BÜLOW TO THE RESCUE.
Everybody knows Napoleon's awful mistake; Grouchy expected, Blücher
coming up, death instead of life. Destiny has such turnings as this:
men anticipate the throne of the world, and perceive St. Helena. If the
little shepherd who served as guide to Bülow, Blücher's lieutenant,
had advised him to debouche from the forest above Frischemont, instead
of below Plancenoit, the form of the 19th century would have been
different, for Napoleon would have won the battle of Waterloo. By any
other road than that below Plancenoit the Prussian army would have
come upon a ravine impassable by artillery, and Bülow would not have
arrived. Now one hour's delay--the Prussian general Muffling declares
it--and Blücher would not have found Wellington erect,--"the battle
was lost." It was high time, as we see, for Bülow to arrive, and as
it was he had been greatly delayed. He had bivouacked at Dion-le-Mont
and started at daybreak but the roads were impracticable, and his
divisions stuck in the mud. The ruts came up to the axle-tree of the
guns; moreover, he was compelled to cross the Dyle by the narrow bridge
of Wavre: the street leading to the bridge had been burned by the
French, and artillery train and limbers, which could not pass between
two rows of blazing houses, were compelled to wait till the fire was
extinguished. By mid-day Bülow's vanguard had scarce reached Chapelle
Saint Lambert.
Had the action begun two hours sooner, it would have been over at
four o'clock, and Blücher would have fallen upon the battle gained by
Napoleon. At mid-day, the Emperor had been the first to notice through
his telescope, on the extreme horizon, something which fixed his
attention, and he said, "I see over there a cloud which appears to me
to be troops." Then he asked the Duke of Dalmatia, "Soult, what do you
see in the direction of Chapelle Saint Lambert?" The Marshal, after
looking through his telescope, replied, "Four or five thousand men,
Sire." It was evidently Grouchy; still they remained motionless in the
mist. All the staff examined the cloud pointed out by the Emperor, and
some said, "They are columns halting;" but the majority were of opinion
that they were trees. The truth is that the cloud did not move, and the
Emperor detached Doncoul's division of light cavalry to reconnoitre in
the direction of this dark point.
Bülow, in fact, had not stirred, for his vanguard was very weak and
could effect nothing. He was obliged to wait for the main body of the
army, and had orders to concentrate his troops before forming line; but
at five o'clock, Blücher, seeing Wellington's danger, ordered Bülow to
attack, and employed the remarkable phrase, "We must let the English
army breathe." A short time after, Losthin's, Hiller's, Hacke's, and
Ryssel's brigades deployed in front of Lobau's corps, the cavalry of
Prince William of Prussia debouched from the Bois de Paris, Plancenoit
was in flames, and the Prussian cannon-balls began pouring even upon
the ranks of the guard held in reserve behind Napoleon.