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 , actually available soldiers Napoleon only found himself able to collect on the Belgian fron- tier, after making the most moderate detachments to Gourg.
As Thiers admits , men present Thi. Holding fortresses occupied by de- pots 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 Allied 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. Hardinge, his agent with Blucher, that he reckoned Buonaparte's means for attack at , men; and somewhat later the Prussians had made a very exact estimate of their enemy's field army, corps by corps, Sib.
This knowledge curiously affected their reports of facts in the cam- See p. We have said that Napoleon knew the general strength of the Allies. The authorities have been too many and too keen to allow of such illusions, and, what is still more to the purpose, the real disproportion was so great as to suffice for the national vanity of even their vainest writers. The Prussian army, estimated by Napoleon himself at ,, was actually but little less. It was di- vided into four grand corps, each complete in all the Pr.
These numbered in actual total within one p. It is right to add that Charras shows that the park Note C. 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 forest to enable him to guard the portion of it near that town, which is exceptionally open and easy to traverse. The numbers of Wellington's army are less easy to agree upon than those of the others.
Estimated by Napoleon at ,, they have been reduced by Gonrg. Charras to 95,, from a very minute examination cha. Siborne, however, brings the total up to ,, and sib. Examining the tables i given by these two careful writers we find, as might ,f be expected in this particular matter, that the English- man is the more correct. But a corps of Hanoverians, 9, strong called 10, in April , arrived with the chief Hanoverian general. As it was Wellington's own choice that these Hano- verians and certain other troops amounting by Si- sib. This , was thus divided, for Wellington had now so far adopted the Continental model as to break the 70, bayonets of his field force into three great corps, keeping the cavalry separate in a fourth: 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.
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 Chass6 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 Nassau ers. To watch his share of the frontier, the Duke dis- posed the first Corps in continuation of the Prussian line about Mons, Enghien, and Mvelles; 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 Hill ; the rest of the cavalry 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 from north to south, was not unnecessarily scattered in case of sudden p.
On this important head it is necessary to point out that Wellington, regarding the defence of Belgium and of his communications with England Supp. 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. 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 Kenii. 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. A superficial observer would reply, that they did concentrate in time at Waterloo.
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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 their whole forces in junction ; and this is what took place [i. 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 Kenn. 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. Nor can more be possibly alleged in their defence than was said by the earliest of this class. Muffling, 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!
Hist, i Wellington, having no other accounts but those of 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.
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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 be 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 the blow 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. Determined to take the offensive and to take it first in Belgium ; aware that he would be considerably outnumbered by the armies defending that country. 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 through the very difficult 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. 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. He himself certainly expected it would thus be made ; and his expectation, as he himself points out, is abundantly proved by the ibid. 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 ciia.
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 , having been wrested originally from the Netherlands by the victorious Republic of , and confirmed to France by the easy treaties of 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.
Cross-roads led naturally from each to the bridges over the Sambre at and near that town: Once across the Sambre at Charleroi, Napoleon would have but thirty-four miles of a first-class chaussee 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 Solre, 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. It has been said that Napoleon was to lead , men to his great enterprise. Of this force 22, were cavalry and 10, 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 Ehine, not disposable for the Belgian campaign.
It must be understood that the numbers of each corps are given roundly; and they include the detachments of all arms allotted to it, according to the usual continental practice. 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 Cavalry between Belgium and Paris.
Philippeville, and became the right j the rest of the troops were directed on Beaumont. So perfectly was this grand operation timed in hopes of surprising the cha. Allies, that on the night of the 1 4th the whole army, except a part of the 6th corps, 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. Elaborate instructions were issued for the advance of to dourg.
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- SoTivenirs carcd for an army. 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. The movements by which the concentration was effected may be best studied in their larger features in the account of M.
We need not follow them out here, since their execution as a whole has never Thi. Yet we shall have occa- sion, later, to take marked exception to one point in See p. Lying down unsheltered by their watch-fires, as had done that older Grand Army in which most of them had served, the , 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, less than theirs. 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 issuing directions not less complicated than his antagonist's. With the same love of detail for which the Emperor et seq.
It would be vain to attempt to criticise, within our limits, the previous history of these two greatest of modern generals. 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-. Thrown suddenly in lishedat Hamburgh into the command of a large army, he had from the isee. 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- mu. The coarse, almost brutal language which liis staff endured Mu. Over these his active personal super- vision and the familiarity of his address gave him such power, as no other modern commander but Na- poleon has exercised. Accustomed habitually to de- ibid. A renowned marshal, whose men, as he rode by an advancing column, would grasp his Ense, p. 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 ; whilst in the army of Wellington it took no higher form than respect for his great powers. 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 StaiF, 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. 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. There is no proper foundation in history for the statement Thi. 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 Yittoria, where his conduct saved the debris of Joseph's army from destruction.
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. Gl 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 towards the close, has made full use of this mishap in his attempts to excuse his disaster. 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. Bulow, 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. 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 I the spring of the previous year.
This elaborate arrangement was nullified by Napo- leon's attack, but it serves sufficiently to show how little that attack had been expected in the beginning. Wellington's 1st and 2nd Corps were commanded. G3 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.
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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 writinsr of he was out of favour Edin. We are assured by an eyewitness of apparent credibility that, at their last meeting, the only one of the campaign, the fieldmarshal showed this feeling unmistakably before his staff.
As concerns material, each army was fairly provided. Napoleon had the greater number of guns , but the Prussians not many less Critics of the day, whose remarks have since passed out of sight, did not fail to discover this Muff. 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.
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. Deducted from Wellington's armament, they leave him with but to take the, field, little more than half the supply that Napoleon hac got together, and less than two-thirds of his ally's. By using them freely he doubtless hoped to improve any success obtained at the first onset.
On the other Cha. Numbers are, as before remarked, but an uncertain test of the weight of an army. Above all other ele- ments, this depends on the goodness of the individual soldiers, and in this matter the Emperor had an advan- tage 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 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 and ,' as M.
Thiers calls them, who admits that, of the whole Thi. 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 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. But the real estimate made by Wellington of the comparative fighting means of the two Allied armies has escaped most writers. Yet his force was nearly equal to Blucher's in number ; and even if we reckon with the Prussians a corps of 20, Germans on the Moselle, it would be but a quarter less.
Of Wellington's ,, 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: Rhine 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 Wellington's cantonments, and there- fore the first of his army to come to blows with Sib. The following table, founded on Siborne's returns, gives a vivid idea of the hetero- Oourgaud; geucous compositiou of the mass termed in those Report ; days the English Army by writers of other nations. Table of Forces under Wellington.
Yery probably these suspicions were in some degree unjust and exaggerated ; but that they existed is undeniable, and they must have inevitably afi'ected the plans of Wellington, as we have shown they did his estimate of his moveable numbers. Napoleon may be justified Gourg. 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.
Taking Mufiling's narrative as that of the Muff. The precautions which Napoleon thought successful had in fact failed to blind the Pr Off. As the Prussian p- 7. So in this case the fires were distinctly noted from Ibid. Further reports from this officer, obtained by obser- vation and through fugitives crossing the frontier, were sent to Blucher on the 14th ; and, late that evening, the Marshal's orders went out to the Prus- Ibid. Zieten was to fall back and hold Fleurus,, The simple reply to this is, that his warlike capacity had never been more splendidly displayed than diu-ing that part of the struggle with the Allies of the spring of , known as the Week of Victories.
The general of Areola and Rivoli was not more full of resource, nor more sudden and deadly in his strokes, than he of Montmirail and Champaubert. Were this excuse worth employing, we may be sure the great French advocate would not have been at the pains of demolishing it. 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 since he first held a command, to herald his important operations. The orders to the corps, sent out before the light, prescribed the move- ment of the left and centre to begin at 3 a. Yandamme, and gives no hint that Napoleon himself doubted Gerard's being ready. By ten they were forced back beyond Mar- cha. Gerard had been de- ibid. The centre of the army comprising Yan- 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.
Yandamme's corps lay in front, and Yandamme had had no orders! The solitary officer who bore them had fallen on the way, and been badly hurt, and Yandamme 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 iwd. Janin, of Lobau's staff, who shows that Yandamme was moved on by this pressure on his rear, and not, as Thiers inaccurately states, by the urging of the Ge- Thi.
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. It was noon, accord- Doc. Helena version , when Pajol passed through the town, the bridge having been carried by the marines and cha. But the Emperor's own statement in his GovTg. Whilst the bridges of Marchiennes and Charleroi were thus both in French hands at noon, after a delay. He had started, as has been seen, at 5 a.
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 Ibid. Thiers found this story exploded when he Thi. Possibly the desertion caused a halt during the necessary report to Napoleon. The rear of his column had had more than twenty miles to march over bad roads, and half his corps did not cross the Thi. 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 maps , which is thirteen miles from Charleroi and twenty-one from Brussels, it crosses another chaussee running from Nivelles eastward to Namur. That point, with Sombreffe and Charleroi, mark thus a triangular piece of ground, which we shall call the Fleurus triangle, of vital importance to Napoleon's future operations, the Namur-Nivelles road being the chief communication between the Allied armies.
Long since the English and Prussian chiefs had recognised this, and the dan- ger of their being separated, should the French seize?. At a meet- The reasons for these are fully given by Muffling, and p. 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.
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Yet, at 3 p. Keille whose account Charras here follows had defiled across the river and taken post halfway be- cha. It needed a considerable deployment of Reille's troops in front of Gosselies before the Prussians there were dis- lodged and retired across on Fleurus, leaving the road ibid. Napoleon himself had to take letin. 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. After some words of welcome from the Emperor, he Tlii. 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 comiected 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. Girard's of Reille's corps, as soon as he had fairly Thi. 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 Gosselies. 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. An accident to the brigadier had that day placed the vide, his letter, Doc. It was the guns of the latter which had Doc Ney on his arrival reconnoitred. The ground rising up for yards towards Quatre 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. The fourth Girard's had left this column an now lay not far from Fleurus, at the village of Wange nies, touching the troops of Grouchy and Yandamme. D'Erlon had crossed the Sambre, and his corps was posted on the first portion of the cross-road lead- ing from Marchiennes to Gosselies. In the centre the infantry of the Guard had got to Charleroi, but their heavy cavalry, with two of Grouchy's four reserve corps 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. Yet the order of the day Gourg. By dark Pirch had halted at Mazy, four miles from SombrefFe, on the road from Namur, and Thielemann's corps had reached the latter place, being ten miles farther off.
Two hours' 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 Bulow the case was very different. This general, whose corps had been much further from headquarters, received his first orders only at 5 a.
These were to concentrate his ibid. This operation was in course of execution when, at As some of his troops could not be in- formed of this until late in the afternoon, and as Gneisenau's letter made no mention of actual hosti- ibid. But Hannut is full twenty- five miles from Ligny, where his presence was sorely needed ere that hour was long passed. His staff service must have been but poorly arranged, since the officer who bore this important news did not reach Muffling until Mu.
After some discussion Mu. This was soon after done, Sib. It is, for instance, contradicted explicitly by Siborne's and Hooper's narratives.
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Charras, on the testimony of the Dutch archives, makes it later. 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 Oransre's absence? This directed the general to put his troops under arms, Iceeping one brigade at Quatre Bras, and the other at Nivelles. In accordance with these instruc- tions, Bernard was left in the position he had taken up for the night, and the other brigade under Bylandt, at Nivelles. The Prince of Orange remained at Brussels with Wellington, and accompanied him to the famous ball, after a second order — the order of movement — had been dispatched to the troops.
But Wellington's subordinates, better informed than their chief, were again beforehand with him. Constant Rebecque had been fully acquainted at 10 p. He reported this proceeding and its cause at p- Wellington's second orders for the British divisions, Gut. The 3rd British division was now to move on Mvelles ; 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. No alteration was as yet made in the dispositions directing Chasse and Perponcher to gather at Nivelles ; and the divi- sion of Dutch-Belgian cavalry, under Collaert, was to move from near Mons to Arquennes, a village close to the former town.
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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. From this point see chap. Comments, It has been said before, that exception may be Ante,p. 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. Thiers, that Gerard's corps was not wholly brought up on the 14th. In his earliest and most genuine account.
Napoleon expressly gives the con- tinued occupation of that place by the Prussians 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 affairs of the day than has been hitherto assigned Glaus. Clausewitz does not comment on it specially, but p.
That Zieten was thus ex- posed to this contingency seems, however, to be in some degree that general's own fault. No satisfactory explanation has been ever given of the reasons of his allowing the bridges, which were left on his flanks as he quitted Charleroi, to fall into the enemy's hands, unmined and without resistance.
The information which he himself sent off to the Allied generals proves I clearly that he was not blind to the coming danger, and it does not appear why he took so little pains toj prepare for its approach. All its manoeuvres had succeeded to the full. General Eogniat's strictures that Yandamme's ad- vance on Fleurus was not really desirable: As the historian in two other places refers to ibid.
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 , Napoleon, i. The same author, writing in a spirit favourable to Napoleon, but not desirous to screen Berthier's faults, shows that in Ibid. Nor are these solitary instances. This historian, who served on the French staff in both campaigns, ii. 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: This author, who served constantly on the French staff from to , and watched its working in times of disaster as well as through a long period of success, has thus described its deficiencies: This was a bad plan in every view, for, apart from the dishonesty, they were ill served and lost valuable time.
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. I knew nothing of the 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 always had 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. But we have special reason for rejecting his statement in th matter. Telling us, as he does repeatedly, that hi assertions are based on careful comparison of officia reports with the narratives of eyewitnesses, Thier rarely quotes the original authority which he prefe to follow.
How can we accept any assertion as t Napoleon's staff service made by a writer who does no Thi. After the admission by this historian of the truth Ante, p. It is necessary, therefore, to point out plainly what seems to have usually escaped notice. 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 writinsr bulletins!
Head as to Bourmont's arrival at Charleroi, is given by Hooper ; but that author seems to have over- looked the narrative of Colonel Janin before referred ibid. 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.
Distinct authority for the assertion has never been given ; and we must believe that Muffling, 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, ccntratiou somc 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 military p. Colonel Hamley, in his valuable work on Operations -' of War, p. At the same time it must not be forgotten, that there seems no sufficient reason for the omission as to the Sambre Ante, p.
It must be added that the Prussian loss usually given as 1, for the ibid. Like that for the 16th it fails ibid. Ad- mitting this to be true, the late arrival of the intelligence at Brus- sels seems to prove, that the step taken was insufficient, or not early 3nough, or both. The difference is of course in ' missing' men, partly prisoners ; and it will be reasonable to add to Zieten's admitted 1, enough of these to make his loss quite as great as the 2, assigned him by French historians. Even with this, and the other drawbacks mentioned, the retreat so ably conducted before the tremendous force which Napoleon pressed on him, must always redound to the credit of the Prussian general.
We pass to one of the most serious controversies bound up with the history of the campaign. This concerns the verbal orders of Napoleon to Ney on the afternoon of the 15th, and the spirit in which they were carried out. It hardly admits of doubt, that had Ney briskly attacked Prince Bernard, he might have seized the position of Quatre Bras at a stroke; for though his infantry little exceeded the Nassauers in Cha. Now to take up ground anywhere near the Prussians, Wellington's troops must pass through Quatre Bras; and that place was, in such case, the natural point marked for his Reserve to join the 1st and 2nd Corps, by the most direct roads available.
Whole works have been devoted to the subject of this and two other alleged faults of the Marshal. But we may be spared a library of controversy, for Thiers has devoted a special note to the matter we Thi. When we analyse all he has said, however, the exact result pro- duced is the following: Napoleon, Ney, Soult, and Colonel Heymes, the only staff officer who arrived with the Marshal when he reported himself. Ney died before the controversy arose.
Soult con- tradicted to others a declaration of his to Ney's son, the late Due d'Elchingen, that his father had no order to push on to Quatre Bras, and Soult's evidence is, therefore, untrustworthy. I'ennemi;' but Heymes' evidence is to be rejected, because he wrote his work ' expressly to prove that the Marshal committed not a single mistake. Now, with- out trying Napoleon's evidence by the severe test the historian has applied to that of Heymes which we need hardly point out would vitiate it hopelessly , we will put it to the proof of Thiers' own opinion of Na- poleon's veracity on a like occasion at a former time.
Two years before Waterloo, Yandamme's corps had been destroyed at Kulm by a rash adventure into the rear of the Allied army. Yandamme himself was for some days reported dead, though really taken; and Thi. Napo- leon had the general's papers seized, that he mighl extract from it all his military correspondence, and' thus remove all proof of the orders which this unfor- tunate officer had received from him. Napoleon had even the weakness to deny that he had given him orders to march upon Toeplitz, and wrote to all the commanders of corps, that this general, having re- ceived instructions to halt upon the heights of Kulm, had been carried away by a too ardent spirit, anc had been destroyed through an excess of zeal.
In truth, if Ney spoke not, his ac- tion confirms the story of Heymes, and that told Ney's son by Soult, and of itself fully contradicts the Napoleon version. Did Na- poleon, in advancing from Charleroi on the two sides of the Fleurus triangle, intend to occupy both Quatre Bras and Sombreffe, if possible ; or, if that were not so, to seize one and not the other. This is a question of probabilities which General Jomini, a critic of the highest order, and writing in a sense very favourable to Napoleon, has specially discussed.
The positive order to advance to Quatre Bras must have been given, he thinks, ' in the same manner as to Grouchy ' [then with the advance on the other road], ' whom he ordered to push to Som- breffe, if that were possible;' for, as the writer has p. Passing to the operations of the other side, it has been shown that Bernard deserves full credit for the original occupation of Quatre Bras — credit to be shared by Eebecque and Perponcher for their ap- proval of it.
That the young Prince only that day for the first time had charge of a brigade, adds con- siderably to the merit of his conduct. It is a sin- gular proof of the gross carelessness of Thiers in details relating to the Allies, that in his account of the day's affairs, he makes Bernard march with his 4, inQufrom Nivelles to Quatre Bras on his own account.
Of the Celebrated misunderstanding of Bulow'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 Bulow 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, men at the hour of need. Wellington's inaction during the 15th can hardly escape notice in the most cursory view of the strategy of this campaign. As might be expected, it has Hooper, found scvcrc critics and warm defenders.
It IS true that his memory when he wrote that account was no longer exact: 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. This same author has taken much pains to defend Wellington from the censure of Charras, and has succeeded in discovering one blunder relative to the ibid. But he himself is hypercritical when he objects further to cha. 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.
Indeed Hooper in the same paragraph Hooper, admits that Perponcher took upon himself to disobej-, and deserves credit for it ; an admission which settles the question of fact as to the propriety of the order he received. Perponcher did had he been at Nivelles or Braiiie. This brings us at once to the real issue. Was Wel- lington in his right place at Brussels on the 15th, Clans, p.
This, and the criticisms of other continental critics, may by some be thought of little importance; but it cannot be unimportant to observe that Muffling, the most friendly to the Duke of this class, agrees exactly with his countryman on this head. In that case Napoleon would have fallen into the Caudine Forks on the 16th. To sum up the facts of the 15th as they occurred. It has been shown that Napoleon failed, owing to in- complete arrangements on his own side, to bring his whole army over the Sambre as he had intended, yet had nearly , men at night on the north bank ; that the Allied generals had considered before- hand the very case that was about to happen, and determined on certain positions to be occupied in 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 man to meet the enemy, and ordered a concentration which would have left Ney at liberty to push on within fourteen miles of Brussels; and that Napoleon had actually in his possession, on this first day of the campaign, the whole of the ground on which the English were to have met him, with his advanced guard holding a portion of that originally marked out for Blucher.
Up to this point it can surely be asserted that the balance of strategy was on his side. You also may like to try some of these bookshops , which may or may not sell this item. Separate different tags with a comma. To include a comma in your tag, surround the tag with double quotes. Skip to content Skip to search. Charles Cornwallis , Physical Description xii, p.
Language English View all editions Prev Next edition 1 of 2. Check copyright status Cite this Title Waterloo lectures: Author Chesney, Charles C. Subjects Waterloo, Battle of, Waterloo, Belgium, View online Borrow Buy. Set up My libraries How do I set up "My libraries"? This single location in All: