Chapter I

I purpose, in this and a subsequent chapter, to describe the main features of the Campaign of 1815, and to endeavour to pronounce a fair judgment upon it. Of the interest of the subject it is needless to speak; this grand passage of arms will attract the attention of history to it in the same degree as the contest decided on the field of Zama, or the last struggle between Pompey and Cæsar. Yet this is not my chief reason for attempting this sketch; I venture to think, though a large literature has grown up round the theme of Waterloo, that there is still room for an impartial study, brief though it be, of the leading incidents of this ever-memorable and most decisive conflict. Many causes, in fact, have concurred to obscure the truth respecting the Campaign of 1815, and to prevent a just estimate being formed of it. On some points our knowledge is still imperfect; passion and prejudice have distorted the facts, on several others of the first importance; and commentators on Waterloo, even including the chief actors in the drama, have, in most instances, either made palpable and grave mistakes, or have applied a kind of criticism to the course of events, essentially, and from the nature of the case, fallacious. The narratives of Napoleon, in some of their parts, bear the ineffaceable marks of his genius, but they abound in serious errors of detail, and in places they are far from just or honest. The apology of Wellington, though the most truthful of men, written as it was in far advanced age, is not trustworthy in many respects; and all that has emanated from the Prussian staff is by no means accurate, or even always candid. As for historians, Thiers has composed a romance confuted by the evidence in most important points; and the same may be said of the host of Frenchmen who, like him, have slavishly followed Napoleon. We have had a like class of writers in England; from Siborne to Hooper it has been the fashion to describe the Duke as faultless in 1815, in plain defiance of unquestionable facts; and Dutch, Belgian, and German authors have equally erred in claiming praise for chiefs of their races beyond their merits. Then we have commentators, of whom Charras is by far the ablest and most perfect specimen, partisans who test operations of war by an impossible standard of mere theory, and who, in this way, have succeeded in making the greatest chiefs seem inferior men; and Chesney’s _Essay_, though in parts excellent, is by no means free from this most unsound criticism. Passing by General Hamley’s valuable sketch, I believe Jomini’s account of Waterloo to be, even now, the best extant narrative; but it is necessarily wanting in many respects, in the information obtained since his day. I shall try to follow, in these chapters, the method which, in an inquiry of this kind, will most probably lead to just conclusions; that is, I shall rely[34] only on contemporaneous documents, the genuineness of which is not doubtful; and I shall endeavour to judge of events as they happened, from the point of view of those who took part in them, and not by the mere abstract rules of strategy.

I have no space to discuss the arrangements made beforehand by Napoleon to meet the League of Europe in 1815; but they were most able and even wonderful, and the detraction of Charras is false and unjust. The memories of an immortal campaign would have caused the Emperor to defend France on the Marne and the Seine, with fortified Paris a pivot for his operations and a vast entrenched camp; but the state of opinion made this plan impossible, and he resolved to assume a daring offensive. His design, resembling in its main features the strategy which led to Ulm and Austerlitz, may be left with confidence to judges of the art, and bears the clear stamp of his transcendent genius. A million of armed men were advancing on France from the Scheldt, the Rhine, the Oder, and the Po; but the hosts of the Allies were widely apart, and at unequal distances from the points of attack; and the extreme right of the vast front of invasion, composed of the armies of Blücher and Wellington, was isolated, and close to the French frontier. It was possible, therefore, to make a sudden spring on this detached part of the Coalition’s forces, to surprise and to overthrow it in detail; and if decisive success were achieved, there were reasons to believe that Napoleon’s triumph might bring the war at once to a close. The situation, besides, of the menaced armies in Belgium invited a daring attack, even though made with an inferiority of force. They were disseminated along a wide front, from Ghent to Liège, a hundred miles in length, and from thirty-five to fifty miles in depth, from Brussels to the edge of French territory; they were scattered in divisions, covering the roads that led, in many lines, from the frontier of France; and two days, at least, were required before they could even nearly concentrate on a given field of battle. They were thus vulnerable at all points, and the strategy which placed them in such positions has long ago been condemned as false; but many and decisive reasons concurred to induce Napoleon to select their centre, and the space where their inner flanks met, as the first spot on which to direct his efforts.

Were he to assail the Allies on either wing, he would press their armies against each other, and favour rather than retard their junction, the very event to be most avoided; and, besides, they were in greater strength on these lines than at those points of their centre at which their separate forces came in contact. Again, Wellington was based on the sea, from Brussels and Ghent to Ostend and Antwerp; the base of Blücher was the Rhine and Cologne. Were their centre, therefore, fiercely attacked, and their armies compelled to diverge from each other, the probability was that each chief would fall back on his proper base, as happened in the campaign of 1794, and that the Emperor would be able to interpose and, perhaps, to overwhelm their recoiling forces. Other considerations combined to determine the purpose of the most profound of generals. Blücher was known to be hasty and bold to a fault; the genius of Wellington was circumspect and cautious; and Napoleon calculated--rightly, as the event proved--that should he fall suddenly on the allied centre, Blücher would hurry forward to repel the attack, and that Wellington would be slow to advance; and this single circumstance, it was not unlikely, would give the Imperial chief an admirable chance to beat in detail his divided enemies. The peculiarities of the theatre, too, encouraged an attempt against the allied centre. At each side of this point the French frontier at this time ran into Belgian territory, especially from Valenciennes to Rocroy; a great main road by Charleroi to Brussels nearly traversed the space where the Allies met, and led into the heart of the Belgic provinces; the communication between the Allies depended chiefly on one lateral road, extending from Nivelles to Namur eastwards, and behind this lay a difficult region of hills and marshes watered by the Dyle, and unfavourable to the junction of divided armies. Should Napoleon, therefore, advance on this path, he would have the shortest line of attack from France; he would have an avenue into the midst of the camps of his foes, and conducting him to the Belgian capital; and should he once be able to force his adversaries from their main point of contact, the Nivelles and Namur road, they would find it no easy task to reunite, and they would probably be placed in serious peril.

The Allies were thus to be struck at their centre, and their separated hosts to be rent asunder as Beaulieu and Colli, twenty years before, when Bonaparte was first revealed to Fortune, were assailed from the Genoese seaboard and driven in eccentric retreat from Piedmont. An untoward event at the outset increased the difficulties of carrying out a plan, which may be pronounced one of the most brilliant even of Napoleon’s marvellous career. The united armies of Blücher and Wellington were about 224,000 strong; the Emperor reckoned that 150,000 men were required to assure his operations success; and it may confidently be said that, had he had this force, he would, humanly speaking, have been victorious, spite of the misadventures and faults of the Campaign. A sudden rising in La Vendée, however, deprived him of 20,000 good troops; but, though this added largely to his adverse chances, his position was such that he still resolved to persevere in his audacious project. The execution of his profound design was admirable, and, indeed, all but perfect. The divisions intended to make the movement were encamped along the northern frontier of France, or thrown back southward almost to the capital; and the problem was how to draw together these widely separated bodies of men, and to concentrate them at the appointed spot, without interference on the part of the enemy, and without even his knowledge, if this were possible. The operation was accomplished with success, largely through that remarkable skill in stratagem which was one of Napoleon’s distinctive gifts. While the corps on the frontier, their march concealed by different expedients with consummate art, were collected together from the vast distance which extends from Lille and Valenciennes to Metz, the corps in the interior were moved forward by degrees, and the united masses were brought into contact, at the points indicated by their great head and leader. On the evening of the 14th June 1815, nearly 128,000 Frenchmen, including 22,000 cavalry, and with 350 guns, had effected their junction, on a narrow front, on the very verge of the plains of Belgium, a few miles from the banks of the Sambre, and converging towards the great main road, running, we have seen, from Charleroi to Brussels; and the concentration, if not quite complete, was, in the circumstances in which it was made, one of the finest known in the annals of war. The Emperor’s left wing, about 45,000 strong, composed of the 2nd and 1st Corps, in the experienced hands of Reille and D’Erlon, was near the Sambre at Leez and Solre; the centre, nearly 68,000 men, comprising the Imperial Guard, the 3rd Corps of Vandamme, the 6th Corps, with Lobau as its chief, and the cavalry reserves, under the command of Grouchy, lay in the country around Beaumont; and the right wing, the 4th Corps, led by the brilliant Gérard, and numbering perhaps 15,000 soldiers, was, in part, at Philippeville, its appointed station, a part, however, being half a march distant, the single detachment that had not fulfilled its mission. The purpose of Napoleon was to conduct these forces, assembled at his bidding as if by magic, at daybreak against the enemy in his camps; to cross the Sambre, to enter Charleroi, holding the main road to Brussels before referred to; and having taken possession of the adjoining country, and overpowered, if possible, any foes in his path, to press on to the road from Nivelles to Namur, to occupy on it Quatre Bras and Sombreffe, the two points where the allied commanders would probably attempt to effect their junction, and having attained this position of vantage, to interpose between their divided armies, completing the first act in the drama of the Campaign.

Having made a spirit-stirring address to his troops, Napoleon set his army in motion at about 3 A.M. on the 15th of June. The left wing was not long in crossing the Sambre; soon after mid-day the corps of Reille, that of D’Erlon being some miles behind, had passed the bridge which spans the stream near the town of Marchiennes--it had been left intact by the enemy--and the great French columns had easily pressed back a detachment of the Prussian corps of Ziethen, in observation along the frontier. The march of the centre was greatly delayed; an advance-guard of cavalry, with a weak support of foot, entered Charleroi, indeed, and was over the Sambre a short time after the left wing--the bridge at Charleroi, too, was not broken--but an accident had kept back Vandamme; and it was past three in the afternoon before a part of the Guard, the 3rd Corps, and part of the reserve of cavalry had made their way out of the narrow streets of Charleroi, Lobau and much of the cavalry being still in the rear. The progress of the right wing was even more retarded; it did not move until a part at least of its backward detachment had come into line; the march of the troops was, in some measure, checked by the villainous treason of Bourmont; the country to be traversed was close and difficult; and it was about five before it had passed the Sambre, even in part, across the bridge at Châtelet--unbroken like those of Marchiennes and Charleroi--more than half the corps being on the southern bank of the river. These delays enabled the bulk of Ziethen’s forces--their head-quarters had been at Charleroi--to effect their retreat before the advancing French, and frequently to arrest the heads of their columns. The Prussian commander had manœuvred ably, though he had greatly erred in not destroying the bridges; Ziethen made good his way to Fleurus, with a loss of not more than 2,000 men, any hope which Napoleon may have entertained of surprising and crushing his isolated corps having been at an early hour frustrated. Mainly, too, from this cause, the Emperor failed to seize the two points of Quatre Bras and Sombreffe, on the cross road from Nivelles to Namur, which had been the object of his march on the 15th; and the day, as Charras has said, was, in part, incomplete.

Nevertheless, Napoleon had already attained considerable and most promising success; and he might even now reckon on approaching victory. As evening closed one division of the left wing, supported by a large body of horsemen, was at Frasnes, quite near Quatre Bras; and, in fact, it had been prevented from gaining that point only by a demonstration made by the young Prince of Saxe Weimar, anticipating his orders by several hours. The remainder of the left wing, now under the command of Ney--the Marshal had reached Charleroi some time in the afternoon--was extended from Gosselies to Jumet, holding the great road from Charleroi to Brussels, and from ten to thirteen miles from Quatre Bras, a single division approaching the centre; and a march of a few hours could place it in force on one of the chief points of the allied line of junction. As for the centre, Lobau, and part of the Guard and of the heavy cavalry were still near Charleroi; but Vandamme and the great body of the Guard and of the cavalry reserve were not far from Fleurus, a few miles only from the point of Sombreffe, by which Blücher would unite with Wellington, and filling the country back to Charleroi; while the right wing of Gérard was at a half march’s distance. The main body of the French army, about 100,000 strong, had thus attained positions near the allied centre, which already made it difficult in the extreme for Blücher and Wellington to combine their forces along the road from Nivelles to Namur; if the Emperor had not cut his foes in two, he threatened their communication in a most dangerous way; he was master of the main road from Charleroi to Brussels almost up to the point of Quatre Bras; and notwithstanding several mishaps, he had not 30,000 men in his rear. He had every reason to assert, as he did, that if not wholly, he was, in the main, satisfied with the results of the operations of the day.

What had been the dispositions of the allied chiefs, while Napoleon had gained this immense advantage? Neither Blücher nor Wellington seriously thought that their adversary would venture to invade Belgium, for his inferiority of force was well known to them; and Wellington was convinced that the Emperor would await the attack of the Coalition, as he had awaited it the year before. This partly explains, though it does not justify, the dissemination of their scattered forces; and, as has been said, it is now conceded that this strategy was essentially faulty. They admitted, however, that an attack was possible, and everything tends to show that Blücher conceived that an attack on his centre and left was the most probable; while the Duke certainly believed that the blow would be most likely directed against his right. As an attempt, however, against their centre might be made, they had made provision for this contingency; and it had been arranged between them that should Napoleon advance by Charleroi on the great road to Brussels, striking at the point of contact of their inner flanks, each should concentrate in force on the road from Nivelles to Namur, holding the two positions of Quatre Bras and Sombreffe, which they felt assured they could occupy in time, though the mass of their armies was far distant, and Quatre Bras and Sombreffe were but a march from the frontier. These calculations might have proved correct in the case of a foe of ordinary powers; but in that of a consummate master of his art they were pregnant, as Charras has said, with danger. The Duke, however, and Blücher were not surprised, as has been alleged, in the true sense of the word, though they were out-generalled by Napoleon’s movement. As early as the afternoon of the 14th of June, Ziethen had learned that the French had approached the frontier, and he immediately despatched the news to Blücher at his head-quarters, miles off at Namur. The Prussian army was about 118,000 strong, including 12,000 horsemen and 312 guns; but its four corps were widely apart: the first, that of Ziethen, being around Charleroi; the second, that of Pirch, in camp at Namur; the third, under Thielmann, to the south-east at Ciney; the fourth led by Bülow far away at Liège; and it was all but impossible that the collective mass could be united on the road from Nivelles to Namur before nightfall on the 16th of June. The ardent veteran, however, eager for the fray, at about midnight on the 14th, when Napoleon’s advance might be presumed, ordered a general concentration of his army on Sombreffe, as had been agreed between himself and Wellington; the Prussian chiefs gave proof of extreme activity; and while Ziethen, who, as we have seen, had skilfully retarded the march of the French, fell back to Fleurus, and thence to Sombreffe, Pirch, by the night of the 15th of June, had got near Mazy, four miles from Sombreffe, with three of the four divisions of his corps, the fourth being a short way in the rear; while Thielmann had attained Namur, half a march from the intended point of junction. Three corps, therefore, of Blücher’s army could be at Sombreffe on the 16th by noon, ready to encounter the shock of Napoleon, and doubtless expecting support from Wellington. The corps of Bülow, however, could not be up in time; notwithstanding his energy, Blücher had assembled only three-fourths of his army; and, in the actual position of affairs, could he confidently rely on the aid of his colleague?

At this moment, indeed, the French outposts were close to the allied line of junction, and Wellington had made scarcely a sign of moving. The army of the Duke was about 106,000 men--of these 14,000, or nearly so, were cavalry--with 196 guns; and it was spread over even a larger space than that of the veteran Prussian warrior. A motley array of many races, it had been hastily formed into three masses; the first corps, under the Prince of Orange, scattered over an arc from Genappe to Mons, and covering two of the main roads from the frontier; the second, in the skilful hands of Hill, extending westward as far as the Scheldt, from near Braine le Comte to Ath, Leuze, and Oudenarde, observing, too, the approaches from France; and the third, or the reserve, at Brussels, a long distance off, round the head-quarters of Wellington. A fraction only of the first corps was thus near the road from Nivelles to Namur; the dispositions of the Duke were, in truth, made to protect his right and his communications with the sea, and time was required before he could send anything like a strong force to the support of Blücher. By nightfall on the 15th, when the heads of the French column were but a few miles from Quatre Bras and Sombreffe, the army of Wellington had scarcely stirred, and it was some hours afterwards before the British chief set it in motion in the direction of Blücher, and that, too, slowly, and as if with reluctance. The Duke had heard from Ziethen in the afternoon of the day, that the French were crossing the Sambre, and near Charleroi, and the intelligence was subsequently confirmed by Blücher; but thinking that Napoleon was making a feint, and believing that his own right was menaced, he waited upon his enemy’s movements, and merely ordered his lieutenants to be in readiness. As is well known, indeed, he went to the historical ball given at Brussels by the Duchess of Richmond; and it was after ten at night, when he had been made aware that Napoleon had mastered and passed Charleroi, that he took anything like a decisive step. Hill and the Prince of Orange were now directed to concentrate their troops, and to move to their left; but they were to hold a line from Enghien to Nivelles; the reserve at Brussels was still kept back, and nothing like a considerable force was to be drawn towards the allied points of junction, or to be so placed as to approach Blücher. The wide interval, in fact, from Nivelles to Quatre Bras, and thence by the main road to Sombreffe--the communication with the Prussians---was to be left uncovered, and whatever mere partisans may urge, there is not a word to be said for this strategy. Happily for the Allies, subordinates of the Duke interpreted the situation better than their chief. Saxe-Weimar, we have seen, had advanced to Quatre Bras, and checked Ney in his forward march, and Perponcher, a general in the Dutch service, ere long had occupied that most important point, though he held it with a single division only, which could scarcely offer a prolonged resistance. By midnight Wellington gave further orders for a general concentration to his left, and the reserve from Brussels was directed towards Nivelles; but these orders were extremely late, and it had become most improbable that the British commander would be able to master the road from Nivelles to Namur, even now almost in the grasp of his enemy, to advance along it by Quatre Bras, and approaching Sombreffe, to unite with Blücher. It was, indeed, far more likely that the divided armies would be attacked, and beaten in detail.

The previsions on which Napoleon had formed the plan of his campaign had thus been realised, up to this point, in their main particulars. The divergence of the bases of the allied chiefs had left their centre weak and ill-joined. It was now, after the retreat of Ziethen, connected only by a thread of vedettes; it was within easy distance of the French army; and should it be attacked, and cut in two, Blücher and Wellington would fall back, and probably separate, happy if they escaped a disastrous reverse. Blücher, again, had rushed forward to confront his enemy, leaving 30,000 of his troops far off; Wellington had paused, hesitated, and not approached his colleague, and an admirable chance had been thus afforded to the General of Arcola and Rivoli. The allied commanders, in fact, whatever may be said by apologists, and by worshippers of success, had laid themselves open to a terrible stroke, and though Napoleon is a most exacting critic, I can see no answer to his profound remark, that, out-manœuvred as they had been on the 15th, Blücher ought not to have made for Sombreffe “already under the guns of his enemy,” and Wellington ought not to have tried to join him, but that both chiefs should have endeavoured to unite on a line, in the rear, between Wavre and Waterloo. Their strategy, in short, was bad, and they only escaped defeat owing to a set of accidents in which fortune baffled their mighty adversary.

We have reached the morning of the 16th of June, and we turn to the operations of the French army, and to the direction given it by its Imperial leader. Napoleon had returned to Charleroi on the night of the 15th, to “take repose for his wearied frame”; his physical strength had been long declining; and possibly even on the first day of the campaign, he began to give proof of those failing bodily powers which was certainly exhibited before the contest closed.[35] Yet, though murmurs were heard in the French camp, both Jomini and Charras seem to me to reason too much on mere theory, and to fall into the error of judging only by the event, when they charge the Emperor with sluggishness and delay in his conduct on the morning of the 16th. A large part of the French army was still in the rear; Napoleon did not and could not certainly know the exact positions of the allied armies; he was about to thrust himself between two hostile masses, each nearly equal to his own force in numbers; and though he could have done more had he been omniscient, the circumstances required caution in any forward movement. Be this as it may, his orders were given, at Charleroi, at about 8 A.M.; and if they were founded on wrong assumptions, they proved his perfect knowledge of his art, and were admirably adapted to the events that happened. These orders, contained in four despatches, two from the Emperor to Ney and Grouchy, and two from Soult, the Chief of the Staff, to the same generals, prove that Napoleon did not believe he would be seriously opposed on that day; he thought that his left wing would easily pass Quatre Bras, and that his centre and right wing would easily pass Sombreffe; and he conceived that it was not improbable that he would enter Brussels on the morning of the 17th. This calculation was, no doubt, false; but it was founded on the true strategic view that Wellington and Blücher would not now endeavour to make a stand at Quatre Bras and Sombreffe, on the threatened road from Nivelles to Namur; and what Charras and others fail to point out, but what the real student of war will dwell on, is that, ignorant as he was of the actual facts, the dispositions made by Napoleon were in accordance with sound principles, and fitted to meet the situation of affairs. Ney, in command of the left wing, was ordered to advance, and go beyond Quatre Bras, concentrating the 2nd and 1st Corps, supported by Kellerman’s heavy cavalry, and holding the great road from Charleroi to Brussels; while Grouchy, entrusted in the Emperor’s brief absence, with the centre, the right wing, and the cavalry reserves, was to pass Sombreffe, and to attain Gembloux, attacking any enemy in his path, and to stand on a parallel line with Ney. As the army, however, should be well united, Ney was enjoined to detach a division to Marbais, a village near Sombreffe and Gembloux, to give support if required to the centre and right wing; and the Emperor added that, at about noon, he would be on the spot to assume the supreme command.[36]

Napoleon’s orders despatched from Charleroi reached the chiefs of the 2nd and 1st corps, spread, we have seen, from Gosselies to Jumet, on the great road from Charleroi to Brussels, at about 10 A.M. or a little before; they reached Ney at Frasnes at about 11 A.M.; and as[37] Reille and D’Erlon had been directed to advance by the aide-de-camp who carried the Imperial message; Ney might have been in possession of Quatre Bras at about 1 or 1.30 P.M.; at the head of 45,000 men, and might have crushed Perponcher’s feeble division, at the time standing alone at that place. In that event Ney could have seized Quatre Bras, in conformity with the Imperial orders, and have made the required detachment on Marbais; and had this been done, the 16th of June would certainly have witnessed a second Jena. We pass from the French left wing to the centre and right wing, directed, we have seen, at the time, on Sombreffe, and intended to prolong their march to Gembloux. Napoleon had reached Fleurus by 11 A.M.; the Guard, the 3rd and 4th Corps, with most of the cavalry reserves, for a moment under the command of Grouchy, had passed, at about 1 P.M., into the Emperor’s hands; the division detached from the left wing on the 15th had come into line, and Lobau, with the 6th corps, was marching from the rear. By this time Blücher stood in the path of the French in an advance on Gembloux; he was in force on the road from Nivelles to Namur, and his three corps held a formidable line, extending from Sombreffe almost to Marbais, and fronted by the villages of Ligny, St. Amand, and La Haye. Napoleon seems to have disbelieved at first that his adversary could be in strength on the field; but at 2 P.M. he sent a message to Ney enjoining him to complete the movement on Marbais, and to fall on the flank and rear of Blücher, and at the same moment the Emperor marched his army from Fleurus against his enemy.

The armies opposed were about equal in force, if we reckon the approaching corps of Lobau; the French being inferior in numbers--78,000 to 87,000 men--but having more guns and more numerous horsemen; but the superiority of Napoleon’s tactics gave him the advantage almost from the first moment. The villages, indeed, before the Prussian front proved defences of remarkable strength, and were taken and retaken with little results; but Napoleon occupied a full third of Blücher’s forces by merely threatening his communications to his left. The French batteries caused frightful destruction in the Prussian reserves, which had been recklessly exposed; and while Blücher brought most of his troops into action, the Emperor husbanded his men for a final stroke. The battle, however, was raging furiously and wholly undecided at 4 P.M.; and as Blücher’s rear was not assailed from Marbais, and the roar of cannon announced a battle at Quatre Bras, Napoleon formed a fresh combination to surprise and to overwhelm his enemy. By this time he had no doubt learned that D’Erlon, who ought to have been in line with Ney three hours previously, was still in the rear; so he sent[38] an order to D’Erlon to turn aside from Quatre Bras, and, moving towards Ligny, to fall in full force at St. Amand on the right and the rear of Blücher, accomplishing thus, in a different way, the results of an attack from Marbais. D’Erlon had approached Ligny within an hour, but he had so marched that Vandamme pronounced the apparition to be that of an enemy--a part, probably, of Wellington’s force--and the Emperor despatched[39] a general officer to ascertain how the fact stood, retarding meanwhile the course of the battle. Ere long the advancing columns were seen to draw off, and to disappear from the field; Ney, in fact, now assailed by superior numbers, had angrily ordered D’Erlon to Quatre Bras, and D’Erlon, Napoleon at least consenting--the Emperor would have been in extreme peril had his left wing been defeated and forced--abandoned a movement which, if pushed home, would have given his master a splendid triumph.[40] It was now 6.30 P.M., and it was time for Napoleon to endeavour to strike a decisive blow, the march of D’Erlon having not only ended in a disastrous false movement, but caused unfortunate delays at Ligny. During all this time the Prussians and French had been engaged in mortal encounter, but Napoleon’s skill had borne its natural fruits. Blücher’s left had been held in check and paralysed; the Prussian losses had been enormous; the veteran’s reserves had been thrown away, and in an effort to outflank Napoleon’s left, Blücher had weakened and almost laid bare his centre. The Emperor, who had his reserves in hand, launched the Guard and a mass of cavalry against the endangered point; the Prussian centre was broken after a fierce contest, and Blücher’s whole army was driven from the field, the corps of Lobau, which had come up from Charleroi, hanging on the retreat of the defeated enemy. The losses of the French were about 11,000 men, those of the Prussians not far from 30,000, including 10,000 disbanded fugitives; but how different would the result have been had Ney or D’Erlon fallen on the rear of Blücher!

While the star of Napoleon still shone at Ligny, it had begun to wane hard by at Quatre Bras; and the faulty disposition of his left wing had saved Blücher from a complete overthrow. We left Ney at Frasnes, having received the order of 8 A.M. at about 11 A.M.; and the Emperor’s aide-de-camp, we may be quite certain, informed the Marshal that he had communicated the order to Reille and D’Erlon, the chiefs of the 2nd and 1st Corps, at this moment at Gosselies and Jumet, about ten miles off, along the broad highway from Charleroi to Brussels. That order directed Ney to advance beyond Quatre Bras, collecting his 45,000 men, but making a detachment to the right at Marbais; and Ney might have begun at once to execute a movement which, if well carried out, would perhaps have changed the fortunes of Europe. Ney, at 11 A.M., had 9,000 good troops, of whom 4,000 were fine cavalry, at Frasnes, actually in his hands: his only foe was Perponcher’s weak division, 7,000 infantry, with but a few guns, and almost wholly unsupported by horse; and the Marshal knew that within three hours he might expect the aid of more than 30,000 soldiers, including a magnificent body of cavalry. Had Ney, therefore, been the chief of Elchingen, he could easily have overwhelmed Perponcher; and directing Reille and D’Erlon to expedite their march, he could have passed Quatre Bras, and detached to Marbais, at from 1.30 to 2.30 P.M., without encountering any enemy in force. But, as the whole course of the Campaign proves, Ney had become demoralized, like most of his colleagues, by the events of 1812–14, and that even in a greater degree; he fought with a halter round his neck, and was by turns timid and unwisely bold; and he not only did not make a step forward, but seems to have made no effort to induce Reille and D’Erlon to accelerate their movements and to come into line. This delay saved Blücher, and gave Wellington just sufficient time to repair, in part, the tardiness and hesitation of the 15th, to check Ney, and to baffle Napoleon in the manœuvre he had planned, which would have crushed the Prussians. The Duke reached Quatre Bras--but with an escort only, his advancing divisions were still distant--at about 11 A.M. on the 16th; and he rode off to near Ligny to confer with Blücher, whose faulty arrangements to meet Napoleon he condemned in a characteristic phrase--“they will be damnably beaten,” he said to his Staff--but to whom he promised support, “if possible.” Meanwhile, Ney showed no sign of moving: Reille advanced slowly, and the march of D’Erlon from the rear was a succession of delays; and it was 2 P.M. before the French Marshal--one division of Reille had come to his aid--made even an attempt to attack Quatre Bras. It is unnecessary to retrace the scenes of a combat, in itself not of supreme importance, though it had much to do with the issue of the Campaign. Perponcher’s division and other supports were nearly overwhelmed at 4 P.M.; but reinforcements came up by degrees, moving in haste from Nivelles and other points, which ultimately turned the scale against Ney. The Duke, returning from Ligny, displayed on the field the intrepidity and the genius in defence which were his distinctive gifts in war; and Ney, as night closed, retreated on Frasnes, having failed to fulfil his appointed mission, which, I repeat, might have been accomplished, having, however, prevented Wellington from sending a man to Blücher. The Marshal had been supported by Reille’s corps only, and by Kellerman’s corps of horsemen; D’Erlon, loitering in the rear, had been directed, we have seen, to another field at Ligny, and when recalled by Ney came into line too late to be of any use, or even to fire a shot; and Ney had conducted the battle ably, and even performed an important service, though he had thrown away a part of his superb heavy cavalry. He had, however, proved unequal to his task; he had not carried out Napoleon’s designs, which ought to have led to Blücher’s ruin, as, beyond question, he might have done; and though Reille and D’Erlon, especially the last, who contrived on the 16th to do simply nothing, are in a greater degree to blame, he cannot escape a share of censure.

The first part of the Campaign of 1815 ends with the battles of Ligny and Quatre Bras. Napoleon’s operations, up to the evening of the 16th, had been attended with marked success, which might easily have been complete and decisive. Selecting, with perfect insight, the true point of attack, he had conducted his army with admirable skill and secrecy to the Belgian frontier; and aiming at the centre of the Allies, the weakest and most vulnerable part of their line, he had drawn close to it on the 15th June. His enemies had been unable to arrest his progress, disseminated on a broad and deep front; and the impetuosity of Blücher, and the caution of Wellington, gave him, as he had foreseen, a favourable chance to divide his adversaries, and to beat them in detail. Blücher had hurried to Sombreffe to confront the Emperor, leaving a fourth part of his army behind; the Duke had paused, hesitated, and delayed in moving, and it was hours after Napoleon had passed Charleroi that Wellington even made an attempt to draw near his endangered colleague, even then directing his troops to points distant from the selected place of junction. This was the situation on the morning of the 16th, and it gave Napoleon a great advantage, which almost led to a crowning triumph. He may, perhaps, have delayed at this moment, though in this judgment I cannot concur, and his projects were founded on imperfect knowledge; but his general dispositions were so excellent that he ought to have overwhelmed the Prussian army. Having directed Ney, with his left wing, to pass Quatre Bras and to detach to Marbais, he marched to Fleurus and attacked Blücher; and had the attack in front at Ligny been combined with an attack in the rear from Marbais, Ligny must have terminated in another Jena. Exactly the same result would have followed had D’Erlon, who had lagged in the rear, continued his movement upon St. Amand; and a series of misadventures alone saved Blücher from a crushing disaster. Ney was not equal to his appointed mission; he lost the occasion to reach Quatre Bras, to advance, and to occupy Marbais. Reille and D’Erlon did not second their chief; and D’Erlon, when launched on the path of victory, was turned aside by an order of Ney, Napoleon, I certainly think, consenting. The blame of these failures must be divided between Ney, Reille, and D’Erlon, who deserves the most; Napoleon, too, may not have been bold enough, though this is mere theory after the event; but the fact remains that, but for unlucky accidents, Napoleon would have annihilated his foe. As it was, Ligny was a real victory. The Prussian army lost a third of its numbers, and Blücher was driven from the only road by which he could readily join Wellington into a difficult and intricate country. Meanwhile, though Ney had not accomplished all that his master had a right to expect from him, he had, at the opposite side of the line, attacked Wellington and held him in check. The Duke, his forces coming up late and in fragments, was unable to send assistance to his imperilled colleague; and though he had compelled Ney to fall back a little, Ligny made it necessary that he should quickly retreat, happy if he could effect his escape. Napoleon had thus succeeded on the 16th, though his triumph had been incomplete and partial. He had defeated Blücher, and kept Wellington at bay; and, above all, he had forced the Allies to abandon the road from Nivelles to Namur, their natural and their only easy line of junction. Would they diverge as Beaulieu and Colli had done, and give the General of the Campaign of Italy an opportunity to ruin them in detail? To Napoleon the prospect seemed full of promise, and yet all was not light on the scene before him. He had not gained a decisive victory. Blücher and Wellington were no ordinary foes; their armies nearly doubled his own; might they not yet close on the Imperial Eagle, which, terrible and swift as had been its swoop, had not thoroughly grasped and destroyed its quarry?