C52. CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME OF THE SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND GIVEN IN 1891 BY HENRY WILLIAMS SAGE Cornell University Library DC 242.C52 Waterloo lectures :a study of the campal 3 1924 024 320 214 The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924024320214 A STUDY OF THE CAMPAIGN OF 1815. LONDOIT: FEINTED BY 3P0TTISW00DE ATfD CO., NEW-STKEET SQTIAEE Atn> PASLIAMENT STEEET WATERLOO LECTURES: A STUDY THE CAMPAIGN OF 1815. BY LIEUT.-COLONEL CHAELES C. QHESNEY, E.E. LATE PROFESSOR OF MZLCTART ART AND HISTORY IN THE STAJT COLLEGE. LONDON : LONGMANS, GEEEN, AND CO. 1868. PREFACE. It has been the practice at the Institution which the Author lately quitted, to commence the course of Military Art and History by the critical study of a single great campaign ; that of Waterloo being, for obvious reasons, generally selected. In perusing much literature bearing on the subject, he has been constantly led to make two observations: the one, that critics of Napoleon and of the Allies are alike apt to build up theories upon inaccurate and super- ficial study of the facts; the other, that the key to the whole, the great strokes of strategy upon which the world's fate hung for a brief space, are apt to be lost, or greatly obscured, beneath a mass of pictorial details, interesting for the day to the families or friends of those who shared in the actions, but of little real importance to the general result. In addition to these tendencies, there is the third and more dangerous error of the so- called national historians, who wilfully pander to VI PRBrACE. the passions of their countrymen at the expense of historical truth. In laying before the world the result of his own study, the Author desires to claim no more credit for it than that he has striven for impartiality, and sought to apply to the narratives he has used the proper test of evidence. If, in doing this, it has been necessary to do battle specially with certain brUliant falsehoods, it is because these have their influence over millions of his fellow-men, and for that reason the more need to be thoroughly ex- posed. He has endeavoured to confine his own criti- cisms, so far as is possible, to matters of actual evidence and fact. Where comments go beyond these, he has sought rather to point to those of authors who have shown themselves practical sol- diers as well as sound critics, than to offer obser- vations which might reasonably be rejected as the mere dogmas of a Professor. E. E. Establishment, Chatham : OctoUr 24, 1868. CONTENTS. LECTURE I. PAGE Introduction to the Study of the Waterloo Campaign . 1 LECTURE II, Preparations for the Campaign . . . .33 LECTURE HL Events of the 15th June. — Comments. — Summary . . 70 LECTURE IV. Events of the 16th. — Comments. — Summary . . . 102 LECTURE V. Events of the 17th. — Comments. — Summary . . . 138 LECTURE VI, Events of the 18th. — Comments Summary . .108 LECTURE VII. The Retreat of Grouchy to France. — Comments. — Con- cluding Reflections. — Summary OF THE Campaign . . 215 Map of Belgium, with French Frontier of 1815 to face page 37 List Works and Editions used in Marginal References. COHTBACTED AS MiiiF. Hist. . . . Miiffling's History of the Campaign of 1815, trans- lated by Sir Jolin Sinclair (London, 1816). Mil. Mem. . . . Miiffling's Passages out of My Life, translated by Yorke (London, 1853). Pr. Off. .... (Prussian Official). Kecueil de BataiUes (Berlin, 1821). /Glaus Clausewitz. Feldzug von 1815 (Berlin, 1835). Ense Varnbageri von Ense's Leben Bliicher's (Berlin, 1845). BriaL .... Histoire du Due de Wellington, par le Colonel Brialmont (Brussels, 1858). Lijben S. ... Van Loben Sels, Precis de la Campagne de 1815 (Hague, 1849). Sib Siborne's History of the "War in the Netherlands (London, 1844). Hamley .... Hamley's Wellington's Career (London, 1860). Kenn Notes on Waterloo, by Sir J. Shaw Kennedy (Lon- don, 1865). Hooper .... Waterloo, by G. Hooper (London, 1862). Gui' The Wellington Dispatches, by Gurwood. Sup. Dis, . . . Supplementary Dispatches of Wellington. Doc Accounts and Oificial Documents relating to Water- loo, collected by a Near Observer (Eighth Edition, London, 1816). Gourg NapoMon. Campagne de 1815, par G6n. Gourgaud (London, 1818). Mi5m Napoleon. MSmoires pour servir, &c. (Paris, 1830). Cha Oharras. Campagne de 1815 (Brussels, 1858). Quin Quiiiet. Campagne de 1815 (Paris, 1862). Thi Thiers. Histoire du Consulat et de I'Empire (Paris, 1862). WATERLOO LECTURES. oXKo LECTURE I. INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF THE WATERLOO CAMPAIGN. Military History, if aspiring to be anything higher than the bare record of warhke transactions, must be accompanied by intelhgent criticism. Of the limits of such criticism it is proposed to speak hereafter. At present our first duty is to consider what is the just and safe foundation on which both narrative and com- ment should rest ; how, in short, we are to verify the facts on which we propose to build our theories. For, surely, without historic truth to light us through the past, it is vain to form judgments on it, or to seek to deduce lessons for the future. To show by what principle such truth can alone be secured, I would here employ the words of a late writer, universally allowed to be one of the greatest critics which this age has produced. The lamented B 2 WATERLOO LECTURES. Sir G. Cornewall Lewis, in a notable passage of his ' Credibility of the Early Eoman History,' thus ; lays down the true law which should constantly guide our researches : — ' It seems,' he says, 'to be often believed, and, at all events, it is perpetually as- sumed in practice, that historical evidence is different in its nature from other sorts of evidence. Until this error is effectually extirpated, all historical re- searches must lead to uncertain results. Historical, evidence, like judicial evidence^ is founded on the testi- mony of credible witnesses.'' It need hardly be pointed out that this law is quite as necessary in studying military events as any others. Indeed, there are none in which an actor is so apt to mistake mere impressions of his own for facts, and (which is very important) to note down; for the use of history his own guesses at what exists and what occurs on the other side, instead of waiting to correct these from the proper source, the informa- tion which that other side alone can furnish of its means and objects. Unhappily, these hasty guesses ^ are often more flattering than would be the truth to national vanity. Hence a powerful sentiment is en- ' listed on the side of error, and succeeding authors \ think they are doing their country service by shut- ting their eyes to the truth, and following blindly the narratives of their own party, thus accepting for his* tory a purely onesided version of events. By and by INTRODUCTION TO STUDY OF WATERLOO CAMPAIGN. 3 the stereotyped statement is treated as fact, its accuracy liotly defended, records diligently searched in as far as they are likely to confirm it. This process, con- tinued on either side, multiplies contradiction, until essayists moralise over the falsity of history, forgetful that in all disputes truth can only be sifted out by comparing evidence, and that it is the special duty of the judge to correct that partiality of witnesses which obscures but does not change the nature of the facts. We shall have in these pages to deal much with the military literature of a great neighbouring nation, whose writers sin above all others in the matter of their national defeats and victories. It is not intended, however, to assume that our own are blameless. The popular English version of that great battle which gives its name to the campaign of 1815 is hardly less a romance than the famous Waterloo chapter in Victor Hugo's 'Les Mis^rables,' over which our critics have (with good reason) made merry. Let us select from our various school histories one of the best Pinnock's Goldsmith, known, and see what is said of the Prussian share in isth ed. the victory of Waterloo. Of nearly a page devoted to the battle, just two short sentences are allotted to Blucher's part ! ' When night approached, the heads of the Prussian columns were seen advancing to share in the combat.' 'The Prussians, who were comparatively fresh, continued the pursuit' [the B 2 4 WATERLOO LICCTURES. French are described as broken entirely by Welling- ton's charge], 'and the army of Napoleon was virtu- ally annihilated.' What English lad, reading a story thus written, could possibly surmise that the fiercest of all modern leaders of war was on the ground with part of his army at half-past four, was hotly engaged with Napoleon's reserves three hours before dark, had brought 50,000 fine troops into action at the time of Wellington's gi'and charge, and had 7,000 of them killed and wounded that evening in his vigorous sup- port of our ai'my ? Yet these facts are perfectly pa- tent to him who sees the battle of Waterloo, not as coloured by patriotic artists, but as portrayed by true history, and is willing to take his account of what the Prussians did, not from the guesses of enemy or ally, but direct from their own narratives, con- firmed by those of independent observers. It has been intimated that French historians ofifend terribly in this matter. They sin, not merely by omission, but by wilful repetition of error from book to book, long after the truth has been given to the world. This would matter little to us, comparatively, .; were French historians and French material for his- tory not specially important to our own. Unhappily, the ease and grace of the military writers of France,, and the number and accessibility of their works, have caused those of our country to adhere almost entirely to their versions of European wars, excepting INTRODUCTION TO STUDY OS WATERLOO CAMPAIGN. 5 always those in which English armies are mixed up. This slavish following of guides too often blind has warped our whole judgment of continental military- powers. We could hardly, indeed, have chosen worse for our teachers. No German writer would dream of sitting down deliberately to construct a history of a war, a campaign, or even an action between French and Germans, without carefully con- sulting the French authorities as well as those of his own nation. A Frenchman, writing at this present time of an affair of the revolutionary or imperial period, thinks nothing of following implicitly the bulletins of the day even for the enemy's numbers; or will take these at second-hand from some inter- mediate writer, with perfect good faith no doubt, but with an utter disregard of the rules of evidence. I take as an instance the latest of such narratives, from a woi'k which, however little accurate, is yet one well suited for its special purpose, being published as a French Reader for the use of a great miUtary college. It is written by a Frenchman who seems able in his method, perfectly honest-minded, and who, living in this country permanently, is removed above all petty reasons for flattering the national vanity of his own. He is sketching the lives of some eminent French generals, from whose writings he wishes to quote, and among others that of Marshal Jourdan, with his great achievement, the victory of Fleurus, which turned 6 WATERLOO LECTURES. the tide of the war in the JSetherlands in 1794. As the authorities employed are solely of the one side, one knows beforehand how the estimate of numbers will be given : ' 100,000 allied troops were opposed to 70,000 Kepublicans.' The author is but following a host of writers who reckon no French but those actually engaged, and who have never sought to verify the original guess of their countrymen at the strength of Coburg's beaten army. Yet the numbers of the latter have been published these twenty years from official returns in a standard Diiiier's Austrian work, and from this source the supposed Erzherzog '■ '■ Karl, p. 100,000 are found, by a single reference, to be just 45,775! As to the French, their available strength SeeThi. under Jourdan appears from Thiers' account (not vi 395- likely to exaggerate in that direction) to have been full 81,000, when his reserves are reckoned. So the Re- publican general, instead of having only seven-tenths the force of his adversaries, commanded in reality not far from two to their one ! Whilst on the subject of French inaccuracies I may with advantage refer to a notable correspondence to be found in the appendix to the first volume of the Life of Sir life of that pccrlcss military historian, the writer of VI . iSapier, '■ •' ' edited by the ' Pcninsular War.' Here M. Thiers, the great Uruoe, vol. ' o a. App. master of the art of explaining away national mishaps, has fallen into the hands of an antagonist in every way his match, and is fairly worsted, even as to his French INTRODUCTION TO STUDY OF WATERLOO CAMPAIGN. 7 numbers, by the aid of the genuine returns, kept for Napoleon's private use, and still existing in the Paris archives. The discussion is a model of its kind on Napier's side; and the airy readiness with which M. Thiers, unable to refute his adversary's facts, declines to argue further with ' interested or ignorant critics,' may serve to forewarn us how far the author of ' The Consulate and Empire ' can safely be trusted as an historical guide. There are errors less important than those which have been referred to, that become woven into ordi- nary histories from the mere careless habit of writers who, without iutending to mislead, copy tamely the assertions of those who have gone before them, and take no pains to check their truth. An amusing in- stance of such is to be found in the popular accounts of the great cavalry combat which closed the battle of Echmuhl in 1809. A French writer of mark. General Pelet (who served in the action, though he did not see the combat), ascribed the success of his countrymen to the superiority of the armour of the French Cuirassiers, who wore back as well as breast- plates, over that of the Austrians of the same arm, who were protected only in front. Pelet no doubt had some camp story for his authority for this strange as- sertion, which has been repeated again and again, and is recorded as an interesting fact by Alison, none of those who have borrowed the statement having en- 8 WATEKIiOO LECTURES. quired what help the French cavaliers really obtained in their successful charges from their armour behind, nor, what is more to the purpose, what was the actual proportion of the numbers of the combatants. It so happens, however, that there are uimsually complete records on both sides, from which the latter may be ex- tracted. Baron Stutterheim wrote a history for the Austrians, which, published at once by favour excep- j tional at Vienna, forms a standard German authority. Thiers, following Pelet, and using the French archives, has reckoned up the French cavalry with much ela- Compare boratiou. An examination of these sources shows Thi.x.ll9, •with Pro- twelve squadrons of Austrian reserve cuirassiers, aided fessor Schneida- \)j seventeen of light cavalry (which had suffered very 1809, i. 51, severely just before), opposed to ten full regiments of | French heavy horse, aided by three brigades of allied Germans. The latter had numbered altogether 10,000 a few days before, the former little over 3,000 : and, making the necessary allowance for the preceding operations, this wonderful tale of a victory due to the armour on the backs of the victors resolves itself into a hopeless stand of the Austrian cavalry against a force more than three times their strength. It has not unfrequently occurred that the features of national policy bear the impress of false current notions of military events. Our own recent Indian history affords a very striking instance of this truth. Rather more than a quarter of a century since we INTRODECTION TO STUDY OF WATERLOO CAMPAIGN. 9 occupied Affghanistan, to anticipate Russian intrigue on our north-western frontier. The country was held for us by three separate brigades of troops, each with distinct cantonments and administration. An insurrection took place at the capital, spreading soon to other districts, and the force at head-quarters, overcome rather by the imbecility of mismanagement than by the strength of the enemy, perished abso- lutely with all its camp-followers in the attempt to retreat. The other two brigades held their own with perfect success, and maintained our hold of the country until, being reinforced, they re-conquered it with ease. We had thus lost about one-third of the original army of occupation, 4,500 men in fact. Un- fortunately, in writing of such a disaster, there is a tendency in the historian to magnify his office and give the event undue proportions, and the school of writers who seek effect rather than strict truth have made the Affghan war their own. Hence it has been usual to add to our actual losses the swarm of fol- lowers who attended the combatants that fell, and to keep in the background the true proportion of the latter to the forces that held out. So that if twenty fairly informed Englishmen were now interrogated on the subject, nineteen would probably unhesitatingly admit such statements as that ' all our army was destroyed,' or that 'our terrible loss of 16,000 men in Affghanistan shook our prestige throughout the 10 -WATEKLOO LECTURES. East;' and the moral effect of the disaster upon our policy ever since has been magnified threefold. It is not here sought to advocate any change in the pacific attitude adopted by our rulers on that fron- tier, but to show that it has been imposed by public opinion rooted on a misstatement of facts, and to gather from this instance the inference that a nation's policy may be largely influenced by the incorrect history of a war. More remarkable than any such isolated mistake, and far more important in its bearings, is the persis- tent error of the French nation as to its own modern military annals. By excluding from sight Peninsular failures, by treating the Kepublican disasters of 1793 and 1795 as of no account in the light of alternate successes, by dwelling constantly on Napoleon's vic- tories, and elaborating excuses for his defeats, their writers have striven to impregnate that great people with the dangerous belief that their land can produce at will soldiers invincible, and a chief that cannot err. Hence the ambitious policy which can be satis- fied with nothing less than a sort of supremacy in Europe, such as Napoleon for the time actually se- cured. It would seem as though the feverish visions which lured that great genius to his ruin have in- fected more or less the whole nation that raised him to power. The belief that but for a series of unlucky accidents, but for treachery, but for some hostile ele- ment, Frenchmen under Napoleon could never have INTRODUCTION TO STUDY OF WATERLOO CAMPAIGN. 11 failed, has become almost a religious faith witli decades of millions; and the natural consequence of this false view of history is the false policy which alarms and irritates the neighbouring peoples. This conviction of their military invincibility has been impressed by the French to some extent on others, so that among ourselves it is commonly taken for granted that, in the next collision between France and Germany, the armies of the latter will succumb. Those who study the history of modern wars more carefuUy, who discern how large a part of the French victories there recorded was due to the personal genius of one man, and observe how soon, when once made careless by success, that one in his turn met with ruinous defeat, will not so easily admit this assump- tion : least of all will it be accepted among that great , nation whose annals can match Jena with Rosbach, Dresden with Leipsic, Valmy with Waterloo, and who, if not so boastful, are scarcely less confident than i their rivals. When Prussia next arms against France, she may surely with as fair reason hope to revive the glories of Frederic as her rival those of Napoleon. Should a struggle, forced on by French arrogance, turn to the ruin of FrahceTor of her chosen dynasty, that ruin will be the direct result of the false teach- ingsTwTiich begin with perverting history, and end in the assertion of geographical claims impossible to admit, "and pretensions which threaten the independ- ence of her neighbours. 12 WATERLOO LECTURES. It has been said that intelligent criticism forms a vital part of sound military history. Let us here distinguish the two chief classes of critical remarks which writers employ ; for their objects are essen- tially diflFerent. In the first place, a campaign, or movement, or action, may be regarded as exemplifying some general theory. Correctness is, of course, as much an object here as in treating these subjects with any other view; but the conduct of individuals matters httle, except in so far as it harmonises with or violates certain rules. The actors in this case are regarded simply as instruments, more or less imperfect, for carrying out certain designs, and are made subor- dinate in importance to the principles which it is the object to establish or to illustrate. This is that theoretical use of militaiy history which has often met hot opposition, and which may easily become an abuse in the hands of those who mistake men for machines, and overlook the realities of war in their haste to reduce its combinations to geometrical rules. On the other hand, we have the distinct assurance of great commanders that professional study in some form is the first condition of practical success. Na- poleon laid down this as an especial rule. The Arch- duke Charles practised it in his own person before taking a command-in-chief. Wellington, reticent to his own friends and lieutenants, was found ready, in INTRODUCTION TO STUDY OF WATERLOO CAMPAIGN. 1 3 the midst of Peninsular triumphs, to discuss strate- SeeBruce's gical questions with a young officer of his army when w. Napier, i. 147. he could find one worthy of his confidence ; and on another occasion, at the close of his last great cam- paign, confessed to a junior staff-officer his personal Kemi.p.28. obligation to daily study. The military, in fact, can never be an exception to that rule of other profes- sions, which requires in their most brilhant ornaments something more than the rough practical knowledge which every useful member must possess. The day is gone by when great nations will look to see heaven-born generals appear at the first call to lead their armies. The very existence of our Staff Col- lege, and of its chair of history, shows that in this country the higher branches of military art are re- ceiving due attention. It is to avoid giving undue prominence to mere theory, to use the latter only in strict relation to known facts, that the course of study at the college is begun — as has been the practice since its opening — by a close historical survey of some great campaign, like that of Waterloo treated of in these Lectures. In making this we shall have occasion to use another sort of criticism than that which merely dis- sects events to find the rules which governs them. This is that which deals with the characters and con- duct of the men concerned. An event may be traced in all its leading features, its influence on the course • b7 14 WATERLOO LECTURES. of the campaign may be noted, but the task of the historian still remains unfulfilled if he fail to assign, in some degree at least, the relation to the whole of the chief actors and their parts. This particular campaign affords abundant scope for pains in this respect. No other in its result so deeply affects national vanity. No other is regarded from so many points of view. No other has exercised so much in- genuity and industry on the part of writers striving ' to obscure or to bring out the truth. In this its strictly historical aspect, it is as specially suited to the critic as to the student of strategy for the value of its lessons. Compact in time, important in result, conducted by the chief generals of the world, at the very prime of their reputation, and being, as it were, the finished result of the experience of twenty years' war, we may here, if anywhere, look to see skill, con- duct, and forethought taking the place of blind chance, and to find the operations leading up, step by step, to a perfect end. And just such an end was the battle of Waterloo, which, by the greatness of its issue and its peculiarly national character, has not only thrown other equally important actions into the shade, but has actually imposed itself, falsely as it were, on the world as the special object of attention in this campaign. Yet not on this battle — as 1 hope pre- sently to show — however heroically fought or dexter- ously won, should the glory of the Allied generals rest ; but on the noble devotion of each to the com- INTEODUCTION TO STUDY OF "WATERLOO CAMPAIGN. 15 mon object in view, and the perfection of mutual Confidence whidi enabled each so to act separately as to produce with their united armies at the right moment the greatest possible result. Never in the Tvhole of military history was the tactical value of the troops more entirely subordinated to the strategical operations. He knows not what the battle of Water- loo was who views in it merely the shock of two great armies, English and French, continued through a fierce day's fighting, until the superior endurance of the British fine shatters and finally overthrows their exhausted enemy. The eye that sees this in it and sees no more, forgetful of the long cokimns toiling through deep muddy lanes on the French flank, the sturdy legions of North Germans with clenched teeth and straining limbs forcing their guns through mire and over obstructions, the fierce old chieftain who is seen wherever his encouragement is needed, and everywhere is greeted as their ' father' by those he urges on, the cool and disciplined staff who are pre- paring to make the most decisive use of the coming masses in the assault on their hated enemy, does not only monstrous injustice to Blucher and his army, but robs Wellington of his due. For Wellington regarded not the matter thus. He knew and looked for the approaching army of his ally as part of the fight; he watched from early afternoon the lessening pressure which told that Napoleon was forced to 16 WATERLOO LECTURES. draw away his reserves from the main battle; above all, he had prepared, in concert with the old Prince- Marshal, this fatal stroke of war ; and not to under- stand or to ignore this, is to miss the real design with which the fight was joined. Waterloo was, in fact, viewed in its proper aspect, but the crown and finish of a splendid piece of strategy. It is into the details of this that we now propose to look, with the aid of the best writers on the subject. Of these let us first speak of the Prussian. Most important among them is Baron Muffling, Military Commissioner with Wellington's army. Forming the ' confidential link between the stafi's of the Allied Marshals, living with the one, and fully conversant with all the feelings of the other, his general know-., ledge of their side of the campaign must have beea equal, at the least, to that of any other man. As Quarterr master-General to Blucher in the preceding years, he had seen much of war on the grandest scale, and was especially observant of the system of Napoleon, of which he knew the weak points at that time more thoroughly, judging from the notes he has left us, than any other of the Allied chiefs. His opinion on military matters carries the weight which all men will allow to that of one who has mastered his craft thoroughly in all points of view. A student of theory in youth, he had attained on the field staff a high position by his merits, and had trained his mind by - INTllODUCTION TO STUDY OF WATERLOO CAMPAIGN. 17 methodical practice to judge of the largest tactical movements, as a drill-serjeant does of the evolutions of his squad. A man who could time exactly the Mii. Mem. march of the enemy's cavalry round the flank of a ' retiring force, or of the infantry of a whole wing of their army seeking to gain and deploy in a given ibid. p. eo, 61. position, was just the balance needed to regulate the movements of Blucher, or rather of the clear-sighted but impulsive and chivalric Gneisenau, whose advice the old Marshal followed. Complete in theory, sound and careful in practice, very disagreeable possibly to know, as he certainly was dogmatic and censorious in his professional view of others, Miiffling presents to us the highest type of a carefully elaborated staff- officer of the old Prussian model. His personal em- ployment near Wellington makes him a most valuable evidence, his private jealousy of Gneisenau a tolerably '^ impartial one, as to the share of the great English- man in the common achievement of the Allied armies. He has left us a short history of the campaign, pub- lished in January, 1816, and translated soon after; also a more valuable account in his memoirs, known in its English dress as 'Passages out of My Life.' To both of these we shall have frequent occasion to refer. There is a well-known Prussian official account of the events of 1815, compiled for the Berlin Govern- ment by a Major Wagner, and often quoted under c 18 "WATERLOO LECTURES. his name. It is cold and dry as a narrative, but elaborately complete ; and forms, of course, the best groundwork for the inner details of the Prussian army. For their orders, movements, and numbers, we shall look chiefly here. Varnhagen von Ense's ' Life of Blucher ' is valu- able for its anecdotical details; but is of too populaifl and sketchy a character to be of much value to the military critic. Clausewitz's ' Campaign of 1815 ' deserves particu- lar attention, as well, for his personal knowledge of the events, as for two other special I'easons. In the first place, Wellington himself deemed this General's criti- cisms of sufficient importance to require an elaborate PuHished auswcr ft'om his own pen, a compliment he paid no in the Sup. Disp.voi.x. other of his censors. In the second, Clausewitz ia Ms and in Gieig's own country stands confessedly at the head of all mili- mont,' tary theorists ; and the great reputation made for him by the genius his writings display, deepens constantly with time. It is matter of public acknowledgment that the principles which he bequeathed to his coun- trymen in his great work ' On War,' for the guidance of their action in their next struggle, were acted on fully in the recent struggle which has placed Prussia .at the head of Germany, and caused her to appear the first military power of the world. Belgian writers should not be wholly neglected in treating of a campaign fought in their country, al- INTRODUCTION TO STUDY OF WATERLOO CAMPAIGN. 19 though it must be observed that Colonel Charras has ransacked the local sources of information with ex- haustive effect. Brialmont is the most important for our purpose, and his ' History of Wellington ' has, under Mr. Gleig's fostering care, become a household work in our land. It is a strange instance of the fas- cination which Napoleon's genius exercises over even powerful minds, that Brialmont, like our own Napier, appears partially blinded by it, and has in conse- quence done himself and his subject less than justice in that short portion of his second volume which treats of the Waterloo Campaign. His details are here less perfect, his treatment less clear, his judg- ments less lucid by far than in his Peninsular chap- ters. He seems to have assumed beforehand, like a hundred other less praiseworthy writers, that Napo- leon could never greatly err in strategical difficulties, and to have determined that the blame of his defeat must lie on other shoulders. Hence in one strange p'^g^gi"" passage on a particular disputed event, he appears to rest censure for a certain delay upon Marshal Ney in the text, though, in a note to the page, the error is clearly charged to the Emperor instead, as though the author could not bring himself to write in large print, ' here Napoleon failed.' The plain account of the Dutch writer. Van Loben Sels, is far more complete as a history, contains many original documents, and is an essential authority as 20 WATERLOO LECTURES. regards the details which concern the troops of the Netherlands that fought under "Wellington. We now pass to English authors. Of these the earliest that deserves attention is Siborne, whose work, with its excellent atlas, has the honour of being the first thoroughly complete narrative of the compaign ever issued. Even now it forms a most useful book of reference ; one no student can peruse without being under obligation to the writer for the diligence with which he has collected his materials, and the care with which he has used them. At the same time it must be confessed that it has the essential faults of a national history written soon after a great war. Much that is in it would never have been inserted had the work not been largely depen- dant for support at its publication on the British army. As to the view taken of the Great Duke, it is simply that taken of Napoleon by a Napoleonist writer ; the view in fact of an advocate who believes that his hero was incapable of mistakes, and cannot suffer him to be charged with any. The book is thoroughly British, no doubt, but hardly suited for general use ; nor is this surprising when we recollect the time at which it appeared. The weakness of all such national versions is that they can hardly hope for acceptance save among the nation whose taste they are intended to meet. Sir Archibald Alison's great work has of course a INTRODUCTION TO STUDY OF WATERLOO CAMPAIGN. 21 large section on our subject. We shall not, however, refer to it, for though very readable, as are all ac- counts of campaigns by that distinguished author, it will not help our present purpose. It is true that the errors which disfigured this part of the earlier editions, disappeared to a greaF~extent in that of 1860, for which the campaign appears to have been nearly re- written, to the great improvement of the work as a whole. In his later years Alison had taken more pains to attain the accuracy he formerly neglected. By thft aid of such sound authorities as Charras and Clause witz, the Enghsh historian at length produced aWater- loo narrative not only interesting, but useful in detail , In seeking for the picturesque, however, he has less ened the value of his chapters, by devoting the larger part of their space to those battle-scenes into which he loved to throw his strength, to the neglect of the stoiy as a whole. However popular these episodes of combat may be, their description, espe- cially by writers who have not seen war, can little help the practical student. It is right to add that Alison has, in this his latest study on the subject, used very freely, and with due acknowledgment, the brief but pregnant criticisms on the campaign of Colonel Hamley in his essay on ' "Wellington's Career.' Such light as he has thrown on the strategy he appears to owe mainly to the Waterloo pages of that brilliant sketch. 22 WATERLOO LECTURES. In one English authority we have the evidence of a sound eye-witness happily combined with the gift of clear expression, and the faculty of judicial criti- cism, which make history valuable: for all these qualities appear plainly in the posthumous work of the late Sir J. Shaw Kennedy, a most valuable addition to the literature of the campaign. The writer was employed on the staff of "Wellington, received orders personally from him in the crisis of the battle of Waterloo, and has left in his pages such a clear re- cord of its chief phases, and of the marvellous tact and readiness of his great chief, as can nowhere else be found. Though his volume is mostly devoted to the battle itself, he has taken occasion to review the strategy which preceded it, with a freedom and breadth that no English author before him had used. The reflections of such a tried soldier and honest critic upon the commander whom he revered have special weight. His admiration of Welhngton's tac- tical skill — a skill to which perhaps full justice had never before been rendered — has not led him into the common mistake of supposing his hero a demigod beyond all error or criticism. The principle upon which he boldly examines the strategy on either side may best be given in his own words, which may be quoted as specially deserving attention for their bear- Kenn. p. ing ou our subject. ' There is an error almost universal as regards the bulk of mankind, in suppos- 160. INTRODUCTION TO STUDY OF WATERLOO CAMPAIGN. 23 ing that great commanders, such as Napoleon, Wel- lington, Caesar, and Hannibal, did not commit great mistakes. The game of war is so exciting, so com- plicated, and presents so many propositions which are capable of a variety of solutions, and which must be solved irrevocably on the instant, that no human powers of mind can reach further than a comparative excellence as a great commander; that is, great com- manders will have higher views, act upon superior principles, and commit fewer errors than ordinary men; but still this is only comparative merit, and should not exempt the operations of even the greatest commanders from criticism.' Wellington's own jMemorandum, already referred to, forms most valuable material for history, as do the Despatches of that great general. But such papers as these (like the mass of letters, bulletins, and reports in the volume of ' OfBcial Documents ' published soon after the campaign), being written ostensibly from a single point of view, and Hmited to a certain definite purpose, do not, taken by themselves, serve as his- tories of the whole event in which their authors took part. Hooper's ' Waterloo ' is one of 'the best single volumes on this campaign existing in any language : indeed, were we reduced to one book in studying it, this would be perhaps the one to adhere to. Mr. Hooper has written after Thiers, and Charras, and 24 WATERLOO LECTURES. Quinet. He is under very large obligations (not wholly unacknowledged) to the two latter writers for his historical details and his criticisms of Napoleon, and has produced a work more complete than that of the last, and more compact and readable than the other's. His able defence of "Wellington's conduct, when impugned at certain points, is always worthy attention. Yet it is ra ther that of an_advocate than a judge; and in this respect his work fa lls in value far behind that of Sir J. Kennedy. On the other hand, no English student of the whole campaign can afford to neglect the narrative of Hooper, unless indeed he has time to master those more origiaat authorities, which the author has skilfully condensed into a moderate octavo volume. Two classes of writers, of views diametrically op- posed, claim our interest when we pass to those of France. The one comprehends the long list of wor- shippers who so adore the military genius of Napo- leon, as'to be unable to discern the flaws in their idol. So complete, in their eyes, was his conception, and so perfect his execution of all warlike operations, that failure must be held impossible, as far as his own con- duct could affect the result. In all his misfortunes, , and in that of Waterloo above all, some other reason must be found for the want of his usual success; and as national vanity forbids the disaster being laid on the quality of French troops, ingenuity is racked for INTRODUCTION TO STUDY OF WATERLOO CAMPAIGN. 25 third causes, which stall spare the honour of the Emperor and his legions. Let his own political errors, the treachery or imbecility of his subordinates, special conditions of weather, blundering good luck on his opponents' side, be charged with his ruinous defeat. If none of these will serve the purpose, 'an unhappy fatality' must be found at every turn, such as makes brave men over-prudent, brilliant men slow, old soldiers rash at the wrong moments ; so that an unheard-of combination of others' mistakes was the true cause of the ruin of Napoleon. Let all or any such excuses be employed rather than believe that he was ever wanting to his army, or his army to its chief. Of such authors as these, who suit their facts to their ideas, and use historical material only so far as it serves to embellish their idol, a library might be formed, and formed to little advantage. We shall take but one into our list — one who has surpassed the rest no less in his worship of Napoleon's military genius, than in the success of the great work in which he has striven to perpetuate error. Of this, the well- known 'Consulate and Empire,' we shall say a few words later, as well as of Napoleon's own writings on the subject. France has no longer any necessity to give herself up to this phantom of history. Writing in her own tongue, and born of her own race, there has of late arisen a severe school of critics who absolutely refuse 26 WATERLOO LECTURES. to follow their predecessors in blind adulation of Napoleon, whether viewed as soldier or Emperor. These have gone to work upon the Waterloo campaign with the cool deliberation of anatomists, dissecting the limbs of the dead to find the true causes of the malady. Facts are what they first seek, and conclu- sions drawn only from facts are to follow. They pursue, indeed, the true historical method; and, as their national pride is enlisted on the side of France, there is no fear of any general injustice being wrought to the French cause under their treatment. Con- spicuous among such authors are Charras and Quinet, and, for the reason just given, their works are in- valuable to us as independent students of this cam- paign. General Jomini might also have been added to this list of sound critics, but that the peculiar form of hie narrative (supposed to flow from the Emperor himself) fatally hampers him in matters of which Napoleon has actually written, and written much that history refuses to accept as true. This makes his work far less valuable as to 1815 than in those portions which relate to campaigns of which Napoleon has forborne to speak personally. There is, however, an independence in the spirit of this writer which forbids his yielding his judgment to Napoleon's in matters of opinion ; and his criticisms on the campaign have, therefore, the proper value of those falling from one whose great practical know- INTBODUCTION TO STUDY OF WATERLOO CAMPAIGN. 27 ledge of war is only exceeded by his devotion to theory. To return to the modern school of French critics. Colonel Charras is, and will probably continue to be, the first of all authorities on the Waterloo Campaign. As a soldier he had seen hot service in Algeria ; and afterwards holding ofiice in the Bureau of War under the brief republic of 1848, he had all the technical knowledge which could aid in throwing light upon the subject. Being banished from France in 1851, he took up his abode in Belgium, and revenged his cause with the most severe yet honourable weapon that exile ever took in hand. WhUst hving on the scene of Napo- leon's last campaign, he undertook to write for his fellow-countrymen a true history of that great dis- aster; and if he has not shaken the throne of the Third Napoleon, he has at least struck rude blows at the idolatry with which the name of the First was regarded. Doubtless his own political career must have sent him to his work with much bitterness at heart against the dynasty to whom he owed his ban- ishment; but though his leanings are against the defeated Emperor, he has striven from first to last to judge of nothing without sufiicient original proof. His work is truly exhaustive. 'After its perusal,' as he fairly says in the preface, 'one man will seem somewhat lowered ; but, on the other hand, the French army will appear greater, and France less 28 WATEELOO LECTURES. humbled.' JSTo part of this great book is uninterest- ing, and the care which he has bestowed on it extends even to the Atlas which accompanies it for the . student's use. It must be remarked, however, that the very pains with which Colonel Charras traces out his details, and gives, in the body of his text or in notes, a multiplicity of original documents, detracts from the natural liveliness of his style, and makes the work almost too bulky and diffuse for common use. That of M. Quinet in this respect far surpasses it. This writer originally intended solely to review the book of Colonel Charras, and make known to his countrymen its incomparable worth. In performing this self-imposed task he found occasion to refer to many original documents not specially used before, ■ and being also a resident in Belgium, he took pains, like the authorj^he was following, to personally ex- amine the theatre of war. Gifted with clearness of vision to find the truth, and with a trenchant style well suited for sharp exposure of falsehood, he has skilfully followed up the path first opened by Charras. Certain stories, long accepted by French writers, have been so effectually handled by this keen critic, that for all readers open to conviction by evidence, they nrast disappear from the domain of history. His work, though hardly attaining the dignity of a history, may be called, as regards both style and matter, the most brilliant review of the campaign ever written. INTEODUCTION TO STUDY OF WATERLOO CAMPAIGN, 29 Before Ms sharp strokes vanish, their magic power dispelled by the touch of truth, those mythic notions of this great struggle, which have too long stood in place of facts, and which he has happily named ' La Quin. p. 7. l^gende Napoleonienne.' The real author of these fables, in their first origin, was Napoleon himself. Not content with supplying the usual materials which all commanders of great armies bequeath to history in their correspondence, he has written two separate narratives of the cam- paign. The first of these appeared in the earliest part of his St. Helena exile under the name of his attendant. General Gourgaud ; but from the moment of its publication has been ascribed, without denial, to its true author. It is a nervous, forcible narrative, thrown hastily off, to enable the imperial writer to show to the world that he was not to blame for the disaster which had so humiliated France. No one more plainly than M. Thiers admits it to be superior in value and truthfulness to the more elaborate and studied apology to be found in the ' Memoires.' To Thi. p. 48, ^ "-^ note. both of these it will be necessary to refer. It is the former which, abote all other misrepresentations, has misled the mass of historians. "We do not propose to follow bhndly those writers who have accepted it without applying to its details the ordinary rules of evidence. How hard it is to correct an error which has once crept into history, is well shown by the fact 30 WATERLOO LECTURES. that although the ninth volume of the ' M^moires' (as finally published) contains its own refutation in the appended narrative of Colonel Heymes, and although in 1840 Marshal Ney's son published a mass of docu- ments issued by Napoleon's staff in 1815, flatly contradicting in many points the versions of the Emperor, the latter have continued to be accepted as authentic by innumerable writers, and none even took the trouble to attempt to explain the discrepancies until M. Thiers applied himself to the task. No one can peruse the twentieth volume of that great author's ' Consulate and Empire' without doing homage to the powers which he has brought to his task. If a brilliant style, large acquaintance with details, special opportunities of correcting eri'or, and a full knowledge of the strength of the evidence against his hero, would enable anyone at this time to clear Napoleon of the responsibihty of this great defeat, M. Thiers might have succeeded. Had so clear- sighted a writer entered on the subject with an unbiassed mind, no one can doubt that he would himself have seen where Napoleon failed. This was not the case however. He has undertaken before- hand to prove to all the world that Napoleon, culpable as a man, mistaken as a ruler, was, as a captain, with- out stain or error. With many fine words about truth, conscience, and the dignity of history, we find mingled in the very first of his important notes on INTRODUCTION TO STUDY OF WATERLOO CAMPAIGN. 31 the campaign the following sentence, in which his real prejudice escapes him. ' We have here, in truth, Thi. xx. to suppose several impossibilities in order to prove the incapacity at this juncture of one of the greatest of known generals.' These impossibilities are merely to believe that Napoleon did not give a certain order the receipt of which has never been proved, which was not carried out, and which is in contradiction with his own later-written instructions, hut which ought to have been given, as it now appears. ' Call anything impossible ' (it is meant), ' rather than believe that the Emperor mistook his strategy.' The author has written throughout with the same foregone conclusion, and, let us add it plainly, with a mischievous effect cor- responding to the consummate power of his pen. No other account of the campaign has been, perhaps ever will be, so widely read, as the famous first chapter of the twentieth volume. It not only forms part of all standard libraries, but republished separately under the simple name of 'Waterloo,' its yellow cover is seen on every bookstall in France, and its pages have become part of her household literature. Since, there- fore, no other historian on this side has written so lately, so powerfully^ or with such full information as M. Thiers, we need take no other representative of the military infallibility of Napoleon into our review. In his narrative are met the most charming language and the worst faults of a host of authors whose works 32 WATERLOO LECTURES. are, for the most part, written but to pass away. The presence of a Napoleon on the throne, the ap> proval of the Academy, the lucid eloquence of its style, have stamped this volume as the masterpiece of that false school of history with which we are so much concerned. We shall have repeated occa- sion to refer to it, and would here only say that, in many passages defending Napoleon, M. Thiers clearly has Charras in view, though not expressly naming his antagonist. If it were possible to rebut the charges made by the latter against the Emperor, it would, we may be sure, be here effectually done. The skill with which the great national writer uses every point of evidence which bears in favour of his view, and hides from sight such as conflict with it, proves him the most valuable of advocates whilst the most dangerous of historians. It is only the mighty power of that truth which he professes to invoke that enables a critic to dare to question his results. But he himself has said of the controversy, ' Truth is holy, and no just cause can suffer from it.' Seeking only for this truth, we proceed to the examination of the subject. PKEPAEATIONS FOR THE CAMPAIGN. 33 LECTURE II. PREPARATIONS FOR THE CAMPAIGN, ' On his return from Elba to the throne of France, Napoleon found the total of the land forces reduced by Louis XVIII. to 150,000, of which but 80,000 were available for a campaign. Judging 800,000 to be necessary for the defence of his recovered empire, he proceeded to raise three additional battalions to each regiment of the line, take all the sailors for shore duty, call out the National Guard, summon the pen- sioners to service, and refill the arsenals. In ten weeks France became one camp, with 560,000 men upon the rolls.' In some such words as these run the older accounts of the events of the Hundred Days, based universally on a statement of Napoleon's own ; but Mem. viii. an examination of the records of the War Bureau of Paris has reduced the proportions of this achievement unto, it seems but little for so great an organiser. From their evidence Charras has clearly shown that Cha.p. 4i. the real additions made to the army bequeathed by :the fugitive Bourbon were just 53,000 to the total, and 43,000 to the real efi"ective numbers, which stood 34 WATERLOO LECTURES. on the 1 st June at 1 98,000. From the dates of many of the orders given during his brief rule, and especially Cha.p. 41. those (of 1st May) as to the fortifying of Paris, it is almost certain that, on first reaching the Tuileries, Napoleon did not realise to the full the immensity of his danger in the fact of the determined hostility of the Allied Sovereigns. If we compare with Charras' Thi. XX. 6. exposition of the truth the statements of M. Thiers, as favourable to the Emperor's own story as can be those of any one who has had access to the ofiicial records, we find that the total embodied is given indeed by the latter at 288,000; but that deductions of inefiec- tives (for in the strain which the Empire was under, we must assume that 66,000 given as at the depots were men not really serviceable) reduce this to 196,000, a number actually below that of Charras, though mar- vellously near his as coming from a writer of such diiFerent sympathies. The two authors we have quoted have worked at this point, and certain others, from the same original authorities, but with contrary views and objects. Here, as at other passages where they agree, we may safely follow them, and assume it to be beyond all doubt that Napoleon's effective field forces at the beginning of June were rather less than 200,000 men. Against him the coalition was rolling up on all the borders of France such gigantic hosts as had never in all history been moved together for a single Diiller's Erzherzog object. The Archdukc Charles left the retreat to Karl, p. 672. which, in disgust at a brother's perfidy, he had with- PREPARATIONS FOR THE CAMPAIGN. 35 drawn six years before, and gathered a mixed army of Austro- Germans on the Rhine. Schwartzenberg led other Austrians to the same frontier. More Austrians, set free by the death of Murat, prepared to force the Alps and carry the war on from Italy. Ferdinand Memoir recalled English officers to lead over the Pyrenees the whitting- . .... ham,p.278. Spanish troops which they had disciplined into suc- cess. More formidable still in the distance, Russia gathered legions estimated at a quarter of a million to support the Austrians on the Rhine. La Yendee, faithful to her royalist traditions, rose against the usurper. Nearest and most dangerous of all, close on the northern frontier of France, and within a few days' march of her capital, the Enghsh general whose name Napoleon's Spanish armies knew too well, and the daring Prussian who had but lately ridden tiium- phantly into Paris, each at the head of a large army, lay waiting for the signal to advance and crush the man who defied the world in arms. To this man, whose life had been the history of Europe for the previous fifteen years, upon whom all eyes were now fixed as the sole author of the struggle, must we look if we would see the central figure which gives the drama of Waterloo its interest. Rate Napoleon's genius for politics or war as you will, the fact stUl is there, that, by the circumstances of the time and the nature of military events, his possible success or his certain failure must be the chief matters of interest D 2 6b WATERLOO LECTURES. in the story, the causes which led to his defeat the first questions of importance for the student of any nation to solve. M^m. viii. In the ' M^moires ' Napoleon has given us at length his motives for choosing the offensive, and we may believe that he has fairly stated them, since they agree Gourg. with those published in his first history, and are such that he could have had no interest in inventing them. It is here as well to state once for all, that where Na- poleon, the author, does not contradict himself, is not contradicted by any other testimony, and has obvi- ously no reason for distorting the facts, his evidence as to his ovm campaign is of the highest value : but that the ' M^moires ' should have been recklessly taken, even by English writers, for history, without weigh- ing their statements by the common sense rules of evidence, is plain proof that this extraordinary man's genius has imposed on us pretty much as on the rest ■ of the world. To beat the Allies out of Belgium at a stroke before the Austrians were ready for action; to gain that country to his side, with the Rhine barrier so dear to French soldier and politician ; the prospect (visionaiy enough, but Napoleon was essentially a man of vision- ary notions) of a change of Ministry in England, and of a movement in his favour among the small German States upon his first success; such are his avowed motives for the invasion he attempted. On the other PREPARATIONS FOR THE CAMPAIGN. 37 hand, as both his narratives admit, he was well aware that, if defeated, the defence of France would be a harder matter than ever : but the hope of dissolving the coalition by a master-stroke of victory, of destroy- p°26f ing separately the army of detested England, of carry- ing the war beyond those provinces of France which had so lately felt its miseries, prevailed. He resolved to fall upon his enemies by the 15th June. ' Events,' ibid. p. 27. he writes afterwards, ' made his calculations fail; but the plan chosen was so conformable to military rules that, despite its non-success, every man of sense will agree that, in the like situation, it is that which should be followed.' If this be so, and yet the failure were so complete, what does it prove but that his condition was desperate, and his attempt to restore his throne by arms the greatest of conceivable blunders ; or that a perfect conception was most imperfectly executed ? ' Into the plans of the Allied generals we need not inquire, except so far as they bear upon what hap- pened. They had made certain arrangements (which we shall presently examine) intended to meet the event which occurred ; and now lay in their chosen cantonments awaiting either Napoleon's attack, or the coming up of the main body of those great masses of which they formed but one wing. The country which they had to guard, open by nature to invasion See Map. in its western part along the whole fi'ontier, from the Meuse to the Straits of Dover, was yet much covered 38 WATERLOO LECTURES. by art. Most of this district, lying Avest of a line drawn north and south through Brussels, was in charge of the English general, and his diligence had already blocked many of its principal roads by repair- ing the fortresses which commanded them. The Prus- Muff. Hist, gians guarded the eastern half of the Netherlands, p. 70. ° ' their troops (as one of their best authors admits) placed more for convenience of supply than for con- centration in haste. One fortress alone, Namur, atthe junction of the Sambre and Meuse, was in their hands; but between them and France rose the steep bare cold plateaux of the Ardennes, a country so difficult to cross, and so utterly unproductive of food, that to troops fed on Napoleon's system of living almost from hand to mouth, it might be deemed impassable. To make this the line of attack was probably never con- templated by Napoleon. Certainly the Allied generals did not expect him that way. To attack by their right near the sea, or by the central line which pro- mised both to divide their armies and lead straight to Brussels, were the contingencies admitted if he attacked at all. In either case he must face the probability of being crushed by their larger forces, as they very well knew. Of his 198,000 actually available soldiers Napoleon only found himself able to collect on the Belgian fron- tier, after making the most moderate detachments to °3j^" other.quarters, an army which he himself calls 1 1 5,000, PEEPAEATIONS FOR THE CAMPAIGN. 39 but which Charras with painful care proves to have cha, p. 58. numbered 128,000, inclusive of a train of 3,500 non- combatants. As Thiers admits 124,000 men present Thi.xx.2i. at the concentration, and excludes the train, there is no substantial disagreement between these two author- ities ; and we may safely say that Napoleon estimates his own force 10,000 below the truth, forgetting apparently that he thereby enhances the rashness of his enterprise. Holding fortresses occupied by de- p6ts and National Guards on all the main roads leading from the north-eastern and eastern frontier of France, he might hope to collect his striking power at a single point undiscovered. The general situation and the strength of the AUied forces were known to him by secret intelligence. On the other hand they had in- formation of his force which was at least equally good. As early as the 11th May, Wellington wrote to Sir H. Gur. xii. 372 Hardinge, his agent with Blucher, that he reckoned Buonaparte's means for attack at 110,000 men ; and somewhat later the Prussians had made a very exact estimate of their enemy's field army, corps by corps, sib. i. rating the whole at 130,000 men. This knowledge ^^' curiously affected their reports of facts in the cam- see p. los. paign, as will be hereafter observed. We have said that Napoleon knew the general strength of the Alhes. Concerning this there have never been any of those great delusions which the French have indulged in with regard to the numbers 40 WATERLOO LECTURES. of their enemies in former contests. The authorities have been too many and too keen to allow of such illusions, and, what is stUl more to the purpose, the real disproportion was so great as to suffice for the national vanity of even their vainest writers. Gourg. The Prussian army, estimated by Napoleon himself at 120,000, was actually but little less. It was di- vided into four grand corps, each complete in all the Pr. Off. anns. These numbered in actual total within one hun- dred of the 117,000 combatants at which they are usually reckoned, and were thus distributed: — 1st Corps (Zieten), about Charleroi 31,000 nearly. 2nd „ (Pirch), about Namur . 32,000 „ Srd „ (Thielemann), about Ciney 24,000 „ 4th „ (Bulow), about Lifege . 30,000 „ Cha. App. It is right to add that Charras shows that the park Note C. . ^ of the army is excluded from these numbers, and that the proportion of artillerymen allotted to the guns in each corps is so small, that he has taken upon himself to increase it. See Map. The positions of the First and Second Corps along the Sambre enabled their outposts of cavalry to watch the line of frontier from Bonne Esperance, their west-, ernmost point, to the Meuse. Thielemann continued the chain along the edge of the Ardennes about Dinant, his headquarters having been advanced into the forestlio enable him to guard the portion of it near that town, which is exceptionally open and easy to PREPARATIONS FOR THE CAMPAIGN. 41 traverse. Bonne Esperance, from whicli the line was taken up by Wellington's army, lies only eight miles from Lobbes, where the Prussian posts crossed the Sambre, so that that river, on its passage from the French town of Maubeuge into Belgium, very nearly divided the sections of open frontier guarded by the Allies. The numbers of Wellington's army are less easy to agree upon than those of the others. Estimated by Napoleon at 102,000, they have been reduced by Gourg. Ohari'as to 95,000, from a very mmute examination Cha. p. 65. of all the records left of the campaign in Belgium. Siborne, however, brings the total up to 106,000, and sa. i- 426. we must look a little closely to see the cause of so considerable a discrepancy. Examining the tables given by these two careful writers we find, as might be expected in this particular matter, that the English- man is the more correct. Charras says that he omits the Hanoverian second brigade^ which was at Antwerp, and remained there during the campaign. Now, in the five Hanoverian brigades with Wellington in the early part of the spring, and in the campaign after- wards, there is no brigade numbered second, as all tables prove. But a corps of Hanoverians, 9,000 strong (called 10,000 in April), arrived with the chief Hanoverian general, Decker, later than the rest, and being formed into four reserve brigades was — Supp. Dis. ... T P . X- 383. after much difficulty as to its provisioning — lett m 4^ WATERLOO LECTURES. garrison by Wellington. It is clear then how the dif- ference arose, and how Charras was led into his error. Sib. i. 32. As it was Wellington's own choice that these Hano- and App. verians and certain other troops (amounting by Si- borne's tables to 3,200 more) should not be taken into the field, there seems no good reason why they should be deducted from his strength. This 106,000 was thus divided, for Wellington had now so far adopted the Continental model as to break the 94,000 men of his field force into corps, keeping the cavalry however in a distinct body : — 1st Corps, Prince of Orange ..... 25,000 2nd Corps, Lord Hill 24,000 Reserve Corps, tinder Wellington's personal orders 21,000 Cavalry Corps, Lord Uxbridge .... 14,000 94,000 Garrisons (sometimes reckoned in the Reserve Corps) 12,000 106,000 Supp.Diep. The proper arrangement of the corps was (as Wel- lington in his Reply to Clausewitz has specially noted) one of his hardest tasks. His fighting force of infantry was composed of six divisions of British troops, partly recruits, partly veterans, mixed with King's Germans of the Peninsular army, equal to any infantry in the world ; of five brigades of Hanoverian raw troops; of three and a half divisions of Dutch Belgians ; of a Brunswick division ; and of a Nassau brigade. Each of these had their own officers, staff and regimental organisation, which must be left un- PREPARATIONS FOR THE CAMPAIGN. 43 touched. Accordingly the Hanoverian brigades were distributed through each of his five British divisions of infantry of the line, the 1st or Guards division being alone of English troops. Then the whole were arranged in corps. The 1st and 3rd English divi- sions, and Chass4 and Perponcher with their divi- sions of Dutch Belgians, formed the 1st Corps. The 2nd and 4th Divisions, and the rest of the Dutch Belgians, made up the 2nd Corps. The Reserve in- cluded the 5th and 6th divisions, the Brunswickers, and the Nassauers. The cavalry were combined nomi- nally into one command, but were, as in all Welling- ton's campaigns, held subject to his special orders. To watch his share of the frontier, the Duke dis- posed the 1st Corps in continuation of the Prussian line about Mons, Enghien, and Nivelles; the 2nd Corps beyond these points as far west as the line of the Scheldt, the Reserve around Brussels. The Dutch-Belgian cavalry guarded the front of the Prince of Orange ; some of the King's German hus- sars did the same service for Lord HiU; the rest of the cavaliy were dispersed in cantonments to the rear of the 1st and 2nd Corps. These facts are undisputed, and the main question arising on them is, Whether the whole army of the Allies extended thus over a hundred miles of ground from east to west, and forty fi-om north to^south, was not unnecessarily scattered in case of sudden 44 WATERLOO LECTURES. attack? On this important head it is necessary to point out that WelHngton, regarding the defence of Belgium and of his communications with England Supp.Disp. and Germany as objects of first importance, long afterwards deliberately defended his arrangements. On the other hand, all continental critics, looking at such objects as wholly subsidiary to that of receiv- ing and crushing Napoleon, unanimously condemn them on this head. Muffling, perhaps, partially ex- Muff.Hist. cepted. The latter confesses indeed (as we shall see presently) that the Prussians do lie under this charge; and that, because the case of an attack in the Low Countries had not been on their side provided for by the formation of magazines to facilitate concentra- tion. Time was when it was treasonable to doubt whether what Wellington arranged was the best thing possible on his part. This is not the case now, however, and we cannot leave this subject without Kenn. p. referring to the deliberate judgment upon it of Sir S. Kennedy, who has treated it in a complete and masterly manner. Five great routes, this author points out, presented themselves for the Emperor's choice, and three of these, viz. that by Lille and Ath, that by Mons and Hal, and that by Beaumont, Charleroi, and Genappe, Ibid. were so ill- watched by the Allied armies that, ' had he ^' ' advanced by either of them, it is quite clear that it was impossible that they could have been in junction PREPARATIONS FOU THE CAMPAIGN. 45 at any point between him and Brussels, so as to have covered it by opposing their united force to him in a general action; for each of the distances from Liege and Ciney to the nearest parts of the nearest of the three is greater than Napoleon's whole march would be to Brussels. A superficial observer would reply, that they did concentrate in time at Waterloo. But the proposition implies that Napoleon's advance, as supposed, must have compelled the Allies, if they op- posed him, to do so without having jbeir whole forces in junction; and this is what took place [i. e. at Quatre Bras and Ligny], and certainly at an imminent risk of being attended with most disastrous results.' Now, the two first of these routes are, with their branches, identical with the roads mentioned bv Wei- Supp.Disp. _ -^ X. 523. lington himself in his Reply to Clausewitz, as necessary for him to observe. Could it have been possible, the question arises, for him to have done this, and to have had Blucher more ready to support him? This is plainly answered by Kennedy, who was no doubt acquainted with the Duke's defence. He has shown ^^^nn. . P- 172. in detail how the armies might have been so disposed when it was heard that the enemy had a large force -organised, that, on his being known to be in motion, the Prussians might have at once assembled at Ge- nappe and Wellington's troops at Hal. As to the excuse usually given, the alleged inconvenience as to ■supplies, the same critic goes on to dispose of this 46 WATERLOO LECTURES, very summarily thus: '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 completely open, were, for this mere supposed inconvenience, to risk being desti'oyed in detail by an inferior army. If the Allied armies had been in this helpless state as to the means of subsistence, they would have been totally unequal to manoeuvre as an army in junc- tion in face of an enemy.' Thus writes the latest of the critics who condemn Napoleon without claiming infallibUity for his adversaries. Nor can more be possibly alleged in their defence than was said by the earliest of this class, MiifHing, whose work appeared in the full flush of the Allied triumph, and who in his remarks would willingly exonerate the two Mar- shals, could he honestly do so, from the charge made then, and repeated ever since, that they 'were found by Buonaparte in a situation not prepared to fight ! ' Mijff. Hist. ' Welling'ton, havino: no other accounts but those of p. 70. spies, was unwilling to rely upon them so as to abandon his principal position for covering Brussels; and Blucher, unfortunately, had not the magazines necessary for concentrating his troops.' Now W el- lington's dispatches sufficiently show that he had Gur. xii. good rcasous, some days before the invasion, to be ' prepared for just such an attack as that which took place, and to expect it to be made by Napoleon him- PEEPAEATIONS FOR THE CAMPAIGN. 47 self. Blucher, on German ground, had never shown See Ms Eeply to any special tenderness in gathering supplies for his aSaxon remon- army, or making the fate of the campaign subservient strance, to the comfort of the territory occupied. We must jI^P"^^^" look elsewhere for a true solution of the quiescent attitude of the Allies; and it is to be found easily enough by tracing the facts as they occur, which sufficiently prove that Kennedy is strictly just in his broad statement : — ' They were not surprised ; they ^enn. p. knew of the movements of the French quite in time to have enabled them to assemble their armies before Napoleon passed the frontier. They acted on a dif- ferent principle, and determined to continue in their cantonments until they knew positively the line of attack. It may safely HSe predicted that this deter- mination will be considered by future and dispassionate historians as a great mistake ; for in place of waiting to see where^thiblow actually fell, the armies should have been instantly put in motion to assemble. Nor was this the only error. The line of cantonments occupied was greatly too extended.' With this de- liberate opinion we leave the first controversy awakened by our subject, and pass onward to the narrative. Determined to take the ofiensive and to take it first in Belgium ; aware that he would be considerably outnumbered by the armies defending that country, Napoleon had now to decide the exact line of his 48 WATERLOO LECTURES. operations. The chain of fortresses in his hands would suffice to veil his concentration on any given point of the frontier ; but practically the problem to be solved was not so complicated as this might imply. For reasons already given the attack could hardly be made on the extreme left of the Allies from the nature of the country which covered it. His choice, therefore, was limited to an advance by his own left near the Scheldt, which would bring him directly upon the communications of Wellington with Eng- land, or a movement upon the centre of the Allied line which might, if successful, sever his enemies at least for a time, and enable him to deal with them individually. For the intermediate alternatives of See Map. throwing himself into the middle of Wellington's cantonments by the line of Valenciennes, or of those of Blucher through the corner of the Ardennes near Namur, promised no special advantage; and each of them involved the certainty that the greater part of the army attacked would be forced back on that of its ally, and thus opjDose superior numbers to the assailant. This would be of course still more the case if Na- poleon chose the first mentioned plan, and plunged into Belgium by the line of the Scheldt on Welling- ton's right, thus allowing his enemies to unite for a decisive battle. On the other hand, such a movement might have given him possession of part of the Eng- PEEPAEATIONS FOK THE CAMPAIGN. 49 lish magazines, and possibly of the capital ; and it is from such considerations apparently that Wellington, writing his own defence at the age of 72, persisted Supp. Dis. that Napoleon might have made his attack in this manner with more advantage. He himself certainly expected it would thus be made ; and his expectation, as he himself points out, is abundantly proved by the ibid. Gurwood Dispatches. On such a matter few opinions could be of as great weight ; but Napoleon's is one of these few, and Napoleon's was very different. Acting on it he struck at the centre, and although he failed, the justness of his conception is admitted cha. p. so. by all authorities except Wellington, even by critics *^^'°' P' ^^■ who condemn utterly his execution, and charge the 153 failure to his own personal shortcomings. There is a certain square slip of territory lying to the south of Charleroi, Belgian now (as many authors on this campaign seem to forget) but French in 1815, having been wrested originally from the Netherlands by the victorious Kepublic of 1794, and confirmed to France by the easy treaties of 1814 on Napoleon's first abdication. Its northern frontier reaches within six miles of Charleroi. It is traversed from west to east by the great road from Maubeuge on the Sambre See Map. to Givet on the Meuse, which thus makes a large tri- angle with the courses of these two streams, the apex being their meeting-point at Namur. The chief towns on this road are Beaumont and Philippeville E 50 WATERLOO LECTURES. (the latter an old French fortress which led to the French claim and possession of the tract), each lying just fifteen miles from Charleroi to the S.W. and S.E. respectively. Cross-roads led naturally from each to the bridges over the Sambre at and near that town; but these roads, with others near them, had been partly broken up by Napoleon's order at the beginning of the Hundred Days for the protection of the French frontier ; and their bad condition continuing in June Supp. Dis. caused Wellington, in his own words, ' not at;first to X. 525. . . .. . ■ give credit to the reports of the intention of the enemy to attack by the valleys of the Sambre and Meuse.' No belief could have been more favourable to the de- sign of his adversary. Once across the Sambre at Charleroi, Napoleon would have but thirty-four mUes of a first-class chauss^e between him and Brussels; and, what was still more important, the line of this great road very nearly coincided with the division of the country between the two Allied armies. Beau- mont and Philippeville were, therefore, designed by Napoleon as points of assembly for the centre and right of his army. As Maubeuge is considerably fur- ther from Charleroi than either, the village of Solve, eight miles lower down the Sambre, but still within the then French frontier, was the place fixed on for the starting-point of the left. Though Prussian troops were known to be quartered to the south of Charleroi, serious resistance on that side the Sambre could hardly be expected to the mass Napoleon would PBEPARATIONS FOR THE CAMPAIGN. 51 bring ; and it was important to break his army into these three columns, both for the more convenient concentration of his troops without confusion and with the less probability of being observed, as well as for the more speedy movement of them towards Charleroi by using a greater number of roads. It has been said that Napoleon was to lead 128,000 men to his great enterprise. Of this force 22,000 were cavalry and 10,000 artillery ; and the whole were organised in. the manner now traditional in the Grand Army, the absent ' Fifth Corps ' forming a separate force upon the Rhine, not disposable for the Belgian campaign, (It must be understood that the numbers of each corps are given roundly, and include all arms attached to it — the rule we have followed with the other armies.) 1st Corp s, D'Erlon . 20,000 2nd „ EeiUe . 24,500 3rd „ Vandamme . . 19,000 4th „ Gerard . 16,000 6th „ Lobau . 10,500 Guard . . 21,000 Eeserve Cavalry, Grouchy . 13,500 Train of the army . .S,500 128,000 Thi.sx.23, or (better) Cha. p. 56. Of these Corps the 1st and 2nd were on the open Belgian frontier, the 3rd near the Ardennes, the 4th much to the south of this on the Moselle, the 6 th, Guard, and Reserve Cavaliy between Belgium and Paris. By a simple arrangement as it seems in G 2 52 WATEKLOO LECTURES. theory, a mighty problem to work out in practice, the 1st and 2nd were closed in quietly to their right on Solre, forming a left wing; the 3rd marched on Philippeville, and became the right; the rest of the troops were directed on Beaumont. So perfectl y was this grand operation timed in hopes of surpr ising the Cha. p. 55. Allies, that on t he night of the 14th the whole a rmy, except a part of t he 6th cor ps, was lodged quietly in its bivouac close to the Prussian outposts, with orders to keep the watchfires covered by such eminences as were available, and to let no one quit the camps. Sib. i. App. Elaborate instructions were issued for the advance of xm. orApp. to Gourg. i\^Q whole at 3 a.m. of the 15th, and the most minute details given for the guidance of the generals, and for the proper arrangement of the baggage. Napoleon loved to commit his ideas on such heads to paper, and, to read these instructions, one might suppose that no mistakes could be made, or would occur, in so well- Souvenirs cared for an army. But the Due de Fezensac in his sac,passm. invaluable ' Souvenirs militaires ' has shown with the utmost plainness that, throughout Napoleon's cam- paigns, there was a vast and real diflPerence between the paper arrangements and the practical execution. To draw up schemes of commissariat arrangements in a bureau or tent is one thing ; to work them out in the field is quite another. And if the soldiers of Napo- leon's army, on the night of the 14th, were really furnished with the four-days' biscuit and half-pound PEEPABATIONS FOR THE CAMPAIGN. 53 of rice which he intended, and their ammunition pouches properly filled up, it is probably as much as any one expected to have done or cared to do, judg- ing from such of their former experiences as De Fezensac has revealed. The movements by which the concentration was effected may be best studied in their larger features in the account of M. Thiers. We need not follow them out here, since their execution as a whole has never Thi. xx. 17, 19. been challenged, and for the purpose of the contest the details are not important. Yet we shall have occa- sion, later, to take marked exception to one point in see p. 83. them. Students who know the wondi'ous Hght thrown upon other earlier passages of Napoleon's campaigns by De Fezensac, will regret that that faithful observer and honest loving-hearted critic of the Grand Army was not present to tell us how far the master's concep- tion was carried out by his workmen, and to give us a more real insight than novelist or historian has yet done into the sentiments of officers and men. Lying down unsheltered by their watch-fires, as had done that older Grand Army in which most of them had served, the 128,000 Frenchmen snatched a few hours' rest before advancing to the most dangerous adven- ture their chief had ever launched them on. To their right front lay the outposts of Blucher, covering the cantonments of an army but 10,000 less than theirs. Not ten miles from the picquets of Reille and D'Erlon 54 WATEELOO LECTUEES. at Solre, began the chain of "Wellington's videttes, behind which nearly 100,000 more combatants were ready at call to support the Prussians. It is not only numbers, however, that make an army formidable. Its moral and physical power is com- posed of many other elements besides, and at this point we must take a brief survey of some of those in which the three armies we have to deal with had each their special strength or weakness. Two of the commanders were still in the prime of life, and in all the apparent vigour of intellect. Whilst Napoleon (arrived from Paris on the 14th at Beau- mont) dictated his minute orders for the first move- ments of the campaign, Wellington's pen was issuiag directions not less complicated than his antagonist's. Gur. lii. With the same love of detail for which the Emperor 464 et seq. '■ was remarkable, he laid down the exact number of muskets and cartridges which were to be put into the petty garrisons of the Belgian frontier, gave precise I'easons for refusing a supply of horses to French exiles in arms for the King, and drew up elaborate memoranda for the arrangement of supplies to the Allied armies on the coming general invasion of France. It would be vain to attempt to criticise, within our limits, the previous history of these two greatest of modern generals. The sequel must show how far the powers of execution of each on the field corre- sponded with, or fell short of, the marvellous fertiUty PEEPAEATIONS I"OE THE CAMPAIGN. 55 of brain in the cabinet which both undoubtedly pos- sessed. The third commander, Blucher, if we admit him to have been somewhat overrated at the time, was yet no ordinary general. He had early in the Re- volutionary Wars won special distinction by his con- stant success in the difficult post of commander of an advance guard, and in the leisure which succeeded this service had drawn up a narrative which still siueher's Campaign, attests the thoroughness of his knowledge of a very (repub- difficult branch of war. Thrown suddenly in 1813 Hamburg, into the command of a large army, he had from the first committed the whole charge of the strategi- cal details to the eminent officers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, who filled successively the post of Chief of Staff, reserving to himself the superintendence of tactics in actual fight and the control of discipline. His post was at first no easy one. More than half the force placed under him consisted of Russian veterans, whose officers did not conceal their contempt of the young Prussian recruits who joined them, nor their distrust of the old hussar who was to lead the whole. The happy victory of the Katzbach, with a frank acknow- Mil. Mem. p. 328. ledgment of the Russian share in it, made Blucher a popular commander, and removed all discord from his motley army, so that, on the crowning day of Leipsic, Ense, p. 245. he earned his well-known title of 'Marshal Forwarts' from the Russians of Sacken's corps, who had caught up from his mouth his favourite word of encourage- 56 WATERLOO LECTURES. ment, their first lesson in the German tongue. The coarse, almost brutal language which his staff endured Mil. Mem. patiently in consideration of the implicit reliance he p. 95,200. ^ •> placed in their judgment, digusted other officers of high standing, but not the rough peasants who filled his battalions. Over these his active personal super- vision and the familiarity of his address gave him such power, as no other modern commander but Na- ibid.p. 71. poleon has exercised. Accustomed habitually to de- mand from his men more than their utmost exertions could perform, this warm feeling towards himself was often of vital importance, never more so than in this his last campaign. A renowned marshal, whose men, as he rode by an advancing column, would grasp his Ense, p. knee joyfully with the soldier's salutation, ' Good 186. work to-day, father,' might at times press these men on when another would have failed. The will of the soldier is a more potent element in the combinations of war than military writers generally admit. If love for his general be needful for controlling it, Blucher had called this faculty out with no less success than Napoleon ; whUst in the army of Wellington it took no higher form than respect for his great powers. A stringent discipline for the men, and a fine sense of duty among the officers, might go far to supply the want with the veteran British troops j and through the whole heterogeneous mass the knowledge of their leader's long career of victory could not but help to PREPARATIONS FOR THE CAMPAIGN. 57 break the spell of invincibility which still clung to the name of Napoleon. Yet, to a candid judgment, the Englishman appears in this regard far behind both his ally and his great rival. Of the chief lieutenants of the latter it is necessary to say a few words. Partly for their real soldierly qualities, partly because so long held up to the world by virtue of their master's fame, most of them have made historic names. Soult, who filled the post of Chief of Staff, was a soldier of such established repu- tation, that it would not be necessary to enlarge upon it, were it not that M. Thiers tries to fasten upon him part of the blame of the Waterloo disaster, and charges him beforehand with a want of that clearness Thi.xx.so. and experience which such a post demands. This is not the only place in which the historian appears im- bued with the old political animosity of the debates in the Chambers of Louis Philippe. It is enough here to note, that the charges made rest generally for their proof upon an alleged inferiority in Soult's way of carrying out the Emperor's wishes as compared to that of Berthier. We shall have occasion to look to this matter in detail at the proper time. Ney and Grouchy had also made European reputations in their proFession — reputations constantly maintained ever since they were first won in the old campaigns of Jourdan and Moreau. The former was about to join, but not yet present ; the latter had from the first 58 WATERLOO LECTURES. been chosen by Napoleon to lead his reserve cavalry for his eminent services in the previous year. There is no proper foundation in history for the statement Thi.xx.2i. of Thiers, that he only obtained this because neither Murat, Bessieres, Montbrun, or Lasalle were at hand, save the fact that the two first had stood before him in Napoleon's favour. Thiers, using their names, has appended to them two others of lesser rank, and, by assuming Grouchy inferior to the whole, would lower him beforehand in the reader's estimate. Of the other generals, Reille and D'Erlon had left the Pen- insula with high reputations, the former having made a glorious name at Vittoria, where his conduct saved the debris of Joseph's army from destruction. Yan- damme had been a true ' man of war,' in Napoleon's favourite phrase, having been constantly serving in command of troops ever since he led a division in this same Belgian district, twenty-two years before, against the Duke of York. Lobau had been long ago dis- tinguished for cool daring surpassing that of other men, even in an army where such conduct, with moderate ability for command, was the short road to rank and fortune. Gerard was younger than these in his high post, having been little known until the Russian campaign, but had, from his first promotion to a division, been a man of mark in the Grand Army. He justified Napoleon's choice long after in high office under the monarchy, and to him it fell to lead, with England's approval, another French army into Bel- PEEPARATIONS FOE THE CAMPAIGN. 59 gium, and to divide that very kingdom of the Netherlands, to protect which Waterloo was nomi- nally fought. The Imperial Guard had no head in this campaign, Marshal Mortier having fallen sick upon the frontier, and there being no one of sufficient rank to take the chief control of that jealous corps. Napoleon, as we shall see, has made full use of this mishap in his defence. Many of the division generals in the French army were men of real eminence in their profession. Kel- lerman had done Napoleon service of the highest order at Marengo, and had quite as much claim to respect as a cavalry general as Montbrun and La- salle, put by Thiers before Marshal Grouchy. Foy, originally an artillery officer, had shown his great ability a hundred times in the long Peninsular struggle, as he lived to prove it afterwards as a writer and orator. The school of Napoleon had many faults, but, on the whole, no army was prob- ably ever so well furnished with leaders as his, as none had ever the like experience wherewith to train them. The Prussian chiefs of corps were hardly men of the same high mark as the French. Biilow, indeed, must be excepted, for he had held a weightier post, had commanded armies, and won an important vic- tory. But Zieten, Pirch, and Thielemann were little known except as good division generals. It was not 60 WATERLOO LECTURES. then generally understood, nor have French or Eng- lish writers shown how it came about, that these im- portant charges were in their hands, when leaders so distinguished in 1813 as York, Kleist, and Tauenzein were not far off. Blucher's uncertain health and the desire of the King that Gneisenau should succeed him in case of accident, were the real causes. Hard work and hard living had told upon the iron frame of the old hussar, who (according to the Russian historian Danilewski) had at times broken down completely in the spring of the previous year. The fiery trials For aU of the revolutionary wars had not purged from the this see -r-> • Mii. Mem, Prussian army the spirit of excessive reverence for p. 227. . . . seniority which ruled even the royal will. In case, therefore, of Blucher's falling ill, the command could only devolve on Gneisenau by means of the previous removal of all other generals older in rank than that ofiicer. This was accordingly done, with the excep- tion of Billow, whose corps was to form a reserve in Belgium, whilst the rest moved on to Paris in July. This elaborate arrangement was nullified by Napo- leon's attack, but it serves suificiently to show how little that attack had been expected in the beginning. Wellington's 1st and 2nd Corps were commanded, Ante, p. 42, as bcfore seen, by the Prince of Oransre and Lord HHl, an arrangement strongly mdicatmg the conflict ot diplomatic and military elements in aU the arrange- ments of the English general at that busy epoch. PREPARATIONS FOR THE CAMPAIGN. 61 The Prince had seen Peninsular service as an aide- de-camp. His royal birth and the hereditary courage of his house were his only other claims to his post. Lord Hill, on the contrary, had, through many years of warfare, proved himself beyond dispute a worthy lieutenant of his great chief, whether acting" In his sight or in detached command. The Reserve Corps Wellington gave no head to, whether despising the more finished organisation created under Napoleon,* or whether really doubtful of the capacity of his other generals. Of these it would be invidious here to say more than that Picton alone has left a name known beyond the limits of national history, and the fame of this gallant officer probably owes something of its freshness to his death upon the field of victory. At the time we are writino; of he was out of favour Edin.Eev. ° _ 1862. with Wellington. We are assured by an eyewitness that, at their last meeting, the only one of the cam- paign, the fieldmarshal showed this feeling unmistak- ably before his staff. As concerns materiel, each army was fairly provided. Napoleon had the greater number of guns (344), but the Prussians not many less (312). The supply in the Anglo-allied army was as much smaller as those would expect who knew how Wellington had, in pre- * Moreau, the first modem general to employ corps d'armee, kept M^moirea his Eeserve Corps under his own command, causing (as St. Cyr in- I^" ^|" ^y^' forms us) much jealousy on the part of the others. 62 WATERLOO LECTURES. vious years, complained of our scanty provision of this important arm: it amounted in total to 196, all told, and of these one important part, the 18 -pounders, or ' guns of position ' for the reserve, were never brought into the field. Critics of the day, whose remarks have since passed out of sight, did not fail to discover this Miiff. Hist, absence, and comment unfavourably on it. Muffling in' his earlier work has explained rather than justified the fact, in words which go to confirm the proofs that the Allied arrangements had, up to June, been made chiefly upon the false hypothesis that they were not to be attacked. ' The Duke of Wellington's not hav- ing his 18-pounders in the battle may probably be the consequence of an agreement on our part, not to com- mence otFensive operations until the 1st of July. That artillery, therefore, either had not been organised, or not brought up from Antwerp in time to appear at the battle. Upon the rise behind La Haye Sainte it would have been of extraordinary service to the Duke of Wellington on the 18th.' These heavy guns, though forming three batteries, Sib.i.App. numbered only twelve. Deducted from Wellington's vi. armament, they leave him with but 184 to take the field, little more than half the supply that Napoleon had got together, and less than two-thirds of his ally's. On the other hand, his proportion of cavalry (14,500) was greater than that (12,000) of Blucher, whilst Napoleon had taken special pains to attain strength PEEPARATIONS FOR THE CAMPAIGN. 63 in this arm, and could count on 22,000 horsemen, a number nearly equal to those of his enemies united. By using them freely he doubtless hoped to improve any success obtained at the first onset. On the other Cha. p. 68. hand, the French army was proportionably weak in the main stay of battle,. containing not quite 90,000 infantry, less than half of the 181,000 of that arm sib. i. which the Allies had gathered in the Netherlands. Cha. p. 69. Numbers are, as before remarked, a poor test of the weight of an army. Above all other elements, this depends on the goodness of the individual soldiers, and in this matter the Emperor had an advantage which no writer will now-a-days dispute. It was no mass of conscripts that he led into Belgium. The raw youths who had first seen fire at Lutzen in 1813 had perished in the terrible campaigns that followed before the first Abdication, or had hardened perforce into valuable soldiers. One-third of the new Grand Army was of these 'novices of 1813 and 1814,' as M. Thiers calls them, who admits that, of the whole Thi.xx.21. host, there was not a man that had not served before ; for the remaining two-thirds had come back returned from distant prisons in Germany or Russia, veterans of as high order as the school of Napoleon could pro- duce. Speaking one tongue, holding one creed of Foy'a . Journal military loyalty, inspired with ' not merely patriotism quoted. or enthusiasm, but an actual passion against their 21, ». enemies,' if we make every possible deduction for the 64 WATERLOO LECTURES. high colouring of national historians, it may still be assumed that no such compactly formidable mass of troops ever moved into the field before. The Prussian army, though of no less fierce and dangerous a spirit, was far inferior in the quality of its men. Nearly one-half of its infantry and cavalry were landwehr, hastily trained under the new system introduced by Scharnhorst during the period of French supremacy. Of the regular troops a large proportion were recruits, for the exhausting campaigns which had carried their standards from the Oder to the Seine had made large gaps among the enthusiastic volunteers that filled the regiments in 1813. Veterans and recruits, however, were alike of one tongue and one race, and moved by the same patriotic ardour. They were, as before said, not behind the French in love for their general, the living representative of the late glorious resurrection of their country; and with him they burnt to punish the usurper who had but lately trampled her under his heel of iron, and whose ambition now once more brought the curse of war on Europe. Woe to the legions of Napoleon, it might have been predicted, should they flee before enemies so fierce and relentless as these. When we pass from such armies as those of Napo- leon and Blucher, to examine the motley mass under Wellington, we cannot wonder at the contempt with which its chief spoke of it in various letters. Mr. PREPARATIONS FOR THE CAMPAIGN. 65 Hooper has quoted aptly from the best known of Hooper, p. 36. these, and especially the reference of the Duke to the small numbers of his British. But the real estimate made by Wellington of the comparative fighting means of the two Allied armies has escaped most writers. It Gur. xii. 438. is to be found in a letter of the 2nd June, in which he expressly calculates the number of men with which the Prussians were to invade France as ' twice as many' as his own. Yet his force was nearly equal to Blucher's in number ; and even if we reckon with the Prussians a corps of 20,000 Germans on the Moselle, it would be but a quarter less. Of Wellington's 106,000, however, barely one-third were British ; and of this a good part recruits mixed with his Peninsular veterans, or in new battalions hastily raised; whilst ranking lower than even these last in worth were garrison battalions not intended for field service. There were some thousands of King's Germans, raised long since, chiefly in Hanover, and hardened into veterans of the first order by years of successful war ; with four times as many Hanoverian recruits, formed mostly into landwehr regiments, in hasty imitation of the Prussian system. Good service might be expected from the Brunswickers, led by their Duke, descend- ant of a line of warlike ancestors, and noted beyond other princes of Germany for his patriotic ardour: but the Nassau Contingent, newly raised in the F Q6 WATERLOO LECTURES, Khine country but lately wrested from the Empire, was considered of more doubtful value. As to the troops of the Netherlands, whose, numbers nearly equalled the British, the lack of sympathy between their two chief elements, the Dutch and Belgian, was notorious ; and all had been long accustomed to bear the French yoke, and believe in the spell of Napo- leon's name. In this single portion of Wellington's force were men of three different races; for the House of Orange had claims in Nassau, had raised troops in that country, and had in its pay a whole brigade of such Germans, a body now lying on the extreme left of WelHngton's cantonments, and there- fore the first of his army to come to blows with sib.i.App. the advancing enemy. The following table, founded on Siborne's returns, gives a vivid idea of the hetero- See Gourgaud; gencous compositiou of the mass termed in those Bluclier's Keport ; days the English Army by writers of other nations. Austrian Report. Table of Forces under Wellington. (1) British Field Force .... (2) British Garrison Battalions (3) King's German Legion (4) Hanoverian Levies embodied in British D: (5) Hanoverian Levies recently arrived . (6) Brunswick Contingent (7) Nassau „ ... (8) Dutch and Belgian Troops- (9) Nassauers in Dutch service . 33,709 . 2,017 . 6,387 visions 15,935 . 9,000 . 6,808 . 2,880 . 24,914 . 4,300 105,950 PREPAEATIONS FOR THE CAMPAIGN. 67 Of these, we know that (2) and (5), making 11,000 men, were not fitted for the field, and that there were serious suspicions of the fidelity to the Allied cause of the 5^2,000 comprehendedTin (7), (8), and (9). Very probably these suspicions were in some degree unjust and exaggerated ; but that they existed is undeniable, and they must have inevitably affected the plans of Wellington, as we have shown they did his estimate of his moveable numbers. Napoleon may be justified <^oMg. pt 31} oot in reckoning the armies he attacked as each numeri- cally nearly equal to his own ; but one of them was inferior in training, and from the other's nominal strength large deductions were to be made. By so much, therefore, was his rashness redeemed from the reproach of daring the impossible. We left the Emperor in bivouac with his army waiting for the daylight of the 15th. ' The Allied Gourg. armies,' he teUs us, ' remained in perfect security^ in their cantonments : ' but this is a mere French guess at the other side, and, for reasons already given, we must go to the historians of that side to know the truth. Taking Miiffling's narrative as that of the Miiff. Hist. Intro. man whose special business it was to know what went on at each Allied headquarters, we find that, ' on the 13th and 14th, it was positively known 'that the enemy was concentrating in the neighbourhood of 1 ( See ante, Maubeuge.M The Duke of Wellington [acting under p. 44, 49. F 2 68 WATERLOO LECTURES. the expectation commented on before] did not deem it expedient to make any alteration in his position, until the enemy should further develop his mode of at- tack, as from Maubeuge it might be either upon Mons, Binche, and NiveUes, or upon Charleroi.' Blucher was not so patient. The precautions which Napoleon thought successful had in fact failed to blind the Pr. Off. posts of Zieten before Charleroi. As the Prussian narrative puts it, with a touch of life not often to be found in its dry pages, ' Yf hoever has once cam- paigned cannot fail to know that fires of this sort lighting up the whole atmosphere are seen far enough ofi', and render this kind of precaution very useless. So in this case the fires were distinctly noted from Ibid. p. 9. the Prussian outposts.' As early as the night of the 13th, Zieten had reported the gathering of two great camps at Beaumont and Solre, and had been ordered to send his heavy baggage ofi" towards Gembloux. Further reports fi-om this ofScer, obtained by obser- vation and through fugitives crossing the fi-ontier, were sent to Blucher on the 14th; and, l ate A at evening, the Marshal's orJers went out to the Prus- ibid. p. 9, sian corps. Zieten was to fall back and hold Fleurus, a small country town seven mUes north-east oi Char- leroT; the other three to concentrate preparatory to a general march on the same place. So passed the short night which preceded the cam- 20 PREPARATIONS FOR THE CAMPAIGN. 69 paign : the French, impatient for the light in which to fall upon their foes and redeem, by some new Austerlitz or Jena, the disasters of the last three years ; the Prussians, no less vigilant, preparing in all haste to meet the shock; the English, save only their reticent chief and a few trusted officers, resting unconscious of the gathering storm before them. 70 WATERLOO LECTURES. LECTURE III. EVENTS OP THE 15TH JUNE COMMENTS. — SUMMAET. The first day of the campaign broke fair on the ex- pectant French. The evening previous there had been read from regiment to regiment one of those stirring proclamations with which Napoleon had been wont, ever siace he first held a command, to herald his important operations. The orders to the corps, sent out before the fight, prescribed the move- ment of the left and centre to begin at 3 a.m., and Gerard's from the right at the same hour, 'provided GouT.App. (let this be noted) his divisions were together.' &c.')p.i42, Thiers, whose readers have been told that the Allied Thi, XX, 27. generals suspected ' nothing, or next to nothing, of the French designs,' here goes on to say that, at the appointed hour, the whole army moved, excepting Ibid. p. 29. Yandamme, and gives no hint that Napoleon himself doubted Gerard's being ready. In truth the early movement began only with the left, where Reille, who had lain in front of Solre, went off at the ap- pointed hour, following a road down the right bank of the Sambre, which crosses the river at the bridge of EVENTS OP THE 15TH JUNE. 71 . ^/ Marchiennes, two miles above Charleroi, and soon coming into collision with the Prussian posts near Thuin. By ten they were forced back beyond Mar- Cha. p. 84. chiennes, and the bridge (which Zieten had neglecte d to mine ) was in French hands. Gerard had been de- iwd.p. 86. tained until 5 a^m^ waiting for the rear of his corps to come in. ' The centre of the army (comprising Van- damme, Lobau, the Guards and Reserve Cavalry), though lying the nearest to Napoleon's own headquar- ters, was the last of the three columns to put its head in motion northward. Vandamme's corps lay in front, and Van damme had had no orders! The solitary officer who bore them had fallen on the way, and been badly hurt, and Vandamme lay tranquilly in bivouac until Lobau's corps, which had started at four, came up, and the state of things was with difficulty explained. The story has been told just as it happened, by Colonel ibid. App. D. Janin, of Lobau's staflF, who shows that Vandamme was moved on by this pressure on his rear, and not, as Thiers inaccurately states, by the urging of the Ge- Thi.xx.3o. neral of Engineers who was with him. This differ- ence matters little, for the fact remains admitted, that the advance of the whole mass of the centre was made dependent on the punctual arrival of a single messen- ger. Pajol, whose cavalry corps (one of the four em- bodied -in the Reserve) had been placed in front of Vandamme, had gone on unsupported, and though he forced the Prussian posts to retire on Charleroi, his 7% , .-WATEKLOQ , LECTURES , horsemen could, not carry the bridge at that town in face of the Prussian rearguard. It was noon , accord- Doc. 141. ing ^Q ^jj^g bulletin issued (half-past ten, by the St, Gourg. Helena version), when Pajol passed through the town p. 37. ' the bridge having been carried by the marines and cha. p. 85. sappers of the Guard who preceded Vandamme. Ac- p. 70.^^' cording to some accounts (as Charras', whom Hooper appears here to follow), the retreat of the Prussians was forced by the arrival of the Young Guard, hur- ried up by a side road under the direction of Napoleon himself. But the Emperor's own statement in his Gourg original narrative was, that the entry into Charleroi ^" ^^' was made half an hour before he reached the bridge, and on such a point we must believe him to be right. "Whilst the bridges of M archien nes and Charlerp i were thus both in French hands at noon, after a delay Ibid. at the latter, reckoned by Napoleon a t four hou rs, and called by him 'un funeste contretems,' Gerard had not yet gained the river. He had started, as has been seen, at 5 a.m. ; but his col umns were not lon g_on the road (being directed like the centre on Charleroi), w hen the news sprea d through the corps that the general of its leading division, Bourmont, had basely deserted to the enemy. This was indeed true, and the fact afforded too good a pretext for subsequent misfor- tune not to be made use of by the St. Helena pen, and ^^ti &c. *^^ crowd of writers who have followed it. By these the 14th has been generally assigned as the day of EVENTS OF THE ISTH JUNE. 73 the desertion, whicli, it is implied, must have been of special use to the Allies in revealing Napoleon's advance. Thiers found this story exploded when he Thi. xx.56. wrote, and has corrected it emphatically, as indeed he could not help doing after the publication of the note on the subject by Charras, who has fully proved the Cha. p. truth from the Paris archives. Possibly the desertion caused a halt during the necessary report to Napoleon. The only certainty iu the matter is, that an order reached Gerard subsequently to that originally given, '^°Y^^ directing him to march on the bridge of Chatelet, four miles to the east of Charleroi, and below it on the river, which he only reached late in the day. The rear of his column had had more than twenty mUes to march over bad roads, and half his corps did not cross the stream that night, though the Prussians had here also left the bridge intact, and made no re s istanc e. He may be left out of sight, therefore, from the rest of the operations of the day. The great road from Charleroi to Brussels runs, as before said, nearly due north. At the point now known as Quatre Bras (but called Trois Bras in old Ferrari's . . . f- . _, . Map, 1770. maps), which is thirteen miles from Charleroi and -7% twenty-one from Brussels, it crosses another chauss^e running from Nivelles eastward to Namur. Another main road leaves it just out of Charleroi, and passing seeMap by Fleurus, strikes at a like distance from the former panying. place the same Namur-Nivelles road at Sombreffe, 74 WATEKLOO LECTURES. eight miles east from Quatre Bras. That pointy with Sombreffe and Charleroi, mark thus a triangular piece of ground, which we shall call the Fleurus triangle, of vital importance to Napoleon's futui-e operations, the Namur-Nivelles road being the chief communication between the Allied armies. Long since the EngUsh and Prussian chiefs had recognised this, and the dan- ger of their being separated, should the French seize G-ur. xii. that road at Quatre Bras and Sombreffe. At a meet- Mem, p.' ing held by them at Tirlemont on the 3rd May, they 231 had discussed the possibility of the enemy's advance through Charleroi in such an attempt to sever their armies, and had agreed as to the movements to be undertaken to counteract so dangerous an attack. Ibid. The reasons for these ai'e fully eiven by Miiffling, and p. 232. •' ° ■' °' it is sufficient to say here that, in the given case, the Prussian army was to assemble between Sombreffe and Charleroi, the EngHsh between Marchiennes and Gosselies, a village on the Charleroi- Brussels road, four miles from the former place, and the junction-point of a cross-road from the Sambre at Marchiennes. Had these positions been attained, the Allied armies would have nearly touched, and have guarded all the ap- proaches from the Sambre into the Fleurus triangle, so that whichever one Napoleon attacked would be aided by a flank attack upon him by the other. Such were the Allied views beforehand. Yet, at 3 p.m. on. the 15th, but one Prussian corps was near the ground." and EVENTS OS THE 15TH JUNE. 75 saving one division (Perponcher's Dutcli Belgians), not a man of Wellington's army within reach of it, whilst the head. of^T column of 40,000 Frenchmen had passed the Sambre at Marchiennes, and that of another of nearly 70,000 was entering Charleroi ! Reille (whose account Charras here follows) had defiled across the river and taken post halfway be- cha. p. ss. tween Marchiennes and Gosselies, when Napoleon made his own way out of Charleroi. At this time Fordetaiis, •' Pr. Off. about 10,000 of Zieten's troops were towards Gos- p- is selies under General Steinmetz, the rest retiring in the direction of Fleurus, but showing a good front. It needed a considerable deployment of Reille's troops in front of Gosselies before the Prussians thei-e were dis- lodged and retired across on Fleurus, leaving the road ■^^^g^j'^*' to Quatre Bras open. Napoleon himself had to take ^^^^- ^°°- command in a more severe combat on the Sombrefi'e ©ourg. road along which Yandamme and Grouchy were di- ^' rected ; for they had hesitated to act in his absence against Zieten, whose rearguard fronted them boldly iwd. p.67. halfway between Charleroi and Fleurus. He had been unwilling to ride on to that side until he knew that Eeille was able to occupy Gosselies and secure his left, and thus the French had lost two hours more. Thanks to their mistakes and his own firmness^^e- ten, though unsupported, actually held possession of Fleurus at dark, keeping some wood to the south of it with his advance guard, .but having his corps 76 WATEELdO LECTUEES. mostly on the other side nearer to the Namur-Nivelles road, where he occupied the heights about the village of Bry, since known as the hiU of Ligny. Before leaving the point where the road to Fleurus turned off, and taking personal command in this skirmish, Napoleon received a reiuforcement to his staff iu the person of Ney, knovra as ' the bravest of the brave ' in the Grand Army, as he had been distin- guished long before any Grand Army was formed. Cha. p. 89. After some words of welcome from the Emperor, he Thi.xx.41. ^ was at once invested with the charge of the left column (some cavalry being added for his use to the corps of Reille and D'Erlon), and received certain verbal orders, the tenor of which is much disputed, but which implied a present advance upon the Brus- sels road. The Prussians were now quitting this, under Reille's pressure, carrying of course with them in their movement on Fleurus, all the detachments which had connected their right with the outposts on the English left that morning, and leaving the direct line to Brussels open as far as they were concerned. Ney followed up Steinmetz with a single division Cha. p. 90. (Girard's) of Reille's corps, as soon as he had fairly assumed the command assigned to him. Another division of infantry (Bachelu's), preceded by one of cavalry (Pirn's), was directed towards Quatre Bras. Reille's two remaining divisions were posted in reserve at Gossehes. With the Guard cavalry left hun by EVENTS OF THE 15TH JUNE. 77 Napoleon, Ney soon followed Bachelu and Pird in Thi. xx. p. a. their northward march. Before, however, he had overtaken them they had met the first troops seen by the French of Wellington's army, who were posted in the village of Frasnes, two miles from Quatre Bras. The Dutch brigade of Nassauers had been quartered Ante,p.66. tha t mo rning along the Brussels road from Frasnes northward to Genappe, five miles nearer to Brussels. An accident to the brigadier had that day placed the vide Ms command ia the hands of the senior colonel, the 85 (or in ' young Prince Bernard of Saxe Weimar; and he, be- x.,whereit coming aware of the advance of the French on Char- Ushed). leroi, had drawn together his brigade, at Quatre Bras, leaving one battalion and a light battery at Frasnes p. Orange's in advance. It was the guns ofthe latter which had Doc. 86. fired on Key's cavalry; and, although the outposts soon retired on their main body at Quatre Bras, Prince Bernard prepared to hold the cross roads at the latter place. Ney arriving, reconnoitred. The ground rising up for 500 yards towards Quati'e Bras served to conceal the real strength of the Prince's force, which was also covered partly by a wood that in those days filled the south-eastern angle of the cross- roads. It was now 8 p.m. and nearly dark. Ney ibid. could not know how many troops he had before him ; but his own men had been on the march for seventeen hours, and were, as he must have known from the last dropping shots near Fleurus, considerably in ad- 78 WATERLOO LECTURES. vajQce of the main body of the army. He made no Cha. p. 91. attempt, therefore, to take ground beyond Frasnes and leaving there the troops he had brought up, re- turned to Gosselies, and later to visit Napoleon who had gone back to Charleroi for the night. Thi.xx.54. The French lay thus. On the left, most of Nev's Cha. p. 94, •' *=<=• cavalry and one division of Reille's infantry held Frasnes ; two more infantry divisions were at Gosse- lies. The fourth (Girard's) had left this column and now lay not far from Fleurus, at the village of Wange- nies, touching the troops of Grouchy and Vandamme. D'Erlon had crossed the Sambre, and his corps was posted on the first portion of the cross-road lead- ing from Marchienh'es to Gosselies. In the centre the infantry of the Guard had got to Charleroi, but their heavy cavalry, with two of Grouch y^ four re serve corp s and Lobau's corps, bivouacked on the south side of the Sambre. So did one:half of Gerard's corps, which had not been up in time to cross at Cha- Thi.xx,27. telet. 35,000 men, at the least computation, had not yet got over the stream. Yet the order of the day Gourg. told the generals explicitly, that ' the design of His Majesty was to have crossed (est d^ avoir passe) before noon, and to carry the army to the left bank of the river.' So much easier is it in war to design than to execute, and to move a staff than to transport the bulk of an army. Of the Prussians, the story for this day is easily EVENTS OF THE 15TH JUNE. 79 told. News of the attack on Zieten had been dis- Pr. off. p. 17. patched to Blucher at break of day, and it may be supposed that the Marshal did not the less hurry on the two corps which had lain nearest his headquar- ters at Namur the night before. By dark Pirch had halted at Mazy, four miles from Sombreffe, on the road from Namur, and Thielemann's corps had reacted the latter place, being ten miles farther off. Two hour s' march would bring the former general, and five the latter, on the ground already taken up by Zieten before Ligny, and their orders were to press on at daybreak. With Biilow the case was very different. This general, whose corps had been much further from headquarters, received his first orders only at 5 a.m. on the 15th. These were to concentrate his troops so as to~^Be~aMe to get to Hannut (the chief place on tbe direct road from Lifege across to Som- breffe) in a day^s march. This was in course of execution when, at 10.30^;^., he received a seicond order, dated at midnight, ordering a movement on Hannut. As some of his troops could not be in- formed of this until late in tbe afternoon, and as Gneisenau's letter made no ment ion of actual hosti- lities, he put off the execution of these second in- structions till next day, promising to be at Hann ut by noon of the 16 th. But Hannut is twenty -five miles from Ligny, where bis presence was sorely needed ere that hour was long passed. 80" WATEKLOO LECTURES. Pr. Off. ^ Accordinsf to Zieten's own statement lie had dis- p. 17. ° patched a courier to Wellington at 4 a.m ., to say that he was attacked in force. His staff service must have been but poorly arranged, since the officer who bore this important news did not reach Muffling until Mil. Mem. 3 p.m.','. having taken apparently eleven hours to traverse a distance which an ordinary pedestrian might have covered in the s ame time . _ Welliugton had at that hour received no int ellige nce from his own posts about Mons under General Dornberg ; but there was with him the Prince of Orange, who had Supp. Dis. left his own headquarters and come up to report — xn. 524. '^ r-, although m very vague language — the early attack on Thuin of which he had heard. After some discussion Mu. Mem. with Muffling, the Duke explainea, that as he could ■ ~ not y et know the right point for concentration (the French design not being developed fully), he should content himself for the present with ordering all the Ibid. troops to be in readiness. This was soon after done, Sib. 1.71. ^ -__-. _ ' Hooper, though at what exact hour is not agreed on.* Of the Cha.p.i09. Pi'jjice of Orange's corps, the first and third British divisions were to collect at Ath and Braine-le-Comte Or Grleig'a * In his Reply to Clausewitz (Supp. Dis. XII. 524), the Duie says, rial. 11. ( Qj.^gj.g -vfere forthwitli sent for the march of the whole army to its left ;' but this is manifestly in advance of the facts, as is shown by all other testimony. It is, for instance, contradicted explicitly by Siborne's and Hooper's narratives. The first orders, indeed (to make ready), were sent out ' at once ' according to Sibome, ' about 5 p.m.' by Hooper, ' about 6 or 7 p.m.' by Muffling. Charras, on the testimony of the Dutch arcliives, makes it later. JiVJiiJNilS Ui!' XMJi 15TH JUNE. 81 respectively, and the two Dutch-Belgian divisions (Chasse's and Perponcher's) at Nivelles. The 3rd ^m.x. British division was directed also to march on Nivelles ' should that point have been attacked this day,' but 'not until it is quite certain the enemy's attack is upon the right of the Prussian and the left of the British army.' At the hour when this was written, Prince Bernard had already concentrated his brigade at Quatre Bras, as we have seen, and his proceeding was fully approved by an order dispatched from Braine-le-Comte in the Prince of Orange's absence See OrigT ' Loben S. by his chief of staff, Constant Rebecque, to General p- 128. Perponcher, to whose division Bernard belonged. This directed the general to put his troops under arms, keeping one brigade at Quatre Bras, and the other at Nivelles. In accordance with this instruc- tion, Bernard was left in the position he had taken up for the night, and the other brigade, under Bylandt, at Nivelles. The Pri nce of Orange rema ined at Brussels with Wellington, and accompanied him to th e famous bal l, after a second order — the order of movement — had been dispatched to the troops. This Mii. Mem. was the result of a decisive report from Mons, that the enemy had turned on Charleroi with all his forces, and that there were no troop s before the jor mer p lace.' But Wellington's subordinates, better informed than their chief, were again beforehand with him. Constam Eebecque had been ftiUy acquainted at 10 p.m. with 82 WATERLOO LECTURES. the affair at Quatre Bras, and had warned Perponcher to support Prince Bernard -with the rest of his divi- sion. He reported this proceeding and its cause at the same time to the Prince of Orange ; and although Perponcher afterwards received, through -Rebecque, Wellington's first order from Brussels, to collect at Nivelles, he adhered — as was natural with his know- ledge of the circumstances — to the previous one, and found his resolve approved by the Prince, who «, reached Braine from Brussels before 3 a.m., havino; been treated with some petulance by Wellington for his display of anxiety as to the advance of the French against his corps. Wellington's second order s for the British divisions, issued as he went to the ball, were simple. The 8rd British division was now to move on Nivelles; the 1st to follow it to Braine. The two under Lord Hill (2nd and 4th) were to follow the movement eastward, and march on Enghien. The cavalry reserve was directed on the last place. Prince Frederic's Dutch Belgians had already been ordered, through Lord Hill, to collect at Sotteghem, and had no further instruc- tions till the afternoon of the l6th. No alteration was as yet made in the dispositions, directing Chased and Perponcher to gather at Nivelles ; and the division of Dutch-Belgian cavalry, under Collaert, was to move from near Mons to Arquennes, a village close to the former town. The movements were ' to take EVENTS 01" THE 15TH JUNE. 83 place with as little delay as possible,' and began with, the troops near Brussels (of whom we have not j'^et spoken) soon after daybreak. All this pointed plainly to a concentration on Nivelles, and, if carried out literally, would have left Quatre-Bras and the road towards Brussels for some miles open to Ney. ,' For ^i"'- ^■ some miles only, because the Reserve Corps, held in ^'i^"^^- readiness from the evening before under Wellington's own eye, was put in motion at daybreak by his direc- tion, and marched towards Waterloo. From this point (where they remained on the 16th, halted for some hours) Wellington could direct them on Nivelles or Quatre-Bras as he judged fittest. The short nig ht Sib. i. 102. was passed, however, without a man of his army having moved towards the enemy, save those Dutch- Belgians who had concentrated without his orders. Comments. It has been said before, that exception may be Ante, p. 53. taken in one point to the details of Napoleon's con- centration. Fine as it undoubtedly was, the absolute perfection claimed for it by his admirers disappears when it is shown, from the words of his own ordre du Ante, p. 70. mouvement (already quoted), and the admission of Thi. Thiers, that Gerard's corps was not wholly brought up on the 14th. Half a day's march gained on the way from Metz would have left that general as ready to start on the 15th as was Reille, and enabled him 64. 84 WATERLOO LECTURES. to arrive at midday at Chatelet, put all his troops over the bridge there left him, and, connecting his advance with Vandamme's as the latter passed out of Charleroi, to drive Zieten, thus completely outflanked, ^°^f at once beyond Fleurus. In his earliest and most genuine account, Napoleon expressly gives the con- tinued occupation of that place by_t he Pruss ians as the reason that Ney did not advance to Quatre Bras that night. If there be any truth in this, the delay of Gerard, whose bridge was but two miles from the left flank of the position in which the Prussians checked Yandamme, has a more serious bearing on the aff'airs of the day than has been hitherto assigned ciaus. it. Clausewitz does not comment on it specially, but his narrative sets in the clearest light the advantage which accrued to Zieten from the two hours' pause of the French in his front. \ j'h at Z i eten was thu s ex- posed to this conting ency seems^h oweve r, to be in seeae degree that general's own fault. No satisfactory explanation has been ever given of the reasons of his allowing the bridges, which were feft onThis^anks as he quitted CharleroT, to fall into the enemy's h ands unm ined a nd without resistance. The information which he himself sent ofi' to the Allied generals proves clearly that he was not blind to the coming danger, and it does not app ear why he t ook so little pains to prepare for it. '~~' The delay of Vandamme's corps, and by it of the p. 57. . IX. 159. 'THE ■ 15TH ^fcOMMENTS. 85. . whole centre, is in every way more striking and im- portant. In the ' M^moires ' Napoleon has asserted M^m. t 77. roundly that his plan was this day perfectly carried lout; and that, although not advanced to Fleurus, his army ' already found itself placed between the Prus- sians and English, and able to turn on either of them. All its manoeuvres had succeeded to the full.' But his former narrative contradicts this effectually. The Gourg. expression applied to Vandamme's delay, ' un funeste contretems,' can certainly not form any part of these fully successful manoeuvres. Moreover, Napoleon in ji^m another part of the same volume of the ' Memoires ' gays of the delay of this day, ' This loss of seven hours was very unfortunate.' Thiers goes much further Thi.xx.43, than Napoleon in speaking of the mishap. He accepts the Emperor's assertion (made in a Reply to ji^m General JRogniat's strictures) that Vandamme's ad- vance on Fleurus was not really desirable ; omits to seeNote at note that this is three times falsified by Napoleon's ^'^^ own expressions just quoted; and desiring to leave no loss to be borne by the mere mischance of a con- tretemps, he deliberately charges the fault of Van- tm.xx.so. damme's delay on So ult's om ission to follow Berthier's habit, and send a duplicate and triplicate of the order. As the historian in two other places refers to this supposed incapacity of Soult for his special duty, we are led to inquire how Berthier really did perform it in his day, and whether mistakes and carelessness , Vlll. 196. 86 WATERLOO LECTURES. in the transmission of Napoleon's orders began with the campaign of Waterloo. This is a matter on which the most clear and direct evidence is happily Vie de at hand. Jomini has recorded the fact that, in 1807, Napoleon, ^ • i i t i j.i • i i. 346. the capture of a smgle messenger delayed tae arrival of Bernadotte's corps two days, and left him out of the hard fought battle of Eylau. The same author, writing in a spirit favourable to Napoleon, but not desirous to screen Berthier's faults, shows that in Ibid. ii. 70. 1809, at the passage of the Danube before Wagram, Davoust's and Oudinot's orders sent their corps to the wrong bridges, and obliged their troops to cross each other's line of march after the passage was made. Nor are these solitary instances. This historian, who served on the French staff in both campaigns, Ibid. u. .^g^g pi-esent in a similar capacity at Bautzen in 1813. Here he bears express testimony to the fact, that the incompleteness of that great victory was directly due to the insufficiency of the orders received from Napo- leon by Marshal Ney, to whom he himself was chief of staff. In all these cases he speaks, not merely with the authority of a great military critic, but that of an observant eyewitness. As a biographer he is disposed to rate Napoleon's genius at its highest, as the form and execution of his work alike imply: yet on three critical occasions he shows the staff system of the Grand Army to have broken down from want of eare in the controlling hand. THE 15TH. — COMMENTS. 87 After this we may well be prepared for the severe picture of the system in its nicer details, which the faithful hand of the Due de Fezensac has painted. This author, who served constantly on the French staff from 1806 to 1813, and watched its working in times of disaster as well as through a long period of success, has thus described its deficiencies : 'Long journeys on duty were made in carriages Fez. p. lis. charged at the post rate; but some ofiicers put the money in their pockets, and obtained horses by re- quisition. This was a bad plan in every view, for, apart from the dishonesty, they were ill served and lost valuable time. As for messages taken on horse- back, I have already said that no person took the pains to inquire if we had a horse that could walk, even when it was necessary to go at a gallop ; or if we knew the country, or had a map. The order must be executed without waiting for the means, as I shall show in some special instances. This habit of at- tempting everything with the most feeble instru- ments, this wish to overlook impossibilities, this un- bounded assurance of success, which at first helped to win us advantages, in the end became our de- struction.' Again, speaking of himself carrying most important ibii- p- orders to Ney on the morning of the day of Eylau : — ' My horse was already worn out when I received the orders at 8 a. m., and with difficulty could T, 88 WATERLOO LECTURES. being fortunately in funds, buy a restive animal to carry me. I knew nothing of tbe roads, and had no guide. To ask for an escort would have been of no more use than to ask for a horse. An officer had always an excellent horse, knew the country, was never taken, met no accident, and got rapidly to his destination; and of all this there was so little doubt, that often a second message was thought unne- cessary.'' After such evidence we may well afford to dismiss the theory of Thiers, that any personal incompetence of Soult in the management of the staff formed an element in the disaster of 1815. But we have a special reason for rejecting his statement in this matter. Telling us, as he does repeatedly, that his assertions are based on careful comparison of official reports with the narratives of eyewitnesses, Thiers rarely quotes the original authority which he prefers to follow. How can we accept any assertion as to Napoleon's staff service made by a writer who does not Thi. vii. scruple to declare, that several ('plusieurs ') officers 372 were dispatched the night before the battle of Eylau to call in Davoust and Ney, when, from the Due de Fezensac's evidence — given after he read this asser- tion — we find that the only orders ever dispatched to Ney to this effect were in the single dispatch carried on the morning of the battle by himself ? But we shall find, as we follow our subject onwards. THE 15TH. — COMMENTS. 89 other misstatements not less gross made by Thiers, even in details on the French side, than that here exposed. After the admission by this historian of the truth Ante, p. 72. as to the desertion of Bourmont, it might seem super- fluous to notice further the erroneous assertions of the St. Helena narratives, that that traitor went over ' on the evening of,' or ' during the day of,' the 14th. But these narratives, though ill agreeing with each other, have misled a host of writers on this and other points, and the amount of credit to be accorded to their assertions where Napoleon's own character is con- cerned, is one of the most important branches of our subject. It is necessary, therefore, to point out plainly (what seems to have usually escaped notice), Doc. i4i. that the flight being assigned to the 14th, is a pure afterthought, originated at St. Helena. The bulletin of the evening of the 15th proves this sufficiently. After an explicit mention that Gerard had reported the desertion, follows a line which states that he had that evening arrived at Chatelet. This is not the only instance in which Napoleon writing history is actually less accurate than Napoleon writing bulletins! A Hooper, . . p. 68. valuable note on the subject of the evidence of Sir F. Head as to Boumiont's arrival at Charleroi, is given by Hooper. That author seems to have over- looked the narrative of Colonel Janin before referred itid. Ante, p. 71. to, or he would hardly have assumed, as he has done Sib. i. 39. 90 WATEELOO LECTURES. too easily, that Soult ' neglected to send' Yandamme the order of march. The particulars we have given of the movement concerted by the Allies for the very case of invasion that happened, sufficiently show that the importance of the Charleroi, Quatre Bras, and Sombreffe triangle was fully recognised by them beforehand. It has been generally said (Siborne, for instance, explicitly states), that the two northern angles of this were de- signed for the concentration of the two Allied armies respectively. Distinct authority for the assertion has never been given ; and we must believe that Mliffling, an officer of special experience, who was in the con- fidence of both Marshals, and perfectly conversant with the details discussed in their Tirlemont meeting, is better informed, when he fixes the intended con- See ante, ccntration some miles further to the south and nearer Charleroi. This view is supported by the fact, that the position he assigns would have brought the armies within better supporting distance than if placed (as Siborne and others would have it), the one at Ligny, the other at Quatre Bras, with a space of several miles between their inner wings. Zieten's deliberate retreat on Fleurus and Ligny, the masterly way in which he collected his scattered corps during the movement, and the fine front with which he held back Yandamme before the former place, have long attracted the admiration of mUitaiy p. 74, THE 15TH. — COMMENTS. 91 critics. Colonel Haraley, in his valuable work on Operations of War, p. War, has taken it for his special example of the i28e=> p. 130. the station which was the headquarters of his own division general there present, ' under the simple inspiration of common sense,' a remarkable military achievement certainly for any brigadier to accom- plish. It would be well if certain other misstate- ments of this historian, as to the movements of Pcr- H 98 WATERLOO LECTURES. poncher's men, which we must presently notice, were as little harmless as this. Ante, p. 79. Of the Celebrated misunderstanding of Billow's or- ders by that general it is necessary to say but little, the facts being fully admitted as we have given them. It remains a warning for future generals in the place of Gneisenau, to put the first orders for a sudden campaign into some form not to be mistaken for an ordinary movement. A little special care in explain- ing to Billow the state of the case would have been derogatory to no one writing to a general who had held a chief command himself with honour, and would have spared the error that cost the Prussians dear in the loss of 30,000 men at the hour of need, Wellington's inaction during the 15th can hardly escape^notice tu the most cursory view of the strategy of this campaign. As might be expected, it has found severe critics and warm defenders. Of the latter we may specially notice Hooper, who insists that Wellington's first orders contained all that was needful to be done upon the information received in the aft ernoon. But this defence has the ground cut from under it by the Duke's own account of the campaign, from which we have quoted in our narra- tive. It is true that his memory when he wrote that account was no longer exact : but in saying, that upon the first news received (at 3 p.m.) the whole army was forthwith ordered to its left, Wellington clearly THE 15TH. — COMMENTS. 99 gives his own impression, in 1842, of what he ought to have done in 1815. It is no answer to criticism to say with Hooper, that he, 'never precipitate or ner- vous, contented himself with issuing orders about 5 p.m. for the assembly of each division.' This is Hooper, a statement of the fact, but no justification of it. This same autEor has taEen much pains to defend iwd.p. 82. Wellington from the censure of Charras, and has succeeded in discovering one blunder (relative to the time that the alarm reached the Diike) made by the latter from his imperfect knowledge of English. But he himself is hypercritical when he objects further to cha.p.io Charras's next remark, that 'thus the few troops on the Brussels road were to be removed in the very case of an attack on the right of the Prussian and left of the English army.' These particular words are used in the order to Alten's British division, and not in that to Perponcher's, it is true; but the fact is, that the command to the latter to collect his Dutch- Belgians at NiveUes, seven miles off the Brussels road, was making the very mistake of which Charras complains. Indeed Ho oper in jth e same p aragraph Hooper admits that Perponcher took upon himself to disob ey, and deserves credit for it ; an admission which settles the question of fact as to the propriety of the order he received. In the same paragraph Hooper asserts, and no doubt justly, that Wellington would have done what H '2 100 WATERLOO LECTUif^S. Perpdncher' did had he been ut Nivelles or Braine. This brings us at once to the real issue. Was Wei- - lington in his right place at Brussels on the 15th, ciaus. p. and especially in the evening, after his news from the 46. front? Clausewitz says distinctly that Wellington's headquarters should have been moved to Nivelles on its HSi]g"^ndwn tliat the French were gathering. This, and the criticisms of other continental critics, may by some be thought of little importance; but it cannot be unimportant to observe that Miiffling, the most friendly to the Duke of this class, agrees exactly with hiscountryraan on this head. While Mii. M^m. denying that the English cantonments were too dis- p. 2oo, persed, he adds, ' that if the Duke had left Brussels on the 14th, at nine o'clock on the 15th he would have heard the cannonade. In that case Napoleon would have fallen into the Caudine Forks on the 16th.' Such are not the views that are popular with the mass of English writers, but they are substantially the same as those of two recent critics of our own nation, each of whom thoroughly admires Wellington, WeUing- and has done something towards making his real reer.p. 77. grcatncss better known. Colonel Hamley has written of the evening's stay at Brussels, 'we must believe that the Du ke was throwing away golden minutes. By riding himself towards Charleroi at the fifst alarm, he would" have seen for himself that this was no feint, and by "next morning assembled troops there i^ C.c~^>~^ C^rn^e.f'Ci.jOfiy^^ t^-rt-^.-'i^tt^ /i^Ty-C^ /^Cu^tJ^Jt-,^ a,-H^ ^n<4xJg'Xv£ fpi^ \ sufficient to check i^ey and aid Bluchcr.' Kennedy ^i^£^^_^^ 171, X72'. ^""^^ goes further, and declares that^ before the 15th, both^^^J-^.^;^^'^ armies should have been cantoned much nearer ^^i^^-^V^'^*^-^'^ Brussels, so that, on the French being known to be^y ' ^.^"^ in motion, Blucher's might have at once assembled ^"--^ /-ifiMy near Genappe, and Wellington's at Hal, or in some /t^ c^^Z.^.^^^e^ similar positions, suitable for mutual support. ^2!'^^^''^,'^^'^ /^^^^^ To sum up the facts of the 15th as they occurred. '^^;?^*^ :^ It has been shown that Napoleon failed, owing to in- J'''^ y^ c complete arrangements on his own side, to bring his ^i whole army over the Sambre as he had intended,^*^ ^ yet had nearly 100,000 men at night on the north "/^"^^T*^ j bank ; that the Allied generals h ad_consid ered befo re- ^ ^^^ hand the very case that was about to happen, and Q ^'^ ^^^^t,iul4 ^ . ££ — L— Aj^ /f determined on certain_p ositions to be occupiedin the Fleurus triangle; that Blucher had one of his corps on the intended ground, and two more near, but had failed to bring his fourth within available distance ; ' that Wellington moved not a m an t o meet th e enemy. and ordered a concentration which would have left Ney at liberty to push on within fourteen miles of I L^ /*We^/^ Brussels ; and that Napoleon had actually j j^ his / ^^jz- '~^ possession, on this first day of t he campaign, th e whole of the groimd on which the English were to have met him, with his advanced guard jiolding a portion of that originally marked out for ^Iucher. Up to this pomt it can surely be asserted that the ( balance ofsFraFegy was on his side. 102 WATERLOO LECTURES. LECTURE IV. EVENTS OF THE 16TH. — COMMENTS. — SUMMARY. The advantage gained by Napoleon's early movement of the 15th. being so clear, it is the more difficult to explain why so little was done on the morning of the next day to carry out the conception of a surprise. ciia.p.n4. Ney spent many hours of the night with the Emperor, and only left him at about 2 a.m., without any posi- Cha.p.ii7. tive orders for the morning's movements. At ahout Thi.xx.61. 6 a.m. a report from Grouchy told Napoleon, then some time risen, that the Prussian army (in fact the troops of Pirch joining those of Zieten) was deploying cha.p.117. before Fleurus. Yet it was not untU 8 a.m. (as Charras has shown by overwhelming testimony) that the dis- positions were conceived upon which the day's move- . ments were to be carried out, and the corresponding orders issued. The mass of the army was now to be formed into two wings, each to act on one side of the See Orig. Fleurus triangle. Grouchy took command of Gerard's Order. ° ■' M&m. ix. and Vandamme's troops, and three of the four corps 333, &c. '^ ' ^ of reserve cavalry. With these he was 'to march on Sombreffe, and take up a position there.' As soon as EVENTS OF THE 16TH. 103 he had possession of Sombreffe,he was further enjoined 'to send an advanced guard to Gembloux [a large village, five miles to the N.E. j and reconnoitre all the roads from Sombreffe, especially that to Namur, esta- blishing also communications with Marshal Isey.' To the latter's command, as already detailed, the See ante, ' p. 76. remaining corps of reserve cavalry (Kellerman's) was added. He was ordered, in a letter from Soult, to See orig. put his troops in motion for Trois Bras [Quatre Bras], quoted by ^ ^ _ . "- ■' Cha.p.ll6. take up a position there, and reconnoitre the Brussels and Nivelles roads. ' If it should not be inconve- nient,' he was further to push a division and some cavalry on to Genappe, and to post another division at Marbais,* placing the cavalry of the Guard near to these two. ' The Emperor,' it was added, ' is going to Sombreffe.' Grouchy's orders are noted for Ney's information. Simultaneously with this letter, Napoleon dictated g.^^^^^°^f'. a separate one to Key, repeating its tenor in a more detailed form. He is pushing on Grouchy ; he will be himself at Fleurus before noon; will attack the enemy, if met with, and clear the road to Gembloux. ' There, at 3 p.m., or perhaps in the evening,' he adds, ' I will decide on my course according to what may occur. My intention is, immediately after I have * Marbais is a village about a quarter of a mile to the north of the Namur-Nivelles road, at exactly halfway from Sombreffe to Quatre Bras. 104 WATERLOO LFXaURES. decided, that you be ready to march on Brussels. I will support you with the Guard, and I should wish to arrive at Brussels to-morrow morning.' Details are added of the proposed march, of the temporary position to be taken up at and beyond Quatre Bras, and of the Emperor's new division of the army into two grand wings under Grouchy and Ney, with a re- serve (of the troops not attached to these Marshals) under himself. Ney was particularly directed to take care of the Guard cavalry, and rather to employ that of the line, should there be any skirmish (quelque echauffouree) with the English. Gerard, lying not quite four miles from Charleroi, has stated that he did not receive his orders until Cha.p.ny, half-past 9; and the other generals on that side had after ■■■ ° Gerard's theirs, no doubt, at corresponding hours. On the ments.' ^eft, OY Brusscls road. Count Flahault, with the Em- peror's order to Ney, passed Gosselies at about 10, Seohisiet- communicatins; to Reille its contents fwho reported tertoNey. ° \ r Sib. i. 451. liis passage by at a quarter after 10), and reaching Ney, who waited at Frasnes, soon after — ' towards 11 o'clock,' according to the testimony of Colonel cha.p.181. Heymes. The Marshal had been reconnoitring the position of Quatre Bras, now occupied by a whole Dutch-Belgian division, under the Prince of Orange and his Staff, and had sent an officer off to report to Eeport lost, but the Emperor that the enemy showed masses of men known by reply. there. The reply to this was a third dispatch, sent EVENTS OF THE IGTII. 105 after the official one of Soult (wliich ao-ainwas a little Spe Orig. ^ ° Mem. ix. later than that borne by Flahault, as the words of 337. each prove), desiring Ney 'to unite the corps of Reille and D'Erlon with that of Kellerman (the reserve cavalry corps allotted the Marshal), and with these to beat and destroy any enemy who should oppose him.' ' Blucher cannot have pushed troops towards Quatre Bras, for he was only yesterday at Namur. You have only, therefore, to deal with what comes from Brussels.' On the receipt of the Emperor's own letter, Ney sib. i. 4si. sent his corresponding instructions forthwith to Keille, who was to move o::e division on Genappe, another to support it, and the two remaining ones to Quatre Bras. D'Erlon was to move three divisions to Frasnes, and send one to Marbais; Kellerman and the Guard cavalry to stay at Frasnes for the present. It win be remembered, however, that one of Reille's four divisions had been kept away from him the night before, and left near Vandamme, at the village of Wangenies. The general who led it (Girard) had been watching the Prussians form on the Ligny .heights, and made report by an officer accordingly to Reille; and Reille, receiving this intelligence, did not choose to advance upon Flahault's instance, but SeeEeiUe's ^ _ Letter. sent Girard's officer forvrard to Ney, to communicate Sib. i. 452. the news, and request instructions — a natural cau- tion, considering that, in moving on Frasnes, he would lOfa* WATEELOO LECTURES. have the Prussians within three and a-half miles of the right of his columns. On Ney's orders arriving, or on a change of mind as to this supposed danger, he' SeeEeiiie's moved forwards about 11 a.m. His troops, however, Notice ^ ' ' Historique, ]^ad six louff miles of road to make before Ney was quoted by '^ •' Cha.p.i6i. reached. Toy's division, which led, could not attain Frasnes before one at the earliest, and had then to form up and deploy. At about two o'clock, the French advanced from Frasnes in force, according to Doc. 86. the report of the Prince of Orange, a personal eye- Qha.p.i65. witness, in command on one side, and the ' Notice ' of Reille on the other, and rather earlier by the state- M&n. IX. nients of Pleymes, speaking for Ney, and of the Dutch oflBicers of Perponcher's division, who have left several Loben s. accouuts all placing the real attack between 1 and 2 p. 190. o'clock. Then began, as far as the French were con- cerned, the battle of Quatre Bras. By half-past 3 the Netherland troops opposed to Ney were rudely pressed back to the cross roads, according to the ad- ibid. 195. mission of their own historian, though they still held the little wood close to them. It is important to be particular here as to time, as one of the chief of the figments which have passed into Waterloo history concerns this point of the campaign. We left Napoleon sending out his orders between 8 and 9 a.m. The early part of the morning had not been wholly wasted, since the French, left on the south bank of the Sambre, completed their passages EVENTS OF THE 16Tn. 107 at Charleroi and Chatelet, and joined the rest of the army. Vandamme meanwhile, and the rest of the troops which had halted before Fleurus the night be- fore, now passed beyond that place, abandoned by the Prussians, and took ground in the open .plain be- yond, in full sight of the hill of Ligny. Napoleon Cha.p.n8. did not join them until near noon. Lobau's corps was left for a time at the junction of the two roads close to Charleroi, but the Guard followed the Em- peror and formed in front of the position now plainly seen to be occupied in great force by the enemy. Napoleon had with him there the wing assigned to Grouchy, with the infantry of the Guard, and that di- vision detached from Eeille which had kept on Van- damme's left at night at Wangenies (by Thiers twice Thi. xx. called erroneously Wagn^lee), and still remained de- tached from its own corps. His original force, omit- ting; non-combatants of the ti-ain, was thus distributed cha.p.125. >=> ' Thi.xx.63. at noon : — WitliNey .... 45,000 „ Napoleon . . . 64,000 ,, Loban (to support either) 10,000 In rear 5,000 124,000 At 2 p.m. the Emperor had made his resolve fully. Sse orig. -■^ '- Sib. i. 453. A short letter informed Ney that 'Grouchy was Cha.p.122. to attack at half-past 2, a body (un corps) of the 108 WATERLOO LECTUKES. enemy posted between Sombre fFe and Bry.* Ney was also to attack sharply what was before him, and after driving it off vigorously, to wheel and aid in envelop- ing this " corps." If the latter were first pierced, then the Emperor would manoeuvre in the Marshal's direction.' At about 3 p.m., somewhat later than the appointed time, the battle of Ligny was began Gourg. by Grouchy accordingly, it being then about an hour 'asheures.' after Ncv advanced from Frasnes. Pr. Off. 28. '' 'vers 3 Xo pass to the Allies. Of the Prussians it is suffi- neures. ^ cient to say that, by the time Napoleon's morning or- ders were issued, not Pirch only but Thielemann had reached the destined battle-ground, and Blucher stood awaiting the shock of what he thought the whole SeehisRe- army of the enemy with 87,000 men, Biilow being port, Doc. 89. too far oif to be of any service that day. Turning to Quatre Bras, where Bernard's brigade was alone the night before, we find that of Bylandt (the other half of Perponcher's division ) beginning to arrive by sepa- LobenS. rate battalions as early as 4 a.m. ('towards morn- ing ' is the expression of Bernard himself, in a letter Doc. 85. of the 19th June), and all on the ground at 9, save Loben s. a sino;le battalion, which did not quit Nivelles until p. 193. ° ^ ibid.p.i83. Alten's troops appeared, and was not up before 3. Perponcher, who had arranged this movement, and * A village 1^ mile N.W. of Ligny, and on the flat part of tlie plateau, the latter place being on the slope, in the centre of the position, and St. Amand on the Prussian right. EVENTS OF THE 16TH. 109 left General Bylandt to start the brigade, came up himself at 3 a.m. to take command: but at 6 a.m. the Prince of Orange rode in from Braine for the same purpose. The former had begun, and the latter now Lobon s. .p. 185. continued a liglit infantry advance, before which the French posts fell back towards Frasnes, near which ^,'?,"^-.^^I' '^ ' oiD. 1. 92. the skirmish ceased. About 11 Wellington arrived from Brussels with his staff, and after reconnoi- tring the enemy, and finding them motionless, rode on to meet Blucher at Bry, on the Lignj?- heights, where their plans for the day were settled. An in- teresting account of the interview is to be read in the work of Miiffling. None of those present thought seriously of the force before Quatre Bras : all believed Mii. Men). J ^ p. 233, &c. Napoleon's army, regarded as one body, was before Ligny ; and the question discussed was chiefly whether the movement of Wellington's troops should be to the rear of the Prussians to act as a reserve, or to their right to outflank the advancing French. Gneisenau was so strongly in favour of the former, that the Duke and Miiffling (who both inclined to the other proposal) yielded their views to his, and left ao-ain for Quatre Bras, the Duke saying to Gneisenau, ' Well, I will come, provided lam not attacked myself.' On returning to the Prince of Orange, they found the troops with him already sorely pressed, and were only relieved from the imminent danger of losing the cross roads by the arrival of Picton, who came up from 110 WATERLOO LECTURES. Loben s. Waterloo at about 3 p.m.,* Van Merlen's brigade of Sib. 1. 105. Dutch-Belgian cavalry arriving from Nivelles almost simultaneously. These aided to hold the position until more reinforcements supported them in turn, and Wellington began to feel his forces superior to those of his antagonist. Ney received in due course See ante, the 2 o'clock Order of Napoleon, but was too hotlv p. 107, 108. '^ -^ engaged already to do anything towards executing a wheel upon Marbais beyond pressing his attacks on the defenders of Quatre Bras. This order arrived Thi. IX. somewhere between half-past 3 and 5, and produced Cha.p.i62. no special change in the order of events. The fight grew harder for the French as the afternoon wore on, and brought no news of the corps of D'Erlon, whose 20,000 men should have been ere now arriving at Frasnes. At 6 came the fifth and last order that day received, written by Na- poleon from before Ligny soon after the battle there had began, and dated at a quarter after 3. The cool ease which marks the tone of those preceding had now disappeared, for Napoleon had felt his enemy's sti'ength. The delusions about the occupy- ing Sombreffe and pushing beyond it are no longer * The Duke's official report (Gurw. Disp.) woiTld make this half- past 2. But this is corrected by a note in the Sup. Disp. (x. 525), which fixes the Dulce's own return from Ligny — ^universally ad- mitted to be previous to Picton's arrival — to be ' about 3.' Loben Sola, from the accounts of the Dutch-Belgians (p. 194), makes it ' between 3 and 4.' The Prince of Orange reported Van Merlen — who is known from all accounts to have been hardly later — not up till 4. EVENTS OF THE 16^. Ill referred to. 'At this moment, the battle is going on hotly [est trhs prononce]. His Majesty desires me to tell you, that you are to manoeuvre immediately in such a manner as to envelope the right of the enemy, and fall upon his rear. The fate of France is in your hands.' Hereon Ney in his turn called on Kellermann, and another desperate attack was made, to be repulsed by the arrival of the EngHsh Guards. Wellington had now over 30,000 men upon the For detail, '^ -— _ ^ 1 ^ Sib. i. 153. ground, and before dark in his turn took the of- fensive and drove back the exhausted foe to the position at Frasnes, which he had that morning held. As Ney paused here at nightfall, the missing corps Thi. sx. of D'Erlon began to come in from a strange march ciia.p.ies. made intermediately between the two battles, sum- moned back in fact from an attempt to join Napo- leon by the urgent instance of his over-matched lieutenant, but arriving far too late to save him his defeat. The cross movement of the 1st Corps had seriously injured Napoleon's own chances, if we are to accept his original account, which tells graphically how this occurred. The desperate fight at Ligny had been raging for two or three hours along the Prussian front, and more particularly on their left, where Van- damme, aided by Girard's division, attacked again and again the St. Amand hamlets. Napoleon himself, in accordance with his usual tactics, was ranging the 112 WATKRLOO LfiCTUliES. Guard in order for the purpose of giving the final stroke, which he reserved until the whole of his enemy's troops had been entangled in indecisive Gourg. combats, when a dense column was seen by Van- p. 49. . . •' damme ' a league to his own left, heading apparently from Fleurus, and turning the flank of the French line.' The Emperor, on report of this appearance, checked his Guard and prepared to receive the sup- ibid, p. 60. • posed dangerous intruder. It was half-past six before word came that it was no Prussian or English force, but the corps of D'Erlon which had caused the alarm, and the new change of position necessary to pre- pare the reserve once more for the attack on Ligny (where Blucher's line was to be attempted), lost Napoleon another half-hour. The attack was made successfully, without employing D'Erlon or even Lobau, who had been ordered up from his halting Ibid. p. 51. ground near Charleroi, but the result came too late. Seeai-so As is Well knowu, the Prussian centre was pierced Pr. 0ff\ ' ^ p. 45-47, ^ and their position carried, with the loss of twenty- one guns : but darkness prevented the French from profiting by their advantage, and only a few of their Ibid. 47. cavalry reached the Namur road that night. Three battalions of Prussians passed it in the village of Bry, close to the French; for it was 10 p.m. and too dark to move, before Gneisenau's orders (he having taken connnand in Blucher's absence) reached the scattered corps, directing a general retreat due EVENTS OF THE 16TH JUNE. 113 northward on "Wavre. As to D'Erlon (who had re- ceived on his way across an imperative message from Ney by his own chief of staflp, ordering his return to the Quatre Bras side), after a halt that showed Thi. xx. 124 some indecision, he left one of his divisions to sup- Cha.p.174. port Napoleon's battle, and with the rest moved on Frasnes, where he arrived, as has been mentioned, too late to be of any use that day. So closed the bloody contests of the 16th. Wellington, holding Quatre Bras, rode off to sleep at Genappe, ignorant mu. M^m. p. 2ov. of the extent of his ally's defeat, while Ney was stUl ^"pp- ^i^. more ill-informed of the Emperor's success. In our ^^^- ^• next chapter we shall note the positions of such of the Allied troops as failed to appear at the scenes of action: it is sufficient here to point out that these amounted on the Prussian side to 30,000 men, on the English to 6 2,000, e ven after allowing for the troops left purposely in garrison. Comments. ' The chief reproach as to the [French] operations of the 16th is the time lost on the morning of that dav.' These are the words in which Thiers puts the th. xx. •^ . 127. charge he would disprove ; and in order to see how far Napoleon is responsible for the delay, we shall fol- low as before that masterly advocate, sure that if he cannot succeed in exculpating the Emperor, no other wiU be able to do so. ' Three hours,' he proceeds, ibid. 128, 114 WATERLOO LECTURES. ' were needed (so many of the troops being to the south of the Sambre) before the various corps could be placed ready to advance into any required line of battle. Napoleon was unwilling to act without good information, and waited for Grouchy's report of what the Prussians were doing. This did not reach Char- leroi till after 7 a.m., and the orders were all dis- patched before 9.' Such is in brief his explanation of the first part of the delay, by which not three hut seven hours were lost in truth, since daylight broke at 3 a.m,, and the troops made no movement until 10 o'clock, ex- cept so far as concerns the passage of the river. 'After the instructions were sent out,' the defence continues, ' Napoleon stayed still at Charleroi, gathering infor- mation and issuing orders, for it was necessary to give time for the troops to march on Fleurus. Besides, the ■day was at least seventeen hours long, and the battle might as well be fought in the afternoon as the morn- ing. Arrived at Ligny before noon, the Emperor did not hesitate, like his generals ; but he was compelled Thi. XX. to wait for part of Gerard's troops not up. Thus he was kept until two, and then waited for Ney to get the start of him, and take the Prussians in rear. The false alarm raised by Vandamme' [i. e. about D'Erlon's Ibid. 130. corps] accounts for the loss of an hour and a half in the middle of the battle, and its late and unsatisfactory close. No, Napoleon personally must not be charged Ibid. 127. with inactivity, although this reproach is perfectly well THE 16TH. — COMMENTS. 115 founded as concerns all that went on on the side of Quatre Bras.' Such is the substance of a most in- genious and elaboi'ate misstatement of the case, the shortest reply to which is to admit first, for argument's sake, the supposed facts, and to reason upon them as accepted. Whose fault is it, then, this well-founded reproach as to Quatre Bras? Did Napoleon, having learnt from Ney (as Thiers admits) at supper on the 15th, the non-occupation of that place during the evening, order any early movement towards it ? Did he direct that at daylight D'Erlon should close up his long column on Reille's rear at Gosselies, and be ready for the marching order forward? Were there any signs of pressure or hurry in Ney's morning in- structions, or any notion then of a great pitched battle which that Marshal was by a flank movement to win for his master? We are enabled to answer all these questions in the direct negative from Napoleon's own authority. The only letter from the latter to Ney, see Orig. written before the five orders already mentioned, was 335. merely a formal one, assigning Kellerman's cavalry to the Marshal, and inquiring if D'Erlon had completed his movement [of the day before], and ' what are the exact positions of his corps and Reille's ?' Not a word of any urgency, or of preparing to advance by closing D'Erlon's divisions on to the chaussee at Gosselies. As to the 8 o'clock instructions themselves, we need not look for them in the appendix to the ' M^moires;' 116 WATERLOO LECTURES. nor need we pause in order to contradict the shame- M^m. ix. iggg falsehood there told, that ' Ney was ordered in the 78. ' _i — — Cha.p.i78. nigi^t to advance on Quatre Bras at daylight.' Charras has exposed this with remorseless severity ; nor does Thiers attempt to use any such pretended verhal or- der, the plainest proof that it is a hopeless fabrica- tion. Indeed we may be quite sure it would not have been pubhshed had the ex-Emperor known that his real orders of the morning would have seen the hght, as they did nearly twenty years later, thanks to the See ante, interest of Ney's son in the matter. It is only neces- p. 103. •' ■' sary to look back to these to see clearly what Napoleon had in his mind on the morning of the day of which we are speaking. It is necessary here to make a distinct protest, once for all, against the inaccurate mode of reasoning which has been so largely adopted with regard to Napoleon's actions and intentions at this and other crises of his life. That he was a man of unrivalled energy and resource, that his sti'ategy was incomparably brilliant, that his administrative powers excelled those of other rulers, that he did great things for France, or, ac- cording to some, for all Europe; all these may be true of him. But they constitute no valid reason for rejecting the plain method of attaining the historical truth as to his motives and conduct by direct and trustworthy evidence, in order to judge of them by imaginative speculations founded upon his supposed powers and insight. THE 16TH COMMENTS. 117 In this case of Quatre Bras there is not the least occasion to seek other witness than that of Napoleorj, for his letters reveal his whole mind. Once lay Ante, 103, ' — . — . . or Grig. aside any special prepossessions in favour of the in sib. i. App. or in writer, and the state of the case is perfectly manifest, cha.p.iis, Napoleon had no idea that three-fourths of the Prus- sians were collected in his front. As he was aware See ante, beforehand how their army was cantoned, and judged ' Blucher still to be near Namur, it follows that he believed himself in contact with their extreme right wing, which unsupported must needs give way, and open his path to Brussels. As to the English army, the letter already quoted. See ibid. sent by the officer of lancers, proves that he thought no troops of theirs moving except possibly some of the reserve from Brussels. Slight false alarms previously ordered at points on the western frontier, or false intelligence given Wellington at his in- stance by spies, or WelKngton's supposed natural slowness, may either of them have been his reason for so judging. We can only know the fact, which was See ibid. that he felt sure, when writing Ney just before leaving Charleroi, that none of the English corps westward of Nivelles could yet be moving on Quatre Bras, Whether to take advantage of the supposed gap, and push boldTy between his enemies to the capital, or to turn to his right and crush the nearest of the Prus- sian corps, he did not intend to decide until he had 118 WATERLOO LECTUEES. fairly taken up positions beyond the Fleurus triangle, and gathered some further information. In doing thus much he expected no serious opposition. Such are the facts as deduced direct from his own evidence, which quite sets aside the notion put forward by See Eepiy Thiers, and originated in one of the St. Helena con- to Kogniat, ' ° Mim. Till, tradictory versions, that he was intending that after- noon to fight a decisive battle with Blucher before Wellington arrived, and was purposely allowing the Prussians to concentrate. If there were the least doubt of this it would be set at rest by the 2 p.m. letter, which proves beyond all dispute to the unprejudiced, that Napoleon was even the7i, after his own midday reconnaissance of the Prussians, unaware of their actual force. The Em- peror never wrote on such a point loosely ; and to suppose that he would describe Blucher's army, out- See ante, numbering his own (without Lobau) by a full third, ^' ' as ' un corps de troupes,' and this in writing to Ney specific instructions as to how to operate, is to claim omniscience for his vision at the expense of gross injustice to his pen. It is only necessary further to Thi.xx.79. say that Thiers wisely gives no evidence in proof of his assertion that the Emperor, on surveying the enemy, ' estimated them at about 90,000 strong.' As his own words to Ney contradict this, it becomes necessary, on the Thiers assumption that his obser- vation was infallible, to assert first roundly that he THE 16TH. — COMMENTS. 119 guessed the numbers of the Prussians at a number within a small fraction of the truth, and then, since Thi.xx.83. the 2 p.m. letter to Ney cannot quite be passed over, to misquote it thus, ' he had sent Ney a message to announce to him that they were about to attack the Prussian army established in front of Sombreffe.'' This is the course which the historian has adopted to get over the difficulty. It is hardly necessary to add, that he does not quote the words of the eai'lier letters at all. In fact, he uses not a line of them which could conflict with his advocacy. But at 3 p.m., when Napoleon had found out the trath, and wrote with corresponding force his pressing note for Ney's aid, it is no longer dangerous to reveal the writer's mind by using his own language, and this one order ibid. 89. of the five that day given Ney is quoted by the historian at full length ! To touch once more on the question of the alleged clearness and regularity of the staff service of the Grand Army, it is worth noting that in the very detailed letter from Charleroi dictated by the Em- peror to supplement Soult's orders, the Marshal is di- See Orig. rected particularly how to dispose of his eight divi- iis. sions of infantry, whilst one of the eight (Girard's) was kept' away from him (a fact of which his own instruc- tions to Reille and D'Erlon show him uninformed), and employed with Grouchy's wing in front of the Prussians. However this contradiction and careless- 107. 120 WATERLOO LECTURES. ness may be excused, it is not tlie less strikingly at variance with some popular notions on the subject of Napoleon's infallibility as to details. This brings us naturally to speak of a curious error in Thiers' history relative to the position of this division on the previous night. It has been mentioned Ante, p. that the name of their quarters is erroneously given in two places by that writer as Wagnelde, instead of Wangenies. Now the latter place lies a little more than a mile S.W. of Fleurus, and was the natural position of the extreme left of the French advance that night ; but Wagnelde lies three miles more to the north, and therefore almost in rear of the Prussian right during the battle of the next day; and Girard formed nominally part of the command of Ney, who ought, in the Thiers' view, to have detached troops upon that rear. Hence to those readers who do not detect the error, it seems as though part of Ney's troops were already close to the point required, at nightfall on the 15th. As the fine atlas published for Thiers' history very carefully in two maps distin- guishes between these villages, we are led to the in- evitable conclusion, that either the writer has not re- ferred to his own map, or has not done so with the in- tention of using it for honest illustration of the facts. We come next to the charge against Ney as to the late hour of the advance on Quatre Bras. This is one of the matters to which Thiers, in common with the THE 16TH. — COMMENTS. 121 whole class he represents, assigns vast importance as regards the result of the day and of the whole cam- paign. In order here to fix upon Key a serious re- sponsibility, he hasTnade in his details'the following' assertions : that it was not until after some consider- able delay, and after sending the lancer officer for Thi.xx.73. _ _ ° Ibid. 103. further instructions, that, 'pressed by reiterated orders, he at last sent Reille and D'Erlon instructions to ad- vance with all speed ; ' that after this he would not begin the action until the time ' when the guns at Ligny thundered heavily, it being now near 3 p.m. ; ' that Bylandt's brigade was not to be ('ne devait pas ibid. 105. ^tre') at Quatre Bras until 2 p.m., or, as he elsewhere i^d. 70. puts it, could not be 'entirely' up till that time; and ^^^^- ^o*- that Ney Avaited, after the fight began, so long for the last division of Reille, as first to give time for Pic- ton's succour to appear and save the Dutch-Belgians. These allegations are preceded by the general and ibid.102-3. more vague charge, that Ney stood hesitating from morning tUl near noon before Bernard's 4000 men. This last is easily disposed of. It merely means that Ante, p. Ney waited for his orders. There has been shown to , , ,„„ J Ante.p.lOS, be no pretence for believing that he had any instruc- q"^j!;^'''=" tions to occupy Quatre Bras previous to those sent by ^g"- ''^• riahault, and that Soult required him to report his position previous to these being issued. In short, there was no possible reason why Ney should attack the unknown force in his front more than Grouchy that 122 WATERLOO LECTURES. on the right. Had he done so indeed with the one infantry division in hand, and been unsuccessful, the same critics who condemn him for delay, would have blamed him unsparingly for going before the orders of his master. As to Ney's alleged delay after the orders arrived, there is one all-sufficient reply which would settle Ante, p., this in his favour, viz. Napoleon's answer to his own 105 single request for instructions. Had he adhered literally to this he would not have attacked Quatre See Orig. Bras at all until ' he had united the corps of Reille, 337. D'Erlon, and Kellerman;' in other words, he might have waited for D'Erlon's arrival, and in that case would not have been engaged that day. But, in fact, it is not necessary to plead this. A consideration of the times and distances (the latter measured from the very large and accurate Belgian Government survey) Ante, p. proves abundantly that the only delay between the passage of Flahault past Reille's quarters at Gosselies with the orders, and the advance from Frasnes, was simply the short loss of time on Reille's part in not starting at Flahault's instance, but waiting for the SeeOrig. direct order which came back from Ney — as its tenor , , Sib. i. 455. _ _ •' proves — as soon as he was in receipt of the Emperor's wishes. This would be considerably less than the time of a horseman between Gosselies and Frasnes and back, an hour's ride for an aide-de-camp ; for Ante, P- -r, .11 t-, 106. Reille's report as to the Prussians is not referred to THE 16TH COMMENTS. 123 in the narrative of Heymes, nor in the orders sent by See Key, and plainly did not affect the movement, which inMKmJx. 256. was simply delayed, as Reille's letter proves, pending the arrival of the latter. ' Instead of commencing any See Orig. movement,' he wrote, ' after the report of General Girard, I shall hold the troops ready to march, and await your orders. As these can get to me very quickly, there will be only very little time lost.'' As half an hour would be a very moderate space for getting the two divisions ready, it does not appear that the lost time could have been more than another half: and this not by any choice of Ney, for his lancer messenger had been dispatched (as the time seeOrig. of iNapoleons answer proves) before the receipt oi 337. the Emperor's letter, and in default of any morning instructions reaching him ; so that Thiers' allusion to this message, and his description of Ney's only acting ' under reiterated orders,' prove but parts of a mass of fiction which has been built up to cover the failure of the French strategy for the day. The sole and very brief delay was that shown to be Reille's, which that general foresaw at the moment, and wrote of it, correctly enough, in the terms just quoted. We need not discuss at any length the time when the action was begun. We have given the plainest Ante, p. • evidence from both sides that the hour was not later than 2 p.m. Thiers has tried to show from the journal Thi. xx. of General Foy, one of the eye-witnesses, that the can- 124 WATERLOO LECTURES. non of Ligny were heard whilst Ney and Reille were, discussing the advance, and that there was no real action engaged at Quatre Bras until this quickened them, but merely some artillery skirmishing. Un- fortunately for this proof that Ney was behind Napo- leon, which is the only one adduced, its value depends entirely upon the time that the Ligny firing began. Thi. xx. Thiers settles this conclusively to himself by the 105. . J J -. simple phrase, ' Now, these guns were only heard at half-past two at the earliest.' When we find, how- ever, the distinct statement from the highest Prus- ^'■- Off. sian authority that the enemy's light troops were cannonading their own from between eleven and twelve^. as the latter fell back into the position, we see at once how the mistake of Foy occurred. On the other Ante, p. hand, the witnesses we have already cited concur in 106. ... the distinct assertion, that at Quatre Bras the French columns advanced not later than 2 p.m. We can affbrd, therefore, here once more to set this part of the Thiers' misstatements completely aside. For the next we have to consider, the alleged non-arrival of Bylandt's brigade until far in the daj', there is no excuse. One battalion, indeed, was left by orders at Nivelles, but the rest .have been shown Ante, p. joi^iJig' tli6 Prince of Orange between 4 and 9 a.m. The historian who brought Bernard's brigade from Ante, p. 97. NivcUes (whcre they had not been) the day before, can hardly be expected to take the trouble of in- THE IfiTH. — COMMENTS. 125 quiring from the Dutch writers how a Dutch brigade moved on the 16th: but it was scarcely worth while to use this ignorance of his own against the character of the Marshal. Lastly, when Ney is accused of not pressing his attack with Foy and Bachelu sufficiently, and so giving time for Picton to come in, it is only necessary to point out that the third division of Reille was the Cha.p.ise. strongest in the army (numbering, as is admitted, over 7,000 men), that it was following Foy's on to the ground, and that Ney's orders all implied his using it as well as five more which he had not. As in an hour and a half (at the outside limit of the estimated time, from the opening to the arrival of Picton) he had pushed the Prince of Orange back the mile and a-lialf from near Frasnes to Quatre Bras, this would be to any judge of military operations a sufficient answer to the reproach of tactical slackness, even were a less active officer than Ney concerned. We have taken this pains to examine fully the charges of Thiers, knowing that on close inspection they fall to the ground. At a later moment it can be shown by high opinion, that the hypothetical oc- ^^^^ p- cupation of Quatre Bras is not so certainly to be assumed the decisive measure which it has been ima- gined ; in short, that there is good reason to assert that it would have little affected the grand result. It will be observed that Thiers enables Napoleon 126 WATERLOO LECTUEES. Ante, p. to discover the exact number of the Prussians at 118. Lignj'', and that, be it remembered, by a reconnais- ance made after the skirmishing had began. That Thiers is here again romancing has been shown from Napoleon's own ordelrs'; but it is as well to I'emark, that the impossibility of such an estimate is well shown by what went on on the other side, where Wei- Ante, p. lino-ton, Blucher, and their staffs assembled at Bry. 109. O ) » J All took the wing of Napoleon's army before them for the whole, and looked on any troops on the Quatre Bras side as a mere detachment. In accordance with this view we find Blucher (as honest-minded a writer in such matters as any in modern history) reporting Doc. 89. the army that attacked him as consisting of 130,000 men, that being in fact the estimate of the Grand Ante, p. 39. Army previously gained through spies, and supposed more accurate than any guess made by a distant and partly smoke-obscured view. Much comment is not necessary on the failure of Wellington in his promised co-operation, more es- pecially as we have the distincTassuTance of Muffling Ante, p. that this promise was conditional. The failure was evidently a necessary consequence of the deliberate or over-cautious strategy~which marked all the Duke's arrangements during the opening hours of the campaign. To^'conamerit~6n the tactics employed at Ligny does not come within the scope of this work. It is sufficient to say that it was lost by Blucher 109 THE 16TH COMMENTS. 127 against inferior numbers, and that tlie two great Miifr.Hist. critics of his own nation"" condemn his management, ciaus.p. Neither Wellington nor Blucher could possibly tell that Napoleon would abstain from bringing up 10,000 of his army (Lobau) from some doubt on his own mind as to the actual force of the Prussians, and lose 20,000 more (D'Erlon) by want of concert with his _ lieutenants. But for these mistake s of his, the blow to the Prussian army might obviously have been far more serious than it was, and -the absence of their Allies more dangerously felt. It was quite in accordance with the extreme caution with which Wellington acted the day before, that Picton's, the leading division of the reserve, should have been halted some hours at Waterloo, where the Nivelles and Quatre Bras roads from Brussels divide. This halt has provoked much comment ; as that of ^i*"^- p- Clausewitz, who" helieves that Wellington purposely left Picton there until after his meeting with Blucher at Bry — a supposition obviously inconsistent with the known time of Picton's appearance. This attack has produced, on the Duke's side, a not less inaccurate Eepiy to r ' ^ Clans. contradiction of the fact of the halt, and an assertion Supp. Dis. ' 525. that his reserve came up ' about mid-day ; ' statements which cause regret that he only gave heed to criticism when so old and so far removed from the events, as to have lost the memory of their details. Siborne gives sib.i. 102. very completely the circumstances and reason of the. 123 WATERLOO LECXaRES. halt, and these agree so exactly with the distances from Brussels to Waterloo and Waterloo to Quatre Bras, and the times of the beginning and end of the march, as to leave no doubt that he is correct. Nu- Doe. 72. merous letters from persons in the division, written &c. _ ^ ' just after the events, put the movement from Brussels at from 1 to 2 a.m. and the arrival at Quatre Bras at 3 p.m. It is obvious that a division of good troops under an officer of Picton's character, with fine weather and a first-class chaussee to move on, could not have spent thirteen hours in passing over twenty- one miles without some special cause of delay : and the halt at Waterloo has been the only cause ever assigned for the late arrival on the field where their support was so urgently needed. Thi.xx.63. Thiers and Charras agree that it was by the Em- Cha.p.ll8. ., . , .^ 1 peror's choice that Lobau was left for many hours close to Charleroi, in uncertainty as to whether he was ultimately to follow Ney's wing (which he had power to do if he judged it best), or to support Napoleon. In accordance with the custom of the latter historian, he takes care to prove this by the original testimony of Ibid. n. Colonel Janin. The uncertainty arose very probably from the mistake, so often before mentioned, which the Emperor lay under with regard to the Prussians ; or possibly this hesitating strategy may have been but part of the fruit of the doubt and uneasiness which he himself confesses in a noteworthy passage of the THE 16TH. — COMMENTS. 129 ' Memorial' (of Las Casas) whicli Quinet has brought Quin.p. 119 into special prominence. If this be trustworthy evi- dence, and Napoleon really ^d to his St. Helena confidant, ' What is certain is, that I had no longer within myself the feeling of decided success,' much comment on his indecision would be superfluous. Viewed in any light, the Napoleon who left Lobau to choose which wing of the army he would join, was not the Napoleon of Rivoli, of Wagram, or even of Lutzen. If his powers were not lessened, his faith in his own star must have grown weaker. The wandering of D'Erlon's corps has naturally attracted more critical remark than any other single point in the campaign. The facts we have given are undisputed. It remains therefore to ascertain by whose orders the corps was withdrawn from Ney's rear, and by whose sanction sent back from the Ligny side, and again restored to the Marshal too late to be of service. Ney, it is admitted, had nothing to do with the first cross movement. It must have been consequent on (1) an order of Napoleon's, or (2) a suggestion of D'Erlon's own, or (3) the error of some inferior ofl&cer. The first ci these is the view of M. Thiers, who has taken vast .pains to make the world believe that D'Er- lon's march was the result of deep strategy on the part of the Emperor, and was commanded by a special missive, shown afterwards to Ney, and borne by La- 130 WATERLOO LECTURES. bedoyere. From this he goes on to use such ex- Thi.xx.97, pressions as, 'les ordres r^it6res de JSTapoMon,' and, ' D'Erlon tant appel^^tant attendu.' The astonished reader has a natural difficulty in seeing any reason why Napoleon, after all this trouble taken, should have let D'Erlon slip away ; but the graceful style of the historian, and the pretty details which he throws in of the soldiers ' who clapped their hands on perceiv- ibid. 123. ing themselves * on the Prussian rear,' and ' were thrown into despair by finding themselves turned off from the road which offered such splendid results,' may well blind the unwary to the fact, that the whole of this is no more nor less than a fiction, directly con- tradicted hy the evidence of Napoleon himself on this head an irrefragable witness. Cha.p.i7i, Charras has examined the D'Erlon question fully, in the light of the '•Documents inedits^' published by Ney's son, and has established on their evidence the fact, that the corps was turned off by an excess of * Thiers, as well as otlier writers, speaks of D'Erlon as moving by the ' Old Eomaa Eoad ' (or Brunhild Way, as it is locally See Map. named), which leads across the Fleurus triangle from the Quatre Bras Eoad towards the Prussian rear, as if this were the only avail- able path for such a flank march. The simple fact is, that the fields in the triangle are intersected by numerous cart-roads quite available See op- for troops in such fine weather as D'Erlon had. The particular one posi e. xxsed would, from Napoleon's description of the appearance of the corps, be that leading from the village of Mellet towards Fleurus, and so on the French rear, not the Prussian. But this ' Eoman Eoad ' notion is but one touch of many to aid in the deception of the D'Erlon myth. et THE 16TH.-^C0MMENTS. 131 zeal on the part of an aide-de-camp, carrying the ori- Ante, p. 111. ginal or duplicate of one of the extant orders of Napoleon, that of a quarter-past 3, abeady cited. No See his ■^ -^ ' •' statement, fresh order ever reached Ney for such an oblique ciia.p.175 movement as that made; and it is no wonder that D'Erlon doubted whether he ought to have obeyed La- bedoy^re's direction, nor that the Marshal indignantly recalled the troops which his written instructions clearly prove he was first to use to ca rry Quatre B ras, before making a ny detachmen t to his right. Clausewitz, ciaus. p. on less perfect evidence, but with his usual insight, had already arrived unhesitatingly at the same conclusion. Thiers, writing after Charras, has taken much pains Thi. xx. 135. to combat this view; but his witnesses, D'Erlon and one of the generals under him, only prove that they supposed the aide-de-camp to be acting by Napoleon's authority. Now what has Napoleon said of this himself (whom Thiers has told us to be the most veracious of contemporary writers) in the early nar- rative admitted to be the most faithful of those he put forth at St. Helena? We will quote his own words, merely calling attention to the fact that, had he really sent the order for the movement which Ney thus set aside, no possible reason could exist why it should be concealed to the damage of the writer's own fame. 'Yandamme sent to report that an enemy's ^oi^g- column, 20,000 strong, was debouching from the woods and thus turning us, heading apparently for 132 WATERLOO LECTURES. Fleurue. [It is at this point in the Thiers' story that the soldiers have gained the Prussian rear, and are applauding the Emperor's foresight.] At half-past six, Dejean came and announced that this was the 1st Corps, commanded by D'Erlon. Napoleon could assign no reason for such a movement.^ Not a word is added of any order sent thereupon to D'Erlon by the Emperor, and his name is no further mentioned in the narrative of the battle of Ligny. Gourg. jj^ some remarks further on Napoleon adds, ' The movements of the 1st Corps are dificult to explain. Did Ney misunderstand the order to make, when MASTER OF QuATRE Bras, a diversion on the rear of the Prussians? Or did D'Erlon, between Gosselies and Frasnes, hearing a hot cannonade to his right, and none from Quatre Bras, conceive that he ought to move upon the cannonade which he would have left behind him, if he followed the main road onward ? ' With this clear and distinct statement we may forbear to follow the details of a controversy, where controversy is out of place. Thiers makes Napoleon our best evidence, and on this point there is good reason to believe he is so. Let us be content to acquit him of what he evi- dently in 1816 believed the mistake of some subor- dinate, and not imagine for him a strategical stroke of which he knew nothing. Ibid. p. 57. His testimony is no less satisfactory as to the return of D'Erlon towards Ney, of which he simply says, ' it THE 16TH. — COMMENTS. , 133 was another false movement of this corps to do this" when informed of St. Armand being carried.' Not the least allusion is made to any order of Ms own to stay, though had such been given and disobeyed, the incompleteness of his own victory would have had .excellent excuse. In plain fact, it is apparent he had not_c alled D'Erlon 's Corps up, and did not forbid its return to the point on which he had originally ordered it. Thiers, on the testimony of one of the division generals of the corps, that D'Erlon went off in spite of ' nouvelles instances de la droite,^ would have it that Thi. xx. 138, n. in so acting on Ney's pressure, he disregarded Napo- leon's wish. Napoleon's own criticisms, we may be sure, would have told us had this been so. The 'fresh instances ' were not his, it appears from his own nar- rative ; and had he really ordered, we may be quite sure D'Erlon knew his first duty, and would have promptly obeyed. As Charras has well remarked, ciia.p.i74. the mistake of the aide-de-camp alone reconciles the testimony as to the first movement, the consent of Napoleon that as to the second one, which together neutralised the corps for the day. Of the tacti cal repro aches against Blucher, we have not to speak ; and his one strategical mistake at the outset, the loss of Biilow by imperfect orders, has been noticed before. Of Wellington, viewed indi- vidually, it is suflicient to say that his enemy, had matters been'^roperlymanaged, should have attacked 134 WATERLOO LECTURES. him with 20,000 men more, early in the afternoon; and that he at dark, thirty hours after his first warning, ■ had only present at Quatre Bras three^ighths "of~his infantry, one-third of his gun^T^*! orie^eventh of his f^b ^^nq I ^^^^^U- Truly in holding his own, the great Eng- lishman owed ^metlii ng tMt day to F ortune. Here, however, arises a larger question ; for much of the pile of literature on this day's afi'airs owes its origin to the supposed importance of the position of Quatre Bras. Now this importance, in the sense usually meant, is by no means uncontested. In saying this, we offer no opinion of our own, but point to that of Clausewitz, a critic by no means too favourable, it is believed, to the side of Wellington. The sum of the 103-107. observations, in which he has exhaustively treated the question, is that Ney could not have pushed on alone between the Allies without an unreasonable risk ; that his advancing could not_have prevented Wellington from uniting his army at some point beyond ; that in occupying the English general fully he fulfilled his proper task for the day; and that his ' wheeling against the Prussians' was a mere second-thought of Napo- leon's, which assumed ^istakenly t hat he would have no s erious oppos ition at Quatre Bras, and was ordered too late for any possible accomplishment. In this question of time the vie w of the great German critic approaches that of Charras, who has shown that his narrative, that a Prussian officer, on his way with some message at dark on the 16th, was shot by the French near Quatre Bras ; but whether this mes- sage was a sufficient announcement of the retreat must be doubted. ' The whole affair,' in Miiffling's ^"•,^^™- p. 2oOi words, ' was somewhat confused, and was never cleared up;' and from this admission it may be inferred, that 158 WATERLOO LECTURES. some better precautions should have been taken by Gneisenau to acquaint his Ally of the actual condition of affairs. The nature of the country enabling the quiescence of the French on both fields to be observed from the Ante, p. Duke's post, was sufficient reason for the rest he gave his troops before the retreat began. According to MxL.Mim. Muffling, he expected that this would involve severe fighting for the rearguard: but Miiffling's experi- ence of Napoleon's later manner of warfare enabled him to pronounce that the French, after bivouack- ing at dark, would not break up before 10 a.m. ; and the result justified his prophecy. In the Wellington Sup.^Dis. Memorandum of 1842 the illustrious writer infers that the pause of the French was owing to his own success at Quatre Bras the day before, and mentions nothing of any apprehension of his being pressed. But this portion of the Memorandum is far from accurate, erring so widely as to put the advance of the French against his left at between 3 and 4 p.m., and it can hardly be accepted as authentic as the Memoirs* of his German attendant, who wrote upon the campaign with all the freshness of a mind charged with recent events. Wellington's movement from Quatre Bras, the per- * Miiffling's Memoirs, though by his desife not published until after his decease, bear the unmistakable impress of being written (for this portion) not later than 1818-9, probably from the same notes which served for his early history of the campaign. THE 17TH. — COMMENTS. 159 feet way in which his strong cavalry and a single division of infantry masked the retreat of the rest, and the complete order in which he carried off so large and miscellaneous a force from before the face of the most renowned general of the world handling superior numbers, cannot be passed over in our comments. It attracted deserved admiration at the time from Eeportof foreign observers, though its details must be studied to Spanish Govern- in the work of his friendly English critic, Kennedy, ment, who was employed in conducting it, to understand their perfection. Deliberation in movement is hardly Kenn.p. ... -,. 17,18. (as certain admiring commentators on the preceding events believe) the perfection of a general's qualities, see for example, But the deliberation of the mornmg of the 17th had Hooper, p. 81. a special object, and was justified by the reasons already stated. For the rest, there is nothing in the day's work of Wellington on which it is necessary to enlarge further. The crown of the wise str ategy which bade hi m halt to fight at Waterloo was y et to be won. The next day would show whether the mutual confidence of the Allies, and their unshaken resolve to join as soon as possible in a decisive blow, were to redeem the errors made at the outset of the campaign. We have seen that Napoleon, as late as noon, was in complete ignorance of the strategical com- bination of his enemies. When he did at length give Grouchy positive orders, they were for, a point 160 WATEELOO LECTURES. See Map. wliich. threw him (as a glance at the Map will show) to the T^t of and outside the line which the Prus- sians had taken, and left him at night much further from "Waterloo than they. These orders too were not given until midday, and the verbal one not very long Thi. XX. before. The letter indeed, according to Thiers, was delivered before 11 a.m. ; but the same historian says that Napoleon, on despatching it, galloped off from Bry Ante, p. to Marbais, a ride of less than two miles, and thence 147. Cha.p.206. sent his second letter to Ney, dated ' at noon.' Grouchy has himself protested against the notion of his having obtained these instructions before noon, and his statement is exactly confirmed by that of Gerard, Ibid. Note, a witucss in most points unfavourable to him, who ciia.p.205. received his own order 'towards half-past twelve.' Quin. p. 1^^- Charras and Quinet have exposed fully the men- M(5m. ix. 94. dacious deception of the 'Memoires' version, which, by omitting the hour of Grouchy's movement, and coupling its mention with the morning orders to Ney (falsely said to be given a lapointe du jour), is designed to impress the reader with the idea that Grouchy was sent off soon after daybreak, and wilfully halted long at Gembloux. "We need not, therefore, follow this matter further. Those of their countrymen to whom the works of these critics are accessible have no * It is at this point that Thiers attacks Grouchy's accuracy as to hours. If that Marshal has not always been accurate, he has, at least, a better excuse than the historian, who contradicts him here with one of his usual vague phrases, ' d'apres les indications les plus certaines,' without naming any special authority whatever. THE 17TH. — COMMENTS^. 161 longer an excuse for being blinded on this head. Even Thiers has not attempted here to follow the imperial author whose veracity he commends. His own version would but put Napoleon's order an hour earlier than the admitted time, making, on so wretchedly wet an evening as that which followed, no practical diflference in the position taken up at Gem- bloux. It must be noted here, that among the charges heaped by the 'Memoires' upon Grouchy, is M^m. ix. that of having only made two leagues that afternoon ; but, in fact, the distance from the village of St. Aifuand, where part of Yandamme's corps lay, to the quarters they occupied that night on the north side of Gembloux, was really more tha n eight m iles, and Beig. Gov the march was made in heavy rain through a narrow ^^^^" lane, as before mentioned. ff'^ p- ' 149. Thiers, in describing the movement, has raised against the Mai'shal three distinct charges of his own, abandoning those of the 'Memoires' to oblivion. Hav- tm. : ing assumed beforehand that Grouchy 'lacked entirely the sagacity required in an officer of advance-guard charged with the look-out of an army,' he blames him, first for not, on receiving his verbal orders, having pushed a reconnoissance to his left on the road followed by the Prussians of Zieten and Pirch, nor even any to Gembloux ; secondly, for galloping off ' very in- considerately, like a feather-pated fellow ' [comme une tete legere], towards Namur; and lastly, for M XX. 173. 162 WATERLOO LECTURES. allowing Ms infantry to stay too long on the Ligny ground before marching. Only those who discern the final purpose of these attacks would understand the importance the historian attaches to them, thrown as they are into his narrative with a light dexterity which hides the appearance of the writer's art. That purpose is best shown by the introductory sentence of this part of the narrative, which we quote entire as the Thi. XX. pith of the argument : ' Three cavalry reconnoissances, one on Namur, two on "Wavre [by the roads of Tilly and Gembloux, just spoken of], would have in a few hours found out what was going on; and Grouchy, , whom Napoleon had left at 11 a.m., might have kno\vn the truth at 3 or 4 p.m., and between 4 and 9 have got very close to Wavre, or to the left of the Dyle, if he chose to cross that stream, and put himself into the closest possible communication with Napoleon.' Neither this statement, nor the particular allegations which it preludes, can bear the test of comparison with admitted facts. Let us look to these a little closely. Napoleon left Grouchy with his verbal orders, and went straight to Marbais. From Marbais to Tilly is less than a mile, and Napoleon had with him three Ibid. 153. divisions of cavalry. If it was right to send horse along the country roads beyond Tilly (and who can now doubt that it was?) the duty would plainly be Napoleon's own, who was between Grouchy and these THE I7TH. — COMMENTS. 163 roads, and was about, in moving to Quatre Bras, to leave them closer to Ms right than Grouchy to his left. Plainly, they were not reconnoitred because the Emperor did not in th e l east sus p ect th e truth, that thej__w^rethejine to be pursued ; not from any diffi- cul^forfrom any notion that Grouchy, who had been left behind and farther away from them, would sup- ply this omission, made in the same careless confidence which assumed the whole Prussian army to be ' mise Letter to Nsv en deroute.' As to the reconnoitring; of the Gembloux ante, i p. 145. road, the well-known report of a General Berton, who Quoted was one of the cavalry commanders detached early Pr&is by Berton. by Napoleon, shows that this had been done at 9 a.m., LSben s. p. 228, and and that Prussians had been found near that place. It Cha.p.i92. could have been of no use for Grouchy to report what was already known. His proceeding on first taking his command, and whilst awaiting the defiling of his infantry out of Ligny and St. A['mand, to inquire personally as to the truth of the reports sent up by Pajol froin the Namur road , so far from being ' incon- siderate,' was so obvious a necessity in the absence of definite orders, that had all gone well with the French it might have been used to prove the sagacity of Grouchy and that of the Emperor, who selected an ofiicer so suited for this particular duty. The charge as to the needless delay of the infantry is directly disproved by Gerard's narrative, already referred to. Ante, which Thiers has elsewhere not omitted to use. 164 WATERLOO LBCTUEES. That distinguished oflficer, whose testimony leans, where there is any doubt, against Grouchy, declares See Grig, in that he 'kept close to Vandamme, for whom he had Cha.p.l93, ^ to wait, and the troops arrived as soon as was hu- 206, Ante, p. 150. manly possible in the torrents of rain and over fright- ful roads.' The evidence, however, which completely absolves Grouchy from any charges of error in delay, and which renders a more detailed disproof of these^raost super- fluous, lies in the simple words of his written orders : See Orig.in ' Movc to Gembloux. You wiU reconnoitre the roads Cha.p.l92. to Namur and Maestricht, and will follow up the enemy.' Grouchy 's conduct, his position that even- ing, and his occupation by cavalry of Perwez and Sart-les-Walhain, were the exact performance of these orders. The weather, and the hour at which they were received, must bear the rest of the responsibility. It was not Grouch ywho put the movement ofi^ until the fine half of the_summer day;^ was spent. It was not Grouchy who sent Grouchy to Gembloux instead of through Tilly toward Wavre, or across the Dyle. It was not Grouchy who ordered reconnoissances to the_easti_and n one to the west in the space between him and his main army. In our narrative we have made no mention of any further instructions sent to the Marshal that day. As Briai. Historiaus of many nations — historians who have no 409. national predilections to indulge — have been led THE I7TH. — SUMMARY. 165 astray by the positive assertions of the two St. Helena narratives, that an order aiid its duplicate Gom-g. p. were sent to Grouchy during the night, at an in- M^m- in- terval of four hours, acquainting~Ium with the coming battle, and instructing him how best to co- operate. The second version even goes so far as to name the number of men which Grouchy was to detach towards the Emperor's right ! If these tales have passed with critics of other nations, we can hardly blame Thiers for admitting them into his Thi. xx. history, in the teeth of the exposure of their falsity Cha.p.329. by Charras. As Quinet has written later than either, however, we may quote what he says, to which we believe it would be difficult to add weight by a word of our own: ' The two officers sent by Napoleon ^^^ were never seen by Grouchy. No one has ever been able to give their names. The orders they are as- serted_ to have carried are not to be found registered in the staff records. What is still more to the purpose, in the despatches which followed, Napoleon made no mention whatever of these orders of the night. He does not insist upon their execution. He does not even refer to them, contrary to invariable custom.' In brief, they are manifest inventions. Summary. To resume the events of the 17th. Napoleon in the morning believed the Prussians retreating in dis- 166 WATEELOO LECTURES. order on Namur and Liege, and, though intending now to turn against the English, thought it un- desirable to push his tired troops this day beyond Quatre Bras. He directed Ney, therefore, to seize that post, if only held by a rearguard; but should the EngHsh army stand there, he himself would, on its being reported, move against their flank to crush them. It was near noon before he took any deci- ded step, by moving Lobau on to the Quatre Bras road, and by giving Grouchy charge of 33,000 men, with verbal orders to follow the Prussians. Before 'this hour the Prussians were collecting at ^avre, and were perfectly secure from any molestation for to-day. Before this hour, WeUington had begun an orderly retreat on Waterloo, where he wished to fight a defensive action; so that Napoleon's own advance against the English, and positive orders to Ney at noon to do the same, were too late to entangle even the rearguard. When leaving for Quatre Bras, resolved at last to follow WeUington up. Napoleon ordered Grouchy to march on Gembloux; but he quite omitted to reconnoitre the roads between the Marshal's line a nd his own, by which the whole of Zieten and Pir ch's corps had gone to Wav re. Grouchy only at 2 a^. on the 18th had made up his mind to march after daylight that morning in the direction of Wavre, having been much conftised by the reports of the evening before, but laelieving some of the THE 17TH SUMMAEY, 167 Prussians, at any rate, endeavouring to keep near "Wellington. "Wellington, before deciding to fight on his chosen ground next day, had had the full assu- rance of hearty co-operation from Blucher. He had brought together about 68,000 men only, but had 18,000 more of his field army on detachment ten miles to his right, and 90,000 Prussians (at the lowest estimate of Blucher's force) as near to his left; whilst Napoleon's fighting strength was re- duced (after deducting losses and Gerard's division, left at Ligny) to 72,000 men; and his only possible aid was from Grouchy's 33,000 men, who were all but double* the distance from him that Blucher's army was, and this owing to his own orders.-'^ He was in ignorance of fEePrussian doings and'Hesigns. There is not_a tittle of e vidence to confirm, and every reason to disbelieve, his story that he sent fresh orders~that night to Grouchy. Weighing all these facts fairly, it appears the inevitable deduction that the Allies had now thoroughly outmanoeuvred their enemy, and that their better strategy and his own mistakes during the day had placed him at a fearful disadvantage in the struggle of the morrow^ * Full fourteen miles as the crow flies — the Prussians not more than eight. 168 WATERLOO LECTURES. LECTURE VI. EVENTS OF THE 18TH — COMMENTS — SUMMARY. The early daylight showed Napoleon the army of his 9,dversary motionless in its position. The English had passed the rainy night in much discomfort ; but his own soldiers, almost destitute of firewood, had Cha.p.2io. suffered still more from the downpour of rain, which only ceased at about 4 a.m. On the report of his artillery officers, that the ground would require some hours before the guns could move on the muddy fields, Napoleon delayed the preparations for the battle, though his troops were put under arms at an early hour. He expressed his satisfaction at the firm countenance of the English, discussed his intended manoeuvres, and counted up confidentlj^ his chances Mim. ix. of success. He had in his whole air and bearing the Got^g.p. manner of one who scented a coming triumph, and 72 Th'i.xx. felt no touch of fear of such an unexpected disaster as might follow the arrival of a fresh army on his flank. No allusion is mentioned, even in his own narratives, as made by him that morning, to any pos- sible aid from Grouchy, nor any sign that he thought EVENTS OP THE 18TH. 169 the Prussians near. After receiving a report from his chief engineer, General Haxo, that no signs of intrenchments were to be seen in the enemy's posi- tion, he dictated his orders for the battle, and pro- ceeded soon after 8 a.m. to marshal his troops in array in three grand lines, in the most deliberate manner, upon the slope opposite the position of Wel- lington. We need not give the particulars of this parade, which nearly all writers have taken directly from his own glowing description, revealing at its close the real purpose of this display : ' The spectacle M^m. ix. was magnificent; and the enemy, who was so placed as to behold it down to the last man, must have been struck by it; the army must have seemed to him double in number what it really was.' There is no doubt that he sought to affect beforehand the spirits of the unsounder portion of the' motley army opposed to him; as he strove, at the same time, to raise those of his own soldiers, by making a personal inspection of them corps by corps, and appealing to their enthu- siasm. Wellington, in his quieter fashion, was as active as his antagonist. His troops had also been under arms as soon as their enemy, and his staff from the earliest hour busy in placing each brigade in its Sib. i. 327. assigned position, so as to give full weight to the value of the whole, and check the enemy effectually until Blucher's promised aid should arrive. The communication between the Allies was un- 170 WATEELOO LECTURES. broken. Whilst Wellington made an early survey of his line of defence, General Muffling was engaged in preparing a proposal for the co-operation of the ^^■42"'^™' Prussians, so as to use it with the greatest effect. Miiff. Hist. rjj^^g scheme provided for each of the three probable cases of the day in the following manner : — (1.) Should the enemy attack Wellington's right, the See Map. Prussians were to march upon Ohain, a point beyond his left, and on the shortest road to it from Wavre ; thus arriving without interruption, and supporting him with a reserve equal to the whole force attack- ing, and able to act freely on the open ground before Waterloo, as required. (2.) Should he attack Wellington's centre or left, one Ibid. Prussian corps was to march by St. Lambert and Lasne, and take the French on the right flank, whilst another body by Ohain supported the English. (3.) Should the enemy (instead of pressing the English) march on St. Lambert, the key-point of the country between Wavre and Waterloo, thus threaten- ing to separate the Allies, then the Prussians would stand there to receive him in front, whilst Welling- ton, advancing direct from Waterloo, would take him in flank and rear. At half-past 11, Napoleon was seen moving to an attack, seemingly directed against the centre ; and word was sent forthwith to Blucher that the second case was occurring, and that the Prussians were to EVENTS OF THE 18TH. 171 act accordingly. Muffling had just now heard from comp.Mii. Wavre that Btilow led the advance, and he charged is, & Pr. 1 • -T 1 1 ^ 1 , . 1 OfiF.58, 75. ms aide-de-camp to show that general his letter to Blucher : but the Marshal himself was in front, and proceeded forthwith to take the needful steps. Long before Napoleon went into battle he had evidently had reports of Zieten's march off from Ligny, and received Grouchy's two night reports from Gembloux, already mentioned. It must have been Ante, p. 150. to the last of these, the missing one, that he replied in his morning instructions, dated 10 a.m. : ' You only speak of two Prussian columns which have c^^^^^^fje" passed through Sauveni^re and Sart-les-Walhain. o^C!iaus.p. [In Grouchy's first letter he spoke of three columns, See ante, and mentioned other places.] Yet reports inform me of a third of some strength, going by Gentinnes on Wavre. The Emperor is about to attack the English, who have taken up position at Waterloo. Therefore His Majesty desires you to direct your movements upon Wavre, in order to come near to us, and connect yourself with our operations, push- ing before you the Prussian corps which have taken this direction, and which may have stopped at Wavre, where you are to arrive as soon as possible. Follow up~the enemy who have just gone to your right, by some light corps, to observe their movements and pick up stragglers. Do not omit^to^ke^up your communication with us.' Thus Napoleon, though 172 WATEKLOO LBCTOEBS. now made aware that some of the retreating Prus- sians had moved in a line parallel to his own, still looked on these as a mere detachment, andclung to the delusion that a great part at least of Blucher's troops had separated from them and gone eastward. Far from any such guess were the reahties of the hour. Round Wavre that morning nearly 100,000 of his enemies were preparing to join in the coming battle. The country between Wavre and the field of iVaterloo resembles in its character certain well-known jarts of Devonshire, being broken into rounded lulls, vith patches of wood upon their slopes, and traversed PVs i ■ Miiff. Hist, duct, which time has not cleared away ; for the mis- Kenn. take which he admitted himself to have made in neglecting to strengthen La Haye Sainte, he repaired Ante, p. on the spot by personal exertion when he found it a cause of danger. In fine, the noble concert of opera- tions between the Allies, with the tactical readiness of THE 18TH". —SUMMARY. 209 Wellington, fully atoned for his one error of strategy. The great victory was no chance issue, as French vanity would make it; nor the mere spoil, as some of our countrymen have thought, of dogged, unaided courage. To those who look fairly at its history, it stands proved the fairly won prize of a combination of valour, skill, and mutual support, such as the world had never witnessed before in allied armies led by independent generals. Summary. The events of June 18 are not as much intricate in reality as overlaid and obscured by controversy. A judicial examination of the evidence viewed impartially brings out the following facts, the proofs of which have been already given fully. Whilst Wellington calmly waited the attack of his enemy, secure in the present goodness of his position and of the succour promised him by Blucher, Napoleon , al l ignorant of the Allied design, believed he had but_ to deal with the 70,000 troops be fore him^ and spen t i the first half of the day in delay and parade, with th e double purpose of allowing the grou nd to dry up partially, and of imposing on the weak_.and_doub|iiil contingents by a show_of strength. Meanwhile, the Prussians, though starting less early than was intended, were, for the most part, well upon their way to the p 210 WATERLOO LECTURES. field, where Biilow might have arrayed all his divi- sions early in the afternoon, but for the accident of their delay in the streets of Wavre, and the mistake of posting them, though they were to lead the march, oh TIie"^WTong side of that_town the night before. Grouchy, starting at the same hour as the Prussians, had moved from Gembloux on Sart-les-Walhain, un- certain at first how far northward he should push in his search for them ; but soon gathering information that they had actually gone to Wavre in great force, he resolved to continue his march thither. He had received no instructions fi-om his master since the written order to proceed to Gembloux : and the single letter, dispatched to him that morning, after stating that the E mperor wa s about to engag e the English, ^ordered him^o move on Wavre, an d to follow up by light troops the enemy's columns which had gone to his rig-ht: showinq' that Napoleon, likft his lien ten ant, attached little importance to the district-Jbflfc geen_ them to the latter's left, where the Prussian ou tposts reallyT^. Long before this letter was received the sound of the battle was heard, and the Marshal was pressed to march towards the firing : his decision not to do this, but to go on to Wavre where the Prussians were last heard of, was the natural consequence of the original orders which he had received, directing him to pursue them, and exactly anticipated those which were on their way. Had he chosen otherwise he THE I8TH SUMMARY. 211 might possibly have becdme engaged with, and de- tained two corps of the Prussians, instead of the one which he fought afterwards at Wavre ; but to suppose him justified in doing this is simply to suppose that he knew better than Napoleon himself, what Napoleon wished at the time that the battle began. Meanwhile the E mperor, having thus directed Grouchy on a line upon which that day he could be of n^jmmediate service in. the^acticavcoouosnced-it by his first attack, that made upon the British risiit and HougoumoBt.. This was only preparatory to the second, the essay of D'Erlon's strong and intact corps against the British left. Before this last began, the leading division of Billow showed itself at St. Lambert: but though it was seen by Napoleon, his 1 p.m. letter to Grouchy, written at this juncture with the vagueness of indecision, permitted the march to Wavre to go on, yet directed the Marshal (an order contradictory to this approval) to manceuvre towards the Emperor's right, so as to be ready to crush any hostUe troops which might seek to disturb it. A sudden postscript, added on the capture of the Prussian messenger, revealed the fatal truth now first understood, and called on Grouchy for instant help. Yet _even_±hjerL_ Napoleon. Jg-nor^- to -his Jieuienant;_and probably to Jiim?£lf) the, j4l?!a5§_ of any other enemies, than the single cprps^of Biilow. And this . letter, though a horseman might have p 2 212 WATERLOO LECTURES. ridden round the Prussians to Grouchy in two hours, was not delivered until 6 or 7 p. m,, when the Marshal was irretrievably committed to the battle at Wavre, and that at Waterloo practically decided. To meet the new danger Napoleon detached 10,000 of his reserve, increased afterwards to 16,000, to cover his right rear. No attempt was made to arrest the enemy in their passage over the deep valley of the Lasne: yet so difficult was this by nature, and so many the obstacles to Blucher's movement, that it took three hours from the first appearance of Biilow on St. Lambert before half his coi'ps were brought into action. For three hours more an action of great ' severity raged between him and the troops of Lobau, decided only finally by the coming up of Pirch to the support of the assailants. The second attack of the French having been de- cisively repulsed by Picton's infantry, their cavalry, unsupported, engaged the British centre. The mur- derous loss to that splendid arm which resulted from their useless assaults of our squares, was not actually the consequence of Napoleon's orders, nor of Ney's : but both _ pern iitted the ,.yam_ charges to he repeated until the horsemen^were all but tQtally_^de- ^stro^eSZTThenext and fourth grand attack, under Ney's direction, lodged the French in La Haye Sainte, and peneti'ated for a moment the British line beyond. But Napd[eonj either xe&ti:aiiied±^_Bl^ pres- THE 18TH. — SUMMAEY. 213 sure on Fltocenoit, or not discerning his adva nta ge in time, held his last reserve back; and Wellinsrton skilfully repaired the gap, Zieten soon afterwards appeared on the extreme English left, releasing two brigades of cavalry not yet engaged, which did good service soon after in the final rout. After some short delay caused by a mistake, he formed a decisive attack upon the right wing of the French and routed it, just as the small body^of reserve which JJapoleoBr-SiJ-feept^in hand^ to th e last made _ the final attempt upon the Eiiglish right centre, which has been well called ' the last madness of despair.' There is no reason to believe that this attack of the Guard could have shaken the line of Wellington, which was thoroughly made up at that point by troops brought in from the extreme wings. If the British army was actually in See the — . ~ — rr ~ authoritiea a critical state that day (as the testimony o f all wit- refen-edto, nesses but those of its own nation goes to prove), it 202.' was at an earlier period, just after the enemy had carried La Haye Sainte. The effect produced on the French by the repulse of the Guard and the sudden onslaught of Zieten, was completed by the general advance, for which Wellington, with the instinct of genius, suddenly forsook his attitude of defence; and defeat was turned into a tide of panic and an unex- ampled rout when Blucher's columns soon after 214 WATERLOO LECTURES. poured through Plancenoit across the sole line of escape open to the fugitives. If Wellington in this battle had shown some over- confidence in the needless detachment which weakened his line, the energy of his ally, the firmness of his choicer troops, his own masterly adroitness in tactics, had redeemed the error if they did not whoUy justify it. Nor let it be forgotten by English writers, that to the early display of Prussian force it was due that their countryman's battle was waged against an army less by 16,000 than Napoleon had drawn up; nor that the ardour of our Ally to redeem the delays of the road and share ia the combat, cost Blucher's forces 6,999 by iust 7,000 men in an action which lasted barely four Pr. Off. ■' S _ •' p. 85. hours. Of Napoleon on the 18th June it stands clearly proved, that his management of the attacks was so iniperfect that his advocates would fain charge the details to his lieutenants; that he neglected the only hope of arresting Blucher at the passage of the Lasne; and that he prolonged the battle uselessly until safe retreat was impossible. To sum up shortly : had it been any other general that acted thus on that eventful day, it would long ago have been plainly said that his tactics in the battle were as defective as the strategy which placed him in it at such fearful odds. EETREAT OF GROUCHY. 215 LECTURE VII. THE EETEEAT OE GROUCHY TO EEANCB. — COMMENTS. — CONCLUDING REFLECTIONS. — SUMMARY OF THE CAMPAIGN. To foUow the broken fortunes of Napoleon and his soldiery beyond the night of their great disaster, -would be of small profit for our purpose. The best comment on the completeness of the ruin which befel them is contained in the simple mention of the occurrences which pressed closely on its heels. Deserting the wreck of his army the Emperor fled to Paris, hoping apparently, when once more at the seat of govern- ment, to rally a force sufficient to defend it, at least for a time. If these illusions were really entertained by him (whose restless brain had held many schemes as wild), they were not shared by his few supporters. Neither he nor his faithful troops were destined again to draw sword in the lost cause of the Empire. Ar- riving, on the third morning after the battle, at the agitated capital, scarcely recovered from the tremen- dous shock which the first news of Waterloo inflicted. Napoleon plunged for the last time into the maze of politics, to the domain of which the history of the fol- 216 WATERLOO LECTURES. lowing events belongs. It is sufficient for our pur- pose to add, that tlie tide set so strongly against him as to force him to abdicate on the following day, the Thi. XX.. 22nd. A week later, he was a fugitive from Paris, 437, 439, . . whither the vengeful Prussians were pressing in hopes of seizing his person, and where the Provisional Go- vernment of the hour refused all his offers of advice or service. Leaving him on his way to the hopeless exile which was a necessary condition for the peace of the world, we turn back to review the last of the military events connected with his irruption into Belgium. These do not relate to the troops overthrown at Waterloo. It would profit us little to know how many of the fugitives gathered at Philippeville, how many at Laon, or who took the chief share in rallying them. A mass of soldiers formed of the fragments of regi- ments and corps, deprived of their officers, their arms thrown away, and suffering themselves from the depressive influence of utter defeat, could count for little as obstacles to the victorious torrent pouring into France across her northern frontier. It would be to add to the curiosities of military literature, and not its useful lessons, were we to trace in detail the exact numbers that were collected, and the different leaders they obeyed. Let us turn rather to follow that dis- tinct and unbroken force under Grouchy, which had escaped partaking in the national disaster. EETREAT OF GROUCHY. 217 We left this Marshal after a sharp encounter, begun Ante, some hours later than the battle of Waterloo, and pro- ^' longed until dark, with the passage of the Dyle at Limal in his hands, though it was won too late to pass over more than the left wing of his army. He had no news of the Emperor since the missive came which was closed on the capture of Billow's mes- senger. He was left, therefore, for the night to in- dulge in the extreme of hope or fear, as fancy might lead him. At break of day, Thielemann, believing it still pos- Pr. Off. •11 11 P- ®*' sible to recover the lost passage, attacked the French ciaus. P- 138. before Limal with all the troops in hand. But Grouchy (^ a.m. •' Grouchy's had used the hours of the night to file his divisions Report, Doc. 153.) across the stream, and was in far superior force upon the left bank. The Prussians were easily repulsed, and the French Marshal, still ignorant of his master's fall, deployed on the ground just won with methodical care, and took the offensive with resistless strength. In vain the Prussian general, driven fi'om his first position, took up a second near to Wavre. This, too, had just been carried, when, between 8 and 9 pr. off. a.m., authentic intelligence reached him from Pirch ^' of the great result of the day before. In hopes of checking the still sharp pressure of Grouchy, he caused his troops to cheer loudly, and to advance in ciaus. . . p. 139. their turn as though already m receipt of succour. The French, on their side, either did not understand 218 WATERLOO LECTURES. the signal, or chose to discredit it, and the battle went on unslackened. Wavre was now abandoned to them, and a third position occupied by Thielemann. But a fresh force of French (part of Vandamme's troops) debouching through the town, turned this Pr. OS. also by its left, and made their enemy fall back a third time, and begin a regular retreat to the north- east by the Louvaia road, which he justly hoped soon to change for a pursuit when Grouchy should know Ibid, and ^hc truth. This reached the Marshal about 11 a.m., Doe. 154. ' when, according to his own narrative, he was pre- paring (for he considered the enemy now retiring to be disposed of for the present) to turn west- ward to his left and march direct upon Brussels. The messenger dispatched by Napoleon the night before from near Charleroi to carry the tidings of his defeat, told the Marshal that such force as was left to Ibid. the Emperor was retreating to the Sambre. Hardly had Grouchy checked his advance when he learnt that the Prussians were already upon that river, and occupying the whole country to his left flank and Ant6,p^ rear. Their advance in fact, as we had seen, thanks 186. to Gneisenau's resistless energy, had pushed within a few miles of Charleroi before daylight ; nor whilst occupied with the direct pursuit of the beaten Empe- ror, had the Prussian Staff wholly forgotten that his Marshal yet remained to be dealt with. At the close of the battle, Pirch, whose corps had contributed so RETREAT OE GROUCHY. 219 powerfully to the final success which carried Blucher on to the French line of retreat, was halted. His cavalry, indeed, was in great part employed with all other available horse to press the pursuit through Genappe towards Charleroi : but with the bulk of his ^J"- off- ^ p. 84, 8p:' troops, the general was directed to face about, and march across country on Sombrefi^e, in order to cut Grouchy off from the Sambre. This order was so far obeyed that the troops set off that night, crossing the Dyle as soon as it was fairly daylight, at the bridge of Bousval, and at 11 a.m. on the 19th had reached See Map. Mellery, a village nine miles in a direct line fi'om Plancenoit, and barely five over an open district from Sombreffe. As the men had been marching or fight- Pr. off. p. ^^ ^ -I 1 o • i i i 85 and 99. mg ail the day beiore, it was absolutely necessary to mss. Hist. p. 43. halt here for rest and breakfast. Pirch had with him only 16,000 men; a brigade of infantry, and all his cavalry except nine squadrons, having been carried off towards Genappe. Whilst he rested, his patrols were pushed out towards Wavre, but could only learn that the enemy were there in great force and still occupied Mont St. Guibert. Unable, or unwilling, in the absence of horse, to act in any enterprising man- ner, he resolved to wait for news of Thielemann, to whom he sent various messengers : but these were un- iMd. able to get round or through the French, and his halt therefore lasted aU the rest of the day. About the same hour that Pirch reached Mellery, 220 WATERLOO LECTDRES. inte, p. Grouchy, as already shown, learnt his master's defeat and his own danger. The battle of Wavre had left him but 30,000 fighting men. To his right front were about 13,000 under Thielemann, whose losses had been heavy. To his left, towards St. Lambert, another body of Prussians had just appeared, being. Ante, in fact, no other than that division of Thielemann's Pr. o^.\ corps which had gone on towards Waterloo the day before, and had now turned back to try and aid their in^Doc.^ chief. Unknown numbers of the Prussians (Pirch's in fact) were reported as on his flank, beyond Mont St. Guibert ; and escape by the route over which the army had entered Belgium was altogether out of the question. The situation might well appear desperate to the hardiest commander, and might almost have Jha.p.364. justified the wild proposal attributed to Yandamme, of marching direct on Brussels, with the view of crossing the whole rear of the Allies, and escaping between the western flank of their armies and the sea. Grouchy's resolve was not only wiser than this, but was fully justified by the success which fol- lowed it. Of this unhappy soldier, long after he was laid in the grave, the ablest and bitterest of the historians who follow Napoleon in blackening his lieutenants' names, has written thus: 'Gifted with coup d'oeil and vigour in action, he had no discernment in the general direction of operations, and was especially RETREAT OF GROUCHY. 221 deficient in the sagacity necessary for the ofiicer of an advance guard charged with the look-out of an Thi. 1 7S army.' "We need hardly say that we are quoting from Thiers, who thus attempts to assassinate his victim's fame in the general, before commencing those attacks in detaU on his conduct during the eventful march from Ligny to Wavre, which we have shown to be as untenable in fact, as unjust in spirit. Leav- ing controversy as to the possibilities of the two previous days aside, it remains to be seen how the Marshal really acted when left alone to his own judgment in the midst of victorious armies, with the roads over which the French had advanced already lost, his enemies aware of his dangerous condition, and no means of extricating himself from it but such as lay in a cool head and vigorous exe- cution ; in short, in that very ' discernment in the general direction of operations ' in which the historian declares him especially deficient. Retreat in the Charleroi direction being closed, that through the mass of the Ardennes seemed to present itself as the best means of escaping the Allied pursuit : but the French had no supplies which could maintain them in a country where subsistence was not to be picked up by the way. There remained but one hope. The fortress of Namur had been abandoned by the Prussians in their haste to con- centrate on Ligny, and they had by their subsequent 222 WATERLOO LECTURES. march northward left it uncovered. Could Grouchy once regain Sombreffe before the Prussians seized that point, he would have a clear passage along the great chaussde which led from Mvelles into the place, with an equally good one beyond it up the Meuse by which to escape ; and his rear, covered by the works, Doc. 154. might file safely into France. Seizing rapidly at Cha, p. 363. this hope, he despatched his chief cavalry officer. General Excelmans, with seven regiments of dra- goons, to ride at speed on Namur and seize the works. With Gerard's corps the Mai'shal followed, and by a forced march reached Sombreflfe the same evening, leaving Vandamme at Wavre to cover the rear. Thielemann had committed himself so far on the road to Louvain after his fight of the morning, that he ciaug. decided not to move again this day, being ready to (who pre- *^ j ? o j seiit)p.i4o. believe (according to the best testimony) that he could not miss overtaking the enemy's rearguard on the morrow, and his soldiers being much exhausted by the long-continued and unequal engagement, in which his corps had lost 2,500 of its number. But Vandamme did not wait till morning should Pr. Off. bring the attack. At 5 p.m. he commenced his cha.p. 365. retreat unmolested, and at midnight took up his bivouac at Gembloux for a few hours' rest. His march was observed by the nearest division of the Prussians, that which had returned from St. Lambert to rejoin Thielemann, and by them reported to the RETREAT OF GEOUCHY. 223 latter general, who gave orders to pursue at day- light. On the 20th the French continued their retreat in cha. p. 366, 368, two columns. Vandamme, quitting Gembloux at 7 who writes ' ^ *= from the a.m. after a somewhat unnecessary delay, marched ™poi^tsin across country on Namur by a direct by-road, a^'^'^i^es. Grouchy, waiting probably till he knew his lieuten- ant to be on his way, moved from Sombreflfe along the high road about the same hour. Both were at- tacked before they reached the fortress, the Marshal himself being overtaken a short distance from the fortress by the advance guard of Pirch, which had left Mellery soon after 5 a.m., on learning that the enemy Pr. ofF. were moving on Namur. The same caution which had kept that general motionless all the day before when within two hours' march of the road traversed by the retreating French, seems to have hampered him still. His troops did not succeed in engaging the enemy's rearguard until 4 p.m., about which hour Thielemann's cavalry, having passed through Gem- bloux, overtook the tail of Yandamme's column, but having no infantry with them, were unable to make any serious impression upon it. At 6 p.m. the whole of the French had passed within the works of Namur, with little loss but that of two or three light guns. Indignant possibly at the result of his own slowness, iKd. o tr J Cha. p. 368. Pirch directed an immediate assault upon the walls, ciaus. p. 141. in hopes of carrying the place before the enemy 224 WATERLOO LECTURES. abandoned it : but Vandamme, entrusted by Grouchy Ibid. with the duty of covering with his own corps and Miiff. Hist. Teste's division the retreat of the army, defended p. a. . •' the walls too vigorously for such a rash attack to succeed; and after losing over 1,600 men, the Prus- ciaus. sians desisted from an attempt which it is hard (ac- p. 143. , . , ^ _ , , ^ cording to their great national writer) to justify under the circumstances. After this they pressed no more on Grouchy, who made his way unmolested up the See Map. Mcuse to Dinant, and thence by Givet into the heart of France, having accomplished, with a very trifling loss, one of the most surprising escapes from a very critical position which modem history records. It was not until the 21st that his troops once more drew regular rations ; nor did he receive any instruc- tions for his guidance tiE. the 23rd, when orders Cha.p.369. from Soult directed him to continue his march on Soissons. Comments. The same hard master who was the first to assert Grouchy's incompetence for command, has uncon- sciously left on record his own vivid impression at the time of the immiuence of the danger to which See Grig, in the Marshal was abandoned. ' I have heard nothing OT ciaus?^' at all of Grouchy,' wrote Napoleon from Philippeville, ^" ^*^" in an often quoted letter addressed to Joseph on the day after his defeat. ' If he is not taken (as I fear he is), I can get together in three days 50,000 men.' EETEEAT OF GROUCHY. — COMMENTS. 225 Although the event was so diflferent from the Em- peror's anticipation, it will not surprise the student of the M^moires to find that in the lengthy ' Observa- tions ' they contain upon the events of the campaign, not a word is given in praise of the condemned lieu- tenant's prompt and successful march. It is more important for us here to note for warning how little the class of French historians who follow the Exile of St. Helena in his general views, have improved upon his candour. Thiers, who can find space to devote tm. xx. ' ^ 357, 368, sixteen pages to his arguments that Grouchy should and 290- have marched direct on Waterloo, has given to the whole particulars of the Marshal's escape just thirty- one lines, and these so divided, without any appearance ibid. 272 . . . , . , and 400. 01 art, into separate parts 01 his text, as to make it difficult to trace this important operation (in which at least 60,000 men were actually concerned) in the history which glows with profuse and vivid details of all other successful French marches ! Nor is this dishonesty wholly of a negative character. His brief narrative, so far from giving any credit to the Marshal, is prefaced with the treacherous words, ' Gi'ouchy, who had been looked upon as lost, es- caped from the enemy by the most happy and un- foreseen of chances.' Truly, to write thus in cold blood of one long dead, is to carry the animosity of personal controversy into the very grave itself! It would seem, indeed, as though he could not Q 226 WATEKLOO LECTURES. forgive Marshal Grouchy for contradicting by his action during this episode of the campaign the re- proaches heaped upon him for not divining better than his master the movements of the Allies before the battle. % Charras, who is never content with vague criticism, has declared that the second day's march of the French on thoir retreat was less rapid than their ^"223 danger should have made it. The blame, however, Cha.p.366. of the delay about Gembloux that morning is fixed by him upon Vandamme, who kept his superior wait- ing for him — a fact that exonerates Grouchy from this single imperfection alleged in his conduct of the ibid.p.367. movement. This critic (here, as often, followed very closely by Hooper) does not omit to point out, in the plainest terms, that the French escape was rendered comparatively easy by negligence on the part of Thielemann, and timidity on that of Pirch. Had the Ante, former kept close to the French from the moment V 222. they ceased to push him towards Louvain ; had the Ante, latter not halted for more than an ordinary rest at p. 219; Mellery ; the one would have discovered the retreat when it first began on the 19th, the other would have planted himself across their path, and placed them in the extremity of danger. It is important here to see what is said of these shortcomings by the historians of the nation to which these generals belonged. MiifHing then takes the EETEEAT OF GROUCHY COMMENTS. 227 fault off their shoulders to lay it rather on those of Miiff. Hist. TD 76 the headquarters staff. The general management of the pursuit he holds to have been wrong. Billow's corps should have been employed for this purpose, and turned off from the Charleroi road at Quatre Bras as early as possible on the 19th. There is no doubt, in the view of this practical writer, that this corps might have reached Sombreffe by 7 a.m., and detaching thence 2,000 cavalry, ' taking as many in- fantry with them on their horses,' to seize Namur, might have gone on to Gembloux, and occupied that place with ease by noon. Had this been done, ' Grouchy would have been compelled to capitulate, or to die sword in hand.' On the other hand, as this had not been thought of at the close of the battle, ' when so total a defeat of the enemy could not have been anticipated,' it is not surprising that the faulty arrangement which detached Pirch with only part of a corps and xmcertain instructions was not modified. The will of the soldier, that important element in war too often ignored by theorists and mHitary his- torians, here came into force ; and to throw any ad- ditional pressure on a force already overworked was held a greater evil than to risk the escape of Grouchy. For the best troops are but men, and there is a point beyond which the instinct of a great commander will teach him not to force those under him by calling for impracticable exertions. As Miiflamg states it, with the Q 2 Clans. p.U2,143. 228 WATEKLOO LECTURES. practical view of one who had seen much service and '^'fi^'^^' reflected on what he had seen, ' strong motives will be found by him who knows what it is to have troops under his command that had been incessantly march- ing and fighting, and who since the 18th had had hardly any rest or food, not hastily to alter disposi- tions which had been once adopted.' In such motives lies the best defence of Blucher and his stafi" for then- omission. Clausewitz is more severe than his countryman upon the conduct of Pirch, who, in his view, should have undoubtedly pushed on from Mellery to Namur on the 19th, and who, instead of wasting his men next day in the rash assault on the town, should have at once turned off to look for a separate passage over the Sambre, which would have brought him on to the flank of Grouchy's long column in its march to Dinant. ' But seldom,' he adds, ' in war is all done that might be done, and the task here assigned to General Pirch was anything but a common one, and would have called for a great degree of energy.' That no attempt was made by Blucher's staff to detach from Charleroi any of the force directly pursuing Napoleon is another fault noticed by this critic — yet hardly, in his view, strictly blameable, since, on the day after the battle, ' too little was known of Grouchy's situation to allow the AlHes to make the cutting him off a chief object in the forthcoming operations.' On Thielemann's EETEEAT OF GROUCHY COMMENTS. 229 share in the affair, Clausewitz, himself Quartermaster- General to that officer, makes no special comment. His narrative (as before noticed) states that Thiele- Ante, p. 219. mann's troops were so thoroughly exhausted after ciaus. ^ ° -^ p. 140. their two days' engagement with Gi'ouchy's large forces, that their chief decided absolutely on the 19th that he would not begin the pursuit that day. To say this, and to add that he expected to overtake them next day, is hardly to excuse it. The real fact is, that these Prussian chiefs of corps had been chosen (as was early shown in our narrative) chiefly for the Ante.p.eo. reason of their certain subordination to Gneisenau, should Blucher be removed. They were unpractised in the separate and responsible commands which fell on them at this epoch, and which might possibly have been at any time beyond their powers. The Prus- sian staff, in fact, had been formed not only to meet the wants of the State, bat the exigencies of a mean professional feeling; and Grouchy reaped the full benefit of the error. Making every allowance for this advantage, and for the Prussian ignorance of his exact force* and position, is it not clear that his escape, begun without hesitation upon the exact point still left open, and brought, with disheartened troops, to such successful issue, shows this much-maligned general to have possessed a large share of that very * Many months after Grouchy was supposed by the Prussians to have had over 40,000 men. (See Muff. Hist. p. 27, ¥ote.) 230 WATEllLOO LECTURES. quality for high command of which Thiers declares him destitute ? Is it not also clear, to all who study the habits of French military historians, that but for the special circumstances of the case, no praise would have been found too high for the energy and dexterity with which their countryman carried his force safely out of the very jaws of destruction? In truth, a candid survey of Grouchy's conduct from the time of his first charge to his escape into France, shows two epochs in his character. His irresolution in the advance appears due solely to the vagueness of Napoleon's instructions, and the vast re- sponsibility they placed on the Marshal, whilst his ac- tion was fettered by fear of transgressing them. Left to his own judgment he seems another man, and rises at once superior to the difficulties in which his master had plunged him. Even the one fault in his advance in which most writers agree — his movement on Gem- bloux without surveying the country to his left in the direction of Napoleon — was the literal fulfilment of the instructions which, even so late as 10 a.m. on Ante, the morning of the battle, made him follow up the enemy's columns ' which had gone to his right.' Na- poleon, it may be said, was himself deceived by Ante, Grouchy's report of Prussians (Billow's corps, no doubt) moving on that side : but Napoleon's own let- ter to Ney of the morning before, and his direction of Grouchy on Gembloux, show clearly that he had CONCLUDING REFLECTIONS. 231 convinced himself that the bulk of the Prussians would do as he desired they should, and retire away from their Allies. In plain truth, never has a single reputation been so grossly sacrificed to salve national vanity as in this matter of Grouchy and Waterloo. So far from earning for him blame, the Marshal's conduct, weighing all the circumstances of the cam- paign, should have crowned his old age with honour. That the result has been so different, is due simply to the popular demand by the French for a scapegoat which should bear the shame cast upon them by their defeat, and to the readiness with which Napoleon sup- plied it in his Heutenant. Concluding Reflections. In closing our survey of this eventful contest there seem to be some points still remaining for final notice. Not that it is necessary to enter again into the particulars of the strategy. They have been fully considered as far as the scope of these lectures permits, and it is needless to review them once more for any purpose of convincing the unwilling. He who maintains that Blucher had his corps disposed ready for the prompt concentration which events required ; or that Wellington made the best arrange- ments possible on the alarm for preventing the enemy from pushing between the Allies; or, above all, that 232 WATERLOO LECTUKBS. Napoleon was not responsible that Grouchy lost sight of the Prussians on the 17th; does so either because he seeks not for the truth, or because, being blinded by previous conviction of his hero's infallibility, he makes his search in vain. Since the Emperor will ever be the true hero of the drama, let us illustrate this in his person. To do so it is only necessary for us here, having traced his errors ia detail, to glance at the ' Observations ' which he bequeathed to the world at the close of his narrative in the Memoires, in order to discover how he failed, on mature consideration years after, and in his last utterance on the subject, to justify his own conduct of the campaign. These ' Observations,' which are delivered with the assumed tone of an impartial critic, are nine ia num- M^m. ix. ber. The first replies to some charges as to his doubtful home policy at this era, and falls outside Ibid. 168. the purely military question. The second praises himself for the boldness and sagacity of his concen- tration and surprise of the Allies : but though just enough here in the general, the correspondence of Wellington and Blucher abundantly shows that he overrated his own secresy greatly when he says that his ' movements were concealed from the enemy's nn^'s^' knowledge up to the opening of the campaign.' This was not the case, as has been shown. That he was allowed so fair a chance by the quiescence of the CONCLUDING REFLECTIONS. 233 Allies in their cantonments must be ascribed rather to their over-confidence than to his own skill. In his third ' Observation,' Napoleon begins with a general accusation of his lieutenants, whose charac- ters he declares to have been deteriorated by circum- stances. Hence, he says, came the delay twice caused by Vandamme's personal faults on the first day, which lost seven hours, and prevented the advance being made as far as Fleurus, ' whither the design of the General-in-Chief had been to place his head- M^m. ix. 159 quarters on this very day.' Now it so happens that Grouchy has complained, in one of his pamphlets, of the second delay of Yandamme, and has thus pro- voked Thiers, anxious at each turn to prove the Marshal incorrect, to draw attention to the positive Thi. xx. ^ 43, m. assertion of Napoleon, in another part of the Me- moires, that he had no intention of ffoinsf further M^m. viii. that day than the point where his troops halted. In thus exonerating Vandamme the national historian unconsciously illustrates the utterly untrustworthy nature of the records of St. Helena. Either Napoleon did intend to push further on, and the reply to a°'^' Rogniat in the eighth volume is false; or else the delay of Yandamme was not, as stated in the ' Obser- vation' we are discussing, 'very unfortunate' (' Men facheuse')^ and this charge is an afterthought invented for a purpose. The rest of the third ' Observation ' relates to the alleged delays of Ney on the 16th and 234 WATERLOO LECTURES. Ante, p. 17th, which have been already shown to be in the 116-119, •' ^^?"iir^z® ' direct fulfilment of his master's orders. and Mfem. IX. 161. -jij^g fourth refers to the distrust entertained of their generals by the French soldiers. Bourmont's desertion is mentioned, and the loss of Waterloo attributed partly to the treacherous cry of sauve qui pent being raised. ' It is equally probable,' it is added, ' that several officers carrying orders disap- peared.' This may indeed be equally probable : but as no writer of weight on any side appears to be im- pressed with the worth of these alleged causes of the defeat, we may be excused from discussing them here as of serious importance. The next deals with the two subjects of Grouchy's march, and of the waste of cavalry at Waterloo. Of the former, though admitting that the Marshal slept at Gembloux and had to move on Wavre, the ex- Emperor declares that he might have been at the latter place at 6 a.m. instead of 4 p.m. It is suffi- cient here to observe that, starting after a good rest, the column actually took 4^ hours to reach Ante, Nil St. Vincent, not quite halfway! For the rest, we may leave the question of the responsibility for Grouchy's conduct as already discussed fully, and r94-2oo. £xed on the right shoulders. We may pass over with it that of the murderous folly which threw the Ante, p. cavalry away, remarking only that what Napoleon 202, 203. ^^^^^ ^ ^^ unfortunate accident ' (' accident facheux ') p. 174. Ante, p. CONCLUDING EEFLECTIONS. 235 would, by any other critic reviewing any other com- mander, be called unhesitatingly a disastrous blunder. With this last accident or error, Napoleon, in this M4m. ix. 165, his latest version, couples his want of a chief of the corps of Guards, mentioned in the former, feeling, as Gourg. p. 94. it is fair to conclude, the necessity for every possible excuse. Of this alleged want enough has been al- See ante, ready said to show that it was eifectively supplied. The remaining four ' Observations ' are animadver- sions upon the conduct of the Allied commanders. They are criticised sharply for their want of infor- mation, their wrong measures in concentrating, and their mistakes in agreeing to the project of fighting at Waterloo, which involved a bad position for Wel- hngton, and a doubt of Blucher's being up in time. M6m. ix. They should have retired, Napoleon asserts, more together after the defeat of Ligny, and, if this were impossible, have united before Brussels instead of at the point selected. If these reflections, which are given at much length, have any weight, they serve but to condemn more deeply the writer, who, against enemies that offered him such opportunities, so miserably failed. To confute this defence, or any founded (as it, after all, is mainly) upon the conduct of Grouchy, it is necessary only to study the facts as they really occurred, divesting oneself of any prepossession for or against Napoleon ; and t];ie truth stands clearly out. Kenn. p. 163. 236 WATEHLOO LECTURES. Not to use the results of the new school of French critics, such as Charras, who may be supposed hostile to the Emperor's fame, let us select from the histo- rians of the other three nations concerned, a single representative ^viiter, as dispassionate in his views as can be found, and trace the identity of their general views as to the reality of the blunder made in the wide and late pursuit prescribed to the Marshal. ' It is perfectly clear,' says Kennedy, ' that Napo- leon acted under two erroneous impi^essions ; for, first, he had no idea that the whole Prussian army was to be put in motion against him from Wavre on the morning of the 18th ; and, second, he had- the full and confident conviction that he was strong enough with the army he had with him to defeat and destroy that of Wellington As to this second alleged error, it may be said that it has not been proved that he was wrong iu supposing that he would have defeated "Wellington, had Wellington not been supported by the Prussians. But this does not materiaUv affect the question, it haviag been clearly proved that, even had the result been ultimately favourable to Napoleon, the struggle would haye been so desperate, and the loss on both sides so enormous, that Napoleon's calculation was erroneous iti not having brought against Wellington every man and horse that it was possible for him to collect.' CONCLUDING REFLECTIONS. 237 Kennedy is here speaking of the Emperor's ap- Ante, proving Grouchy's continued movement on Wavre, by his letter written just before the battle began ; and the argument seems completely unanswerable. It is clear that he knew nothing of the Prussian flank march ; it is no less clear that he felt certain of being able to dispense with Grouchy. His strategy was, therefore, faulty in two vital points. This judgment was delivered after nearly half a century's light had been shed upon the subject, yet, in the essential part, it agrees with that of Muffling, in the earliest criticism worth quoting ever published on the campaign. Speaking of the supposed flank movement of Grouchy to try and intercept the Prus- sians, this author says, ' This would no longer have Miiff. Hist, been of any avail, because at all events Marshal Grouchy could not have arrived until after the battle was decided. His faults on the 11 th were so great that it was no longer possible on the 18th to make up for them.'' When he wrote this, but a few months after the events, the Prussian historian believed the current French story, that Grouchy's wrong direction to Gembloux and his late march on the 17 th were of See ibid. his own choice. It has been shown that these mis- takes were noTliis but Napoleon's; and the inference Ante, p. from this opinion also is unavoidable, that it was Na- poleon who had thrown Grouchy beyond all available distance on the day of the battle. 238 WATERLOO LECTURES. To turn to the Belgian critic, Brialmont, who is more generally favourable to Napoleon than the English or Prussian one, and who assumes in his narrative the authenticity of the apocryphal night dispatches to Grouchy, we find his summary of the question as between the Emperor and Marshal to be as follows: — Briai. ii. ' The faults charged on Grouchy are certainly very grave; but impartial judges have given their opinion, that if this Marshal had received precise instructions, and if all the necessary precautions had been taken to cause the orders sent in the night of the 17th and on the morning of the 18th to reach him, he would have been upon the field of battle in time.' After looking into the question of the efi'ect of his coming up, this author gives his opinion that, unless Grouchy had had the courage to march direct on the Prussian flank at St. Lambert, his resolve to join the Emperor ibid.p.434. could have produced no great result. ' To sum up : he did no wrong to the French army, save in that he did noifc at this juncture prove to be a great captain.' But it is not necessary to follow the criticism so far as this, inasmuch as it has been proved that, by all the Ante, rules of evidence, the two orders Brialmont refers to ^' must be rejected from history as inventions; and this done, the opinion of the Belgian, like that of the English and Prussian writers, completely absolves the Marshal, and, in doing so, condemns Napoleon. CONCLUDING REFLECTIONS. 239 In the work of the great advocate of Napoleon's fame there is a remarkable passage, which confirms the impression drawn from a study of the facts and the opinion of impartial judges; for it shows Thiers dissatisfied at heart with his own defence of the mili- tary idol of his nation, and willing finally to sacrifice the political and moral reputation of Napoleon to save his name for infallibihty as a general. After re- viewing his own arguments as to the conduct of Grouchy, he proceeds thus to enlarge upon the rela- tion of this to the master who made Grouchy what he was : — ' Thus his forgetfulness [Grouchy's] of his proper TU. n. part, which was to separate the Prussians from the Enghsh, was the true cause of our misfortunes. We are speaking of the material cause; for the moral cause we must look higher, and here Napoleon ap- pears the real culprit. 'If you regard this four- days' campaign in its highest aspect, you wUl see not actual faults of the Captain (who had never been more profound, more active, more full of resource), but those of the Head of the State, who had created for himself and for France a strained situation, where nothing went on naturally, and where the most powerful genius must fail before insurmountable moral obstacles. Surely nothing could be finer or more able than his combi- nations [at the opening]. . - . But the hesitation 240 WATEBLOO- LECTURES. of Ney and Reille on the 15tli, renewed upon the 16th, which rendered incomplete a success that should have been decisive, may be charged upon Napoleon, since it was he who had graven on their minds the memories which so powerfully affected them. , . . The loss of time on the 17th again was due to Ney's hesitation for half the day, to a storm for the other half. This storm was not the act of Napoleon, nor of his lieutenants : but it was his act that placed him in a situation where the least physical accident became a grave danger; where, in order to escape destruction, it was necessary to have aU the circumstances favourable without any excep- tion, a thing which nature never grants to any captain. ' Again on the 18th, ... if Reille was dis- couraged before Hougoumont, if Ney, if D'Erlon, after the fever-fit of hesitation of the 16th, had one of excitement on the 18th, and spent our most pre- cious forces before the right moment — we repeat it here again — on Napoleon, who placed them in situa- tions so strange, is to be charged the cause of their moral state, of this vast but ill-judged heroism. . . . So the fault of turning his attention from the centre, when such grave faults were committed, to the right, lay in the arrival of the Prussians, due to Grouchy alone, whatever may be said of it. But the fault of having Grouchy there — this fault so great CONCLUDING REFLECTIONS. 241 was Napoleon's own, who, to recompense political services, had chosen a man brave and loyal beyond doubt, but incapable of managing an army under such circumstances. . . . And to omit nothing in concluding, the feverish state of the army, which from the sublime of heroism fell into an unheard-of panic, was like all the rest the work of the Chief of the State, who during a reign of fifteen years had misused eveiything — France, army, genius — all that God had placed in his prodigal hands ! ' Such is Thiers's final defence of his ideal general. Such the summing-up of a judgment, to support which it is necessary — as has been shown at some length — to pervert testimony, even to Napoleon's owTi, to blacken honourable names, and to ignore all facts conflicting with the favoured theory. And when the object is gained, and a great nation persuaded of the invincibility — but for accident — of its chosen general; is the legacy of restless ambition Napoleon bequeathed so precious that he deserves this apo- theosis at the historian's hands? Does the historian himself merit national honour and the Academic prize, who has bestowed on his country a gift so rife with future evU as the sparkling poison of ' The Consu- late and Empire ' ? In the preceding portion of these lectures it has been intended mainly to follow the facts as they .occurred. Our criticisms of Napoleon have been R 242 WATERLOO LECTURES. founded naturally upon them, since most writers take it for granted that his design throughout was askable as daring, and reason on it accordingly. Indeed, the Ante, p. common consent of all critics, excepting Wellington alone, agrees that the plan of the advance through Charleroi, and of a division of, and separate attack on, the Allies, was the best hope of success for the Sup. Dis. French. Wellington, we know, took a different view p. 622, 525. in his Memorandum of 1842; but the inaccuracies Ante, p. already referred to as patent in that paper, and the 158. ' fact of his argument as to Napoleon's advance being but part of a defence of his own conduct in looking more to his right than to the point really threatened, deprive his opinion of that weight which would otherwise attach to it. It is hardly too much to say, therefore, that it may be unhesitatingly accepted that Napoleon could not have opened his campaign, under the circumstances, on a better method than he did. Its faults in execution ; the feebleness and hesitation with which his movements on the following morning began ; the utter want of insight into the real state oi the Prussians and of the Allied plan, which he showed after his success at Ligny ; have been fully shown in our preceding pages. But a greater error than lies in such details has been charged upon him by certain writers of authority; and we should not be completing our task satisfactorily if we failed to bring to notice their views on a most important question of strategy. CONCLUDING REFLECTIONS. 243 It is evident that, after the defeat of Blucher, there were three courses open to Napoleon for the prosecu- tion of his campaign. The first, and apparently the simplest, was to follow the retreating enemy at once with the troops in hand, and to endeavour to obtain as much advantage as possible by a vigorous pursuit, leaving Ney to check Wellington for the time. The second, to turn away from the Prussians altogether, ancZ, uniting with Ney, throw his entire force against Wellington. The third was the medium plan which the Emperor adopted, and which we need not here discuss,'save in its relation to the others. To consider the second : Was it absolutely necessary for Napoleon to make the large detachment under Grouchy, which left his numbers inferior to Welling- ton's? Was it even advisable to thus diminish his means of crushing the English general? Such are the questions which suggest themselves, and to which Thiers has undertaken to make a special reply in his Thi. final summary of the campaign. As the pith of his argument is not lengthy, it is best given in the author's words, who here seeks a new opportunity of vehement reproach of Grouchy: 'Ah! doubtless, if you suppose in the command of our right wing a blindness unparalleled in histoiy, a blindness such as to allow 80,000 Prussians to do as they liked before it, and even to overwhelm Napoleon, lately their vic- tor, without opposition, there will be reason to say that E 2 XX. 280. 244 WATEKLOO LECTURES. this detachment of the right wing was a fault.' Fol- lowing out this distinct admission, and a remarkable one made in the next paragraph — where, speaking of the instructions given Grouchy, the author says, ' there may, doubtless, be differences of opinion as to their exact meaning ' ( ' on pent sans doute disputer sur leur signification^) — it follows clearly, on the show- ing of the latest and ablest of Napoleon's advocates, that it was an error of the Emperor to make the de- tachment of Grouchy at all, supposing it possible for the Marshal to act as he actually did. Thiers thinks it not possible that this could have been foreseen : but to those who take a different view of Napoleon — who prefer the judgment of the historian to the opinion of the advocate — to such the mistake wUl appear very possible, were it only from the fact that the event so difficult to foresee did actually occur. Having quoted what Thiers has said in defence of the detachment of Grouchy, let us place by them the condemnation of it in the words of Kennedy — a ciitic who will not be ac- cused, by those who know his work, of any desire to deal more hardly with the great French captain than with his opponents. After an examination of Na- Gourg. poleon's defence of himself on this point (which is founded on the necessity of guarding against a rally of the Prussians, followed by an advance on Fleurus to seize his communications), and after showing, in careful i55!°i56'. detail, that no such contingency should have affected CONCLUDING REFLECTIONS. 245 the immediate object, the attack of Wellington's stUl disunited forces ; Kennedy goes on to say, in an argu- ment which deserves the attentive study of those who would view the broad features of the campaign in their true light : — 'But the assertion that Napoleon's dividing his army was a vast error, is founded upon higher and more important considerations. On the morning of the 17th of June he was operating with about 100,000 men against about 200,000 men ; and it was mani- festly and absolutely essential to him, in the military and- political position in which he stood, to defeat, se- parate, and paralyse the armies of Wellington and Blucher, in order that he might have even the least chance of re-establishing himself on the throne of France. ' His great difficulty, as he ought well to have known, from the experience of a whole succession of disas- trous campaigns to his armies in Spain, was the over- throw of the Anglo- Allied army ; and against it he should have led his last man and horse, even had the risk been great in the highest degree — which, as has been seen, it clearly was not. Had Napoleon at- tacked the Anglo- Allied army with his whole force, and succeeded in defeating it, there could be little question of his being able to defeat afterwards^lhe PrusSajT'aTmyr^vv^irsepSatea'Tf^^ ; so that, of aU suppositions, the most favourable to 246 WATERLOO LECTURES. Napoleon's ultimate success would be that of the Prus- sian army having attempted to intercept his line of communication : yet it is upon this fallacious argument that Napoleon — with at least an assumed sincerity — - justifies so confidently the division of his force. It will appear to most minds too bold to say that Napoleon took a view of his case and position below what the circumstances called for. That the man who had by his genius and energy, and the vastness of his views, gone far towards the conquest of all Europe, should have faded to play a great game in a case on which liis whole fortunes hinged, is certainly difficult to un- derstand : but it must be borne in miad that there is a distinction between vastness of views and the per- sonal conduct of operations ; and that it is not at all inconsistent with sound views to suppose that, while a man was rising to power, and throwing for empire first and then for conquest, he might be more fitted for playing a desperate game than when acting a more defensive part at a more advanced period of his career. It was necessary that Napoleon, under the circumstances, should throw for entire success, and he failed to do so : this was acting a part incommen- surate with the circumstances in which he was placed ; for anything short of complete success would have entailed his ruin as certainly as a defeat would have done. He failed, therefore, in not playing a great enough game.' CONCLUDING REFLECTIONS. 247 Even those who refuse to accede to this opinion, will possibly, on consideration, admit that it requires a better answer than is to be found in the works of Napoleon or his admirers. If there are any still incredulous of the possi- bility of this great general's choosing the wrong course after Ligny, we invite them to consider what is said on the subject by Clausewitz, at once the most practical and the most philosophic of all military critics. As Kennedy has given especial proofs that, in detaching Grouchy, Napoleon took a weaker course than in throwing his whole force on Wellington, so the great Prussian writer has devoted a chapter to the consideration of the third choice open to Napoleon after Ligny. This he very properly terms a chief strategical question of the campaign, and commences his inquiry by defining its object thus: — ' Would not Napoleon have done better to pursue Blucher on the 17th with his main army, and either by the mere operation of a very energetic pursuit to have brought him into a sort of confused rout, and so driven him over the Meuse, or in case Blucher ventured on a second battle that day or the following, to inflict on him a decisive defeat ? ' The answer to this is given with the author's usual skill and elaborate care. The original must be re- ferred to for a study of it in full detail. It is suffi- cient here to say that Clausewitz appears clearly in 248 WATERLOO LECTUEES. the right when he asserts that Napoleon, on the 17th, had just as much power of bringing Blucher to a second battle as he had of compelling Wellington to deliver one, and that the moral consequences of a second victory over the already defeated enemy would have enhanced vastly the result of Ligny; whereas, if Blucher had escaped by continuing his retreat pre- cipitately, Napoleon, by a vigorous pursuit, would have reaped enough indemnity to repay himself for the disappointment, and would still have been able to turn against Wellington. Supposing, it is added, the latter had pressed Ney, left alone in his front, and had even beaten him and driven him, over the Sam- bre, the Emperor could have afforded the loss of 40,000 men to put 115,000 enemies out of his way for the time. True it is that his victory over Blucher would have been less sure than Wellington's over Ney: but, on the other hand, Napoleon was in a situation that required a risk in order to win, and should have laid excessive caution aside. From such caution, from useless delays, from pursuing Blucher, when he did at last pursue him, with an inferior force, it came about that the Prussians obtained time to chiug. p. collect and rally their troops anew. ' Had Napoleon pursued at once with his main army, he might have offered battle early on the 18th at Wavre. It is very doubtful whether Blucher' [it is from a chief actor on the Prussian staff we are quoting, as well as from a 180. SUMMARY OF THE CAMPAIGN. 249 great critic] ' was in a condition to have accepted it at that place and time, and it is still more so whether Wellington could have got up in good time to aid him.' Probably Napoleon erred from underrating his enemy's power of rallying, being led away by remembrances of earlier victories ; but at any rate he did err in the opinion of his critic. The change of direction which, at this point, he gave to his main army, damaged the whole working of the campaign, and was (as in 1813, when he so acted after Dresden, and in 1814 after Montmirail) both theoretically and practically a complete mistake, if Clausewitz be right. Summary of the Campaign. To revert finally from possibilities to the actual events of which we have now finished our review. Those who have regarded them with us dispassion- ately, and in their aspect as a whole, will perceive in this great drama of war a unity and completeness which many writers on the campaign have missed. Stripped of superfluous ornament, and of the mass of fiction wherewith national vanity has obscured it, the story of Waterloo becomes clear and simple enough. On the one side is an army taking the oflJ'ensive under the most renowned leader of the world, itself formid- able by tradition, training, and devotion to its chief: compact in organisation, and complete in all its parte, 250 WATERLOO LECTURES. moving by the volition of a single will, and with the political circumstances subordinated to the military, it must be regarded as the most formidable instru- ment of war which the age could produce. Opposed stand two Allies, each commanding a force nearly equal to the French, each honoured and trusted by his soldiers, but each aware that the coinposition of his troops was inferior to that of the foe. Faith- ful co-operation to the common end was their reli- ance to maintain the superiority promised by their numbers: meanwhile, for conveniency's sake, their armies lie scattered over a front of more than 100 miles, and that, although they knew the enemy to be threatening a decisive blow. He advances with a sud- den spring across the frontier, aiming straight at the point where their cantonments meet upon his shortest road to Bi'ussels ; his speed and earnestness show his resolve to be either to thrust his army between them, or to strike a deadly blow at him who should most quickly gather for the encounter. The AUies have pro- vided beforehand, in their counsels, fbr this very case, resolved to fight side by side, the one ready to support the other ; but Napoleon's prompt advance anticipates their design, and on the first day the mass of his army is upon the ground laid out for their junction, whilst Blucher can only gain its vicinity next morning with three-fourths of his force, and Wellington with a mere fraction of the British. The second day finds SUMMARY or THE CAMPAIGN. 251. the Allied commanders in personal council at Ligny, whilst Napoleon prepares to thrust the Prussians out of his way. Wellington promises them his support, being unaware that Napoleon has placed a strong left wing before the British, as though anticipating the attempt to unite on this new line. Attacked-Jay^fevHthe Britis h commander has- £ill occupation for the rest of the day, and,_thqugh_SUceessT luTTumself, can furnish no succour toJBlucher, who, BuiFers a sharp defeat. Thus far matters seem to have prospered with Napoleon, but from this night his star of destiny wanes sensibly each hour. Whilst the AUies, firm to_ their original r esolve, fall back on the 1 7th on lines as n early parallel a s the circumstances permit, to seek a new point of junction at Waterloo; he overrates his own advantage, mistakes the direction of retreat taken by the Prussians, and instead of fol- lowing hotly from early daylight on their track, or marching instantly with all his force on Wellington's flank, he loses half the day before his decision is made, and then takes the intermediate measure of sending a large detachment after the Prussians, and of follow- ing Wellington with the rest. From this hour his fate is sealed; for complete and sudden victory, his one hope of safety from threatened ruin, has become henceforth impossible. Calm in the coming cer- tainty of success, the British" general, without even calling in all troops available for the battle, turns to 252 WATERLOO LECTURES. face his renowned adversary at the chosen post of Waterloo, where cross-roads from Blucher's rallying- point at Wavre afford the means of the union twice before prevented. N apoleon, on the morning of the - 18thj_remainsjitigr]jr igaQrant-of thar design,, believ; in g the army before hi m the only obsta <"1? t" hiff ^ntrj into Brussels, and the Prussi ans still retreating before iGrough^ - If any part of their dispersed force has got to Wavre, as is reported, Grouchy_ can push it off with ease, and is directed that way. The momentous battle is deferred from hour to hour until the ground shall be conveniently dry, and the magnificent array of the French be displayed fully to the enemy in all its imposing proportions. Thi s rui noufi delay, whieb proves him so igBQrant-i3f-^is4;^FUfi. danger, brings t he- Prussians, though slow at first^-jgithin sight of his flank before the battle is well opened ; and the terrible truth bursts upon him. With hot-headed courage, but ill-judged tactics, his lieutenants make a series of attacks, which once only, and that for a brief space, shake the firm line of Wellington : but the British leader owes to the first appearance of Blucher the ad- vantage that the Emperor strips himself of the greater part of his formidable reserves. Meanwhile the in- tended junction of the Allies draws on, and detailed arrangements of the most exact kind are made to ensure that the co-operation of the Prussians may be the most effective possible. Grouchy, following them SUMMABY OF THE CAMPAIGN. 253 steadily but slowly, refuses to turn aside from his line of march to the distant firing, since he knows that the Emperor had not counted on him for the battle with "Wellington, and that his task is solely with the Prus- sians, whom he believes still to be near Wavre. Here he finds and attacks their rearguard ; but Blucher, with glorious hardihood, leaves it to its fate, caring only for what is to be done in fi-ont at WaterlocL__His_ troogsj)nce fairly on the fatal ground,^ the object of the campaign on the part of the Allies is at last ac- comjiliahed, and a victory, complete beyond all prece- dent,_-xejLards their combination. The strategy to which Napoleon had looked to atone, as in his early glories, for inferiority of numbers, fails him utterly in face of the firm, compact, and mutual trust of Wel- lington and Blucher. The sword to which he loved to appeal, is stricken from his gi'asp for ever. Hence- forth a lonely exile, he lives only to brood over his mighty past, to paint his mistakes as calamities, his faU as the work of others; consoled, it may be, by a \'ision of the day when a meretricious romance, based on his own figments, shall be accepted by the French for their national history. LONDON: PRINTrD BT ePOTTISWOODE AND CO., NIW-STHEM 3Qr*IlB AND TAHLIAMKHT STUKBT 39 Pateenoster Eow, E.C. London: January 1868 GENERAL LIST OF WORKS PUBLISHED BY Messrs. LOI(}MA:KfS, &REEI, READER, ajid DYER. 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