling of the
various divisions of the army at certain convenient places. There is,
however, one passage in these orders that requires attention. Alten’s
division—the third British division—had been directed in the first
part of the order to assemble at Braine-le-Comte, but it was further
ordered to march to Nivelles (where the two Dutch-Belgian divisions of
Chassé and Perponcher had been directed to assemble), if Nivelles had
been attacked during the 15th, yet not until it should be found “quite
certain that the enemy’s attack is upon the right of the Prussian army
and the left of the British army.”[161] This concentration of three
divisions of infantry with cavalry and artillery, say about 25,000
men, at Nivelles, seven miles west of Quatre Bras, was thus the only
provision made in this first order or set of orders for the contingency
of the French attack being made on the lines on which it actually
was made; and it would seem to be a legitimate inference from this
arrangement that Nivelles, and not Quatre Bras, had been selected by
Wellington as the point of concentration for his army in case Napoleon
advanced by way of Charleroi. In this connection it is important to
note that in a letter dated 7 P.M., but probably not sent off till
midnight, Müffling wrote to Blücher that the Duke would be in the
morning in the region of Nivelles with his whole force.[162]
Later in the evening, a despatch from Blücher to Müffling, sent from
Namur, arrived,[163] announcing the concentration of the Prussian army
at Sombreffe, and requesting Müffling
“To give him speedy intelligence of the concentration of Wellington’s
army. I immediately,” says Müffling, “communicated this to the Duke,
who quite acquiesced in Blücher’s dispositions. However, he could
not resolve on fixing his point of concentration before receiving the
expected news from Mons.”
This information from Blücher, however, induced the Duke to issue,
about ten o’clock in the evening,[164] a second set of orders, having
for their object a general movement of the army towards the east.[165]
Alten’s division was now positively ordered to Nivelles; Cooke’s
division of guards, which had been ordered to collect at Ath, some
thirteen miles south-west of its headquarters at Enghien, was now
ordered on Braine-le-Comte, eight miles south-east of Enghien; and the
second and fourth divisions, and the cavalry of Lord Uxbridge, which
constituted the extreme right of the army and had been cantoned between
Ath and Audenarde on the Scheldt, were now ordered to Enghien. Enghien
is about eight miles north-west of Braine-le-Comte, which is about nine
miles west of Nivelles, which in its turn is about seven miles west of
Quatre Bras. No orders were issued to the reserves.
Up to this point we can go by the records. But here we encounter
serious difficulties in the evidence. Everybody knows that, somehow or
other, the Duke of Wellington collected the next day at Quatre Bras a
considerable part of his army. We also know that it has been claimed
that during the night of the 15th and 16th the Duke ordered the whole
army to Quatre Bras. We shall presently have occasion to describe how
the Dutch-Belgian troops got there without his orders; but our task now
is to examine the orders which Wellington gave after the despatch of
those the substance of which has just been given, and his Report of
the campaign, and also his own doings on the morning of the 16th, and
see what light these documents and doings throw upon the statements and
claims which have been made and set up in his behalf.
The Duke’s official report,[166] dated Waterloo, June 19th, seems to
contain express reference to three sets of orders.
“I did not hear,” he says, “of these events [the French attack on
the Prussian posts on the Sambre] till in the evening of the 15th;
and I immediately ordered the troops to prepare to march,” that is,
by the orders which were sent off between 5 and 7 o’clock P.M., “and
afterwards,” that is, by the orders issued at 10 o’clock, “to march
to their left, as soon as I had intelligence from other quarters to
prove that the enemy’s movement upon Charleroi was the real attack.”
Then, after stating how the Prince of Orange reinforced the brigade
of Prince Bernhard at Quatre Bras, and had, early in the morning of
the 16th, regained part of the ground which had been lost the evening
before, he goes on to say:—
“In the meantime,”—that is to say, before the “early morning,”—“I had
directed the whole army to march upon Les Quatre Bras.”[167]
Müffling says[168] that, towards midnight,[169] the Duke entered his
room, and said:
“I have got news from Mons, from General Dörnberg, who reports that
Napoleon has turned towards Charleroi with all his forces, and that
there is no longer any enemy in front of him; therefore orders for
the concentration of my army at Nivelles and Quatre Bras are already
despatched. * * * Let us, therefore, go[170] * * * to the ball.”
In spite of this evidence, there is no little difficulty in arriving
at the conclusion that orders for a general concentration of the
Anglo-Dutch army at Quatre Bras were issued by the Duke of Wellington
either during the night of the 15th and 16th, or on the morning of the
16th. It is not only that no such orders as Müffling says the Duke
told him he had despatched,[171] that no orders directing (to use the
Duke’s own words) “the whole army to march upon Les Quatre Bras,”—have
ever been produced,—that, in fact, not a single order of Wellington’s,
directing any troops, except those belonging to the reserves, upon
Quatre Bras, has ever been brought to light. This, though true, is not
conclusive. It is stated by Colonel Gurwood[172] that the original
instructions issued to Colonel De Lancey[173] were lost with that
officer’s[174] papers; and it is of course possible that there may
have been instructions for him to issue orders for the different corps
or divisions to concentrate at Quatre Bras which were thus lost.[175]
But the real difficulty in holding the theory that, at some time during
the night, or in the early morning of the 16th, the Duke issued such
instructions, is, that such a theory is apparently inconsistent with
the only orders[176] given on the early morning of the 16th, of which
we have copies, and also, with the Duke’s actions during the same
period.
Let us consider these points in their order. The orders to which
we have just referred are two in number; they are said to have
been signed by Colonel Sir W. De Lancey, the Deputy Quarter Master
General (or chief-of-staff). They are simply dated 16th June, 1815;
neither the place nor the hour is given, but they must have been
written at Brussels;[177] and in the early morning. They are both
addressed to Lord Hill. The first directs him to move the second
division of infantry upon Braine-le-Comte, and informs him that the
cavalry have also been ordered to the same place. Now, although to
move from Enghien, to which place these divisions had been directed
in the preceding order, to Braine-le-Comte, is to approach Quatre
Bras; it certainly is not the same thing as to march to Quatre Bras.
Braine-le-Comte is in fact sixteen miles west of Quatre Bras. This
despatch closes by saying:—“His Grace is going to Waterloo.” This would
seem to indicate that the Duke had not made up his mind at that time
whether he would personally go to Nivelles or to Quatre Bras, the roads
to which points branch off at Waterloo.[178]
The next despatch orders the troops at Sotteghem,—Stedmann’s 1st
Dutch-Belgian Division and Anthing’s brigade,—to proceed to Enghien, a
place some twenty-five miles to the west of Quatre Bras.
Here, then, are orders issued on the 16th, in the early morning, to be
sure, as we may suppose, but still some hours after the Duke had heard
from General Dörnberg at Mons that the French had turned off towards
Charleroi, and there is no word in them indicating any intention or
expectation of a concentration at Quatre Bras.[179] It is inconceivable
that these orders, or at least the first of them, should have been
worded as they were, if the Duke, at the time of giving them, had the
intention of concentrating his army at Quatre Bras. They are evidently
based on the leading idea of the first two sets of orders, namely, of a
general movement of the army towards the east, so that a concentration
at Nivelles could be easily made.
The facts in regard to Picton’s division also seem to show that not
only at the time when the orders to that division were given, say at 2
A.M., but even when the Duke left Brussels at about 7.30 A.M., he had
not made up his mind to concentrate his army at Quatre Bras. Picton
was ordered to halt at Waterloo, where, as we have said, the roads to
Nivelles and Quatre Bras branch off. He arrived there about ten, halted
a couple of hours,[180] and, “about twelve o’clock, an order reached
him for the continuation of the march of his division upon Quatre
Bras.”[181] It would certainly seem that when the Duke was riding to
Quatre Bras that morning,—passing Picton’s division on the road,—he had
not decided whether to order Picton to Nivelles or to Quatre Bras.[182]
He knew that the latter place was occupied by a brigade or more of
Dutch-Belgian troops, but he had not ordered them there himself,—he had
on the previous evening ordered them to Nivelles; they had, in fact,
come to Quatre Bras and stayed there contrary to the orders which he
had given; and apparently he had not yet fully decided whether he would
withdraw them or reinforce them.
If, therefore, we are to make up our minds solely from Wellington’s
acts in the morning of the 16th, and from the only orders issued that
morning of which we have copies, taken in connection with the previous
orders of which we have cognizance, it would seem, that the Duke from
the first intended to occupy Nivelles strongly, as a good thing to do
in any event; and that he finally determined on concentrating his army
in the neighborhood of that town. It is a fair inference from these
acts and orders that he had not, before he left Brussels, contemplated
concentrating his army further to the eastward; and that it was not
until he had ridden to Quatre Bras, and seen, as he supposed, a very
small force[183] in front of him, that he, bearing in mind, no doubt,
that the reserves on the Brussels road and the troops at Nivelles
were not far off, decided to hold the place, and take the risk of the
enemy’s overwhelming him by a superior force; and that he then,—just as
soon as he had made up his mind to this,—sent his aides to Picton and
the rest on the Brussels road, and to Nivelles; but that not even then
was a general concentration of the whole army at Quatre Bras ordered,
in the strict sense of the word, though, no doubt, every effort was
made to collect there all the troops that could be reached.
But there are two pieces of evidence which remain to be considered,
which contradict this inference, and warrant the conclusion that
before he left Brussels Wellington changed his mind, and did order
a concentration of his whole army at Quatre Bras, as he says in his
Report he did. The first is the letter[184] which the Duke wrote to
Marshal Blücher on the morning of the 16th, and the second is the
“Disposition[185] of the British Army at 7 o’clock A.M., 16th June,”
“written out for the information of the Commander of the Forces by
Colonel Sir W. De Lancey.”
The letter in question never, we believe, saw the light until it was
published at Berlin, in 1876, in Von Ollech’s History of the Campaign
of 1815. We shall give a full translation of it later on; the original
is in French. The “Disposition,” of which we give below an exact
copy,[186] is not signed by Sir W. De Lancey, but by DeLacy Evans.
Evans,[187] who became afterwards a distinguished general officer, was
in 1815 a Major, and was serving as an extra aide-de-camp to Major
General Ponsonby, who commanded the second brigade of cavalry. His
attestation to this memorandum, therefore, can hardly have been made
at the time; but we have a right to suppose that the paper was in De
Lancey’s handwriting, or that Evans had some other sufficient grounds
for thus attesting its authenticity. It purports, in our opinion,[188]
to be a statement, prepared by Wellington’s chief-of-staff, of the
probable positions at 7 o’clock A.M. of the 16th of June, of the
various divisions of the army, and of their respective destinations.
That this “Disposition” was relied on by Wellington when he wrote his
letter to Blücher, seems, by comparing the two papers, very clear. We
find, for example, that the “Disposition” states that, of the four
divisions of the 1st Corps, Cooke’s was at 7 A.M. at Braine-le-Comte,
marching to Nivelles and Quatre Bras, Alten’s was at Nivelles, and
marching to Quatre Bras, and those of Chassé and Perponcher were at
Nivelles and Quatre Bras. We then find the Duke writing to Blücher,
that, at 10.30 A.M., one division of this corps was at Quatre Bras
and the rest at Nivelles. It cannot be denied that, so far as this
corps is concerned, certainly, the two papers hang together perfectly
well. Wellington had a perfect right to suppose that Cooke could get
from Braine-le-Comte to Nivelles, or nearly there, between seven and
half-past ten; and as for the positions of the other divisions, he
simply follows the memorandum which his chief-of-staff has prepared for
his information, and on which he had an undoubted right to rely. We
shall give, later on, other instances of this agreement between these
two papers. They seem to us to demonstrate the authenticity of the
“Disposition.”
Assuming now the authenticity of this memorandum, we wish to point
out that its statements necessarily imply that orders had been issued
to the army other than those of which we have copies,—that is, other
than those of which we have given abstracts above. Thus, all we have
hitherto been able to ascertain in regard to the orders to Cooke’s
division is, that it was by the 10 P.M. order of June 15, directed to
march from Enghien on Braine-le-Comte. It would appear from the De
Lancey Memorandum that it had been subsequently ordered to Nivelles and
Quatre Bras. And the Duke does not hesitate to tell Marshal Blücher—on
the strength of De Lancey’s statement, that, at 7 A.M., Cooke was at
Braine-le-Comte,—that Cooke must have arrived at Nivelles by half-past
ten,—he being, according to De Lancey’s memorandum, under orders to
proceed there.
So with the cavalry. We have seen above that in an early morning
order of the 16th, it is said that the cavalry had been directed on
Braine-le-Comte. Yet there must have been some subsequently issued
order to Lord Uxbridge, for we find the “Disposition” stating that the
cavalry is, at 7 A.M., at Braine-le-Comte, and is marching to Nivelles
and Quatre Bras; and Wellington, relying on this statement of his
chief-of-staff, that a subsequent order had been sent out ordering the
cavalry to continue their march to Nivelles, does not hesitate to tell
Marshal Blücher, that his cavalry will be at Nivelles at noon.
We shall have occasion hereafter to examine both papers in detail; but
what we have just pointed out will suffice for the purpose now in hand.
That is to say, the “Disposition” prepared for the Duke’s information
by Colonel De Lancey, and the letter of the Duke to Marshal Blücher are
pieces of strictly contemporaneous evidence; and show beyond a doubt
that further orders, issued subsequently to those of which we know the
tenor, and directing the army on Quatre Bras, were really given in
the morning of the 16th, as Wellington, in his Report of the battle,
explicitly states was the case.
Thus,—to recur for a moment to the orders dated on the 16th, and
to the inferences drawn from them,—although at the time when the
despatch dated the 16th to Lord Hill, to move the second division on
Braine-le-Comte, in which it was stated that the Duke was going to
Waterloo, was issued, the Duke assuredly had not made up his mind to
concentrate his army at Quatre Bras, nevertheless, he did subsequently,
and probably not long afterwards, make up his mind so to do, and
thereupon he issued an order for that division to march to Nivelles,
as the “Disposition” states. As for Stedmann’s division and Anthing’s
brigade, which were the subjects of the other order written on the
16th, the “Disposition” simply embodies the purport of this order. And
as for the halt of Picton’s division at Waterloo, to which we have
called attention above, if we suppose that, before he left Brussels for
Quatre Bras, the Duke had issued orders for the concentration of the
whole army, or, at any rate, of the bulk of the army, at Quatre Bras,
he may well have passed Picton’s division on its march to Waterloo,
assured that, after a brief rest at that place, which would do the
men no harm, an order would arrive from Brussels, where very possibly
the staff[189] were writing out the orders to the army, for Picton to
continue his march to Quatre Bras.
Wellington’s decision to concentrate at Quatre Bras the whole army,—or
the bulk of the army,—for it does not appear even from the De Lancey
Memorandum that he ever expected the far distant divisions of Colville
and Stedmann to arrive in season,—was reached, in all probability,
while he was at the Duchess of Richmond’s ball. He went to the ball at
or soon after 10 P.M., and he stayed there until after 2 A.M.[190] He
told the Duke of Richmond, just before he left the house, that he had
“ordered the army to concentrate at Quatre Bras.”[191] At some time,
therefore, after the issuing of the orders to Lord Hill, which are
dated the 16th,[192] and before 2 or 2.30 A.M., the Duke decided to
concentrate the army at Quatre Bras.
FOOTNOTES:
[134] Clausewitz, ch. 15, ch. 16. Sib., vol. 1, p. 39.
[135] Chesney, p. 71: Siborne, vol. 1, p. 54.
[136] Clausewitz, ch. 23, p. 48: Chesney, p. 71.
[137] Charras, vol. 1, p. 127, states this to be the fact, but cites no
authority.
[138] Gurwood, vol. xii, p. 345. Clausewitz, ch. 11, p. 28, probably
refers to this meeting, though he locates it at St. Trond. _Cf._
Chesney, p. 77.
[139] Passages, p. 231.
[140] Ib. p. 232.
[141] The italics are ours.
[142] As does Chesney, for instance (p. 77), who says that the English
and Prussian chiefs agreed to assemble their armies respectively at
the points given in the above citation from Müffling. Maurice also
(pp. 145, 146, May, 1890) makes the same statement. Both these writers
evidently rest on the statement of Müffling, cited above, which does
not seem to us to sustain them. They are, however, careful to confine
the agreement to the measures to be taken in case the French advanced
by way of Charleroi. _Cf._ La Tour D’Auvergne, p. 107.
Siborne (vol. 1, pp. 39 and 40) says that Blücher and Wellington had
agreed in the above-mentioned event to concentrate respectively at
Sombreffe and Quatre Bras, but he gives no authority for the statement.
Jomini (p. 122) says substantially the same thing. Charras (vol. 1, p.
84) makes the same statement, also without citing any authority for it.
Very possibly he took it from Siborne. _Cf._ Chesney, p. 93.
[143] _Cf._ Supp. Desp., vol. x, p. 521: Memorandum on the Battle of
Waterloo. App. C, xv; _post_, pp. 374, 375, 376.
[144] “Naturally, then, Prince Blücher * * * would expect to be
supported by Wellington, so far as the existing situation would make
this support possible to the Duke.” Ollech, p. 124.
[145] Clausewitz, ch. 20; Chesney, pp. 82, 101; Siborne, vol. 1, pp.
70, 71, n. Charras, vol. 1, p. 128, n.; Gneisenau, vol. 4, pp. 360 _et
seq._; Ollech, pp. 90 _et seq._ _Cf._ Maurice, p. 259: June, 1890;
also, p. 546: Sept., 1890.
[146] Supp. Desp., vol. x, p. 521; Memorandum on the Battle of
Waterloo; App. C, XV; _post_, pp. 374, 375, 376; Ellesmere, p. 171.
[147] Supp. Desp., vol. x, p. 530. App. C, XV; _post_, pp. 374, 375,
376.
[148] Maurice, pp. 148, 149: May, 1890.
[149] Chesney, p. 76.
[150] Siborne, vol. 1, p. 33.
[151] See this information collated in Maurice, pp. 147, 148: May,
1890. He is also inclined to think that Napoleon ordered the temporary
occupation of Binche, with the intention of creating the belief that a
part, at least, of the French army was moving on Mons.
[152] Ollech, p. 115.
[153] Ib., pp. 114, 115. Maurice, p. 540: Sept., 1890.
[154] Steinmetz sent this message to Van Merlen at 8 A.M. Van Loben
Sels, p. 125, note. Chesney, p. 94, note.
[155] Charras, who says, vol. 1, p. 130, that Wellington received at
nine o’clock in the morning a despatch from Zieten, announcing that his
advance posts had been attacked, is clearly in error. Hooper, p. 83,
points out that the expression on which Charras bases his conclusion
really means that 9 A.M. was the date of the latest intelligence from
Charleroi.
Siborne, vol. 1, p. 164, n., severely criticises the arrangements of
the Prince of Orange for the transmission of intelligence.
[156] Müffling, Passages, p. 228.
[157] Gurwood, vol. xii, p. 472. App. C, ix; _post_, p. 370. We rely
mainly on the “Memorandum for the Deputy Quartermaster General,” from
which he drafted the orders. In some cases we know that the orders
actually sent varied somewhat from the terms of the Memorandum; this
was no doubt true in all cases; but the differences were not material.
See Van Loben Sels, p. 177, note (1).
[158] 0llech (p. 116) says Cooke’s division was not mentioned in these
orders. He is in error; it is Clinton’s division that is not mentioned.
Cooke’s was ordered to collect at Ath, not Clinton’s, as Ollech has it.
[159] Müffling, Passages, p. 229.
[160] Chesney, p. 83, n. Müffling, p. 229. Maurice, p. 69: April, 1890.
Charras, vol. 1, p. 132, n., says between eight and half-past nine.
[161] Gurwood, vol. xii, p. 473; App. C, ix; _post_, p. 370.
[162] Gneisenau, vol. 4, p. 365, note.
[163] Müffling, Passages, p. 229.
[164] At 10 o’clock, however, it was not known at Brussels that
Charleroi had been taken. In a letter to the Duc de Feltre, dated 10
P.M., the Duke says that the enemy “appears to menace” Charleroi.
Gurwood, vol. xii, p. 473; App. C, x; _post_, p. 371.
[165] Gurwood, vol. xii, p. 474; App. C, xi; _post_, p. 371.
[166] Gurwood, vol. xii, pp. 478, _et seq._ App. C, xii; _post_, p. 372.
[167] It is remarkable that this distinct and unequivocal statement,
made in an official report the day after the battle, should have
received so slight attention. It is hardly, if at all, alluded to
either by those who believe that Wellington did order his army to
concentrate at Quatre Bras, or by those who do not believe this. There
is no mention of it in Siborne, Chesney, Hooper, Kennedy, Maurice,
O’Connor Morris.
[168] “Passages, p. 230. _Cf._ Maurice, p. 261: June, 1890.
[169] Siborne (vol. I, pp. 79, 80) says this information arrived about
10 P.M. Charras (vol. 1, p. 134) says it was “towards eleven o’clock.”
[170] _Cf._ Letters of the First Earl of Malmesbury, vol. 2, p. 445
(London, Bentley, 1870,), where a similar statement is said to have
been made by Wellington to the Duke of Richmond just before the former
left the ballroom. See App. C, xiii; _post_, p. 373.
[171] Müffling’s letter to Gneisenau, dated 7 P.M. but no doubt
sent off about midnight (Passages, pp. 229, 230) says that “as
soon as the moon rises, the reserves will march; and, in case the
enemy should not attack Nivelles, the Duke will be in the region of
Nivelles with his whole force in the morning in order to support
your Highness.” Gneisenau, vol. 4, p. 365, note. The letter does not
mention Quatre Bras. Delbrück, in his Life of Gneisenau, vol. 4, p.
367, says that “Müffling also reported about midnight to the Prussian
commander-in-chief that the allied army would be concentrated in twelve
hours, and that at ten o’clock on the following morning 20,000 men
would be at Quatre Bras, and the cavalry corps would be at Nivelles.”
But he cites neither Müffling nor any other authority for this amazing
statement. Müffling tells us himself that in his judgment the cavalry
could not reach Quatre Bras before nightfall,—hence they could reach
Nivelles only two or three hours before nightfall. Müffling, Passages,
p. 235.
[172] Gurwood, vol. xii, p. 474. _Cf._ Maurice, p. 144: May, 1890. Van
Loben Sels, p. 181. Ellesmere, pp. 173, 174.
[173] The Deputy Quarter Master General, or chief-of-staff.
[174] He was killed at Waterloo.
[175] The orders themselves, however, would be received at the
headquarters of the different corps or divisions, and might, possibly,
be even now in existence.
[176] Gurwood, vol. xii, p. 474; App. C, xiv; _post_, p. 374.
[177] “Previously to starting from Brussels for” Quatre Bras,—says
Siborne, vol. I, p. 88.
[178] Maurice, p. 344: July, 1890. This is Colonel Maurice’s
conclusion. So, Ollech, p. 118.
[179] Siborne, vol. 1, p. 88, says: “With the early dawn of the 16th
of June, the whole of the Duke of Wellington’s forces were in movement
towards Nivelles and Quatre Bras.” And then he gives the substance of
the orders to Hill. It is not easy to follow Siborne’s train of thought
here.
[180] Gomm, p. 352; Waterloo Letters, p. 23. Gomm says the march was
resumed at 1 P.M.
[181] Siborne, vol. 1, p. 102, note.
[182] Maurice, p. 344: July, 1890. It is curious that the contradiction
between these facts and the Duke’s statement in his Report should not
have been commented on.
[183] Wellington’s letter to Blücher: Ollech, p. 125; Maurice, p. 257:
June 1890; _post_, p. 106: App. C, xvi; _post_, pp. 376, 377.
[184] Von Ollech, p. 125. Maurice, p. 257: June, 1890; _post_, p. 106;
App. C, xvi; _post_, pp. 376, 377.
[185] Supp. Desp., vol. x, p. 496.
[186] Disposition of the British Army at 7 o’clock A.M., 16th June.
1st division Braine le Comte marching to Nivelles and
Quatre Bras.
2d „ „ marching to Nivelles.
3d „ Nivelles „ to Quatre Bras.
4th „ Audenarde „ to Braine le Comte.
5th „ beyond Waterloo „ to Genappe.
6th „ Assche „ to Genappe and
Quatre Bras.
5th Hanoverian brigade Hal „ to Genappe and
Quatre Bras.
4th „ beyond Waterloo „ to Genappe and
Quatre Bras.
2d division {army of the } at Nivelles and
3d „ {Low Countries} Quatre Bras.
1st division } „
Indian brigade } „ Sotteghem marching to Enghien.
Major-General Dörnberg’s}
brigade and } beyond Waterloo „ to Genappe and
Quatre Bras.
Cumberland Hussars }
Remainder of the cavalry Braine le Comte „ to Nivelles and
Quatre Bras.
Duke of Brunswick’s Corps, beyond Waterloo „ to Genappe.
Nassau „ „ to Genappe.
The above disposition written out for the information of the commander
of the Forces by Colonel Sir W. De Lancey. The centre column of names
indicates the places at which the troops had arrived or were moving on.
The column on the right of the paper indicates the places the troops
were ordered to proceed to at 7 o’clock A.M., 16th June, previous to
any attack on the British.
(Signed) DeLacy Evans.
By the phrase—“the places at which the troops had arrived or were
moving on”—the writer means, in all probability, the places to which
the troops were, in his judgment, nearest, at 7 A.M.
[187] Waterloo Roll Call, pp. 4, 19.
[188] Maurice (June, 1890, p. 261) adopts a different construction
of the statement; he thinks it means that the orders to march to the
various points named were issued at seven o’clock A.M. But why should
it have been thought necessary to give to the Commander of the Forces
information of the hour of issuing the orders? What he would want to
know would be where the various divisions probably were at a given
hour, and to what points they were marching.
[189] Major Oldfield states that the Duke rode out to Quatre Bras
unattended by his Quartermaster-General, De Lancey, or by the other
heads of departments. Oldfield, MSS.
[190] Lady Jane Dalrymple Hamilton, in her most interesting Journal,
now in the possession of her granddaughter, Lady Manvers, says: “We
found him [the Duke] there [at the ball] on our arrival at 10 o’clock.
* * * We remained till past two, and, when I left, the Duke was still
there.”
[191] App. C, xiii; _post_, p. 373.
[192] _Ante_, p. 82.
_NOTES TO CHAPTER V._
1. We may properly devote a few words here to the Duke of Wellington’s
“Memorandum on the Battle of Waterloo,” written in 1842, in reply to
Clausewitz’s History of the Campaign of 1815. There are some statements
contained in this paper which fairly take one’s breath away.
For instance, we learn that the Duke, “having received the intelligence
of” the French “attack only at three o’clock in the afternoon of the
15th, _was at Quatre Bras before the same hour on the morning of the
16th_,[193] with a sufficient force to engage the left of the French
army.”[194]
The fact is, that, at 3 A.M. of the 16th only the brigade of Prince
Bernhard of Saxe Weimar was at Quatre Bras, and he had taken it there
entirely on his own responsibility, and not, as is implied in the above
statement, in obedience to orders from the Duke of Wellington.
But it is unnecessary to set forth in detail any refutation of such
statements as the above. The best English authorities do not rely[195]
on this Memorandum, alleging that the Duke’s memory, when he wrote it,
was no longer exact.[196] We are quite within bounds when we say that
this Memorandum adds nothing to our knowledge of the facts. We may add
that it is a pity that this is so. Wellington wrote this Memorandum in
1842,—twenty-seven years only after the date of the battle of Waterloo.
This is not so very long after the occurrence: we are now twenty-nine
years after Gettysburg. Very many officers conversant with the facts
must have been then alive; and the Duke had access to all the official
papers. It is a pity, we repeat, that he did not set himself to the
task of drawing up an exhaustive and accurate narrative of the facts of
the campaign.
2. We desire to call attention again to the absence of evidence that
Wellington and Blücher had formulated any definite plan of concerted
action in the event of Napoleon’s invading Belgium.
One thing, at any rate, is quite clear, and that is that neither of
the allied commanders acted, so far as we can judge, in pursuance of
any such agreement. Blücher, when he hears of Napoleon’s advance to
Charleroi, orders his army to assemble at Sombreffe, and then sends
word to Wellington of what he has done; the latter, as we have seen,
although he learns that the enemy’s main attack is by way of Charleroi
and therefore upon the Prussians, and although he has long known that
in this event it was Blücher’s intention to concentrate his army at
Sombreffe, takes no instant steps to bring his army into close union
with that of Blücher. His first idea, certainly, is to assemble his
army at Nivelles. This difficulty, it is true, does not seem greatly
to trouble the writers who have adopted the theory of a previous
understanding or arrangement; it seems to be possible, for instance,
for Siborne, to believe that Wellington had agreed to concentrate
at Quatre Bras,[197] and yet actually to call attention[198] to the
fact that he halted Picton’s division at Waterloo, hours after he
had known that Blücher was concentrating at Sombreffe, because he had
not then made up his mind whether to send Picton to Nivelles or to
Quatre Bras. But he and those other historians who have followed him,
or have adopted the same theory, have certainly a serious difficulty
to contend with. The Duke had been informed about mid-night[199] that
Quatre Bras was occupied by a part of Perponcher’s division, and he
had heard also that Blücher was concentrating his army at Sombreffe.
If he had agreed with Blücher to concentrate the Anglo-Dutch army at
Quatre Bras, he would assuredly have given his orders accordingly, and
in season,—at least one would suppose so,—and he certainly could have
had a large force there by ten o’clock in the morning. But he acted, on
the other hand, as if he thought that he possessed perfect discretion
as to what he would do,—as if he was bound by no agreement whatsoever.
It is evident, in fact, that he did not make up his mind till shortly
before he left Brussels to go to Quatre Bras himself, whether he would
undertake to hold the place or not.
3. It is, however, to be noted that the action that was fought at
Quatre Bras assumed at once such importance in the eyes of the world,
that those historians who have been great admirers of the Duke have
very generally asserted that he had, almost from the first news of the
French attack, determined to concentrate his army there. This assertion
has been accompanied by many eulogistic remarks, in which Wellington’s
prescience and power of quick decision have been held up to an
undeserved admiration. “At ten the same night, however” [the 15th],
says Gleig,[200] “the enemy’s movements had sufficiently disclosed his
intentions; and the whole army, with the exception of the reserve, was
put in motion. It marched by various roads upon Quatre Bras.” Captain
Pringle, of the Royal Engineers, upon whom Sir Walter Scott largely
relied for his narrative of the campaign, says:[201] “Having obtained
further intelligence about 11 o’clock [on the evening of the 15th],
which confirmed the real attack of the enemy to be along the Sambre,
orders were immediately given for the troops to march upon Quatre Bras.”
We have just seen that no such orders were given until the early
morning hours of the 16th.
4. Assuming now, as we fairly may, that the Duke did not direct a
general concentration of his army at Quatre Bras until shortly before
he left Brussels, say, for a guess, at 2 A.M. of the 16th, let us
endeavor to get a notion, if we may, of his first intentions and
expectations, as shown in his previously issued orders.
He had directed three divisions on Nivelles,—all his reserves to a
point on the Charleroi-Brussels pike from which they could easily be
moved to Nivelles,—and his more westerly divisions to Enghien and
Braine-le-Comte, in the direction of Nivelles. Among the troops thus
directed on Nivelles were some that had been stationed at Genappe
and Quatre Bras. He had in fact ordered his army to concentrate at
Nivelles; notwithstanding that he had been informed that the French
attack was by way of Charleroi, that Blücher was concentrating at
Sombreffe, that a brigade of Dutch-Belgians was at Quatre Bras,
and that it had been skirmishing with the enemy. The question of
the appropriateness of his action to these facts is certainly an
interesting one.
Colonel Maurice, the most recent military commentator on the
campaign, discusses this question, and arrives at the conclusion that
Wellington’s original intention of concentrating his army at Nivelles,
was in accord with the principles of war.[202] “If there is one thing
which rests on more certain experience than another,” says he, “it is
that an army ought not to expose itself piecemeal to the blows of a
concentrated enemy. Wellington, therefore, contemplated concentrating
his army out of reach of the advancing French. Napoleon, from his
general knowledge of the position of the English army, assumed that
they would, of course, not venture to oppose him till they had fallen
back to concentrate. As the case actually happened, only the wild
wandering of d’Erlon’s Corps prevented Ney from overwhelming the force
in his presence at Quatre Bras.”
To this it may be replied:—
A. That Wellington, as we have stated above,[203] knew at 11 P.M. of
the 15th that the main body of the French under Napoleon in person
were concentrating in front of the Prussians, who were themselves
concentrating at Sombreffe. He might, therefore, fairly reckon on being
able, if he acted with promptness, to assemble at Quatre Bras during
the next forenoon a force quite as large as any that might reasonably
be expected to be spared from the main body of the French to oppose
him. He, therefore, would not have exposed his troops “piecemeal
to the blows of a concentrated enemy,” if he had ordered a general
concentration at Quatre Bras after making sure that the main body
of the French was at or near Fleurus, and that the main body of the
Prussians was ready to receive them there.
B. It is perfectly true that had d’Erlon’s Corps come up in due time,
the forces which Wellington had at Quatre Bras, including the several
bodies of reinforcements, as they successively arrived, would have been
overwhelmed in detail. But then, as we shall shortly show, Wellington
did not issue his orders for his army to concentrate at Quatre Bras in
season to effect his object. Had he done so, on the night of the 15th
and 16th, he would have had by noon, certainly, a very much larger
body of men than he actually did have, very possibly enough to oppose
successfully both d’Erlon and Reille. It must be remembered that it was
not until (say) 2 o’clock in the morning, or thereabouts, that he gave
any orders to any troops to proceed to Quatre Bras.
We conclude, therefore, that Wellington would not have run any
unwarrantable risk by ordering his army to assemble at Quatre Bras as
soon as he had learnt of the French advance by way of Charleroi. And
that this was the true course for him to take is virtually admitted
by his own subsequent accounts of his doings,[204] on which we have
commented above in our remarks on his “Memorandum on the Battle of
Waterloo.” (_Ante_, p. 90.) Had the instructions which he actually
gave been strictly carried out, had the brigade of Prince Bernhard of
Saxe Weimar been withdrawn to Nivelles in obedience to the orders of
10 P.M., Ney might have occupied Quatre Bras without opposition, in
the morning of the 16th. And although it is possible, and, in fact,
probable, that he would have been attacked by the English during the
afternoon, and while it would have been obviously out of the question
for him to have advanced on Brussels, leaving the English army at
Nivelles, yet, supposing that he had had both his corps with him, as he
ought to have had, he assuredly would have been able to spare a part of
his forces to take the Prussians in rear while they were fighting at
Ligny, as the Emperor (as we shall see) desired him to do.
C. As for Napoleon’s expectations in regard to the English occupation
of Quatre Bras as given to us by Colonel Maurice, it must certainly
be admitted by everybody that Napoleon considered the occupation of
the cross-roads as of very great importance for himself, and that the
reason why he gave Ney 45,000 men of all arms was in order to make a
sure thing of it. Very possibly he did not expect that the English
general would be able, scattered as his army was in its cantonments, to
assemble a very large force there during the morning of the 16th. But
it is evident that he thought that his adversary’s getting 30,000 or
40,000 men together, and either assisting the Prussians or attacking
his left flank, was a thing so likely to occur, and so dangerous a
thing, if it did occur, that he gave his two largest corps to his best
fighting general in order to provide fully for this contingency by
seizing and occupying the cross-roads of Quatre Bras. If the emergency
arose, Napoleon was bound to be prepared for it. If he had regarded it
as extremely improbable that the English would be encountered in force
at or near Quatre Bras, he would probably have strengthened his main
army with one of the corps which he gave to Ney.
5. That Wellington and Blücher erred in allowing their armies to remain
in their widely extended cantonments until Napoleon attacked them is
now generally admitted. Sir James Shaw-Kennedy’s remarks[205] on this
point sum up the question forcibly:—
“They [the allied commanders] determined to continue in the
cantonments which they occupied until they knew positively the line
of attack. Now it may safely be predicted that this determination
will be considered by future and dispassionate historians as a
great mistake; for, in place of waiting to see where the blow
actually fell, the armies should have been instantly put in motion
to assemble. Nor was this the only error: the line of cantonments
occupied by the Anglo-Allied and Prussian armies was greatly too
extended. * * * From the time, therefore, that it became known that
Napoleon’s army was organized and formed into corps ready to take
the field, the armies of Wellington and Blücher should have been so
placed in cantonments as to be prepared to meet any of the cases
supposed,”—_i.e._, an advance of the French by any one of the great
Flanders roads,— * * * “and from the moment that it was known that
the French army was at all in movement, the allied armies should have
been withdrawn from their cantonments and placed very near to each
other.”
Wellington and Blücher, it will be remembered, had known for several
days that Napoleon was massing his forces, and yet they put off till
the last moment even the assembling their corps and divisions in their
respective places of _rendezvous_.
Sir James Shaw-Kennedy then proceeds to discuss the proper “line of
cantonments” of the allied armies from the time when “it was known
that Napoleon had a large organized army ready to take the field,”[206]
and he gives it as his opinion that Blücher should have “made Genappe
his headquarters, cantoning his army between Louvain and Gosselies,
occupying the line of the Sambre from Namur to the frontier by strong
bodies of cavalry, &c.,” and that Wellington, having his headquarters
at Brussels, should have cantoned his army between Brussels and
Soignies, with cavalry outposts.
Charras[207] expresses the same opinion as to the line of cantonments
of Wellington’s army, but he holds that by the end of May the Duke
should have carried his headquarters six or eight leagues [15 or 20
miles] in advance of Brussels:[208] while Blücher ought at the same
time to have removed his headquarters to Fleurus,[209] and to have
concentrated his forces within a radius of six or eight leagues
(fifteen or twenty miles); having outposts on the Sambre and Meuse.
In this last opinion, as he says, he follows Napoleon.[210] The latter,
it is to be noted, does not criticise Wellington, as do Charras
and Clausewitz, for retaining his headquarters in Brussels, but
only,—in this connection, that is,—for the excessive extent of his
cantonments.[211] Napoleon’s view seems to be that Brussels was the
right place for the headquarters of the Anglo-Dutch army and Fleurus
for those of the Prussian army; and that from the 15th of May both
generals should have greatly reduced the extent of their cantonments,
so that no part of their troops, except the advance-posts, should be
more than twenty miles distant from the headquarters of the army.
Had this course been adopted, he says the Prussians might have been
assembled at Ligny at noon of the 15th,[212] ready to receive the attack
of the French army. He does not, however, go on and state his view of
the mode and time of the coöperation of the English army in that event.
We must content ourselves with merely stating these opinions.
6. That Marshal Blücher, who had allowed his troops to remain in their
widely scattered cantonments until the last moment, erred in giving
Sombreffe as the point of concentration of his army, seems on principle
and authority very clear. Napoleon’s remarks[213] on this are as
follows:—
“Marshal Blücher ought, as soon as he knew that the French were at
Charleroi [that is to say, on the evening of the 15th,] to have
given, as the point of assembling of his army, not Fleurus, nor
where the French could not arrive until the evening of the 16th. By
doing so, he would have had all the day of the 16th, and the night
between the 16th and 17th, to effect the junction of his whole army.”
He also for the same reasons censures Wellington[214] for establishing
“Quatre Bras as the point of reunion” for his army. Sir James
Shaw-Kennedy[215] says to the same effect:
“The determination of Wellington and Blücher to meet Napoleon’s
advance at Fleurus and Quatre Bras was totally inconsistent with the
widely scattered positions in which they had placed their armies;
their determination in this respect amounted in the fullest extent to
that error which has so often been committed in war, by even great
commanders, of endeavoring to assemble on a point which could only be
reached by a portion of the troops intended to occupy it, while the
enemy had the power of concentrating upon it his whole force.”
We do not believe, as we have pointed out above, that any such
determination had been arrived at by Wellington and Blücher beforehand;
but, Blücher’s taking the decisive step of ordering a concentration
of his army at Sombreffe, instead of at Wavre, for instance, placed
Wellington, as we have just pointed out, under the necessity of
ordering a concentration of his army, or a part of it, at Quatre
Bras, unless he was prepared to leave his ally without support. The
criticisms of Napoleon and of General Shaw-Kennedy, are, therefore,
we submit, really confined to Blücher’s action. Napoleon is not
considering what Wellington ought to have done _in view of the step
which Blücher took in concentrating at Sombreffe_, but is only giving
his opinion, that, on general principles, Quatre Bras was not the
proper place of concentration for the English, just as Sombreffe was
not the proper place of concentration for the Prussians, after the
French were known to be advancing on Charleroi. It must be noted that
Napoleon and Kennedy both assume that the two allied generals had
agreed upon Sombreffe and Quatre Bras respectively.[216] If there was
no such agreement, (and we think there was not any), then we cannot
properly consider Wellington’s decision to concentrate at Quatre Bras
except in connection with the fact that Blücher had committed himself
to a battle at Ligny and needed his support.
FOOTNOTES:
[193] The italics are ours. But see _post_, p. 374, n. 2.
[194] Supp. Desp., vol. x, p. 523; App. C, XV; _post_, pp. 374, 375,
376.
[195] Chesney, p. 83, n.; p. 101; p. 131.
[196] Ib., p. 101; p. 131.
[197] Siborne, vol. 1., p. 40.
[198] Ib., p. 102, note.
[199] By a despatch sent to the Prince of Orange at Brussels from
Braine-le-Comte at 10 P.M. Van Loben Sels, p. 176, note.
[200] Gleig’s Life of the Duke of Wellington, p. 308.
[201] Scott’s Life of Napoleon, p. 833. Paris; Galignani; 1828.
[202] Maurice, pp. 344 _et seq._ (July, 1890.) _Contra_, Charras, vol.
1, pp. 132, _et seq._
[203] _Ante_, p. 80, n. 36.
[204] Chesney, p. 101.
[205] Kennedy, pp. 168-170. See, also, Clausewitz, chaps. 11, 15, 17.
Charras, vol. 1, p. 80. Corresp., vol. 31, p. 254.
[206] Kennedy, p. 171.
[207] Charras, vol. 1 p. 80.
[208] This is also the opinion of Clausewitz; ch. 18.
[209] Charras, vol. 1, p. 83. Clausewitz, ch. 18, says “nearer
Nivelles,” _i.e._, nearer than Namur is.
[210] Corresp., vol. 31, p. 253.
[211] Ib., p. 254.
[212] Ib., p. 253.
[213] Ib., p. 254. The words in brackets are in the edition of 1820,
known as the “Mémoires,” but are not in the “Correspondance.” The
“Mémoires” also substitute “the 17th” for “the evening of the 16th.”
[214] Corresp. vol. 31, p. 255.
[215] Kennedy, p. 172.
[216] Corresp., pp. 195,197. Kennedy, p. 172.