THE QUID OBSCURUM OF BATTLES.
All the world knows the first phase of this battle; a troubled,
uncertain, hesitating opening, dangerous for both armies, but more so
for the English than the French. It had rained all night; the ground
was saturated; the rain had collected in hollows of the plain as in
tubs; at certain points the ammunition wagons had sunk in up to the
axle-trees and the girths of the horses; if the wheat and barley laid
low by this mass of moving vehicles had not filled the ruts, and made
a litter under the wheels, any movement, especially in the valleys,
in the direction of Papelotte, would have been impossible. The battle
began late; for Napoleon, as we have explained, was accustomed to hold
all his artillery in hand like a pistol, aiming first at one point,
then at another of the battle, and he resolved to wait until the field
batteries could gallop freely, and for this purpose it was necessary
that the sun should appear and dry the ground. But the sun did not come
out; it was no longer the rendezvous of Austerlitz. When the first
cannon-shot was fired, the English General Colville drew out his watch,
and saw that it was twenty-five minutes to twelve.
The action was commenced furiously, more furiously perhaps than the
Emperor desired, by the French left wing on Hougomont. At the same
time Napoleon attacked the centre by hurling Quiot's brigade on La
Haye Sainte, and Ney pushed the French right wing against the English
left, which was leaning upon Papelotte. The attack on Hougomont was,
to a certain extent, a feint, for the plan was to attract Wellington
there, and make him strengthen his left. This plan would have succeeded
had not the four companies of Guards and Perponcher's Belgian division
firmly held the position; and Wellington, instead of massing his
troops, found it only necessary to send as a reinforcement four more
companies of Guards and a battalion of Brunswickers. The attack of the
French right on Papelotte was serious; to destroy the English left,
cut the Brussels road, bar the passage for any possible Prussians,
force Mont St. Jean, drive back Wellington on Hougomont, then on Braine
l'Alleud, and then on Halle,--nothing was more distinct. Had not a few
incidents supervened; this attack would have succeeded, for Papelotte
was taken and La Haye Sainte carried.
There is a detail to be noticed here. In the English Infantry,
especially in Kempt's brigade, there were many recruits, and these
young soldiers valiantly withstood our formidable foot, and they
behaved excellently as sharp-shooters. The soldier when thrown out _en
tirailleur_, being left to some extent to his own resources, becomes as
it were his own general; and these recruits displayed something of the
French invention and fury. These novices displayed an impulse, and it
displeased Wellington.
After the taking of La Haye Sainte, the battle vacillated. There is
an obscure interval in this day, between twelve and four; the middle
of this battle is almost indistinct, and participates in the gloom of
the _mêlée._ A twilight sets in, and we perceive vast fluctuations in
this mist, a dizzying mirage, the panoply of war at that day, unknown
in our times; flaming colpacks; flying sabretaches; cross-belts;
grenade pouches; Hussar dolmans; red boots with a thousand wrinkles;
heavy shakos enwreathed with gold twist; the nearly black Brunswick
infantry mingled with the scarlet infantry of England; the English
soldiers wearing clumsy round white cushions for epaulettes; the
Hanoverian light horse with their leathern helmets, brass bands, and
red horse-tails; the Highlanders with their bare knees and checkered
plaids, and the long white gaiters of our grenadiers,--pictures but not
strategic lines; what a Salvator Rosa, but not a Gribeauval, would have
revelled in.
A certain amount of tempest is always mingled with a battle, _quid
obscurum, quid divinum._ Every historian traces to some extent the
lineament that pleases him in the hurly-burly. Whatever the combination
of the generals may be, the collision of armed masses has incalculable
ebbs and flows; in action the two plans of the leaders enter into each
other and destroy their shape. The line of battle floats and winds like
a thread, the streams of blood flow illogically, the fronts of armies
undulate, the regiments in advancing or retiring form capes or gulfs,
and all these reefs are continually shifting their position; where
infantry was, artillery arrives; where artillery was, cavalry dash in;
the battalions are smoke. There was something there, but when you look
for it, it has disappeared; the gloomy masses advance and retreat;
a species of breath from the tomb impels, drives back, swells, and
disperses these tragic multitudes. What is a battle? An oscillation.
The immobility of a mathematical plan expresses a minute and not a
day. To paint a battle, those powerful painters who have chaos in
their pencils are needed. Rembrandt is worth more than Vandermeulin,
for Vandermeulin, exact at mid-day, is incorrect at three o'clock.
Geometry is deceived, and the hurricane alone is true, and it is this
that gives Folard the right to contradict Polybius. Let us add that
there is always a certain moment in which the battle degenerates into
a combat, is particularized and broken up into countless detail facts
which, to borrow the expression of Napoleon himself, "belong rather
to the biography of regiments than to the history of the army." The
historian, in such a case, has the evident right to sum up; he can only
catch the principal outlines of the struggle, and it is not given to
any narrator, however conscientious he may be, absolutely to fix the
form of that horrible cloud which is called a battle.
This, which is true of all great armed collisions, is peculiarly
applicable to Waterloo; still, at a certain moment in the afternoon,
the battle began to assume a settled shape.