THE SEVENTEENTH OF JUNE: BLÜCHER AND WELLINGTON.
Zieten and Pirch I. fell back after the battle of Ligny, as has
been above stated,[513] in the direction of Wavre. Gneisenau, the
chief-of-staff of the Prussian army, on whom, in the absence of
Marshal Blücher, who was unhorsed and quite seriously bruised in a
cavalry encounter at the end of the day, and was supposed to have been
taken prisoner,[514] the command devolved, gave the order at first for
the two beaten corps[515] to retire on Tilly, and then, as one of his
staff-officers called his attention to the fact that Tilly was not
on all the maps, he substituted Wavre for Tilly as the point to be
reached.[516]
This step involved obviously the renunciation of the line of Namur.
It implied also that the IIId and IVth Corps, those of Thielemann and
Bülow, would be ordered to retire in the general direction of Wavre,
so that a union of the whole army might be effected somewhere to the
northward. But it did not necessarily imply that this union of the army
would be effected at Wavre; or even that, if effected at Wavre, it
would be followed by an attempt to unite with the Anglo-Dutch army. It
was quite possible that the two beaten corps might, after reforming
at Wavre, be ordered in the direction of Maestricht, towards which
place the IIId and IVth Corps might also be ordered to retire. In fact,
this was the interpretation put by General Thielemann on the facts
as he first learned them. He wrote to Bülow,[517] that he had heard
nothing from the Marshal, but supposed that the intention was that the
Ist and IId Corps were to fall back from Wavre towards St. Trond, which
is a town in the direction of Maestricht, some 35 miles from Wavre.
At the same time it is clear that Gneisenau, in ordering Zieten and
Pirch I. to Wavre, had taken the necessary preliminary steps to effect
a concentration of the whole army at that place, from which a movement
for the assistance of Wellington, if he should be willing to accept
battle at Waterloo, could be made. This union with the Anglo-Dutch
army was, therefore, naturally regarded by the Prussian officers and
soldiers as the real object of the movement to Wavre.[518] It may be
that Gneisenau himself gave his orders with the sole intention of
bringing about a union of the two allied armies.[519] But this is
doubtful. It is more likely that he ordered a retreat on Wavre, knowing
that this alone could render such a union possible, and leaving its
practicability and advisability to be determined afterwards.
It must be remembered that the step which Gneisenau had taken involved
a temporary change of base, with all the many inconveniences and
risks therefrom resulting. The communications with Namur must be
abandoned. No such course as this had been thought of when Marshal
Blücher decided on accepting battle at Ligny; if it had been, he would
have posted his troops very differently, as we have had occasion to
observe.[520] Gneisenau, however, though disappointed at not receiving
help from the English during the battle, yet influenced, very possibly,
by the fact that Wellington had successfully held his ground against
the attack of the French left wing,[521] was extremely unwilling to
renounce, by retiring on Namur, all hopes of another battle to be
fought in coöperation with the English. Hence he determined to take at
any rate the first steps to make it possible to fight such a battle;
and in the absence of his chief, and in the confusion and turmoil
which followed the successful charge of the Imperial Guard, he did not
hesitate to take the responsibility of ordering the beaten corps to
retire on Wavre.[522]
But whether it would be wise to concentrate the whole army on Wavre
was a question that could not be settled in an instant. It was in
truth dependent on many things. The question of supplies of ammunition
was perhaps the most serious problem; but there were others, each
presenting more or less difficulty. Then, besides these, there was
the question of the amount of confidence to be placed in the Duke of
Wellington. The whole object, the sole justification, of the manœuvre
now in contemplation was the fighting another battle in coöperation
with the English. Here, of course, it had to be assumed that the Duke
would be desirous of fighting such a battle. But could Wellington be
relied upon to fulfil the expectations which would be entertained in
regard to his willingness and ability to fight such a battle? Gneisenau
had been gravely disappointed by the non-arrival of support from the
English army during the battle of Ligny. He never had had,—so we learn
from Müffling,[523]—entire confidence in the Duke’s trustworthiness.
The letter[524] received on the morning of the battle,—so far from
accurate,—the confident statements[525] made by the Duke at Brye early
in the afternoon, on which such expectations had been formed, and
which had proved so utterly unreliable,—must have seriously shaken
Gneisenau’s belief in Wellington. He feared lest the danger to the
Prussian army involved in its concentration at Wavre might be incurred
only to see the Anglo-Dutch army marching off to Antwerp or Ostend.
During the night Marshal Blücher had been carried, badly bruised and
suffering a good deal,—a man, too, it must be remembered, seventy-two
years of age,[526]—to the little village of Mellery,—or Melioreux, as
the older maps have it,—a mile or two north of Tilly.[527] Here, in
a little house, filled with wounded men, he passed the night. Here
Gneisenau, his chief-of-staff, and Grolmann, his quartermaster-general,
joined him. Here also was brought Lieutenant-Colonel Hardinge, the
English military _attaché_ at Blücher’s headquarters, who had lost
his left hand in the battle.[528] He gave to the Duke of Wellington,
twenty-two years after, an account of his experience during that
night, making the mistake,—natural enough under the circumstances,
and considering how long a time had elapsed,—of locating the scene
at Wavre, and not at Mellery. The story is thus reported by Earl
Stanhope:—[529]
“Yes,” said Hardinge, “Blücher himself had gone back as far as Wavre.
I passed that night, with my amputated arm, lying with some straw
in his ante-room, Gneisenau and other generals constantly passing
to and fro. Next morning Blücher sent for me. * * * He said to me
that he should be quite satisfied if, in conjunction with the Duke
of Wellington, he was able now to defeat his old enemy. I was told
that there had been a great discussion that night in his rooms,
and that Blücher and Grolmann had carried the day for remaining in
communication with the English army, but that Gneisenau had great
doubts as to whether they ought not to fall back to Liége and
secure their own communication with Luxembourg. They thought that
if the English should be defeated, they themselves would be utterly
destroyed.”
Colonel Maurice tells us in confirmation of this story that General
Hardinge “records that, as he was, on the 17th, lying on his bed,
Blücher burst into his room, triumphantly announcing: ‘Gneisenau has
given way. We are to march to join Wellington.’”[530]
If these statements are to be accepted literally, and there is,
perhaps, no sufficient reason why they should not be, the credit of
the decision remains wholly with Marshal Blücher. Still, it may, not
impossibly, be that Gneisenau, to whose action alone it was due that
the original intention of retreating on Namur, in case it should be
found necessary to retreat at all, had been departed from, felt himself
morally bound to present to his impetuous and unthinking chief the
more cautious and conservative course; and that in reality he was not
averse to find that the movement which he had ordered in Blücher’s
absence should receive from his chief and his advisers such hearty
approval and be prosecuted to its natural result.
While the Ist and IId Corps were making their way towards Tilly and
Mont St. Guibert, Thielemann, in ignorance of the dispositions of the
commander-in-chief, retired from Tongrinelle and Balâtre to Sombreffe,
and thence continued his retreat to Gembloux, so as to approach the
IVth Corps, which had arrived late in the evening in the neighborhood
of Baudeset and Sauvenières. Thielemann reached Gembloux at 6 A.M.
of the 17th. Here he wrote a letter to Bülow, to which reference has
been already made. Bülow in reply requested him to retire to the
neighborhood of Corbaix, half way between Gembloux and Wavre, and
informed him that he himself was directing his corps on Wavre. In these
movements, which were to be nearly parallel, the corps of Bülow was to
keep to the eastward of that of Thielemann.
Thus the temporary separation of the four corps composing the
Prussian army worked no harm. The corps-commanders acted with
cheerful and zealous coöperation in the absence of orders from
the commander-in-chief. In fact nothing can be finer than the
spirit displayed by the Prussians after the loss of the battle of
Ligny,—whether we look at their willingness to take risks and make
sacrifices to ensure the success of the combined movement now in
process of execution, or at the harmony which prevailed among the chief
officers, which it is evident neither the loss of the battle nor the
non-arrival of Bülow’s Corps had disturbed in the least.
Orders were now issued for the retreat of the whole army on Wavre. It
was conducted as follows:—[531]
The Ist Corps marched from its position between Tilly and Mellery
early in the morning of the 17th, and proceeded through Gentinnes and
Mont St. Guibert towards Wavre, where it crossed the Dyle, and took up
position at Bierges.
The IId Corps followed by the same route somewhat later, and halted at
Aisemont, a village on the south side of the Dyle, opposite Wavre.
The IIId Corps rested at Gembloux till 1 or 2 o’clock P.M., and then
marched by way of Corbaix to Wavre, the head of the column passing
through the town in the evening, but the rear guard not arriving till
the morning of the 18th.
The IVth Corps marched in two columns, by way of Walhain and Tourinnes
to Dion-le-Mont, a village about two miles east of Wavre, where it
arrived about 10 P.M. of the 17th.
One brigade of infantry belonging to the IId Corps and some cavalry
were stationed for a time at Mont St. Guibert for purposes of
observation,[532] and General Groeben, of Blücher’s staff, who
accompanied these troops, witnessed from a high hill near Tilly[533] the
march of the troops which Napoleon carried with him to Quatre Bras, and
the movement of a smaller body, estimated by him at about 12,000 or
15,000 men, in the direction of Gembloux. He supposed, naturally, that
this was all the force which had been detached for the pursuit of the
Prussians.[534] The march of the rest of Grouchy’s command was concealed
by the inequalities of the ground.
The artillery trains, containing the needful ammunition for the coming
battle, for the arrival of which Gneisenau had felt great anxiety,
arrived safely at Wavre about 5 P.M. of the 17th.
Thus the retreat of the Prussians on Wavre had been successfully and
quickly accomplished, and, what is almost as important, it had escaped
the observation of the French. Marshal Blücher had collected at Wavre
somewhere about 90,000 men, and both the army and its leaders were
animated by the best spirit, impatient to encounter the enemy again,
and confident of success in another battle.
The Duke of Wellington spent the night after the battle of Quatre Bras
at Genappe, but returned to the front “at daybreak, or soon after.”[535]
A detachment of cavalry was soon afterwards sent out, which ascertained
that the Prussians had been beaten the day before, and were now
retreating on Wavre. This information reached Wellington about 7.30
A.M.[536]
Blücher had sent an officer, Major Winterfeldt, from the field of
battle the evening before to inform General Müffling of his intended
retreat, but he had been wounded,[537] and the information had not
reached the Duke.
At 9 o’clock another officer arrived from Blücher,[538] Lieutenant
Massow.[539] The Duke told him that he would fall back to the position
of Mont St. Jean where he would give battle, if he were supported by
one Prussian corps. This answer Massow carried to Blücher. He arrived
at Wavre at noon. At this hour, as we are told by the latest Prussian
historian,[540] it was not known where the IIId or IVth Corps was,
and the reserve ammunition had not arrived.[541] No decided assurance
could, therefore, be given during the day. Finally, about 11.30 P.M.,
news arrived from Bülow of the arrival of his corps at Dion-le-Mont,
and about the same time a despatch from Müffling arrived, stating that
the Anglo-Dutch army had taken position for battle at Mont St. Jean.
Then Grolmann wrote to Müffling Blücher’s answer. It was sent off about
midnight of the 17th.
This despatch stated that Bülow would move at break of day by way of
St. Lambert to attack the right flank of the enemy, and that the IId
Corps would support the IVth Corps in this operation. The Ist and IIId
Corps were to hold themselves in readiness to do the like.
This despatch, which could not have reached Wellington until the
morning of the battle of Waterloo, seems actually to have contained the
first definite promise of support from Blücher.[542] Long before its
arrival the Duke had taken up his position at Waterloo in the hope—in
fact, in the expectation,—of receiving some such promise of assistance
and support. Messages were doubtless exchanged, as we are told,[543]
between the English and Prussian headquarters during the whole day.
But the Duke received no positive assurance until the early morning
of the 18th that the Prussian army, or any part of it, would come to
his assistance. It is true that he was aware that the Prussians were
concentrating at Wavre; and he knew that their object in so doing
could be nothing else than to tender him their support in the battle
that was sure to occur the next day. But it must have required all the
resolution and courage which he possessed to have decided him to take
up position for battle without having received any definite assurance
that the necessary support would be furnished.
For it was a perfectly possible thing that he might the next morning
be assailed by a hundred thousand men. Blücher had, no doubt, sent him
the information obtained by Groeben, that Napoleon had detached only
12,000 or 15,000 men to follow the Prussians, and was bringing against
the Anglo-Dutch army all his remaining troops.[544] As we see it now,
that would have been Napoleon’s best course. If he had known the facts
at the time, as he might easily have done had he not neglected to take
the proper measures to ascertain them, that is what he probably would
have done. At any rate, Wellington had no assurance from any quarter
whatever that Napoleon would not do exactly that thing. If Napoleon
had done it, and if the weather had been fine and the ground hard,
what chance would Wellington have stood? The question is asked simply
to define the situation in which the Duke placed himself on the night
of the 17th and 18th. That is, we desire to bring out the fact that
Wellington in taking up position at Waterloo, instead of continuing
his retreat to Brussels and arranging with Blücher to do the like
from Wavre, ran a very great risk of being beaten before he could get
help from the Prussians, whereas if both commanders had proceeded to
Brussels, where the roads from Waterloo and Wavre converge, they would
have greatly outnumbered the French. This course was the one which
Napoleon maintained would have been the safer and wiser.[545]
Still, it must be remembered that both Wellington and Blücher were
anxious to close the campaign with a great battle, which was certain to
take place if Wellington stood at Waterloo, and that it was by no means
certain that Napoleon would push through the forest of Soignes only
to find the combined armies confronting him. They also thought that
there was a very fair chance that they would succeed in effecting the
union of their armies at Waterloo.
FOOTNOTES:
[513] _Ante_, p. 159.
[514] Ollech, p. 157.
[515] He could not at this time communicate with Thielemann and Bülow.
[516] Gneisenau, vol. 4, p. 385; Ollech, p. 156.
[517] Ollech, p. 157. Maurice (pp. 354, 355: July, 1890) points out
that this serves, as far as it goes, to show that Napoleon might have
known of the retreat of Zieten and Pirch I. to Wavre without changing
his opinion that the whole Prussian army was intending to fall back to
the eastward.
[518] Damitz, p. 143.
[519] This is Ollech’s opinion (p. 156): “Thus had Gneisenau broken all
bridges behind him, given up all communication with the Rhine, that he
might once again offer the hand to the English for a common blow which
should forever overthrow the French forces.” But this is surely going
too far. Communication with the Rhine could be maintained as well by
way of Maestricht as by way of Liége.
[520] _Ante_, pp. 151, 204. _Cf._ Gneisenau, vol. 4, p. 386
[521] Gneisenau, vol. 4, p. 386.
[522] Ollech, p. 156; Gneisenau, vol. 4, p. 385.
[523] Müffling: Passages, p. 212.
[524] _Ante_, p. 106.
[525] _Ante_, p. 144.
[526] He was exactly seventy-two years and six months old on the day of
the battle of Ligny.
[527] Ollech, p. 157.
[528] Siborne, vol. 1, p. 241, n.
[529] Stanhope, p. 110.
[530] Maurice, p. 355: July, 1890. Colonel Maurice is inclined to
believe that the above incident “must have taken place in Wavre, after
the receipt of Wellington’s offer to remain and fight at Waterloo, if
Blücher would join him with one or two corps.” This is certainly very
possible. The incident reported in Stanhope’s work, however, is stated
to have occurred the night after the battle, which, as we know from the
Prussian historians, Blücher spent at Mellery. Ollech, p. 157. Very
possibly there may have been a second discussion at Wavre on the 17th.
[531] Ollech, pp. 166 _et seq._
[532] Ollech, p. 166. These troops were afterwards replaced by two
battalions of infantry, a regiment of cavalry, and two batteries,
under Lieutenant-Colonel Ledebur. See _post_, p. 260; Ollech, p. 168;
Siborne, vol. 1, p. 285.
[533] Ollech, p. 168.
[534] Ib., p. 169.
[535] Waterloo Letters: Vivian, p. 153.
[536] Ollech, p. 179.
[537] Müffling: Passages, pp. 238, 239.
[538] For a capital story connected with this incident, see the
“Letters of the First Earl of Malmesbury,” vol. 2, p. 447. London,
1870. App. C, xxix; _post_, p. 386. See also Waterloo Letters, pp. 154,
167.
[539] Müffling Passages, p. 241; Ollech, p. 180.
[540] Ollech, p. 187.
[541] It arrived about 5 P.M. See _ante_, p. 232.
[542] _Contra_: Siborne, vol. 1, p. 279. This subject will be
considered in the Notes to this chapter.
[543] Gneisenau, vol. 4, p. 393.
[544] In point of fact Wellington supposed that only the 3d Corps
had been detached for the pursuit of the Prussians. See his Official
Report, Jones, p. 307.
[545] See _post_, p. 243.
_NOTES TO CHAPTER XIV._
1. Colonel Maurice has recently examined the evidence in reference
to the communications which passed between the Duke of Wellington
and Marshal Blücher on the subject of the support to be given to
the English army by the Prussians.[546] We think he has shown that
the account given in Siborne is not altogether correct, and we have
followed Colonel Maurice in preferring the statements of Müffling and
Ollech.
Siborne says[547] that the Duke, on the morning of the 17th, sent back
the Prussian officer[548] who first brought him the news of Blücher’s
defeat, with a letter to the Field Marshal, “proposing to accept a
battle on the following day in the position in front of Waterloo,
provided the Prince would detach two corps to his assistance”; and
that, in the course of the evening[549] he received from Blücher a reply
in these terms:—
“I shall not come with two corps only, but with my whole army; upon
this understanding, however, that, should the French not attack us on
the 18th, we shall attack them on the 19th.”
Colonel Maurice is inclined to the opinion that the letter which is
quoted by Siborne is really one written to Müffling at Blücher’s
dictation on the following morning, after nine o’clock, in which
Müffling is desired to inform the Duke of Blücher’s intentions, and in
which some of the words given above are employed. If this be so, and it
seems very likely, the Duke not only took up his position for battle
before he had received any definite assurance of support from his ally,
but he did not get any until the arrival at the Duke’s headquarters
at Waterloo of the letter sent off from Wavre between 11 and 12
P.M.,[550] which could hardly be before 2 A.M. of the 18th. How much
longer the Duke would have remained in his position waiting for the
promise of Prussian support, no one, of course, can say. He certainly
did not propose to stay and fight single-handed. He had sent word to
Blücher by Massow that without Prussian support he would be obliged to
fall back to Brussels.[551] Yet according to Siborne, he waited till
evening,[552] according to Ollech, he must have waited till two o’clock
in the morning, before receiving any definite assurance of assistance.
2. But there is a story, which rests on testimony which it is
impossible to disregard, to the effect that the Duke, after having
caused his army to take up its position on the field of battle, rode
over to Wavre in the evening to ascertain for himself whether or not
he was to be supported by Marshal Blücher in the battle of the ensuing
day. This story has been carefully investigated by Colonel Maurice,[553]
and we shall state, as briefly as we can, the evidence collected by him.
We first find the story in print in the year 1835, in Lockhart’s Life
of Napoleon.[554] It reads as follows:—
“All his arrangements having been effected early in the evening of
the 17th, the Duke of Wellington rode across the country to Blücher,
to inform him personally that he had thus far effected the plan
agreed on at Brye, and express his hope to be supported on the morrow
by two Prussian divisions. The veteran replied that he would leave
a single corps to hold Grouchy at bay as well as they could, and
march himself with the rest of his army upon Waterloo; and Wellington
immediately returned to his post.”
To this the following note is appended:—
“The fact of Wellington and Blücher having met between the battles of
Ligny and Waterloo is well known to many of the superior officers in
the Netherlands; but the writer of this compendium has never happened
to see it mentioned in print. The horse that carried the Duke of
Wellington through this long night journey, so important to the
decisive battle of the 18th, remained till lately, it is understood,
if he does not still remain, a free pensioner in the best paddock at
Strathfieldsaye.”
Lord Ellesmere, however, writing, as we have before had occasion to
remark, under the inspiration of the Duke of Wellington, states in a
review of a biography of Blücher that Lockhart is mistaken.[555] But it
is curious that no statement whatever is given by him of the manner
in which the Duke passed the evening of the 17th. His actions are
accounted for only till dark.
The story is most circumstantially told in the journal of the Rev.
Julian Charles Young:—[556]
“In the year 1833, while living in Hampshire, no one showed my wife
and myself more constant hospitality than the late Right Honorable
Henry Pierrepont, the father of the present Lady Charles Wellesley. *
* * On one of our many delightful visits to Conholt, Mr. Pierrepont
had but just returned from Strathfieldsaye as we arrived. He had
been there to meet the judges, whom the Duke was accustomed to
receive annually, previously to the opening of the assizes. After
dinner, Mr. Pierrepont was asked by the Duke of Beaufort, who, with
the Duchess, was in the house, if he had had an agreeable visit.
‘Particularly so,’ was the answer. ‘The Duke was in great force
and, for him, unusually communicative. The two judges and myself
having arrived before the rest of the guests, who lived nearer
Strathfieldsaye than we did, the Duke asked us if we were disposed
to take a walk, see the paddocks, and get an appetite for dinner. We
all three gladly assented to the proposition. As we were stumping
along, talking of Assheton Smith’s stud and hounds, one of the judges
asked the Duke if we might see Copenhagen, his celebrated charger.
‘God bless you,’ replied the Duke, ‘he has been long dead; and half
the fine ladies of my acquaintance have got bracelets or lockets made
from his mane or tail.’ ‘Pray, Duke, apart from his being so closely
associated with your Grace in the glories of Waterloo, was he a very
remarkable—I mean a particularly clever horse?’
“_Duke_—‘Many faster horses, no doubt, many handsomer; but for bottom
and endurance, never saw his fellow. I’ll give you a proof of it. On
the 17th, early in the day, I had a horse shot under me. Few know it,
but it was so. Before ten o’clock I got on Copenhagen’s back. There
was so much to do and to see to, that neither he nor I were still for
many minutes together. I never drew bit, and he never had a morsel
in his mouth till eight P.M., when Fitzroy Somerset came to tell me
dinner was ready in the little neighbouring village, Waterloo. The
poor beast I saw myself stabled and fed. I told my groom to give him
no hay, but, after a few go-downs of chilled water, as much corn and
beans as he had a mind for, impressing on him the necessity of his
strewing them well over the manger first. Somerset and I despatched
a hasty meal, and as soon as we had done so, I sent off Somerset on
an errand. This I did, I confess, on purpose that I might get him out
of the way; for I knew that if he had had the slightest inkling of
what I was up to, he would have done his best to dissuade me from my
purpose, and want to accompany me.
“‘The fact was, I wanted to see Blücher, that I might learn from
his own lips at what hour it was probable he would be able to join
forces with us the next day. Therefore, the moment Fitzroy’s back
was turned, I ordered Copenhagen to be resaddled, and told my man to
get his own horse and accompany me to Wavre, where I had reason to
believe old ‘Forwards’ was encamped. Now, Wavre being some twelve
miles from Waterloo, I was not a little disgusted, on getting there,
to find that the old fellow’s tent was two miles still farther off.
“‘However, I saw him, got the information I wanted from him, and made
the best of my way homewards. Bad, however, was the best, for, by
Jove, it was so dark that I fell into a deepish dyke by the roadside;
and if it had not been for my orderly’s assistance, I doubt if I
should ever have got out. Thank God, there was no harm done, either
to horse or man!
“‘Well, on reaching headquarters, and thinking how bravely my old
horse had carried me all day, I could not help going up to his head
to tell him so by a few caresses. But hang me, if, when I was giving
him a slap of approbation on his hind-quarters, he did not fling out
one of his hind legs with as much vigour as if he had been in stable
for a couple of days. Remember, gentlemen, he had been out with me
on his back for upwards of ten hours, and had carried me eight and
twenty miles besides. I call that bottom! ey?’”
Then there is another piece of evidence. Colonel Maurice says:—[557]
“Mr. Coltman—a well-known barrister now alive—remembers to have
distinctly heard his father, then Mr. Justice Coltman of the Common
Pleas, tell the story, and say that he had heard it from the Duke’s
own mouth during a particular visit to the Duke at Strathfieldsaye in
a named year, 1838. He wrote to me, giving the story substantially,
though not with quite as much detail, and making the horse’s kicking
out in reply to the caress take place on the 18th instead of on the
17th, as it appears in Young’s narrative. He had at the time never
seen Young’s book. Obviously, the difference as to the day of the
kick is just such a lapse as would naturally occur in a narrative not
written down at the time. Either may be right.”
Notwithstanding the improbable features in these accounts,—and there
are many,[558]—it is at first sight difficult to account for the
existence of this evidence, except on the supposition that the story
is true. But a close examination of the so-called Diary of the Rev.
Mr. Young shows that it is not, strictly speaking, a diary at all, for
the stories and remarks contained in it were not set down at the time,
as in an ordinary journal. Thus, this very story, the date of which is
given as 1833, is entered under the date of October 7, 1832. (Diary, p.
153.) Take another instance. The writer is speaking of Mr. John Wilson
Croker, and he says, under date of March, 1832 (pp. 144, 145), that
“for forty years he [Croker] filled a prominent position in the world
of letters.” Now forty years before 1832, Croker was only twelve years
old. Again, in this very story of the ride to Wavre, which is said to
have been told in 1833, the Duke is made to say of his horse Copenhagen
that he had then “been long dead.” But, in fact, Copenhagen did not die
till 1836; the date of his death is given on the grave-stone erected
over his remains at Strathfieldsaye.
As for the letter of Mr. Coltman to Colonel Maurice, which is a
statement recently made of the former’s recollection of what he had
heard his father say that the Duke of Wellington told him in 1838, it
clearly cannot have much weight, unless corroborated.
There is, moreover, some newly-discovered evidence. It consists of
notes taken by the late Baron Gurney, of the Court of the Exchequer,
of conversations with the Duke of Wellington. In one of these, the
Duke was asked “whether a story was true of his having ridden over to
Blücher the night before the battle of Waterloo and returned on the
same horse. He said: ‘No; that was not so. I did not see Blücher the
day before Waterloo.’” This seems to settle the question.
3. We have spoken briefly of Napoleon’s opinion, that the Duke of
Wellington and Marshal Blücher ought to have retired on Brussels. The
passage to which we referred reads as follows:—[559]
“One may ask,—What ought the English general to have done after the
battle of Ligny and the combat of Quatre Bras? There cannot be two
opinions on this subject. He ought on the night of the 17th and
18th to have traversed the Forest of Soignes by the Charleroi pike,
while the Prussian army was traversing it by the Wavre pike; the
two armies could then unite at daybreak before Brussels, leaving
rearguards to defend the forest,—gain some days to give those of
the Prussians who had been dispersed by the battle of Ligny time to
rejoin the army,—obtain reinforcements from the fourteen English
regiments which were either in garrison in Belgium or had just landed
at Ostend on their return from America,—and leave the Emperor of the
French to manœuvre as he liked. Would he, with an army of 100,000
men, have traversed the forest of Soignes to attack on the other side
of it the two hostile armies united, more than 200,000 strong, and
in position? That would certainly have been the most advantageous
thing that could happen to the allies. Would he have been contented
to take up a position himself? He certainly could not have kept it
long, for 300,000 Russians, Austrians, and Bavarians, already arrived
at the Rhine, would in a few weeks have been on the Marne, which
would have obliged him to fly to the defence of the capital. Then,
the Anglo-Prussian army could have marched forward, and joined their
allies under the walls of Paris.”
It is plain that the course pointed out by the Emperor would have
avoided all the risks incurred by Wellington in giving battle at
Waterloo, with the needed support not available until afternoon. But
Clausewitz[560] denies that Wellington incurred any risk.
“Wavre is distant from Wellington’s field of battle about two
[German, or about ten English] miles. From the moment when the Duke
of Wellington saw the enemy appear in his front up to Blücher’s
arrival, six or eight hours would therefore have to elapse, unless
Blücher had started still earlier; but in that time a battle against
70,000 men cannot be begun, fought and decided; it was therefore
not to be feared that Wellington would be defeated before Blücher
arrived.”
It is, perhaps, a sufficient reply to this remark to recall the
fact that the battle of Ligny was begun at half-past two and was
completely finished at half-past nine, and that this period of seven
hours includes the delay of nearly two hours caused by the unexpected
appearance of d’Erlon’s Corps. It seems to us foolish to contend that
Wellington did not run a great risk of being defeated before the
arrival of the Prussians. Had the battle been begun five or six hours
earlier, all the troops in Napoleon’s army could have been employed
against the Anglo-Dutch forces, and the battle could have been fought
as the Emperor intended to fight it. The risk of being beaten, we
repeat, was a great risk; and we believe the Duke was quite aware that
it was such when he assumed it. The question then is,—recurring to
Napoleon’s censure on Blücher and Wellington for not having avoided
this risk by continuing their retreat to the immediate neighborhood
of Brussels,—whether the possibility of overthrowing Napoleon at the
beginning of the campaign by effecting a union of the allied armies at
Waterloo warranted the two allied commanders in taking the risk of the
defeat of the Anglo-Dutch army before this union could be effected. As
this question is evidently one capable of indefinite discussion, we
content ourselves with stating it.
FOOTNOTES:
[546] Maurice, pp. 534 _et seq._: Sept., 1890.
[547] Siborne, vol. 1, p. 251, following Damitz, p. 212.
[548] Lieutenant Massow.
[549] Siborne, vol. 1, pp. 278, 279, following Damitz, p. 213.
[550] Ollech, p. 187; Gneisenau, vol. 4, pp. 393, 394.
[551] Ib., p. 180.
[552] Siborne, vol. 1, p. 278.
[553] Maurice, pp. 533-538: Sept., 1890; and pp. 330 _et seq._,
January, 1891.
[554] Vol. 2, p. 313. The History of Napoleon Buonaparte. By J. G.
Lockhart. 3d ed., 2 vols. John Murray: 1835. See also the same work, p.
594; London: William Tegg: 1867.
[555] Ellesmere, p. 157; Quarterly Review, vol. 70, p. 464.
[556] A Memoir of Charles Mayne Young, Tragedian: With extracts from
his son’s journal. By Julian Charles Young, M. A., Rector of Ilmington.
London and New York: Macmillan & Co.: 1871; pp. 158 _et seq._
[557] Maurice, p. 337: January, 1891.
[558] Mere improbability, however, is not a sufficient reason for
rejecting a story supported by credible evidence. It is always
impossible to place one’s self precisely in the position of those
of whom the story is told. And some, at any rate, of the improbable
features may be mere accretions on the original story.
[559] Corresp., vol. 31, p. 258.
[560] Clausewitz, ch. 39, pp. 99, 100.