At this moment, indeed, the French outposts were close to the allied

line of junction, and Wellington had made scarcely a sign of moving.

The army of the Duke was about 106,000 men--of these 14,000, or nearly

so, were cavalry--with 196 guns; and it was spread over even a larger

space than that of the veteran Prussian warrior. A motley array of

many races, it had been hastily formed into three masses; the first

corps, under the Prince of Orange, scattered over an arc from Genappe

to Mons, and covering two of the main roads from the frontier; the

second, in the skilful hands of Hill, extending westward as far as

the Scheldt, from near Braine le Comte to Ath, Leuze, and Oudenarde,

observing, too, the approaches from France; and the third, or the

reserve, at Brussels, a long distance off, round the head-quarters of

Wellington. A fraction only of the first corps was thus near the road

from Nivelles to Namur; the dispositions of the Duke were, in truth,

made to protect his right and his communications with the sea, and

time was required before he could send anything like a strong force to

the support of Blücher. By nightfall on the 15th, when the heads of

the French column were but a few miles from Quatre Bras and Sombreffe,

the army of Wellington had scarcely stirred, and it was some hours

afterwards before the British chief set it in motion in the direction

of Blücher, and that, too, slowly, and as if with reluctance. The Duke

had heard from Ziethen in the afternoon of the day, that the French

were crossing the Sambre, and near Charleroi, and the intelligence

was subsequently confirmed by Blücher; but thinking that Napoleon was

making a feint, and believing that his own right was menaced, he waited

upon his enemy’s movements, and merely ordered his lieutenants to be

in readiness. As is well known, indeed, he went to the historical ball

given at Brussels by the Duchess of Richmond; and it was after ten

at night, when he had been made aware that Napoleon had mastered and

passed Charleroi, that he took anything like a decisive step. Hill and

the Prince of Orange were now directed to concentrate their troops,

and to move to their left; but they were to hold a line from Enghien

to Nivelles; the reserve at Brussels was still kept back, and nothing

like a considerable force was to be drawn towards the allied points of

junction, or to be so placed as to approach Blücher. The wide interval,

in fact, from Nivelles to Quatre Bras, and thence by the main road

to Sombreffe--the communication with the Prussians---was to be left

uncovered, and whatever mere partisans may urge, there is not a word to

be said for this strategy. Happily for the Allies, subordinates of the

Duke interpreted the situation better than their chief. Saxe-Weimar, we

have seen, had advanced to Quatre Bras, and checked Ney in his forward

march, and Perponcher, a general in the Dutch service, ere long had

occupied that most important point, though he held it with a single

division only, which could scarcely offer a prolonged resistance. By

midnight Wellington gave further orders for a general concentration

to his left, and the reserve from Brussels was directed towards

Nivelles; but these orders were extremely late, and it had become most

improbable that the British commander would be able to master the road

from Nivelles to Namur, even now almost in the grasp of his enemy, to

advance along it by Quatre Bras, and approaching Sombreffe, to unite

with Blücher. It was, indeed, far more likely that the divided armies

would be attacked, and beaten in detail.

[Illustration: ENGLAND’S HOPE, 1815.]

The previsions on which Napoleon had formed the plan of his campaign

had thus been realised, up to this point, in their main particulars.

The divergence of the bases of the allied chiefs had left their

centre weak and ill-joined. It was now, after the retreat of Ziethen,

connected only by a thread of vedettes; it was within easy distance of

the French army; and should it be attacked, and cut in two, Blücher

and Wellington would fall back, and probably separate, happy if they

escaped a disastrous reverse. Blücher, again, had rushed forward to

confront his enemy, leaving 30,000 of his troops far off; Wellington

had paused, hesitated, and not approached his colleague, and an

admirable chance had been thus afforded to the General of Arcola

and Rivoli. The allied commanders, in fact, whatever may be said by

apologists, and by worshippers of success, had laid themselves open to

a terrible stroke, and though Napoleon is a most exacting critic, I can

see no answer to his profound remark, that, out-manœuvred as they had

been on the 15th, Blücher ought not to have made for Sombreffe “already

under the guns of his enemy,” and Wellington ought not to have tried

to join him, but that both chiefs should have endeavoured to unite

on a line, in the rear, between Wavre and Waterloo. Their strategy,

in short, was bad, and they only escaped defeat owing to a set of

accidents in which fortune baffled their mighty adversary.

We have reached the morning of the 16th of June, and we turn to the

operations of the French army, and to the direction given it by its

Imperial leader. Napoleon had returned to Charleroi on the night

of the 15th, to “take repose for his wearied frame”; his physical

strength had been long declining; and possibly even on the first day

of the campaign, he began to give proof of those failing bodily powers

which was certainly exhibited before the contest closed.[35] Yet,

though murmurs were heard in the French camp, both Jomini and Charras

seem to me to reason too much on mere theory, and to fall into the

error of judging only by the event, when they charge the Emperor with

sluggishness and delay in his conduct on the morning of the 16th. A

large part of the French army was still in the rear; Napoleon did

not and could not certainly know the exact positions of the allied

armies; he was about to thrust himself between two hostile masses, each

nearly equal to his own force in numbers; and though he could have

done more had he been omniscient, the circumstances required caution

in any forward movement. Be this as it may, his orders were given, at

Charleroi, at about 8 A.M.; and if they were founded on wrong

assumptions, they proved his perfect knowledge of his art, and were

admirably adapted to the events that happened. These orders, contained

in four despatches, two from the Emperor to Ney and Grouchy, and two

from Soult, the Chief of the Staff, to the same generals, prove that

Napoleon did not believe he would be seriously opposed on that day;

he thought that his left wing would easily pass Quatre Bras, and

that his centre and right wing would easily pass Sombreffe; and he

conceived that it was not improbable that he would enter Brussels on

the morning of the 17th. This calculation was, no doubt, false; but

it was founded on the true strategic view that Wellington and Blücher

would not now endeavour to make a stand at Quatre Bras and Sombreffe,

on the threatened road from Nivelles to Namur; and what Charras and

others fail to point out, but what the real student of war will dwell

on, is that, ignorant as he was of the actual facts, the dispositions

made by Napoleon were in accordance with sound principles, and fitted

to meet the situation of affairs. Ney, in command of the left wing,

was ordered to advance, and go beyond Quatre Bras, concentrating the

2nd and 1st Corps, supported by Kellerman’s heavy cavalry, and holding

the great road from Charleroi to Brussels; while Grouchy, entrusted

in the Emperor’s brief absence, with the centre, the right wing, and

the cavalry reserves, was to pass Sombreffe, and to attain Gembloux,

attacking any enemy in his path, and to stand on a parallel line with

Ney. As the army, however, should be well united, Ney was enjoined to

detach a division to Marbais, a village near Sombreffe and Gembloux, to

give support if required to the centre and right wing; and the Emperor

added that, at about noon, he would be on the spot to assume the

supreme command.[36]

Napoleon’s orders despatched from Charleroi reached the chiefs of the

2nd and 1st corps, spread, we have seen, from Gosselies to Jumet, on

the great road from Charleroi to Brussels, at about 10 A.M. or

a little before; they reached Ney at Frasnes at about 11 A.M.;

and as[37] Reille and D’Erlon had been directed to advance by the

aide-de-camp who carried the Imperial message; Ney might have been in

possession of Quatre Bras at about 1 or 1.30 P.M.; at the head

of 45,000 men, and might have crushed Perponcher’s feeble division, at

the time standing alone at that place. In that event Ney could have

seized Quatre Bras, in conformity with the Imperial orders, and have

made the required detachment on Marbais; and had this been done, the

16th of June would certainly have witnessed a second Jena. We pass from

the French left wing to the centre and right wing, directed, we have

seen, at the time, on Sombreffe, and intended to prolong their march to

Gembloux. Napoleon had reached Fleurus by 11 A.M.; the Guard,

the 3rd and 4th Corps, with most of the cavalry reserves, for a moment

under the command of Grouchy, had passed, at about 1 P.M.,

into the Emperor’s hands; the division detached from the left wing

on the 15th had come into line, and Lobau, with the 6th corps, was

marching from the rear. By this time Blücher stood in the path of

the French in an advance on Gembloux; he was in force on the road

from Nivelles to Namur, and his three corps held a formidable line,

extending from Sombreffe almost to Marbais, and fronted by the villages

of Ligny, St. Amand, and La Haye. Napoleon seems to have disbelieved

at first that his adversary could be in strength on the field; but at

2 P.M. he sent a message to Ney enjoining him to complete the

movement on Marbais, and to fall on the flank and rear of Blücher, and

at the same moment the Emperor marched his army from Fleurus against

his enemy.

The armies opposed were about equal in force, if we reckon

the approaching corps of Lobau; the French being inferior in

numbers--78,000 to 87,000 men--but having more guns and more numerous

horsemen; but the superiority of Napoleon’s tactics gave him the

advantage almost from the first moment. The villages, indeed, before

the Prussian front proved defences of remarkable strength, and were

taken and retaken with little results; but Napoleon occupied a full

third of Blücher’s forces by merely threatening his communications

to his left. The French batteries caused frightful destruction in

the Prussian reserves, which had been recklessly exposed; and while

Blücher brought most of his troops into action, the Emperor husbanded

his men for a final stroke. The battle, however, was raging furiously

and wholly undecided at 4 P.M.; and as Blücher’s rear was not

assailed from Marbais, and the roar of cannon announced a battle at

Quatre Bras, Napoleon formed a fresh combination to surprise and to

overwhelm his enemy. By this time he had no doubt learned that D’Erlon,

who ought to have been in line with Ney three hours previously, was

still in the rear; so he sent[38] an order to D’Erlon to turn aside

from Quatre Bras, and, moving towards Ligny, to fall in full force at

St. Amand on the right and the rear of Blücher, accomplishing thus,

in a different way, the results of an attack from Marbais. D’Erlon

had approached Ligny within an hour, but he had so marched that

Vandamme pronounced the apparition to be that of an enemy--a part,

probably, of Wellington’s force--and the Emperor despatched[39] a

general officer to ascertain how the fact stood, retarding meanwhile

the course of the battle. Ere long the advancing columns were seen to

draw off, and to disappear from the field; Ney, in fact, now assailed

by superior numbers, had angrily ordered D’Erlon to Quatre Bras, and

D’Erlon, Napoleon at least consenting--the Emperor would have been in

extreme peril had his left wing been defeated and forced--abandoned

a movement which, if pushed home, would have given his master a

splendid triumph.[40] It was now 6.30 P.M., and it was time

for Napoleon to endeavour to strike a decisive blow, the march of

D’Erlon having not only ended in a disastrous false movement, but

caused unfortunate delays at Ligny. During all this time the Prussians

and French had been engaged in mortal encounter, but Napoleon’s skill

had borne its natural fruits. Blücher’s left had been held in check

and paralysed; the Prussian losses had been enormous; the veteran’s

reserves had been thrown away, and in an effort to outflank Napoleon’s

left, Blücher had weakened and almost laid bare his centre. The

Emperor, who had his reserves in hand, launched the Guard and a mass of

cavalry against the endangered point; the Prussian centre was broken

after a fierce contest, and Blücher’s whole army was driven from the

field, the corps of Lobau, which had come up from Charleroi, hanging

on the retreat of the defeated enemy. The losses of the French were

about 11,000 men, those of the Prussians not far from 30,000, including

10,000 disbanded fugitives; but how different would the result have

been had Ney or D’Erlon fallen on the rear of Blücher!

While the star of Napoleon still shone at Ligny, it had begun to wane

hard by at Quatre Bras; and the faulty disposition of his left wing

had saved Blücher from a complete overthrow. We left Ney at Frasnes,

having received the order of 8 A.M. at about 11 A.M.; and the Emperor’s

aide-de-camp, we may be quite certain, informed the Marshal that he

had communicated the order to Reille and D’Erlon, the chiefs of the

2nd and 1st Corps, at this moment at Gosselies and Jumet, about ten

miles off, along the broad highway from Charleroi to Brussels. That

order directed Ney to advance beyond Quatre Bras, collecting his 45,000

men, but making a detachment to the right at Marbais; and Ney might

have begun at once to execute a movement which, if well carried out,

would perhaps have changed the fortunes of Europe. Ney, at 11 A.M.,

had 9,000 good troops, of whom 4,000 were fine cavalry, at Frasnes,

actually in his hands: his only foe was Perponcher’s weak division,

7,000 infantry, with but a few guns, and almost wholly unsupported by

horse; and the Marshal knew that within three hours he might expect

the aid of more than 30,000 soldiers, including a magnificent body of

cavalry. Had Ney, therefore, been the chief of Elchingen, he could

easily have overwhelmed Perponcher; and directing Reille and D’Erlon to

expedite their march, he could have passed Quatre Bras, and detached to

Marbais, at from 1.30 to 2.30 P.M., without encountering any enemy in

force. But, as the whole course of the Campaign proves, Ney had become

demoralized, like most of his colleagues, by the events of 1812–14, and

that even in a greater degree; he fought with a halter round his neck,

and was by turns timid and unwisely bold; and he not only did not make

a step forward, but seems to have made no effort to induce Reille and

D’Erlon to accelerate their movements and to come into line. This delay

saved Blücher, and gave Wellington just sufficient time to repair,

in part, the tardiness and hesitation of the 15th, to check Ney, and

to baffle Napoleon in the manœuvre he had planned, which would have

crushed the Prussians. The Duke reached Quatre Bras--but with an escort

only, his advancing divisions were still distant--at about 11 A.M. on

the 16th; and he rode off to near Ligny to confer with Blücher, whose

faulty arrangements to meet Napoleon he condemned in a characteristic

phrase--“they will be damnably beaten,” he said to his Staff--but to

whom he promised support, “if possible.” Meanwhile, Ney showed no

sign of moving: Reille advanced slowly, and the march of D’Erlon from

the rear was a succession of delays; and it was 2 P.M. before the

French Marshal--one division of Reille had come to his aid--made even

an attempt to attack Quatre Bras. It is unnecessary to retrace the

scenes of a combat, in itself not of supreme importance, though it had

much to do with the issue of the Campaign. Perponcher’s division and

other supports were nearly overwhelmed at 4 P.M.; but reinforcements

came up by degrees, moving in haste from Nivelles and other points,

which ultimately turned the scale against Ney. The Duke, returning

from Ligny, displayed on the field the intrepidity and the genius in

defence which were his distinctive gifts in war; and Ney, as night

closed, retreated on Frasnes, having failed to fulfil his appointed

mission, which, I repeat, might have been accomplished, having,

however, prevented Wellington from sending a man to Blücher. The

Marshal had been supported by Reille’s corps only, and by Kellerman’s

corps of horsemen; D’Erlon, loitering in the rear, had been directed,

we have seen, to another field at Ligny, and when recalled by Ney came

into line too late to be of any use, or even to fire a shot; and Ney

had conducted the battle ably, and even performed an important service,

though he had thrown away a part of his superb heavy cavalry. He had,

however, proved unequal to his task; he had not carried out Napoleon’s

designs, which ought to have led to Blücher’s ruin, as, beyond

question, he might have done; and though Reille and D’Erlon, especially

the last, who contrived on the 16th to do simply nothing, are in a

greater degree to blame, he cannot escape a share of censure.

The first part of the Campaign of 1815 ends with the battles of

Ligny and Quatre Bras. Napoleon’s operations, up to the evening of

the 16th, had been attended with marked success, which might easily

have been complete and decisive. Selecting, with perfect insight, the

true point of attack, he had conducted his army with admirable skill

and secrecy to the Belgian frontier; and aiming at the centre of the

Allies, the weakest and most vulnerable part of their line, he had

drawn close to it on the 15th June. His enemies had been unable to

arrest his progress, disseminated on a broad and deep front; and the

impetuosity of Blücher, and the caution of Wellington, gave him, as

he had foreseen, a favourable chance to divide his adversaries, and

to beat them in detail. Blücher had hurried to Sombreffe to confront

the Emperor, leaving a fourth part of his army behind; the Duke had

paused, hesitated, and delayed in moving, and it was hours after

Napoleon had passed Charleroi that Wellington even made an attempt to

draw near his endangered colleague, even then directing his troops

to points distant from the selected place of junction. This was the

situation on the morning of the 16th, and it gave Napoleon a great

advantage, which almost led to a crowning triumph. He may, perhaps,

have delayed at this moment, though in this judgment I cannot concur,

and his projects were founded on imperfect knowledge; but his general

dispositions were so excellent that he ought to have overwhelmed the

Prussian army. Having directed Ney, with his left wing, to pass Quatre

Bras and to detach to Marbais, he marched to Fleurus and attacked

Blücher; and had the attack in front at Ligny been combined with an

attack in the rear from Marbais, Ligny must have terminated in another

Jena. Exactly the same result would have followed had D’Erlon, who had

lagged in the rear, continued his movement upon St. Amand; and a series

of misadventures alone saved Blücher from a crushing disaster. Ney

was not equal to his appointed mission; he lost the occasion to reach

Quatre Bras, to advance, and to occupy Marbais. Reille and D’Erlon

did not second their chief; and D’Erlon, when launched on the path of

victory, was turned aside by an order of Ney, Napoleon, I certainly

think, consenting. The blame of these failures must be divided between

Ney, Reille, and D’Erlon, who deserves the most; Napoleon, too, may not

have been bold enough, though this is mere theory after the event; but

the fact remains that, but for unlucky accidents, Napoleon would have

annihilated his foe. As it was, Ligny was a real victory. The Prussian

army lost a third of its numbers, and Blücher was driven from the only

road by which he could readily join Wellington into a difficult and

intricate country. Meanwhile, though Ney had not accomplished all that

his master had a right to expect from him, he had, at the opposite side

of the line, attacked Wellington and held him in check. The Duke, his

forces coming up late and in fragments, was unable to send assistance

to his imperilled colleague; and though he had compelled Ney to fall

back a little, Ligny made it necessary that he should quickly retreat,

happy if he could effect his escape. Napoleon had thus succeeded on

the 16th, though his triumph had been incomplete and partial. He had

defeated Blücher, and kept Wellington at bay; and, above all, he had

forced the Allies to abandon the road from Nivelles to Namur, their

natural and their only easy line of junction. Would they diverge as

Beaulieu and Colli had done, and give the General of the Campaign of

Italy an opportunity to ruin them in detail? To Napoleon the prospect

seemed full of promise, and yet all was not light on the scene before

him. He had not gained a decisive victory. Blücher and Wellington were

no ordinary foes; their armies nearly doubled his own; might they not

yet close on the Imperial Eagle, which, terrible and swift as had been

its swoop, had not thoroughly grasped and destroyed its quarry?

[Illustration]

CHAPTER II.

In one of the last and fiercest struggles at Ligny, Blücher had been

unhorsed and severely hurt, and the command of the Prussian army

devolved on Gneisenau, a capable and scientific officer. It was near

nightfall when Ligny had been won--the delay occasioned by the affair

of D’Erlon had been injurious in the extreme to the French--and,

perceiving that no enemy pressed on his rear, Gneisenau halted, and

made preparations to retreat. But whither was the defeated army to

move? Was it to fall back on its communications with the Rhine, opening

to Napoleon the path to Brussels, and separating itself completely from

Wellington; or was it to endeavour to join its allies, abandoning its

line of operations for the time, but appealing to Fortune in another

battle? Gneisenau, urged, it is said, by his heroic chief, who gave the

order at night from his litter, resolved to adopt the second course;

and the Prussian army was directed on Wavre, a town about twenty

miles from Sombreffe, and divided from it by the difficult country--a

region of hills and lowlands watered by the Dyle--which lay behind the

road from Nivelles to Namur. Wavre is about nine or ten miles from

Waterloo, a village in front of the Forest of Soignies, and north of

a position marked out by Wellington as an admirable field for a great

defensive battle; and it was this circumstance, well known to Blücher,

which doubtless led him to fall back on Wavre, in spite of the many

impediments in the way, impediments which had caused Napoleon to

expect that, if forced from the road from Nivelles to Namur, Blücher

would most probably recoil on his base, and not attempt to join

Wellington through a mass of obstacles. By daybreak on the 17th, the

first corps of Ziethen, and the second of Pirch were on their way to

Wavre, by Tilly and Gentinnes, villages some miles to the north-west

of Sombreffe; and the third corps of Thielmann, charged to cover the

movement, broke up some hours later, and made for Gembloux, one of

the points, we have seen, which Napoleon hoped to have reached in the

advance of the day before, and to the east of Tilly and Gentinnes. The

Prussian army was still greatly shaken, and especially was short of

food and munitions; but no enemy harassed or observed the retreat; and

before long it was joined by Bülow, who had hastened to march by Hannut

to Gembloux, and brought 30,000 fresh soldiers to Blücher.

Meanwhile, Wellington, who, as night closed on the 16th, had had at

Quatre Bras a mass of about 37,000 men, was joined ere long by some

8,000 more, marched from Brussels and points on his right, and he was

thus now equal in numbers with Ney, who had by this time his two corps

in hand[41]; though he was dangerously exposed should Ney and Napoleon

be able to reach him with their united forces. Owing to an accident

which befell a Prussian officer, the Duke was not informed of the

defeat of Blücher until the early morning of the 17th; he thereupon

resolved at once to retreat, but having been apprised that the Prussian

army was in full march from Sombreffe to Wavre, and would soon be ready

to fight again, he decided on stopping the retreat at Waterloo, and

on awaiting there the attack of the French, if he could rely on the

support of his veteran colleague. The retrograde movement of the Duke

from Quatre Bras, screened by a considerable body of horsemen, began

at about 10 A.M., and continued for hours; and, in addition

to his 45,000 men, he summoned about 21,000 at Nivelles, and perhaps

4,000 more from outlying points, to Waterloo, the scene of the intended

conflict. Fearful and jealous for his right, however, all through, he

left a large force near Braine le Comte and Hal; and his whole army, in

fact, was never concentrated.

The Allies, falling back from their true line of junction, the main

road from Nivelles to Namur, were thus trying to unite on a second

line, by the bad roads from Wavre to Waterloo. This strategy has been

praised by the worshippers of success, even by soldiers like Charras

and Chesney, and, in the event, it was more than justified; it was,

nevertheless, essentially faulty. It is impossible to refute Napoleon’s

logic; either Blücher, after his defeat at Ligny, ought to have moved

directly on Wellington’s army, joining it either at Genappe or at least

at Waterloo, or both the Allied chiefs ought to have fallen farther

back, to have placed the Forest of Soignies between themselves and

their foe, and concentrating their forces around Brussels, to have

opposed 200,000 men or more to the 100,000 of the French Emperor, who,

in that case, would have been out-generalled and could scarcely have

ventured to offer battle. The double retreat on Wavre and Waterloo was,

in fact, an imperfect half measure, so often fatal in the operations

of war; Wavre was more distant from Waterloo than Sombreffe was from

Quatre Bras, by certainly two or three miles, and, what was infinitely

more important, was divided from Waterloo by a most intricate country;

and, in making this movement, Blücher and Wellington were exposing

themselves to crushing defeat, and were rendering their junction

extremely difficult. It was to be assumed that a man like Napoleon

would be exactly informed of the line of their march, and would do

what was the best for his interests; and had Napoleon, on the morning

of the 17th, called on his victorious army to make a great effort, he

would probably have reached either Blücher or Wellington, still widely

apart, and beaten either in detail. Nay, had he, collecting his whole

forces, and moving more slowly, either attacked Blücher at Wavre or

the Duke at Waterloo, on the 18th, he would almost certainly have won

a great battle before the Allies could succeed in uniting. Exactly

the same result would have followed had he, acting on more correct

principles--and supposing, of course, as was to be expected, that he

was thoroughly apprised of the allied movements--detached a part of his

army to hold Blücher in check, and assailed Wellington with the mass of

his forces; in that case all the chances were that he would be able

to overpower Wellington, and to prevent Blücher at Wavre from sending

a man to Waterloo. Considering the situation, time, and distance,

the boasted retreat of the Allies, therefore, cannot be vindicated,

whatever may be said; it exposed them once more to be defeated in

detail; and unquestionably their best strategic course was to have

effected their junction in the rear, on Brussels, thus completely

baffling their great antagonist and not exposing themselves to danger.

[Illustration: “TAMBOUR, FAITES-MOI CADEAU D’UNE PRISE!”]

The state of affairs, however, in the camp of the French had singularly

favoured the plan of the Allies, and had already saved them from

impending peril. Over confident in success, his distinctive fault,

Napoleon was convinced that the Prussian army had been[42] completely

routed at Ligny, and could not reappear on the scene for some time; and

he returned to Fleurus, utterly worn out by the anxieties and fatigues

of the two preceding days. He appears to have given no explicit

orders, but he left Soult and Grouchy in temporary command; and these

lieutenants, experienced as they were, did nothing to repair the gross

want of vigilance due, probably, to the state of Napoleon’s health.

Soult seems not to have even sent a message to Ney, a few miles off,

to the left; no attempt during the night was made to discover the

line of the Prussian retreat, still less to molest the defeated foe;

and Grouchy especially, a cavalry chief, instead of reconnoitering in

every direction to ascertain where the enemy was, despatched only one

body of horsemen along the road from Sombreffe to Namur, that is, far

away from the Prussian line of march. In this negligence and slackness

we see no sign of the marvellous activity of Jena and Ratisbon; and

Charras, I believe, is perfectly right when he says that Napoleon’s

“long sleep” at Fleurus made the success of Ligny of no use to him,

though Charras, always unjust to the Emperor, makes no allowance for

his physical weakness, and refuses to blame either Soult or Grouchy.

It was about 9 A.M. on the morning of the 17th when Napoleon

drove from Fleurus to Ligny--he had been extremely unwell for

hours[43]--and everything tends to prove he had no doubt but that the

strength of the Prussian army was broken, and his first idea was that

his own army should take rest[44] on the spot for the day. He ordered a

grand review of his troops, and spent two hours at least on the field

of Ligny, distributing rewards and attending the wounded; and it was

not until near noon--having learned from Ney that part of the British

army was still at Quatre Bras--that he seems to have resolved on a

forward movement. By this time Blücher had completely escaped, and,

in fact, was not many miles from Wavre; the Duke was in full retreat

on Waterloo; and the chance which Napoleon[45] certainly had, and

which the youthful warrior of 1796 would most probably have turned to

account, that of falling either on Blücher or Wellington in the early

morning of the 17th, had been lost never again to return.

The delay, too, in the operations of the French, coupled with the

neglect of Soult and Grouchy, had caused the Emperor to remain in

ignorance of the true direction of Blücher’s march, and had confirmed

him in a false impression, which, though not the main cause of his

subsequent ruin, undoubtedly in part contributed to it. Clinging to the

conception which he had formed from the first, he was now absolutely

convinced that, after Ligny, Blücher was falling back on his base

to the Rhine; and the unlucky reconnaissance made in the morning,

which pointed to a Prussian retreat by Namur--some prisoners and guns

had been taken by the French--only went to strengthen his erroneous

judgment. He resolved, therefore, following the grand precedent of

1796, against Beaulieu and Colli--his cardinal idea in the campaign of

1815--to direct the mass of his army against Wellington, and to keep

Blücher away with a force sufficient to hold the defeated Prussians in

check while he should endeavour to overpower the Duke. This strategy

was perfectly correct in principle, but the delay of the morning

had been most unfortunate, and the project was founded on a false

assumption of the direction taken by Blücher’s forces.

The whole French army--except one division left in reserve, it had

suffered so much--was now divided into two groups; the first composed

of the Guard, a part of the 6th Corps, and some 8,000 horsemen,

marching on Quatre Bras, to unite with Ney, with the 2nd and 1st Corps,

and about 7,000 cavalry; the second comprising the 3rd and 4th Corps,

one division of the 6th, and about 5,000 horsemen. The first group,

about 72,000 strong, with not less than 240 guns, was to be under the

Emperor’s command, and was intended to reach and attack Wellington; the

second, some 34,000 men, with from 96 to 100 guns, was the wing that

was destined to restrain Blücher. Napoleon broke up from Ligny soon

after noon, and gave the command of this wing to Grouchy, enjoining him

to “pursue and attack the Prussians, and to keep Blücher continually in

sight,” and indicating Namur as, most probably, the direction of the

retreat of the enemy. The Emperor, too, I can have no doubt, informed

his lieutenant that his mission was[46] to interpose between Blücher

and Wellington; and, in fact, an experienced chief like Grouchy must

have understood that this was the object of his being detached from

the main French army. The direction, however, of the restraining wing

was late; Blücher had gained fourteen hours on the foe sent against

him; his retreat was on Wavre, not on Namur; and it had already

become no easy task to come up with him, and to hold him in check.

Grouchy, alarmed at what had been devolved on him, expostulated with

his Imperial master; but Napoleon curtly told him “to find out the

enemy,” and set off to join Ney at Quatre Bras. He met the Marshal at

about 2 P.M.; their united forces were massed together, and

they were directed against the army of Wellington, for some hours, we

have seen, in retreat. Ney had continued stationary at Quatre Bras,

until the Emperor came on to him, and for this inaction he has been

severely blamed; but the reproach is[47] too exacting, and by no means

just; the army of Wellington had been placed in safety; and even had

Ney advanced from Quatre Bras as soon as he saw Napoleon moving from

Ligny, and pressed on the rear of the British force, he could not

have gained any marked success. Napoleon began the pursuit at about 3

P.M., following Wellington along the great road to Brussels,

leading by Genappe to the Forest of Soignies; but great results were

no longer possible; the French merely harassed the retiring cavalry;

and, in fact, an extraordinary tempest of rain made military operations

practically useless. At about 7 P.M. the advanced guard of the

French reached the low hills above La Belle Alliance, in front of the

position of Waterloo; and in reply to a challenge made by Napoleon,

the fire of many batteries informed the Emperor that a large army was

collected at a short distance from him.

We turn to the operations of Grouchy’s wing, detached, we have seen,

late to follow up Blücher. Grouchy had not set his 34,000 men in

motion from Ligny until about 3 P.M., and for this he has

been harshly condemned; but, considering that his troops were widely

scattered, and that Napoleon did not advance from Quatre Bras until the

same hour, or nearly so, I am satisfied the censure is not deserved.

The Marshal, a brave but irresolute man--he had shown what he was at

Bantry in 1796--was hesitating what direction to take, when a positive

order from Napoleon came to determine his still uncertain purpose. The

Emperor, when on his way to Quatre Bras, had received the intelligence

that a large Prussian force had been seen on the Orneau, not far from

Gembloux; and he instantly sent off a messenger to Grouchy--through

Bertrand, and not through the Chief of the Staff--every sentence of

which should be carefully studied. In this important despatch Napoleon,

we see,[48] believed that Blücher was still falling back, with at least

the mass of his army, eastwards; but the proximity of the Prussians at

Gembloux surprised him; and he distinctly pointed out that “Blücher

and Wellington might endeavour to unite, and to offer battle, in

order to cover Liège or Brussels.” Suspecting part of the truth,

but still uninformed, he now ordered Grouchy to occupy Gembloux--he

evidently thought that from this point the line of Blücher’s retreat

would be ascertained, and that Grouchy would hold a position between

the Prussians and the main French army--and he desired Grouchy “to

communicate with head-quarters,” by “cavalry detachments,” along “the

road from Namur,” showing thus he believed that the Prussian chief was

probably retiring in force towards Liège, that is, towards his base on

the Rhine.

This order was still founded on the false impression of the direction

really taken by Blücher, for Gembloux is to the east of Wavre, and

thirteen or fourteen miles from that place; but in spite of all that

the Emperor’s censors have said, it was sufficiently correct to have

enabled Grouchy, had he been a capable and active chief, to have, in

the main, fulfilled his mission, and to have interposed between Blücher

and Wellington. Grouchy set off without further delay--responsibility

was a heavy load on him; the storm of rain which had kept back Napoleon

retarded also the Marshal’s columns; the roads, too, to Gembloux were

exceedingly bad; and it was not until 9 P.M. that the whole

force of Grouchy was collected near and around Gembloux, part east of

the town and part still in the rear. Grouchy had pushed on to Gembloux

some hours before, with an advanced guard, to endeavour to find out the

true direction of Blücher’s retreat; but though it is certainly strange

that this was not discovered beyond the possibility of doubt by this

time, and the march to Gembloux had been slow, I believe the Marshal

cannot fairly be blamed. In this position of affairs Grouchy sent a

despatch to the Emperor, now in front of Waterloo, at 10 P.M.

on the night of the 17th, and another at 2 A.M. on the morning

of the 18th; and these, too, require close attention. In the first

of these letters Grouchy announced that the Prussian army was still

falling back, almost certainly formed[49] “into two great columns,” the

one moving on Wavre by Sart les Walhain, a place a few miles to the

north-east of Gembloux, the other retiring on Perwez towards Liège;

and the Marshal added that if “the mass of the enemy had made its way

to Wavre” he would “follow it up in that direction,” “in order to

separate Blücher from Wellington.” The second letter has been lost,

but its contents are known; the Marshal wrote that he was about to

march on Wavre by Sart les Walhain on the track of Blücher; and this

is confirmed by a third message,[50] sent to Pajol, one of his light

cavalry chiefs, which directed a speedy advance on Wavre.

The information thus conveyed by Grouchy was only a partial approach to

the truth, and it was calculated to mislead Napoleon, and to inspire

him with disastrous false confidence. Blücher was not retreating in

two divergent columns; he had never thought of drawing towards Liège;

and, at this moment, the night of the 17th, the four corps of his

army, now well supplied and rested, and still numbering about 90,000

men, with from 270 to 280 guns, had been concentrated around Wavre,

on either bank of the stream of the Dyle, and ready in the morning

to march on Waterloo. The knowledge even now acquired by Grouchy was

amply sufficient to urge that chief to advance on Wavre as quickly as

possible, for it was by that line only that, from his point of view,

even one hostile column could join Wellington; and his letters prove

that he understood his mission. But his messages to Napoleon were of

such a nature as to cause the Emperor to feel assured--especially as

this was his own idea--that a large part at least of the Prussian army

was leagues away in retreat eastward, and could not possibly assist

the Duke; and, in any case, he had a right to infer that if part of

Blücher’s forces was at Wavre, Grouchy would be fully able to hold it

in check. Buoyed up by these hopes, the Emperor spent half the night

of the 17th in watching the lines of fire which marked the British

bivouacs, and he had but one fear, that the state of the weather--the

rain had continued to descend in torrents--would prevent him from

bringing Wellington to bay, and would enable the English chief to

decamp ere the morrow. It is, however, a complete mistake to suppose,

as Charras and other detractors have urged, that the Emperor at this

critical moment altogether neglected to watch his right, or to keep

in communication with Grouchy at Gembloux. I cannot, indeed, accept

his statement,[51] for it can hardly be reconciled with the published

documents, that he directed Grouchy, on the night of the 17th, to

send a detachment to the main French army, in order to fall on the

flank of Wellington--the counterpart of the march from Quatre Bras to

Marbais--though this incident of the campaign has been ill explored;

and there are reasons to think the order was made, apparently opposed

to the known evidence. But he sent horsemen to scour the country

towards Gembloux, and even within some miles of Wavre. He certainly

ascertained, before daybreak on the 18th, that a Prussian column was

near Wavre, and he communicated, we shall see, the news to Grouchy.

Relying, however, on the Marshal’s account, he assumed that Grouchy

would be in sufficient force to paralyze and perhaps destroy this foe,

and he was justified, from what he had been told, in a supposition of

the kind.

It was now the morning of the 18th of June, and Napoleon perceived,

with exulting pride, that Wellington had not attempted to retreat, and

that the Duke’s army retained its positions. The Emperor felt assured

of a decisive victory; he was certain that Grouchy could easily master

any forces that might threaten his right, if such forces were at hand

at all; and he exclaimed to Ney, as they sate at breakfast, that the

“chances were ten to one in their favour.” Napoleon had intended to

have his army in line, and to begin the battle at 9 A.M.,[52]

but the severity of the weather had made the ground very difficult

for the manœuvring of guns. He believed that a grand demonstration

would shake the nerves of the Belgian and Dutch troops, who had been

lately in the Imperial service, but who now formed a large part of

Wellington’s force; and, at the instance, it is said, of Drouot, one

of his most skilful and trusted officers, he put off the attack for

nearly three hours, the state of his frame, which needed repose, very

probably, too, affecting his purpose. This delay was immensely in the

Duke’s favour. Waterloo, but for it, could hardly have been won, and

it may truly be said that, on this day, the sun in its courses fought

against Napoleon. Meanwhile Wellington had drawn together his army,

about 70,000 strong, comprising 13,000 cavalry, and 160 guns; and

relying on the pledge of the word of Blücher, who, conquering pain

and superior to defeat, had promised to come up in line at Waterloo,

“with his whole army,” by the “forenoon at latest,” he calmly awaited

the attack of his renowned antagonist. He might, even at this moment,

have had a much larger force on the ground, for, apprehensive for his

right to the last, he had left 17,000 men far away at Hal, a strategic

mistake which cannot be justified, and which placed him in grave peril

during the ensuing battle.

While Waterloo was being thus prepared, Blücher had broken up from

his camps round Wavre, intent on carrying the support to his English

colleague which he felt would secure the Allies a triumph. The veteran

did not suspect that Grouchy was not far off with 34,000 men; the

Duke and Blücher, in fact, believed that Napoleon had all his army in

hand, with the exception of the one corps of Vandamme; and this single

calculation condemns the generalship of the double movement on Wavre

and Waterloo; for had Napoleon had 90,000 men to oppose to the 70,000

of Wellington, and been able to attack early on the 18th, Blücher

never could have been up in time to avert a defeat that must have

been certain. No hostile column, however, appeared from Gembloux, to

threaten the Prussians on their flank march, and yet the difficulties

and obstacles in the way--imperfectly understood by the Prussian

staff--were so great that the advance from Wavre was exceedingly slow,

and perilously delayed. Bülow, starting from beyond the Dyle at break

of day, was not at Chapelle St. Lambert, with even a few men, until

noon, still far from Napoleon’s right; Pirch and Ziethen were not in

march for Waterloo until 11.30 A.M., and even then lingered;

and Thielmann, with a considerable part of his corps, was left behind

to defend Wavre. Nothing but the heroic ardour of Blücher and the

energy of his fierce soldiery enabled the movement to be made at all,

and but for accidents and bad generalship I think it could not have

been accomplished with results leading to success at Waterloo.

While Blücher was thus toiling to attain Waterloo, Grouchy was on his

way from Gembloux to Wavre. To appreciate thoroughly this passage of

the campaign, I must ask the reader to retrace his steps, and to turn

back to part of the preceding narrative. Grouchy, sent to Gembloux

with 34,000 men, to pursue and to attack Blücher, and, doubtless, to

keep him aloof from Wellington, had not ascertained, even at the close

of the 17th, the exact positions of the whole Prussian army; but he

had been informed that part of it was falling back on Liège, and that

another part was retreating on Wavre; and he had, in the two letters

cited, apprised Napoleon that “should the mass of the Prussians go

that way,” he would take care to advance on Wavre, and thus “separate

Blücher from Wellington.” This information was not wholly correct, but

it was so to a certain extent; and it ought to have at once suggested

to Grouchy--a general-in-chief in command of an army, and he perfectly

understood his mission--the necessity of marching quickly on Wavre by

the earliest dawn of the 18th; for any Prussian column retiring on

Liège was abandoning altogether the theatre, and might, therefore,

be left alone; whereas a Prussian column directed to Wavre would be

approaching Wellington, and might molest Napoleon. This was the more

essential, because the Emperor, upon leaving for Quatre Bras, had told

Grouchy that his intention was to attack the Duke should he make a

stand “in front of the Forest of Soignies,” the very spot where the

Duke now was; and also, notably, because the Marshal’s despatches were

such as would lead Napoleon to think that no Prussians could even

approach Waterloo. The duty of Grouchy to keep Blücher and the Duke

apart ought to have induced him likewise, in his march from Gembloux,

to draw towards Wavre along roads tending towards the Emperor’s

position and Blücher’s flank, should the Prussians attempt to make for

Waterloo; for thus only could he accomplish his task, of which he was

well aware, as his own messages show. These roads existed, and were

even open; they led across the Dyle by two stone bridges at Mousty and

Ottignies, left intact as those on the Sambre had been on the 15th;

and they could have borne Grouchy’s army in seven hours at latest--the

distance, we have said, is thirteen or fourteen miles--either to

Wavre, or to intermediate points between Wavre and the Duke’s lines at

Waterloo.

Common sense, therefore, should have inspired Grouchy to leave

Gembloux as early as possible on the 18th, to divide his troops

into two columns at least, in order to expedite the march, and to

make for Wavre by Mousty and Ottignies; and had this been done, I

agree with Jomini, Blücher would not have made his way to Waterloo.

Unfortunately, Grouchy, we have seen, had resolved to advance from

Gembloux on Wavre--and he was hesitating even in this purpose--not

by the roads that would bring him on Blücher’s flank, but by Sart les

Walhain, and a circuitous road that would place him only on Blücher’s

rear, and therefore in a much worse position to intercept a Prussian

flank march on Waterloo; but though this was a grave strategic error,

it was perhaps not an irreparable mistake. Where Grouchy’s conduct

cannot be excused, and what condemns him at the bar of history, is

that, in opposition to his obvious duty and to the rules of mere common

prudence, he left Gembloux at[53] so late an hour that it became

difficult to attain Wavre in time to be of much use to Napoleon; and

that he so disposed his army as to render its march unnecessarily and

even extraordinarily slow. Instead of breaking up at 3 or 4 A.M., he

did not break up until 8 or 9 A.M.; instead of forming his men into two

columns at least, he allowed them to march in one huge column; and thus

hours of inestimable worth were lost, and a movement which ought to

have been as quick as possible was retarded in every conceivable way.

Napoleon, meantime, had been preparing a grand and decisive attack on

Wellington. His army had been some time in motion to take the positions

assigned to it, when he sent off by Soult a message to Grouchy, at

this moment on his way from Gembloux. In this letter, written at 10

A.M., the Chief of the Staff informed Grouchy that, besides

the two columns the Marshal had mentioned, intelligence had been

received of a third Prussian column falling back on Wavre by Gentinnes;

and he approved of Grouchy’s intended march on Wavre--inferred from

the despatch of 2 A.M.--but he enjoined him to approach the

Emperor, and to enter into communication with the main French army,

which, he added, was about to engage in battle “near Waterloo,” before

“the Forest of Soignies.” By 11 A.M., Napoleon’s legions had

taken their ground on their last field, and the annals of war have

seldom presented so magnificent and imposing a spectacle, described

by the Emperor himself in most striking language. The French army,

spread out like a gigantic fan, resplendent in all the pomp of battle,

was formed into three great masses; the first, composed of the 2nd

and 1st Corps, deployed in lines from Mon Plaisir on the left to near

Frischermont on the extreme right; the second, a superb array of

cavalry, in line, to the rear of Reille and D’Erlon; and the third,

in close columns, made up of cavalry, of Lobau’s 6th corps, and of

the Imperial Guard, intended to deal the decisive stroke. Napoleon’s

position crossed two roads, one the great highway from Charleroi to

Brussels, the other a good cross road from Nivelles running into

the first at Mont St. Jean; and the three arms could concur in the

attack, though his adversary’s front was protected by obstacles, and

the rain of fifteen hours had made an attack difficult through dense

fields of rye and miry enclosures. The Emperor rode in front of his

line, accompanied by his gorgeous staff; exulting cheers burst from

the martial host, proud of the renown of a hundred victories; and

the sight, as Napoleon calculated, made a profound impression on the

thousands of men in the hostile array who had but recently served under

the Imperial eagles.

The Duke, however, had his arrangements made; they fully revealed his

defensive skill; and if some of the auxiliaries had faint hearts,

he knew that he could thoroughly rely on his British and most of

his German soldiery. His lines, running from his right to his left,

extended from beyond Hougoumont, in front of Mon Plaisir, to Papelotte

and La Haye, in front of Frischermont; but he had some thousands of men

on his extreme right, holding Merbe Braine and Braine L’Alleud, and

communicating by vedettes with Hal, where, we have seen, he had left

17,000 men; and his extreme left had outposts reaching to Ohain, on the

road to Wavre, whench he expected Blücher. Hill commanded the right

wing, Picton held the left, the Prince of Orange was at the centre; and

though the Duke’s army presented a less compact front than that of his

Imperial foe, it was admirably arranged for a defensive battle. Before

the position stood the château of Hougoumont, covering the right and

the right centre of the Duke; beyond was the farm of La Haye Sainte and

the hamlets of Papelotte and La Haye, advanced posts on his centre

and left; and these points of vantage had been carefully fortified and

held by considerable bodies of men, to break the first fury of the

French attack. Behind these obstacles the main army held a formidable

position, guarding the two roads from Charleroi to Brussels and that

from Nivelles; and it had this special characteristic, that its

possessors could sweep the assailant’s columns at all points with fire,

and that it afforded cover in the rear to screen the reserves, exactly

the opposite of the case of the Prussians at Ligny. The Duke, however,

like all true generals, did not rely only on a passive defence; a

cross-road just behind the main position enabled all arms to manœuvre

freely, and the cavalry massed behind the British centre had facilities

to advance from most points of the line.

I can only attempt a mere sketch of one of the most memorable battles

of all time. The plan of Napoleon’s attack, in which we perceive

the last exhibition of his genius in war, was to turn Wellington’s

left--by many degrees the weakest point of the British position--and,

simultaneously, to force his centre; success in this operation would

not only separate the Duke’s army completely from Blücher, but would

cut off its retreat upon Brussels, and would force it into an intricate

country where escape from a victorious foe would be difficult. This

great effort was to be made by the corps of D’Erlon, supported by the

fire of an array of batteries accumulated in front of La Haye Sainte,

and thence as far as Papelotte and La Haye; and it was to be sustained

by the Imperial Guard, by Lobau, and by a large reserve of cavalry; but

it was to be masked by a feint against Wellington’s right, in order

to screen the decisive movement, and to draw the enemy’s attention

away from it. Napoleon gave the signal at 11.30 A.M., and

part of Reille’s corps on the Emperor’s left advanced boldly against

Hougoumont, in front, we have seen, of the right of the British

position. The château and the adjoining grounds, composed of a wood, an

orchard and walled enclosures, afforded an excellent centre of defence;

and though the French surrounded the place in thousands--nearly all

Reille’s men became engaged--and captured most of the approaches to

the house, and though some of the Duke’s auxiliaries fled, the British

Guards stubbornly clung to the spot, and made their resistance good

to the last. The effect of this attack, in which we see precipitate

haste on the part of the French--a defect in their tactics throughout

the day--was to weaken most seriously the second corps, and to turn

a diversion into a principal effort; and this admirably answered the

Duke’s purpose, for the force of his foe was broken on obstacles, and

his own position was left intact.

[Illustration:

PLAN OF

the Battlefield of

WATERLOO,

showing positions of

OPPOSING ARMIES.]

It was now 1 P.M., and Napoleon was about to send an order

to Ney for the grand attack, when he descried a body of troops on his

right, at a considerable distance, near Chapelle St. Lambert, and he

was soon apprised that this was the advance guard of Bülow’s corps,

30,000 strong, already gathering menacingly on his flank. The Emperor

detached Lobau, with 10,000 men, to the right, to hold this new foe

in check, exclaiming that “Grouchy had lost him thirty chances”; and

he instantly sent off a message to Grouchy, desiring the Marshal to

approach Waterloo, and if possible, to fall on the rear of Bülow;

some indication, perhaps, that Napoleon believed a part of Grouchy’s

force would be at once available, and possibly showing that the

disputed order of the previous night may have been given. Meanwhile the

batteries bearing on Wellington’s line from La Haye Sainte to Papelotte

and La Haye--a mass of from 70 to 80 guns, opposed by a much weaker

artillery force--had been carrying destruction into the British ranks;

and about 1.30 P.M. Ney was directed to carry the Duke’s

left, and to storm his centre. The assailants advanced in four huge

columns of extraordinary depth, and with their flanks uncovered--this

vicious formation has been acknowledged, but the author of it is not

known--they moved slowly through the difficult ground; they swept

away a Belgian division, which did not attempt to abide their onset;

but they failed before Picton and his tenacious infantry, though

they attained the crest of the British position. The Duke seized the

occasion with perfect skill; and seeing that the French were already

shaken, he launched against them a mass of heavy cavalry, which, in a

few moments, carried all before it, forced the enemy’s columns in rout

backwards, and clinging to their unprotected sides, captured two eagles

and 2,000 prisoners. The horsemen, pressing the pursuit too far, were

nearly destroyed by a counter-attack of hostile cavalry from Napoleon’s

lines; but this magnificent charge completely defeated the first great

effort made by the Emperor, and had a marked effect on the fortunes of

the day.

It was nearly 3 P.M., and Napoleon’s prospects, which had

appeared so brilliant, had become clouded. Bülow had moved forward

from Chapelle St. Lambert; Lobau, greatly outnumbered, was falling

back; a messenger had arrived from Gembloux announcing that Grouchy was

miles distant; and Wellington had completely maintained his position.

It is difficult to determine what, in this state of affairs, was the

exact purpose formed by Napoleon; but he probably resolved to watch

the movement of Bülow; and renouncing his attack on the Duke’s left,

which would seriously endanger his own right, he turned against the

British centre, for the present suspending a decisive effort. Ney

was ordered to seize the advanced post of La Haye Sainte, and the

place was mastered at about 4 P.M.,[54] after a furious and

well-contested struggle, in which the French cavalry made their power

manifest. A gap was now opened in Wellington’s front; guns were brought

up to bear on his line; a part of his troops fell back for shelter

behind the crest of his main position. Napoleon seems to have believed

in the beginning of a retreat, and he directed a large part of his

cavalry reserve, with Ney at their head, to advance on the enemy,

his purpose being, it seems probable, to sustain the movement by the

Imperial Guard. The French horsemen advanced in superb confidence;

carried the eminences held by the hostile infantry, and sent terror

into the hearts of the inferior troops who crowded the ranks of

the Duke’s army, though checked by the squares of the British and

German footmen, who exhibited the most heroic constancy. It seems now

certain that Napoleon meant to follow up this partial success, when a

diversion caused him to forego his purpose. Bülow had hesitated to

make a serious attack; but Blücher had joined his halting lieutenant,

and the fiery veteran, seeing how critical[55] was the situation of

Wellington’s army, ordered an immediate advance on Napoleon’s flank.

The Emperor was now fighting two battles; his attention was for some

time engrossed in repelling Bülow’s attack on his right; and this,

indeed, became so formidable that a considerable part of the Imperial

Guard was required to stem the enemy’s progress. Ney, meanwhile,

had been making desperate efforts with his cavalry to break the

British centre; he employed the last reserve of this splendid force,

undoubtedly against his master’s wishes;[56] but though Wellington’s

line had been severely shaken, and thousands of fugitives covered his

rear, and enormous gaps had been made in his army, the enemy’s cavalry,

unsupported by foot, were unable to force the British position, held by

squares “rooted,” it has been said, “in the earth.”

The battle was undecided at 7 P.M.; but Bülow’s attack had

been repelled; Ney maintained his hold on the British front; the

cannon of Grouchy were heard from Wavre, a pledge that he was keeping

back the Prussians; and Reille and D’Erlon had made some progress in

their efforts against the British right and centre. Napoleon thought

his opportunity had come; a final stroke, he believed, would secure

him victory, and forming the Guard into two great columns, supported

by guns and the wreck of his cavalry, he directed one against the

Duke’s centre, holding the second in reserve to sustain the movement.

Wellington’s army had suffered immense losses; death, desertion,

flight, had carried off thousands; undoubtedly he was in serious peril;

and he now probably felt how grave had been the error of leaving 17,000

men at Hal. But, though “night or Blücher,” significant words which

fell from him, showed that he knew his danger, he had made everything

ready to meet his foe; and drawing in his right wing behind his centre,

he had even now a powerful reserve to oppose to Napoleon’s supreme

effort. The onset of the first column of the Guard for a time overbore

all resistance; but it was arrested by the British Guards, by the

renowned 52nd, and by a division of Dutchmen led by Chassé, and the

defeated column swayed slowly backward, expecting the support of the

approaching reserve. The needful assistance was never to come. Just

at this moment part of the two corps of Ziethen and Pirch came into

line. The French right was suddenly rent asunder, and a mass of British

cavalry flooding the plain spread confusion and panic through the

beaten army. The Duke now ordered a general advance; a terrible scene

of ruin and disaster followed. The Imperial Guard fought nobly to the

last; but the rest of Napoleon’s routed troops became a mere chaos of

dissolving fugitives, pursued with relentless hate by the Prussians,

and scattered along the roads that lead across the Sambre. Not thirty

thousand men of the perishing host were ever, probably, seen under arms

again. The losses of the victors were not less than 22,000 or 23,000

men, and nearly 7,000 of these were Prussians.

Napoleon at Waterloo gave little proof of the energy and resource of

Jena and Austerlitz. The plan of his attack was, indeed, perfect, and

during the greater part of the day he was in a position of extreme

difficulty, and he was badly seconded by his lieutenants, who displayed

feverish impatience and great want of caution. But he did not prevent

the waste of his troops round Hougoumont; he allowed Ney to engage a

large part at least of his cavalry in a premature movement; he did

not seize the occasion he perhaps had to attack in full force before

Bülow’s diversion. He was remiss and inactive throughout the battle;

and this was due, there is now no doubt, to physical exhaustion[57] and

long impaired health. The Duke, on the other hand, was the soul of

the defence; he conducted the battle with wonderful skill, directing

every movement at the right moment, making counter attacks when these

were opportune, keeping a sufficient reserve for the supreme trial,

and breathing into his men his stern sense of duty, his tenacity, and

inflexible constancy. His management of the contest was so admirable

that he held his ground, though he had expected Blücher in force on the

field before mid-day, and though, humanly speaking, he must have lost

the battle but for the intervention of the Prussian army--his composite

force of 70,000 men, much weaker in guns, was not to be compared to the

72,000 troops under the Emperor’s flag--still, I venture to think that

even without this aid, he would not have suffered the crushing defeat

on which Napoleon’s hopes for the campaign rested. His one mistake, in

fact, on this memorable day was the isolating 17,000 men at Hal; this

certainly exposed him to real danger; but then this was a strategic not

a tactical error. Nevertheless, Waterloo was decided by combinations

outside the field; and we turn to the operations of Grouchy, the main

cause, I believe of Napoleon’s overthrow.

The Marshal breaking up, we have seen, from Gembloux at least five or

six hours too late, and marching with extraordinary slewness, reached

Sart les Walhain at about 11:30--he was still eight or ten miles from

Wavre--and at that place the thunder of cannon, far to the left, gave

token of a great distant battle. Gérard, with true insight, at once

urged Grouchy to cross the Dyle by Mousty and Ottignies, and to draw

near the Emperor, known to be at Waterloo; for by so doing, Gérard

justly argued, Wavre would be turned should it be attacked, and the

French would attain the flank of Blücher, who, Gérard felt certain,

was trying to join Wellington. Grouchy refused to listen to sagacious

counsels, which, had they inspired him twelve hours before, would have

perhaps changed the course of events in Europe, and which even now

might have borne fruit; and he set off with his whole force for Wavre,

where he expected to find the Prussian army. By this time Bülow was

at Chapelle St. Lambert, but with a weak advanced guard only. Pirch

and Ziethen were just breaking up from Wavre, and Thielmann was about

to join them; but a great change took place in the Prussian movements

when, at about 1 P.M., intelligence came that the enemy was approaching

Wavre. Part of the corps of Pirch was ordered to fall back; the march

of Ziethen was greatly retarded; and Thielmann was directed to remain

at Wavre, and to make head against the scarcely expected foe. By 4

P.M., Grouchy was close to Wavre, having marched on the place, not

across the Dyle towards the flank of Blücher, but along the river,

thus striking Blücher’s extreme rear, and pushing him, so to speak,

on Wellington; the Marshal opened fire at once on the town, having

just received Soult’s letter of 10 A.M., which, no doubt, sanctioned

an advance on Wavre, but ordered Grouchy to approach the Emperor. It

is useless to follow the events of a combat of no importance to the

result of the campaign; Thielmann, with only 18,000 men, contrived

to hold Grouchy some hours in check; and meanwhile Bülow, completely

free to act, and Pirch and Ziethen, all danger removed, succeeded in

reaching Waterloo and in crushing Napoleon. Yet, bad as it was, the

position of Grouchy made the Prussians cautious and kept them back;

Pirch and Ziethen were only just up in time; and of an army of 90,000

men, not 50,000 made their way to Waterloo. By 7 P.M. Grouchy received

the letter of 1 P.M., sent off from Napoleon’s lines at the news of

the apparition of Bülow; the Marshal crossed the Dyle, and tried to

approach the Emperor; but the movement was now altogether too late; the

French army and its chief had succumbed.

The junction of Blücher and Wellington, therefore, led to the

overwhelming defeat of Waterloo; but for this, Napoleon would have won

the battle--the chances, at least, were all in his favour--despite the

tactical errors of the French, and the admirable defensive resource of

Wellington. It follows that the great and capital question, as regards

this part of the Campaign of 1815, is, Could Grouchy have prevented

this junction, for if he could, he must be held responsible for the

catastrophe which befell the Emperor? The answer must largely depend

on conjecture; but an impartial student of war, I think, especially

if he can weigh evidence, will give it distinctly in the affirmative.

Considerations, obvious and yet decisive, should have urged Grouchy,

we have seen, to leave Gembloux in the early dawn of the 18th, to cross

the Dyle at Mousty and Ottignies, and to approach Wavre as quickly

as possible; the idea, it will be observed, flashed on Gérard’s mind

the moment he heard the cannon of Waterloo. If the Marshal had taken

this rational course, he would have been over the river at about 11

A.M.,[58] and, in that event, as affairs stood, he would

have seriously menaced the flank of Bülow, toiling painfully, in long

straggling columns, on the way from Wavre to Chapelle St. Lambert, and

he would have been nearer Napoleon’s lines than the corps of Ziethen,

of Pirch, and of Thielmann, still near Wavre, and not on the march for

Waterloo.

What, in these circumstances, would Blücher have done, giving him

full credit for his daring and energy? He would have been surprised

in a perilous flank march, through a difficult and almost impassable

country, for he had no conception that Grouchy would be near; and

his army would have been almost divided by an enemy threatening its

separate parts. In this state of things I cannot doubt but that he

would not have permitted Bülow to advance farther, or his three

remaining corps to make a move towards Waterloo, until he had disposed

of Grouchy; he would have drawn the mass of his forces together. All

this would have been an affair of hours. Grouchy could have made a

prolonged resistance, and, meanwhile, Napoleon, free to bring the

whole strength of his more powerful army against the Duke, would

have triumphed over his much weaker enemy. The same results would,

have, perhaps, followed had Grouchy, without attempting to cross

the Dyle, reached Wavre at 11 A.M., as he might have done;

Pirch, Ziethen, and Thielmann would not have moved; Bülow, isolated,

would not have dared to attack, and the French army would still have

gained a victory. Even had Grouchy, at the eleventh hour, listened to

the excellent advice of Gérard, and crossed the Dyle at Mousty and

Ottignies, he might possibly have averted a complete catastrophe. The

movement could not have interfered with the attack of Bülow, but it

might have arrested Pirch and Ziethen, and it was these chiefs who, at

the last moment, dealt the French army the final mortal stroke.

It is impossible, therefore, to acquit Grouchy; he is mainly to

blame for the result of Waterloo. This conclusion, however, has been

assailed, with confidence, on two lines of argument. Napoleon, it is

said, was not aware, from first to last, whither Blücher had gone; he

despatched Grouchy from Sombreffe too late; Gembloux was not the true

point on which the force of the Marshal should have been directed.

Napoleon gave Grouchy no precise orders; he misled his lieutenant,

and kept him in the dark; he approved, late on the 18th, the march on

Wavre, and he has, therefore, to thank himself for his own overthrow.

We may grant the premises, yet they do not sustain the inference or

exonerate Grouchy. Admitting that Napoleon believed that Blücher was

falling back on his base after Ligny; that he should have sent Grouchy

on his track much sooner; and that Gembloux was not the best place

to be assigned for the restraining wing; still, it was the duty of

Grouchy, knowing what he had learned on the 17th, to have left Gembloux

at daybreak on the 18th, and marched rapidly on or towards Wavre; and

had he done this, he would, I believe, have stopped the Prussians

and averted Waterloo. As for Napoleon not having given directions to

Grouchy of an exact kind, and having sanctioned the tardy advance on

Wavre, the first statement assumes that Grouchy was not an independent

general-in-chief, in command of a distinct army, and the second is

opposed to the known evidence. Napoleon approved of the march to Wavre,

but not at a late hour, or at a snail’s pace; he certainly thought,

and had a right to think, if a Prussian force existed at Wavre--the

reader will recollect the letter of the 18th, pointing to his growing

suspicion of the fact--that his lieutenant would be able to hold it in

check, and this required an early and speedy march from Gembloux. This

reasoning, in fact, errs in two respects; it ascribes to the mistakes

Napoleon made results with which they are not chargeable; it assumes

that Napoleon, in front of Wellington, was to instruct Grouchy, in

front of Blücher, in his conduct, in the minutest details; it takes for

granted that Grouchy, the head of the army, was a mere puppet to be

directed in every operation he was to undertake, and that by his chief

at a wide distance from him. The argument, when examined, falls to the

ground; it cannot stand the test of impartial criticism.

The second contention, urged by Charras, rests on the fact that the

army of Grouchy was very much weaker than that of Blücher; but though

made with a parade of science, it does not mislead a true student of

war. Grouchy, the argument runs, had but 34,000 men to oppose to the

90,000 of Blücher; the Prussian was an able, nay, a great soldier; and

had Grouchy done all that man could do, he could not, his force was so

inferior, have prevented the junction of Blücher and Wellington, and

conjured away the disaster of Waterloo. Assume that Grouchy manœuvred

rightly, had left Gembloux at the first possible moment, had marched

rapidly, had seized Mousty and Ottignies, and had mastered the Dyle

before mid-day, his adversary would have at once recognized, that the

Prussians were nearly three to one to the French, and this would have

determined Blücher’s purpose. The Prussian marshal, aware of this fact,

would have sent Pirch and Ziethen to hold Grouchy in check, and marched

on Waterloo with Bülow and Thielmann; or he would have allowed Grouchy

to draw near his flank, and, fending him off, would have moved on

Wellington with three-fourths of his army at least; and in either case

he would have joined the Duke, and both would have overwhelmed Napoleon.

This looks well on paper, and in mere theory; but is contradicted by

the realities of war. Had Grouchy attained the Dyle by noon, he would

have completely surprised Blücher, have caught him with an army far

apart, on a flank march of the most critical kind; and in this position

of affairs it is morally certain that Blücher would have reconnoitred

and paused, would have waited to draw together his army, and would

have fought a pitched battle with Grouchy, before he even thought of

uniting with Wellington. In that event, inferior in numbers as he was,

Grouchy would have detained the Prussians for hours; Blücher would

have lost the chance of joining the Duke; and Waterloo would have

been a French victory. The lessons of war, and the great authority of

Jomini in this matter, confute the reasoning of a partizan censor,

and the very incidents of the day point to the same conclusion. The

mere apparition of Grouchy on the wrong bank of the Dyle, late as the

hour was when he had approached Wavre, delayed the general movement

of the Prussian army; and half of it never attained Waterloo. How

different must the result have been had Grouchy crossed the Dyle at

the true point, and gathered upon the flank of Blücher; in that case

not even one Prussian division would, I think, have come to the aid of

Wellington.

Grouchy, in short, was the Emperor’s evil genius on the great and

terrible day of Waterloo; Napoleon has written, with perfect truth,

that he could no more foresee his lieutenant’s conduct than he could

assume that Grouchy would be swallowed up, with his army, by an

unexpected earthquake. The Campaign of 1815 may be summed up in a

few sentences. Striking at the extreme right, for the time isolated,

of the hosts about to invade France, and screening the movement with

wonderful skill, Napoleon collects an army of 128,000 men on the edge

of France, running into Belgium, his object being to attack Blücher

and Wellington, commanding about 224,000 men, but whose two armies

were widely divided, in scattered groups, from Liège to Ghent and

Charleroi. The Emperor, aiming at the allied centre, the weakest and

most assailable point, begins the movement on the 15th of June; he

does not, owing to a set of accidents, reach the strategic points

of Quatre Bras and Sombreffe on the true line of junction of his

antagonists, the lateral road from Nivelles to Namur; but his columns

at nightfall are close to these, and his adversaries already are placed

in danger. Blücher, meanwhile, acting as Napoleon had hoped, marches to

Sombreffe with three-fourths of his army only; the Duke, fulfilling the

expectations of his foe, lingers, hesitates, and delays his movements;

and on the 16th Napoleon has a grand chance of reaching and beating

his enemy in detail. His plans, if formed on a false impression, are

nevertheless so correct in principle, that had they been carried out

ably the Prussian army must have been destroyed; but Ney, Reille,

and D’Erlon failed: the Emperor is perhaps over-cautious in not

pressing D’Erlon’s advance on St. Amand; and Blücher escapes, through

misadventures, which alone save him from complete ruin. Ligny, however,

is a real French victory; and, meanwhile, Ney, though unequal to his

task, fights an indecisive action at Quatre Bras; and though forced to

fall back, he so far succeeds that he prevents Wellington from sending

aid to his colleague, and, in fact, gains a strategic advantage. The

close of the 16th sees Napoleon victorious upon the main scene of the

contest, having only just failed to make Ligny a counterpart of the

rout of Jena.

The 17th has come; the Allies, compelled to abandon their proper line

of junction, retreat separately and in distant groups on a second line,

between Wavre and Waterloo; they intend ultimately to unite on this;

and this project, though crowned with success, was false strategy

that might have proved their ruin. The French army, on this eventful

day, makes a long halt not easy to explain; the retiring enemy is not

pursued or watched; and this delay and remissness--utterly unlike the

energy of Napoleon on the path of victory--and probably largely due

to his declining health, save Blücher and Wellington from the gravest

peril, and singularly aid their future projects. Napoleon does not

move until noon from Ligny, his purpose being to attack Wellington,

for several hours falling back on Waterloo; he has a noble army 72,000

strong to cope with 70,000 men of the Duke, more than a third of these

being inferior troops; and he detaches Grouchy, with about 34,000,

to pursue Blücher and to keep him away from Wellington. The Emperor

follows the Duke from Quatre Bras, and finds his adversary in force

near Waterloo; and meantime, though he remains convinced that Blücher

is retiring on his base, he directs Grouchy to occupy Gembloux, having

heard that Prussians were approaching that place. Grouchy reaches

Gembloux by the night of the 17th; he informs his master that the

Prussian army is in retreat in two great masses, one directed to Wavre,

the other to Liège: and he shows that he understands his mission, and

that he will endeavour “to separate Blücher and Wellington.” This

report perfectly reassures the Emperor; he makes preparations for a

decisive battle; but the elements interfere to retard his purpose, and

he does not attack the Duke until near noon on the 18th. Meanwhile

Grouchy, whose plain duty it was to leave Gembloux early, and to march

on Wavre across the Dyle on the flank of Blücher as rapidly as his

troops could move, breaks up hours too late, proceeds with strange

slowness, and reaches Wavre in the afternoon only, striking Blücher

in the extreme rear, but still detaining a part of his army. During

all this time the great fight of Waterloo has been raging with varying

fortunes; the French tactics are faulty, the Duke’s admirable. In

the afternoon Bülow reaches Napoleon; the Emperor is engaged in a

double battle. Ney recklessly squanders his master’s cavalry, but

Bülow is for a time repulsed; and the Emperor makes a final effort to

break Wellington’s centre with the Guard. The attack fails, but all

is not over until part of two fresh Prussian corps turns the scale

decisively against the French, and Waterloo ends in a frightful rout.

The Prussians, in fact, who might have been detained by Grouchy, were

all but left free to advance on Waterloo; they reached the field in the

very nick of time. Grouchy kept back directly only 18,000 men; and yet,

miserable as his operations were, they indirectly retarded the Prussian

army, a significant proof of what might have occurred had Grouchy been

a capable chief.

Having reviewed the incidents of this great Campaign, let us disengage

the permanent lessons it teaches an impartial student of war. Napoleon

operated with too small an army: 128,000 men could hardly overcome

224,000. He had a right to count on his transcendent genius; he had

no right to assume that the Allies would make the grave strategic

mistakes they made, or would give him the opportunities they gave. In

consequence of this numerical weakness he was compelled to divide his

army into two masses not sufficiently connected by an intermediate

body; and this partly explains, though it does not excuse, the errors

of Ney to the left on the 16th, and those of Grouchy to the right

on the 18th. Had the Emperor had the 20,000 men he had intended to

bring into the field, he would have had a force sufficient to fill

this interval, and in that event he would have doubtless triumphed.

The intellectual powers of Napoleon were splendidly exhibited in the

contest; his plan for the Campaign is a masterpiece of art; his plan of

attack at Waterloo defies criticism; his general ideas, though he made

mistakes--for the greatest generals must necessarily err--reveal the

wholly unrivalled strategist. His bodily strength, however, failed him:

to this, I doubt not, we ought to ascribe the delays and carelessness

of the 17th, and certainly this weakness had much to do with the

inactivity and slackness he betrayed at Waterloo. It may well be,

too, that his complete faith in himself had been diminished by recent

events. Like Richard at Bosworth, he has recorded--

I had not the alacrity of spirit,

Or cheer of mind that I was wont to have;

and the great player against Fate may, in this mighty hazard, have

thrown his last die with a trembling hand. We may perhaps see

hesitation, and even timidity, in his allowing D’Erlon to return to

Quatre Bras, and in not pressing the movement on St. Amand home;

and the same shortcomings may be possibly traced in his not seizing

a real chance at Waterloo, when La Haye Sainte had been taken, and

before Bülow had made a serious attack on his flank. Yet it was his

lieutenants’ errors that lost the campaign; on the 16th they failed

on the left; Grouchy, on the 18th was worse than useless; and we can

understand his bitter expression that victory was twice wrested from

his hands through incomprehensible faults of subordinates. In this

campaign, so to speak, the sun of Austerlitz seems about to break out

in its old splendour; but malignant influences intercept its rays, and

it sets at last in disastrous night.

To turn to the Allies, Blücher and Wellington were adversaries of

a very different kind from the Beaulieu and Colli of 1796. Both

certainly, made great strategic mistakes; both were more than once

in imminent peril; and we see in their conduct the divided counsels

repeatedly fatal to a Coalition and its chiefs. But both, in different

ways, were great soldiers; they cordially co-operated in a common

design; and the heroism of Blücher, mastering defeat, and the tenacity

and tactical skill of Wellington, are admirable specimens of great

parts in war. Another cause of the ultimate success of the Allies

should be carefully noted. Napoleon, in his last address to his troops,

referred scornfully to the Prussians of Jena, and exclaimed “Are not

we and they the same men?” and like many great chiefs he took no heed

of national and patriotic passion. The Prussian army of 1815 was not,

however, “the same men” as the Prussian army of 1806; it was fired

with an intense hatred of France, and with an intense love of the

Fatherland; and it was capable of very different efforts from those

of the serf-like troops of Brunswick. Napoleon, relying on former

experience, believed that the army defeated at Ligny would recoil

on its base, and, beyond doubt, would not make a dangerous march on

Waterloo; but the reasoning of strategy, as has often happened, was

baffled by the ardour of a devoted soldiery; though had Grouchy been

equal to his task all this energy would have come to nothing. In Spain

and Russia Napoleon had suffered immense disasters from his inborn

contempt of patriotic and popular sentiment; and this indifference

had something to do with the final issue of the strife at Waterloo.

But when all has been said, the Emperor’s genius all but triumphed in

the campaign of 1815; he was nearly successful although opposed to

adversaries almost twofold in numbers; and victory was only wrested

from him through the mistakes of others. Notwithstanding Zama, Hannibal

remains the pre-eminent figure of ancient war; Napoleon is the great

captain of modern times, though ruin overtook him on the plains of

Belgium.

[Illustration]

Printed by W. H. Allen & Co., Limited, 13, Waterloo Place, London, S.W.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] _Napoleon Correspondence_, vol. xxxi., p. 365.

[2] Compare this with the movement, described on p. 8, which was made

by Gustavus Adolphus in pursuit of Tilly.

[3] French armies had before this taken many of these fortresses, but

they had been retaken on the first turn of fortune.

[4] Napoleon never made use of lines of this kind, but nothing escaped

him, and he had the example of Torres Vedras; at St. Helena he made

admirable observations on this system of defence.

[5] Every real student of the wars of the seventeenth and eighteenth

centuries knows the difficulty of forming anything like a just estimate

of the numbers of the armies in conflict. This is mainly due to the

systematic practice of enumeration by battalions and squadrons, bodies

always in a state of change; and besides, national pride and interest

have obscured the truth. I have taken some pains to collate the

authorities, and to arrive at an estimate approximately correct.

[6] This march, in fact, strongly resembles Eugene’s famous march

up the Po in 1706, described by Napoleon as “a marvellous piece of

audacity,” but it was far more perilous.

[7] Coxe, though a dull is a conscientious writer, and occasionally he

had good military assistance. Alone, as far as I know, of commentators

on the campaign of 1704, he points out the risk to which, at this

juncture, Eugene and Marlborough were exposed. Napoleon wrote on

Marlborough, but his observations have never been published; it would

be most interesting to know his judgment on this passage in the

campaign.

[8] It is more difficult to arrive at an estimate of the strength

of the contending armies in the case of Malplaquet than in that of

any other great battle of the war. I think my calculation is fairly

accurate.

[9] “_Semper et ubique fideles_” was the proud and well-merited

device on the flag of the Irish brigade.

[10] This is the sagacious and just judgment of Wellington, a genius of

quite a different kind, but a great admirer of Napoleon.

[11] Bulletin of the Grand Army the day after the battle: “L’armée

ennemie était nombreuse et montrait une belle cavalerie; ses manœuvres

étaient executées avec précision et rapidité.”

[12] This saying has been ascribed to Napoleon; it belongs to

Turenne: “Les plus habiles sont ceux qui font seulement le moins de

fautes.”--_Memoires_, p. 5. Ed. Hachette, 1877.

[13] The last words of Napoleon’s despatch to Masséna are

characteristic: “Activité. Activité, vitesse! Je me recommande à vous.”

[14] The monarchies and aristocracies of old Europe had an immense

opinion of the Archduke Charles; but his reputation has steadily

declined. He was as inferior to Napoleon as Pompey, the admiration of

the Roman patricians, was to Cæsar.

[15] “Mais, Monseigneur, figurez vous qu’au lieu de Bonaparte,

c’est Jourdan que vous avez devant vous,” was the exclamation of an

aide-de-camp, when the Archduke was in this mood of fear and hesitation.

[16] See a masterly paper, from Wellington’s hand, on the campaign

of 1812. The Duke’s knowledge of the facts is not complete, for the

_Napoleon Correspondence_ had not yet been published; but the

criticism is admirable. I have made ample use of it in this sketch.

_Despatches, Correspondence, and Memoranda of Field-Marshal the Duke

of Wellington, K.G._, vol. iii., 1866.

[17] Napoleon was certainly unwell; poison has been suspected; but

probably he was again showing signs of disease.

[18] It has been said--and the fact is probable--that the general

scheme of the operations of the Allies was formed by Moreau, a chief of

the second order, but a capable, sagacious, and far-sighted soldier.

Their strategy was better than that of the Russians in 1812, and than

their own in 1814.

[19] Owing to the losses of the French by disease, desertion, and

defection, it is impossible to determine, even approximately, the

numbers of the Grand Army in this part of the campaign. Those of the

Allies are better known; but patriotism and pride have tended to make

them smaller than they were.

[20] Napier insists on this, though he was so enthusiastic an idolator

of Napoleon that he is not an impartial judge.

[21] Napoleon’s exultation at his feats and those of his army was

extravagant. “Ce qu’ils ont fait,” he wrote on 12th February, “ne peut

se comparer qu’aux romans de chevalerie et aux hommes d’armes de ces

temps où, par l’effet de leurs armures et l’adresse de leurs chevaux,

un en battait trois ou quatre cents.”

[22] Lord Caetlereagh, who was at this council, could not comprehend

why Blücher and Schwartzenburg could not defeat Napoleon with their

enormous superiority of numbers; and demurred to the expense--England

was the paymaster of the Coalition--of bringing up Wintzingerode and

Bülow. “Milord,” said a bystander, “vous ne connaissez pas cet homme!”

[23] The authorities on the state of Napoleon’s health during the

campaign of 1815 will be found in Mr. Dorsey Gardener’s book on

Waterloo, pp. 34, 36.

[24] “Si le maréchal Grouchy eût campé devant Wavre le soir du 17,

l’armée prussienne n’eut fait aucun détachment pour secourir l’armée

anglaise.”--_Correspondence_, vol. xxxi., p. 213. No doubt Grouchy

could not have reached Wavre on the night of the 17th, but he might

have been there at 11 A.M. on the morning of the 18th; and

the result would have been practically the same. Bülow would not have

attacked, or perhaps even approached Waterloo, had he been isolated.

[25] Jomini knew more about Napoleon than any other commentator on

the Emperor and is naturally astonished at the delays of the 17th

of June. The real cause was not then known, but Jomini’s words are

significant. _Précis de la Campagne de 1815_, p. 185. “Pour ceux

qui se rappellent l’étonnante activité qui présida aux évènements de

Ratisbonne en 1809, de Dresde en 1813, de Champaubert et de Montmirail

en 1814, ce nouveau temps perdu sera toujours une chose inexplicable de

la part de Napoléon.”

[26] Lord Wellesley’s epitaph, chosen by himself, is strikingly

characteristic:--“Super et Garamantas et Indos protulit imperium.”

[27] It is most remarkable how many of the Irish Protestant aristocracy

have distinguished themselves in India. Besides the two Wellesleys,

the names of Eyre Coote, of Gough, of the Lawrences, of Canning, of

Dufferin, will at once occur to the reader. This, no doubt, may in part

be traced to their hereditary ascendency over the Celtic Irish.

[28] Napoleon wrote thus to Clarke 18th August 1809: “Quelle belle

occasion on a manquée! 30,000 Anglais et 150 lieues des côtes devant

100,000 hommes des meilleures troupes du monde! Mon Dieu! qu’est ce

qu’une armée sans chef!”--_Correspondence_, vol. xix., p. 362.

[29] Napoleon received the news of Salamanca on the eve of Borodino.

His criticism of Marmont is striking and just.

[30] I refer to the combined forces of the Allies. The Duke’s army was

from 100,000 to 106,000 strong, counting all the troops in Belgium.

[31] This is the expression of Napoleon in a somewhat analogous case.

The orders of a Government, if not precise, obviously should not excuse

a general-in-chief on the spot.

[32] Chanzy, a singularly modest and truthful man, gives this account

of the state of the Germans after the retreat to Le Mans: “L’ennemi,

contenu partout, était devenu de moins en moins entreprenant; il était

facile de voir que pas plus que les nôtres, ses troupes n’avaient

pas résisté à la fatigué; ses hommes étaient, eux aussi, grandement

démoralisés par cette resistance d’une lutte qui se reproduisait

constamment, alors qu’ils la croyaient terminée; le désordre se

mettait parfois dans ses colonnes malgré sa solide organisation et sa

discipline.”

[33] This message from Berlin, at this juncture, is very

significant:--“La position militaire est regardée comme critique dans

les cercles bien informés. On a des inquietudes sur l’issue finale de

la lutte.”

[34] My limits preclude me from citing extracts from these authorities.

But I shall, when it is required, indicate them; and I hope I shall

accurately express their meaning and purport.

[35] Napoleon had shown signs of illness in the campaigns of 1812,

1813, and 1814, and was in bad health in 1815. Mr. Dorsey Gardner in

his useful work on Waterloo, pp. 34–36, has adduced ample evidence to

prove that Napoleon was unwell and out of sorts on the 16th, 17th, and

18th June; and this, I know, was remarked by Soult on the morning of

Waterloo.

[36] After the publication of these despatches, and of other documents,

especially those collected by the son of Ney, we must reject Napoleon’s

statement that Ney received “positive orders,” to occupy Quatre Bras

on the evening of the 15th, and to advance from that place, “at

daybreak,” on the 16th. Still, I think Napoleon indicated a movement

of the kind to his lieutenant on the 15th; the _Moniteur_ of the

18th contains a despatch of the 15th, which announces that “Ney had his

head-quarters at Quatre Bras.” The point, however, is not of very great

importance; had the Emperor’s orders of 8 A.M. on the 16th

been intelligently and rapidly carried out, Ney would have done all

that was required, and Napoleon would have gained decisive success.

[37] The failure of Ney to attain Quatre Bras, and to send a division

to Marbais, before the arrival of a sufficient part of Wellington’s

army to arrest the Marshal’s progress, saved Blücher from destruction

on the 16th of June, and was fraught with the most momentous

consequences, and the truth on this subject has been studiously

concealed. Charras and the detractors of Napoleon, eager to condemn

the Emperor, and English writers, desirous of hiding what might have

happened through Wellington’s tardiness, concur in insinuating that

Reille and D’Erlon were not to begin their movement until they had

received their orders from Ney, who would have to send despatches from

Frasnes back to them, and contend, therefore, that Ney could not have

been in great force at Quatre Bras before 3.30 or 4.30 P.M.,

at which time he was fully engaged with Wellington, and could not

even master Quatre Bras. This, however, is a complete mistake: Reille

and D’Erlon have acknowledged that they received the order for their

movement from the aide-de-camp at about 10 A.M.; and, in

fact, Ney could have swept all before him at Quatre Bras soon after 1

P.M., and have made the detachment to Marbais, had the order

been properly carried out. See the letters of D’Erlon, of Reille, and

of Durutte, quoted by the Prince La Tour D’Auvergne in his book on

Waterloo, p. 149, p. 170, and p. 171.

[38] A host of witnesses, Soult is the most conspicuous--his well-known

testimony of the 17th of June, the day after Ligny, has been shamefully

garbled by Charras--have proved that Napoleon sent this order to

D’Erlon; and the fact, I conceive, is indisputable. It is denied,

in the face of the evidence, by those only who, seeking to censure

Napoleon and to excuse Wellington, pretend that the Emperor had not the

means of gaining a decisive victory over Blücher after 1 P.M.

on the 16th of June. Even after the failure of the projected movement

from Marbais the means were ample; D’Erlon would have annihilated

Blücher had he struck the Prussian right and rear at St. Amand.

[39] This was Dejean, a favourite aide-de-camp of Napoleon. As the

evidence shows that the Emperor ordered D’Erlon to Ligny, so it

indicates that he must have permitted D’Erlon to abandon his march,

and to retrace his steps towards Quatre Bras when peremptorily ordered

to do so by Ney. This, in the events which happened, was over-caution,

for D’Erlon would have destroyed Blücher had he carried out Napoleon’s

order, and Ney, hard pressed as he was at Quatre Bras, could have held

his ground against Wellington without the aid of D’Erlon; and this,

I conceive, is the reason that Napoleon’s commentaries on this most

important subject are vague and unsatisfactory.

[40] D’Erlon detached a division to observe St. Amand before he

counter-marched to Quatre Bras. This division, however, merely

reconnoitred, and took no part in the battle; it was simply useless.

[41] With Kellerman’s heavy cavalry.

[42] “L’armée Prussienne a été mise en déroute” is the expression of

Soult, in the well known letter of the 17th, written under the eye

perhaps of Napoleon, certainly according to his ideas.

[43] Dorsey Gardner (p. 34) cites conclusive testimony to show “that

Napoleon went to bed immediately after the close of the battle of

Ligny, and was in such a condition that none of his staff dared enter

his chamber to procure his sanction for vitally important orders, and

that on the morning of the 17th there was the same impossibility of

getting access to him.”

[44] See, again, Soult’s letter of 17th, “La journée d’aujourd’hui

est nécessaire pour terminer cette opération, et pour compléter

les munitions, rallier les militaires isolés et fair rentrer les

détachements.”

[45] What Napoleon might have accomplished on the morning of the 17th

is very ably shown by Charras (p. 203, vol. i.), but with too much

regard to mere theory.

[46] This has been denied by Grouchy, but is distinctly to be inferred

from his own letters; and, as Jomini observes, the situation dictated

the order. Gerard, who however, is unjust to Grouchy, declares that

Napoleon gave the most precise instructions nearly to this effect.

[47] Napoleon, conscious of the evil results of the delays of the 17th,

condemns Ney for not having fallen on Wellington, at least when the

Imperial army was on the march. This criticism, however, is not well

founded, or even honest. Napoleon had a right to complain of Ney on the

16th and 18th, not on the 17th.

[48] The operations of Grouchy on the 17th and 18th of June had a

decisive effect on the issue of the campaign, and have been the subject

of volumes of controversy. I have relied mainly on the papers written

at the time, but in part guided by Jomini’s sagacious direction.

Napoleon, writing at St. Helena, was largely ignorant of the details

of these movements, and is unjust to his luckless subordinate. Thiers,

and authors of the Napoleonic school, exaggerate the unfairness of

the Emperor; on the other hand, Charras, Chesney, and others are

not trustworthy authorities, and are thoroughly prejudiced against

Napoleon. This part of Charras’ book is the theoretic reasoning, after

the event, of a malignant partisan critic.

[49] Grouchy also incidentally refers to a third column retreating by

Namur.

[50] This despatch was discovered by the Prince La Tour D’Auvergne (see

his book on _Waterloo_, p. 318), and is of extreme importance.

It was written “at daybreak, on the 18th, and ordered Pajol to hasten

to Tourinnes, “_afin que nous poussions en avant de Wavre, le plus

promptement possible_.”

[51] This is one of the most obscure and disputed passages of the

campaign. Napoleon positively declares that he ordered Grouchy to

detach 7,000 men from Gembloux to attack Wellington, and he is followed

by Thiers and a number of writers. But, as Charras and others have

fairly pointed out, no copy of the order can be found in the register

of the Chief of the Staff; the name of the bearer has never been given,

and the order seems inconsistent with a subsequent message sent to

Grouchy in the morning of the 18th. Still there are indications that

the order was given; Napoleon would hardly utter an audacious falsehood

on such a subject. Thiers narrates an anecdote which confirms his

conclusion; and, as we have already seen, the Emperor did not always

convey his directions through Soult. The matter, however, is scarcely

of the capital importance ascribed to it by some writers.

[52] This is placed beyond doubt by Prince La Tour D’Auvergne,

_Waterloo_, p. 251, and disposes of the able but ill-founded

remarks of Charras.

[53] Detractors of Napoleon and encomiasts of the Allies have concurred

in endeavouring to excuse Grouchy. They begin by referring to the state

of the weather on the morning of the 18th as accounting for Grouchy’s

delay in leaving Gembloux. It is enough to reply that Bülow started for

Waterloo at daybreak through a most difficult country.

[54] I cannot accept General Shaw Kennedy’s statement that La Haye

Sainte was not taken until 6 P.M.; it is contradicted by every

other contemporaneous authority.

[55] See on this point Blücher’s official account of Waterloo, never

contradicted by Wellington. English writers will not acknowledge the

enormous importance of Bülow’s attack.

[56] Napoleon, to the latest hour of his life, attributed to Ney the

sacrifice of his last cavalry reserve, and declared it was one main

cause of the rout of Waterloo. Ney acted recklessly on the 18th June;

he had the hot fit and cold fit of a desperate man by turns in this

campaign.

[57] Dorsey Gardner, on the authority of two of Napoleon’s staff

officers, gives this account of the Emperor at Waterloo (p. 36): “he

remained motionless, for long intervals, seated at a table, frequently

sinking upon it.”

[58] Grouchy might, I think, have been over the Dyle before 11

A.M.; but I accept the time of Charras, who has made it as

late as possible; “before noon” is his exact phrase.

Transcriber’s Notes:

1. Obvious printers’, punctuation and spelling errors have been

corrected silently.

2. Some hyphenated and non-hyphenated versions of the same words have

been retained as in the original.

3. Italics are shown as _xxx_.