i Ra the ieee oe ail i tia ttn teat teal a STR NERO Seeereic heen erate Neat eS ee hehe Snare eee Sees te a te Araneae SS ‘ : abo acon pees es chien Le WY, ELLE Se ip ee Oe, 242 HU 1}$4O Cornell ‘Aniversity Library BOUGHT. WITH THE INCOME FROM THE SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND THE GIFT OF Henry W. Sage 1891 A.92IH4S | - Atl4(26 ; TiN BOHN’S STANDARD LIBRARY. WATERLOO: THE DOWNFALL OF THE FIRST NAPOLEON. The great phenomenon of war it is, this and this only, which keeps open in man a spiracle—an organ of respiration—for breathing a transcendent atmosphere, and dealing with an idea that else would perish—viz., the idea of mixed crusade and martyrdom, doing and suffering, that finds its realization in a battle such as that of Waterloo—viz., a battle fought for inte- rests of the human race, felt even where they are not under- stood ; so that the tutelary angel of man, when he traverses such a dreadful field, when he reads the distorted features, counts the ghastly ruins, sums the hidden anguish, and the harvests Of horror breathing from the silent ground,” nevertheless, speaking as God’s messenger, “‘ blesses it and calls it very good.”—THomas DE QuiNcer, j WATERLOO ways bi ee ey THE DOWNFALL OF THE FIRST NAPOLEON: A HISTORY OF THE CAMPAIGN OF 1815. BY GEORGE HOOPER, AUTHOR OF “ THE ITALIAN CAMPAIGNS OF GENERAL BONAPARTE,” “THE CAMPAIGN OF SEDAN,” ‘‘ WELLINGTON,” ETC. * WITH MAP AND PLANS, NEW EDITION, REVISED. LONDON: GEORGE BELL AND SONS, YORK STiLET, COVENT GARDEN. 1890. § A.q2ied CHISWICK PRESS :—C WHITTINGHAM AND CO., TOOKS COURT CHANCERY LANE i 5 ae PREFACE, HIS book, originally published in 1862, was written mainly because the author honestly believed that there was, then, no other on the subject in English, at once full, well-arranged, accurate, and adapted for general reading. Since that time several volumes have appeared, the most notable and valuable contributions having been supplied by General Sir James Shaw Kennedy, Colonel Charles Chesney,and General Sir Edward Hamley. The best earlier books were the volumes of Captain Siborne, so full of detail; and of foreign histories that of Colonel Charras, which, in spite of some errors, stands in the foremost rank as an authority. It has been thought expedient to reprint this history of the campaign of 1815, because copies of the first edition have long been unattainable, and because they are still in demand. No more need be said, except that there are some slight additions and a few corrections in the present edition, and that one chapter, dealing with the politics of 1862, having become obsolete, has been omitted. G. H. November, 1889, CONTENTS. BOOK I. THE ARMY RESTORES THE EMPEROR. Cuapter I. NAPOLEON AGAINST EUROPE. 1. Napoleon’s Relation to Europe in 1815... 1. 1. 6 we 2. He Returns from Elba . . . . 1 1 0 ep ow 8. His Political Calculations . . ..... 4, His Resources and Exertions 5. Champ de Mai: Meeting of the Chambers. . . . . . « « 28 Cuarter II. THE ALLIES IN THE LOW COUNTRIES. 1, Character and Growth of the Anglo-Allied and Prussian Armies 2. Their Dispositions and Functions . . Be ak endorse ya39 1k 3. Preparations and Projects . . . . « « » «© © @ « Cuaprter III. GeneraL Position ON THE EvE OF THE CAMPAIGN . . Caapter IV. THE INVASION OF BELGIUM. 1, Concentration ofthe French Army . . . . « + « . 2. The Allies onthe Alert . 2. 2. 2 1 «1 - © @ © w we oe 3. Opening of the Campaign . 6 2s 2 ee ee ee ee 33 40 48 53 60 65 68 Vili CONTENTS. te “1 Oo rp op oN . Neyat Frasne . . . re er . Marches and Final Positions af the French re ‘ . Prussian Movements. . . . Se % . . Wellington’s Information and Proceedings se ee CHaPrTEer V. THE MORNING OF THE 16TH OF JUNE. . Napoleon: Charleroi to Fleurus. . . . + + « « . Ney: Gosselies and Frasne . se ee ew . Wellington and Blucher : Sombref . $2 ie ree en Se Cuaprer VI. THE AFTERNOON OF THE 16TH OF JUNE. . BattleofLigny . . 2... 2 1 wee te . Battle of Quatre Bras . 2. 2. 6 6 0 0 ee ow . D'Erlon’s Wanderings . . . « » « © « « «© » Cuaprer VII. THE RETREAT OF THE 17TH OF JUNE. . Wellington’s Activity . . . . 2 6 « 2 e 2 - Napoleon at Fleurus and Ligny . . 2. . 2 2 2 « . Retreat and Pursuit. . . 1. 2 2 2 © «© © oe . Blucher Retiresto Wavre. . 2. . 2 6 se 0 ee . Grouchy in Pursuit . . 6 6 6 2 es ew wee Cuapter VIII. RETROSPECTIVE: gfe; fej a) Sf Se a awe 1. CuaptTer IX. THE MORNING OF THE 18TH OF JUNE. Movements of Grouchy. . . . . 6 © © we 2. Blucher’s Flank March. . . . «6 @ 6 ew we 8. Mont St. Jean and La Belle Alliance . . 2. 2 « e 4, The Fieldof Battle . . . 1. 1. 1. 2 we we ew ee PAGE 75 77 79 80 89 99 103 109 i21 138 143 145 147 153 156 159 166 169 172 177 CONTENTS. 1X Carter X, THE BATTLE OF WATERLOO. PAGE 1, Expectation. . . ye we wee we wwe 192 2. The Attack on Hoagoumout fe i eh gh gt SR ee See 95 3. Approach of the Prussians. . . . . . . . «1 « « ~ 200 . The First Grand Attack . . . . . 2... «ws . 208 Progress ofthe Fight . . . . 2. 2. 2 2 ew ew es G14 Grand Attacks of Cavalry. . 2. 1. 6. 1. 1. 6 ewe «221 Operations of Bulow .' . Sag ie ee deer a eas Sg! BBO. . Defeat of the Imperial Guard. BORE eh Se Sees et ae oby de, BD The Battle Won. . «©. 4 1 ew ee ew ew we ee ew BAI 10; Liosses. se wk Se Ow Re we we ewe 11. Reflectionson Waterloo . . . 1 1 1 ee we ee 249 12, After the Battle. . . . eo ay fo ce 256 13. Battle of Wavre and Retreat of Grouchy i ae Ee es ap B58 PEs BOOK II. THE ALLIES IN FRANCE. Cuarrer I, RAPID FALL OF NAPOLEON. 1, The Invasion of France. . . BaP ae a> a er a 269 2. Napoleon Deserts the French Army oo Pe 8 ee oy BTL 3. Napoleon at the Elysée. . . . oe ee we ee 274 4, The AlliesMarch on Paris . . 1. 1 « 1 5 6 « ~ 288 5. Interregnum . . Bn aera Gan ae a Ray eae Gee oe": SON 6. Before Paris: Gapitnilatien a el ve de ey de es eg 299) Cuarter II. NAPOLEON: LA MALMAISON; ST. HELENA, 1. Napoleon Reluctant toFly. . . 2. . 2 2 ee e es 809 2. Flight “a's Sl ae, ks We eh ae” tas bap te en DTD 3. Aunties at Reshefore: Hesitations . . . . «. . ws. 814 4, Retribution . . . 6. 2 6 6 6 6 ew we we oe ew ee 6818 b x CONTENTS. APPENDICES. PAGE I. The Army of Wellington . . . «© 2 2 © © @ © © ~ 825 II. The Army of Prince Blucher . . . 1. + - «© «© + « © 827 III. The Army of Napoleon . . 2 1. 1 1 we eo te ew ee 6829 IV. British Regiments at Waterloo. . . . . . « + « «© + 831 V. Could Grouchy havesaved Napoleon? . . . 2. «+ « + . 882 ANDES ae 6 8) ae RS Sa) ke eR a ee ee a 887 Mar anp Pruans at tHE Enp or THE VOLUME I, Ligny. II, Quatre Bras, TIT. Waterloo. IV. Waterloo, V. General Map. BOOK I. THE ARMY RESTORES THE EMPEROR. THE ARMY RESTORES THE EMPEROR. CHAPTER I. NAPOLEON AGAINST ALL EUROPE. § 1. Napoleon’s Relation to Europe in 1815. EFORE undertaking to describe the campaign of 1815, the historian is bound to show why, when Napoleon returned from Elba to the Tuileries, the Govern- ments of Europe did not recognize him as sovereign of France, and sit down in peace beside him; why the start- ling words “ Napoleon has quitted Elba,” followed in suc- cession by the more startling words, “‘ Napoleon has landed at Cannes,” “Napoleon is in the Tuileries,” were sufficient to produce instantaneously a vast league of nations and kings who vowed his destruction ; and why, when conquered at Waterloo, and caught in the Basque Roads, the Powers, by common consent, transported him to St. Helena. The reason is on the very surface of his history. Napoleon, far more than any French sovereign, was the living embodiment of certain passions and propensities of the French people. He was something more. Loving glory for glory’s sake, even more than they loved it; thirsting for conquest, greedy of domination, in a greater 4 THE ARMY RESTORES THE EMPEROR. [BOOK I. degree than they; more rapid, more impetuous, more unscrupulous. In addition to all these passions and qualities, he possessed an Italian intellect, fertile, almost beyond example, in grand designs, and facile in devising original and effective modes of executing them. In him the military population of France found an idol to worship and a master to obey. He fed them with glory and plunder; they repaid him, for fourteen years, with un- exampled devotion. He has been called the Sword of Democracy, and so he may have appeared to the vain multitudes whom he led, over the wrecks of armies and the necks of kings, into all the great cities of continental Europe. But it was an illusion, unless democracy mean the sacrifice of the many to exalt the grandeur of one, the degradation of Europe, and the exaltation of France. For fourteen years Napoleon, as First Consul and as Emperor, had played a part which developed every phase of his character. To found, upon a military basis, a gigantic continental empire, an “‘Empire of the West,” and to control from the summit of his power the policy of nations unsubdued, was the ever present object which he bent all the energies of his vast genius to attain. It has been contended that this was not French, but Italian ; that France never identified herself with his stupendous, but insane ambition. In its grandeur, the design of Napoleon was Italian ; but it was also French, because the greater includes the less, and Napoleon only worked out, on a Roman scale, the projects of the smaller French mind of Louis XIV. To say that France did not identify her- self with Napoleon so long as he furnished glory, territory, and plunder, is simply to assert what history contradicts. That exhausted France wearied of the burden laid upon her is true, but only when “le grand entrepreneur,” as the workmen called him, had buried her’ armies in the snows CHAP. 1.] NAPOLEON AGAINST EUROPE. 5 of Russia and the valleys of Spain, and had drawn the armies of Europe into her fertile fields and around her capital. No; if a nation was ever identified with one man, France was and is identified with Napoleon; and that, for the reason already stated—he was a colossal embodiment, for good and evil, of her distinctive passions and propensities ; her greatest “representative man,” although he was not a Frenchman. Experience has shown that the diverse races of Hurope will not bear the domination of one man, or one nation, nor even the menace of that domination. Napoleon more nearly reached that dazzling height than any man of modern times. Had he committed no faults, had he per- petrated no crimes, he could not have retained the territory he occupied, nor the power he sought to grasp. But his career was not merely an exemplification of strength, nor of strength and beneficence. In the pursuit of self. agerandisement he did not hesitate to violate every prin- ciple that binds society together. He was not content with conquering and ruling; he went further, he insulted and oppressed. Not a nation in Europe, save one, escaped the burden of his heavy oppression ; not one escaped his insults. Every country but one furnished to his generals not only titles but fortunes. Even when at peace with his neighbours, those neighbours were not safe, for he some- times openly. annexed a State to the Empire, and some- times sought in secret intrigues a pretext for spoliation. That he desired a kingdom or a republic to round his frontiers, or give effect to the policy he put in force against England, was a sufficient reason for him to take it. Spain, Holland, Liguria, the cities of the Elbe and the Baltic, furnish conspicuous examples of what he would do, and what he would permit to be done. He never entered into 6 THE ARMY RESTORES THE EMPEROR. [Book I. negotiations for peace with a sincere desire of making peace, unless, if he were strong, upon his own terms, if he were weak, with the design of resuming the war when he had gathered together fresh strength. He conspired and warred perpetually against the independence and liberty of Europe, and yet Frenchmen are never tired of express- ing their indignation at the consequence, that when its turn came Europe conspired and warred against him and them. There were two distinct periods in the wars which began in 1792 and terminated in 1815. . The first period includes the wars of the French Revolution, which were wars for existence, as well as wars for conquest. This period ended when Bonaparte returned from Egypt. The second period began with the victory of Marengo, and continued to the rout of Waterloo. This was a period during which France fought, not for existence, but for conquest. The wars of the French Revolution ended, and the wars of Napoleon began. He moulded, organized, directed the elements of force let loose by the passions of the Revolu- tion, and with this force, developed systematically, he resumed on a grander scale the policy of Louis XIV. Napoleon became terrible to Europe because, in addition to his genius for war, (greater than that of any man then living,) he pursued with dazzling success a course in accordance with the perennial ambition of the French nation. Therein lay his strength. His eareer is an~ example of what France is ready to do again when she finds a real Napoleon to lead her. Wherefore, because Napoleon represented so faithfully and with such transcen- dent skill the passion of France for aggression, because he was insatiable and perfidious, and destitute of what men call moral principles, the sovereigns and statesmen who acted for the nations of Hurope found it impossible to CHAP. I.] NAPOLEON AGAINST EUROPE. 7 trust him or exist in peace beside him. Hence he, and the policy he represented, were placed, and justly placed, under the ban of Europe. Not without warning. In 1813-14 the Allies did not pursue the war to the utmost. Napoleon was offered more than one golden bridge. The terms of the peace of Frankfort were large; naturally the offers made at Chatillon were smaller than those at Frankfort, yet they were still large. Napoleon did not accept them because he believed, and believed to the last, that Fortune would not desert him. ‘‘La Fortune,” he said, even on the eve of his embarkation from Elba, “ne m’a jamais abandonné dans les grandes occasions;”* words which showed a sublime confidence in himself, natural to one who could exclaim impiously, “Mon nom vivra autant que celui de Dieu.” ? Fortune deserted him at Fontainebleau, when even France had grown tired of sustaining a leader whose exaggeration of her passions brought Europe to the banks of the Seine. France submitted ; Napoleon was permitted to maintain a show of state in Elba; the Bourbons returned to the Tuileries after an absence of more than twenty years; peace was made and proclaimed: and the task of re-arranging disordered Europe, or, as Metternich put it, distributing the spoils of the vanquished, fell to the lot of the conquerors. The peace of Paris did not endure a year. Ten months of Bourbon rule, vengeful, implacable, stupid—alike violent in act and in language—sufficed to bring France once more to the brink of revolution. Yet Jaucourt wrote to Talleyrand, in January, 1815, “The age of fools of quality is past!” Two acts alone are sufficient to demon- strate the folly of the royalists—the resumption of the 1 Fortune has never deserted me on great occasions. 2 My name will live as long as that of God. 8 THE ARMY RESTORES THE EMPEROR. [Book I. white flag, and the changing of the numbers of the regi- ments. A prudent king would have adopted the tricolour when he agreed to a constitutional charter, and would have refrained from wounding military sensibility by destroying the numbers of the regiments. But more stupid than these acts was the political policy pursued, a policy which aroused on all sides suspicions of what was worse than the grinding but gilded despotism of Napoleon —namely, that the Government favoured a forcible resumption of the confiscated lands, the restoration of tithes, and of the abolished exactions and imposts of feudalism. It has been surmised, and with much reason, that had Napoleon not reappeared a popular movement would have extorted from the king a really constitutional government. In that case France might have taken some real steps towards a free government, and the basis of liberty rather than of equality might have been laid. § 2. Napoleon Returns from Elba. But while the Powers were wrangling at Vienna, and the Bourbons were irritating France, Napoleon was watch- ing from Elba for the opportunity of resuming empire. It was not in the nature of the man to yield passively to anything, even to the inevitable. So long as a chance remained he looked out keenly for the propitious hour. He selected Elba as a residence, because thence “he could keep an eye upon France and upon the Bourbons.” It was his duty, he said, to guard the throne of France for his family and for his son. Thus, in making peace at Fontainebleau, he only bowed to a storm he could not then resist, and cherished in his mind the project of an imperial restoration. The hour for which he waited came at length. In CHAP. I.] NAPOLEON AGAINST EUROPE. 9 February, 1815, he had arrived at the conclusion that with the aid of the army he could overthrow the Bourbons, whose government, he said, was good for priests, nobles, and countesses of the old time, but worth nothing to the living generation. The army, he knew, was still, and would be always, devoted to him. “Nos victoires et nos malheurs,” he said, “ont établi entre elle et moi un lien indestructible; avec moi seul elle peut retrouver la ven- geance, la puissance, et la gloire:”* words which prove how steadfastly he adhered to the design of re-establishing his military power, if not pre-eminence. “‘C’est moi,” he cried, in a moment of confidence, “qui suis cause des malheurs de la France; c’est moi qui dois les réparer.”’* He had weighed all the chances for and against the success of his enterprise, and he had arrived at the conclusion that he should succeed ; for “ Fortune had never deserted him on great occasions.” It has been said that his departure was precipitated by a report of the dissolution of the Con- gress of Vienna; but this cannot have been the case, since he had calculated that although, in deferring his departure “until the Congress had dissolved,” he would gain an- advantage; yet that on the other hand, by delay, he saw the risk of being closely watched both by the cruisers of England and France. So that he quitted Elba with the knowledge, or at all events under the belief, that the Con- gress had not dissolved. What he may have believed was that the sovereigns had quitted Vienna. It is possible, indeed, that the rumour of an intention to confine him upon an island in the Atlantic may have exercised some influence over him; but the real reasons for the selection 1 Our victories and misfortunes have established between me and the army an indestructible bond; with me alone the army can obtain once More vengeance, power, and glory. 2 I caused the misfortunes of France; I ought to repair them. 10 THE ARMY RESTORES THE EMPEROR. [BOOK I.. of the 26th of February were that he was tired of in- activity, and convinced that the favourable moment had arrived. Therefore, instructing Murat to second him by assuming a strong position in front of Ancona, he embarked. his faithful Thousand, and set sail for France. On the Ist of March he landed on the shores of the Gulf of Juan, and on the 20th he entered the Tuileries. As he had pre- dicted, the army rallied to the tricolour; the generals could neither restrain nor guide their soldiers; the Bourbon dukes and princes, and the brave Duchess of Angouléme—* the only man of the family ”—were utterly powerless before the universal military disaffection ; and one after the other they were chased out of France. The army had restored Napoleon. Louis XVIII. drove out of Paris by the road to St. Denis on the 19th, a few hours before Napoleon, on the 20th, drove in by the Barrier of Italy; and on the 28rd, after a short stay at Lille, the King was safe in Ghent. “The great question is,” wrote Lord Castlereagh to the Duke of Wellington three days afterwards, while yet in ignorance of the event, “can the Bourbons get Frenchmen to fight for them against Frenchmen?” The result showed that they could not. ‘In the then state of France the army was master of France.’ Louis and his ministers had done nothing to conciliate, and almost everything to irritate, the people; and even so early as November, 1814, Wellington did not see what means the King had of resisting the attack of a few hundred officers determined to risk every- thing. During the period occupied by Napoleon in passing from Elba to Paris, the conduct of the sovereigns and diplomatists 1« Fyance desires peace; the Army wants Belgium.” Jaucourt to Talleyrand, January 20th, 1815. CHAP. I.] NAPOLEON AGAINST EUROPE. 11 assembled at Vienna offered a striking contrast to the weakness and inaptitude of the Bourbons. Deep dissen- sion lurked amidst the gaiety and splendour which prevailed during their long sojourn in the Austrian capital, and the sunny surface concealed the elements of a probable collision. Europe was full of soldiers. France, England, Austria, were bound by a secret treaty to resist the pretensions of Russia and Prussia to the tempting spoils offered by the powerlessness of Poland and Saxony; and the unsettled condition of Italy seemed likely to furnish new subjects of difference, and to increase the angry feelings of the trium- phant Powers. The news of Napoleon’s departure from Elba drew them once more together. Napoleon says that there was doubt and hesitation at Vienna, and that the sovereigns only resolved on resistance when they heard that Murat had begun the war in Italy. This assertion is un- founded, since the Congress had determined what to do long before Murat appealed to arms. ‘“ When Buonaparte left Elba for France,” said the Duke of Wellington to Mr. Rogers, “I was at Vienna, and received [on the 7th of March] the news from Lord Burghersh, our Minister at Florence. The instant it came I communicated it to every member of the Congress, and all laughed ; the Emperor of Russia most of all. ‘What was in your letter to his Majesty this morning,’ said his Majesty’s physician, ‘for when he broke the seal he clapped his hands and burst out, laughing ?’ Various were the conjectures as to whither he was gone; but none would hear of France. All were sure that in France he would be massacred by the people when he appeared there. I remember Talleyrand’s words so well—‘ Pour la France—non.’”* Lord Clancarty, in a. 1 Metternich, in his Autobiography, reports the following “laconic conversation,” as he calls it :— “6 Talleyrand, Do you know where Napoleon has gone. 12 THE ARMY RESTORES THE EMPEROR. [BOOK I. letter to Lord Castlereagh on the 11th, describes a different aspect.of the scene. ‘‘ We were at Court,” he writes, ‘‘ on the night of the arrival of Burghersh’s despatch containing the news of Buonaparte’s flight, and though there was every attempt to conceal apprehension under the mask of unconcern [of laughter for instance], it was not difficult to perceive that fear was predominant in all the imperial and royal personages there assembled ; and, however much their principal officers endeavoured to make light of the event, the task of disguise was too heavy for them.” Neverthe- less, the Duke of Wellington has recorded that he found among the principal sovereigns “ one prevailing sentiment —a determination to unite their efforts to support the system established by the Peace of Paris; ” and he never doubted that if Napoleon succeeded in regaining a footing in France, ‘‘ such a force would be assembled. by the Powers of Europe, directed by such a spirit in their councils, as must get the better of him.” That there was fear in Vienna is manifest, but the acts of the Allied Powers show that fear speedily gave place to resolution. For, as early as the 12th of March, before the Allies knew where Napoleon was, or anything about him, except that he was somewhere at large in France, they drew up that famous declaration, and signed it the next day, in which they declared that he had broken the sole legal tie to which his existence was attached, and that it was possible to keep with him “neither peace nor truce.” “The Powers, in consequence,” so runs this document, “declare that Napoleon Buonaparte is placed beyond the pale of civil and social relations, and that, as a common enemy and disturber of the peace of the world, he Moi. The report tells nothing. Talleyrand. He will land somewhere on the Italian coast, and make for Switzerland. Moi. He will go straight to Paris.” e CHAP. 1.] NAPOLEON AGAINST EUROPE, 13 has delivered himself over to public justice.” This declara- tion, which has been the subject of vehement criticism, was the natural consequence of the prevailing and correct appre- ciation of Napoleon’s character. There was not a nation in Europe which felt the slightest particle of confidence or trust in him. Hence this declaration, made so promptly, was drawn up in ignorance of any professions he might make, because, beforehand, Europe felt that no professions of his could be relied on. The news of his success was followed by a treaty, adopted on the 25th of March, renewing the alliance of Chaumont, whereby Great Britain, Russia, Austria, and Prussia bound themselves to provide each 150,000 men ; to employ, in addition, all their resources, and to work together for the common end—the mainte- nance of the Treaty of Paris, and of the stipulations determined on and signed at the Congress of Vienna. Further, they engaged not to lay down their arms but by common consent ; nor before the object of the war should have been attained; nor, continues the document, “ until Buonaparte shall have been rendered absolutely unable to create disturbance, and to renew attempts for possessing himself of supreme power in France.” All the Powers of Europe generally, and Louis XVIII. specially, were invited to accede to the treaty ; but, at the instance of Lord Castle- reagh, the Four Great Powers declared in the most solemn manner that, although they desired to see his Most Christian Majesty restored to the throne, and also to contribute to that “ auspicious result,” yet that their ‘“ principles” would not permit them to prosecute the war “ with a view of im- posing any particular Government on France.” With Napoleon they refused to hold any communication what- ever; and when he sent couriers to announce that he intended to observe existing treaties, they were stopped on the frontiers. The serious differences which threatened 14 THE ARMY RESTORES THE EMPEROR. [BOOK I. disunion among the Allies had been settled speedily under the pressure of the feeling of common danger, and each Government now set to work to fulfil the condition of the new compact. Wellington, on his own responsibility, acted for England, signed treaties, undertook heavy engagements in her name, and agreed to command an army to be assembled in Belgium ; and having satisfied, as well as he could, the clamour of “all” for subsidies from England, he took his departure from Vienna on the 29th of March, and arrived in Brussels on the 4th of April. The British Parliament and nation confirmed readily the proceedings of the Government and of the Duke of Wellington at Vienna. There was, indeed, a small party anxious to give Napoleon another trial; but it was admitted candidly, even by these, that “‘ Buonaparte was not sincere in his professions of moderation.” Yet, in spite of this belief, they were willing to trust him with opportunities of future mischief. Their plea was, that by recognizing him as sovereign of France the constitutional party, without whom, they said, he could not carry on the government, would be enabled to exact adequate securities, and obtain such an ascendency in his councils as would prevent him from renewing his career of conquest. But the obvious answer to this was that, for the maintenance of peace upon the bases adopted at Paris and Vienna, the nations of Europe had absolutely no guarantee except the worthless promise of the man whose very exclusion from power in France was the fundamental principle of the Treaty of Paris. By receiving back Napoleon, France, as the Allies averred, had broken that treaty, and had declared war against Hurope. The possibility of a constitutional party struggling with any success against the Emperor at the head of his army, was far too shadowy a ground upon which to rest an European peace. Consequently, had CHAP. 1.] NAPOLEON AGAINST EUROPE. 15 Napoleon been recognized, there would not have been peace, but merely an armed truce in Europe, fruitful in anxieties and ruinous in cost. It was, therefore, better to undertake at once a decisive war, and build a permanent settlement thereon, than to maintain large armies and navies for the purpose of frustrating, under less favourable circumstances, the ambitious projects which Napoleon was known to cherish. Lord Grey, indeed, frankly based his opposition to immediate war on the ground that it was unjustifiable to declare Bonaparte personally excluded from the throne of France; and he further contended that, although peace with Bonaparte on the throne was “extremely doubtful,” yet the utmost that Europe was justified in doing was to make vigorous preparations, and renew the concert of 1814 on a “principle purely defensive.” This view, adopted by a portion only of the Whig party, was expounded in Parlia- ment, but, happily,it did not prevail. On the contrary, the sound policy of war with Napoleon at once was sup- ported by overwhelming majorities in Parliament, and by a majority, equally overwhelming, in the country. It had long ceased to be a party question. The instinct of the nation ratified the energetic course initiated so promptly by the statesmen at Vienna. There was, indeed, a weak place in the policy of the Allies. To declare that they would make neither peace nor truce with Napoleon, was perfectly sound and just. To declare that they did not undertake the war with a view of imposing any particular Government on France, placed them in a false position. They rendered themselves liable, it was almost inevitable that they would be compelled, by the course of events, to give, in acts, the lie to this verbal declaration. For to execute justice was to pave the way for thelrestoration of Louis XVIII. The young Napoleon, with a Regency, was incompatible with the Treaty of Paris and 16 THE ARMY RESTORES THE EMPEROR. [BOOK I, with the maintenance of peace ; and, by a foregone conclu- sion, the Duke of Orleans was excluded from the throne. Therefore, the restoration of Louis XVIII. became an in- evitable consequence of victory, and the war in which they were about to engage ran the risk of appearing, and did appear to many, to be a war for the restoration of the Bourbons, waged on the pretext of the necessity of destroy- ing the political and military power of Napoleon. Yet this was not so. The real object of the war was the destruction , of Napoleon. For no other object could the mass of European force have been brought together. The Duke of Wellington felt keenly the embarrassment thus occasioned by Lord Castlereagh’s specious declaration. “I wish that our Government and yours,” he wrote to Metternich on the 20th of May, “ had found themselves in a situation to let their people know for what they were to fight ; and that we had not been induced to hold out to their imaginations the possibility that the people of France, having had a fair opportunity of choosing whom they pleased, under what form they pleased, in 1814, might perform the same cere- mony again in 1815. However, I cannot judge so well upon this point as those upon the spot; and probably neither you nor we could venture to depart, although only in words, from the principle on which we acted in the former war. I have frequently told your Highness, and every day’s experi- ence shows me that I am right, that the only chance of peace for Europe consists in the establishment in France of the legitimate Bourbons. The establishment of any other ~ government,” he adds, “ must lead to the maintenance of large military establishments, to the ruin of all the Govern- ments of Europe, till it shall suit the convenience of the French Government to commence a contest which can only be directed against you, or others for whom we are inte- rested.” Practically, the Allies were resolved, at any cost, CHAP. I.] NAPOLEON AGAINST EUROPE. 7 to overthrow Napoleon ; at the same time they favoured the cause of Louis XVIII., and allowed him to accede to the treaty of the 25th of March. If France should accept Louis as King, less onerous guarantees would be demanded from her, when peace should be made, than if she were to choose any other person. Hurope had a right to dictate what conditions she pleased. Napoleon, on his side, essayed to prove that, as he, in the exercise of his sovereign rights, had dispossessed the Bourbons of the reins of Government, and seized them himself with the consent of the nation, he was the legiti- mate ruler of France, and that, therefore, the declaration of the 13th of March did not apply to him. To this the Allies replied, by citing the first article of the Convention of the 11th of April, 1814, wherein “the Emperor Napoleon, for himself and his successors and descendants, as well as for all the members of his family, renounced all rights of sovereignty and domination, as well over the French Empire and the Kingdom of Italy as over every other country.” Nevertheless, he had resumed by force what he had renounced by convention, and had thus broken the basis of the arrangement between himself and the Allies. He could not, therefore, plead the wrong he had done in justification of that wrong. And if the French people had really selected Napoleon as their ruler, then they had - broken the treaties of 1814 by choosing a sovereign whose former career and recent acts had proved him to be incom- patible with the independence and tranquillity of Europe. These arguments can only be met by assertions like that of Lord Grey, who said the right of a people to choose its own Government is so sacred that under no circumstances should it be infringed. A wholesome principle of inter- national law, but one not applicable to the condition in which Europe found herself in the spring of 1815. c 18 THE ARMY RESTORES THE EMPEROR. [BOOK I. Napoleon, loud in his professions of peace, offered to ratify the Treaty of Paris—an offer which implied the in- validity of that instrument without his ratification. Yet, as we have seen, the base on which that treaty rested was the exclusion of Napoleon himself from the throne. How, then, could he be sincere? The treaty was at an end when he entered the Tuileries, and the Allies took a just and practical view of the necessities of the case when they declared that the question then was—not to maintain but to re-make the treaty—a question of political calculation and foresight, in dealing with which the Allies had only to consult the real interests of each nation, and the common interests of Europe. Napoleon, they said justly, had “no guarantee to give but his word, and who, after the cruel experience of fifteen years, would have the courage to accept a guarantee like that?” Moreover, in the very midst of the discussion, Murat, acting on the advice of Napoleon, established his forces in front of Ancona, and, going beyond his instructions— acting, indeed, contrary to them—instead of waiting to be attacked, and then retiring upon the Garigliano, he began war on his own account, intent on making himself King of Italy. Here was fresh proof of the dangers in store for Europe. Wellington was of opinion that if Murat were not speedily defeated, he would save Bonaparte. But the campaign of the King of Naples was short-lived. It began on the 31st of March, and in less than six weelts King Joachim was an exile, and part of the troops en- gaged against him were free to cross the Alps and enter France. Napoleon was, therefore, left absolutely alone in his strife with Europe. CHAP. 1,] NAPOLEON AGAINST EUROPE. 19 § 3. Napoleon’s Political Calculations. He was perfectly aware of it. From the moment when, having communicated to the Emperor Alexander a copy of the secret treaty of the 3rd of January, which had been left in the French Foreign-office by the fugitive Govern- ment, he found that the knowledge of its contents did not detach the Czar from the Allies; he knew that he had nothing to hope for in any other quarter. His wife refused to return to him; his son was in the hands of the Austrian Emperor ; the hostile passions of the German nation were at a white heat; England was as resolute as ever; and Alexander himself had denounced Napoleon to his soldiers as “the vile and criminal artificer of fraud,” “the scourge of the human race.” Napoleon knew he had no alterna- tive but to prepare for a vigorous resistance or a vigorous offensive. “I desire peace, and I can only obtain it by means of victories,” he said to Benjamin Constant. “I do not wish to give you false hopes; I allow it to be said that negotiations are in progress. Nothing of the sort! I foresee a difficult struggle, a long war.” And for this war he prepared. Napoleon’s partisans have always insisted that he re- turned from Elba chastened by adversity; that he saw the folly of his long career of conquest ; that he had become, if not the warm lover, at least the judicious friend of liberty ; and that above all he desired peace, in order that France might recover from the misfortunes he had inflicted upon her. Alas! it is a French delusion. Napoleon had suffered severely from ennui and idleness in Elba, and had reflected upon the causes of his fall. He had seen how eagerly France had accepted a charter from the Bourbons, and how deeply the French resented the conduct of the Bourbons in violating its letter and spirit. Sure of the army, he had 20 THE ARMY RESTORES THE EMPEROR. [BOOK I. bent his mind to discover how he could secure the attach- ment of the people. He could not give less than the Bourbons had given, constitutional liberty ; and all he re- quired was to keep the nation in good humour until victory had secured him from the hostility and power of Europe, and had made him master of France. He wanted time to reorganize an army, for, once having a subservient’ soldiery, who in France could resist his will? The return of Louis XVIII. as a constitutional king had, as he declared, created a “new situation.” Napoleon was, what he aptly described himself to be, “rien qu’un étre politique.” There- fore, he inquired, what line of conduct would be most in harmony with these new circumstances? Napoleon was not long in discovering one thing;—that the Emperor must become a Liberal. Benjamin Constant has recorded that in his interviews with him, Napoleon did not assume the character of a man corrected by adversity ; of one who adopted Liberal views by inclination. He was a Liberal from calculation. ‘He examined coldly in his own inte- rests, with an impartiality approaching to indifference, that which was possible and preferable.” He believed that “the taste for constitutions, debates, harangues,” had come back again in France; but he asserted distinctly that it was only the few who were suffering from this disease, and that the people desired him, and him alone. He was still the Emperor of the soldiers, the peasants, and the plebeians of France. Nevertheless, for the moment, active public, opinion desired liberty; liberty was the truamp-card of that moment, as victory, glory, would be the trump-card of the next. Hence, he cried, “Public discussions, free elections, responsible ministers, liberty of the press—I desire all that!” “The repose of a constitutional king will suit me; and will suit my son better.” Napoleon a constitutional king, acting through a responsible ministry! It may be CHAP. I.] NAPOLEON AGAINST EUROPE. 21 possible to conceive it; but it is impossible to believe it. He put on the toga of the Tribune to cover the robes of the Emperor, just as, a little later, at the Champ de Mai, his imperial garments, dropping from his shoulders, dis- closed the uniform and arms of the Chasseurs of the Guard. Napoleon’s constitutionalism was simply a piece of political manceuvring. He had counted his forces, he had surveyed the political map, and he had calculated that the line of operation most likely to give him vantage ground, and the time he required to rebuild the Imperial edifice, would be to assume the part of a constitutionalist, and to adopt the phrases of that sect. The famous “ Acte Addi- tionnel,” that is, an act added to the Imperial constitutions, was the fruit of this calculation. But even during the dis- cussion in the Council of State upon the draft of its clauses, the Emperor could not sustain his part. He was urged to embody in his Acte the article of the Charter abolishing confiscation. He had already, by decree, confiscated the property of several public enemies, and he refused with acrimony. “You thrust me,” he said, ‘into a path which is not mine. You weaken, you fetter me. France seeks and does not find me. Public opinion was excellent; it is now execrable. France asks me what has become of the good right arm of the Emperor—this arm of which she has need to subdue Europe?” [The constitutional king disappears altogether.] ‘‘ Why speak to me of goodness, of arbitrary justice, of natural laws? ‘The first law is necessity; the first justice, public safety. You wish that the men whom Lhave loaded with wealth should use it to conspire against me abroad; this cannot, this shall not be..... When peace is made, nous verrons. To each day its penalty, to each circumstance its law, to each one his nature. Mine is not that of anangel. I repeat it—you must find again, 22 THE ARMY RESTORES THE EMPEROR. [BOOK I. you must see once more, the good right arm of the Em- peror.” Here spoke the veritable Napoleon. Just as before Europe, he professed peace, that he might gain time to prepare for hostilities, so, before France, he professed: constitutional doctrines, that he might obtain present sup- port, and gain time to restore imperialism on a foundation of successful war. It has been well said, and by a French- man, that it was not’the Acte Additionnel which filled the public mind with suspicion—it was the author of the act. Proud of him as the champion of France in the lists of Europe, idolaters of his skill as a military leader, the French people had no confidence in Napoleon as a civil governor. They did not believe that he would respect the laws of his own creation. They did not believe that a despot of fifteen years’ growth could suddenly become a constitu- tional king. And the passage we have cited shows that they were right in their suspicions. “Quand la paix sera faite, nous verrons,” was a menace applying to more than the property of the adherents of Louis XVIII.; and the French were not slow to perceive that ‘the good right arm of the Emperor” was always uplifted behind the fragile constitution. Napoleon had formed a Ministry on the very evening of his return to the Tuileries. To Fouché, who sought the office, he gave the Ministry of Police; to Decrés, the Ministry of Marine. He induced Davoust to accept the War Department, and persuaded Carnot to become his« Home Minister. Caulaincourt had no faith in the duration of the galvanized empire; he was willing to command a division, but he only accepted, with reluctance, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Prince Cambacérés became Minister of Justice; Guadin Duke of Gaeta and Count Mbollien, both men of business, were intrusted with the Depart- ments of Finance. Lavalette, always faithful, replaced © CHAP. 1.] NAPOLEON AGAINST EUROPE.: 23 the indiscreet Ferrand at the Post Office: Savary took command of the gendarmerie; the Duke of Bassano re- turned to his old post, Secretary of State; and Count Molé, at his own request, became Director of Public Works. Love of order was one of Napoleon’s virtues; and having restored the political machine, he immediately turned his attention to the army. He felt certain that war would ensue. Knowing that at the moment when he returned from Elba a large part of the best troops of England were in America, that the German force on the Rhine was weak, and that the Russian armies were in Poland, he calculated that the Allied Powers would not be in a position to open the campaign, at the earliest, until the middle of July; and, for a moment, he hoped. that, by working on the feelings of his father-in- law, the Emperor of Austria, and by rousing the anger of the Emperor Alexander against his allies, he would be able, if not to reduce his enemies to two, England and Prussia, at least to defer the period of hostilities until the autumn. Whatever might be the value of this calculation, he de- termined to raise as large a force as possible by the earliest time when he supposed hostilities could commence; and he intended, if hostilities were postponed until the autumn, to have 800,000 men under arms. His hopes were not fulfilled: the Allies worked with more unity and energy than he had anticipated. Before his great schemes of military preparation were half complete he found himself compelled by events to begin the wav. § 4. His Resources and Ezertions. What he actually did accomplish between March and June has been the subject of fierce controversy. His friends exaggerate, his enemies undervalue, his exertions 24 THE ARMY RESTORES THE EMPEROR. [BOOK I. and their results. But no candid inquirer can fail to see, that if his energetic activity during this period is far below that of the Convention when threatened by Europe, it is far above the standard fixed by his passionate critics. The real reason why he failed to raise a larger military force during the hundred days was that his genius worked upon exhausted materials. The nation, to use an expressive. vulgarism, was “used up.” The Emperor did not appeal to the people, it is true, after the fashion of the Conven- tion, but, had he done so, the results would not have been much changed; for, as we have said, France, in the first place, had been drained of men by fifteen years of destruc- tive warfare; and in the second place, France was not only wearied of endless slaughter, but actually without the means to meet the heavy demands of renewed conscrip- tions. It is a significant fact that the proper conscription for 1815 had been levied in the autumn of 1813. The drafts on the rising generation had been anticipated, and hence there remained little available except the old soldiers. Another significant fact is, that the fédérés—a body of men who organized themselves spontaneously in many de- partments, who were for the most part unarmed, and whose purpose was to defend “ Liberty and the Emperor ” —consisted mainly of men who had served before. Napo- leon’s real resources were the prisoners of .war, the vete- rans who had returned to France from distant garrisons at the conclusion of peace, the old soldiers who had quitted the army at various periods, the officers who had not arrived at the higher grades, and the generals who hoped to become marshals. The people, the bulk of the nation, shrank from military: service. Even the hundreds of battalions of the National Guards directed to be orga- nized, were, some never raised to the proper complement of men, nearly one-half never raised at all. In some CHAP. I.] NAPOLEON AGAINST EUROPE. 25 departments, the soldiers recalled to the eagles preferred flight to service, and were chased through the country side. The old days of the triumphant empire, fertile in glory, plunder, batons, crosses, national aggrandizement, presented no scenes like these. Even the regular regiments were incomplete; and the general officers were loud and frequent in their demands for more men, more arms, more horses, more uniforms, more equipments. General Rapp, for instance, commanding on the Rhine, after describing the enthusiasm of the people of Strasbourg and Mulhausen, says, “ All this zeal, however, did not fill up my regiments —time passed, and recruits did not come in.” He sent his “morning states” to the Emperor, who could not conceal his surprise, exclaiming, “So few! Alsace, so ardently patriotic! Never mind; victory will bring forth bat- talions.” Again, at a later date, the Emperor wrote thus to his general,— Iam surprised that there are not more voluntary enlistments in Alsace.” Rapp declares that, in obedience to Napoleon’s orders, he drew every regular soldier out of the fortresses, and every effective from the depéts in his district ; yet at the commencement of- hosti- lities he mustered, instead of the 40,000 men promised by Napoleon, only 19,000 regulars and 3,000 national guards d’élite. The result of Napoleon’s prodigious exertions to augment the military force of France appears to be this: Napoleon found ready to his hand a force of 223,972* men of all arms, 1 Beurnonville, who had means of knowing, using round numbers, informed Tallyrand, on the 26th of April, 1815, that when the king quitted Paris, the effective of his army was 150,000 men, all told, that “Bonaparte” had summoned the soldiers on leave, and that he might, thereby, secure 100,000 out of 106,000 called in, all seasuned soldiers. Beurnonyille estimated that by the end of March Napoleon would have an effective force of 200,000 men, He had plenty of cannon, but, when 26 THE ARMY RESTORES THE EMPEROR. [BOOK I. officers included, giving a disposable effective of 155,000 men ready to take the field. By the 18th of June he had raised this force to 276,982 men, officers included: that is, 247,609 of the Line, and 29,373 of the Imperial Guard. The number disposable for war was 198,180; and it therefore follows that Napoleon had increased the general effective by 53,010 men, and that part of it disposable for war by 43,130. But itis unfair to test the genius of Napoleon by this result. Why he did not succeed in raising more men has been already explained. It does not touch his reputa- tion as an administrator ; it does not diminish the credit which his partisans claim for his energy and industry and ability. For, during the period of preparation, he not only: sustained a sharp conflict with the politicians, but he directed and completed the fortification and armament of the north side of Paris; supplied the first line of frontier fortresses with provisions for six months, and the fortresses of the other lines in proportion; threw up entrenched works round several provincial towns, and fortified the defiles of the Jura, the Vosges, and the Argonne ; he suc- ceeded in obtaining horses absolutely required for the cavalry and artillery, and supplied the latter with harness for nearly 600 guns; he more than doubled the number of effective muskets. In addition to this, he totally reorgan- ized the army, revived the Imperial Guard, and provided for the increase of the regiments of the line from two to five battalions, thus giving employment to the half-pay officers, so discontented under the Bourbons; he restored to the regiments the old numbers so foolishly taken away ; he added two squadrons to each regiment of cavalry; and he raised upwards of 200 battalions of National Guards. Beurnonville left Paris, only 300,000 muskets over and above those in the hands of the 150,000 men ready to take the field. CHAP. I.] NAPOLEON AGAINST EUROPE. 27 In short, by unceasing labour, he mastered the whole military details of the empire; and, in so far as it was possible, he saw that what he ordered was done. No man could have effected more, few so much, with the same means in the same time. For although Napoleon, speeding from town to town, and gathering round him, as he went, the soldiers who loved the eagles so well, was a grand and portentous figure of the melodramatic sort, yet, in reality, his triumph—the most showy in all his life—had nothing substantial about it except the sabres, bayonets, and cannon, and the hearts of the wreck of his great armies. The Emperor had appeared once more; but when he entered Paris he ceased to be Emperor. He had to compound and to temporize. Those writers alone take a correct view of the supreme crisis in the career of Napoleon who insist that his only chance of success against combined Europe was to be found in a revival of the old Committee of Public Safety, in an appeal to the revolutionary spirit, in an emphatic declara- tion that the country was in danger, and in rousing a whole people to arms. But these very writers forget that the wars of the Empire had exhausted the spirit as well as the body of the Revolution, and that no matter how imperiously the Emperor might have stamped his foot upon the soil of France, all his stamping could not have called forth the yace of men whom he had consumed in his gigantic wars. Nothing remained but the military spirit. To blame Napoleon for not making himself, in 1815, “the arm of the democracy,” to believe that the deeds of the Conven- tion could be done twice in one generation, was to be blind to facts and to common sense. It has been said, indeed, by Count Thibaudeau, that the most formidable enemy of France and of Napoleon was Napoleon himself. But that expresses only half the truth. 28 THE ARMY RESTORES THE EMPEROR. [BOOK I. In what condition was France in 1815? For a genera- tion she had been in arms against the world. She had ex- hausted her vigour in the unrestrained indulgence of her passion for military glory. Her blood was impoverished ; her muscles relaxed, her nerves unstrung, her moral force debilitated by twenty-three years of almost uninterrupted warfare. The laurels gathered in a hundred battles were poor compensation for a paralyzed industry and a crippled commerce, for desolate cornfields and half-cul- tured vineyards. She was la belle France no longer. She had used her prime in the debauch of war. Some traces of her strength and beauty still remained, but they only served to remind her of the noble heritage she had bar- tered for glory. The exultation inspired by Napoleon’s return from Elba was but the feverish excitement of a moment, an outburst of expiring military passions, soon to be quenched in blood upon the war-trodden fields of Belgium. § 5. Champ de Maie Meeting of the Chambers. The Emperor had resolved on war, but before he quitted Paris for the army, he played the principal part in two striking political scenes—the famous Champ de Mai and the opening of the Chambers. The Acte Additionnel was submitted to the people, after a fashion which we have seen revived in our own time, and with a similar result—it was accepted. What we may call the solemn inauguration of this political instrument was to be celebrated at the Champ de Mai; when, in the presence of the Imperial Guard, the Line, the National Guard, civil delegates from the depart- ments, and the people of Paris, the acceptance of the Acte Additionnel was to be proclaimed, and the Emperor was to take a solemn oath that he would observe and cause to CHAP. 1.] NAPOLEON AGAINST EUROPE, 29 be observed the constitutions of the empire; and the troops of all kinds were to swear that they would defend the national flag against the enemies of France. This ceremony did not take place in May, as originally in- tended, but on the Ist of June. It was a revival of the theatrical shows of the empire. Napoleon, wearing his Imperial robes, appeared on a lofty platform erected in the Champ de Mars, attended by ministers, by prelates, by officers of the army, and surrounded by a mass of soldiers and thousands of people. But although, in his address to them, he appealed to their patriotism, and strove to influence their passions, yet it is admitted that, except in the army, he called forth no abiding enthusiasm for himself, his cause, or his throne, which he said was “the palladium of the independence, honour, and rights of the people.” The Champ de Mai was a failure. “Oh, that is what is called a Champ de Mai,” it was said; “we have seen nothing new in a ceremony announced with so much emphasis; the Revolution has accustomed us to these sights !” Napoleon had devised this imitation of “an antique usage dear to France,” as it was described in Carnot’s letter to the Prefects; he submitted, with great reluctance, to the meeting of the Chambers. He had issued the Acte Additionnel as a kind of promissory note, to be honoured if circumstances permitted—(“ 4 chaque circonstance sa-loi”’) —when the coming war was over, and had never intended that an assembly should sit during the campaign. But having “ begun to reign as a constitutional king,” he found that his repugnance to constitutional assemblies must:give way, and that he must act his part, if he could, to the end, “Quand la paix sera faite, nous verrons.” The peers were nominated by the Emperor from a list prepared by his ministers. Their dignities were to be hereditary, and he 30 THE ARMY RESTORES THE EMPEROR. [BOOK I. selected those who he judged would most faithfully sup- port his views of government. The deputies were sum- moned to co-operate with the Emperor in “saving France ;” but in the distracted state of the country the Government could exercise little influence over the choice of the electors. On the 8rd of June they met, upwards of six hundred strong, and occupied three days in placing their business machinery in working order, and in choosing a president. ‘They selected M. Lanjuinais, and Napoleon confirmed the selection. Yet he felt that the Chamber had chosen this ancient revolutionist, opposition senator of the Empire, and peer of the Restoration, to mark its distrust of Impe- rial good faith. On the 7th of June Napoleon opened the session in person and delivered a speech. Declaring that he was commencing his career as a constitutional monarch, he invited the Chambers to consolidate and co-ordinate the scattered constitutions of the Empire, remarking that men are powerless to insure the future, and that institu- tions alone determine the destinies of nations—a truth it had taken him long to learn. He pointed to the coalition of kings, whose armies were on the frontiers, and ex- horted the peers and representatives of France to imitate the Roman Senate, and die rather than survive dishonour. It was a brief but elaborate production. The speaker seemed constrained by his new part. The impassioned and condensed eloquence of the Emperor is nowhere to be found in the utterances of the constitutional sovereign. ‘Three days afterwards the two Chambers had voted ad- ‘dresses to the monarch, and on the 11th they presented them to the Emperor at the Tuileries. There was a marked difference in their substance. That of the Peers professed the strongest attachment to the Emperor, but at the same time did not fail to remind him that he had sur- rendered absolute power and submitted his Government CHAP. I.] NAPOLEON AGAINST EUROPE. 31 to constitutional regulations; nor to intimate, in plain terms, that France fought solely for a peace founded on the recognition of her national independence, and that her institutions were a guarantee to Hurope that the French Government “could not be carried away by the seductions of victory.” The Representatives, in their address, were not content with a passing allusion to the liberal conces- sions of the Emperor. They dwelt, with emphasis, on the fact that constitutional liberty was established, as if they doubted the sincerity of him who had laid aside his “ex- traordinary powers;” and they took care to record their intention of consolidating and amending the constitution. The nation had resumed its rights, and had once more trusted Napoleon, but trusted him only as a constitu- tional sovereign. In attacking him Europe attacked her, and she would defend her independence; but she cherished no ambitious projects, and even the will of a victorious prince, they said, would be powerless to drag her beyond the limits of her own defence. The Emperor was assured that he should be supported, but he was told significantly that he must seek in victory nothing except a lasting peace. As to the Representatives, while his Majesty was fighting for national independence, they would labour unremittingly to perfect that constitutional pact which would cement the union of the throne and people, and strengthen, in the eyes of Europe, the guarantee of their engagements. Con- fiding in its tone, this address is substantially one long expression of distrust. The repeated reference to the sur- render of absolute power, and the imperfection of the Im- perial constitutions; the menacing intimations, disguised in respectful phrases, that the prince would not be allowed to drag the nation into wars of ambition, show that the Chambers reposed. only a half-confidence in the Emperor. The answers of Napoleon were in accordance with the 32 THE ARMY RESTORES THE EMPEROR. [BOOK I. character of the two addresses. To the peers he said with some sarcasm, that the danger which menaced the country was not the allurements of victory, but “the Caudine Forks;” and he declared that, in the hour of reverses, he should count upon the devotion of the Chamber of Peers. To the Representatives he spoke at greater length. He told them that all his thoughts were absorbed in the war —that very night, indeed, he should set out for the army. They were free to ‘ meditate”? upon the Imperial consti- tutions, and in more tranquil times he would second their efforts by the exercise of his prerogatives. But he warned them that all public discussions tending directly or in- directly to diminish the confidence of the public in the constitution, would be a misfortune for the State; and, en- forcing his view by stronger language, he said :— Don’t let us imitate the example of the Lower Empire, which, pressed on all sides by the barbarians, made itself the laughing-stock of posterity by indulging in abstract dis, cussions at the moment when the battering-ram was breaké ing down the gates of the city.’ The Representatives must have seen that the tone of their address was appreci- ated thoroughly by the Emperor; mistrust on both sides was but thinly veiled under the respectful forms and ex- pressions which custom and good sense have decided should be the ordinary medium of communication between a sovereign and his subjects. That night Napoleon constituted a Council of State to perform the political and administrative functions of Government during his absence, and placed the ex-King Joseph at its head. It consisted of the eight departmental Ministers, and the four Ministers of State, and of Prince Lucien Bonaparte. Early on the morning of the 12th of June Napoleon quitted Paris for the northern frontier, to attack the most advanced and threatening of the Armies of the Coalition. CHAPTER II. THE ALLIES IN THE LOW COUNTRIES. § 1. Character and Growth of the Allied Armies. HEN Napoleon broke out of Elba and assumed command once more of the military resources of France, the great Powers had considerable armaments, but in no nation was the army on a war footing. On the frontier of France, between the Meuse and the Moselle, there were in cantonments some 26,000 Prussians under the command of General Kleist, and in Belgium, much scattered, about 40,000 English, Hanoverians, and Dutch- Belgians, under the orders of the Prince of Orange. The King of the Netherlands, to whom Belgium had been allotted in the general distribution of territory at Vienna, had made some efforts to raise, equip, and organize a national army. His earlier attempts had not been at- tended with much success, but after the abdication of Napoleon and his retirement to Elba in 1814, many Dutch and Belgian officers serving in the Imperial armies returned home, found employment under the King. and greatly im- proved the quality of his embryo army. Still many of the battalions were raw militia, and the officers were not efficient. Both were more numerous and in somewhat better order in 1815, but still imperfect. The King of the Netherlands joined promptly the coali- D 34 THE ARMY RESTORES THE EMPEROR. [BOOK I. tion against his imperious neighbour, whose proximity inspired apprehension. His allies were quickly on the alert. The officers of the British Sappers and Miners, who were engaged in restoring the Belgic fortresses, no sooner heard of the escape of Napoleon than they increased their exertions to render the fortresses defensible against a coup de main. The measures they adopted were approved; and after the arrival of Wellington at Brussels, and as fast as Sapper companies could be landed at Ostend, and dis- tributed through the country, their labours were directed to the restoration of all the chief posts along the frontier from Ostend to Liége; and at one time not less than 20,000 labourers, men and women, exclusive of strong military fatigue parties, were employed upon the works on the line from Ostend to Mons. Between the 24th of March and the 10th of June, the British Government supplied the Duke, not with what he demanded—* the whole corps of Sappers and Miners,”’—but with seven fresh companies, making a total, in the Low Countries, of 782 men; only a little more than one-fourth of the force at the disposal of the Government.’ The Duke of Wellington reached Brussels on the 4th of April, and took command of the Dutch-Belgians as well as of the British and Hanoverians. He found that he had at his disposal, for every purpose, exclusive of garrisons, 25,000 Anglo-German troops, of which 5,000 were cavalry, and 20,000 Dutch-Belgians, of which 2,000 were cavalry. The quality of these latter was not good, because the army was raw and young; and the British, said the Duke, were not what they ought to have been to maintain our military character in Europe. The Duke desired 40,000 British infantry and German Legionaries, exclusive of garrison troops; 18,000 cavalry of the same stamp, and 150 British 1 The strength of the corps in 1815 was 2,861. CHAP. II.] THE ALLIES IN THE LOW COUNTRIES. 35 field guns; but he does not appear to have been very hopeful of obtaining them. The Government displayed some energy, but not enough. Lord Castlereagh promised the Prussian Minister that, in May, Wellington should havc 50,000 British troops in the Low Countries; but Lord Bathurst, the War Minister, did not redeem the pledge of the Foreign Secretary to Hardenberg. Wellington sent home blunt remonstrances and plain speaking letters ; but the Horse Guards and the War Office were more intent on exercising patronage than on embarking every available man for Belgium. On the 21st of April the Duke was com- pelled to write the cutting request, that before they sent him any more generals they should let him see more troops. Indeed, the staff grew upon him. He did not know what to do with “the young gentlemen ” sent out to act as staff officers. The Ministry at home never consulted the first of British captains on the selection of a staff. “If you will speak to Sir Henry Torrens,” the Duke wrote to Major- General Darling, in answer to an application for employ- ment, “he will tell you that I have nothing to say to any appointment to the staff of this army, of any rank... . I have no choice, and I beg you to apply in the quarter in which you will certainly succeed without reference to my wishes.” Such was the sway of “influence,” or of infatua- tion, that the Horse Guards sent him a Provost-Marshal to the army “ utterly unfit for the situation,” and when the army moves, he wrote, “I shall be under the necessity of leaving him in the rear, as I did in the Peninsula.” Nevertheless, troops of various kinds trickled into Belgium through Ostend andfrom Germany. The Anglo- Belgian army had increased by the 3rd of May to 70,000 men fit for service in the field, and the 26,000 Prussians had become 80,000. Blucher had also arrived, and the Duke saw him at Tirlemont on the 2nd of May, and 36 THE ARMY RESTORES THE EMPEROR. [BOOK 1. received from him “most satisfactory assurances of sup- port.” On the 21st of May the Duke informed Prince Schwarzenberg that, exclusive of the troops in the garri- sons, he could place in the field 60,000 bayonets and nearly 16,000 sabres, and that, of the latter, 10,000 were.as good as any in the world. Week by week throughout the month of May the harbour at Ostend was crowded with shipping disembarking troops, stores, and cannon; and many battalions, liberated by the peace with the United States, were crossing the Atlantic, some of them bound for Belgium, and destined not to arrive in time. But -the Duke, although he put a good face upon matters to foreigners, did not fail to impress on his own Government the necessity for making every possible exertion. His sentiments in the beginning of May were strongly expressed in an often quoted letter to Lord Stewart. “I have got | an infamous army,” he wrote, ‘“‘ very weak and ill-equipped, and a very inexperienced staff. In my opinion they are doing nothing in England. They have not raised a man; they have not called out the militia; are unable to send me anything.” Indeed, they professed in April to be able to send him only eighty-four field guns, and towards the end of that month the British artillery could only muster for field service forty-two pieces of cannon. But the Horse Guards did not forget to pour a torrent of staff officers into Belgium. “I command a very small British army with a very large British staff, to which my superiors | are making additions every day,” Wellington wrote on the 22nd of May. Ministers, it is true, had kept part of the militia embodied, which Lord Fitzwilliam and Sir Samuel Romilly strenuously stigmatised as illegal; but at the end of May the bill giving them power to embody the militia. had not passed both Houses, so that no additions could have been made to the force, which had not been disem- CHAP. IL] THE ALLIES IN THE LOW COUNTRIES. 37 bodied at the peace, in time to enable the Government to substitute militia for regulars, and send the latter to the Low Countries. Nevertheless, by the middle of June the total force under the command of the Duke of Wellington, from all sources, had been raised to 105,950 men and 196 guns; and the army under Prince Blucher had, between March and June, grown by degrees, from 26,000 to nearly 120,000 men, with upwards of 300 guns." The raw material of these two great armies deserves notice. Wellington’s force was a heterogeneous mass of British and Continental troops. The nucleus of the army was the purely British batteries, squadrons, and battalions, and the batteries and regiments of the King’s German Legion. The greater part of the regiments had served in the Peninsula at some period, but nearly one-half were second battalions, and a large portion recruits who had volunteered from the militia when the line battalions were hurriedly made up for foreign service. There was a good supply of old soldiers, and the young ones, although not well broken in to mancuvring, were stout of heart and strong of limb. Some of the regiments were, indeed, such splendid speci- mens of British battalions that, in his despatches, Wellington himself, when speaking of them, uses the language of enthusiasm. The cavalry, especially, fills him with admiration. They were well mounted and thoroughly trained; some had “to fight for a name,” and some had to fight to keep a name; and all were animated by the true military spirit. The artillery, in like manner, though + The numbers of the Anglo-Allied army are much disputed by historians. But the different estimates put forward by the best autho- rities arise mainly from different modes of reckoning. After much attention to the subject the writer has arrived at the conclusion that Captain Siborne’s figures are as correct as it is possible to make them. 38 THE ARMY RESTORES THE EMPEROR. [BOOK L not numerous, was very efficient, both foot and horse; and at the last moment, by substituting 9-pounder for 6-pounder guns in the horse batteries, Colonel Frazer enabled them to cope more effectually with their oppo- nents. The foot-batteries rivalled the infantry in stub- bornness, and what sporting men call “staying power ;” and the horse batteries shared in the daring and velocity ‘of the cavalry brigades, to which they were attached. The same praise is due to the King’s German Legionaries, who from long association and natural aptitude had thoroughly acquired the spirit and method of the British. But the rest of the army, with some striking exceptions, and these mainly the older Hanoverian battalions, were far inferior to the British and the Legionaries. The Dutch-Belgian soldiers, hastily raised and poorly officered, had not reached that degree of discipline which would have made them safe soldiers. The greater part of the foot were militia, and the horse, newly raised like the rest, were inexpe- rienced, and wanting in that confidence in their prowess so necessary to all soldiers who engage the French in fight. The ranks of the whole Dutch-Belgian army contained hosts of officers and soldiers who had served under Napoleon. Many were valiant and patriotic, but the valour and patriotism of the majority was tempered and attenuated by the memory of Napoleon’s astounding victories. The Brunswick troops were full of mettle, but young and untried. Their hatred of the French sustained them in the arduous trials to which they were subjected. The Nassauers were also young, and not strong either in body or spirit; but they also were in part old soldiers. This mixed army, so unequal in its elements, brought abruptly together, had not at the opening of the campaign acquired that consistency and mutual confidence so essen- tial to successful operations in war. The soldiers and CHAP. l.] THE ALLIES IN THE LOW COUNTRIES. 39 officers spoke four or five languages and many dialects. The special merits of the British soldiers were unknown to many of their Continental comrades. Wellington had been a victorious general, but the renown he had derived from his campaigns in the Peninsula was as nothing in their eyes compared with that of Napoleon, or the best of Napoleon’s marshals. Yet it may be safely said that Wellington alone held together the incongruous body which had been assembled in the fertile plains of Belgium. The Prussian army was composed entirely of Prussians —an attempt to make use of 14,000 Saxons failed, for these troops mutinied, and nearly slew Blucher in his head-quarters. One-half of the infantry were regulars, and the other landwehr battalions; but the latter, like the former, had served throughout the war of 1813-14, and in the main they were good soldiers. The cavalry also was composed, in the proportion of three to two, partly of regulars and partly of landwehr. The best troops were those drawn from the old Prussian provinces on the Elbe and the Oder, and the Baltic. The army was homogeneous, compact, devoted to the fierce captain appointed to guide and lead it, and over-brimming with intense hatred of the French. The slow Germans had been moved to wrath, and their rage was of the Teutonic type—a rage that survives defeat and is not soon satiated by success. The principal officers were skilful in their profession, and shared the passions of the men. Blucher himself was a fair representative of the Prussian nation and army, provoked and stung, by a hundred insults and defeats, to wipe out the former and avenge the latter, or die. At the end of 1806, says a modern French historian, Blucher, then a prisoner of war at Hamburg, displayed an unshakeable faith in the fall of 40 THE ARMY RESTORES THE EMPEROR. [BOOK 1, Napoleon, and predicted the near approach of a time when Europe would rise against him, wearied by his exactions and exasperated by his bad faith. Wellington had held firmly to the same belief; and their faith was greater in 1815 than it was at an earlier stage, for in 1814 they had seen their confidence justified. § 2. Disposition and Function of the Anglo-Prussian Armies. The allied armies formed the right of the vast body of men with which the Vienna coalition designed to over- throw finally the power of Bonaparte and the French army. Hence the measures of Blucher and Wellington were dependent upon and in harmony with those of their allies, who were more backward in their preparations than Prussia and Great Britain. For the Austrians and Russians, the Swiss and Sardinians, not to speak of the Spaniards, the Swedes, and the Danes, were still, in May, 1815, far from being ready for an invasion of France, the great object of every Power in Europe. Their troops were in motion on all the roads leading to the French frontier, from the North Sea to the Mediterranean, from the Vistula to the Rhine, from the Sound to the barrier fortresses of French Flanders. But though the Sar- dinians were gathering in the Apennines and the Swiss in the Alps, though the Austrians and Bavarians were collecting on the Rhine, though the Russians were moving down in great columns from Poland, the Prussians and the Anglo-Belgians alone had mustered in strength close to the frontier. Their object was twofold. It was their duty to be prepared for an attack, should Napoleon think it expedient to strike the first blow, and at the same time to be ready to cross the frontier at the first signal from CHAP, 11.] THE ALLIES IN THE LOW COUNTRIES. 41 the chiefs of the coalition. The disposition of their forces was, therefore, governed by these considerations. As early as the 11th of April, Wellington had divided his troops into two corps d’armée and a reserve, the former commanded respectively by the Prince of Orange and Lord Hill, the last by himself. The first corps included the divisions of Cooke and Alten, and the greater part of the Dutch-Belgians, under Chass¢, Perponcher, and Collaert. The second corps consisted of Colville’s and Clinton’s divi- sions, and a division and a half of Dutch-Belgians, under Prince Frederic of Orange. The reserve was composed of Picton’s and Cole’s divisions, the Nassauers, and Bruns- wickers. The guns were partially distributed through the divisions. The whole of the cavalry was under the orders of the Earl of Uxbridge, and the British portion was kept united in cantonments. Three excellent British foot regi- ments were detached to form the nucleus of the maritime fortress garrisons. With this force Wellington barred the road to Brussels and Antwerp, and covered his line of communications with England. Hence he occupied an immense front. Commencing from the right, at Ostend, the line followed the frontier. Nieu- port, Ypres, Courtrai, Tournai, Mons, had been strengthened so far as to be able to embarrass the march of an army at- tempting to break into Belgium between the Scheldt and the Lys, or between the Scheldt and the Sambre, and also to cover the movement of troops within this line of posts. Wherever it was practicable, the sluices were opened, and the country was inundated. It was behind these fortified towns, and between them and Antwerp and Ghent, that the Anglo-Belgian army was posted. From Courtrai to Mons ran a chain of cavalry outposts in observation, and in rear of these stood the divisions of the army. The great mass of the troops were cantoned in the wide plains between the 42 THE ARMY RESTORES THE EMPEROR. [BOOK I. Scheldt and the great road from Charleroi through Brussels to Antwerp. Lord Hill’s head-quarters were at Ath, on the Dender, and the brigades of his corps extended to the right as far as the Lys, and to the left in the direction of Mons. The first corps formed the left of the army, the head- quarters were at Braine le Comte, and the divisions were on each side of the highway from Mons to Brussels. The most forward post on this side was at Binche, and the farthest to the left was at Frasne. In the rear of Hill lay the great body of the cavalry, cantoned in the valley of the Dender, the head-quarters being at Grammont ; and in rear of the Prince of Orange was the reserve, in and about Brussels, with one brigade of Cole’s division at Ghent, Thus there were nearly 30,000 men on the right, that is, between the Dender and the Scheldt, nearly as many on the, left, between the Dender and the Brussels and Charleroi, — road ; about 8,000 horsemen in and about Grammont and Ninhove, a central position, and the 25,000 men of the reserve near Brussels. Hence two-thirds of the army were really east of the Dender, upon the great roads leading from Valenciennes and Maubeuge upon Brussels, and on the flank of the road through Charleroi to the Belgian capital. Wellington has been censured severely by British and Continental writers for this widely-spread disposition of his army. It has been declared to be incontestable that the troops were trop a droite. This is one of those nice points which it is almost profitless to discuss. The French, accustomed to live upon requisitions, do not give weight to Wellington’s answer, that one reason for the wide distribu- tion of his troops was, that the feeding of the army was facilitated thereby. Colonel Charras makes light of this,! ‘General Sir James Shaw Kennedy, in his admirable little book, published in 1865, agrees with Charras, and puts his statement of the CHAP. Il.] THE ALLIES IN THE LOW COUNTRIES. 43 points to the vast resources at Wellington’s disposal, and the great natural wealth of the Low Countries. But this able writer forgets that there were Prussians as well as British to be fed, that the former were living at free quarters, and that there were nearly 30,000 cavalry between Liége and Ghent. Every critic, without exception, appears to be more or less influenced by the fact that Napoleon attacked at the point where the flanks of the two armies lapped over each other, and necessarily the point involving the longest marches for the outlying divisions. Perhaps this is inevitable, but considering that the two armies were awaiting the assembly of other and distant forces, with a view to extensive operations ; that in the meantime they had to secure their communication—one with Ostend, Antwerp, and England, the other with the Rhine and Germany ; that they had to draw subsistence from the Low Countries, and desired to draw it with the least inconvenience to a friendly nation; and, above all, considering that the adversary, whom they had to guard against, was Napoleon Bonaparte, who had the initiative, one might have expected a somewhat less partial survey than we find in some quarters. If it is incontestable that the British army was too much to the right, it is also incontestable that Napoleon might have attacked on that side, or have adopted any other course than case in these sweeping terms: “ The totally inadequate reason for not concentrating the Armies [Prussian as well as English] was » mere alleged inconvenience as to supplies ; in other words two Armies, fully prepared with all their means of taking the field, in the richest country in Europe, and with their communications both by sea and land com- pletely open, were, for this mere supposed inconvenience, to risk being destroyed in detail by an inferior army. Ifthe Allied armies had been in this helpless state as to their means of subsistence, they would have been totally unequal to manceuvre as an army in junction in the face of the enemy.” This 1s a controversy which will go on until Waterloo is forgotten. AA THE ARMY RESTORES THE EMPEROR. [BOOK 1. the course he did adopt. What he would do no man could have foreseen. ‘ His numbers, his movements, his designs were concealed, protected, and supported by his formidable fortresses on the frontier up to the last moment previous to their being put in execution.” ‘“ The initiative rested with the enemy, and the course to be pursued by the allied generals respectively was to be prepared to move in all directions, to wait until it should be seen in what direction the attack would be made, and then to assemble the armies as quickly as possible to resist the attack, or to attack the enemy with the largest force that could be collected.” Such are Wellington’s own words.! It is admitted that the sure eye of Napoleon detected the weakest point in the defensive dispositions of the Allies. It is manifest that he fell upon it with great velocity. What might have occurred had he swooped or manceuvred upon some other point, no one can say. What did occur when he assailed the Allies at their point of junction has resounded. through the world for half a century, and formed the basis of one of the longest periods of European peace on record. And yet, because men, bewildered by his glory, have assumed that Napoleon could accomplish any design, however vast, which it pleased him to plan, we are asked to believe, not that Napoleon framed and attempted to execute too vast a project, but that Wellington and Blucher blundered into victory on the fields of Quatre Bras and Waterloo. If cir- cumstances, if the large and complicated interests at stake— the fate of kings, armies, and nations—compelled Welling- ton and Blucher to make a radically defective disposition of their forces, how much greater is their glory, since, in spite of all these disadvantages, they were able to fight four battles within three days, and utterly circumvent and rout the superb army of their formidable foe ! ? Memorandum on the work of General Clausewitz. CHAP. II.] THE ALLIES IN THE LOW COUNTRIES. 45 The fact is that Wellington and Blucher were never for a moment off their guard. Their arrangements for moving in any direction were ample and complete ; their eyes were ever turned towards the frontier, and their ears were open to catch the slightest sign of Napoleon’s movements and intentions. Wellington felt no alarm, because he was well prepared. He had deeply reflected upon the task before him, and had coolly taken a wide and profound survey of his own duties. He was in constant communication not only with Blucher, but with Schwarzenberg, Wrede, and Alexander; and, while he provided for the defence of Belgium, he also looked forward to the invasion of France. He did not anticipate an irruption of the French between the Sambre and Meuse, because, in his judgment, that was not a good line of operations. Surely we are entitled to say that the result made good his judgment. No doubt it may be said that had Napoleon’s plans been executed as he designed them, the Allies would have been cut in two and defeated. But, in answer to that, it may be said that if the movements ordered by the allied generals had been executed, then even Napoleon’s grand. scheme would still have failed. But the fact is, that this project of Napoleon’s has been exaggerated ; for it was formed on the assumption, and it was only practicable on the assumption, that the Allies would concentrate to the right and left of the road from Charleroi to Brussels, and offer themselves’ in detail to his conquering sword. They did neither the one nor the other. There were mischances on both sides, but the greater blunders and misconceptions were on the side of Napoleon. Thus much by way of commentary on unjust criticisms founded mainly on those perversions of histury concocted at St. Helena. If the British general had posted his forces trop & droite, on the same principle the Prussian general had posted his 46 THE ARMY RESTORES THE EMPEROR. [BOOK I. army trop 4 gauche; for the point of concentration of the most distant corps was Liége, on the Meuse, upwards of fifty miles, as the crow flies, from Fleurus. The Prussian army was divided into four corps, each a complete army in itself, being composed of four brigades of infantry, with a due proportion of cavalry and artillery. The Ist, com- manded by General von Ziethen, stood on the right; the ‘2nd, under General Pirch, in the right centre; the 8rd, under General von Thielemann, on the left panttine, thrown forward over the Meuse ; and the 4th, under Count Bilow, on the left. The point of concentration for the 4th corps was Lidge, and the brigades of the corps were posted chiefly on the north.and west of head-quarters. The 38rd corps occupied the country between the Meuse and the Ourte, having its head-quarters at Ciney, midway between the two rivers, and one brigade at Huy, on the Meuse. The out- posts were extended southward towards the frontier as far as Rochefort and Dinant. The 2nd corps had its head- ‘quarters at Namur; its brigades occupied the road from that place towards Louvain, but one brigade was at Huy. ‘The outposts were on the left bank of the Meuse, the most advanced being at Sossoye, communicating on its left with Thielemann, and on its right with Ziethen. The 1st corps occupied the line of the Sambre from Thuin on the right bank to Moustier sur Sambre on the left. Thehead-quarters were at Charleroi. One brigade was in and around Fontaine TEvéque, a second at Marchienne au Pont, a third at Fleurus, and the fourth in Moustier sur Sambre. The cavalry and reserve artillery were in Sombref and Gem- bloux. The outposts followed the Sambre from Lobbes and ‘Thuin to Charleroi, and thence extended through Gerpinnes -across the angle formed by the Sambre and Meuse towards Sossoye. Thus the Prussian right overlapped the British left, for Ziethen’s detachments were posted close to Binche CHAP. Il.] THE ALLIES IN THE LOW COUNTRIES. 47 in communication with the Dutch-Belgian divisions can- toned on the Haine. Ziethen occupied, therefore, both sides of the road from Charleroi to Brussels, covering the British posts at Frasne, Quatre Bras, and Genappe on that road. Blucher had his head-quarters at Li¢ge, and it is admitted that, orders being promptly obeyed, the whole Prussian army might have been collected in twenty-four hours, either at Ciney, Fleurus, Namur, or Liége. Welling- ton himself admits that he could not have assembled his army so quickly, but he contends that the objects he had in view, the nature of the country he had to protect, “ con- tiguous in its whole extent to the French frontier, and traversed in all parts by excellent paved roads leading from some one or other of the French fortresses, required a system of occupation quite different from that adopted” by the Prussian generals. Every one can judge for himself the force of the Duke’s remark. The, Prussians, in truth, were less exposed than the British, and their communications were less easily assailed. They were supported on both flanks—by the British on their right, and by the allied armies assembling on their left; while the British force formed the extreme right flank of the great armies of the coalition, and might have been assailed at various points by the whole weight of the French army. Except in so far as they serve to exercise the ingenuity of the critic these discus- sions are sterile. The Allies in Belgium were not can- toned by chance: it was their duty to preserve intact certain great political and military interests, and they were posted systematically that they might cope with any contingency. The arrangements adopted were so good that they were able to meet and frustrate an enemy, free to choose his own time and mode of attack. They, there- fore, answered their purpose. L 48 THE ARMY RESTORES THE EMPEROR. [BOOK I, § 3. Preparations and Projects. Practically, from the very first moment the Allies were obliged to be on their guard. Wellington was no sooner established in Belgium than he took measures to induce the Prussian general to draw towards Brussels and take up quarters between Charleroi and Huy, in order that, if need were, the two armies should be in a position to assemble “in front” of the capital of Belgium. The Prince of Orange and General Kleist had talked of concentrating at Tirlemont ; but Wellington, from the very first, insisted that Brussels ought not to be abandoned. The Allied Armies in the Low Countries, he said, covered the as- sembly of the troops of the Allied Powers. The former were bound, at this stage, to act on the defensive, because they had to wait for a plan of operations and a signal to attack from the sovereigns at Vienna. Although at that early period there were French forces of unknown magni- tude assembled behind the screen of French fortresses, Wellington felt the utmost confidence in his ability to defeat them should they avail themselves of the initia- tive and attack. To facilitate communication with the Prussians, and promote his views, he sent Sir Henry Hardinge to their head-quarters. While adopting a de- fensive system Wellington did not overlook the chances of immediate offensive warfare. He calculated that the Allies could enter France on the 1st of May with 270,000 men: his own troops, the Prussians, and the Austro- Bavarians ; and he estimated that at this period Napoleon would not have more than 180,000 disposable for service in the field. His reason for suggesting instant war was that by adopting this course the Allies would anticipate “the plans and measures of Buonaparte.” “His power now rests,” he contended, ‘upon no foundation but the army,” CHAP. Il.] THE ALLIES IN THE LOW COUNTRIES. 49 a statement often disputed then and since, but one which events proved to be sagacious and well founded. But Napoleon’s energy rendered the plan of Wellington abor- tive. His despotic action worked more swiftly and de- cisively than the vast unwieldy machine opposed to him ; and Wellington found reason, two days after he devised his scheme of invasion, to reverse his opinion, and declare that circumstances no longer rendered it advisable to attempt its execution. The circumstances referred to were the capitulation of the Duke of Angouléme, the organization of the grenadier battalions of the National Guard, and the call for soldiers recently discharged, 100,000 of whom, Wellington calculated, would join the French army. These measures brought the forces of the Allies and Napoleon too nearly on a numerical equality to make invasion prudent. Wellington had a wise respect for the abilities of Napoleon, and the habit of not under- rating his adversary proved as useful to him as the con- trary habit proved injurious to Napoleon. The Ist of May arrived and with it false reports of the march of the Imperial Guard, and of the intention of Bonaparte to visit the frontier. Yet uncertain of their value, Wellington issued the first orders directing a con- centration of the cantonments of the troops. Informing the Harl of Uxbridge of this order, he said that “all dis- positions were so made that the whole army could be collected in one short movement, with the Prussians on his left.” The line of operations which he deemed it pro- bable that the French would select was either between the Lys and Scheldt, or between the Scheldt and Sambre, or by both, and for each contingency he was prepared. This order alone shows that Wellington was never for one moment in a position where he could be surprised, pro- viding he obtained from the outposts prompt informa- E 50 THE ARMY RESTORES THE EMPEROR. [BOOK I, tion of the enemy’s movements. He had personally in- spected the whole line of defence from Ostend to Mons, and his military study of Belgium in 1814 had made him familiar not only with its strong, but its weak places. He was therefore “ready to move in every direction,” and his ally, Blucher, had taken the same precaution, on his side. The very situation in which they were placed rendered caution, vigilance, and good arrangements necessary ; for, up to the moment when Napoleon attacked, the Allies were compelled to remain on the defensive, close to a fron- ‘tier over which their patrols could not pass, behind which an enemy might suddenly collect at any point, from which he might strike an equally sudden blow. They were, on the 14th of June, performing the duty described by Wellington on the 5th of April—covering the assembly of armies on the Rhine, protecting large political interests in Belgium, maintaining and securing their communications with England and Germany, and waiting for the signal from Vienna to break through the barrier into France. Generals in such a situation would be madmen if they slumbered at their posts; and assuredly neither Welling- ton nor Blucher shut their eyes or ears. Both obtained tolerably accurate intelligence, but manifestly not so pre- cise as that which could have been gathered up had their patrols hovered close upon the enemy’s cantonments. “In the situation,” wrote Wellington to the Prince of Orange, on the 11th of May, ‘in which we are placed at present, neither at peace nor at war, unable on that account to patrol up to the enemy and ascertain his position by view, or to act offensively upon any part of his line, it is difficult, if not impossible, to combine an operation, because there are no data on which to found any combination. All we can do is put our troops in such a situation as, in case of sudden attack by the enemy, to render it easy to assemble, CHAP. Ir.] THE ALLIES IN THE LOW COUNTRIES. 51 and provide against the chance of being cut off from the rest.” This passage fully explains the sound principle on which he acted, and shows at the same time how much he relied on his own genius, and on the talents of his lieu- tenants. Full of confidence, he urged offensive operations as speedily as possible. There was not a moment to lose. “Tsay nothing about our defensive operations,” he writes on the 8th of May, ‘because I am inclined to believe that Blucher and I are so well united and so strong, that the enemy cannot dous much mischief. I am at the advanced post of the whole; the greatest part of the enemy’s force is in my front; and if I am satisfied, others need be under no apprehensions.” A rumour that Napoleon had left Paris brought the Prussian head-quarters to Hannut, and soon afterwards they were carried to Namur. Wellington ob- tained a pretty good account of the general state, strength, and disposition of the disposable force in France, and for- warded his information to the commanders of the allied armies on the Rhine, as well as to Blucher. He heard that Soult and Mortier were employed, and that measures had been taken to move the Guard from Paris to Maubeuge in forty-eight hours. These statements, so nearly true, were not of a nature to lull an officer like Wellington, and they did not. He was incessantly active, and ever prepared. The Allies occupied a front almost co-extensive with the frontier of France. Wellington and Blucher commanded the forces nearest to Paris; the other armies were more distant ; the whole being in echelon, from the Scheldt to the Swiss frontier. The plan of campaign suggested by Wellington, and approved, was this:—The left was to move first, because it was the most distant from Paris, and opposed by the smallest force, and because the fortresses interposed serious obstacles to a movement on the right. When the left had reached Langres, the centre would cross 52 THE ARMY RESTORES THE EMPEROR. [BOOK I. the Meuse, occupy Sedan, and watch Metz and Thionville; then the right would enter France, and get possession of Givet and Maubeuge. Three grand masses, 150,000 strong, would thus successively invade France, and, connecting their operations, press forward towards Paris, supported by the reserves, principally composed of Russians. On this plan it is needless to dwell, since its execution was anticipated by Napoleon. CHAPTER III. GENERAL POSITION ON THE EVE OF THE CAMPAIGN, E have seen that Napoleon, by the beginning of June, had raised the effective force of the French regular army to 276,982 men, of whom 198,130 were dis- posable for war. But, threatened on all sides by implac- able enemies, he could not bring all his cannon, bayonets, and sabres to bear upon one point. The largest mass of his adversaries had gathered close on his northern frontier, and therefore he kept four corps and a mass of cavalry be- tween the Meuse and the Lys, one on the Moselle, and the Imperial Guard at Paris. These, combined, were destined to form the fighting, or, in the inflated language of the Empire, the Grande Armée. The larger part of the re- mainder of the disposable effective of the troops of the line, some 52,000 men, together with 38,000 National Guards d’élite, were divided into six small bodies, whereof two were styled corps d’armée, the 5th and 7th, and four were called corps of observation. They were scattered. between Strasbourg and Antibes, thus :— The 5th corps, 19,000 troops of the line, and 3,000 National Guards, under Count Rapp, held the famous lines of the Lauter, between Hagenau and Landau, having its head-quarters in Strasbourg. Napoleon had promised 54 THE ARMY RESTORES THE EMPEROR. [BOOK I. Rapp 40,000 troops of the line when he sent him to com- mand on the Upper Rhine. At the opening of the cam- paign he had not half that number under arms—a feeble force wherewith to face the masses collecting in Baden and Wurtemburg and in the provinces on the left bank of the great German river. On the right of Rapp, but at a con- siderable distance, General Le Courbe, with a force of 4,446 regulars and 10,000 National Guards, watched Basle and the passes of the Jura range; while a weak division of National Guards hardly kept up the communication with Rapp. On the right of Le Courbe, Marshal Suchet, with the 7th corps, a mixed force like the others, 8,814 of the line and 12,000 National Guards, held Chambery and Grenoble. His corps was styled the Army of the Alps, and its contingent of National Guards was half armed, » barely equipped, and poorly clad. A much weaker body, 4,081 men, under Marshal Brune, was scattered between Toulon and the Var. On the Spanish frontier, Decaen was at Toulouse, in front of the Eastern, and Clauzel at Bor- deaux, watching the Western Pyrenees; the aggregate of their troops, National Guards included, did not exceed 14,000 men. The forces available for the defence of Napoleon from his external enemies was further dimi- nished by 8,500 troops of the Line and 6,000 National Guards, who, under General Lamarque, Contended with enemies within; for the royalists were up in the West, and they occupied the attention of Lamarque until the ends of June in the old battle-ground of La Vendée. Behind all these troops were the depéts, but almost drained of men ; and in the fortresses were distributed some 150,000 National Guards, sailors, and local troops. Thus the forces in the hands of Napoleon were 276,982 regulars and about 200,000 other troops, for the most part inferior; giving a total of 476,982 men. CHAP. III.] THE EVE OF THE CAMPAIGN. 55 The energy and resolution of the Allies are conspicuously shown in the general enumeration of the immense forces they had directed upon France. Austria, beside the Army engaged in the overthrow of Murat in Italy, had collected nearly 100,000 men on the Rhine between Manheim and Basle. About 80,000 Bavarians, Wurtemburgers, Hessians, and Badeners, under Prince Wrede, were in the Palatinate and on the Upper Rhine. Some 26,000 men, under General Kleist, were in Luxembourg and Rhenish Prussia. Throughout the months of April and May three strong Russian columns were marching across Germany from Poland, Silesia, and Bohemia, upon Mayence, Oppenheim, and Manheim ; and their leading divisions arrived in time to take part in the opening movements of the campaign upon the Rhine. In addition to these forces an Austro- Sardinian army was collected for the invasion ‘of the south- eastern departments. It was arranged that the forces on both banks of the Rhine should simultaneously invade France from Mayence to Basle, supported by the Russians, and directing their steps towards Chalons sur Marne, St. Diziers, and Rheims, while the corps of Kleist advanced, and watched, and controlled the garrisons on the Meuse between Meziers and Verdun. At the same time the Austro-Sardinian army was to cross the Alps and march on Lyons. The forces on the right flank—Blucher’s and Wellington’s—-were to regulate their progress by that of the centre and left. The object of the whole, upwards of 700,000 strong, was Paris. But Napoleon would not wait to be attacked, and hence the brunt as well as the glory of the short war fell upon the British and Prussian armies. It has been seen that the first thought of Napoleon when he found himself once more in the Tuileries was of | war, An instinct told: him that he would attract towards himself the whole force of Europe. How could he best: 56 THE ARMY RESTORES THE EMPEROR. [BOOK I. meet it? He has stated that, on the 2nd of April, when Wellington was hastening from Vienna to the Low Coun- tries, he might have occupied Brussels. No doubt such an exploit was possible, but a little reflection showed him that it would not be wise. For he admits that to achieve pos- session of the capital of Belgium he must have taken the regular troops out of the garrisons, and have confided the care of the strong places to the local National Guards. It was precisely these local troops whom he could not trust, for there were numerous partisans of the Bourbons in Picardy and Flanders. Moreover, Napoleon had loudly declared that peace with the world was his most ardent desire, and at the moment no doubt it was. France, too, desired peace, and thus the Emperor dared not invade Belgium in April; first, because he had not the means; next, because he would have too roughly, and abruptly, and flagrantly, set at nought the professions he deemed it expedient to parade before a wearied nation when he re- ascended the throne. Nor was this all; he thought that, by delaying hostilities, he might break up the coalition ; and, by assuming the airs of an injured man, and present- ing himself in the character of vindicator of national inde- pendence, he hoped, at least, to furnish arguments to his friends in the British Parliament, By his intrigues he aspired to shake the resolution of Austria and.to detach Russia; by his hypocritical moderation he hoped to em- barrass the British Government, perhaps help to bring their opponents into office. Then delay would afford him invaluable time to make those preparations which we have already described. Hence he deferred hostilities. But his illusions were soon dispelled. The conduct of the Allies, and the vast scale of their counter-preparations compelled him to admit that his open appeals and secret intrigues had failed. On CHAP. III. ] THE EVE OF THE CAMPAIGN. 57 the other side of the frontier the armed hosts were increas- ing as fast as the men could march. In a few weeks the signal would be given, and these hosts, overstepping the frontiers, would converge in dense columns upon Paris. It was plain to him that he was isolated in Europe, with nothing to depend on but himself and his army. Then came the questions, should he act on the defensive, abandoning Flanders, Picardy, Artois, Alsace, Lorraine, Champagne, Burgundy, and Dauphiny, and basing him- self upon Paris and Lyons, (which by the end of July he thought would be completely fortified,) wage a vigorous and defensive war; or should he forestall the Allies by striking at Wellington and Blucher before the Austrians and Russians were ready to march? Napoleon himself has set forth, with great minuteness, the advantages of the first course. He estimates that the Allies could not have appeared before Paris and Lyons until the middle of August; that by this time their force would have been reduced to 450,000 men on the Seine and 100,000 before Lyons; that his own troops of every description would have increased, and would continue to increase every day ; and that independently of the garrison of the intrenched camp of Paris (116,000 men), he would have had 240,000 choice troops, wherewith to manceuvre on both banks of the Seine and the Marne. Napoleon dared not adopt this plan, which seemed to present so many chances of ultimate success. Had he at that moment commanded the un- hesitating devotion of France, as he commanded the abso- lute devotion of the army, it might have been practicable. But the popular feeling would have been turned against him, and even his immense influence over the army would have been weakened, had he abandoned the frontier depart- ments. His relations with Europe were under political interdict ; his relations with the constitutional and repub- 58 THE ARMY RESTORES THE EMPEROR. [BOOK I. lican factions were so strained that he was compelled to escape from them by having recourse to action. Hence he determined to wind up his political affairs in Paris, and adopting the second plan, to fall upon the nearest corps of the Allies. This he held to be more conformable to the genius of the nation, and the spirit and principle of the war; for France is neither like Russia nor Spain. On the supposition that the Allies could not begin hostilities until the 15th of July, he determined to begin on the 15th of June. He hoped to collect 140,000 men in Flan- ders; to {defeat the Anglo-Belgic and Prussian armies ; raise the Belgian people and recruit the French from the Belgian army; and then, reinforced by the 5th corps (Rapp’s) and by supplies of men from the depdts, to meet the Austrians and Russians and fight them in Dumouriez’s old battle-field, Champagne. He regarded it as a probable result, that the defeat of Wellington would entail the fall of the British Government, which would be replaced, he thought, by the friends of peace ; if so, this single event, he said, would terminate the war. It will be seen how full of errors were the premises on which Napoleon built up this prospect of success. He had friends in Belgium, but not more than Louis XVIII. had in French Flanders, nay, in Paris, and very few of the Bonapartists were in the Belgian Army; while it is now abundantly clear that the British nation was never, during the whole course of the struggle, so unanimously and so heartily in favour of pro- secuting the war against Napoleon. The picture which the Emperor has drawn of himself as the Liberator of Nations stands out in rude contrast to the fact that the nations were sending every adult male they could spare to strike down and secure the self-styled liberator himself. Napoleon, determined to begin the war without delay, had next to choose his line of operations. He knew from CHAP. UI.] THE EVE OF THE CAMPAIGN. 59 his spies how widely the Allies were spread over the Low Countries. He was aware that the two armies had two distinct and divergent bases, and were commanded by two generals differing materially in character. His only chance of success lay in swift marches and crushing victories. To win these victories he must defeat his foes in detail, and . though his aggregate force was weaker than their aggregate force, yet he must contrive to be always the stronger at the point of contact. Therefore, he argued, that he must neither attack between the Moselle and the Meuse, because that course would allow Wellington to join Blucher with- out molestation ; nor must he attack between the Sambre and Scheldt, because in that case Blucher would be able to effect a junction with Wellington. Nor, and for similar reasons, did he deem it prudent to descend the Meuse and attack Namur. The fact that the Allies would require the longest time to concentrate on their inner flanks did not escape him. He, therefore, determined to attack between the Sambre and Meuse. He calculated that if he struck at the centre of the two armies he should be able to wedge himself in between them, crushing any divisions which attempted to obstruct his progress, and having won a position of vantage he imagined that it would be in his power to manceuvre with rapidity from side to side, and defeat each army in succession. With unbounded con- fidence, nourished by the recollection of 1814, he deter- mined to fling himself into the midst of his foes, and by risking, with consummate daring if not consummate skill, the highest stake he had upon the first throw, he hoped to win the favour of fortune and lessen the chances against ultimate success by disabling his two most redoubtable adversaries. It was in this frame of mind that he resolved on immediate war, and devised the brilliant scheme where- by he intended to bring victory back to the eagles. CHAPTER IV. THE INVASION OF BELGIUM. § 1. Concentration of the French Army. APOLEON’S first operation was a masterpiece. He rapidly concentrated, between the Sambre and the Meuse, nearly 130,000 men, consisting of the Ist, 2nd, 8rd, 4th, and 6th corps d’armée, commanded respectively by D’Erlon, Reille, Vandamme, Gérard, and Lobau, of the Imperial Guard, and of four corps of reserve cavalry. -At the beginning of June the corps of D’Erlon, Reille, and Vandamme were in cantonments on the northern frontier between Lille near the Scheldt and Méziéres on the Meuse, the connecting links being Rocroi, Avesnes, Maubeuge, and Valenciennes. Every road on the frontier was strictly and closely guarded, and every precaution was taken to prevent Wellington and Blucher from obtaining correct information. Yet early in June both were pretty well aware what posts were occupied by each corps, by whom they were commanded, and their probable strength. In rear of these three corps stood Lobau at Laon, where Soult, temporarily in command of the whole, had his head- quarters. The four corps of cavalry, commanded by Pajol, Excelmans, Kellerman, and Milhaud, about to be placed under the orders of Marshal Grouchy, were can- toned between Laon and Avesnes. The artillery park was CHAP. IV.] THE INVASION OF BELGIUM. 61 at La Fére on the river Serre. In rear of all was the Imperial Guard united at Compiégne. We have accounted for the whole force except that of Gérard. The corps he commanded was styled the Army of the Moselle, and was cantoned on that river between Metz and Thionvilie. It thus pointed to the Rhine rather than the Sambre, but when Napoleon resolved to break in upon the centre of the Allies, he called Gérard from the Moselle to the Army of the North. The concentration of these forces is one of the most remarkable features of the. campaign. Napoleon intended to surprise the Allies. To effect this it was necessary that he should appear among them suddenly; should divert attention from his real object, and deceive them, if possible. Therefore the garrisons along the whole line, from the Moselle to the North Sea, were instructed to mask the march of the several corps, while on the frontier, between Dunquerque and Mau- beuge, it was arranged that at the moment when the troops in cantonments marched for the point of concentra- tion the advanced posts should be tripled, “‘so that the enemy, deceived as to the real object, might believe that the whole army was about to be united towards its left.” This fact did not pass unobserved by the British cavalry outposts, but it did not afford a sufficient indication of the enemy’s intentions, and although it may have made him cautious, it did not cause Wellington to move a single battalion. Gérard, who had the longest march before him, was first put in motion. He quitted Metz as early as the 6th, of June, regulating his progress so as to arrive at Philippe- ville on the 13th. Two days later, on the 8th, the Imperial Guard quitted Compiégne, heading for Beaumont. In succession, Vandamme moved to his left, and Reille and D’Erlon to their right, and the cavalry gradually closed 62 THE ARMY RESTORES THE EMPEROR. [BOOK I. upon the front, inclining to their right. Thus for seven days streams of troops of all arms flowed into the country between the Sambre and the Meuse; as he had ordered, so his orders were executed by eager soldiers and excellent generals; and Napoleon had the satisfaction of finding his whole active army concentrated on the morning of the 14th. The Guard coming from Compiégne, the army of the Moselle from Metz, had arrived at the same moment as the cavalry from Laon and Avesnes, and the infantry from Rocroi and Valenciennes. It is a splendid proof of the genius of the commander, the abilities of the executive officers, and the discipline of the troops. We have seen Napoleon quit Paris at daybreak on the 12th. Ere nightfall he arrived at Laon. There he slept, relieved Soult of his command, appointed him to ‘be Major-General of the Army, that is, Chief of the Staff; and, setting forth in the morning, Napoleon went on to Avesnes. The same evening he issued the final directions to the troops, and disposed them in order for striking the long-meditated blow. It was his object to place them as close as possible to the frontier, but not actually upon it; and his array, therefore, in great measure conformed to the frontier—not the frontier as it now exists, but as it was settled in 1814. The first and second corps were on the extreme left, Reille at Leers, and D’Erlon behind him at Solre sur Sambre. Both corps were to march at three o’clock on the morning of the 15th, the first following the second, so that they might manceuvre in the same direction, and protect each other. The third corps (Vandamme’s), and the sixth corps (Lobau’s), were posted three miles in front of Beaumont; two miles in rear were the infantry of the Imperial Guard, one regiment excepted, which was in the town, while the cavalry of the Guard were in the rear of Beaumont. Next, towards the right, the four CHAP. IV.] THE INVASION OF BELGIUM. 63 corps of reserve cavalry were placed on the right front of Beaumont, and between that place and Walcourt; and on its right Gerard’s corps, late the Army of the Moselle, took its station in front of Philippeville. All were ordered to march on the morning of the 15th—the greater part at three o’clock, but the guard and 6th corps a little later. Thus this vast force presented a concave front, the left being thrown forward to the point where the frontier line crosses the Sambre. The great mass of the Imperial army was gathered to a head at Beaumont, and pointed directly upon Charleroi. Grouchy’s cavalry connected the massive centre with the lighter right wing at Philippeville. All the generals were ordered to keep secret the directions of their commander, to prevent any one from passing the frontier, and to conceal the fires of the bivouacs from the enemy. This last direction was obeyed, but it failed in its object. The fires were lighted in the ravines and interior slopes of the hills, but the quick eye of General Ziethen, on the watch night and day, detected the presence of the French army by the reflection of their concealed fires in the evening sky—a warning by which he did not neglect to profit. The army thus concentrated consisted of twenty divisions of infantry, fourteen divisions of cavalry, thirty-one batteries of foot and sixteen of horse artillery, making a total of 128,088 men, that is 89,415 infantry, 22,302 cavalry, and 15,871 artillery, with 344 guns.’ Perhaps the finest and most complete army ever commanded by Napoleon ; an army which believed in him and in victory with a force and devotion never surpassed. To this army, on the 14th, Napoleon issued the following address :— 1 Charras, 64 THE ARMY RESTORES THE EMPEROR. [BOOK f ORDER OF THE DAY. Napo.eon, by the Grace of God and the constitutions of the Empire, Emperor of the French, ete., to the Grand Army. At the Imperial Head Quarters, Avesnes, June 14, 1815, Soldiers! this day is the anniversary of Marengo and of Friedland, which twice decided the destiny of Europe. Then, as after Austerlitz, as after Wagram, we were too generous! We believed in the protesta- tions and in the oaths of princes, whom we left on their thrones. Now, however, leagued together, they assail the independence and the most sacred rights of France. They have commenced the most unjust of aggressions. Let us, then, march to meet them: are they and we no longer the same men? Soldiers! at Jena against these same Prussians, now so arrogant, you were one to three, and at Montmirail one to six. Let those among you who have been captives among the English describe the nature of their prison-ships, and the frightful miseries they endured. The Saxons, the Belgians, the Hanoverians, the Soldiers of the Confederation of the Rhine, lament that they are compelled to use their arms in the cause of princes, the enemies of justice and of the rights of all nations. They know that this coalition is insatiable! After having ~ devoured twelye millions of Poles, twelve millions of Italians, one million of Saxons, and six millions of Belgians, it now wishes to devour the states of the second rank in Germany. Madmen! one moment of prosperity has bewildered them. The oppression and humiliation of the French people are beyond their power. If they enter France they will find their graves, * Soldiers! we have forced marches to make, battles to fight, dangers to encounter; but with firmness victory will be ours. The rights, the honour, and the happiness of the country will be regained. To every Frenchman who has courage, the moment has now arrived to conquer or to die! Napoteon. The Marshal Duke of Dalmatia, Major-General. In his portfolio he had a proclamation dated by anti- cipation from “the Imperial palace of Laeken,” and CHAP. Iv.] THE INVASION OF BELGIUM. 65 addressed “to the Belgians and inhabitants of the left bank of the Rhine.” In this production, destined never to be issued, he said:—‘*The ephemeral success of my enemies has detached you, for a moment, from my empire. Tn exile, on a rock in the midst of the seas, I have heard your complaints. The God of battles has decided the destiny of your beautiful provinces—Napoleon is among you! ‘You are worthy to be Frenchmen. Rise, rejoin my invincible phalanxes to exterminate your enemies and mine. They fly with rage and despair in their hearts.” Such was the anticipation ; let us look on the reality. § 2. The Allies on the Alert. Napoleon had assembled his army rapidly and secretly» but although the Prussian outposts did not hear the cries of delight which greeted this famous Order of the Day, they saw, as we have said, the reflected light of the long line of bivouac fires, and they soon found, from observa- tion on the 14th, that a considerable force was behind the thick screen of countervailing outposts. Wellington was at Brussels, and Blucher at Namur. The French advance touched the Prussians, and not the British, and to this we must attribute the fact that Blucher had earlier and more complete information than the British commander. Ziethen was so well prepared for all possible contingencies that on: the 14th he had scarcely any change to make in the dis- position of his brigades. He had included in his estimate of contingencies the very attack Napoleon was about to make, and he had prescribed to each brigade the course it should adopt. All he had to do, therefore, was to apprise Blucher of the reasons that led him to believe the French were in force close to the frontier on the right bank of the Sambre, and about Beaumont, and of the arrival of Napo- F 66 THE ARMY RESTORES THE EMPEROR. [Book I leon at Avesnes. This he did early on the 14th, and at a later period he forwarded information that confirmed his views. Wellington also learned, probably from the Prus- sians, that the French troops on the frontier had been increased, and that Napoleon was with them; but while Blucher on the night of the 14th directed Bulow to march upon Hannut,—Pirch I. to occupy Sombref, Thielemann to concentrate upon Namur, and Ziethen to retreat, if attacked, slowly, and fighting every inch of the way, upon Fleurus, Wellington “did not deem it expedient to make any movement, excepting for the assembly of the troops at their several alarm posts, till he should hear of the decided movement of the enemy.” * At this time, that is, on the evening of the 14th, neither Blucher nor Wellington could know, what we know, that Napoleon’s object was Sombref and Quatre Bras. He had it still in his power to take other courses instead of that course he had resolved to take, and he was eminently a general who did not fear to adopt bold and unexpected tactics. Wellington, therefore, who made no move except on accurate and ample information, could not be expected to concentrate his army upon receiving the meagre reports supplied by his own and the Prussian outposts ; the more especially because the devices adopted by Napoleon on the frontier between Valenciennes and Dunquerque helped to confirm his view that some attack would be made from the side of the Scheldt. The information in the hands of both generals on the eve of the 14th would not enable any one to say whether the main attack would be made from Beau- mont or from Lille; and it is quite impossible to under- stand the situation of the allied generals on the night of the 14th, unless we exclude from our minds the knowledge ' Wellington’s Commentary on General Clausewitz. CHAP. 1V.] THE INVASION OF BELGIUM. 67 we have of Napoleon’s fixed intentions. The French were in force, Napoleon was among them; what was he about todo? That is a question we can answer, but it is nota question which could have been answered either by Blucher or Wellington on the evening of the 14th. The Duke of Wellington himself tells us that he did not “at first give credit to the reports of the intention of the enemy to attack by the valleys of the Sambre and Meuse.” And he has given his reasons: ‘“‘The enemy had destroyed the roads leading through these valleys,” and the Duke “considered that Buonaparte might have made his attack upon the allied armies in the Netherlands and upon the provinces on the left bank of the Rhine, by other lines, with more advantage.” The scanty information he had received did not shake his general views, and thus it befell that, on the night of the 14th, he did not act upon the report that the French were conjectured to have appeared that day, in force, near Solre sur Sambre and Beaumont. The night of the 14th of June, 1815, passed quickly away. Before a single French soldier had moved, the whole of the Prussian army, the corps of Ziethen ex- cepted, was in motion; the soldiers of Bulow were collect- ing at Liége, those of Pirch I. at Namur, those of Thiele- mann at Ciney. Napoleon is made to say, in the “Memoirs of St. Helena,” that he calculated on the hussar-like promptitude of Blucher, inferring from this character- istic that he would be the first to concentrate, and more eager to succour Wellington. if the latter were attacked, than Wellington would be to succour Blucher. If this be not, like so many reasons given in those “ Memoirs,” a reason formed after the fact, it is manifest that, Napoleon’s expectations were fulfilled, and more than fulfilled. What Napoleon did not expect was that the active and venture- some Blucher would be able to concentrate any force at 68 THE ARMY RESTORES THE EMPEROR. [BOOK 1, Sombref before Napoleon himself had concentrated at Fleurus a force more than sufficient to drive away what- ever might be before them. He was also right in charac. terizing Wellington as “circumspect” in his movements, but he was in error when he judged that the marches of the Duke would be slow. Assuming that the “Memoirs” correctly represent the views of Napoleon at the outset of the campaign, it is in them that the root of his greatest error is to be found. That error consisted in the under- valuing of his adversaries. Having inferred from his im- perfect estimate of their characters what they would do, he proceeded throughout upon that fatal principle, without ascertaining, by actual and close observation, whether their actions corresponded with his hypothesis, As the story is unfolded we shall have ample evidence of the cor- rectness of this view. § 3. Opening of the Campaign. The French army, massed in three columns, was under arms at the appointed hour on the morning of the 15th. The general order of movement directed the two corps of Reille and D’Erlon to march at three o'clock, following the right bank of the Sambre. Reille was to cross at the bridge of Marchienne, a little above Chaxleroi; D’Erlon was first directed upon Charleroi, but subsequently ordered to cross at Marchienne, or the bridge of Alnes, between Marchienne and Thuin. The bulk of the army in the central position of Beaumont was to move in suc- cession upon Charleroi by Ham-sur-Eure. Pajol’s light cavalry was to lead the way, mounting in the saddle and starting at half-past two. Vandamme was to follow at three; Lobau at four; the different divisions of the Guard between four and six, but the cavalry of the Guard not CHAP. Iv. | THE INVASION OF BELGIUM. 69 until eight. The three corps of cavalry remaining with Grouchy were to move at intervals of half-an-hour, begin- ning at half-past five. All these troops were to make for Charleroi. On the right Gérard was to march at three o’clock ; the original direction of this column was altered from Charleroi to Chatelet, below Charleroi, and Gérard was instructed to keep a good look-out on his right flank towards Namur. In rear of all went the baggage, rigor- ously reduced to a stinted regulation allowance. This order of movement was executed as designed, with two exceptions, Reille carried his corps steadily along the right bank of the Sambre, driving before him the Prus- sians, who, nevertheless, contested every village, but who were pushed on by the torrent of Frenchmen pouring down the valley. By ten o’clock Reille had obtained possession of the right bank of the Sambre as far as Marchienne, had seized the bridge connecting the two sections of that village, and had begun to defile his column through its crooked streets and over the river. D’Erlon followed, but slowly. The bad country roads had been made worse by the march of Reille’s troops ; hence D’Erlon made but little progress. His flanking parties crossed the river at Lobbes, and patrolled towards Mons and Binche, a movement which eaused General Chassé to collect his division on the river Haine. Gérard did not march from Philippeville until five o’clock. His brigades were in motion, when the soldiers were startled by a report that Lieutenant-General Bour- mont, the commander of the division in advance, had deserted to the enemy. The report proved to be true. Bourmont and his staff had quitted the head of the column at Florenne, whence he had the audacity to write a letter to Gérard, setting forth very lame reasons for this act of treason." It has been asserted that Napoleon 1 Bourmont, according to Sir Francis Head, rode into Charleroi 70 1HE ARMY RESTORES THE EMPEROR. ([BOOKI.. altered the direction of Gérard’s column in consequence. of Bourmont’s desertion; and it seems probable, for Gérard was moving upon Charleroi, according to Colonel Charras, when he received Bourmont’s letter. Later in the morning the fourth corps was directed to cross the Sambre at Chatelet, and the desertion of Bourmont, re- ported at head-quarters, may have induced Napoleon to make that alteration in his original plan. Gérard, march- ing through a deep, broken, and roadless country, did not reach Chatelet with the head of his column until three in the afternoon. He found the bridge unbroken and the village unoccupied; for the Prussians, Charleroi being then captured, had fallen back towards Fleurus. The desertion of Bourmont was not the only or prin- cipal mishap. The officer sent by Soult to the third corps with the order of march fell from his horse and broke a thigh, so that at six o’clock Vandamme’s troops were still on the ground where they had passed the night! The sixth corps, coming up in rear through a thick morning mist, found the road blocked, and it is from Janin, an officer in Lobau’s staff, that we learn the true cause of, the delay. When Vandamme got his orders he was soon on the move, and passed the defile in his front with quick- ness and precision. Informed of the error, and anxious to provide a support for the cavalry, Napoleon put the Young Guard in motion by cross roads upon Charleroi, Pajol’ about mid-day on the 16th, a misprint for 15th. Sir Francis says he was close to General Ziethen when Bourmont gave up the famous order of movement for the day, and declared that he had executed a cherished intention of betraying Napoleon. The “Memoirs” says that Bourmont deserted on the 14th. It was not so. He deserted on the 15th, reaching the Prussians when the French were within sight of Charleroi; a fact which deprives the act of desertion of any military importance. CHAP. IV.] THE INVASION OF BELGIUM. 71 and Domont had ridden off between two and three. They had easily swept backwards all the Prussian outposts as far as Marcinelle, a suburb of Charleroi. Here they were brought toa stand. A raised causeway, three hundred yards in length, connected Marcinelle with the bridge over the Sambre. The bridge-head was barricaded, and the hedges on the eastern side were lined with light troops. Pajol attempted to carry the causeway at a gallop, but a fire of musketry smote his horsemen in flank and front, and he was compelled to retire. Now, Vandamme should have been close behind him, and ready to fall on; yet it was seven before he quitted his bivouacs. He was still afar; it was not until the Young Guard, under Duhesme, arrived, that the causeway and the bridge were carried ; and it was noon before the light cavalry of the French rode through the passage opened for them by Duhesme’s soldiers. Thus the centre column began to pass the river, but Napoleon had been obliged to employ the Guard. At this moment, then, that is, about noon on the 15th, the heads of the left and centre columns were over the Sambre. The rear of the left, D’Erlon’s corps, was still struggling down the valley; the rear of the centre, which should have been the head, was two hours distant from Charleroi; and the right, Gérard’s corps, winding its way through deep roads and a rough country, was three hours from Chatelet. It is obvious that the first part of the pro- gramme had not been executed. Napoleon had not passed the Sambre at noon; yet he had in hand part of the Impe-. rial Guard, the whole of Reille’s corps, the light cavalry of the Guard, and two divisions of Grouchy’s horse; and there was nothing before him except the scattered batta- lions and partially formed brigades of Ziethen’s corps threading their devious way towards Fleurus. The only offensive movement on the French side was made by Pajol, 72 THE ARMY RESTORES THE EMPEROR. [BOOK I. who followed the battalion, which retreated from Char- leroi, on the road to Gilly, that is, the high road to Namur, and who sent General Clary with a regiment of hussars along the Brussels road, to communicate with Reille, now entering Jumet, and to co-operate with him in cutting off the Prussians, who were rallying from right to left. Ziethen’s corps had occupied an immense tract of country, stretching from the neighbourhood of Binche to Sossoye, in the valley of the Meuse. Three brigades were on and in front of the Sambre—the Ist, under Baron von Steinmetz, on the right; the 2nd, under General von Pirch II., in the centre; the 4th, under General von Henkel, on the left; while the 3rd, held in reserve, under General von Jagow, was at Fleurus. The French attack bore upon the Ist and 2nd, for the slow movement of Gérard from Philippeville permitted the 4th to fall back without much annoyance. But the brigades of Pirch II. and Steinmetz ran some risks, and were frequently forced to fight in order to gain time. Steinmetz was in real danger until he had passed Gosselies, for his troops were all on the west of the road to Brussels ; through Gosselies lay their line of retreat, and between them and Gosselies ran the Piéton, a tributary of the Sambre. They had to be collected from widely separated posts, and to seek safety in crossing the road. Reille’s vehement march, close pursuit, and rapid capture of Marchienne, seriously endangered the retreat of the 1st Prussian brigade, because the passage of the Sambre at Marchienne gave Reille the means of marching straight upon Gosselies, and the arrival of Clary from Charleroi rendered it more probable that the retreating Prussians would be cut off. Ziethen, foreseeing the peril, sent a regiment from the reserve at Fleurus to occupy Gosselies, in conjunction with Lutzow’s lancer regiment. It was a critical moment, for Steinmetz CHAP. IV.] | THE INVASION OF BELGIUM. 73 was still on the right bank of the Pidton when Clary’s hussars appeared at Jumet, and in his rear marched the leading infantry division of Reille’s corps. Lutzow, seeing the danger which threatened the lst brigade, issued forth, and, charging with resolution, drove the French hussars back upon Jumet. This happy charge enabled Steinmetz to pass the Piéton, and hold in check the head of Reille’s column, now pressing on, while his main body retreated by Heppignies upon Fleurus, followed by General Girard, commanding a division of Reille’s corps. Steinmetz had just gone off when Ney arrived to take the command of the Ist and 2nd corps and the light cavalry of the Guard, which, however, he was not to use. He had” only been directed to join the army on the 11th. Hastening from his country house to Paris, and thence to Beaumont, he found himself at the latter late in the night, but with- out horses. It chanced that Marshal Mortier, appointed to command the Guard, had fallen ill; Ney bought from him two horses, and, at eleven o’clock, attended only by Colonel Heymés, he set out for Charleroi. About half-past four he came up with Napoleon at the fork of the Namur and Brussels roads, in front of Charleroi,’ and he was directed 1 A remarkable, but somewhat dull book, published, in 1841, by Lieu- tenant-Colonel de Baudus, who was on Soult’s staff in 1815, contains the description of a striking scene not noticed by any other contemporary writer, so far as I am aware. It is this: “ After having passed the Sambre at Charleroi,” he writes, ‘‘ Napoleon, wishing to see the troops on the march, ascended the high ground which commands the right bank [whence they came], and, as the road is very narrow where he stopped, he tock his station at the entrance of a large court, caused a chair to be brought, in which he sat down and soon fell into a profound sleep. It would be impossible, without having been present, to form a just idea of the enthusiasm manifested by the soldiers, and I cannot ex- press the indignation which possessed me when I saw that those vivazs, these cries of joy, noble and energetic translation of the infamous shouts of the Roman Gladiators : Morituri salutamus te Cesar, were no more able- 74: THE ARMY RESTORES THE EMPEROR. [BOOK I, at once to take command of the corps of D’Hrlon and Reille, and, with them, still widely separated, with Piré’s cavalry, and the light horse of the Guard—which he was not to use—Ney was told to drive back the enemy. He had no other instructions. While the lst Prussian brigade was extricating itself from threatened destruction, the 2nd had been collected by Pirch II. The long delay enforced upon Pajol at Charleroi had given the Prussian troops on the right bank of the Sambre, east and west of Charleroi, time to assemble and reach the Namur road in good order. They had been followed by Pajol and Excelmans, but these horsemen were compelled to halt in front of Pirch II., who had contrived to occupy a showy position on the hills and in the woods behind Gilly, and between the French and Fleurus. The Prussians, extended from Soleilmont to the left bank of the Sambre, presented a line of battle which Grouchy’s cavalry dared not assail. This position was secure, because Stein- metz occupied the attention of Girard, who might other- wise have cut in upon its right rear; because Gérard, whose corps menaced the left, had only just touched upon the bridge of Chatelet, and because the Prussians stood across the roads converging upon Fleurus. But it was not their object to fight a battle : they were only displayed that they might retard the march of the French. Grouchy, seeing this barrier to his progress, rode back to Charleroi for instructions. He met Vandamme’s corps, which had at length defiled through Charleroi, marching down the Namur road, and he found Marshal Ney, who had just joined the army, receiving instructions from the Emperor. Ney rode off to Gosselies, and Napoleon and Grouchy hastened to Gilly. It was now nearly six o’clock, and the to wake him when he fell asleep than they were to keep him awake when they first broke forth.” CHAP. 1V.] THE INVASION OF BELGIUM. 75 Prussians, who had been assailed at eight in the morning at Charleroi, were still standing in battle array not five miles from that city. Twice had the progress of the French cavalry been arrested because no infantry were at hand. At length a force of all arms was collected, and Napoleon, rapidly scanning the enemy’s position, directed an attack upon all points. The infantry moving in echelon from the right, the cavalry of Hxcelmans striking at both flanks, the Prussians waited no longer. Exchanging shots with the French, they fell back with measured steps. The French cavalry on the Fleurus road were stopped by an abattis, and on the extreme right they found no opportunity of reaching the enemy. Napoleon, eager to strike, suddenly directed his escort, consisting of four squadrons under General Letort, upon three battalions retiring on the French right of the Fleurus road. Letort, an intrepid officer, charged home, cut up one battalion, but failed to , touch the other two, one of which, protected by a display of cavalry, got into the wood, while another, forming square, beat off the horse, and retreated in safety. General Letort was killed. The Prussians continued to fall back, and in such fine order that even Napoleon, who led the pur- suit, could not get at them. At dusk they were in and be- hind Fleurus, but the French halted at Lambusart, and Napoleon, overcome by fatigue, returned to meditate, or sleep, at Charleroi. § 4. Ney at Frasne. When Ney joined the head of Reille’s corps at Gosselies, and learned the situation of his command, as a measure of precaution, he halted two divisions, those of Foy and Prince Jerome,’ and posted them in that town and in the wood of 1 Colonel Charras states that Guilleminot really led this division. 76 ‘HE ARMY RESTORES THE EMPEROR. [BOOK I, Lombuc. His next business was to discover the enemy, whom he had been ordered to drive back. Piré, therefore, with his cavalry division, was sent to feel for the enemy along the road to Brussels, and Bachelu’s infantry were put in motion to follow and support the horsemen. The lead. ing squadrons of Piré soon touched the outposts of the ex- treme left of Wellington’s army. The Dutch-Belgian generals stationed between Braine le Comte and Mons were on the alert, and engaged in concentrating their brigades, Aroused by the increasing cannonade about Charleroi, warned of the French advance by flying peasants and wounded Prussian soldiers, Prince Bernhard of Saxe- Weimar had united his brigade at Quatre Bras, except a battalion of Nassauers under Major Norman, and Byleveld’s Dutch battery of horse artillery, which held the advanced post of Frasne. Piré, moving along the high road, drove in the outlying picket of infantry, and testing the strength of the supports by a more rapid advance, he was himself compelled to fall back before the shower of grape poured into his squadrons from the guns of the Dutchmen. Ney, who had followed along the road with the light cavalry of the Guard, now came up, and hastening the march of Bachelu’s in- fantry, attacked Frasne with the first battalions that arrived. Major Norman then withdrew the Nassauers,,under cover of the grape from the Dutch guns, and Ney followed ; but seeing the infantry of the enemy retire into the Wood of Bossu, observing the heads of columns in the direction of Quatre Bras, hearing the warm cannonade in his right rear towards Fleurus, and having only a part of Bachelu’s division in hand, he advanced no farther. The sun had set. He knew not what progress Napoleon had made; he knew not the strength of the enemy in front; he had received no order to occupy Quatre Bras; he therefore retired upon Frasne; and, leaving there Bachelu’s division, supported CHAP. IV.] THE INVASION OF BELGIUM. 77 by Piré and the light cavalry of the Guard, he rode back to Gosselies, and thence to Charleroi. § 5. Marches and final Positions of the French Army. Thus far the French army. Whatever may have been Napoleon’s intentions, we have only to deal now with what he accomplished. What, then, was effected on the 15th? Napoleon had carried the greater part of his army to the left bank of the Sambre. He had diminished by 1,200 men, in Inlled, wounded and prisoners, the corps of General Ziethen ; but the skill and energy of that able officer had prevented Napoleon from cutting him up in detail. Ziethen ~and it was a brilliant exploit—had concentrated his scattered corps in defiance of the whole French army, had twice, at Charleroi and Gilly, delayed its progress, and had’ stopped it definitively for the day at Fleurus. Ney had also. been arrested by the display of force at Quatre Bras. At this stage it is essential to obtain an accurate concep- tion of the position occupied by the French. The army was: stillin three columns. First, take note of the posts occupied by the heads of those columns. On the left we have seen. that Ney had pushed forward as far as Frasne.' In the centre Pajol was at Lambusart, and between the centre and left stood Girard, near Heppignies and Wagnée. On the right Gérard was in front of Chatelet. But the left column extended backwards to the right bank of the Sambre, from Frasne, that is, to Marchienne, a distance of fourteen miles ; the centre covered the road from Lambusart to the right bank of the Sambre, behind Charleroi, a distance of nine miles ; the right was united on the left bank of the Sambre, justin front of Chatelet. The leading battalions and squad- rons of the centre had been on foot for eighteen hours, and had marched five-and-twenty miles. The leading battalions 78 THE ARMY RESTORES THE EMPEROR. [BOOK I. and squadrons on the left had been on foot for the same time, and had marched the same distance. The Guard had been halted between Gilly and Charleroi, after a march of eighteen miles; D’Hrlon had bivouacked at Marchienne, that is, when his troops had traversed about the same distance ; and Gérard had been compelled to halt when he had de- bouched from Chatelet, upwards of twenty miles from his — starting point, Philippeville. The French army had thus been drawn together in an irregular square, the angles of which were Lambusart, Gosselies, Marchienne, and Chate- let, while a spur shot forward from the angle in the left front as far as Frasne ; and Lobau, with the 6th corps and most of the heavy cavalry, stood backwards from the centre, in rear of Charleroi. Nevertheless, in three hours the right CHAP. 1V.] THE INVASION OF BELGIUM. 79 and centre might have been massed in front of Fleurus, and the whole of the left, with the exception of Girard’s division and the troops at Frasne, might have been concentrated at Gosselies; and thus, had he so chosen, Napoleon might, at five or six in the morning of the 16th, have occupied Fleurus with the bulk of his army, and have launched 40,000 men at the same moment along the road to Brussels. He did not so decide; he had taken no decision whatever. He was satisfied—the result of the day’s work had been all he could wish. He counted on the future without taking into his estimate the activity of his foes. § 6. Prussian Movements. Blucher had been active all day. He had, by half-past four or five o’clock in the afternoon of the 15th, transferred his head-quarters from Namur to Sombref. The orders issued to Pirch I. and Thielemann had been obeyed. The former had collected the 2nd corps at Namur, one brigade excepted, which joined him the next morning, and by three o’clock in the afternoon, that is, as soon as Vandamme had entirely crossed the Sambre, Pirch I. was in position be- tween Onoz and Mazy, on the Namur and Nivelles road, five miles from Sombref. Thielemann had collected his corps at Ciney ; marching thence at half-past seven, half an hour after Vandamme quitted Beaumont, he reached Namur in the evening, and bivouacked in position in and near that town for the night. Thus Blucher had on the evening of the 15th two corps, that is, upwards of 60,000 men, in or near to the chosen position of Ligny; and one corps at ‘Namur, fifteen miles from that position. The 4th corps, commanded by Bulow, however, was still at Lidge, fifty miles from the point of concentration! As early as the 13th Bulow had been ordered to collect his brigades. On 80 THE ARMY RESTORES THE EMPEROR. [BOOK 1. the 14th he was directed to concentrate on Hannut,. There was some misunderstanding, and the order was not executed; but Bulow sent word that he would be at Hannut on the 16th. Blucher assuming, as he had a right to do, that his orders had been obeyed, sent two despatches on the 15th to Hannut, directing Bulow to march thence upon Sombref. But as the earlier orders had not been obeyed, Bulow only arrived at Hannut to find that his absence had cost the loss of a battle to the Prussians. § 7. Wellington’s Information and Proceedings. Wellington’s inaction on the 14th and 15th has exposed him to much censure. The reader will see from a simple statement of the facts whether it was just or unjust. We ought to place ourselves in his position, regard the situation from his point of view, and by the light of the correct in- formation he had received. Head-quarters were at Brussels, Thither came all reports, and thence issued all orders. Long before the 14th the points of concentration for all the divi- sions had been designated, the troops had been ordered to assemble daily, by battalions, and practically the whole army was on the alert. Wellington knew from Sir Hussey Vivian that some movement of concentration was in pro- gress, Napoleon, as he himself states, having arranged his outposts on the line of the Scheldt and Lys, to create ex- pressly an impression that he was concentrating to his left. Wellington’s own opinion, retained to the day of his death, was that Napoleon ought not to have attacked by the Sambre and Meuse, and he expected the Emperor, un- doubtedly, upon the Scheldt, or between the Scheldt and Lys, or from Maubeuge upon Mons. Yet he was prepared for an attack by the Sambre and Meuse, and able to meet . it, as the result showed. Wellington also knew that Napo- CHAP. Iv.] THE INVASION OF BELGIUM. 81 leon had arrived on the frontier. But on the 14th he had no precise information whatever which could then have enabled him to form an otherwise than conjectural opinion of the intentions of Napoleon. The British commander had remained at his head- quarters all day on the 14th. On the 15th he was still there, alert and watchful. No information reached him. The morning passed ; noon arrived; still not a word came from the outposts. The reason of this is plain enough. The French did not approach the outposts of the British army until late in the forenoon, when D’Hrlon’s flankers appear to have hovered about the Prussian quarters near Binche, and even, so it is reported, entered that place. Hence the Duke was dependent for correct information upon General Ziethen, and although the contrary has been asserted, the Duke’s own statements show that General Ziethen did not send a word. As the Duke himself puts it: Ziethen was attacked at Thuin at four in the morning ; he himself, with part of his corps, was at Charleroi at ten o’clock; and long before that he knew of the movement of the whole French army. “Yet the report [even of the attack on Thuin] was not received at Brussels till three o'clock in the afternoon.” Now Brussels is only thirty- five miles from Charleroi, and the British outposts at Frasne were only distant from Charleroi twelve miles. So that, allowing for accidents, Prince Bernhard might have been warned at ten, and the Duke himself might have received this positive information not later than one, if not earlier. Moreover, had Ziethen distinctly stated that large columns were in motion, coming down the valley of the Sambre and from Beaumont, Wellington would have known how to read the information. It was not until three o’clock, when the Prince of Orange arrived to dine with the Duke, that he received G 82 THE ARMY RESTORES THE EMPEROR. [BOOK 1, the news—of what? that the French had attacked, not Charleroi, but Thuin and Lobbes. In other words, his latest information from the front was dated nine in the morning. He was told that the enemy “appeared to menace Charleroi;” he had heard nothing further indi- cating the movement, either of the left or centre columns of Napoleon’s army. Moreover, the Prince of Orange brought the intelligence that Binche had been occupied but afterwards abandoned, a statement to this day of doubtful accuracy. What “circumspect” general would move his troops upon information so vague and uncertain ? A clear report direct from Ziethen would have settled every doubt, but no such report came in. At length, intelligence arrived from the Prussian head-quarters. General Miiffling joined the Prince of Orange and Wellington. He had a report, but what was it? That Thuin had been attacked; no more. Wellington, still perplexed and uncertain, took one decisive step—he pre- pared for any emergency by ordering his divisions to concentrate. The Duke’s information authorized him in regarding the advance of Napoleon upon the inner flanks of the two armies as highly probable, but he had no right to assume as a certainty that this was the project of Napoleon. His position between three and five on the afternoon of the 15th was in no way like that of Blucher, for at three o’clock Blucher knew he had the whole French army on his hands; he could almost see them, unrolling their great masses in the valley on both banks of the Sambre; his brigadiers had been thrust backward on all sides by the pressure on their front and flanks of nearly 100,000 men. Wellington had before him two reports—one that an outpost had been carried early in the morning; another that French troops appeared to menace Charleroi—those troops being Pajol’s horsemen. CHAP. 1V.] THE INVASION OF BELGIUM. 83 Therefore, Wellington, never precipitate or nervous, contented himself with issuing orders about five o’clock for the assembly of each division. Chassé and Perponcher were to assemble at Nivelles. [Perponcher, better informed, and having the enemy before him, on his own responsi- bility moved his second brigade to Quatre Bras, to sustain Prince Bernhard.] Alten was to collect his troops at Braine le Comte, and march at once on Nivelles, if it should prove certain that the attack of the French was on Wellington’s left and Blucher’s right. Cooke was to assemble at Enghien, ready to move at a moment’s notice. So far the divisions on the immediate front. Further to the right centre, Clinton was to assemble at Ath, and Colville at Grammont. The cavalry were to be called in at once to Ninhove, with the exception of a German regi- ment left to patrol between the Scheldt and Lys, and General Dornberg’s brigade, which was to concentrate at Vilvorde. The reserve, around Brussels, under the Duke’s own hand, and always prepared, was to be ready to march at daybreak on the 16th. Now we ask the reader whether these orders do not contain all that the information received up to that moment would warrant? We repeat that information. It was that Thuin had been attacked, that Charleroi appeared to be menaced, that Frenchmen had been seen near or at Binche. Would these statements warrant a general in directing the whole of his army upon Quatre Bras? We venture to say that they would not. At this very moment, that is, between eight and nine o'clock, it was the belief of many superior officers at Brussels that Napoleon was advancing towards Binche, and that that would be the point of concentration for the army,’ a belief 1 Frazer’s Letters. 84 THE ARMY RESTORES THE EMPEROR. [BOOK I, showing what were the prevalent inferences from the information that had been received. Later in the evening came the decisive news that Napoleon had crossed the Sambre at Charleroi, and had followed General Ziethen to Fleurus. There was no longer room to doubt that a formidable attack had been made upon the right of the Prussians. Wellington forth- with issued orders for the march of the whole army to its left. He asserts himself that “the whole moved on that evening and in the night, each division and portion separately.” This is undoubtedly true as regards the assembly of the divisions in obedience to the first order on the 15th, but the more distant brigades did not receive the order to march to the left until the morning of the 16th. The movement now prescribed was this: Alten was to march at once to Nivelles; Cooke to Braine le Comte; Clinton, Colville, and the cavalry to Enghien. After issuing this order, the Duke of Wellington went, as is well known, to a ball given by the Duchess of Richmond, and remained until a late hour. His behaviour on this memorable night was so natural and unconstrained that not one person there could have inferred that he was in a few hours about to measure himself with Napoleon. The orders he had given could be forwarded to their destination within six hours after they were issued, and any one who will take the trouble to measure the dis- tances from Brussels to the head-quarters of the several divisions, will see that the despatches could reach more than one in half that time. The Duke states that his orders did reach all parts of the army in six hours after he had issued them. In that case, the orders to Clinton 1 Clinton’s division and Prince Frederick of Orange did not receive this second order until that day. CHAP. Iv.] | THE INVASION OF BELGIUM. 85 and Prince Frederick could not have been forwarded from Brussels until the morning of the 16th, for the historian of the 52nd regiment, part of Clinton’s division, states that the order did not arrive until the regiment was on its way to the parade ground, and that they did not “form division until 10 a.m. on that day.” Prince Frederick did not receive.the order of movement until the same time; and Lambert’s brigade at Ghent was in a like situation. Nevertheless, the greater part of the army was warned at an early hour, for within four-and-twenty hours from the time he received decisive information, the Duke of Wellington had collected upwards of 30,000 men at Quatre Bras. We may here remark that the criticism of Colonel Charras on the “ procrastination” of Wellington during the 15th rests upon two grave blunders. First, he states that Wellington had received at nine o’clock in the morn- ing a despatch from Ziethen, dated Charleroi, announcing that his outposts had been attacked on the Sambre. The Duke is cited as an authority for the statement. But the Duke says ‘nothing of the kind. Writing to the Duc de Berri, at half-past nine in the evening, he says that he had received no news from Charleroi since nine in he morning; meaning clearly that the date of his latest information from the front was nine in the morning. Even this was not a despatch from Ziethen, but a report brought in, as we have seen, by the Prince of Orange at three, and confirmed by Baron Miiffling a little later. We have seen what this report amounted to. It was that Thuin had been attacked. Wellington did not know whether the French were coming on the road to Brussels by Charleroi or by the road through Mons. The report indicated a movement on the Sambre, nothing more; and 386 THE ARMY RESTORES THE EMPEROR. [BOOK I. on the basis of this report Wellington concentrated his divisions. The next error is a very curious one. Wellington had ordered Alten to march upon Nivelles, provided certain news were received of the attack of the French on the inner flanks of the Allies. Charras interprets this qualifi- cation to apply to Chassé and Perponcher, as well as to Alten, and says that Wellington no longer followed out the plan agreed to between himself and Blucher, but desired to withdraw the few troops he had upon the Brussels and Charleroi road, “even in case the attack were directed” against the Prussian right and the British left. This is a misunderstanding of the terms of the order of movement, and especially of the qualification which applied solely to Alten. But the criticism goes further. Wellington ordered the Dutch-Belgian divisions to assemble at Nivelles on the faith of the meagre informa- tion of the attack on Thuin. We have shown that the common belief among the superior officers at Brussels, on the evening of the 15th, was that Napoleon would come on by Binche. But at Nivelles and Braine le Comte the staff had more certain and fuller information by five or six o’clock, and when Perponcher disobeyed the order to concentrate upon Nivelles, and carried his second brigade to reinforce Prince Bernhard at Quatre Bras, he did cer. tainly what Wellington would have done had he been at Nivelles or Braine le Comte. General Constant de Rebecque, chief of the staff to the Prince of Orange, deserves credit for directing, at an early hour, the assembly of the brigades of Chassé and Perponcher; but even at two o’clock he did not venture to place more than one brigade at Quatre Bras, the brigade already there. He detained. one brigade at Nivelles; he placed Chassé’s whole division at its place of assembly, Fayt-lez-Seneffe; and CHAP. IV.] THE INVASION OF BELGIUM. 87 Callaert’s cavalry behind the Haine, that is, in the direc- tion of Binche and Maubeuge. Perponcher deserves credit for taking on himself the responsibility of moving his second brigade to Quatre Bras, instead of obeying the order of concentration upon Nivelles. But it must be remembered that Perponcher absolutely knew that a strong force was at Frasne, whereas Wellington, when he issued the order of concentration, only knew that Thuin had been attacked. When we give great praise to com- manders of divisions and brigades for assembling their men in the face of the enemy without waiting for a formal order, we praise them for executing the especial business which they were appointed to perform. We do nothing more. The criticism of Colonel Charras on the conduct of Wellington during the 15th is influenced throughout by the knowledge Colonel Charras had of the actual move- ments of Napoleon. The conduct of Wellington was dictated by the knowledge Wellington had of the move- ments of Napoleon; and we have seen that it was not until ten or eleven o’clock in the evening that full informa- tion reached the head-quarters at Brussels. The degree to which the knowledge of the movements of Napoleon influenced Colonel Charras is shown in his violent asser- tion that Wellington should have transferred his head- quarters to Braine le Comte or Nivelles on the morning of the 15th, that is, before he knew that the French army had made any movement in any direction whatever! These considerations show that there is no accurate military criticism, except that which rests on a clear chronological conception of events ; and no correct method of writing military history, except that which enables the writer to shut his eyes to the future, and to fix his whole attention resolutely and impartially on the present. 88 THE ARMY RESTORES THE EMPEROR. [BOOK I. It may be an open question to this day whether Wellington’s disposition of his army in cantonments was good or bad, but it.can no longer be doubted that his movements on the 15th were sound and judicious, and such as were warranted by the information he received from time to time. The explanation of the delay in the transmission of the Duke’s orders, for delay there was, has never been afforded us to this day (1864). Not one divisional commander should have been, at a later hour than 4 a.m. on the 16th, without orders to march. The explanation, perhaps, lies in the defective staff arrange- ments, or it may be some mismanagement of the letter parties and relays. The Horse Guards of 1815 did not supply the Duke with the best kind of men for his staff. CHAPTER YV. THE MORNING OF THE 16TH OF JUNE. § 1. Napoleon: Charleroi and Fleurus. HE French army was aroused from its slumbers at daybreak on the 16th. The troops still occupied the positions we have described. The sun rose, and the hours sped on, but no order of movement came from the imperial head-quarters. Six o’clock arrived, seven struck. The army remained motionless, except that, in the Prussian front, Grouchy and his outposts were on the alert, eagerly watching the gathering of masses of troops above the plain of Fleurus. It is written that the old soldiers, and there were many in the army of Napoleon, stood in not mute astonishment at this inactivity. We have shown that Napoleon, his wearied troops having rested for five hours, might have concentrated, one mass near Fleurus, and another in front of Gosselies, by five in the morning. Yet at seven, some say at eight, not a man had moved from the bivouac of the preceding night. This inactivity is admitted to be one of the puzzles of the campaign. Napoleon, whose motions were wont to be so swift, was now a laggard. He who the day before had pushed on his columns for five-and-twenty miles, now left them to fret in their bivouacs, and wonder at the delay of 90 THE ARMY RESTORES THE EMPEROR. [BOOK I. the Emperor. It is the more remarkable because the several corps had been ordered to hold themselves ready to march at any moment after two. Whatever may be the explanation of Napoleon’s conduct it must be found in the facts or not at all. In this search the “Memoirs of St. Helena” afford no aid. Napoleon has not deigned to account for the use he made of his time on the morning of the 16th, but has rapidly passed over that important period, not without stating in a few lines much that is untrue, and entirely without a hint as to his own delay, or the causes thereof. Those causes must be sought elsewhere. It will be remembered that Ney, when he quitted Frasne, passed through Gosselies and rode on to Charleroi. Here he found Napoleon where we left him on his return from Gilly, but somewhat recovered from his fatigue, and taking supper. Ney sat with him until two o’clock in the morn- ing.” Itmay be assumed that they conversed much during the period of Ney’s visit. What was the substance of their conversation? This is precisely what no one can now tell us. That Ney rendered an account of the position of his advanced troops on the Brussels road is a matter of course. He must also have referred to the occupation of Gosselies by Foy and Jerome; to the position of D’Erlon, between Jumet and Marchienne, and to the fact that Kellerman was still on the right bank of the Sambre. Nor could he have neglected to describe the kind of resistance he met with at Frasne, to frame some estimate of the number of the troops opposed to him, and to point out how dangerously far in advance of the Emperor was the column on the road to Brussels. But this is all conjecture. An ingenious French author’ has imagined the nature of the conversa- ‘ Heymés: “ Relation de Ja Campagne de 1815.” 2 Edgar Quinet. CHAP. V.] MORNING OF THE 16TH OF JUNE. 91 tion between Napoleon and Ney. It is this, that Ney eagerly pressed Napoleon to move the bulk of the army to the left, and strike at the British, because Wellington was the more formidable adversary ; but that Napoleon, al- though disposed to attack the Prussians first, could not form any decisive opinion. Hence, it is inferred that Napoleon gave no order to Ney for the occupation of Quatre Bras at daybreak on the 16th. But this is also a mere speculative account of the famous interview between these two men. What actually occurred we shall never know; Ney died without telling us, and Napoleon is not to be believed. For, as we shall immediately show, the state- ment in the “Memoirs,” that “during the night” Ney received an order to occupy Quatre Bras at daybreak, is entirely untrue. Soult has said that the Emperor had no thought of occupying Quatre Bras on the evening of the 15th. Napoleon has said that to have occupied Sombref on the evening of the 15th would have spoiled his plans ; and the military authorities are all of opinion that the occupation of Quatre Bras, before Sombref was in posses- sion of the French, would have been a false and perilous move. Moreover, and this is the decisive statement :— Reille has declared that at seven in the morning of the 16th he went to Marshal Ney for orders, and that Marshal Ney told him he waited himself for orders from the Em- peror. Hence it is manifest, that whatever may have been the nature of the conference at Charleroi, it did not lead the Emperor to form any decision whatever, and that Ney departed for Gosselies on the understanding that Napoleon would send him orders when he had made up his mind what they should be. Now glance at the disposition of the French army at daybreak, nay, as late as seven in the morning. Vandamme and Grouchy waiting for orders in front of Fleurus; Gérard 92 THE ARMY RESTORES THE EMPEROR. [BOOK I. waiting for orders in front of Chatelet, impatient, eager, nervous, and finding a congenial listener in General Excel- mans; the Guard, between Gilly and Charleroi, also wait- ing for orders ; Lobau, Kellerman, the heavy cavalry of the Guard behind Charleroi, waiting for orders also; D’Erlon, with his leading battalions at Jumet and his rear at Mar- chienne, waiting orders like the rest. Ney and Reille actually conferring on the same subject; and yet we are asked to believe that while Napoleon kept the bulk of his army motionless, Ney had been directed to thrust himself headlong, at daybreak, into the British lines, at Quatre Bras. At length, between seven and eight o’clock, Napoleon’s meditations appear to have taken some shape. So far as we can discover, the actual information in his possession consisted of these facts: he knew the distribution of his own troops as a basis, and he knew their strength. He knew that Marshal Ney had met with enemies on the Brussels road, that the limit of that marshal’s progress was Frasne, and that he still awaited at Gosselies the orders of the Emperor. Napoleon also knew that General Ziethen was in and behind Fleurus; and between seven and eight he learned from a report, dated six in the morning, and sent in by Grouchy, that the Prussian columns were “arriving” by the Namur road, and forming near Ligny. That is all. Wrapped up in his own thoughts, the victim of his own conjectures, he hesitated for a time, and then arrived ata conclusion apparently independent of the facts, First, he divided his army into two wings and a reserve. The left wing consisted of the first and second corps, Girard’s division excepted; of Kellerman’s heavy cavalry, and of the light cavalry of the Guard—a force, if united, numbering 38,520 infantry, 8,800 cavalry, and 96 guns. Ney was placed in command of this wing. CHAP. V.] MORNING OF THE 16TH OF JUNE. 93 The right wing consisted of the third, fourth, and sixth corps, together with three of Grouchy’s four cavalry divi- sions—that is, of 42,869 infantry, of 15,023 cavalry, and 144 guns. The reserve was composed of the Imperial Guard— 18,206 infantry, 1,718 horse, and 96 guns. Grouchy com- manded the right wing, and Napoleon himself the reserve. Half an hour later, about half-past eight, Napoleon determined what these forces should do. We learn his intentions and general views from the despatches he dic- tated, and those dictated by Marshal Soult, in accordance with the orders of his chief. What do these despatches reveal ? First, as regards the right wing: Grouchy was to march forthwith upon Sombref, and there take up a position. Napoleon, “before noon,” was to be in Fleurus at the head of the Guard. Jf he met with the enemy he would attack him, and push on an advanced guard and flankers as far as Gembloux. These were preliminary steps. At Gembloux, after he had defeated the enemy, he would determine further; perhaps at three o’clock, perhaps in the evening. As to the left wing: as soon as the Emperor had deter- mined on his future course, Ney was to be ready to march on Brussels. The Emperor desired to enter that city in the morning of the 17th, and Ney was to march in at seven o’clock. In order that he might be able to do this, Ney was to press forward and occupy Quatre Bras, Ge- nappe, and Marbais. The light cavalry of the Guard were to be replaced by Kellerman’s corps, and Kellerman’s corps was to be posted at the junction of the Roman and the Brussels roads, so that if the Emperor wanted them he might have them. It is clear from this, that between eight and nine in the ‘ 94, THE ARMY RESTORES THE EMPEROR. [BOOK I. morning of the 16th Napoleon saw no cause for haste. He believed he should find some troops at Sombref, for Ziethen was in front of him at Fleurus; but he calculated that the Prussians would retire as he advanced, and, dominated by the idea that Blucher would concentrate at Namur, he seems to have given little weight to Grouchy’s report, and hoped by three o’clock to be at Gembloux. In like manner he assumed that Wellington would con- centrate at Nivelles, and that thus his two lieutenants: might, shortly after noon, occupy the great road from Nivelles to Namur with advanced guards—the one at Genappe, the other at Gembloux; leaving Napoleon at liberty to enter Brussels suddenly. Nevertheless, although he did not expect resistance, he made, on paper, provision to meet it; for Ney, as we have seen, was, in addition to the division of Girard, already detached, to place another division at; Marbais, within the Emperor’s reach, and also to give him the option of using Kellerman if he pleased. Here are great projects put forward with a hesitation that shows a doubting mind, for not only was the left wing, nominally so strong, enfeebled by reductions, actual and possible, but the whole of the sixth corps was to be posted near Charleroi, in order that Count Lobau might be in a position to aid Ney or follow Napoleon. The orders were sent off by Napoleon and by Soult. Ney received his despatches some time before eleven o’clock, and after ten. They were brought to him by Count Flahault, who did not start from Charleroi during the night, as Napoleon states, but about nine in the morn- ing. In passing Gosselies Napoleon’s aide-de-camp warned Reille, then waiting with his troops under arms. Reille warned D’Erlon, and Soult himself put in motion the horsemen of Kellerman, who, it may be remembered, were still on the right bank of the Sambre. Gérard and a CHAP. V.]| MORNING OF THE 16TH OF JUNE, 95 Vandamme received their orders about half-past nine, and Grouchy at the same time learned that he was commander of the right wing, and also that he was to march forthwith upon Sombref, now visibly to him, at least, occupied by the bulk of the Prussian army. Nevertheless, Grouchy took one step. After ten o’clock, with Vandamme’s infantry and the dragoons of Excel- mans, he occupied Fleurus ; the Prussian cavalry retiring upon the elevations in front of Ligny as he advanced, and the horse batteries exchanging compliments. But he went no farther; for Gérard, not getting his orders until half- past nine, even if he had instantly set off, could not have reached Fleurus until eleven o’clock, and he did not actu- ally arrive until much later. When, therefore, Napoleon came on to the plain of Fleurus with the Guard about one, he found Grouchy still there, and was able to see for him- self the reason why. The information previously obtained had been aug- mented before he quitted Charleroi. General Reille had forwarded to the Emperor the substance of a verbal report brought in by one of Girard’s officers, from Wagnée. It stated that Fleurus was still occupied by light cavalry, and that masses of Prussians, coming from Namur, were gradu- ally gaining ground about St. Amand. This report, there- fore, confirmed the information forwarded by Grouchy ; yet Napoleon drove incredulously towards Fleurus, un- willing to believe that Blucher had dared to court an encounter by concentrating so near the frontier, and right across his path. Arrived at Fleurus, the Prussians were visible to him also, He mounted the steps of a windmill near the town, and surveyed the scene before him, still reluctant to be- lieve even his own senses. He despatched several officers to the front, and he rode himself at a leisurely pace, 96 THE ARMY RESTORES THE EMPEROR. [BOOK I. attended by a small staff, along the whole line of vedettes which covered the front of his divisions. More than an hour was spent in satisfying himself of the reality of the spectacle before him, and in forming a conception of the position occupied by the enemy. While he was thus en- gaged, his army, in obedience to his orders, formed in order of battle. Vandamme stood in front of Fleurus, with the division of Girard in his rear. Gérard’s corps was posted in the centre, on the right of Fleurus, and on his right the two cavalry corps commanded by Pajol and Excelmans. The whole of the Guard and Milhaud’s cuirassiers were in reserve, concealed behind a slight elevation of the ground. Napoleon’s inspection of the Prussian position had not enabled him to arrive at an accurate conclusion. He saw that there were “troops” on the slopes and in the villages in front of him; he saw that they occupied a large posi- tion; but he could not bring himself to believe that three- fourths of the Prussian army were drawn up in battle array. Neither his own observations, nor the reports of his officers, convinced him that he had to fight an “army.” But, a little before two, he had formed his plan of attack. Thinking that Blucher was posted in a position parallel to the Fleurus road, instead of directing his blows against Sombref, he determined to assail the villages of St. Amand and Ligny. The army, therefore, changed its position: Vandamme advanced his right brigade, and with the re- mainder took ground to his left, having Girard in reserve, and his outer flank protected by Domont’s cavalry. He thus occupied a broken line on the south and east of St. Amand. Gérard advanced beyond Fleurus, throwing for- ward his right, and forming his columns in a line parallel with and in front of the chaussde, with a division facing to the right, and drawn up across the road. The cavalry of Excelmans and Pajol were in masses on the right of the , CHAP. V.| MORNING OF THE 16TH OF JUNE. 97 high road, with detached parties on that flank. In rear, the Imperial Guard stood on the left of Fleurus, a deep mass of infantry, cavalry, and guns; and on the right of Fleurus, Milhaud stood fast with his cuirassiers. While the troops were taking up this new front, Napo- leon caused Soult to write a despatch to Ney, dated 2 P.m., assigning to that marshal a series of operations differing materially from those enjoined by the despatches forwarded from Charleroi at nine in the morning. Believing he had to deal with only “a body of troops posted between Bry and Sombref,” he notified to Ney that an attack would be made upon this force in half-an-hour. Ney was also to attack whatever was before him, and having “pressed” his adversaries “ vigorously,” Ney was to turn aside towards Napoleon, and co-operate in the work of enveloping “the body ” of troops to which Napoleon referred. If, before Ney could arrive on the right rear of the Prussians, “ the body of troops” was broken, Napoleon intimated that he would mancuvre in the direction of Ney’s army to hasten his operations. This despatch was addressed to “Gosse- lies,” and it is cited as a further proof that Napoleon, at two o’clock on the 16th, did not even suppose that Ney would be at Quatre Bras. The marshal, it should also be observed, was no longer instructed to push on to Genappe, sending only one division to Marbais. He was, after thrust- ing back the British, to march with his whole force down the Namur road. Napoleon’s plans had thus been modified very considerably. His first scheme was to occupy, by three o'clock, a line stretching from Quatre Bras to Sombref, with advanced posts at Gembloux and Genappe. By two o'clock this scheme had broken down, and the junction of the two wings was to be effected between Quatre Bras and Sombref, as the result of a battle with an unknown force of Prussians who had “dared ” to stand in the way. H 98 THE ARMY RESTORES THE EMPEROR. [BOOK I. During the interval between the arrival of Napoleon at Fleurus and his final resolve to fall upon his enemy, Wellington had ridden over from Quatre Bras, to commu- nicate in person with Blucher. Lord Hardinge, then Sir Henry, had been requested by Blucher to proceed. to Quatre Bras and solicit some assistance from the Duke. “TI set out,” he says, “ but I had not proceeded far, when I saw a party of horse coming towards me, and observing that they had short tails, I knew at once that they were English, and soon distinguished the Duke. He was on his way to the Prussian head-quarters, thinking they might want some assistance ; and he instantly gave directions for a supply of cavalry. ‘How are they forming?’ he inquired. ‘In column, not in line,’ I replied ; ‘the Prussian soldier, Blucher says, will not stand in line.’ ‘Then the artillery will play upon them, and they will be beaten damnably,’ was the comment of the Duke.” Wellington rode on and found Blucher near the mill of Bussy. There, while ‘Napoleon was reconnoitring the Prussian position, and deciding upon measures intended to rout them by turning their right, Wellington and Blucher were concerting a similar plan for the destruction of their adversary. It was agreed that Blucher should receive battle, and that Wellington, as soon as possible, should move up from Quatre Bras troops which should be directed upon the left flank of the French. At this moment, there is reason to believe, Wellington calculated, and on good grounds, that more than one half of his army would be in line at Quatre Bras by three o’clock. From the heart of the Prussian position he rode back to Quatre Bras to find an enterpris- ing and powerful force bent on seizing that post of van- tage. He was disappointed in his anticipation of the num- bers that would assemble there by three o’clock. But this is not the significant fact which should be commended to CHAP. V.] MORNING OF THE 16TH OF JUNE. 99 the reader’s notice. That fact is, that Napoleon had failed at the outset to separate the two armies, for there they were in close and solid communication—the two com- manders-in-chief, though he knew it not, were conferring together on the hills overlooking his position; and we are justified in asserting that the foundation of the coming victory at Waterloo was laid in the memorable interview between Wellington and Blucher at the mill of Bussy. § 2. Ney: Glosselies and Frasne. The position of Ney on the morning of the 16th was most perplexing. He had returned to Gosselies from Charleroi, after having engaged in a fruitless conversation with Napoleon. At seven o’clock he had not received any orders from the Imperial head-quarters, and not a man under his command had moved. He was still imperfectly informed of the strength of the force verbally placed at his disposal on the afternoon of the 15th. He did not know even the names of the colonels of his regiments. All he knew, in fact, was that his advanced posts were in front of Frasne, that the rear of his column was still on the right bank of the Sambre, that Girard’s division, nomi- nally under Reille’s orders, was really detached, and that he was to make no use of the light cavalry of the Guard. It was only during the morning that, aided by Colonel Heymés, he obtained a correct “ state” of Reille’s corps. After his conversation with that active officer, Ney rode off to Frasne. Arrived there, he collected all the _ information he could obtain, surveyed the front from his ie outposts, then skirmishing with the enemy, and, rather -' impatiently, as we may suppose, waited for orders from Napoleon. We may try to picture the country-side on which Ney was about to be so conspicuous an actor. 100 THE ARMY RESTORES THE EMPEROR, [BOOK I. Before him lay an extensive plain, stretching away towards the north, very slightly broken by undulations, and traversed by the high road from Charleroi to Brussels. It was covered with rich crops, above which the roofs of the scattered homesteads were visible, and it was shut in by the wood of Delhutte on the east and by the distant wood of Bossu on the west. Three large farms, at nearly equal distances, diversified the monotony of the prospect: Pérau- mont on the east, at the extremity of the wood Delhutte, and not far from the Namur road; Gemioncourt in a little valley in the centre; and Pierpont on the west, at the southern extremity of the long and irregularly-shaped wood of Bossu. In this wood a tiny rivulet had its source, which, flowing through the Gemioncourt ravine, spread out into large pools farther to the eastward, and thence sluggishly went on to increase the waters of the Dyle. Beyond Gemioncourt, a good three-quarters of a mile, the Charleroi road crosses the highway from Nivelles to Namur, and the group of farmhouses at this point of intersection is called Quatre Bras, or the Cross Roads. Thence northwards towards Brussels the character of the country remained unchanged as far as Genappe, where the upper waters of the Dyle flow through a deeper valley, and where the elevations may be called hills or heights. Ney found this position of Quatre Bras occupied in greater force than it was on the night of the 15th; for the British army was in movement from Ath, Grammont, Enghien, Braine le Comte, Nivelles, and Brussels, and one division of the first corps was already in front of Quatre Bras. At daybreak, the French were the more numerous; but at five, as we have stated, General Perponcher had arrived with part of his second brigade from Nivelles. In- stead of obeying the strict letter of Wellington’s first order, issued when the Duke was not aware of the attack CHAP. V.] MORNING OF THE 16TH OF JUNE, 101 on Charleroi, and, withdrawing Prince Bernhard from Quatre Bras to Nivelles, Perponcher obeyed its spirit and reinforced Prince Bernhard. As soon as he arrived, Perponcher threw forward his light troops, drove the French outposts in upon Frasne, recovered some of the ground lost overnight, and kept up a continuous skirmish with his foes. The Prince of Orange arrived at six, bring- ing more troops, and soon after the infantry of the whole division, one battalion excepted, was present—nearly 7,000 men, with 16 guns. The Prince carried the greater part of his small force to the front, and pressed the French more closely by occupying the wood of Delhutte on his left. Ney found this state of affairs when he came into Frasne from Gosselies. Wellington, who had quitted Brussels at daybreak, must have reached Quatre Bras about the same time. He closely surveyed the front, approved of the arrangements made by the Prince of Orange, con- fided to him the defence of the position, and then rode down the Namur road to confer with Blucher. The Cross Roads, which it was the object of Wellington to hold and of Ney to wrest from him, was a position of great value to the Allied Armies, for while one of these high roads led directly to Brussels, down which Picton was at that moment marching, the other not only formed the sole line of march for the Anglo-Belgian divisions, but ran from Quatre Bras to Namur, close in rear of Blucher’s position at Ligny. Wellington kept a grip of both roads for three reasons; first, that he might secure the prompt concentration of the bulk of his army ; next, that he might bar the way to Brussels; thirdly, that he might maintain his communication with Blucher. The possession of the point of intersection of these important routes would have been advantageous to the French for two reasons: first, that they might strike in between the 102 THE ARMY RESTORES THE EMPEROR. [BOOK I. British and Prussians, and establish themselves on the road to Brussels beyond the Cross Roads, and thus compel Wellington’s divisions to concentrate upon some other point; and next, that they might be in a position to co-operate directly with Napoleon, by detaching, if re- quired, a force down the Namur road in rear of the Prussian army. But the order to seize Quatre Bras, forwarded, as we have seen, from Charleroi, at nine, only reached Ney between ten and eleven o’clock. It was about this time that the Count de Flahault rode into the marshal’s head- quarters. Ney acted at once, and sent officers to Reille, D’Erlon, and Kellerman with orders to march, and in- structions to post their divisions in accordance with the views of Napoleon, that is, at Genappe, Bauterlez, Marbais, and Quatre Bras. The Prince of Orange had made so great a display with his handful of troops, he held his forward position so firmly, Soult so strongly counselled Ney to act in masses, that the latter deferred his attack at least until Reille’s divisions should have joined him at Frasne. The bravado of the Prince of Orange thus served a useful end. Soon after Napoleon’s orders arrived, that despatch from Reille was brought to Ney, which recited Girard’s report of the continued occupation of Fleurus. Reille had been duly informed of the nature of the despatch carried by Flahault, but he notified to Ney that, in consequence of Girard’s re- port, he would not put the divisions of Foy and Prince Jerome in motion until he received a positive order from the marshal. Here was a new cause of delay. Thus, after waiting until half-past ten for an order to occupy Quatre Bras, when the order arrived Ney had not the means at hand wherewith to execute it. Ney ordered Reille to march at once, and sent an officer to hurry the pace of D’Erlon’s corps and Kellerman’s cavalry. Between eleven and one CHAP. V.] MORNING OF THE 16TH OF JUNE, 103 o'clock, then, and not at ‘“ daybreak,” the left wing of the French army was operating its movement of concentra- tion; this proceeding occupied several hours, and hence the “inactivity” of Ney, so bewildering to the critics— aprés coup. The truth is, that Ney advanced as soon as the head of the column of troops placed at his disposal arrived at Frasne. Foy came in about half-past one, and at two Ney began the action of Quatre Bras, which, in its proper place, we shall describe. § 38. Blucher : Sombref. The head-quarters of the Prussian field-marshal had been transferred to Sombref on the afternoon of the 15th. Thence he had heard the cannonade which preceded the retreat of Pirch IT. from Gilly, and he may be said to have been present when Ziethen’s corps retreated through Fleurus, leaving a strong force to hold that town. Dur- ing the afternoon he had again surveyed the position of Ligny, long since selected by him, and at nightfall it was occupied partially by the corps of Ziethen, while Pirch I. had arrived at Mazy, a few miles from the field, and Thielemann was in front of Namur. Blucher had also kept up communication with Wellington. The main portion of the position occupied by Blucher lies close within the angle formed by the junction of the two roads which, starting from Charleroi and Nivelles, become one at Point du Jour, and run thence to Namur, and a corresponding angle formed by the junction of an old Roman road with the chaussée from Nivelles," The Nivelles and Namur road traverses the northern boundary of the position throughout its whole length. From this 1 See Plan No, I. 104 THE ARMY RESTORES THE EMPEROR. [BOOK I. road the plateau falls to the south-east, in irregular sweeps, as far as the banks of the Ligny. This rivulet rises near the point where the old Roman way intersects the Nivelles road, flows first to the south-west, then, turning sharply to the north-east, approaches once more the Nivelles road within half-a-mile of Point du Jour. Crossing the Charleroi road, it bends to the southward for about a mile, and then wanders in an easterly direction, to swell the waters of the Orneau on their way to the Sambre. Flowing through the low grounds, the Ligny receives the contributions of several tiny tributaries, especially from the western side of the plain of Fleurus, but its waters are not deep in any part, and its banks are rarely steep. The road from Nivelles, and this eccentric watercourse, thus define the Prussian position. Several villages stand on its banks and on those of its tributaries : on the north-western side of the position, Wagnelée, St. Amand le Hameau, St. Amand la Haye, and St. Amand; on the south-eastern front, Ligny and Mont Potriaux. Within the elbow the rivulet makes to the southward, Tongrines and Tongrinelle, and near its easterly course Boignée and Balatre. St. Amand stands at the salient angle of the body of the position, the lines of which are prolonged from that angle to the north-west on one side, and to the north-east on the other. Mont Potriaux forms a re-entering angle, for here the line of defence, as we have said, trends to the south. The villages on this front are all at the foot of the gentle and undulating slope lead- ing up to the Nivelles and Namur road. St. Amand is a considerable village on the right bank of the rivulet. It consists of cottages, homesteads, gardens, orchards, enclosures, and a church. St. Amand la Haye is a smaller village, connected with the larger at its north-western extremity. St. Amand le Hameau is a mere offshoot lying CHAP, V.] MORNING OF THE 16TH OF JUNE. 105 in the plain of Fleurus, and connected with Wagnelée, a village outside the Prussian position. A good mile north of St. Amand, and on the summit of the plateau, are the village of Bry and the mill of Bussy. Descending from this high ground about Bry, towards the south-east, we find Ligny, consisting of strongly-built stone cottages thatched with straw, and standing on both banks of the stream. Farther to the northward is Sombref, a group of several villages on the Nivelles and Namur road. Look- ing from the mill of Bussy, the church-towers of all these villages are visible, rising out of the trees, and far away to the south the woods and roofs of Fleurus, and beyond it the vast and beautiful plain. The ground occupied by the Prussians falls gradually towards the Ligny, and from the belt of plashy meadows, through which that rivulet flows, rises again gradually towards Fleurus and Waginée. In 1815, with the exception of a quarry here and there, save the villages and their enclosures, with occasional groups of trees near the stream, no obstacle whatever existed to embarrass the movement of troops in any direc- tion. Broad stretches of undulating fields, bearing tall and promising crops, enclosing scattered hamlets and isolated windmills in a sea of verdure, gladdened the eye on every side. It was on these two slopes that the two armies were drawn up; it was these smiling fields and peaceful villages that were to be the scene of a conflict of almost unparalleled ferocity, between two nations who detested each other with almost unparalleled hatred. Blucher caused Ziethen to occupy the villages from St. Amand la Haye to Ligny, and to draw up the bulk of his corps on the high ground between Bry and Ligny. It was the gradual extension of Ziethen’s battalions towards the right of the Prussian position which attracted the notice of General Girard at Wagnée, and caused him to 106 THE ARMY RESTORES THE EMPEROR. [BOOK I. send in that report to Gosselies, which delayed the march of Reille upon Frasne. About eleven o’clock General Pirch 1., with the second corps, entered the line from his bivouac at Mazy. The four brigades of this corps were marched to the right, and formed up in masses behind the corps of Ziethen. An hour later, Thielemann, who had quitted Namur about seven, reached Point du Jour. His corps was posted, for the moment, on the two great roads, in order that it might be easily moved to the right or left. Thus, before Napoleon had reconnoitred the position from the windmill of Fleurus, Blucher, whose corps he had hoped to surprise and defeat in detail— Blucher, who he had imagined would concentrate at Namur—had actually united, on one field, three corps darmée, or upwards of 83,000 men, that is, about 72,500 infantry, 8,150 cavalry, and 224 guns.’ Napoleon, in reconnoitring the Prussian position, is said to have assumed that the Prussians stood at right angles to the Namur road, and it is asserted that this view led him to devise the scheme of an attack in front, while Ney fell upon the right flank and rear. He is also reported to have inferred, from what he could see of the disposition of the Prussians, that Blucher was intent, not on fighting a stout battle where he stood, but on effecting a junction with Wellington. Hence his desire that Ney should rapidly drive off the British from Quatre Bras, and turning to his- right along the Namur road, should enter the rear of the Prussian position by Marbais. But, although his right rested on no support, and although the line of front from the salient angle of St. Amand was nearly perpendicular to the Namur road, practically Blucher’s army was parallel 1 Total force of three corps of arms, 86,669. Deduct losses on 15th, 1,200, and detached infantry and cavalry, 1,500, total 2,700; whole force equal ‘to 83,969. \ CHAP. V.] MORNING OF THE 16TH OF JUNE. 107 to that road, completely covering it from Point du Jour to the place where it is intersected by the old Roman road. Blucher, as we have seen, kept a keen look-out from the mill of Bussy upon the motions of the French; and as soon as he saw a decided movement of their columns towards St. Amand and Ligny, he made a fresh distribu- tion of his troops. The whole of the villages in front were strongly occupied, guns were posted on the slopes, and supports were moved down. The stone cottages and garden walls, the churchyard and chateau of Ligny, had been crenellated for musketry, and were now fully manned. The orchards, the hedges, the houses of the St. Amand group were, in like manner, filled with infantry. The soldiers of Ziethen supplied these garrisons and formed the first line. The cavalry of the first corps were on the plateau nearer to Ligny. Three of the four brigades of Pirch I. were drawn up between Bry and Sombref as a second line, in columns of attack by battalions at deploy- ing intervals, with the whole mass of their cavalry and guns in rear and on the other side of the Namur road. The fourth brigade was posted at Trois Burettes on the extreme right, and facing towards Marbais and Quatre Bras, thus commanding the old Roman road. Beyond Wagnelée four squadrons of horse and a battery also watched that flank. The centre and right appeared to be thus amply filled, and therefore Thielemann, who had remained near Sombref, was now directed to occupy the extreme left. Accordingly he posted his four brigades on the high ground between Sombref and Tongrines, across and upon the road from Fieurus to Namur. Mont Potriaux, Tongrinelle, Boignée, and Balatre were occupied by detachments, the front being covered by a strong line of skirmishers. A body of cavalry occupied the Fleurus road behind the bridge over the Ligny, and the reserve 108 THE ARMY RESTORES THE EMPEROR. [BOOK I. cavalry of the corps were held far back on the road to Namur. The two armies in presence were pretty equally matched. Blucher, as we have stated, presented a force of nearly 84,000 men; Napoleon, including the corps of Lobau, on the march from Charleroi, had in hand about 75,000 men ; but while the Prussians showed a superiority in infantry, Napoleon was superior in artillery and cavalry, having 242 guns to match against 224, and 15,000 horsemen to 8,000 in the Prussian array. The French being a little higher than the Prussian slopes, the French artillery had a better command of the Prussian, and the greater irregularities of the French side favoured the concealment of movements, and sheltered the troops from the fire of the hostile cannon. We have now traced the course of each army through- out the morning; we have described the hesitation and incredulity of Napoleon, the activity of Blucher, the pro- longed and unavoidable delay of Reille and D’Erlon, and the movements ordered by Wellington, giving rise to promises which he was not destined to fulfil. We have seen the French army form its splendid order of battle, and the Prussian host gather, formidable in numbers and positions, across its path. At the momerit we have now reached, Ney’s cannon are already thundering in front of Quatre Bras; it is half-past two; there are only five hours of daylight at the disposal of the two famous chiefs who are so eager to drive Wellington to Antwerp, and Blucher to Aix la Chapelle. The Morning of the 16th has thus been spent in preparing for the two battles of Ligny and Quatre Bras, which have made the Afternoon of that day so famous in military annals. To that point in this fierce and brief campaign we have now arrived. CHAPTER VI. AFTERNOON OF THE 1érn OF JUNE. § 1. The Battle of Ligny. HE grand movements which carried the French ‘brigades and divisions into position were com- pleted soon after two o’clock. A silence of expectation pervaded the broad plains. Napoleon, from his post of observation near Fleurus, and Blucher from the heights. in front of Bry, were prepared, one to give, the other to. receive battle. Hach army was animated with the fiercest. passions. The Prussians remembered how the “ Grande Nation” had humiliated their king, insulted their queen, garrisoned their fairest cities, and plundered and oppressed. the whole of Germany. The French thirsted to avenge e. Leipsic and the occupation of Paris. Perhaps no two armies, more-determined to slay without mercy, ever met. The spirit of personal vengeance nerved each combatant not merely to master and defeat, but to master and destroy his foe. Hence this battle, though so brief, was so bloody. The war-cry on each side seemed to be the Moslem shriek — Rall! dll!” It is recorded that the quiet of the sultry summer noon was broken by the clang of the bell in the church tower of St. Amand striking half-past two. Three cannon shots 110 THE ARMY RESTORES THE EMPEROR. [BOOK I. in quick but measured succession, fired near Fleurus, next broke the stillness—the signal for Vandamme to fall on. Vandamme immediately sent General Lefol’s brigade against St. Amand. Lefol marched forward with drums beating and colours flying. The soldiers shouted “ Vive lEmpereur!” and the bands played the old airs of the Revolution. Pressing on with impetuous tread these gallant soldiers were not checked by the fierce fire of the Prussian battalions, who occupied the village. They dashed into the enclosures, engaged their enemies at short range, and by the velocity of their relentless ad-. vance compelled the Prussians, after a short but vigo- rous resistance, to give way. Issuing in pursuit with the ardour of their nation, they were suddenly stopped by a shower of grape, before they could cross the rivulet. General Steinmetz, whose brigade defended St. Amand, rallied tlre expelled battalions, reinforced them, assailed the village in his turn, and, finding the force insufficient, called fresh battalions into the fight, and regained part of the village, But Vandamme, perceiving the check to his soldiers, sent Berthezéne with fresh troops to aid Lefol, and threw forward Girard against Le Hameau and La Haye. Girard overcame all resistance in his path, and Bertheztne, operating at the same time on Lefol’s left, the Frenchmen succeeded in carrying their front of battle to the inner margin of these villages. But no farther, for the cannon assailed them when they attempted to issue forth, broke their formations, and strewed the ground with dead. The French threw themselves into the gardens, the houses, the churchyard, and a large building, called by some writers a chAteau, which stood at the point where St. Amand joins La Haye. Vandamme brought his guns into play, and there was reason to fear that he would make a daring attempt to carry the heights CHAP. VI.] AFTERNOON OF THE 16TH OF JUNE. 111 Blucher, to prevent this, threw promptly forward effective reinforcements. The division of Pirch II. descended the slope; three brigades of cavalry, under General Jiirgass, were moved down in support on the right of La Haye; and General von Tippelskirchen marched his division from Trois Burettes towards Wagnelée. Before the two latter generals came into line, Pirch II. assaulted La Haye, and, in the first onset, carried the upper part; but Girard, a valiant officer, hurried his second brigade into action, and after a desperate struggle once more recovered the village. Undismayed, Pirch IT. brought up his second line, renewed the combat, but was again broken and put to flight. Still he only retired across the brook, and under cover of his cannon reformed his battalion. Blucher galloped up at this instant and roused the passions of his troops by his stimulating words. VPirch II. led them for- ward for the third-time. General Jirgass had now come up, and his horsemen stood in the open ground between La Haye and Wagnelée. The infantry fell on with more fury than before. They broke into the village, fought hand to hand, steadily made their way from house to house, and finally forced the French back into Le Hameau, with the loss of the intrepid Girard (mortally wounded) and his two brigadiers. At the same time General Jiirgass issued from Wagnelée and tried to charge the flank of Girard’s soldiers; but Vandamme had again prepared for misfor- tune by placing Habert’s brigade among the tall corn on the French left of Le Hameau. Jiirgass came on without skirmishers, hastily, and confident of success, but his soldiers, unexpectedly smitten by the fire of Habert’s skirmishers, who were kneeling in the corn, recoiled, and were forced back into Wagnelée. During these terrible combats in the village of La Haye, Steinmetz had been entirely occupied in preventing Lefol and Bertheztne from 112 THE ARMY RESTORES THE EMPEROR. [BOOK I. moving out of St. Amand. The fight had been keen and bloody along the whole north-western front; so quick and deadly that Vandamme had engaged every gun and every battalion. ‘Yet the only solid advantage he had gained was the possession of St. Amand and Le Hameau, from neither of which he could issue. It will be observed that Blucher, to keep his ground, had actually extended his position, as well as carried three entire divisions of in- fantry and three brigades of cavalry to his right. The French line ran along the rear face of St. Amand, thence to Le Hameau, a little thrown back on the left flank, and “into the plain beyond, where Domont stood with his horse. The Prussians had failed to retake St. Amand, but had re- covered La Haye, had occupied Wagnelée, and had posted cavalry on their right to control Domont. Three hours had passed away in this furious, well-sus- tained, and mortal combat. During that period the French centre had been engaged in even a bloodier and more horrible strife in and about the village of Ligny. Gérard, ranged in beautiful order in front of Ligny, had retained the divisions of Vichery and Pecheux on that side, and had posted Hulot’s division and the cavalry of the fourth corps across the Fleurus road, and at right angles to his line of battle, asa support to the masses of cavalry under Grouchy, and a counterpoise to the corps of Thiele- mann. He strove to capture Ligny with the divisions of Vichery and Pecheux, estimated at 10,000 men. The action on this side began with a heavy cannonade a little before three o’clock. Gérard then formed three columns of attack, and, with music and much enthusiasm, they marched to battle in succession from right to left. The Prussians, under Jagow and Henkel, stood silently behind the walls, and hedges, and barricades, in the chateau, and throughout that part of the village on the CHAP. VI.] AFTERNOON OF THE 16TH OF JUNE. 113 French side of the brook. They mustered for the defence, including the reserves, 9,000 men, with sixteen guns on each flank. As the three columns came within musketry range, the Prussians opened fire, and the hail of shot struck and shook the French masses, and brought them to a momen- tary halt. Resuming their march, they move gallantly up towards the outer defences of the village, and engaged their adversaries at close quarters. Unable to penetrate, they gave way. Reformed, aroused by the animating words and gestures of their officers, the soldiers of Pecheux and Vichery once more started forward and renewed the combat; bounding up to the hedges and walls with fire and steel, they strove to break in. The Prussians held their own along the whole front, and the French were forced to retire. Again they rushed for- ward, and again they were overpowered by the unceasing fire of their foes. The whole line was now covered by dense clouds of rolling smoke. The shells poured into Ligny by the French had set the thatch of the stone cottages in a blaze, and bright tawny tongues of flame leaped up out of the white smoke of the battle and the browner hues of the burning straw. Into the midst of this exciting atmosphere Gérard’s troops came on a fourth time ; the dark columns, raised to fury by three defeats, and reinforced by fresh battalions, whose restrained ardour now broke all bounds, dashed ‘into the position of the defenders, pressed on with wild cries, and in spite of the splendid fighting of the Prussians, gained ground, and, once setting them in mo- tion, pursued them through the enclosures and orchards, swept them out of nearly the whole of the village on the right bank, and followed them across the brook. A bril- liant onset it was; but speedily General Jagow poured three fresh battalions into the village, and this compact I 114 THE ARMY RESTORES THE EMPEROR. [BOOK 1. mass coming on with great vigour, struck and forced the most daring of the French over the rivulet, and into the very outermost houses of the village. Yet no farther. Re- covering from the confusion caused by Jagow’s vehement counterstroke, the French rallied, and a combat of the deadliest kind began in this confined space. None de- manded, none gave quarter. Each slew the enemy where and how he could. It was a mélée of gladiators doomed to conquer or die. The bayonet, the butt of the musket, the bullet, by turns inflicted death or mortal wounds. There were no survivors but the victors. And over this horrible struggle the flames played and raged, and the burning timbers of many a rooftree fell upon antago- nists who, insensible to this peril, were absorbed by one passion, a desire to kill. It is a tragedy which reminds one of the last combat of the Niebelungen in the hall of King Etzel. Into the midst of this ferocious combat Gérard now sent his last reserve. Thus ten thousand Frenchmen, in suc- cessive bodies, had been hurled into Ligny. On the other side two fresh battalions, belonging to. Henkel’s division, came down from the mill of Bussy; and the fight continued to rage with unabated vehemence throughout the village. It was now about half-past five. The two armies had been in action for three hours. We may pause a moment and sum up what had been lost and won. The Prussians had lost St. Amand, on their right; they were contending fiercely for Ligny, in the centre; on their left they had receded, before Grouchy, from Boignée and Balatre, but had kept Tongrinelle. On this side, in ‘the early afternoon, there was but little fighting. Practically, the French opposed only one division of infantry and two of cavalry to the whole corps of Thielemann, and the result CHAP, V1.] AFTERNOON OF THE 16TH OF JUNE. 115 obtained was the maintenance of this Prussian corps in a state of comparative inactivity between Tongrines and Sombref. About five o’clock Napoleon, yielding to the demands of Vandamme, whose whole corps, plus the division of Girard, had been engaged, drew Subervie’s light horse from Grouchy and sent them to aid the left, and at the same time caused the Young Guard, under Duhesme, and one battalion of the Old Guard, to advance in the same direction. He had observed the gradual accumulation of Prussians on their right; he had seen the process of weakening the centre continually going on. He supplied Vandamme with reinforcements, not only that he might hold his own and make progress, but that he might strike hard when an occasion should arrive, which Napoleon was preparing. It has been seen how Napoleon, at first unwilling to believe that any considerable force of Prussians was before him, had at length recognized the fact that a body of troops did stand between Bry and Sombref. At two o’clock he forwarded those instructions to Ney which directed that marshal to force back his foes and turn aside to aid in crushing the venturous body of Prussians. Ata quarter past three Soult sent off a fresh despatch more em- phaticin its terms. The enemy is now described as occupying St. Amand and Bry. The body of troops has become “an army.” Napoleon has caught this army flagrante delicto, at the moment when it is seeking to effect a junction with the English, and Ney is to mancuvre at once upon the heights of Bry and St. Amand, and come to close quarters with the right and rear of the enemy. If he act with sufficient vigour the enemy will be lost, and he will help to achieve a victory, perhaps decisive. In short, he is told that “the fate of France is in his hands.” At the very moment when he enjoined upon Ney the execution of this 116 _THE ARMY RESTORES THE EMPEROR. [BOOK I. new operation—the third since the morning—Napoleon did not know, and apparently did not so much as dream, that Wellington barred the road to Brussels, and clung as tenaciously to the road from Nivelles to Namur as Blucher himself. Having sent this order at a quarter past three, and having, two hours before, reinforced Vandamme, seeing the weakness of the Prussian centre, Napoleon determined to throw his whole remaining reserve, including the corps of Lobau, which had reached Fleurus, upon the French right of the village of Ligny. By this stroke he hoped to pierce through the Prussian army, cross the Namur road, cut off Thielemann from Blucher, and, with the aid of the expected succour from Ney, capture or destroy every division fighting in the angle formed by the line from Ligny to. St. Amand, and from St. Amand to Marbais. It was a grand design, and we shall see how and why it failed. To execute this design the Guard and Milhaud’s cuirassiers were put in motion. It may be remembered that the Guard stood in a dense column on the left of Fleurus; that the Young Guard, and one of the regiments of the Old Guard, had been detached in support towards the left; that thus the portion of the infantry of the Guard available for an attack on the Prussian centre con- sisted of fifteen battalions, or 7,000 men ; and that besides these there were 1,800 horsemen under Guyot, 3,000 under Milhaud, seventy or eighty guns, and the whole corps of Lobau, now moving into position on the right of Fleurus: a mass of 18,000 foot, 4,800 horse, and at least 100 guns. The Guard took ground to the right, maneuvring ably in the rear of Gérard, and appearing, as it withdrew from its first position, to be drawing off from the field. Suddenly the Guard received orders to halt; the attack on the centre was suspended, for an officer from Vandamme rode CHAP, VI.] AFTERNOON OF THE 16TH OF JUNE, 117 up to Napoleon, bearing the most alarming information. Vandamme reported that a hostile column of troops of all arms had appeared on his left, distant about three miles, and that it seemed to be making its way towards Fleurus. Was it a Prussian or an English corps, or was it the succour demanded from Marshal Ney? Napoleon was puzzled. To discover the truth an officer was sent off at a gallop, and, pending the inquiry, Napoleon halted the Guard, urged Vandamme and Gérard to maintain their ground, and supplied the latter with three batteries from the artillery of the Guard. But Blucher did not allow Napoleon’s lieutenants a moment’s rest. The conflict in Ligny was maintained with unabated rage. Vandamme, unable to issue from St. Amand, scarcely able to hold Le Hameau, was smitten with an unceasing fire of cannon and musketry. Jirgass, supported by a demonstration of. cavalry on his right, and a sortie from La Haye on his left, dashed out of Wagnelée, and drove the French from Le Hameau, and arrayed the division of Tippelskirchen in front of that place. It was now half-past six. The officer sent to recon- noitre the strange enemy returned and informed Napoleon that the corps was no enemy—it was the corps of D’Erlon. The Prussians had also felt this corps, and their cavalry on the extreme right had fallen back before the light horse of Jacquinot. But as suddenly as it had appeared so it vanished. Napoleon had sent no orders to the much-perplexed chief of the 1st corps; Ney, as we shall learn later, had, and his positive orders D’Erlon had obeyed. But he left behind Durutte’s division of infantry, and Jacquinot’s horse; yet these took no part in the fight. The final moment was now approaching. Blucher with- drew Henkel’s soldiers from Ligny, and replaced them by 118 THE ARMY RESTORES THE EMPEROR. [BOOK I. part of Krafft’s division ; but he continued to throw more and more battalions to his right. Stung by the success of the Prussians in their last charge, Vandamme brought up the Guard, and hurled Duhesme’s young soldiers upon Le Hameau, and the remains of Girard’s division upon La Haye. The onset was impetuous and successful. Tippel- skirchen was flung back into Wagnelée, and Pirch II. compelled to retire into La Haye. Blucher, however, determined to push the attack with his right, called up the whole of Brause’s division from Trois Burettes, and with these fresh soldiers he once more shattered the French, and regained possession of Le Hameau. Tippelskirchen’s division now fell to the rear, and Brause and Pirch II. continued the battle. The brave defenders of Ligny had been reinforced, and Gérard feared that his exhausted men would be compelled to give way. Thielemann had made a weak attack down the Fleurus road, but had been repulsed with the loss of six guns; and this short combat had been followed by a general action maintained by the skirmishers from Mont Potriaux to Tongrinelle. Napoleon still withheld the signal for the advance of the Guard. It was now about half-past seven. At this time, when Napoleon was watching for a favour- able moment, Blucher ordered three fresh battalions of Langen’s division to La Haye, and sent two more from the wreck of the division of Steinmetz, and the whole of Tippelskirchen’s division once more into action. He designed to lead a new attack upon the French left, and he cheered on his soldiers as they, for the last time that day, fell upon the infantry of Vandamme and upon the Young Guard. It is said that Blucher at this period of the battle was about to assume the offensive, with the object of crushing Vandamme and reaching the Fleurus CHAP, VI.] AFTERNOON OF THE 16TH OF JUNE, 119 road. But a far different issue was impending. For Napoleon, seeing the Prussian centre further weakened by the departure of Landen, gave the long-expected order to the Guard. Dense clouds had risen in the north-west, and behind these the sun had sunk. The murky atmo- sphere of the battle-field was rendered deeper and gloomier by the darkness of the evening. The Guard and the heavy horsemen, in compact array, marched along beneath the “sulphurous canopy” of Gérard’s cannonade, and that of their own artillery. As they approached Ligny, the tired remains of Gérard’s noble soldiers, cheered by the sight, fell on with renewed impetuosity. At length the huge dark column, in perfect array, broke through the veil of smoke, their dreaded uniform became visible, their cries were heard by the Prussians; but these brave men were not to be daunted so, and they continued the desperate combat. The Guard marched steadily on, reached, and erossed the brook, sweeping before them the skirmishers, and drawing upon themselves the fire of a reinforcement moving down the slope to Ligny. At the same time Gérard’s soldiers pressed forward, Milhaud’s heavy cavalry followed through the village, and a body of light horse flanked the right of the Imperial Guard. The blow struck by Napoleon was swift and deadly. Ligny was turned, and Blucher galloped up breathless from the right of his line to find the battle lost. But although they were defeated, the Prussians were neither broken nor routed. Blucher and his lieutenants made head on every side to secure their own retreat and that of their right wing. In rapid succession the Prussian cavalry charged into the French at the outlet of the village. Liitzow led the attack with his lancers, but was overthrown and taken prisoner. Blucher himself headed a mass of horsemen, in the vain hope of hurling the 120 THE ARMY RESTORES THE EMPEROR. [BOOK I. French once more over the Ligny. The charge failed : Blucher’s horse was shot, and, in falling, rolled upon his veteran rider. The cuirassiers of Milhaud, pursuing the retiring cavalry, swept past without seeing the rich prize who lay helplessly on the ground, attended only by Count Nostitz. Presently the French horse were in their turn forced to retire, with a body of Prussian lancers close on their heel. Nostitz called for their aid. Blucher was released, quickly lifted on a horse, and led away from the field. Night had now fallen, and Gneisenau had taken com- mand. There was a confused struggle on the wide slope above Ligny and below Bry and Sombref; infantry were retreating in square, in larger or smaller bodies, cavalry hurtling in the darkness against them, and against each other, amid the roar of cannon and the shouts of com- batants. The French had broken into the position, but they made slow progress up the slopes. Holding Bry and Sombref, the Prussian generals secured the orderly retreat of their right, and stopped the advance against the centre. Neither Vandamme nor Napoleon could throw their enemies into confusion. There was no flight. The Prus- sians gave ground, but fought every yard of the way, and the French were compelled to halt before they could touch Bry, enter Sombref, or seize any part of the Namur road. They had won the battle and the battle-field ; they had defeated, but had not routed, the Prussian army. _ When the action ceased, about half-past nine, Vandamme stood in front of St. Amand, La Haye, and Wagnelée ; Lobau, having passed to the front, occupied the ground about the mill of Bussy; Gérard rested on his right ; Grouchy, with Hulot’s division, was at Potriaux,‘and on the road ; the Guard and the cuirassiers, as usual, were above Ligny in second line. CHAP, VI.] AFTERNOON OF THE 16TH OF JUNE, 121 General von Gneisenau had taken the command of the Prussian army. He resolved to hold Bry until midnight; to maintain the whole of Thielemann’s corps at Sombref and Point du Jour; and to withdraw the remainder of the army at one o’clock to Tilly and Gentinnes, on the road to Wavre. The execution of these measures was not hindered by any movements of the wearied French ; who, after posting their pickets, sought repose upon the field, while Napoleon at once betook himself to his head-quarters at Fleurus. The loss of the Prussians in this battle is estimated by themselves at 12,000, and by a careful French authority at 18,000,* including a few hundred prisoners taken in the retreat. They also lost twenty-one guns. The French loss is also the subject of controversy ; the estimates of the best writers varying the figures from 7,000 to 11,000, the latter number being probably the correct one. In addition to their loss upon the field, the Prussians were deprived of the services of some 8,000 soldiers who separated and-fled to-. wards Namur. Thus Napoleon, at a cost of 11,000 men, had diminished the strength of the Allies by at least 25,000, and had compelled Blucher to cede the battle-field. But: he had not gained the object for which he fought the battle —he had not separated Blucher from Wellington. When he retired to Fleurus he did not probably know that fact, and he certainly took no pains to ascertain it. For all night long the Prussians were filing away, and, as we shall see, none of his outposts knew whither, although they were with- in gunshot of the bivouacs of Von Jagow and Thielemann. § 2. The Battle of Quatre Bras. From the sombre and blood-bedewed field of Ligny we 1 Charras. 122 THE ARMY RESTORES THE EMPEROR. [BOOK I. must return to narrate the fortunes of the French left wing under Marshal Ney. The events of the morning which im- mediately preceded the battle of Quatre Bras have been already described, and the story must be resumed at the point where Foy coming into Frasne enabled the marshal to begin the fray. But first, we must describe in more detail, and from the British side, the scene of this conflict. It will be remem- bered that the road from Charleroi to Brussels ran through the position in a straight line. Viewed from the farm at Quatre Bras, this road was lost to sight in the direction of Frasne. The Namur road branched off at an acute angle, and disappeared in the direction of Thyle, beyond which the hills about Marbais, and farther to the south-east the plain of Fleurus, were visible to the spectator. On the right of the Charleroi road stood the wood of Bossu. Its straggling border fringed the road to Nivelles about 200 yards from Quatre Bras, and stretching southward at the same distance from the Charleroi road, it bent abruptly inwards, and ex- panding in width, extended upwards of half a mile, where it terminated in a square clump of trees, at its south-western angle, near the farm of Pierpont. Thus, between the road and the wood there was an open space, some 500 yards broad at its southern base, and narrowed to 200 yards at Quatre Bras. On the left, or eastern, side of the road lay a wider plain, bounded by the Namur road and a rivulet, rising in the wood of Bossu, and running, first to the eastward, as far as the Namur road, where it turned to the north-east. A few yards beyond this rivulet, above its right bank, and close to the Charleroi road, stood and stands the strong farmhouse of Gemioncourt, with enclosed fields stretching to the eastward along the valley, and beyond the farm the ground rises, forming a slight elevation overlooking the plain towards Quatre Bras. The village of Péraumont lies CHAP, VI.] AFTERNOON OF THE 16TH OF JUNE. 123 on the left, and the wood of Delhutte bounds the view to the south-east. The Prince of Orange, with a weak force of less than 7,000 men and sixteen guns, but no cavalry, occupied the front of the position we have described, facing towards Frasne, and extending from the wood of Delhutte on his left, across the road, to the wood of Bossu, with his guns on the high road, and his reserves at Quatre Bras. In this position he had remained for several hours, but the moment of action was fast approaching ; for the arrival of Foy, about half-past one, increased Ney’s force to 9,000 infantry, 1,865 cavalry, and twenty-two guns. These he arrayed, at once, in order of battle, and gave them the word to advance. He risked nothing in so doing; because, already superior in every arm, he knew that Prince Jerome was not far off; that his division would increase the total strength of the attacking force by nearly 8,000 men; and that Jerome would be followed by Kellerman and D’Hrlon. The first indication of the coming action was given by the French skirmishers, who expelled the Dutch from the wood of DeJhutte, and drove back their advanced posts along the whole front. About two o’clock Ney made a vigorous forward movement. Bachelu carried Péraumont on the right, Piré charged and overthrew a battalion, Foy drove the Dutch back upon Gemioncourt, and Ney estab- lished his batteries on the ridge above that farm. But here the Prince of Orange halted, holding the farm and en- closures, thus barring the road to Quatre Bras, and filling the wood of Bossu with troops. Nor, although Prince Jerome had come into line, and his leading columns were breaking into the farm and wood of Pierpont, was the Prince of Orange without hope. Sometimes wanting in judgment, never wanting in courage, and inspired by the spectacle of red regiments moving out from Quatre Bras, 124 THE ARMY RESTORES THE EMPEROR, [BOOK I. he became too audacious,.and led the battalion defending Gemioncourt against the veterans of Foy. The result might have been foreseen. Broken by cannon-shot, this battalion fell back in confusion, and Foy, seizing the opportunity, charged and carried the farm and enclosures, thus bringing the French front on to the verge of the open country south of Quatre Bras, which it seemed so easy to reach. But the moment when conquest was possible had passed away. The red masses which cheered the heart of the Prince of Orange as he looked across the rich cornfields were the regiments of Picton’s division, which had marched that morning from Brussels across the Field of Waterloo to Quatre Bras. With them came two batteries of artillery, and on the Nivelles road the head of Van Merle’s column of Dutch-Belgian cavalry was seen wheeling to its right and forming on the east of the wood of Bossu. Picton’s divi- sion drew up speedily along the Namur road, and the 1st battalion of the 95th Rifles, under Sir Andrew Barnard, rapidly engaged the French skirmishers on the extreme left, and compelled them to retire towards Péraumont. Van Merle, hastily called up by the Prince of Orange to support the infantry retiring from Gemioncourt, was charged by Piré, who overthrew both foot and horse, and disabled half a battery of guns, but did not venture to dash against the British infantry about Quatre Bras. This was the first crisis in the engagement ; the arrival of Picton. had saved the position. Close behind him came a portion of the Duke of Brunswick’s corps, 4,000 infantry and 900 horsemen, but without guns. Part of the cavalry were sent to watch the open country and field roads on the right of the wood of Bossu; one battalion was sent to the left, and took post in rear of the 95th Rifles; two battalions were posted immediately on the right of the hamlet, and the re- mainder were arrayed in advance of Quatre Bras between CHAP. VI.] AFTERNOON OF THE 16TH OF JUNE. 125 the wood and the main road. Although Ney had received no reinforcements, he was still superior to his adversary, for his less numerous troops were all good, and he mustered five batteries to Wellington’s four. At this moment Ney occupied a front stretching nearly east and west. On his right, the eastern flank, the French skirmishers were on the Namur road, in action with the 95th, and their line extended from that point westward on the British side of Gemioncourt into and across the southern base of the wood of Bossu. Bachelu’s columns were in rear on the right, Foy in the centre, and Prince Jerome on the left. The guns of the whole of Reille’s corps were disposed along the ridge in heavy batteries at intervals from right to left. "Wellington’s line was not parallel to that of the French, but followed the direction of the Namur road, which, taking a south-easterly course, touched the French right. The British right was in the wood of Bossu, de- fended by Perponcher’s division, protected on their left by the Brunswick regiments in the open. Thus the British left and centre were exposed to an incessant cannonade from Reille’s guns, inadequately answered by the inferior artillery of the Allies ; and the Dutch-Belgians and Nassauers in the wood were giving ground before the onsets of Jerome. Ney was about to issue from his position and assault the British left and centre. The French light troops dashed forward from the valley of Gemioncourt, and Bachelu on the right, and Foy partly on the road and partly between the road and the wood, led forward their heavy columns, protected by the guns and followed by Piré’s horsemen. The signs of the coming storm did not escape the watch- fulness of the British commander. He resolved not to wait, but to meet it. Picton’s skirmishers were already deeply engaged, and before the French columns had crossed the little ravine and broken through the hedges, Picton’s two 126 THE ARMY RESTORES THE EMPEROR. [BOOK I. brigades had moved steadily forward into the deep corn, showing broad red masses in a setting of bright green. Kempt led the left and Pack the right. As they swept. over the field, the light troops, overpowered by their oppo- nents, fell back fighting, and joined their battalions. Picton rode along his line, according to his wont, and shouts broke from soldiers who were proud of their gallant leader. Disordered in passing through the fences of Ge- mioncourt, broken into small columns of attack, the French were received by a telling fire at short range. As eager for the fray as their ancient foes, they sent back a destructive fire. But Picton was not the man to allow them to recover from the partial confusion in which they had reached the open. His fire had ravaged their columns—their fire de- creased in vigour. Suddenly the welcome command to charge was heard, and with levelled muskets, close ranks, and steady tramp the red masses went forward and literally swept the field clear of their foes, following them up to the fences of Gemioncourt, and pouring into them a heavy fire as they crossed the ravine. The left regiment of Kempt’s brigade, the 79th, in the ardour of battle, rushed through the hedges, and dashed up the opposite slope; but they paid for their undue zeal. A flank fire from a French regiment in reserve, and a charge of cavalry, sent them flying back. During this bloody encounter between Picton and Bachelu, Foy had fallen upon the Duke of Brunswick, who up to this moment had gallantly sustained a fierce cannonade to which he could not reply. Like Seidlitz, he rode up and down the front of his line coolly smoking a pipe, a very gallant figure set in the front of the battle. Wellington, at his request, had sent him four guns, which the French speedily over- threw. Foy made his attack at the moment when Picton was advancing to encounter Bachelu. He came down in column along the skirt of the wood, supported by Piré’s CHAP. VI.] AFTERNOON OF THE 16TH OF JUNE. 127 eavalry on his right flank, and his front covered by a swarm of light troops. The Duke of Brunswick immediately led forward his lancers, but Foy’s veterans, undismayed, re- ceived them with a steady fire, and the young soldiers went about and fled. The French horse now came on at a gallop; the Brunswick infantry, fearful of the shock, fol- lowed their cavalry, steadily at first, but soon fell into utter disorder, some rushing to the wood, and others fleeing to Quatre Bras. Their undaunted duke strove in vain to keep them in masses, and while engaged in this noble work he received a mortal wound. The Brunswick hussars, made of better stuff, charged into the French column, and fought awhile, hand to hand, but were in turn overpowered, and the French, spurring on, mastered for a moment the whole of this part of the field. Picton’s brigades had just returned from their trium- phant charge, and had taken post in a slight depression of the plateau, the 42nd Highlanders and the 44th Regiment being in line next to the road. The violence of the French cavalry charge down the road had carried these bold horse- men beyond the right flank of Pack’s brigade. Seeing two infantry regiments, in line, the French lancers wheeled to their right, and came thundering down upon the British rear. The 42nd were not quick enough in forming square, and the lancers dashed into their midst by the open rear face. The flank companies were cut to pieces as they ran in, but the gallant Frenchmen did not succeed in breaking the square; for the Scotchmen would not stir, and falling furiously upon those who had got among them, killed them with ball or bayonet, or made them yield their arms. But the French killed Sir Robert Macara, and wounded Lieutenant-Colonel Dick and Major Davidson. That a half-formed square should yet resist cavalry, shows the training and mettle of the men. The 44th did more; they 128 THE ARMY RESTORES THE EMPEROR. [BOOK I. resisted in line. Hearing the rush of horsemen through the corn, Colonel Hammerton did not attempt to form square. He simply made the rear rank face about, and in this position they delivered, at his command, so steady a fire that the lancers were driven off, galled in their flight by the men of the front rank; perhaps the most brilliant exploit among the exploits of that day. The head of the cavalry column from which the lancers had detached themselves pursued the Brunswick hussars up to Quatre Bras; and Wellington, involved in the flying column, saved himself by leaping his horse over the 92nd Highlanders who lined the ditch of the Namur road. The main body of the French, staggered and repelled by the fire of the 92nd, retired in good order, but a score galloped into the village, and one officer, coming into the rear, made a dash at Wellington. The daring Frenchman was wounded and taken prisoner, and but few of the horsemen who entered the village returned to their comrades. Both generals were fighting an uphill game. Welling- ton knew that if he could hold his own for an hour he would be reinforced from Nivelles and from Brussels. Ney believed that he could establish his troops in such a position that when the first corps, under D’Erlon, came up he would be able to overthrow his enemy. Both fought at a disadvantage. Wellington was inferior in artillery, and Ney had not only more cavalry, but cavalry who, although they could not shake the British infantry, were able to’ keep even them in play, and ride over or through any horsemen Wellington could send against them. But Ney’s infantry had never recovered the shock of Picton’s scathing ‘charge. Bachelu’s division did not advance again with any spirit, and Foy’s men did not seem anxious to come into collision with the British. Wellington fought all day with his best arm, the infantry ; Ney had to rely upon his CHAP. VI.] AFTERNOON OF THE 16TH OF JUNE. 129 guns and his horsemen. Jerome’s troops, indeed, had made great progress in the wood of Bossu, and they were masters of nearly its whole length; but they were not able to debouch, because Wellington’s troops held the north- eastern angle where the wood approached the village of Quatre Bras. Ney’s next effort was with his cavalry. Kellerman had brought up his corps in front of Frasne, and one division, L’Heritier’s, stood close in rear of Gemioncourt; but Ney used them sparingly, in obedience to the instructions of Napoleon, and he made no use of the light cavalry of the Guard, under Lefebre Desnouettes. Yet as he had been ordered to take Quatre Bras, and move a large force to his right upon Marbais, it was plain that he could not effect this with his shaken infantry and light horsemen. He therefore combined a portion of L’Heritier’s second bri- gade, cuirassiers, with Piré’s light horse, and sent them headlong against the British. At this time the two regi-’ ments of Pack’s brigade, the 42nd and 44th, stood in line on the open rye-fields, having the road on their right; and in their left rear, but farther removed, was his other regi- ment, Ist Royals, and the 28th, 32nd, and 79th, under Kempt. The French batteries played upon them inces- santly in the intervals between the closer attacks, and the firing now was the prelude to the most formidable they had yet sustained. Suddenly the skirmishers ran in; hastily the regiments formed into squares ; the fire of the batteries ceased, and in a moment the cavalry were upon them. In debouching from the French position the French horsemen passed between Gemioncourt and the wood; Piré turned to his right and rode at the British infantry ; the cuirassiers swept rapidly along the chaussée. Pack’s two battalion squares were assaulted in vain by squadrons in succession ; but Picton, wishing to give them K 130 THE ARMY RESTORES THE EMPEROR. [BOOK I. direct support, formed the 28th and Royals into one column, and led them straight at the French horse.’ The column shouted as it trampled down the rye, and the enemy, amazed at the daring of this manceuvre, prepared to strike at those audacious foot soldiers. But Picton, who led the column, pressed on until he had gained his point; that is, had planted his force where his fire would support that of Pack. Then he halted and formed square, and the cavalry charged only to meet death and defeat. The movement begun by Picton was followed by the 32nd and 79th ; so that the British infantry, arrayed in squares, and still maintaining a position midway between Quatre Bras and Gemioncourt, stretched over the fields from the Char- leroi to the Namur road; having behind them Best’s brigade of Hanoverians, who occupied the road itself. Picton’s squares looked like rocks in a flowing tide; for the cavalry only dashed up to them to be broken and flung off. During this strange contest, the cuirassiers, who had passed along the road toward Quatre Bras, had easily dis- posed of the Belgian cavalry, and galloping on, met the volleys of the 92nd, before which they recoiled, and the whole host of horsemen, like a flight of pigeons, went hurriedly to the rear. But not for long. Hardly had skirmishers been thrown out to keep down, the galling fire from the enemy in front of the hedges of Gemioncourt, than the French cavalry came dashing back, and the wild combat was renewed. Nor without reason. Ney had nothing wherewith to fight, except his horsemen, and at this moment the issue of the day depended entirely upon the steadfastness of the British squares. The toughness of the British infantry was never so severely tested, except two days afterwards at Waterloo; but had the 1 See Plan II. CHAP. VI.] AFTERNOON OF THE 16TH OF JUNE. 1381 squares been part of the solid earth they could not have proved more immovable. Yet their loss had been enor- mous, and their ammunition was nearly spent, when the French, exhausted and frustrated, once more withdrew. But there was no respite for the squares; for the French horse had no sooner ridden off than the batteries on the heights opened fire, and dealt heavy blows at the squares, which they could not return. Their fortitude was tried, but the long-expected help from trusty comrades was near at hand. Two Brunswick battalions had been moved on to the right of Picton, and filled up the space between the road and the wood; but in the wood itself Prince Jerome seemed about to triumph and debouch upon the Nivelles road; and from Péraumont, Bachelu, though roughly handled, continued to send swarms of light troops to con- tend with the 95th. Ney now learned, and it was a grievous blow, that an aide-de-camp of Napoleon had turned D’Erlon’s corps towards the field of Ligny. The Imperial aide-de-camp was followed by General d’EI- cambre, D’Hrlon’s chief of the staff, and Ney, unwilling to retire, or lose a chance, sent D’Eleambre back with peremptory orders for the immediate return of the 1st corps. Having done this, he renewed the battle with more fierceness than ever. It was time. Alten’s division, coming from Soignies, was now visible down the Nivelles road. Before Ney could renew the attack, Alten had brought his men into line. His force consisted of four British regiments, form- ing the 5th British brigade, led by Sir Colin Halkett, and six Hanoverian battalions, led by Count Kielmansegge. With them came Lloyd’s and Cleeve’s batteries of foot artillery, and close in their rear was Kuhlmann’s horse battery of the German Legion attached to the 1st division. 132 THE ARMY RESTORES THE EMPEROR. [BOOK J. Wellington directed the Hanoverians along the Namur road, and Kielmansegge drew them up on the left of Best and in the rear of Picton. Halkett’s infantry were sent to the front and posted between the wood of Bossu and the road, as a reserve to the Brunswick battalions, who had re-formed after their overthrow by the cuirassiers. Lloyd’s battery went with the British infantry, Cleeve’s halted on the British left of the Charleroi road, and Kuhlmann’s guns were on the road itself at Quatre Bras. As soon as he spied Halkett’s red-coats in his right rear, Sir Denis Pack begged that officer to place a battalion on his right, to support the 42nd and 44th, now united in one square. Halkett placed the 69th under the orders of Pack, and its commander, Colonel Morice, deployed his battalion in a slight hollow running perpendicular to the road. Halkett rode to the front, and soon galloped back. Warning the 69th to form square, to resist an onset of cavalry, he passed on to the other regiments of his brigade, delivering the same command. During the period thus occupied the French guns had never ceased to batter the squares. Ney’s plan was to break the centre by a combined attack with horse and foot. For this purpose he had called up Kellerman, telling him that “the fate of France was in his hands,” and that he must break through the mass of infantry. Kellerman arrayed 800 cuirassiers, and placed himself at their head; Foy was ready to follow in two columns; Bachelu spurred forward his light troops on the French right, and Guille- minot imparted fresh stimulus to his battalions in the wood. Suddenly Pack’s skirmishers ran in, at full speed, There was a great, movement and a gleam of mail through the smoke of the battle on the west of Gemioncourt. Colonel Morice, obeying Halkett’s warning, was moving his battalion into square, when the Prince of Orange CHAP. VI.] AFTERNOON OF THE I6TH OF JUNE. 133 heedlessly stopped the movement, although he was told of Halkett’s timely information. The muffled thunder of hoofs was heard among the corn, and in a moment a body of cuirassiers, wheeling to the left, took the 69th in flank, rode over and sabred the men, and captured one of the colours, a sacrifice of gallant soldiers due solely to the meddling of the Prince of Orange, whom we shall meet again presiding over the slaughter of Ompteda and his German legionaries on the field of Waterloo. Even here, indeed, the 30th Foot barely escaped the fate of the 69th. Colonel Hamilton, disregarding the Prince, threw his bat- talions, skilfully and quickly, into square. The van- quishers of the 69th, repelled by the 30th, dashed across the road and joined Piré, who was once more hurtling against Picton’s invincible infantry. The battle now raged over the whole position. The flanks of Wellington were beset by Jerome and Bachelu with fresh vivacity ; but while the former made headway in the wood of Bossu, Bachelu was driven back by Bar- nard’s riflemen and Kielmansegge’s Hanoverians. Foy had followed Kellerman, and Ney had sent two batteries into the wood to open fire on the flank of Halkett’s brigade. Kellerman’s charge was intended to be driven home, and it was; but the British infantry did not share the fate of Zach’s Hungarians at Marengo. MHalkett’s brigade was prepared, met the storm with serried ranks, and compelled the cuirassiers to diverge to the right, and charge forward on Quatre Bras itself. Kellerman, undismayed, spurred forward, and his shining squadrons shook the ground as they went steadily up the road after their daring leader, and struck into the very heart of the position. But Wellington had prepared a counterstroke. He had posted two guns of Kuhlmann’s battery bearing directly down the road; having no cavalry, he fought cavalry with artillery ; 184 THE ARMY RESTORES THE EMPEROR. [BOOK 1. and he prevailed. The fire of the guns smote the head of the column, the musketry of the infantry galled its flanks ; horses and men commingled writhed on the chaussée in horrible confusion ; Kellerman himself dismounted, retired on foot between two cuirassiers, and the whole mass, hurled backward, turned and fled. Piré’s horse, seeing these chosen squadrons in full flight, once more quitted Picton’s infantry, whom they had so many times failed to subdue. They charged no more upon that field. When Kellerman retreated, Foy halted his columns ; and for a brief space Ney continued the action with his artillery. The two batteries in the wood here proved serviceable. While the Brunswickers were skirmishing with the French advance on the fringe of the wood, the two batteries opened upon Halkett’s brigade. Shattered by the fire, the 33rd deployed; but, misled by a false alarm of cavalry, they rushed pell mell into the wood. The experiment of de- ploying the other battalions was not attempted, and the whole took shelter under the clump of trees to avoid the fire, while Lloyd brought up his battery, and, though him- self severely handled, having two guns disabled, yet he silenced the French batteries ; then, being unsupported, he withdrew. Foy, having now no enemies in front, broke out of the wood in two columns, and occupying an isolated house abutting on the Charleroi road, three hundred yards from Quatre Bras, and one hundred and fifty from the wood, prepared to assail the centre. This was a daring movement, but not unwarranted, for Prince Bernhard had ‘withdrawn his troops towards Hautain le Val, and Prince Jerome was now within a few yards of the Nivelles road; Picton and Kielmansegge were practically tumed, and Alten was between Foy and Prince Jerome. Yet the success of the French was more apparent than real, except in the wood of Bossu, for their cavalry had ‘lost its auda- CHAP. VI.] AFTERNOON OF THE 16TH OF JUNE. 135 city, and their artillery was now engaged on nearly equal terms. And when Foy gallantly thrust his first column towards Quatre Bras, he was met and foiled; for Major- General Barnes rode up to the Highlanders, and shouting, “92nd, follow me!” led forward this regiment at the charge. The French fell back into the house and en- closures, and opened fire; but the Highlanders, receiving the shock without flinching, and pressing on, drove the column out at the point of the bayonet, followed it, replied to the fire of the second column with cold steel, and drove both into the wood. But losing their Colonel, Cameron, exposed to a heavy cannonade, and threatened by the French cavalry, which had ridden up to support Foy, they too went swiftly into the wood to reform. This was the last offensive movement attempted by Ney. The sun was declining behind the woods, and the battle was drawing to a close. Wellington grew stronger, Ney weaker every moment. Two Brunswick battalions and sixteen guns came in from Brussels. The 1st division, the Guards, under Major-General Cooke, were known to be at hand. They came up the road from Niveiles, and arrived just as Prince Jerome’s men were preparing to issue from the wood; and their timely arrival enabled Wellington to start up from the defensive and strike. He sent the Guards at once into the wood. The light companies of Maitland’s brigade, under Lord Saltoun, cheering as they. went, led the way at the double, and their comrades joined. in the fray as fast as they arrived abreast of the wood. Going straight at the enemy, for a moment the skirmishers fired in each other’s faces, but, as the Guards continued to advance, and did not halt to dodge and fire, the French were astonished and soon overpowered. The sound of the rapid musketry spreading perceptibly deeper and deeper into the wood, the loud shouts, the arrival of two batteries. 136 -THE ARMY RESTORES THE EMPEROR. [BOOK I. of the 1st division in the general line, and the appearance of the light companies of Byng’s brigade on the eastern side of the wood, told the long-tried British infantry that their ordeal was over. Halkett emerged from the wood, and formed line; Picton’s wasted infantry moved forward in echelon; Kielmansegge, well covered by skirmishers, steadily made way towards Péraumont, out-flanking the French right; and thus the British line pressed back the enemy, until the skirmishers alone held the enclosures about Gemioncourt. The Guards, who had so swiftly cleared the wood, now appeared outside its southern ex- tremity, and the men formed up as they jumped across the ditch into the fields. Ney was retiring in splendid order with a line of skirmishers well supported, and Roussel’s division of Kellerman’s corps ready to charge, if an oppor- tunity presented itself. The sudden apparition of the hastily-formed line of the Guards seemed to present that opportunity, but the Guards perceiving the danger, and knowing that they could not form square, spontaneously faced about and ran into the ditch, but no farther—a spontaneous movement, admirably executed, which told well for their training. The fire from the squares of the Brunswick battalions on the left, and from the Guards in the ditch, soon beat back the cavalry.. This incident serves to show how impossible it is, without the support and protection of horsemen, to pursue even a defeated foe who is stronger in that arm. This well-aimed but boot. less charge was the last effort made by Ney. The Allies swept onward with loud shouts; the battle was won; and in the twilight of a summer’s evening victors and van- quished took up their positions for the night, Ney on his old ground in front of Frasne, and Wellington at Gemioncourt, Péraumont, and the southern block of the wood of Bossu; both covered by strong pickets, under CHAP. VI.] AFTERNOON OF THE 16TH OF JUNE. 137 whose watchful eyes the exhausted armies lay down to rest. Both armies had suffered severely. The Allies, inferior in cavalry and artillery, and attacked in detail, had lost 4,659 men in killed, wounded, and missing, of whom 2,480 were English. The brunt of the battle had, for several hours, been borne by Pack and Kempt, and the brigades eommanded by these two gallant officers were diminished by 1,569, out of 5,063 men engaged. The three Highland regiments contributed 878 to this heavy total; but it must be remembered that the 79th rashly pursued Bachelu beyond the Valley of Gemioncourt; that the 42nd was surprised before it could form into square; and that the 92nd not only received the fire of Foy’s columns, which it so splendidly defeated with the bayonet, but was exposed, in passing from the isolated house to the wood, to the fire of the French batteries. Halkett’s four regiments lost 368 out of 2,618. Two regiments lost heavily; the 69th, be- cause the Prince of Orange exposed it to a charge of cavalry ; the 33rd, because, when standing in column, it was taken in flank by Ney’s batteries concealed in the wood of Bossu. The total loss of these two regiments was 266 men. The Guards did not win the wood of Bossu without paying the penalty of intrepidity. Their total loss was 554, of whom all, except seven, belonged to the 2nd and 8rd battalions of the 1st Regiment. The loss of the French is fixed by the best authorities at 4,375 men; a larger loss in proportion to their strength than that which fell upon the Allies—Ney losing about one-fourth, Wellington one-seventh of the force actually in the field, 138 THE ARMY RESTORES THE EMPEROR, [BOOK I. § 3. D’Erlon’s Wanderings. When the battle was completely at an end, Count @’Erlon, followed by the head of the Ist corps, reached Frasne for the second time; and as his troops came up during the night, he posted them in rear of that village, The extraordinary movements of this large body of men, more than 20,000 strong, form one of the most remarkable, and perplexing incidents in the campaign. Obedient to the orders issued by Ney between ten and eleven, D’Erlon, then at Gosselies and Jumet, collected his corps about noon, and put them in motion for Quatre Bras. When they had started, he rode off in advance towards the sound of the combat. Arrived at the entrance to Frasne, he fell in with the officers of the light cavalry of the Guard ; and while he was conversing with them, an aide-de-camp from Fleurus rode up, Laurent or Labédoyére, it is uncer- tain which, and as D’Erlon himself states, showed him a note in pencil, which he carried to Marshal Ney, ordering the marshal to direct the 1st corps upon Ligny. The aide- de-camp stated that, having fallen in with the 1st corps, he had himself already given the order for this movement, by changing the direction of the head of the column. D’Erlon rode back to rejoin his command, and sent General d’El- cambre, his chief of the staff, to communicate with' Ney. The aide-de-camp went on to Gemioncourt, and delivered his message to the marshal just before General d’Eleambre arrived. The text of this message seems to have been lost. It appears nowhere; its purport alone is stated in the various narratives of the proceedings of this day. May we not conjecture that it was one of the despatches ad- dressed by Soult to Ney at two, and a little after three o'clock? If it were a positive order from Napoleon, would Ney have ventured to disobey it, as he did, by sending CHAP. VI.] AFTERNOON OF THE 16TH OF JUNE. 139 General d’Elcambre from the field of Quatre Bras, with a peremptory command for the immediate countermarch of the Ist corps? Certainly not. Whereas, if the aide-de- camp brought either the despatch written at two, orthat dated a quarter past three o’clock, it would be natural that Ney, seeing that it directed him to defeat the British and then fall upon the Prussians, should endeavour to repair what he would consider the error of the aide-de-camp, and recall the Ist corps. The official account, written on the 20th at Laon, actually says that “Ney expected the Ist corps, which did not arrive until night;” and gives that as a reason why the marshal confined his efforts to the main- tenance of his position at Frasne. D’Erlon, as we have seen, actually arrived close on to the field of Ligny, halted for a short time, and then, leav- ing Durutte’s division of infantry and Jacquinot’s brigade of horse on the right flank of the Prussians, led the bulk of his corps back to Frasne in obedience to Ney’s order. Hence he was as totally useless, either to Ney or Napoleon, as if he had remained at Jumet. ‘Twenty thousand men and forty-six guns,” says an able French author, “had been led about, from mid-day until nine in the evening, between two battle-fields, distant six miles from each other, without taking part in either.” Their timely presence at Quatre Bras would have placed Wellington in an extremity of peril, while their action on the right flank of the Prus- sians would have destroyed Blucher. So reason the mili- tary critics ; but while we may know what has been, specu- lations on what would or might have been, had something happened which did not happen, are seldom among the fruitful pages of history. Nevertheless the cause of D’Erlon’s movement is a fair subject of inquiry; for un- doubtedly, his promenade from Jumet to Villers Peruin, and from Villers Peruin to Quatre Bras, was a misfortune 140 THE ARMY RESTORES THE EMPEROR. [BOOK I. for the French and a piece of good luck for the Allies. Therefore we may look a little closer into the facts. Napoleon denies that he sent any order to the 1st corps, and Colonel Charras, accepting this denial, arrives at the conclusion that some staff officer, carried away by “zeal,” gave the order himself. But how can this explanation be reconciled with the statement of Soult, in his despatch from Fleurus, dated June 17—overlooked by Charras be- cause, perhaps, it is not to be found in the mutilated copy printed in the appendix to the ninth volume of the Memoirs of St. Helena? In that despatch Soult specifically says— “Tfé Count d’Erlon had executed the movement upon St. Amand which the Emperor had ordered, the Prussian army ‘would have been totally destroyed, and we should have taken, perhaps, 30,000 prisoners.” Does this phrase, “ had -ordered,” refer to the scheme devised and set forth in the ‘two despatches written after two o’clock on the 16th, or to some specific order from the Emperor, that, for instance, -which D’Erlon says he saw in the hands of the aide-de- camp? Not the latter, for in that case why, when he was on the spot, did not D’Erlon continue to obey Napoleon and complete the movement, instead of obeying Ney? The fair inference from Soult’s despatch is that he thought D’Erlon had arrived expressly to fulfil that part in Napoleon’s general scheme set forth in the afternoon de- ‘spatches from Fleurus addressed to Ney, and not that D’Erlon was there in consequence of a specific order from Napoleon. In this uncertainty conjecture is free, and we may pre- sume the truth to be this: Napoleon, as is proved by every despatch to Ney, held Wellington too cheap. The French chief believed he had “ surprised” the English general in -his cantonments; he estimated that a march and a skir- mish would give Ney possession of Quatre Bras; and find- CHAP..VI.] AFTERNOON OF THE 16TH OF JUNE, 141 ing the Prussians in his own front more numerous than he expected, Napoleon sent the formal orders through Soult for Ney to fall upon the Prussian right as soon as he had beaten Wellington. If it were to be admitted that Laurent or Labédoyére, who carried the first despatch, meeting or overtaking the lst corps en route to Frasne, took upon himself, as the best interpreter of Napoleon’s order, to direct it at once upon St. Amand, all the statements are reconciled. For, on that supposition, D’Erlon would have marched in obedience to what he believed to be a direct order from Napoleon. Hearing that the Ist corps had arrived, although in a quarter where it was unlooked for, Napoleon would have inferred from its presence on the field, that Ney had been successful without it, and would hastily conclude that D’Hrlon would act forthwith on the Prussian right. Ney, having Soult’s actual words, would be surprised at the conduct of the staff officer, and putting the true construction on the written order, would see the error committed by that officer and endeavour instantly to repair it by recalling the first corps. D’Erlon, receiving no orders from the aide-de-camp sent by Napoleon to com- municate with him on the field, would naturally obey the mandate of Ney, his immediate superior, retrace his steps, and hasten back to Frasne.* In this conjectural explanation Ney is exonerated from the blame Napoleon showers upon him, and D’Erlon ap- pears in the light of a weak man overcome by a sense of responsibility, and attracted hither and thither by the influence of his two superiors. Napoleon, even in the 1 Prince Edouard de la Tour d’Auvergne, whose object in writing an account of the Campaign is to answer Charras and Quinet, and excuse while he exalts Napoleon, has put forward the most fantastic theory on this subject, for the purpose of throwing all the blame upon D’Erlon, It is an ingenious attempt, but will not bear a close examination. 142 THE ARMY RESTORES THE EMPEROR. [BOOK I. opinion of Jomini, his admirer, is held to have committed a “manifest fault,” in neglecting to send a positive order to D’Erlon—who, “ by the happy error of an aide-de-camp,” had arrived so opportunely—to march at once upon Bry. But the primary error at the bottom of all was that earlier one committed by Napoleon, when he formed such a contemptuous estimate of the activity and resources of Wellington, CHAPTER VII. THE RUTREAT OF THE 17TH OF JUNE. § 1. Wellington’s Activity. HE silence of the night of the 16th at Quatre Bras was only broken’ by the tramp of the British cavalry, as they rode into the rear of the position by the Nivelles road. Wellington slept at Genappe, where he had his head- quarters, and at daybreak on the 17th he rose and galloped off to Quatre Bras, After inspecting the outposts he took instant measures to’ ascertain the exact line of retreat of the Prussians, whose defeat, but not the extent of whose defeat, had been communicated to him during the pre- ceding night, and also’to find out the intentions of the French Emperor. Napoleon, at the close of the battle of Ligny, had retired to Fleurus. As we have described already, he made no pursuit whatever, but left his army to bivouac on the ground it had so dearly won. Here, amid the heaps of killed and wounded, the hardy warriors of France reposed, and when the day dawned the Prussian army had disap- peared, no Frenchman knew exactly whither. The rear- guards of Ziethen were, indeed, still close at hand, and Thielemann’s lengthened column had only just filed off upon the cross-road leading to Gembloux; but, excepting a few horsemen here and there, and the dead and wounded 144 THE ARMY RESTORES THE EMPEROR. [BOOK I. on the ground, nothing was seen of the Prussian army. The Prussians were far on the road to Wavre before the French battalions were astir, and, ere Napoleon made any movement, the whole of the Prussian army, except the rear half-of Thielemann’s corps, was united at Wavre. Within an hour of daybreak Captain Charles Wood, who had patrolled along the Namur road, reported to the Duke the retreat of the Prussians, and Colonel Gordon, with Grey’s troop of the 10th Hussars, during the night, com- municated with General Ziethen, then on his way to Wavre. At this time not a single French patrol had crossed the Namur road ; a proof in itself, if any were needed, of the limited success of Napoleon’s action on the 16th. In fact, on the evening of that day he held, in relation to Blucher, a position similar to that Wellington held in relation to Ney—he occupied the field of battle; and on the morning of the 17th the difference was this,—Blucher had retreated’ in the night, whereas Ney remained close to the battle- field, and Wellington held the ground he had won from his: adversary. But while in the morning Napoleon thought of devoting the day to the refreshment of his army, at an early hour Wellington, amply instructed of the movements of the Prussians, and in direct communication with them, had resolved to retreat upon Mont St. Jean. The reason for these different determinations was, that Napoleon, as he’ had done throughout the campaign, acted upon conjecture, while his rival would not move a corporal’s guard until he had certain information. We shall see that Napoleon spent the morning in doubt and hesitation ; and that his inac- tivity was caused by the astonishing ignorance in which he. allowed himself to conduct his affairs. He persistently violated his own maxim, that war is not a conjectural art. CHAP. VII.] RETREAT OF THE 17TH OF JUNE. 145 § 2. Napoleon at Fleurus and Ligny. Napoleon was still at Flevrus at eight o’clock on the 17th. No general reconnaissance along the front had been ordered; but a division of cavalry, and one of infantry, with a brigade of dragoons in support, the whole com- manded by Pajol, had been sent down the main road towards Namur, because, apparently, it had been “ con- jectured” that the Prussians would retire to Liége. The conjecture was confirmed into belief when Napoleon learned that Pajol had captured a Prussian battery near Mazy. About the same time, Count Flahault rejoined Napoleon from Ney’s head-quarters at Frasne, and related the issue of the fight at Quatre Bras, the first intelligence of that battle which the French Emperor had received. Yet eleven hours had elapsed since the last gun was fired, and Frasne is only nine miles from Fleurus. Colonel Charras justly remarks that the carelessness is equal on both sides; for Ney had not been informed of the issue of the battle of Ligny, and he only obtained the information from a de- spatch which Napoleon then directed Soult to transmit to Frasne. In this despatch Napoleon describes the defeat of the Prussians as a rout, and states that Pajol was pursuing ‘them on the road to Namur and Liége. That being so, it was impossible that Wellington could act in Ney’s front, If, however, he did, the Emperor, marching along the main road, would fall upon Wellington’s left rear, while Ney assailed him in front. Napoleon then formally orders Ney to take up the position of Quatre Bras, “if only occu- pied by a rear-guard ;” if otherwise occupied; Ney was to give the Emperor instant and detailed information, so that he might act. Ney is informed that “the whole day would be required to terminate this operation, complete the if 146 THE ARMY RESTORES THE EMPEROR. [BOOK I. munitions, rally the stragglers, and call in detachments ” —a passage which shows that, at eight o’clock on the morn- ing of the 17th, Napoleon did not contemplateany movement inadvance. Jominiis of opinion that the delay of Napoleon on the 17th was a greater fault than his delay on the 16th. After dictating this despatch, Napoleon drove to St. Amand, and there mounted his horse. He rode through the village pathways, still encumbered with dead and dying, and, according to his wont, he talked to the soldiers, and directed attention to some whose wounds had not yet been dressed. Thence he ascended the plateau and reviewed the troops who fell in, without arms, in suc- cession, and offered the incense of vivas to their living idol. It is probable that, while here, the cavalry outposts, whose watch had been disturbed by Gordon’s patrol, gave in their report, for about ten o’clock Napoleon ordered Count Lobau to march his corps upon Marbais, Domont and Subervie leading the way with their light horse, and an hour afterwards the Imperial Guard and Milhaud’s cuirassiers were directed to follow Lobau. Napoleon con- tinued on the field of Ligny talking politics with Grouchy and Vandamme, until Lobau sent word from Marbais that Wellington was still at Quatre Bras. This informa- tion, although not strictly correct, for the Anglo-allied in- fantry was already retiring upon Waterloo, roused Napo- leon and forced him to decide. Another order was de- spatched to Ney, dated noon, directing him to drive the enemy.from Quatre Bras, and telling him that he would be seconded by a flank attack from the troops at Marbais, whither the Emperor was about to proceed. At the same time Napoleon gave Grouchy 33,319 men and 96 guns, in- structing him to pursue and not lose sight of the Prus- sians, who, it will be remembered, had already vanished, while he kept under his own command, including Ney’s CHAP. VII.] RETREAT OF THE 17TH OF JUNE. 147 troops, a force of 72,447 men and 240 guns,' Girard, with 2,397 men and eight guns, being left at St. Amand. Napoleon, had determined to pursue and fight with Wellington, leaving Grouchy to deal with Blucher; but he still proceeded on assumptions, for he assumed that Blucher was totally defeated, and had retired to Liége, and that he might count upon fighting with Wellington alone. Napoleon, as we may infer, rode off towards Marbais about one, but Grouchy did not commence his wandering march until two o’clock. One-half the day had been wasted, and when the Emperor and the marshal started in pursuit, their foes had passed beyond reach. § 8. Retreat and Pursuit. Wellington, as we have seen, had, from the break of | day, kept strict watch upon the movements of his allies and his enemies. His own patrols brought him early in- telligence of the retreat of the Prussians and the inacti- vity of Napoleon. He saw for himself, with wonder, the quietude of Marshal Ney. An officer from Blucher con- firmed the information acquired by Colonel Gordon, and having these well-ascertained facts before him, Welling- ton determined to retreat. This was soon after eight o'clock. But he did nothing hurriedly. He sent word to Blucher that he should fall back to the position of Mont St. Jean, and there, if the marshal would support him, fight the enemy. Orders were at once sent to Clinton’s and Colville’s divisions, the 2nd and 4th of Lord Hill’s corps, to march at ten o’clock from Nivelles to Mont St. Jean. Those brigades of Colville’s division which were on the road from Braine le Comte to Nivelles, were to return and halt at Braine le Comte. Prince Frederick of Orange ! Charras, 148 THE ARMY RESTORES THE EMPEROR. [BOOK I. was directed to move his Dutch infantry upon Hal, and ‘ Colonel Estorff was to place himself and his brigade of Hanoverian horse under the Prince’s command. All the baggage was to be forwarded to Hal and Brussels. The infantry in position at Quatre Bras were ordered at the same time to retire along the Brussels road, leaving only the outposts and supports in position, and the cavalry in masses to mask the retreat. Thus Ney was deceived, and Napoleon imposed upon. Covered by the light troops and the display of cavalry, brigade after brigade quitted the position in succession, and defiled through the long nar- row street which constituted the town of Genappe. Alten’s division, slightly reinforced, was the last to quit the field, but a little before noon the outposts were rallied upon the main body, and the whole was conducted skilfully, in order of battle, to the rear, passing through Bezy and crossing the branch of the Dyle at Wais le Hutte, a few miles below Genappe. Thus the infantry brigades fell back upon Mont St. Jean. . Not a shot had hitherto been fired. Ney’s masses had been under arms since the dawn, but they were silent and inactive, The withdrawal of the infantry outposts pro- duced the first sign of life in the French lines, and the marshal brought up his cavalry to face the British. Wellington at this time occupied the position with a mass of horsemen, under the Earl of Uxbridge. Vivian and Vandeleur’s light cavalry were on the left, and the Duke himself was with tlre 10th Hussars, who stood in echelon of squadrons on the scene of Picton’s exploits. In the centre were the heavy cavalry of the Household and Union brigades, and on the right of Quatre Bras were Grant’s and Dérnberg’s light cavalry brigades. The front was covered by pickets of light dragoons and hussars. It was a brilliant spectacle. Beyond Gemioncourt Ney’s horse- CHAP. VII.] RETREAT OF THE 17TH OF JUNE. 149 men were slowly pressing forward and exchanging shots with the British pickets; and the infantry in heavy columns were moving out from Frasne. On the British left Subervie’s lancers, coming from Marbais, were in action with the outposts of Vivian’s hussars, and behind them came Milhaud’s cuirassiers, whose mail gleamed in the noonday sun. Vivian threw back his left to face the force bearing down upon that flank, and soon the skir- mishers were engaged from the Namur road to the eastern fringe of the wood of Bossu. Napoleon was at length in full march from Marbais, and Ney was advancing from Frasne. Wellington did not intend to resist. His pur- pose had been answered, for his infantry were already through the narrow defile of Genappe, and well on their way to Mont St. Jean. So the three columns went about and retired. The Household and Union brigades, with a rear-guard composed of two light dragoon regiments, with- drew along the high road to Brussels. The right brigades directed their march upon a ford above the town of Genappe. Vivian and Vandeleur followed a by-road that led to Thuy, a few miles below: Wais le Hutte. The centre and right columns were followed, but not assailed; and having reached the left bank of the stream, which runs through Genappe, they halted and faced about upon the gentle slopes which rise to the northward of the town. But the left column had no sooner gone about than the French guns opened upon them, and their horse seemed intent upon outflanking the rear regiment, and coming to close quarters. Vivian halted, and prepared to charge, but no sooner had his artillery begun to fire than a violent and drenching thunderstorm broke over them, and made rapid cavalry movements impossible. The ardour of the pur- suit relaxed, and no further incident occurred until the brigade reached the river. Vandeleur, who had left to / 150 THE ARMY RESTORES THE EMPEROR. [BOOK I. Vivian the glory of guarding the rear, was still crossing by the bridge. The French were pressing on. Vivian, to check them, immediately brought up the 10th British to support the 1st German Hussars, and kept the French at bay until Vandeleur had crossed. Then he sent back the 10th, with orders to dismount and line the bank on the other side of the bridge. The situation was critical. One squadron of the Ist, retiring, was cut off, and compelled to seek a ford lower down. The French, coming up in great force, seemed to be sure of overthrowing the Germans, when Vivian gave the word, and his hussars galloped down the road ‘and over the bridge. The French dashed after them with loud shouts, but they were too late. The 10th Hussars on the opposite bank saluted them with a brisk fire, and a regiment and a half was in readiness to charge if they ventured to cross. They refrained, and the British, unmolested, proceeded through the deep country lanes by Glabbaix, Maransart, and Frischermont, to Verd- Cocou, on the east of Mont St. Jean. In like manner, but without molestation, the right column had retreated into the position of Waterloo. The centre column, meanwhile, had been engaged at Genappe. The 7th Hussars formed the rear-guard, and as their last troop galloped through the town, the French poured after in considerable numbers. When the head of these densely-packed columns emerged on the other side, they found themselves in presence of the whole of the centre British.column. Nearest the town were the 7th Hussars, beyond them, in support, the 23rd Light Dra- goons, and in rear the heavy brigades in columns of half squadrons on each side of the main road. The French lancers first appeared and halted, but those in rear con- tinuing to press on through the tortuous street, the whole defile became packed with horsemen. Seeing the reluct- CHAP. VII] RETREAT OF THE 17TH OF JUNE. 151 ance of the French to move, Lord Uxbridge directed the: 7th, his own regiment, to charge. But the 7th proved too light for the work in hand. The lance was a weapon new to the British swordsman. The 7th fought with great bravery; they were engaged on a limited front; the houses protected the flanks of their opponents; but as often as one squadron recoiled from the immovable thicket of lances, another squadron renewed the fight. It was evi- dent, however, that the hussars were overmatched, and their colonel drew them out of the conflict, in order to em- ploy heavier metal. The front was no sooner clear than Lord Uxbridge quietly moved the 1st Life Guards through the 28rd Dragoons, and held them ready for a charge. The moment soon arrived. Warmed by their success, the French began to shout their favourite battle-cry, “Hn avant!” to animate each other, and to press up the ascent. In an instant the Life Guards, “big men on big horses,” obedient to the signal of their chief, went with the roar of a torrent down the hill, the stream of red coats and gleam- ing swords overturning everything before it, and speedily filling up the space where the brilliant lancers had stood, but where they now lay, followed up the flying, and: cleared Genappe of the enemy. This vigorous stroke taught the French to be cautious; but they kept close at the heels of the retiring column. The guns on both sides were engaged at intervals, and the skirmishers continu- ously, until the retreat ended at Mont St. Jean. The rain had fallen heavily throughout the afternoon, and had soaked the soil of the fields, so that the French in- fantry found the march extremely painful.' They came 1 And of course the British. ‘ Whenever the troops left the great chaussées [paved roads],” writes Sir James Shaw Kennedy, “ they were placed in situations of great difficulty. This was proved on the 17th of June by the movement of the 3rd Division [with which he was] through ' 152. THE ARMY RESTORES THE EMPEROR. [BOOK I. on, struggling through the miry soil with plodding steps, and were still distant, when Subervie and Domont and Milhaud, who had led the pursuit, halted near La Belle Alliance. Napoleon had ridden from Quatre Bras, and was with them, and he ascertained, by provoking a can- nonade from about La Haye Sainte, that Wellington’s army was in position before him. Napoleon says he wished for the power of Joshua to stop the sun for two hours, that he might attack the English. This could only have been an empty boast, for the bulk of his infantry did not arrive in line until two hours after he had uttered it. Only D’Erlon, Lobau, and the Guard were up, even at eight o’clock, and Reille was still at Genappe, where he halted until the next morning. It would have served Napoleon’s purpose better could he have stopped the rain. The French army took up its position for the night in rear of La Belle Alliance, the right touching Planchenoit, the left Mon Plaisir. The corps of D’Erlon and Lobau were in the front line; the Guard and cavalry in the rear. Behind all, at the farm of Caillou, Napoleon fixed his head- quarters. ? Wellington, on his side, had collected nearly his whole Wais le Hutte, where it crossed the Dyle, and its march was ordered to be by cross-roads parallel to the great chaussées [from Charleroi to Brussels]. After crossing the Dyle the march on the cross-roads be- came so difficult. as absolutely to make the situation of the division in some degree perilous; it did lose some of its baggage, and the division felt as relieved from a very unpleasant situation when it moved, with- out orders from head-quarters, into the great chaussée.” In another place he reminds the reader that the “violent rain, which began about three o’clock on the 17th, continued through the night. The violent rain fell upon the whole of the country on which the armies of Wel- lington, Blucher, and Napoleon marched during the 17th, and rendered the cross-roads in the whole of that country all but impassable.” 2 CHAP. VII.] RETREAT OF THE 17TH OF JUNE. 153 disposable force in the position of Mont St. Jean. Sir Joh2 Lambert’s brigade of Sir Lowry Cole’s division was still on its way from Ghent. Wellington had not altered the disposition of the detached column on his right, except so far as to instruct Sir Charles Colville to retire from Braine le Comte upon Hal; and to direct Prince Frederick to occupy the position between Hal and Enghien, and defend it as long as possible. Blucher’s reply to Welling- ton’s despatch of the morning reached the English general in the evening, at Waterloo. “I will join you,” wrote the Prussian marshal, “not only with two corps, but with my whole army ; and if the enemy does not attack you on the 18th, we will attack him together on the 19th.” A hardy pledge, which was fulfilled nearly to the letter. As the night closed, a thunderstorm, like that which had signalized the commencement of the retreat of the cavalry from Quatre Bras, again broke over the country; and the rain, which had abated, fell with renewed violence, inundating the valleys occupied by the outposts, and soaking the fields on the higher ground. The positions of the rival armies were soon marked out by the ruddy fires around which slept the wearied soldiers. § 4. Blucher retires upon Wavre. The Prussian generals had made good use of the pre- cious hours of the 17th. Gneisenau, who took command when Blucher was wounded, had, at nightfall, directed the corps of Zeithen and Pirch I. to march at once from the field of Ligny upon Tilly and Gentinnes. The retreat was protected by a strong rear-guard, posted in Bry, and by the corps of Thielemann, which occupied Sombref and Point du Jour, with instructions to remain until daybreak, At the first flush of dawn on the 17th, Zeithen and Pirch 154 THE ARMY RESTORES THE EMPEROR. [BOOK I.. marched from Tilly and Gentinnes towards Wavre, where, the whole army was to assemble. The route of the Ist and 2nd corps was by Mont St, Guibert, whence, by inclining to the left, they followed the right bank of the Dyle. Zeithen had crossed this river at midday, when Napoleon was still at St. Amand, and Wellington watching with his cavalry at Quatre Bras. Pirch, halting some time at Mont St. Guibert, continued his retreat after he had been joined by General von Jagow, who had remained until dawn in absolute possession of the village of Bry. Pirch went on and occupied a position on the right bank of the Dyle, opposite Wavre. Before he quitted Mont St. Guibert he left Colonel von Sohr, with a rear-guard of cavalry, between Tilly and Gentinnes. Von Sohr’s instructions were to keep the keenest watch upon the movements of the enemy, and not to fall back upon Mont St. Guibert until it was absolutely necessary. Bulow, coming from Hannut, had-halted the 4th corps, on the evening of the 16th, on the Roman road near Sauveniéres, the head of the column being about nine miles from Sombref. He was at daylight directed to detach a force of all arms upon Mont St. Guibert, to relieve Von Sohr, and ordered to march his main body upon Dion le Mont, a village about four miles east of Wavre. Thus, in the afternoon, the three corps of Ziethen, Pirch, and Bulow were, in a military sense, brought into close connection about Wavre. For Ziethen, at Bierge, communicated freely with Pirch at Aisemont, by Wavre and the bridges of Bierge and Limale; and Bulow, at Dion le Mont, was within three miles of Pirch. Late in the evening the 8rd corps closed upon the main body. Thielemann’s rear-guard had quitted the field of battle about the time that Von Jagow had stolen out of Bry. No one saw, apparently, the departure either of the entire corps or of the rear-guard. Both the larger and CHAP. VII.] RETREAT OF THE 17TH OF JUNE. 155 lesser body vanished without attracting the notice of a single sentinel or patrol. Thielemann proceeded slowly to Gembloux, halted there some hours to rest his men, and then pursued his way. But he was caught in the storm which raged over the whole country, and he did not cross the Dyle to take post at Les Bavettes north-west of Wavre until the evening. , The Prussians still held Mont St. Guibert and Vieux Sart, upon the two roads they had followed in their retreat. Moreover, they had sent patrols through the whole country between the Dyle and the Lasne. The Prussian dragoons were in every lane and village; and thus the officers detached on this service not only detected the march of Napoleon upon Quatre Bras and La Belle Alliance, but they reconnoitred the course of the Lasne from Couture to Genval, took note of every defile, road, stream, and wood, and thereby acquired the invaluable information that neither Napoleon nor Grouchy had sent a single patrol into the country between the two allied armies. It was through these active patrols that the Duke of Wellington was kept informed fully of the movements of Blucher. By these means the Prussian general carried his army deftly out of reach of the French, placed it in a position separated from Wellington by a few miles only, and acquired the most ample knowledge of the inactivity, as well as the subsequent movements, of the common foe. Before night on the 17th, Blucher, worsted but not routed at Ligny, had rallied at Wavre nearly 90,000 men and 260 guns, and was prepared to fall the next day with the greater part of these upon the right rear of Napoleon. As the sun went down, the Prussian soldiers eagerly refilled their pouches with ammunition, and supplies were refur- nished to the artillery. Many had fallen in the bloody combat of the 16th, some 8,000 had literally ran away 156 THE ARMY RESTORES THE EMPEROR. [BOOK I. towards Namur and Liége; but those who remained thirsted for one more opportunity of meeting the French in battle. This they were promised by their unshaken chief. “I will lead you against the enemy, and you will beat him,” was the succinct address of Blucher to his sol- diers; “for,” he added with characteristic emphasis, “ it is your duty to do so.” § 5. Grouchy m Pursuit. We have already described the circumstances under which the French Emperor arrived at the determination to detach Marshal Grouchy against the Prussians. Napo-' leon was informed that Wellington was still at Quatre Bras. He had also been informed that Pajol had captured a Prussian battery on the road to Namur. He appears to have believed that Blucher had fallen back upon his natural line of communications with Germany. He there- fore told Grouchy to pursue the Prussians, complete their defeat, and not lose sight of them. We have seen that these instructions were all based on conjectures, and not on facts. Wellington held Quatre Bras with his cavalry only ; the Prussians were already lost to the view of the French ; and Blucher had quitted his direct line of communications with Germany expressly to carry his army into line at Mont St. Jean. Grouchy, we are told, raised some objec- , tions, and begged that he might follow the Emperor, but the Emperor simply repeated his commands. Grouchy obeyed and departed. The corps of Gérard and Van- damme, placed under his orders, were not in readiness to march, and during the time occupied in collecting the troops and completing the preparations, Napoleon learned that at least a portion of the Prussian army had retired upon Gembloux. This information seems to have been CHAP. VI.] RETREAT OF THE 17TH OF JUNE. 157 obtained by an infantry patrol, which, late in the morning, had been detached from Pajol’s force. Napoleon now formally instructed Grouchy to move upon Gembloux. He was to patrol in the direction of Namur and Maestricht, and communicate with Napoleon by the Namur road. Yet some doubts of the correctness of his views had entered. the mind of the Emperor before he quitted Ligny, and he remarked to Grouchy that it was important to learn whether the Prussians were separating themselves from the British, or whether they were bent on uniting to cover Brussels and (!) Liége. Grouchy did not march till two o’clock, Vandamme did not reach Gembloux until nearly nine, and it was ten before the whole of Gérard’s corps joined him. The heavy by-roads, saturated by the continuous torrents of rain, had rendered it impossible for the tired soldiers of these corps to get over more than ten miles in seven hours. Even at Gembloux Grouchy could learn little of the movements of the Prussians. He had preceded the main body, and had sent Excelmans to Sauveniéres with orders to patrol the roads to Sart-lez-Walhain and Perwez. The result of these inquiries was unsatisfactory. At ten that night ‘Grouchy wrote to Napoleon, but he could only inform him that the Prussians appeared to be divided into three columns. “One, he says, had taken the road to Wavre, one to Perwez, one with the artillery to Li¢ge. He conjec- tured that one part sought to join Wellington. Thus, on the night of the 17th, Grouchy stood at Gembloux, nearly as ignorant of the true state of affairs as he was when he quitted Ligny. He had patrolled on his right; he had not patrolled on his left. This was a fatal negligence. Napo- leon, it is true, had not directed him, in so many words, to keep a good look-out on his left, and Grouchy did not supply the grave omission. Yet, as we have seen, the 158 THE ARMY RESTORES THE EMPEROR. [BOOK I. greater part of the Prussian army retreated from Ligny by the defile of Mont St. Guibert, a few miles on the west of Gembloux. This fact remained unknown at the head- quarters of both the French generals throughout the night of the 17th, and to Grouchy at least until late on the 18th, when he received the information from Napoleon in a despatch written from Caillou at ten in the morning of the 18th, in answer to a report from Grouchy despatched at two in the morning, notifying his intention to march upon Sartlez-Walhain, CHAPTER VIII. RETROSPECTIVE. E have now traced the course of the campaign since the evening of the 14th. We have seen Napoleon gather up his splendid army between the Sambre and Meuse with a rapidity and precision almost unparalleled in warfare. We have seen Wellington and Blucher keenly watchful and prepared to encounter the greatest strategist of his age—a soldier whose eye was sure, whose plans were profound, whose hand was swift to strike, and whose soldiers were the finest in quality he had ever led into the field; men of one nation, greedy of glory, and animated by a spirit of absolute devotion to their leader. We have seen this army, at a signal from its chief, project itself suddenly across the frontier, and, by a series of brilliant movements, open a campaign which, in its issues, promised to rival the grand triumphs of the Empire. None in that joyous host could have dreamed that, in a few weeks from that day, the aggressive spirit of France would be stricken down and laid in bonds for five-and-thirty years. Before we proceed to the military climax of our story, it may be well, for the convenience of ‘the reader, to offer him a concise estimate of the résults of the campaign up to the evening of the 17th. In order to measure those results, we must compare the 160 THE ARMY RESTORES THE EMPEROR. [BOOK I. intentions of Napoleon with his actual achievements. When he selected the inner flanks of the allied armies for attack, he calculated that he should beat both in detail. He looked over the wide range of their cantonments, stretching from Liége to the Scheldt, and he believed he could drive his army like a bolt through them, crushing in its progress the fragments of armies with which alone, as he assumed, the Allies could oppose him. He did not contemplate the gigantic task of fighting four considerable battles within three days; he did not believe that either the fiery Prussians or the cool Englishmen could concentrate across the road to Brussels any force which he could not overwhelm. He had collected his army with great speed, skill, secrecy; he had devised a brilliant plan of action; and he had a right to count on success, providing he had appreciated the ability and activity of his adversaries. We are endeavouring to place ourselves in the position of Napoleon on the night of the 14th, and to exclude from view, as much as possible, the events of the four subse- quent days; the only method whereby we can learn how those events came to pass. Napoleon put his army in motion at the dawn of day. The broad and deep torrents of men and guns rolled across the frontier. In that magnificent development of well- combined force only one serious contretemps occurred, for even the desertion of Bourmont was too late to be as deadly as it was intended. Although the exact movement of the French had not been foreseen, the Prussians were so vigilant that they were not surprised, and Ziethen, acting on the instructions he had received from head- quarters, offered a cool and calculated resistance, in order that he might cover the retreat of his distant detachments upon Fleurus, and give his commander time to concentrate his army. He could do no more. The French columns CHAP. VIII.] RETROSPECTIVE, 161 crossed the river fighting the enemy at all points, and of course drivmg him back; but as the great streams of French soldiers flowed on towards Gilly and Gosselies, the smaller streams of Prussians trickled im detachments towards Fleurus. Ziethen, though his troops were so widely scattered, had ably drawn his detachments together, and at night stood collected in rear of Fleurus. The French columns on the 15th reached Frasne on the road to Brussels, and Lambusart on’ the road to Fleurus, and from these points they stretched backward even beyond the Sambre. The French had accomplished a good day’s work; Napoleon had made a rapid inroad into a corner of the enemy’s lines, but he had done nothing to prevent the concentration of the allied armies; he had not driven a wedge between them; he had not seized the great road leading from the heart of the Prussian into the heart of the British cantonments ; he had not surprised the allied armies; and he had halted, and retired to rest, far from the road connecting Nivelles and Namur. Ziethen had most ably handled the forces at his dis- posal. He committed only one fault: he did not apprise Wellington of the decided character of the French attack ; but this he atoned for by the resistance he offered to Napoleon, and by the display of daring he made in holding fast to Fleurus. For the conduct of Ziethen, not less than the delays in the marches of the French corps through a roadless district, enabled the corps of Pirch and Thiele- mann to march unmolésted upon Sombref. Wellington, deprived of exact information until late in the evening, did not direct the march of a single brigade. His share in the operations of the 15th was, from this cause, absolutely nil. But at night he issued orders con- formable to the nature of the information supplied to him. For this he has been censured; but those who so censure M 162 THE ARMY RESTORES THE EMPEROR. [BOOK I. him overlook the practical character of the man, and the not less important fact that he knew he had before him a great strategist—one who was essentially a manoeuvring general—one who had decided more campaigns by marches than by battles; and when we find Wellington censured, almost ridiculed, because he was so jealous of his right flank, truth requires an emphatic recognition of this fact. In the previous campaign, Napoleon had displayed his genius in devising and executing totally unexpected attacks ; therefore, he was the last man before whom it was safe to act upon conjecture. On the evening of the 15th, then, Napoleon had par- tially crossed the Sambre; Blucher, thanks to Ziethen’s fine soldiership, had been able to direct two other corps upon Sombref; Wellington had caused his divisions to concentrate, and had drawn them closer together, and closer to his left. It is clear from this statement that the success of Napoleon’s plans would depend upon the use he made of the morning of the 16th. And here we encounter the fatal fact—Napoleon made no use of the morning of the 16th. Every keen observer, fresh from the story of his earlier and even his latest cam- paigns, has noted with amazement, with a kind of sorrowful astonishment, the inactivity of the most, active of great captains. And, as we may note, in nothing was that inactivity shown so much as in his absolute neglect to obtain accurate information. The consequence of that neglect was twofold :—I1st, it produced the greatest hesita- tion in the adoption of any decisive plan; 2nd, it led him to issue orders to his executive officers which it was im- possible they could execute. He spoke of directing Grouchy upon Sombref, and of advancing to Gembloux; he ordered Ney to occupy Quatre Bras, and even advance to Genappe. Yet when he did so, for all he knew, one- CHAP. VIII. ] RETROSPECTIVE. 163 half of Wellington’s army might have been in position in front of Quatre Bras; nothing prevented it but Ziethen’s neglect to send a special messenger to Brussels; while three-fourths of Blucher’s force was actually on or near the position of Sombref. His orders and his projects were based undoubtedly upon the information he had obtained up to the moment when he devised and issued them ; but no one has ever ventured to state that Napoleon could not have had, nor that the Bonaparte of 96 and 1800 would not have had, the most complete and accurate knowledge of his enemies’ movements which it was possible for patrols and scouts to obtain. Yet nothing is so certain as that he did not obtain the information for him- self, nor believe the intelligence sent in by Grouchy and Girard. He seems to have made up his mind (and it is a most amazing fact) that Wellington would collect at Nivelles and retire upon Brussels, and Blucher concentrate upon Namur, because Wellington’s communications were with England through Antwerp and Ostend ; and Blucher’s through Namur, Liége, and Maestricht with the Rhine. Hence the protracted halt on the morning of the 16th, hence the battle on the afternoon of that day, fruitful only in another bulletin. The long delay enabled Blucher to occupy the position of Ligny, and Wellington to march a sufficient number of troops upon Quatre Bras to frustrate, to repulse Ney. The morning of the 17th found Napoleon still in the same frame of mind—still assuming what his enemies would do, instead of ascertaining what they had done— still halting, pondering,- doubting, and reasoning upon imperfect information. The two Allies, on the other hand, had been actively engaged in watching him, and placing themselves beyond his reach; one by retiring to Wavre, the other by withdrawing his infantry and impedi- 164 JHE ARMY RESTORES THE EMPEROR. [BOOK I. menta, and amusing both Ney and Napoleon with nothing but cavalry and afew guns. The division of the French army into two parts, the separation of those parts by a wide distance, the neglect of both Napoleon and Grouchy to keep up a connection with each other by strong patrols, while their enemies were alert and in close communication —a fact which neither Napoleon nor Grouchy knew—com- pleted their share in the preparation for the crushing defeat that was to come. The evening of the 17th found Grouchy at Gembloux and Napoleon at La Belle Alliance. Between them lay a vast space, traversed only by bad country roads, every yard of which was jealously watched by the Prussian cavalry. The distance, in a direct line, was twenty-two miles, while the route of communication by Quatre Bras was half aslong again. Instead of defeat- ing the Allies in detail, Napoleon’s blind confidence had led him into a position where the French army was almost sure to be defeated in detail itself. For, and this is the key to the battle of the 18th, Wellington had undertaken to fight, provided Blucher would come up and assail the French in flank, and Blucher had pledged his word that he would come up, and that word he was destined to redeem. Napoleon believed he was about to fight the English alone. He did not know, as we know now, that his enemies had combined to destroy him. Hence his immense joy, his unbounded confidence, when, on the morning of the 18th, he found Wellington still before him. He believed he had him all, to himself for the rest of the day. Hence, perhaps, that slowness in attacking the British general which has drawn down upon Napoleon such heavy censures. Why should he hasten to attack, until the ground was dry, when he believed he had his enemy isolated and in his power ? Thus, far from being “surprised in their cantonments,” CHAP. VIII.] RETROSPECTIVE. 165 three days’ fighting and marching had sufficed to bring the two allied generals into such relative positions, as enabled them to prepare an astounding surprise for Napoleon him- self, and far from being “out-generaled”’ by him, he was about to learn that he had been out-generaled by them. Nevertheless, the stroke of Napoleon, although not swift enough, had been swift—although not deadly, it had been severe; so far as mortals, on that morning, could dive into the future, not one could foresee the result. Wellington had not been able to succour Blucher at Ligny, Blucher might not be able to succour Wellington at Waterloo. Napoleon was there with a mighty army, the most gallant, confident, complete he had ever led. He was still the greatest captain of the nineteenth century in the eyes of his own and his adversaries’ soldiers, and of the nations of Europe. Why should he not prevail over adverse circum- stances, by the might of genius, as he had so often pre- vailed before? We know, but he did not know, that the chances against him were at least three to two; but from his point of view the chances for him were, as he estimated them, ninety to ten—only the point of view was false. CHAPTER IX. THE MORNING OF THE 18TH OF JUNE. § 1. Movements of Grouchy. ROUCHY passed the night at Gembloux, perplexed and agitated in mind. He has been described as “ anxious and undecided,” and when a general has lost his way he can hardly escape the pains and penalties of anxiety and indecision. All he knew was that a body of Prussians had passed through Gembloux on the 17th, and that they appeared to have divided into two columns, one moving upon Wavre, the other on Perwez, and that Blucher had not passed through Gembloux. In this extremity of doubt he still clung to the idea suggested by the capture of cannon on the Namur road, confirmed by the instructions of Napoleon, that the mass of the Prussians had gone off towards Maestricht. Yet the unwelcome doubt returned, « and he feared that Blucher might be at Wavre. He there- fore took a medium course, and ordered the mass of his force to move off in succession on the 18th to Sart-lez- Walhain, but not to march until six o’clock. Pajol and Teste, who had halted far in the rear at Mazy, were to move at five upon Grand Leez, a village on the right flank of the road to Sart-lez-Walhain. They were to halt there until they received a new direction in accordance with CHAP. IX.] MORNING OF THE 18TH OF JUNE, 167 that of the main body : further evidence of Grouchy’s per- plexity. The sun was high when Grouchy rode off to Sart-lez- Walhain. His whole force followed him in one long column, struggling painfully along the miry roads and wet fields, through defiles which brought them to frequent halts. Nor did they start at the prescribed hour; for the leader of the procession, Excelmans, did not march until seven o'clock. When this officer arrived at Sart-lez- Walhain, Grouchy, it is said, was told that the whole of the Prussian army had arrived at Wavre on the 17th. Excelmans was at once directed to move upon Corbaix, and as the infantry appeared, the head of the column was turned to the north-west, in the wake of the horsemen. Yet the troops had marched so slowly that the head of Gérard’s column did not reach Sart-lez-Walhain until half-past eleven. Grouchy himself, still fearful of com- mitting an error, and utterly ignorant of the true state of the case, remained in the house of the village notary, Hollaert, pondering on probabilities. He had sent a despatch to Napoleon, informing him that he was then, about half-past eleven, moving upon Wavre by Corbaix. At the moment when Colonel Delafresnaye galloped off with this despatch, Gérard came up, and almost at the same time Colonel Simon Loriére walked in from the garden and reported that a cannonade was audible to- wards the west. Grouchy, Gérard, and several officers walked into the garden and listened in silence. Some of them placed their ears to the ground and thus detected plainly the muffled boom of distant guns. While they were listening, the dull reverberations increased suddenly in volume and intensity, and none of the excited group could doubt any longer that artillery was violently en- gaged in the direction of Mont St. Jean. Thereupon 168 THE ARMY RESTORES THE EMPEROR. [BOOK I. ensued spontaneously a keen discussion. Gérard urged Grouchy to cross the Dyle at once, push on towards the scene of action, passing by Moustierand Ottignies, and recon- noitring in the direction of St. Lambert. General Balthus, of the artillery, reminding Gérard of the state of the roads, inquired how the artillery could be got across the country: that morning they had been four hours marching six miles! To which Valazé answered that his engineers would clear the way. Grouchy, however, was unmoved by Gérard’s reasoning and Valazé’s vehemence, and he deter- mined to pursue his march upon Wavre.* Riding forward to the head of the column, where the cavalry had come in contact with the Prussian rear-guard, Grouchy was overtaken by a messenger bringing a despatch from Napoleon, written by the chief of the staff at ten o'clock that morning in the farm of Caillou. As nearly three hours must have been occupied in the transit, the time must have been about one o’clock. Soult informed Grouchy that the French patrols on the Dyle had learned that one Prussian column had retired on Wavre by Gen- tinnes. Grouchy, therefore, was to push this column before him, keeping, at the same time, a good look-out on his right. But Grouchy knew by this time there was no need for this precaution, for he had learned that the whole Prussian army had assembled at Wavre. Here, then, was his difficulty. The Emperor stated that he was * On this subject there has been a great deal of hot controversy. It is difficult now to establish even the facts of the interview, for the con- troversy of course has been carried on with a full knowledge of all that occutred on the 18th, and one vainly tries to disentangle the statements made in the notary’s garden from the statements which suggested them- selves afterwards. Those who desire to see what has been said on both sides must seek it in the pamphlets published by Grouchy, Gérard, and others. For our present purpose it is enough to know what Gérard proposed and what Grouchy did. : CHAP. IX.] MORNING OF THE 18TH OF JUNE. 169 about to attack the English in front of the forest of Soignies—a fact which fully accounted for the cannonade —and therefore Grouchy was directed to fulfil a double task—to drive off the Prussians, and mancuvre by his left so as to approach Napoleon, taking care, at the same time, to maintain a secure and close communication be- tween the two armies. Grouchy, therefore, pressed forward with his whole force, keeping studiously on the right bank of the Dyle; but with his utmost efforts he could not bring his troops into line opposite Wavre until four o'clock. At that hour the Prussian main body was far away; yet enough remained to dispute with Grouchy the passage of the Dyle, and to fight with him the Combat of Wavre. § 2. Blucher’s Flank March. Blucher had profited by the mistakes, delays, and mis- chances of Grouchy. He had employed the precious hours of the morning in putting in execution the plan devised between himself and Wellington. He designed to carry his whole army as soon as possible to the battle-field selected by the English general. As the roads along which his soldiers would have to travel were mere tracks through the fields, none paved, and all saturated with rain, he sent his heavy baggage to Louvain. Then he directed his four corps d’armée to move off in succession in two columns. Bulow was to start at daybreak and gain Chapelle St. Lambert. Ziethen, by another route, was to make for Ohain, passing through Fromont and Genval. Later still Pirch I. was to follow Bulow to St. Lambert, and, finally, if the French, of whom there were no signs, did not come up, Thielemann, leaving a rear-guard at Wavre, was to march upon Couture, on the Lasne. Napo- 170 THE ARMY RESTORES THE EMPEROR. [BOOK I, leon, in a candid moment, confessed that this flank march was a strokeof genius. Blucher and Gneisenau had taken pains to ensure its success by scouring the whole country between the Dyle and the Lasne; and by extending patrols to the very verge of the right flank of the French, towards Planchenoit, they had discovered that there were no forces in that direction to dispute the defiles of the Lasne. It will be remembered that on the evening of the 17th the Prussian army bivouacked on both banks of the Dyle. Ziethen was on the left bank about Bierge, with Thiele- mann on his left at Les Bavettes. On the other bank were Pirch I., at Aisemont, close to Wavre, and Bulow at Dion le Mont, some three miles distant. Before any movement could be made upon St. Lambert by the un- touched corps of Bulow, that corps would have to march on Wavre and pass the Dyle. One does not see why Blucher kept Bulow on the right bank of the Dyle when he contemplated throwing his whole force upon the right flank of Napoleon. He had fairly abandoned the road from Namur to Louvain, and his direct communications with Germany. The success of the scheme for the de- struction of Napoleon depended on the rapidity of his march through a deep and rugged country; Bulow’s troops, not having been engaged as yet, were clearly the proper corps to be sent forward. Wherefore, then, keep them at Dion le ‘Mont until the morning of the 18th, when they might have cleared the defile of Wavre at leisure on the evening of the 17th ? When Bulow moved, between three and four o’clock, much time was lost in getting through the town.