VIENNA AND WATERLOO.
After the restoration of Louis XVIII. as a constitutional king, the
treaty of Paris between France and the allied powers was signed on May
30, 1814. The treaty amounted to a settlement in outline of those
territorial questions in Europe in which France was concerned, and aimed
mainly at the construction of a strong barrier to resist further
encroachments by France on her neighbours. The French boundaries were to
coincide generally with the limits of French territory on January 1,
1792, but with certain additions. The principle adopted was that France
should retain certain detached pieces of foreign states within her own
frontier (such as Mühlhausen, Montbéliard, and the Venaissin), while the
line of frontier was extended so as to include certain detached
fragments belonging to France before 1792, such as Landau, Mariembourg,
and Philippeville, as well as Western Savoy with Chambéry for its
capital. She was moreover allowed to regain all her colonies except the
Mauritius, St. Lucia, and Tobago. The Spanish portion of San Domingo was
restored to the Spanish government. Holland was placed under the
sovereignty of the house of Orange, and was to receive an increase of
territory; so much of Italy as was not to be ceded to Austria was to
consist of independent sovereign states; and Germany was to be formed
into a confederation. Finally an European congress was to meet at Vienna
in two months' time "to regulate the arrangements necessary for
completing the dispositions of the treaty". At the same time secret
articles provided that the disposition of territories was to be
controlled at Vienna by Austria, Great Britain, Prussia, and Russia;
that Austria, was to receive Venice and Lombardy as far as the Ticino;
and that the former territories of Genoa were to be annexed to
Sardinia, and the late Austrian Netherlands to Holland.
In the midst of the general restoration of legitimate princes
difficulties were occasioned by the exceptional cases in which
territories were reserved for the new dynasties that had arisen during
the Napoleonic wars. France, Spain, and Sicily objected to the retention
of the kingdom of Naples by Murat, Spain resented the cession of Parma
to the Bonapartes, and Norway was in revolt against the attempt to
subjugate it to the king of Sweden and his heir Marshal Bernadotte. The
Norwegian government under Prince Christian vainly endeavoured to secure
the British recognition of the independence of Norway. The British
government, on the contrary, held itself bound to support the claims of
Sweden, and on April 29 notified a blockade of the Norwegian ports,
which was promptly carried into effect. Meanwhile a new constitution was
promulgated in Norway, and Prince Christian was proclaimed king. While
the British maintained the blockade Sweden attempted to gain its ends by
negotiation. At last, on July 30, the Swedes invaded Norway. After some
Swedish successes a convention was signed at Moss on August 14, which
recognised the new Norwegian constitution, but provided for a personal
union of the crowns of Sweden and Norway. This constitution was accepted
by Charles XIII. of Sweden in the following November, and Norway
retained almost complete independence, though united to Sweden.
[Pageheading: _THE SLAVE TRADE._]
Among the last acts of Napoleon's government had been the release and
restoration of Ferdinand VII. of Spain and of Pope Pius VII. Ferdinand,
supported by the vast mass of Spanish opinion, declared against the
rather unpractical constitution established in his absence, and entered
Madrid as an absolute king on May 14. One of his first acts was the
revival of the inquisition. There was some apprehension among British
representatives lest the two restored Bourbon monarchies should renew
the family compact, and also lest they should attempt to assert the
Bourbon claims to Naples and Parma. Sir Henry Wellesley, afterwards Lord
Cowley, was, however, successful in negotiating a treaty of alliance
between Great Britain and Spain, which made provision against any
renewal of the family compact, restored the commercial relations of the
two countries to the footing on which they had been before 1796, and
promised the future consideration of means to be adopted for the
suppression of the slave trade. Spain was in fact too dependent on
British credit to be able to adopt a line of her own in politics. But
the hold which Great Britain had thus gained over Spain was somewhat
weakened by the British attitude towards the slave trade.
It is remarkable how large a space the abolition of the slave trade
occupied in the foreign policy of Great Britain, when the liberties of
Europe were at stake. During the months preceding the meeting of the
congress of Vienna, which had been postponed till September by the tsar,
British diplomacy had been engaged in a strenuous effort to obtain the
co-operation of such European powers as possessed American colonies in
securing this philanthropic object. Sweden had already consented to it,
and now Holland also gave her consent. Portugal agreed to relinquish the
trade north of the equator, on condition that the other powers consented
to impose a similar restriction on themselves. Strong pressure was
brought to bear upon France to consent to the immediate abolition of the
trade, and Wellington, who had been created a duke in May and who
arrived at Paris in August in the capacity of British ambassador, was
authorised by Liverpool to offer the cession of Trinidad or the payment
of two or three million pounds to obtain this end. By the treaty of
Paris only French subjects were allowed to trade in slaves with the
French colonies, and French subjects were excluded from trading
elsewhere; and the whole trade was to cease within French dominions
after five years. Talleyrand, negotiating with Wellington, refused to
consent to a general abolition, but, on being pressed to surrender the
slave trade north of the equator, consented to abandon it to the north
of Cape Formoso. In the following year Napoleon on his return from Elba
ordered its immediate suppression, and this was not the least
significant act of the Hundred Days. With Spain our diplomatists were
less successful. The British government refused to renew its subsidy to
Spain for the last half of 1814 except on condition that Spain
relinquished the slave trade north of the equator at once, and consented
to relinquish that south of the equator in five years' time; while it
would not issue a loan except on condition that Spain abolished the
whole trade immediately. Even these terms did not prevail with Spain,
and the most that she would grant at the congress was to relinquish the
trade at the conclusion of eight years.
Meanwhile Talleyrand was endeavouring to induce Great Britain to combine
with France in a joint mediation between Austria and Russia at the
congress, in the event of Russia demanding the duchy of Warsaw.
Wellington, while expressing himself in favour of an understanding,
refused to accept anything which might seem equivalent to a declaration
in favour of mediation by the two powers in every case. At the congress
itself Great Britain was first represented by Castlereagh, who was
succeeded in February, 1815, by Wellington. The two principal
difficulties were the questions of Poland and Saxony. The tsar desired
to erect the duchy of Warsaw, Prussia's share in the two partitions of
Poland in 1793 and 1795, into a constitutional monarchy attached to the
Russian crown, while Prussia, though not unwilling to resign her claims
to Polish dominion, wished to increase her territory by the
incorporation of Saxony in her monarchy. Austria was naturally averse
from any increase of strength in the states on her northern borders, and
she was also opposed to the establishment of a constitutional monarchy
in Poland which might serve as a centre for political discontent in her
own dominions. Even France urged this objection to a constitutional
Poland. Great Britain alone was willing to see an independent Poland,
but preferred to join France, Prussia, and Austria in demanding its
repartition between the two latter powers rather than its annexation to
Russia. All through October Austria, Great Britain, and Prussia
endeavoured to induce the tsar to withdraw his demand. Early in November
he won over the King of Prussia to whom he promised the kingdom of
Saxony, proposing to indemnify the Saxon king with a new state on that
lower Rhine which France was not allowed to have, but which no other
power desired.
[Pageheading: _THE RETURN OF NAPOLEON._]
It was no longer possible to resist Russia's claims on Poland, but
Austria was determined not to allow Prussia to receive the proffered
compensation. On December 10 Metternich notified the Prussian minister,
Hardenberg, that he would not allow Prussia to annex more than a fifth
part of Saxony. Great Britain, France, Bavaria, and the minor German
states joined Austria in this action, and thus the attempt to effect a
settlement of Europe by a concert of the four allied powers broke down.
On January 3, 1815, a secret treaty was concluded between Austria,
France, and Great Britain in defence of what their diplomatists called
"the principles of the peace of Paris". Each of these powers was to be
prepared, if necessary, to place an army of 50,000 men in the field.
Bavaria joined them in their preparations for war, and many of the
troops which occupied Paris in 1815 would have been disbanded or
dispersed, but for the prospect of a rupture between the allies
themselves. But a compromise was soon arranged, and on February 8 it was
agreed that Cracow, the Polish fortress which threatened Austria most,
should be an independent republic, and that Prussia should retain enough
of Western Poland to round off her dominions, while the remainder of the
duchy of Warsaw became a constitutional kingdom under the tsar. Prussia
was to be allowed to annex part of Saxony, and was to receive a further
compensation on the left bank of the Rhine and in Westphalia. The most
thorny questions were now settled, and Castlereagh had left Vienna when
the congress was electrified by the news that Napoleon had reappeared in
France.
The episode of "the Hundred Days" interrupted, but did not break up, the
councils of the congress at Vienna. It cannot be said that Napoleon's
escape from Elba took the negotiators altogether by surprise. They were
already aware of his correspondence with the neighbouring shores of
Italy, and his removal to St Helena or some other distant island had
been proposed by the French government, though never discussed at the
congress. Sir Neil Campbell, the British commissioner at Elba, had gone
so far as to warn his government of Napoleon's suspected "plan," and to
indicate, though erroneously, the place of his probable descent upon the
Italian coast. Owing to an almost incredible want of precaution, he
embarked on February 26 with the least possible disguise, and
accompanied by 400 of his guards, on board his brig the _Inconstant_,
eluded the observation of two French ships, and landed near Cannes on
March 1. Thence he hastened across the mountains to Grenoble, passing
unmolested, and sometimes welcomed, through districts where his life had
been threatened but a few months before. The commandant of Grenoble was
prepared to resist his further progress, but a heart-stirring appeal
from Napoleon induced a regiment detached to oppose him to join his
standard, and the rest of the garrison was brought over by Colonel
Labedoyère, one of the officers who had conspired to bring him back.
Thence he proceeded to Lyons, issuing decrees, scattering proclamations,
and gathering followers at every stage. He was lavish of promises, not
perhaps wholly insincere, that he would adopt constitutional
government--already established by the charter of Louis XVIII.--and
cease to wage aggressive wars. He relied unduly on the discontent
provoked by the blind partisans of the Bourbons, who, it was said, had
learned nothing and forgotten nothing. This was true, if the spirit of
the restoration were to be measured by the parade of expiatory masses
for the execution of royalists under the revolution, the ostentatious
patronage of priests, the preference of returned _émigrés_ to well-tried
servants of the republic and the empire, or the anticipated expulsion of
landowners in possession of "national domains" for the purpose of
dividing them among their old proprietors. All this naturally
exasperated those who had imbibed the principles of the revolution, but
it was more than compensated in the eyes of millions of Frenchmen by the
cessation of conscription and the infinite blessings of peace.
[Pageheading: _"THE HUNDRED DAYS."_]
The king was amongst the least infatuated of the royalists. On hearing
of Napoleon's proclamation, he had the sense to appreciate the danger of
such a bid for sovereignty and the magic of such a name, while his
courtiers regarded Napoleon's enterprise as the last effort of a madman.
He addressed the chamber of deputies in confident and dignified
language; the Duke of Angoulême was employed to rouse the royalist party
at Bordeaux; the Duke of Bourbon was sent into Brittany, the Count of
Artois, with the Duke of Orléans and Marshal Macdonald, visited Lyons,
upon the attitude of which everything, for the moment, seemed to depend.
Most of the marshals remained faithful to the restored monarchy, and Ney
was selected to bar the progress of Napoleon in Burgundy, and has been
credited with a vow that he would bring him back in an iron cage. But it
was all in vain. The Count of Artois was loyally received by the
officials and upper classes at Lyons, but he soon found that Napoleon
possessed the hearts of the soldiers and the mass of the people. Ney
yielded to urgent appeals from his old chief, signed and read to his
troops a proclamation drawn up by Napoleon himself, and was followed in
his treason by his whole army. As Napoleon approached Paris, all armed
opposition to him melted away. On March 19, Louis XVIII., seeing that
his cause was hopeless, proclaimed a dissolution of the chambers, and
retired once more into exile, fixing his residence at Ghent.
Napoleon re-entered the Tuileries on the 20th, after a journey which he
afterwards described as the happiest in his life. But his penetrating
mind was not deceived by the manifestations of popular joy. He well knew
that he was distrusted by the middle classes, as well as by the
aristocracy, and threw himself more and more on the sympathy of the old
revolutionists. When he came to fill up the higher offices, he met with
a strange reluctance to accept them, and was driven to enlist the
services of two regicides, the virtuous republican, Carnot, and the
double-dyed traitor Fouché. Feeling the necessity of resting his power
on a democratic basis, he promulgated a constitution modelled on the
charter of Louis XVIII., and known as the _Acte Additionnel_, which,
however, satisfied no one. The royalists objected to its anti-feudal
spirit, the revolutionists and moderates to its express recognition of
an hereditary peerage, and its tacit recognition of a dictatorial power.
It was by no means with a light heart that Napoleon took leave of Paris
on June 7, having appointed a provisional government, to place himself
at the head of his army.
Attempts had been made in the southern provinces and La Vendée to
organise armed rebellion against the emperor, and met for a time with
considerable success. But they were soon quelled by the overwhelming
imperialism not only of the regular army, but of vast numbers of
disbanded soldiers and half-pay officers, dispersed throughout France,
and disgusted with their treatment under the restored monarchy. Even
among the _bourgeoisie_ Napoleon had an advantage which he never
possessed before. Disguise it as he might, all his former wars had been
essentially wars of conquest, and, however patiently they might endure
it, the peasantry of France, in thousands upon thousands of humble
cottages, groaned under the exaction of crushing taxes--worst of all,
the blood-tax of conscription--in order to enable one man, in the name
of France, to usurp the empire of the world. Now, however, as in the
early days of the revolution, France was put on its defence, and called
upon to repel an invasion of its frontiers. For the news of Napoleon's
escape, announced by Talleyrand on March 11, instantly stilled the
quarrels and rebuked the jealousies which had so nearly proved fatal to
any settlement at Vienna. For the moment, the designs of Russia in
Poland, the selfish demands of Prussia, and the half-formed coalition
between Great Britain, France, and Austria, were thrust into the
background. Austria thought it necessary to repudiate decisively the
audaciously false assertion of Napoleon that he was returning with the
concurrence of his father-in-law, and would shortly be supported by
Austrian troops. Metternich, therefore, assumed the lead in drawing up a
solemn manifesto, dated March 13, in which Napoleon was virtually
declared an outlaw "abandoned to public justice," and the powers which
had signed the treaty of Paris in the preceding May bound themselves, in
the face of Europe, to carry out all its provisions and defend the king
of France, if need be, against his own rebellious subjects.
By a further convention made at the end of March, they engaged to
provide forces exceeding 700,000 men in the aggregate, to be
concentrated on the Upper Rhine, the Lower Rhine, and the Low Countries,
with an immense reserve of Russians to be rapidly moved across Germany
from Poland. Wellington having succeeded Castlereagh at Vienna, was
appointed to command the British, Hanoverian, and Belgian contingents on
the north-east frontier of France; Blücher's headquarters were to be on
the Lower Rhine, within easy reach of that frontier; for, whichever side
might take the offensive, it was there that the first shock of war might
be expected. The recent conclusion of peace with America at Ghent on
December 24, 1814, left England free to use her whole military power.
Enormous sums were voted by Parliament, with a rare approach to
unanimity, for the equipment of a British army, and a sum of £5,000,000
for subsidies to the allied powers. A small section of the opposition
led by Whitbread opposed the renewal of war. On April 7 he moved an
amendment to the address in reply to the prince regent's message
announcing that measures for the security of Europe were being concerted
with the allies, but he was only supported by 32 votes against 220. On
April 28 his motion for an address to the prince regent, deprecating
war with Napoleon, was defeated by 273 votes against 72. This was
Whitbread's last prominent appearance in parliament. On July 6, during a
fit of insanity, he died by his own hand. The subsidies to the allies
were opposed by Bankes, but were carried on May 26 by 160 votes against
17. There can be no doubt that the majorities in the house of commons
correctly expressed the national sentiment. Nobody wished to dictate to
France the form of government which she was to adopt, but it was
generally felt that Napoleon's character rendered peace with him
impossible.
[Pageheading: _THE CAMPAIGN OF 1815._]
In the end, about 80,000 men were assembled in Belgium under
Wellington's orders, but of these not half were British soldiers,
including untrained drafts from the militia, who replaced veteran
Peninsular regiments still detained in Canada and the United States. Yet
Napoleon admitted the British contingent to be equal, man for man, to
his own troops, while he estimated these to be worth twice their own
number of Dutchmen, Prussians, or other Germans. The first blow in the
war was struck by Murat. Already in February, dissatisfied with his
ambiguous position, he had levied troops and summoned Louis XVIII. to
declare whether he was at war with him. As soon as he heard of
Napoleon's return, he invaded the Papal States, and summoned the
Italians to rise in the cause of Italian unity and independence. Though
disowned by Napoleon, he persevered in this plan, but he was attacked
and twice defeated by an Austrian army. On May 22 the British and
Austrians took the city of Naples, and Murat fled to France. In October
he made an attempt to recover his kingdom, but was captured and shot. It
is noteworthy that, on hearing of his fate at St. Helena, Napoleon
showed but little sympathy with his brother-in-law.
On the morning of June 12, Napoleon left Paris, saying as he entered his
carriage that he went to match himself with Wellington. All his troops
were already marshalled on the Belgian frontier, and numbered 124,588
men, with 344 guns. The Imperial Guard alone was 20,954 strong, and the
whole army was largely composed of seasoned veterans. The Prussian army
consisted of 116,897 men, with 312 guns under Marshal Blücher, whose
headquarters were at Namur. Though the majority of these were veterans,
there was a considerable leaven of inferior troops, hastily raised from
the Westphalian and Rhine militia. Between this town and Quatre Bras lay
the Prussian line of defence, Sombreffe being the centre, with Ligny and
St. Amand in front of it, and rather on the south-west. Wellington's
headquarters were at Brussels, and, having no certain intelligence of
Napoleon's movements, he kept the various divisions of his army within
easy distance of that capital until the very eve of the final conflict.
Of the 93,717 men under his command, 31,253 were British, two-thirds of
whom had never been under fire; 6,387 were of the king's German legion;
15,935 Hanoverians; 29,214 (including 4,300 Nassauers in the service of
the Prince of the Netherlands) Dutch and Belgians; 6,808 Brunswickers;
2,880 Nassauers; the engineers, numbering 1,240, were not classified by
nationality. He fully expected that Napoleon would move upon Brussels
along the route by Mons and Hal, and maintained in later days that such
would have been the best strategical course. Napoleon thought otherwise,
and resolved to strike in between the Prussian and British armies,
crushing the former before the latter could be fully assembled. He very
nearly succeeded, and, if all had gone as he hoped, he could scarcely
have failed to win one of his greatest victories.
[Pageheading: _LIGNY AND QUATRE BRAS._]
On the evening of the 15th, Wellington was still at Brussels, with the
great body of his army, and only a weak force of Dutch and Belgians was
at Quatre Bras, some sixteen miles to the south. Blücher, with about
three-fourths of his army, was at Sombreffe, a few miles south-east of
Quatre Bras. Napoleon himself was at or close by Charleroi, ten or
twelve miles south of Quatre Bras; the mass of his army was at Fleurus,
south-west of Sombreffe, with Ligny and St. Amand between it and the
Prussians; and Marshal Ney, with Reille's corps, was at Frasnes,
opposite to and due south of Quatre Bras. On the morning of the 16th,
Napoleon arrived from Charleroi at Fleurus, and carefully inspected his
enemy's position, but delayed his attack upon Ligny and St Amand until
half-past two in the afternoon. The Prussians outnumbered the French,
and a murderous conflict ensued among the streets, gardens, and
enclosures of these little towns, which lasted until eight or nine
o'clock. At last Napoleon ordered his guard to advance, and the plateau
behind Ligny was taken, with a loss to the French of 12,000, and to the
Prussians of over 20,000. Blücher himself was unhorsed and severely
bruised in a furious charge of cavalry, but the Prussians retired in
good order towards Wavre, north of the battlefield.
Had Ney been in a condition to obey an urgent message from Napoleon, and
to envelop the Prussian right and rear, this defeat would have been
overwhelming in its effect. But while the battle of Ligny was raging,
another battle was going on at Quatre Bras, six miles distant, in which
the French sustained a serious check. Happily for the British, Ney
failed to bring up his divisions for an attack on Quatre Bras until two
o'clock in the afternoon, when the Dutch and Belgians under the Prince
of Orange were still his only opponents. The news for which Wellington
had been waiting did not reach him until just before the memorable ball,
given by the Duchess of Richmond at Brussels on the night of the 15th,
which he nevertheless attended, hurrying off his troops to Quatre Bras.
They arrived just in time to reinforce the Prince of Orange and save the
position; but Ney, too, was receiving fresh reinforcements every hour,
the Duke of Brunswick was killed, and a fearful stress fell on Picton's
division and the Hanoverians, who alone were a match for Ney's splendid
infantry and Kellermann's cuirassiers.
These made a charge like that which had borne down the Austrians at
Marengo, but the British squares were proof against it, and when a
division of guards came up from Nivelles, the French in turn were put on
the defensive and retreated to Frasnes. The loss on the British side was
4,500 men; that on the French somewhat less. It is not difficult to
imagine what the issue of the battle must have been if D'Erlon's corps
had been brought into action. This corps was occupied in marching and
countermarching, under contradictory orders from Napoleon and Ney,
between the British left and the Prussian right during the whole of this
eventful day. Its appearance in the distance just when Napoleon was
about to launch his guard against the Prussians at Ligny, caused him to
hesitate long, and lose the decisive moment for demolishing his enemy.
Its failure to appear at Quatre Bras, and to roll up the wavering
Dutch-Belgians, before Picton took up the fighting, enabled Wellington
to hold his ground at first, to repulse Ney afterwards, and on hearing
of Blücher's defeat at Ligny, to fall back in good order on Waterloo.
Even then, something was due to good fortune. Had Napoleon joined Ney
and marched direct on Quatre Bras early on the 17th, it is difficult to
see how his advance to Brussels could have been arrested. But whether he
was exhausted by his incessant labours since leaving Paris, or whether
his marvellous intuition was deserting him, certain it is that he
allowed that critical morning to slip by without an effort--and without
a reconnaissance. He assumed that Blücher must retire upon Namur as his
base of operations, and that Wellington, retiring towards Brussels,
would be cut off from his allies. He therefore despatched Marshal
Grouchy, with 33,000 men, to follow up the Prussians eastward by the
Namur road. His assumption was unfounded. Blücher, loyal to his
engagements, retired upon Wavre; Wellington, relying upon Blücher's
loyalty, took his stand on the field of Waterloo; and this error on the
part of Napoleon determined the fortunes of the campaign.[61]
[Pageheading: _WATERLOO._]
The British army retreated upon Waterloo almost unmolested. Ney was
probably awaiting orders, and Napoleon, believing the Prussians to be at
Namur, probably thought he might safely rest himself and his army before
crushing Wellington at his leisure. When they realised that Wellington
was deliberately moving his army to a position nearer Brussels, they
both followed in pursuit along different roads converging at Quatre
Bras, and a brisk skirmish took place near Genappe between Ney's cavalry
and that of the British rear-guard. Heavy rain came on, and the two
armies spent a miserable night, half a mile from each other, close to
Mont St. Jean, and south of Waterloo. Napoleon rose before daybreak on
the 18th, reconnoitred the British position, and convinced himself that
Wellington intended to give battle. He expressed to his staff his
satisfaction and confidence of victory, when General Foy, who had
experience of the Peninsular war, replied in significant words: "Sire,
when the British infantry stand at bay, they are the very devil
himself". Why Napoleon did not begin the battle at eight o'clock has
been the subject of much discussion. It is said that he waited for
Grouchy to join him before the close of the action. But neither he nor
Grouchy, though aware that at least a large force of Prussians had gone
to Wavre and not to Namur, suspected that Blücher had promised
Wellington to march with his whole army on the morning of the 18th to
support the British at Waterloo. It is more likely that he waited for
his men to assemble and for the ground to dry and become more
practicable for his powerful artillery.[62]
Exception has been taken to the conduct of Wellington in detaching
17,000 men to guard the approach to Brussels at Hal, and, still more, in
not recalling them, when he must have ascertained that nothing was to be
feared on that side, and when such a reinforcement of his right wing
must have been all-important. But it must be remembered that in this
force there were only 1,500 English troops, and 2,000 Hanoverian
militia. The rest were Dutch and Belgians. At all events, Napoleon left
his right flank undefended, though he was already somewhat anxious about
the Prussian movements, and Wellington fought the battle of Waterloo
with a force numerically inferior to that under Napoleon's command,
though it might have been rendered superior by the accession of the Hal
contingent. The effective part of this force, numbering in all 67,661
men, consisted of 24,000 British soldiers, 6,000 soldiers of the king's
German legion, and about 11,000 Hanoverians. Napoleon's force numbered
72,000 men, and it was stronger both in cavalry and in guns. It
represented the flower of the French army; there were few, if any,
recruits as raw as those who swelled the ranks of the British regiments;
there were thousands upon thousands who had formed part of that _Grande
Armée_ which had overawed the continent of Europe. It is fair, however,
to record that, while the British rank and file suffered much for want
of sufficient food, the French had fared still worse, and that very many
of them could have been in no fit condition for the struggle impending
over them.
Both armies occupied ground extending from west to east, on opposite
ridges, and crossed at right angles by the great highway running north
and south from Charleroi to Brussels. In front of the British right were
the château and enclosures of Hougoumont which were occupied by the
British; nearly in front of the centre were the large farm-house and
buildings of La Haye Sainte. Further to the left were the hamlet of
Smohain and the farms Papelotte and La Haye. Wellington had arranged his
brigades so as to distribute the older troops as much as possible among
the less experienced. Sir Thomas Picton's fifth division formed the left
of the line; to his right was Alten's second division, and beyond him to
the right was the guards division under Cooke. Further to the right and
partly in reserve was Clinton's second division, while Chassé's Dutch
division on the extreme right occupied the village of Braine l'Alleud.
Somerset's brigade of heavy cavalry and Kruse's Dutch cavalry were
posted behind Alten's division, and Ponsonby's "union brigade,"
consisting of the royal dragoons, Scots greys, and Inniskillings, was
stationed in Picton's rear. The whole line lay on the inner slopes of
the ridge with the exception of Bylandt's Dutch-Belgian brigade which
was posted on the outer slope in front of Picton's division. D'Erlon's
corps was opposite the British left, Reille's opposite the British
right. Squadrons of cavalry covered the outer flank of either of the two
French corps. The magnificent squadrons of French cavalry, 15,000
strong, under Milhaud, Kellermann, and other famous leaders, were in the
second line; the imperial guard, as usual, was massed in the rear.
[Pageheading: _WATERLOO._]
The battle opened about half-past eleven with a furious attack on
Hougoumont. It was defended with desperate gallantry, mainly by the
British guards, who reopened the old loopholes in the garden-walls, and
closed by sheer muscular force the eastern gate of the yard, which had
been forced open by the French. In the fruitless siege of Hougoumont, as
it may be called, the French left wing thus wasted most of its strength,
and incurred enormous loss. Meanwhile, the French right wing under
D'Erlon, advanced to attack the British left, which had been assailed
for an hour and a half by the fire of a battery with seventy-eight guns.
The Dutch and Belgians, who in their exposed position had suffered
severely from the French artillery fire, soon gave way; but Picton's
division, after a single volley, charged with the bayonet and drove
their assailants reeling backward, though Picton himself fell dead on
the field. Without orders from Wellington, Lord Uxbridge, in command of
the British cavalry, seized the opportunity, and launched the union
brigade with other regiments upon the flying masses. This whirlwind of
British horsemen swept all before it, slaughtering many of the French
cavalry in passing, taking 3,000 prisoners, sabring the gunners of Ney's
battery, and spiking fifteen of the guns. But their ardour carried them
too far. By Napoleon's orders a large force of French cuirassiers and
lancers fell upon their flank before they could take breath again, and
their ranks were frightfully thinned in a disorderly retreat. But their
charge had saved the day.
At one o'clock, while the fate of D'Erlon's onslaught was still
undecided, Napoleon observed Prussian troops on his right. An
intercepted despatch proved these to be Bülow's corps. He instantly sent
off a despatch to Grouchy, whom he supposed to be within reach, ordering
him to attack Bülow in the rear. Then followed the memorable succession
of charges by the whole of the French cavalry upon the squares of the
British infantry. Not one of these squares was broken; a great part of
the French cavalry was mown down by volleys or cut to pieces by the
British cavalry in their precipitate retreat, and the British line
remained unmoved, though grievously weakened, behind its protecting
ridge. This was the crisis of the fight. Much of the British artillery
was dismounted, and Wellington confessed to one of his staff that he
longed for the advent of night or Blücher. Napoleon next felt himself
compelled to detach Lobau's corps for the purpose of meeting the
advancing Prussians. Soon afterwards Ney carried La Haye Sainte by a
most determined assault, aided by the failure of ammunition within its
defences, and thus captured the key of the British position. But
Napoleon saw that his one chance of victory lay in a final _coup_ before
the Prussians could wrest it from him. He ordered the imperial guard to
the front, leading it himself across the valley, and then handing over
the command to Ney. The guard was but the remnant of its original
strength, for all its cavalry had been wrecked in wild charges against
the British squares, and several battalions of its infantry were kept in
reserve to hold back the Prussians and protect the baggage train.
Nevertheless, the advance of this superb corps, the heroes of a hundred
fights, who had seldom failed to hurl back the tide of battle at the
most perilous junctures, was among the most impressive spectacles in the
annals of war. They swerved a little to the left, thereby exposing
themselves to the fire of the British footguards and of a battery in
excellent condition. The former were lying down for shelter, but when
the imperial guard came within sixty paces of them they started up at
the word of command from Wellington himself. The footguards poured a
deadly fire into the front, and the 52nd regiment into the flank of
their columns; as they wavered under the storm of shot a bayonet charge
followed, and the imperial guard, hitherto almost invincible, was
dissolved into a mob of fugitives scattered over the plain.
It was now past eight o'clock; Bülow's Prussians had long been engaged
on the British left, and Blücher, with indomitable energy, was pressing
forward with all his other divisions. Wellington first sent Vandeleur's
and Vivian's cavalry, still comparatively fresh, to sweep away what
remained of the French reserves, and then ordered a general advance. The
French retreat speedily became a rout, and a rout to which there is no
parallel except that which succeeded the battle of Leipzig. Wellington
and Blücher met at La Belle Alliance on the high road, just south of the
battlefield, and lately the French headquarters. The British troops were
utterly tired out, but the Prussian cavalry never drew rein until they
had driven the last Frenchman over the river Sambre in their relentless
pursuit. The slaughter had been prodigious, though far short of that at
Borodino. The British army lost 13,000 men, the Prussian 7,000, and the
French 37,000[63] (including prisoners), besides the whole of their
artillery, ammunition, baggage-waggons, and military train. But the
battle was one of the most decisive recorded in history, and was the
real beginning of a peace which lasted over the whole of Europe for
nearly forty years. Grouchy heard the cannonade of Waterloo on his march
from Ligny to Wavre, and was strongly urged by Gérard to hasten across
country, with his whole force, in the direction of the firing. But he
pleaded the letter of Napoleon's instructions, and reached Wavre only to
find Blücher gone. After an encounter with a Prussian corps, which had
been left behind, he received news of Napoleon's defeat, and ultimately
escaped into France.
[Pageheading: _NAPOLEON'S SECOND ABDICATION._]
The march of the allies into France after the battle of Waterloo was not
wholly unchecked, but it was far more rapid than in 1814. The French
could not be rallied, and in the first week of July Paris was occupied
by Anglo-Prussian troops. The Austrians and Prussians were moving again
upon the eastern frontiers of France, but were still far behind. The
Prussian general and soldiers were animated by the bitterest spirit of
vengeance, and it needed all the firmness of Wellington to prevent the
bridge of Jena from being blown up, and a ruinous contribution levied on
the citizens of Paris. Napoleon himself was now at Rochefort, having
quitted Paris after a second abdication on June 22, but four days after
the battle. No other course was open to him. When he started for his
last campaign, he was no longer the champion of an united nation, and
consciously staked his all on a single throw. When he returned from it,
discomfited and without an army, he found the chambers actively hostile
to him. Carnot, who had formerly opposed his assumption of the imperial
title, was now the only one of his ministers to deprecate his
abdication, but Napoleon himself saw no hope of retaining his power, or
transmitting it to his son, without a reckless appeal to revolutionary
passions. From this he shrank, and he represented himself at St. Helena
as having sacrificed personal ambition to patriotism.
The chamber of deputies appointed an executive commission of five,
including the infamous Fouché, and from this body the late emperor
actually received an order to quit Paris. He retired to Malmaison, where
he received a fresh order to set out for Rochefort, which he reached on
July 3. On the next day Paris capitulated to the allies, and the
necessity for his leaving the shores of France became more urgent. Two
frigates were assigned for his escape to America, but a British squadron
was lying ready to intercept them. Some of his bolder companions devised
a scheme for smuggling him on board a swift merchant ship, but it was
foiled by the vigilant watch of the British squadron off the islands of
Oléron and Ré. At last he surrendered himself on board the
_Bellerophon_, relying, as he said, on the honour of the British nation,
and claiming the generous protection of the prince regent. He was,
however, clearly informed that he would be at the disposal of the
government. Under an agreement with the allied powers, the ministers
decided, and were supported by the nation in deciding, that he could not
be detained in England, either as a guest or as a prisoner, with any
regard to public safety or the verdict of Europe at Vienna. The proposal
of banishing him to St. Helena, suggested in the previous year, was
finally adopted, and he sailed thither in the _Northumberland_ on August
8, vehemently protesting against the bad faith of Great Britain. Louis
XVIII. was restored, and the treaty of Vienna, signed on the eve of the
Waterloo campaign, was but slightly modified.
The action of Murat had solved the difficulties which the congress had
to face in Italy. The kingdom of the Two Sicilies reverted to the
Bourbon, Ferdinand; and the Bourbons also acquired a right of reversion
in Parma, where the protest of Spain against the rule of Maria Louisa
could now be ignored. Genoa was annexed to the kingdom of Sardinia; the
pope received back the states of the Church; the Grand Duke of Tuscany
and the Duke of Modena were restored; while Austria had to be content
with Venetia and Lombardy as far as the Ticino. The organisation of
Germany occupied the congress until June, and was the least durable part
of its work. The basis of it was a confederation of thirty-eight states,
represented and in theory controlled by a diet under the presidency of
Austria. This diet naturally resolved itself into a mere permanent
congress of diplomatists for the purpose of settling the mutual
relations of the constituent states. Each state was ordered to adopt a
constitutional form of government, but, as no provision was made for
enforcing this clause, it remained a dead letter. Prussia regained her
provinces on the left bank of the Rhine, with a population exceeding
1,000,000, and was allotted the northern part of Saxony, with a
population of 800,000, besides retaining her original share of Poland,
with the province of Posen, which had formed part of the duchy of
Warsaw. Most of this duchy was annexed by Russia, but Cracow was left a
republic. Prussia also gained Swedish Pomerania. Bavaria, Hanover, and
Denmark profited more or less by the repartition of Germany. Denmark,
however, finally lost Norway, and Sweden paid the price of this
acquisition by resigning Finland to Russia. The neutrality of
Switzerland was proclaimed and her constitution simplified. The Belgian
Netherlands were united to Holland, the two forming together the kingdom
of the Netherlands, to which Austria ceded all her claims in the Low
Countries.
[Pageheading: _THE SECOND TREATY OF PARIS._]
The treaty of Vienna left the boundaries of France itself as they had
been defined by the first treaty of Paris in 1814. The second treaty of
Paris, however, signed on November 20, 1815, was less favourable to
France, which had already ceded Western Savoy to Sardinia, and was now
required to abandon Landau and other outlying territories beyond the
frontier of 1792. She was also compelled to restore all the works of art
accumulated during the war.
Great Britain had failed to obtain from the congress any binding
regulation on the subject of the slave trade. The most that she could
obtain was a solemn denunciation of that trade issued on February 8,
which declared it to be "repugnant to the principles of civilisation and
of universal morality". The moderation of the British demands, as
embodied in these treaties, excited not only the amazement but the
contempt of Napoleon, who discussed the subject at St. Helena with great
freedom. Well knowing that his paramount object throughout all his wars
and negotiations had been to crush Great Britain, and that Great Britain
had been the mainstay of all the combinations against him, he could find
no explanation of our self-denial except our insular simplicity. Perhaps
it might be attributed with greater reason to politic magnanimity; nor,
indeed, could Great Britain, as a member of the European council,
dictate such terms as Napoleon suggested. Still, the gains of Great
Britain were substantial. She retained Ceylon, the Cape of Good Hope,
the Isle of France (Mauritius), Trinidad, St. Lucia, Tobago, and, above
all, Malta. She also obtained possession of Heligoland and the
protectorate of the Ionian Islands, both of which she has since resigned
of her own accord. If she afterwards lost the commanding position which
she had attained among the allied powers, it was chiefly because the
colossal empire which she had defied was effectually shattered, because
neither her armies nor her subsidies were any longer needed on the
continent of Europe, and perhaps because the energies of her statesmen
were no longer braced up by the stress of a struggle for national life.
Even before the allied armies entered Paris Wellington considered it
necessary to induce Louis XVIII. to make advances to certain politicians
of the revolution so as to inspire national confidence in him, and to
anticipate the risk of a "White Terror," or a continuance of the war.
Fouché was accordingly summoned to power, and he had sufficient
influence to prevent any national opposition to the Bourbon restoration.
Napoleon remained at large for three weeks after his abdication, that
is, for eight days after the allied troops had entered Paris, and the
fear of a future Bonapartist revolution inclined the British government
under Liverpool to entertain favourably the demand of Prussia for the
cession of Alsace, Lorraine, and the northern fortresses. When, however,
Napoleon had placed himself on board the _Bellerophon_, the situation
changed. A contented France seemed preferable to an impotent France, and
Wellington argued that the Bourbon restoration could not last, if French
opinion connected it with the loss of Alsace and Lorraine. The tsar took
this line from the first, and Wellington won for it the adhesion first
of his own government and then of Austria. Prussia had finally to be
contented with a provision for the cession of the outlying districts,
which the treaty of Paris of 1814 had left to France. The second treaty
of Paris, which embodied this stipulation, also provided for an
indemnity of £40,000,000 to be paid by France to the allies, and for the
temporary occupation of Northern France by the allied armies. On the
same day Austria, Great Britain, Prussia, and Russia signed a treaty
pledging themselves to act together in case fresh revolution and
usurpation in France should endanger the repose of other states, and
providing for frequent meetings of congresses to preserve the peace of
Europe.
In addition to the formal treaties of alliance signed at Chaumont,
Vienna, and Paris, an attempt was made by the Tsar Alexander to bind
together the European sovereigns in an union based on the principles of
Christian brotherhood. A form of treaty was accordingly drawn up which
gave expression to these motives, dealt with all Christians as one
nation, and committed their sovereigns to mutual affection and
reciprocal service. This treaty of the holy alliance was signed on
September 26, by Austria, Prussia, and Russia. All European princes
except the sultan were invited to adhere to it, and all except the pope
and the sultan ultimately either accepted it or expressed their sympathy
with its principles. But in England there was hardly a statesman who
regarded the treaty seriously, Wellington avowed his distrust of it, the
prince regent declined to join it, and its effective value in promoting
the subsequent concert of the powers was less than nothing. Still,
however visionary and extravagantly worded, it remains as an unique
record embodying the deliberate adoption of the principle of
international brotherhood, and the sacrifice of separate national
interests for the sake of European peace.
[Pageheading: _NAPOLEON AT ST. HELENA._]
It is remarkable that so little public discussion took place on two
questions which have since been so hotly debated--the legal _status_ of
Napoleon after he surrendered himself, and the moral right of Great
Britain to banish him to St. Helena. One reason for this apparent
indifference to the fate of one who had overawed all Europe may be found
in the fact that parliament was not sitting when the decision of the
government was taken, and that, when it met on February 1, 1816, that
decision was virtually irrevocable. We know, however, that the first
question was fully considered by the allied powers and the British
ministry before his place of exile was fixed, and Great Britain
undertook the custody of his person. The view which prevailed was that,
after his escape from Elba, he could neither be treated as an
independent sovereign nor as a subject of the French king, but must be
regarded as a public enemy who had fallen into the hands of one among
several allied powers. Accordingly, it was by their joint mandate that
he remained the prisoner of Great Britain, and was to be under the joint
inspection of commissioners appointed by the other powers. Still the
minds of Liverpool, Ellenborough, and Sir William Scott, judge of the
court of admiralty, were not altogether easy on the legal aspect of the
case, which Eldon reviewed in an elaborate and exhaustive memorandum.
His conclusion was that Napoleon's position was quite exceptional, that
he could not rightly be made over to France as a French rebel, but was a
prisoner of war at the disposal of the British government, both on the
broad principles of international law, and under the express terms of
his surrender, as reported officially by Captain Maitland of the
_Bellerophon_.
It was thought expedient, however, to pass an act of parliament in the
session of 1816 for the purpose of setting at rest any objections which
might afterwards be raised. This measure was introduced on March 17 by
Lord Castlereagh, who defended it on grounds of national justice and
national policy. It met with no opposition in the house of commons, but
Lords Holland and Lauderdale criticised it in the house of lords, not
as sanctioning a wrong to Napoleon, but as implicitly admitting the
right of other powers to join in arrangements for his custody. Little
attention was then bestowed by parliament or the public on the moral
aspect of his life-long detention at St. Helena, the restrictions to be
there imposed upon his liberty, or the provision to be made for his
comfort. Yet these subjects have ever since exercised the minds of
myriads both in England and France, and have given birth to a copious
literature for more than three generations.
FOOTNOTES:
[61] For the movements of June 15, 16, see Chesney, _Waterloo Lectures_,
pp. 70-137; Ropes, _The Campaign of Waterloo_, pp. 44-196.
[62] Rose, _Life of Napoleon I._, ii., 494, 495.
[63] Oman in _English Historical Review_, xix., 693, and xxi., 132.