WAGRAM, BATTLE OF.—Fought, July 5th, 1809, between the Austrians and French, in which the former were completely overthrown; 20,000 were taken by the French. The slaughter on both sides was dreadful. The defeated army retreated into Moravia. [374]
WAKEFIELD, BATTLE OF.—Fought, December 31st, 1460, between Queen Margaret, the wife of Henry VI, and the Duke of York, in which the latter was slain, and 3000 Yorkists fell in the field. This was one of the bloodiest battles between the houses of York and Lancaster.
WALCHEREN EXPEDITION.—This important expedition consisted of thirty-five ships of the line, and 200 smaller vessels, and 40,000 troops, under the command of the Earl of Chatham. The fleet was commanded by Sir Richard Strachan. A large number of the forces died, and the whole expedition came to nothing, December 28th, 1809.
WARSAW, BATTLES OF.—The Poles suffered a great defeat here from the Russians, October 10th and 12th, 1794. Suwarrow, the Russian General, after the siege of Warsaw, cruelly butchered 30,000 Poles, November 8th, 1794. The battle preceding the surrender of Warsaw was fearfully bloody; of 26,000 men, more than 10,000 were killed; nearly 10,000 were made prisoners, and only 2000 escaped the merciless fury of the Russian butcher. Another battle fought here, and the Poles again defeated, September 7th and 8th, 1831.
WASHINGTON.—Taken, August 24th, 1814, in the war between Great Britain and the United States, by General Ross, when all the superb national structures were consumed, in a general conflagration—the troops not sparing the national library.
WATERLOO, BATTLE OF.—The greatest of all British engagements, fought June 18th, 1815, between the Duke of Wellington and Napoleon. The carnage on both sides was immense. The account of this great battle is taken from the “Twelve Great Battles of England.” The following is a fine account of the visit of Scott to the field of Waterloo after the battle, and also Alison on the defeat of the Old Guard:
WATERLOO AT NOON ON THE DAY AFTER THE BATTLE.
“On a surface of two square miles, it was ascertained that 50,000 men and horses were lying! The luxurious crop of ripe grain which had covered the field of battle was reduced to litter, and beaten into the earth; and the surface, trodden down by the cavalry, and furrowed deeply by the cannon wheels, was strewn with many a relic of the fight. Helmets and cuirasses, shattered fire-arms and broken swords; all the variety of military ornaments; Lancer caps and Highland bonnets; uniforms of[375] every colour, plume, and pennon; musical instruments, the apparatus of artillery, drums, bugles; but, good God! why dwell on the harrowing picture of a foughten field? Each and every ruinous display bore mute testimony to the misery of such a battle. * * * Could the melancholy appearance of this scene of death be heightened, it would be by witnessing the researches of the living midst its desolation for the objects of their love. Mothers, and wives, and children, for days were occupied in that mournful duty; and the confusion of the corpses, friend and foe intermingled as they were, often rendered the attempt at recognising individuals difficult, and in some cases impossible. * * * In many places the dead lay four deep upon each other, marking the spot some British square had occupied, when exposed for hours to the murderous fire of a French battery. Outside, lancer and cuirassier were scattered thickly on the earth. Madly attempting to force the serried bayonets of the British, they had fallen, in the bootless essay, by the musketry of the inner files. Farther on, you traced the spot where the cavalry of France and England had encountered. Chasseur and hussar were intermingled; and the heavy Norman horse of the Imperial Guard were interspersed with the grey chargers which had carried Albion’s chivalry. Here the Highlander and tirailleur lay, side by side, together; and the heavy dragoon, with Green Erin’s badge upon his helmet, was grappling in death with the Polish lancer. * * * On the summit of the ridge, where the ground was covered with death, and trodden fetlock-deep in mud and gore, by the frequent rush of rival cavalry, the thick-strewn corpses of the Imperial Guard pointed out the spot where Napoleon had been defeated. Here, in column, that favoured corps, on whom his last chance rested, had been annihilated; and the advance and repulse of the Guard was traceable by a mass of fallen Frenchmen. In the hollow below, the last struggle of France had been vainly made; for the Old Guard, when the middle battalion had been forced back, attempted to meet the British, and afford time for their disorganised companions to rally. Here the British left, which had converged upon the French centre, had come up; and here the bayonet closed the contest.”
DEFEAT OF THE OLD GUARD AT WATERLOO.
“The Imperial Guard was divided into two columns, which, advancing from different parts of the field, were to converge to the decisive point on the British right centre, about midway between La Haye Sainte and the nearest enclosures of Hougoumont. Reille commanded the first column,[376] which was supported by all the infantry and cavalry which remained of his corps on either flank, and advanced up the hill in a slanting direction, beside the orchard of Hougoumont. The second was headed by Ney in person, and moving down the chaussée of Charleroi to the bottom of the slope, it then inclined to the left, and leaving La Haye Sainte to the right, mounted the slope, also in a slanting direction, converging towards the same point whither the other column was directing its steps. Napoleon went with this column as far as the place where it left the hollow of the high road, and spoke a few words—the last he ever addressed to his soldiers—to each battalion in passing. The men moved on with shouts of Vive l’Empereur! so loud as to be heard along the whole British line, above the roar of artillery, and it was universally thought the Emperor himself was heading the attack. But, meanwhile, Wellington had not been idle. Sir Frederick Adam’s brigade, consisting of the 52nd, 71st, and 95th, and General Maitland’s brigade of Guards, which had been drawn from Hougoumont, with Chasse’s Dutch troops, yet fresh, were ordered to bring up their right shoulders, and wheel inward, with their guns in front, towards the edge of the ridge; and the whole batteries in that quarter inclined to the left, so as to expose the advancing columns coming up to a concentric fire on either flank: the central point, where the attack seemed likely to fall, was strengthened by nine heavy guns; the troops at that point were drawn up four deep, in the form of an interior angle: the Guards forming one side, the 73rd and 30th the other;—while the light cavalry of Vivian and Vandeleur was brought up behind the line, at the back of La Haye Sainte, and stationed close in the rear, so as to be ready to make the most of any advantage which might occur.
It was a quarter past seven when the first column of the Old Guard, under Reille, advanced to the attack; but the effect of the artillery on its flank was such, that the cavalry were quickly dispersed: and the French battalions uncovered, showed their long flank to Adam’s guns, which opened on them a fire so terrible, that the head of the column, constantly pushed on by the mass in the rear, never advanced, but melted away as it came into the scene of carnage. Shortly after, Ney’s column approached with an intrepid step; the veterans of Wagram and Austerlitz were there; no force on earth seemed capable of resisting them; they had decided every former battle. Drouot was beside the Marshal, who repeatedly said to him they were about to gain a glorious victory. General Friant was killed by Ney’s side: the Marshal’s[377] own horse was shot under him; but bravely advancing on foot, with his drawn sabre in his hand, he sought death from the enemy’s volleys. The impulse of this massy column was at first irresistible; the guns were forced back, and the Imperial Guard came up to within forty paces of the English Foot Guards, and the 73rd and 30th regiments. These men were lying down, four deep, in a small ditch behind the rough road, which there goes along the summit of the ridge. “Up Guards, and at them!” cried the Duke, who had repaired to the spot; and the whole, on both sides of the angle into which the French were advancing, springing up, moved forward a few paces, and poured in a volley so close and well directed, that nearly the whole first two ranks of the French fell at once. Gradually advancing, they now pushed the immense column, yet bravely combatting, down the slope; and Wellington, at that decisive instant, ordered Vivian’s brigade to charge the retiring body on one flank, while Adam’s foot advanced against it on the other. The effect of this triple attack, at once in front and on both flanks, was decisive: the 52nd and 71st, swiftly converging inward, threw in so terrible a volley on their left flank, that the Imperial Guard swerved in disorder to the right; and at that very instant the 10th, 18th, and 21st dragoons, under Vivian, bore down with irresistible fury, and piercing right through the body, threw it into irrevocable confusion. The cry, “Tout est perdu—la Garde recule!” arose in the French ranks, and the enormous mass, driven headlong down the hill, overwhelmed everything which came in its way, and spread disorder through the whole French centre.”
DESCRIPTION OF WATERLOO FROM THE TWELVE BATTLES.
“We have seen the three several stages by which the Duke of Wellington had conducted the British army to that elevated position in which the peace of 1814 left it. We have seen how it had, first, on the broad fields of Castile, boldly encountered a French army of twice its strength, and had sent it back in defeat. Next, at Salamanca, meeting an army of equal force, it had scattered it by an assault of a single hour, annihilating at a blow one-half of its strength. And lastly, falling upon the intrusive King himself in his final position of retreat and defence at Vittoria, it had driven his entire array, like a flock of frightened sheep, over the Pyrenees. After those triumphs, by which a whole realm of great extent had been delivered from its invaders, there seemed scarcely any way by which the fame and honour of the British army and its illustrious Commander could be enhanced, except by an event not to be anticipated—an encounter[378] with the great conqueror of modern times, now an exile at Elba; and a triumph over him.
This event, however unlikely it might seem, was reserved for England’s soldiers and her General; and it occurred in less than a year after the apparent restoration of peace. Napoleon suddenly left his island-home, reappeared in France, gathered his soldiers round him, and re-entered Paris as once more its Emperor. Naturally enough, the Sovereigns who had compelled his retirement, scarcely nine months before, resolved to maintain their position; and they covenanted with each other to place armies amounting to 600,000 men on the soil of France in the course of July, 1815. The British portion of this force was collecting together in the months of May and June, under the Duke’s command; when Napoleon determined not to wait for the attack, but to carry the war into the allied territories; and, accordingly, in the second week in June he entered Belgium. Before he had proceeded twenty miles he encountered both the English and the Prussian armies, and on the fourth day, at a distance of about thirty miles from the French frontier, was fought the great and decisive battle of Waterloo.
This momentous contest will require of us a more lengthened description than we have given of any of the great battles; both because it was an event of the highest possible importance to the fate of England, of Europe, and of the world; and also because it was, so to speak, a succession of battles fought on one field, and on the same day. In a former case we have seen “an army of forty thousand men defeated in forty minutes;” but here the deadly strife occupied nearly ten hours. The French opened the attack at eleven in the morning, and at nine o’clock at night the last of their battalions had not yet quitted the field. In the course of these ten hours four or five desperate and prolonged contests had taken place; each of which might have been justly called a battle. It will be impossible, therefore, to give any fair or complete idea of this long continued struggle, without occupying much greater space than is required for an ordinary battle.
It is also a history which is thickly strewn with controversies. The defeated General himself was the first to open this wordy strife. The loss of the fight of Waterloo was a fact to which he never could be reconciled. That battle hurled him, finally, from the throne on which he had for the second time seated himself, and sent him to wear out the few remaining years of his life on the rock of St. Helena. In[379] that retirement he occupied himself, for the most part, in a series of efforts to resuscitate his extinguished “glory.”[16] In these attempts he was hampered by no moral scruples; for, as Emerson has remarked, “this, the highest-placed individual in the world, had not the merit of common truth and honesty; he would steal, slander, assassinate, as his interest indicated.” Any reasonable man, therefore, will read his “Historical Memoir,” book ix, written at St. Helena, and published in London in 1820, with that caution which is so plainly called for when a document is confessedly an exparte statement, and written by one who is known to be of unscrupulous character.
Yet that document has been received in many quarters with a credulity which is somewhat surprising. It is true that this credulity may be accounted for in the case of the French historians—who, obliged to confess that their defeat at Waterloo was “horrible”—a “massacre”—a “deluge of blood”—are glad to have supplied to them, under Napoleon’s own hand, the apology that he was overmatched and greatly outnumbered; and that yet, after all, he would have proved victorious if one of his Generals had not disobeyed his commands.
The latter of these two pleas has been generally rejected by English writers—utterly denied as its truth has been by the party so accused. But, strangely enough, although there was every probability that Napoleon’s account of his own strength, and of that of his opponent, would be wholly untrustworthy—several of our best English writers have given entire credence of his statement of the real amount of his army; even while those statements are clearly refuted by abundant testimonies of many Frenchmen. And this point is not an immaterial one. For if we could admit the truth of Napoleon’s final conclusion, that “On that day 69,000 French beat 120,000 men, and the victory was only torn from them between eight and nine o’clock at night by the increase of the allies to 150,000 men”[17]—what merit could we assign to the British soldiers, or to their great commander, for such a victory? But, in sober verity, of all the falsehoods deliberately put forth by Napoleon in the course of his life, this, probably, is nearly the greatest.
Let us, however, now endeavour to arrange our narrative in its proper order. The army which was assembling in Belgium under the Duke’s command, had reached, in the beginning of June, the respectable amount[380] of almost 100,000 men. It contained, however, far more Belgians, Hanoverians, Brunswickers, and Dutchmen, than British troops, and far more new levies, landwehr, and militia, than of experienced soldiers. The English regiments which had followed the Duke through all the fields of Spain had been sent to America, and were now on the Atlantic, on their return home. He had some of the Guards, and a few other regiments of some standing; but the largest portion of the British troops which had yet reached Belgium were second battalions—new recruits drafted from the militia—and the same observation would apply to the Hanoverians and other auxiliaries.
It was a knowledge of this intrinsic weakness of the Duke’s army, and of the fact that 10,000 or 15,000 of his old Peninsular troops would soon join him, that decided Napoleon, as is frankly confessed,[18] to make a sudden attack on the British and Prussian forces before they were fully prepared to meet him. Silently, therefore, but with his usual skill and rapidity, Napoleon brought together a powerful army, and on the morning of the 15th of June he moved forward and entered Belgium.
And here we are met by the most current of all the fictions which are connected with this history. A variety of writers have repeated, one after another—Napoleon himself setting them the example—the story that the Duke never heard of the approach of the French until eleven o’clock in the evening of that day, while at a ball at Brussels. The facts, however, which are beyond dispute, are these—that the French did not enter Charleroi, the first Belgian town, until eleven or twelve o’clock on June the 15th—that tidings of their movement reached the Duke at Brussels by three o’clock, and that between four and five o’clock that same afternoon orders went out to every corps of the British army to move to the front, many of them beginning their march that same evening. There was no surprise, then, nor was there the loss of a single day. The French had not marched thirty miles—had not entered any place of the least importance, when, on the third day, they found the British army drawn up across their path, and had to fight the battle of Waterloo.
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They had, indeed, found their progress arrested still earlier. Entering Belgium on the 15th, they were stopped the very next day at Ligny by the Prussians, at Quatre Bras by a part of the English army. Marshal Blucher being defeated, and retiring a few miles, the Duke fell back also, and thus was enabled to draw up his army at Waterloo—a position which he had before observed to be an advantageous one, and which was in all respects well suited to the defence of Brussels.
It was on the afternoon of the 17th June that the Duke’s army found itself assembled on this spot. The French army, led by Napoleon himself, soon approached, but the day was too far advanced to afford time for a general engagement. The two armies, therefore, took position, the English on a rising ground called Mont St. Jean, about half a mile in advance of the village of Waterloo, and nine miles on the French side of Brussels; the French on a series of heights facing Mont St. Jean, having the village of Planchenoit on the right, and looking down upon a small valley which separated the two hosts.
And now we are naturally brought to a consideration of the question, what was the respective strength of these two armies? This is a point upon which Napoleon has bestowed great pains in his “Historical Memoir, Book ix,” and on which he has succeeded in deluding many English writers.
As to the strength of the British army, there can be no kind of doubt upon that point, for the actual numbers present in each battalion and squadron was carefully recorded; and these records were needed to establish the respective rights of all present to honours and rewards. We have spoken of a gross amount of nearly 100,000 men. But of these, several thousands were required to garrison Antwerp, Ostend, Nieuport, Ypres, Tournai, and Mons,—the loss at Quatre Bras had been 3000 or 4000, and a post of observation at Hal, consisted of nearly 6000. When these deductions were made, not quite 70,000 men remained, to meet Napoleon’s attack at Waterloo.
The British infantry in the field were 15,181, and the German Legion infantry were 3301. The British and German cavalry were 7840, and their artillery was 3493. Thus the whole reliable force of the Duke—the force to which he must look to stand the French attack—was not quite 30,000 men. All this was well known to Napoleon, who, in his “Book ix,” says, “Victory appeared to be certain,” for the French army consisted of “good troops, while, in the enemy’s army, the English only, amounting to 40,000 at most, could be reckoned upon as such.”[19]
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The “Allied troops,” who made up the Duke’s array, consisted of 10,755 Hanoverians, many of whom were mere landwehr or militia, and nearly 25,000 Belgians, Dutch, and men of Brunswick and Nassau. Some of these fought gallantly, but others retreated whenever the French approached,—some actually flying from the field. Hence Napoleon justly says, “one Englishman might be counted for one Frenchman:—two Dutchmen, Prussians, or soldiers of the Confederation, for one Frenchman.”
Adopting, therefore, Napoleon’s own method of calculation, we may say, that the Duke had an army nominally amounting to about 68,000 men, really equal to something less than 50,000.
And now we turn to the other side of the account. Here we must, to be safe, accept only French testimony. If we draw together all the credible statements of this class that we can find, we shall probably be able to arrive at a just conclusion.
There was published at Paris, in 1815, a volume by an officer attached to the staff, which may be considered to be “the French account,” at the time and in detail, of this battle. In this volume, the whole army which entered Belgium is stated to have been “150,000 effective men of whom about 30,000 were cavalry.” It seems improbable that a staff-officer should have greatly erred, or that a Frenchman should have exaggerated the strength of the beaten army. Reckoning, therefore, the gross number to have been 150,000; and deducting 15,000 for losses at Ligny, and at Quatre Bras, we may estimate the force detached under Grouchy on the 17th, at about 38 or 40,000 men, and the strength of the French army at Waterloo at something more than 90,000.
And this estimate precisely agrees with Napoleon’s own statement, written at Paris three days after the battle. In this bulletin he says, “We estimated the force of the English army at 80,000 men. We supposed that a Prussian corps which might be in line toward the right might be 15,000 men. The enemy’s force, then, was upwards of 90,000 men; ours less numerous.”
He is here speaking of the morning. But there was not a Prussian soldier in the field until five o’clock in the afternoon; and this Napoleon well knew. Why, then, does he here introduce a “supposed” Prussian corps? Clearly, in order to bring up the allied force to 95,000 men, so that he might be able to add, “Ours, less numerous.” He had every possible motive, as a beaten General, striving to make the best of his case,—for saying, if he had dared,—“The enemy was more than 90,000[383] strong, but we had not quite 70,000.” But he could not venture, in the face of abundant evidence then existing, to say that his army was less than 80,000, the force he assigns to the English. He therefore, by an “ingenious device,” augments the allied force to 95,000; and then he can venture to assert that his own army was inferior in numbers. There is clearly implied in this statement an admission that his own force was not greatly below 95,000.
Yet when Ney and others were dead, and the records, in all probability, scattered or destroyed, the same man who wrote this bulletin, concocted at St. Helena, four or five years after, a widely-different account. In his “Book ix,” p. 128, he puts forth an elaborate table, purporting to show, that the whole force of the French army at Waterloo was only 68,650 men! And such has been the imposing effect of this table, that many English writers, while they could detect the falsehood of other statements in that same volume, still accepted, as an undeniable fact, the conclusion, that Napoleon’s army at Waterloo consisted of only 68,650 men! Yet only common prudence, and the use of a little careful scrutiny, was needed, to prove that these same elaborate tables in “Book ix” were nothing more than what is usually called, in railway language, “a cooked account.”
The proof of this shall be given from French writers alone. And, first, let “Book ix” refute itself, by its own self contradictions. At page 71, it gives the second corps, 19,800 infantry; while at p. 95-97, it states the same infantry, at the same moment, at 21,000. At page 128 it gives the first corps 16,500 infantry, and at table F it calls the same infantry, 17,600. At page 128 the cavalry of the Guard and the third and fourth corps of cavalry are stated at 10,000; while at pp. 158 and 173 they are twice called 12,000. At p. 35 we are told that “the regiments generally had but two battalions; each battalion consisting of 600 men, present and under arms.” Yet in the principal table, F, the regiments are always estimated at either 1000 or 1100 men, the battalions at 500 or 550. Thus it is abundantly clear, even from the pages of “Book ix” itself, that its writer is one who “plays at fast and loose with figures.”
But other refutations, from purely French sources, are abundant. We have seen that Napoleon states, in “Book ix,” p. 35, that his battalions had 600 men; but that he quietly puts them down in table F, as being only 500 or 550.
Now in his portfolio, captured at Charleroi, and published at Brussels, there was one report, made by an officer named De Launoy, and dated[384] “Montalimert, June 4th,” which said, “The first battalion, 720 strong, marched on the 1st of June.” And, in the Moniteur of May 28th, published at Paris under Napoleon’s own authority, there was given a letter dated “Lille, May 26th,” which says, “Our garrison is entirely composed of battalions of select troops, which successively arrive: the 20th arrived yesterday; almost all consist of 720 men; we are expecting two battalions of veterans.” Now these troops formed part of the first corps, as stated in “Book ix,” p. 31; and in table F they are all set down as having in each battalion, 550 men!
It was of this first corps that Marshal Ney spoke in his letter of June 26th, 1815, in which he complained of having it taken away from him on the 16th. He describes it as having consisted of “between 25,000 and 30,000 men.” He must have had the actual returns in his pocket when he wrote this. Now if the battalions generally consisted of 720 men, as the Moniteur of May 28th had told us, then its thirty-two battalions would have contained 23,040; which added to 1400 cavalry, and 1564 artillery men, would be accurately described as “between 25,000 and 30,000 men.” But Napoleon, in his statement of the force at Waterloo, sets down the infantry of this corps as only 16,500; thus contradicting at once the statement of the Moniteur, the report found in his own portfolio, and the declaration of the Marshal who commanded that corps!
In the same spirit, in the table of the troops at Waterloo, (Book ix, p. 128,) we find the infantry of the Guard set down as being 11,500. Yet Gourgaud, Napoleon’s Aide-de-Camp, and Fleury de Chaboulon, his secretary, both concur in stating this infantry to have been 14,000.[20]
Of the heavy cavalry we have already seen, that while Napoleon, in his table, at p. 128, sets it down at 4000, 3000, and 3000, or 10,000 in all, he afterwards twice describes it, at p. 158 and at p. 173, as “these 12,000 select horse.”
Once more, in “Book ix,” p. 129, he states the force detached under Grouchy to have been 34,300. His own companion at St. Helena, General Montholon, in his history, (vol. i, p. 14,) calls this force 42,000.
All this evidence, then, drawn from several quarters, but wholly French, points to one conclusion,—namely, that Napoleon, in forming his tables for “Book ix,” deliberately reduced his real strength at Waterloo by about one-fourth or one-fifth; and that his first statement, in his bulletin issued at the time, was the true one; namely, that his army was only somewhat “less numerous than 95,000.”
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And to this conclusion a remarkable support is found, in the behaviour of the two Generals on the day preceding the action. Wellington had beaten nearly every one of Napoleon’s Marshals;[21]—and could not but feel a degree of exultation at the thought of meeting the master of them all. Napoleon, on his part, had to encounter a General who had never been conquered. Supposing, then, the armies to have been nearly equal in strength, what might have been anticipated, but a degree of eager anticipation on Wellington’s side, and of seriousness on Napoleon’s? Instead of which, what do we hear? The Duke writes to Marshal Blucher, that he will accept battle, if the Marshal will assist him with one corps of his army. Meanwhile, Napoleon’s only anxiety is lest the English should escape him. “He was surprised,” writes his secretary, Fleury, “when daylight discovered to him that the English army had not quitted its positions, but appeared disposed to accept battle.” “He returned to his head-quarters (Book ix, p. 125) full of satisfaction at the great fault committed by the enemy’s General.” “He held this,” says Brialmont, “to be rashness, and a fault, exclaiming, ‘At last, then, I have them,—these English!’” Do not these views and anticipations, on the part of both of the Generals, make it quite evident that each of them was fully aware of the great superiority of the French army; and of the temerity of which the Duke would be guilty if, without any assurance of support, he ventured on an engagement in the face of such odds?
It is worth remark, too, that while several of the best English writers have accepted with the most good-natured simplicity, Napoleon’s own account of the force with which he fought this battle—French historians, even when admirers of Napoleon, show much less faith in his assertions. Thus, Lamartine, having Napoleon’s ixth Book before him, in which the number, “sixty-eight thousand, six hundred and fifty men,” is strenuously insisted on—quietly disregards the fiction, and repeatedly speaks of the French force as being “eighty thousand men.”[22]
But Napoleon’s “certainty of success,” of which he speaks at p. 127 of his Book ix, rested more upon the superior quality of his troops than on their superior numbers. He was thoroughly well aware, both of the slight value of the Belgian and Hanoverian auxiliaries, and of the excellence of his own troops. And the Duke, also, knew full well both of[386] these facts. On the 8th of May he had written to Lord Stewart, “I have got an infamous army; very weak and ill-equipped; and a very inexperienced staff.” And seven days after the battle, he repeated to Lord Bathurst, that he had got “not only the worst troops, but the worst-equipped army, with the worst staff, that ever was brought together.”[23]
On the other hand, Napoleon’s army was, for its amount, the finest that he had ever led into the field. Thus his secretary, Fleury, says, “The whole army was superb, and full of ardour.” Lamartine speaks of it as “his grand army of chosen men; every battalion of which had a soul equal to the utmost extremity.” Napoleon himself, in “Book ix,” says: “The spectacle was really magnificent: the earth seemed proud of being trod by such intrepid combatants.” And at St. Helena he told O’Meara: “My troops were so good, that I esteemed them sufficient to beat a hundred and twenty thousand.”[24]
Thus, as Brialmont remarks, whatever might be the numerical proportion of the two armies, “when we come to look at the respective qualities of the troops, the inferiority of the Anglo-Belgian army was enormous. Not only was it composed of heterogeneous elements, but it consisted almost entirely of young soldiers, a large proportion of whom had never been under fire. The Hanoverian contingent was made up of militia; and many regiments were fit only for garrison duty.”[25]
The evening which preceded the memorable 18th of June was dark and cloudy; the rain fell in torrents, and the men were often ankle-deep in water. But, however deplorable might be their outward condition, the interest of this eventful moment rendered the combatants on either side, almost insensible to physical sufferings. Every man in both armies knew that a great and decisive battle was to be fought on the following day. With the opening morning, then, would begin what might prove the final contest,—ending a strife of nations which had lasted more than twenty years. The two greatest Generals of the age were for the first time to be brought into collision: the conqueror of Europe was to measure swords with the deliverer of Spain. No two such leaders, it has been well observed, had confronted each other, since Hannibal and Scipio met at Zama.
Doubtless, and very naturally, the greatest degree of confidence was felt in the camp of the invaders. The French soldiers relied with reason[387] on the extraordinary talents of their great leader, victorious in fifty contests, foiled in scarcely any. The men who stood by his side, too, were the veterans who had marched triumphantly over many victorious fields, and who now felt defeat, under such a Captain, to be scarcely possible. They were confident, too, in their numbers. All of them had heard that the Emperor had carried over the frontier a picked army of 150,000 men. They saw on the heights around them the first and second corps, amounting together to nearly 50,000 men, with the sixth, less numerous, in reserve. The Imperial Guard was there, from 18,000 to 20,000 strong,—the finest troops that France had ever possessed, and the cuirassiers, nearly 6,000 in number. What could a mixed force of a few English, joined with Belgians, Hanoverians, and Dutchmen, do against such a power?
Very naturally, therefore, we learn from Gourgaud, that “the French troops were full of enthusiasm. Such were the acclamations of joy, that they prevented the orders from being heard.”[26] From Napoleon to his Generals, from the Generals to the troops, the feeling had spread and become universal. “Ah! we have them, then,—these English!”
The British troops had not the same ground of confidence. They knew well that their own numbers did not amount to one-third of the strength of Napoleon’s army, and that the Hanoverian and Belgian landwehr, by whom their line was to be filled up, were of very uncertain value. Many of the battalions, both English and foreign, had never been in action before. Still, they had a great and well-founded trust in their Commander; and with a spirit like his own, they meant to do their duty, and while they lived, to stand their ground.
The field of Waterloo, or the heights of Mont St. Jean, as the English and the French respectively call this spot, is a piece of slightly-elevated ground lying, as we have already said, about 1000 yards in advance of the village of Waterloo. Brussels, in which Napoleon intended to sleep that night, was about nine miles in the rear of the English army. The main road from Charleroi to Brussels passed through the French position, descended into the valley, and then ascended Mont St. Jean, cutting the English position at right angles near a farm-house called La Haye Sainte. The English line lay about 200 yards behind this farm-house. Here was the centre and left centre. In advance of the right wing of the English army, and between it and the left wing of the French, stood a larger house, surrounded by walled gardens and orchards, and called[388] Hougoumont. As this place would have afforded great advantages to the French in preparing attacking columns, the Duke placed in it some companies of the Foot-Guards, with some Nassau and Hanoverian troops, and enjoined its resolute defence. Well were his orders obeyed, for the utmost efforts of a whole army corps of the French were ineffectual to carry this position. The French lost 6 or 8000 men in the attempt, but up to the very close of the day the English Foot-Guards maintained their possession.
The position of Waterloo was deliberately chosen by the Duke, and the choice is commended by all unprejudiced critics. Yet Napoleon, ungenerous throughout, strives to depreciate his antagonist’s judgment in this particular. He says, in “Book ix:”—“The English General had in his rear the defiles of the forest of Soignes, so that if beaten, retreat was impossible” (p. 125). Upon which M. Lamartine observes: “In fighting on the borders of a forest fortified in all its approaches, as well as by its own impenetrability, the Duke had every pledge of victory, if victory was possible; and of a secure retreat if defeat were unavoidable. Waterloo was an admirable field of battle, and it is to be regretted that Napoleon has not acknowledged this, but has obstinately striven to prove that his conqueror was unworthy of him. These are the littlenesses of glory. The choice of Waterloo on Wellington’s part was a further mark of that genius, at once resolute, powerful, and prudent, which has characterized all the campaigns of this General.”
It should be added, that the Duke, during five years of constant warfare with the French armies, had never once been beaten by them in a pitched battle. Nor had he any thought of retreating upon the present occasion, or any desire to make a special provision for such an emergency. In after years he dropped the remark: “I knew that they could never so beat us, but that we could have made good the forest against them.”
And now the several divisions of the two armies were placed in the positions which to the two commanders seemed suitable. On the left of Napoleon’s line he placed his second corps, which he himself states to have consisted of 17,000 men, and which undoubtedly was nearer 20,000. This corps, to which his brother Jerome was attached, was ordered to seize upon Hougoumont, and then to attack the right of the British army. Napoleon’s right wing was formed of his first corps, under Ney’s command. This corps had not yet been in action, and was complete. Napoleon sets down its strength us 17,900 men; but Ney, who commanded it, describes it as “from twenty-five to thirty thousand.”[389] In the second line stood the sixth corps, consisting of 7 or 8000 men; the heavy cavalry, of about 7000; and in a third line stood the Imperial Guard, which, of cavalry and infantry, had at least 18,000. The artillery numbered more than 6000 men, with 240 cannon. The entire force was probably described with truth in Napoleon’s bulletin of the battle, in which he calls it “less than 95,000.”
Against these the Duke had to place in position, on the opposite heights, his 15,181 British infantry, his 3,300 infantry of the German Legion, and about 28,000 Belgians, Hanoverians, and Brunswickers. Many of these showed themselves, in the battle, unable to stand a French attack. In the second line he had 7,840 English and German cavalry, and about 4,500 Belgians, Hanoverians, and Brunswickers. His artillery (English, Belgian, &c.,) were 5,600 and his guns, 156. At Hal and Enghien, on the road from Mons to Brussels, the Duke placed a detachment of 5,819 men to guard against any possible device in that quarter. These could take no part in the battle, being fixed by their orders at a distance of several miles from it.
The Duke had slept for a few hours at his headquarters in the village of Waterloo, and then rising before dawn on the morning of the 18th he wrote several letters, in which he expressed his confidence that all would go well, but still gave specific orders for all that was to be done in Brussels, Antwerp, &c., in the event of the success of the French attack. He then saw to the distribution of the reserves of artillery, which had been packed in the village, so that supplies should be readily forwarded to every point where they might be needed. He also personally inspected the arrangements made for the reception of the wounded. Then mounting his horse Copenhagen, he rode to Hougoumont, and thence down a lane leading through the wood beyond it. Halting on the eastern slant of the thicket, he narrowly surveyed all of the enemy’s arrangements that could be seen. Then giving some final orders at Hougoumont, he galloped back to the high ground in the right centre of his position, where he began to chat with the members of his staff with as much liveliness as if they were about to take part in an ordinary review.
There was now a pause of considerable duration. This was one of the chief mistakes committed by Napoleon. He had before him, as he well know, an army exceedingly inferior to his own; so inferior, in short, that it was a matter of joyful surprise to him that the Duke had not decamped in the night. But on his right he knew that there was Grouchy with less than 40,000 men, opposed to Blucher, who had 80,000 or[390] 90,000. It was obvious to every one that the Prussian general might, and probably would, engage Grouchy with one or two corps, and carry the rest of his army to the succour of the English. It was, then, a great error not to use the present opportunity with decision and rapidity. He accounts for the delay by the state of the ground; but when Grouchy justified his inertness at Wavre by the same plea, Napoleon exclaims, in “Book ix,” p. 153, “The dreadful state of the weather, ridiculous motive!”
The village clock was striking eleven when the first gun was fired from the French centre, and this great battle began, which only ended with the darkness of night. There has never been a battle which was so distinctly divided, like a drama, into four or five acts. These were: 1. The attack on Hougoumont and the English right; 2. The attack on La Haye Sainte and the English centre and left; 3. The irruption of the French heavy cavalry upon the centre of the English position; 4. The Prussian diversion; 5. The charge of the Imperial Guard, and final defeat of the French army. These several acts or stages in this great contest usually followed each other at intervals of about two hours, i.e. at 11, at 1, at 3, at 5, and at 7 o’clock. There cannot, therefore, be a better way of obtaining a clear idea of the progress of this tremendous struggle, than by passing in review these five acts or stages, just us they occurred, and distinctly from each other.
ELEVEN O’CLOCK.
Precisely at this hour the French artillery opened fire upon the orchards of Hougoumont, and Jerome, with his division, moved forward to the attack. As we have seen, Napoleon himself assigns to his second corps, to whom this duty was assigned, a strength of 17,900 men; and, reasoning upon his uniform practice of diminishing his real numbers, we may safely estimate its real force at 20,000. This corps was to storm and take Hougoumont, and then, from this position, to annoy and perhaps to attack with success, the Duke’s right. But it never succeeded even in its first object. The whole power of these 18,000 or 20,000 men failed to carry a post which was never garrisoned by so many us 2,800. Thus, Gourgaud tells us that at noon “Prince Jerome with his division took possession of the wood: he was driven out, but a new attack once more rendered him master of it. The enemy, however, kept possession of the largo house in the centre.” Again, at half-past four, he says, “General Reille supported the attack of Jerome’s division by Foy’s division. (Each being 5,000 or 6,000 strong.)[391] Howitzers had set fire to the house and nearly destroyed it; three-fourths of the wood was in our possession; the fields were strewed with the English guards, the flower of the enemy’s army.” But beyond this partial success the French never attained. They never carried the chateau itself, but in the attempt they lost from 6,000 to 8,000 men, while the killed and wounded of the defenders amounted to a few hundreds only. This portion of the battle lasted from noon until night, and all that the French could boast of, was, that with five or seven times the number of the British, they obtained possession of “three-fourths of the wood.”[27] Napoleon says, in “Book ix,” “The wood remained in the possession of the French; but the chateau, in which some hundreds of intrepid English troops defended themselves, opposed an invincible resistance.”[28]
ONE O’CLOCK.
But now, having commenced the battle by this vehement assault on Hougoumont by his left wing, Napoleon prepared what he admits to be his main attack, on the Duke’s centre and left, by Count d’Erlon’s whole corps, led by Marshal Ney. This was the corps which had not been engaged at either Ligny or Quatre Bras. Napoleon states its strength at 17,900; but Ney more frankly describes it us between “twenty-five and thirty thousand.” This force was directed against the centre of the English position. Throughout the day Napoleon seemed to rely on mere strength. He knew that he was superior on every point, in each branch of the service, and in every particular, and he had never experienced the obstinate endurance of the English infantry. Thus, as the Duke afterwards said, “He did not man?uvre at all. He just moved forward, in the old style, in columns, and was driven off in the old style.”
Great were the expectations based on this attack. Napoleon himself said to Ney: “This is a day and an action worthy of you: I give you the command of the centre; and it is you who are to gain the battle.”[29] But while all the French accounts admit the vast importance which was attached to this, the main attack, they entirely forget to say what was the result of it. Thus Gourgaud writes: “The Emperor directed Marshal[392] Ney to commence the attack, and to take possession of La Haye Sainte;” “Our infantry advanced;” “The enemy’s line, however, made no man?uvre; it maintained its immobility. His cavalry made several successful charges on the flank of one of the columns of the first corps, and about 15 of our pieces of artillery, which were advancing, were driven back into a hollow road. One of Milhaud’s brigades of Cuirassiers advanced against this cavalry, and the field of battle was soon covered with their slain. When the Emperor perceived that some disorder prevailed on our right, he proceeded at full gallop.”[30]
Napoleon says, in “Book ix,” “Many charges of infantry and cavalry followed it; the detail of them belong more to the history of each regiment, than to the general history of the battle; it is enough to say, that after three hours’ fighting, the farm of La Haye Sainte was occupied by the French infantry; while the end which the Emperor had in view was obtained.”[31]
Thus, from the French accounts, we gain no intelligible information as to the actual result of this attack of 25,000 men on the English centre; except, indeed, that Gourgaud’s single phrase, “the enemy’s line maintained its immobility,” tacitly implies that the attack failed. We turn, then, to the English narrators, and learn from them what actually occurred.
“Seventy-four guns” (“Book ix,” says eighty) were ordered forward to a little elevation, so as to bring their fire to bear upon the English line at a range of about 700 yards. Soon after, as two o’clock approached, the columns of attack, under Ney’s command, were seen descending from their elevated ground, crossing the valley, and ascending the northern slope. The British artillery gave them a warm reception; but still the columns pressed on, until they approached the Duke’s line, near the centre and left centre. Here were placed the brigade of Sir Thomas Picton, about 3000 strong; and a Belgic-Dutch brigade under Bylandt. As the French columns drew near, with shouts of “Vive l’Empereur!” the courage of the Belgians gave way, and the whole brigade, amidst the groans and hooting of the British soldiers, begun a hasty movement to[393] the rear, from which they could not be induced to advance during the whole remainder of the day.
Left thus to himself, to sustain the whole attack of twice or three times his numbers, the gallant Picton never hesitated. Forming his little band two deep, he waited till the French column came within charging distance. It then halted, and endeavoured to deploy into line. Saluting it, at this moment, with a volley from his whole brigade, Picton gave the word “Charge!” and his men sprang forward with the bayonet. In an instant the whole French column was in confusion; and before they had time to recover themselves, Ponsonby’s brigade of heavy cavalry, the Royals, the Scots Greys, and the Enniskilleners, broke in upon them, and in a few moments the whole side of the hill was covered with fugitives. The heroic leader of “the fighting division,” however, the gallant Picton, fell, shot through the brain in the moment of triumph. Another fierce encounter was at hand. Milhaud’s Cuirassiers were close behind the French columns, and they essayed to retrieve the fight. But the Household Brigade met them, and after a desperate encounter—of the best horsemen in England and the best in France—the whole mass of the French, horse and foot, were driven back in confusion, leaving behind them the eagles of the 45th and 105th regiments, and nearly 3000 prisoners. The grand attack of Ney on the British centre had failed; and the first corps of the French army was so seriously cut up and disorganized, as to be in no condition to renew the attack. We now understand Gourgaud’s confessions, “The enemy’s cavalry made several successful charges on the flank of one of the columns of the first corps;” and, “when the Emperor perceived that some disorder prevailed on our right, he proceeded thither at full gallop.”
It was now considerably past two o’clock. The principal attack had been repelled: the English position had not been forced, or even endangered. “The enemy’s line,” says Gourgaud, “maintained its immobility.” But Napoleon’s second corps had been beaten and much damaged at Hougoumont; and now his first was crippled and nearly disabled in front of La Haye Sainte. In this strait, either Ney or Napoleon, or both of them, still confident in their superior strength, had recourse to a desperate measure, which had, indeed, a probability of success; but which, if it failed, would involve a serious danger.
They had, still untouched, or nearly so, a reserve of what Napoleon himself styles, “twelve thousand select horse,” the two corps of Cuirassiers, the light cavalry of the Guard, and the horse grenadiers and dragoons[394] of the Guard. There need be no dispute as to the strength of this force, since Napoleon himself twice states it to have been 12,000.
THREE O’CLOCK.
At this period of the battle, then, desperate at the two failures on the left and on the right, either Ney or his master launched this enormous mass of “select cavalry” against the centre of the British line. The error, if it is one, is sought by Napoleon to be charged on somebody else. In his bulletin, written at the time, he says:—
“Our two divisions of cuirassiers being engaged, all our cavalry ran at the same moment to support their comrades.”
Gourgaud endeavours to cast the blame upon Ney, saying:—
“Marshal Ney, borne away by excess of ardour, lost sight of the orders he had received; he debouched on the level height, which was immediately crowned by two divisions of Milhaud’s cuirassiers, and the light cavalry of the Guard. The emperor observed to Marshal Soult, “This is a premature movement, which may be attended with fatal consequences.”
These accounts would represent Napoleon himself famous for his rapidity and decision, to have had no command over his own troops. They are, therefore, not credible.
But remembering that Napoleon was himself at this moment in a forward position, and that the heavy cavalry placed in the rear as a reserve force must have defiled past him, we must at least believe him to have permitted this movement. Gourgaud says that Ney ordered forward Milhaud’s Cuirassiers, and that “the emperor ordered Kellerman’s corps to support him.” Colonel Heymes, aide-de-camp to Ney, says, “That movement took place under the eyes of the emperor, who might have stopped it, but did not.” Still as he afterwards, in private conversation, charged the fault on Ney,[32] we must suppose that the marshal, in his desperation, called for the reserve of cavalry, and that Napoleon permitted him to employ them. However this might be, it is certain that about three or four o’clock—the attack of the first corps on the centre and left of the English having failed, the whole mass of the “cavalry of reserve,” was brought forward and thrown upon the centre of the Duke’s position. Such an assault has rarely been made upon any other army in modern times. Deducting the troops in Hougoumont, and[395] the losses from four hours’ fighting, there could not have been at this moment so many as 12,000 British infantry in the whole line. Yet it is from Napoleon’s own narrative that we learn, that upon this weak array there was launched a mass of 12,000 heavy horse, 6,000 of whom wore armour, and who seemed, in their united strength, able positively to ride down the insignificant force of resolute soldiers who still kept the heights of Mont St. Jean.
The British accounts generally divide this tremendous onset of the cavalry into two attacks, the first, between three and four o’clock, when forty squadrons, twenty-one of them being composed of cuirassiers, ascended the heights behind La Haye Sainte; the second perhaps an hour later, when the first assailants, having found it difficult to maintain their ground were rallied behind thirty-seven fresh squadrons sent by Napoleon to their succour. And this agrees with Gourgaud’s account who tells us, first, that “Ney debouched upon the level height, with Milhaud’s Cuirassiers and the light cavalry of the Guard,” and then adds, a little after, that “the Emperor directed Kellerman’s Cuirassiers to support the cavalry on the height lest it should be repulsed.” It is clear, therefore, that the first onset of 5,000 or 6,000 men had failed, or was in danger of failing, when Napoleon sent forward a second until, as he himself says, the whole “twelve thousand select horse” were involved in the struggle.
How it was that this tremendous attack failed, it is not easy at this distance of time to understand. The whole of the infantry in the British line were quickly formed into squares; the front ranks kneeling and presenting fixed bayonets, and the second and third lines keeping up a constant fire of musketry. The artillery, also, saluted the intruders with grape-shot; but many of the British guns were soon taken possession of by the cuirassiers. The Duke, always prepared for every emergency, had instructed the artillerymen that they should, on the approach of danger, take off a wheel and retire with it into the nearest square of infantry. Thus the cuirassiers, when they had seized a gun, found themselves hampered with it, and while they were trying to carry it off, the musketry of the British squares thinned their numbers.
Wellington, in describing the battle in a letter to Marshal Beresford, said, “I had the infantry for some time in squares, and the French cavalry walking about us as if it had been our own.”
There probably never was such a trial of “pluck” as this part of the contest presented. It was a hand-to-hand struggle, lasting two or three[396] hours. Had a regiment of cuirassiers ever found courage enough to throw themselves on the British bayonets, there can be little doubt that some of the weaker squares might have been broken. But this never once occurred. Gourgaud, indeed, says, “Our cavalry penetrated many of the enemy’s squares, and took three standards,” but he must here be speaking of the Belgian or Hanoverian troops, many of whom were unsteady, and some of whom were scattered and cut up. There was, in fact, no absolute reliance to be placed on any but the British troops, and some of the best of the German. A whole Dutch-Belgian brigade, on the approach of the cuirassiers, moved off without firing a shot. After several charges of the British horse upon portions of the French cavalry, Lord Uxbridge put himself at the head of Tripp’s brigade of Dutch-Belgian carabineers, and ordered them to charge; and so they did, but not until they had first turned their backs to the enemy! Somewhat later, he ordered forward the Hanoverian regiment called the Cumberland hussars; but the colonel “did not see what good was to be done” by moving him from his snug position, which was out of reach of the firing. He added, that he could not answer for his men, for that they rode their own horses, and could not afford to lose them! Receiving from Lord Uxbridge the vehement reproof which might have been expected, he and his men moved off to Brussels, where they spread the report that the allied army was destroyed, and that Napoleon was advancing at the head of his Guards!
Yet this tremendous attack failed, as the two preceding attacks had done. And its failure was one chief cause of Napoleon’s ruin. He had risked his cavalry reserve, and had lost it. For it is a remarkable and wonderful fact, that, continuing this struggle for two or three hours, this splendid body of “twelve thousand select cavalry” was wholly destroyed. Individuals, and parties of fugitives, doubtless escaped, and their number in the aggregate might be considerable; but this arm of the service was utterly disabled. In his Bulletin, Napoleon said, “For three hours numerous charges were made, several squares penetrated, and six standards taken;—an advantage bearing no proportion to the loss which our cavalry experienced by the grape-shot and musket-firing.” Fleury de Chaboulon, his secretary, says, “Our cavalry, exposed to the incessant firing of the enemy’s batteries and infantry, sustained and executed numerous brilliant charges, took six flags, and dismounted several batteries; but in this conflict we lost the flower of our intrepid cuirassiers, and of the cavalry of the Guard.” He[397] adds, that on reaching Paris, and describing the battle, the emperor said, “Ney behaved like a madman!—he got my cavalry massacred for me.” And it is the chief complaint of all the French accounts, that when at the close of the day the English horse swept over the field, the Emperor had not a single regiment of cavalry to oppose to them![33] The “twelve thousand select cavalry” had broken into the English position; but, except as scattered fugitives, they never returned!
FIVE O’CLOCK.
But the battle had now lasted six hours, and Napoleon had allowed his opportunity to pass away. Five o’clock brought the Prussians; and after they had entered the field a decisive victory for Napoleon became impossible.
Bent on his object of proving that he had been not so much beaten as overpowered by numbers, Napoleon in his “Book ix,” brings the Prussians into the field at noon-day! In doing this he does not scruple to employ the most direct and obvious falsehood. To give a single instance,—Gourgaud, his aide-de-camp, in his account of the battle, thus writes:
“It was half-past four o’clock, and the most vigorous fire was still kept up on every side. At this moment General Domont informed his Majesty that he observed Bulow’s corps in movement, and that a division of 8,000 or 10,000 Prussians was debouching from the woods of Frischenois.”
Yet in “Book ix” Napoleon does not hesitate to say: At two o’clock in the afternoon General Domont had given notice that Bulow formed in three columns; that the enemy appeared to him to be very numerous,—he estimated the corps at 40,000 men.”
But he does not even postpone their arrival until two o’clock:—two pages earlier he insists upon it that he saw them, in the distance, at noon.[34] Now as it is absolutely certain that, with the greatest exertion, the earliest of the Prussian brigades were unable to reach the field until[398] half-past four, we may be sure that at twelve o’clock they must have been eight or ten miles off! Hence this passage in “Book ix” must either be a downright fiction; or else Napoleon must have discovered on a distant hill a party of the Prussian staff who had ridden forward to observe the position of affairs, and who must have been magnified by his alarms into an army-corps!
The real time of the arrival of the Prussians is one of the most clearly-defined facts of the whole history. All the witnesses agree upon it. We have just cited Gourgaud’s words, that “at half-past four General Domont observed a division of 8,000 to 10,000 Prussians debouching from the woods of Frischenois.”
In strict agreement with which the Prussian official account says.
“It was half-past four o’clock.... The difficulties of the road had retarded the march of the Prussian columns; so that only two brigades had arrived at the covered position which was assigned them. The generals resolved to begin the attack with the troops which they had at hand.”[35]
And General Drouet, who was at Napoleon’s side during the action, said, in his speech in the Chamber of Peers on the 24th of June, 1815,—“The Prussians began to attack us at about half-past five in the afternoon.”
It is quite clear, then, and beyond all dispute, that the Prussians first began to enter the field of battle, and to be visible to the French at half-past four in the afternoon; that the Prussian commanders immediately proceeded to make arrangements for an attack;—and that their first collision with the French troops took place about half-past five in the afternoon.
But Napoleon had been forewarned of their approach; for his flying parties had brought in, he tells us, two or three hours before, a Prussian hussar who was bearing a letter to the Duke of Wellington, announcing that General Bulow and his corps were on their march. Hence Napoleon had already set apart his sixth corps, under Count Lobau, to receive the Prussians whenever they should make their appearance.
He introduces at this period many complaints of Marshal Grouchy, who, he pretends, ought to have followed Bulow’s corps, and have taken part in the battle of Waterloo. This is the very height of injustice and absurdity; since he had employed Grouchy distinctly to follow and[399] occupy the attention of the main body of the Prussian army; and in obedience to this command the marshal was at that moment engaged with the Prussian third corps at Wavre. But, on looking at Napoleon’s first bulletin of the battle, we see that this aspersion of Grouchy is an afterthought,—a mere device to lessen his own defeat. Writing at the time, and giving to France a full account of the battle, in that bulletin not one word of any default of Grouchy’s appears.
This, of itself, is enough to show the hollowness of the excuse for the loss of the battle. Grouchy himself, when the “ixth Book” made its appearance, instantly wrote and published an indignant denial of its statements; and Brialmont remarks, that “Napoleon has so expressed himself to make it clear that he was anxious to diminish the amount of his own responsibility by sacrificing the reputation of his subordinates. Thus he pretends that he received on the night of the 17th a letter from Grouchy, which letter never could have existed.”
But Gourgaud himself, Napoleon’s own aide-de-camp, is the best witness in exculpation of Grouchy. He tells us, that in the afternoon, hearing the cannonade of Waterloo, General Excelmans urged upon Grouchy to leave following the Prussians and to march towards the cannonade. But Grouchy, “though he burnt with desire to take part in the great battle, showed Excelmans his instructions, which were to march upon Wavre, and said, that he could not take such a responsibility on himself.”[36] It is clear therefore, that up to the afternoon of the 18th Grouchy had no other orders than those which bade him follow the Prussians who were in position at Wavre.
Grouchy then, was not at Waterloo, simply because Napoleon had sent him to Wavre, a town some twelve miles distant; and because he was there engaged in a struggle with the third Prussian corps. But the fourth Prussian corps was at Waterloo at five o’clock, because Blucher had promised to send it there, and because Wellington expected it; and gave battle with inferior forces, relying on this assistance. Napoleon ought to have foreseen the probability of all this,—and, foreseeing it, he ought to have delivered his blows more rapidly so as to break the English line, if that were possible, before the Prussians could enter the field. But now that he had allowed his opportunity to pass, and now that Bulow was actually beginning to take part in the battle,—what was the respective strength ranged on either side? This question must be[400] answered; for Napoleon says, “The enemy’s army had just been augmented by 30,000 men, already ranged on the held of battle; thus placing 120,000 men against 69,000, or two to one.” (p. 148.) And then he immediately afterwards, adds “It was noon.”
This statement, however, like most of Napoleon’s other statements, is untrue. The Duke’s army had never amounted to 70,000 men, of whom some 10 or 15,000 were merely nominal combatants, whom it was impossible to persuade to fight. And Napoleon wilfully overlooks the plain............