Chapter II (2)

This looks well on paper, and in mere theory; but is contradicted by the realities of war. Had Grouchy attained the Dyle by noon, he would have completely surprised Blücher, have caught him with an army far apart, on a flank march of the most critical kind; and in this position of affairs it is morally certain that Blücher would have reconnoitred and paused, would have waited to draw together his army, and would have fought a pitched battle with Grouchy, before he even thought of uniting with Wellington. In that event, inferior in numbers as he was, Grouchy would have detained the Prussians for hours; Blücher would have lost the chance of joining the Duke; and Waterloo would have been a French victory. The lessons of war, and the great authority of Jomini in this matter, confute the reasoning of a partizan censor, and the very incidents of the day point to the same conclusion. The mere apparition of Grouchy on the wrong bank of the Dyle, late as the hour was when he had approached Wavre, delayed the general movement of the Prussian army; and half of it never attained Waterloo. How different must the result have been had Grouchy crossed the Dyle at the true point, and gathered upon the flank of Blücher; in that case not even one Prussian division would, I think, have come to the aid of Wellington.

Grouchy, in short, was the Emperor’s evil genius on the great and terrible day of Waterloo; Napoleon has written, with perfect truth, that he could no more foresee his lieutenant’s conduct than he could assume that Grouchy would be swallowed up, with his army, by an unexpected earthquake. The Campaign of 1815 may be summed up in a few sentences. Striking at the extreme right, for the time isolated, of the hosts about to invade France, and screening the movement with wonderful skill, Napoleon collects an army of 128,000 men on the edge of France, running into Belgium, his object being to attack Blücher and Wellington, commanding about 224,000 men, but whose two armies were widely divided, in scattered groups, from Liège to Ghent and Charleroi. The Emperor, aiming at the allied centre, the weakest and most assailable point, begins the movement on the 15th of June; he does not, owing to a set of accidents, reach the strategic points of Quatre Bras and Sombreffe on the true line of junction of his antagonists, the lateral road from Nivelles to Namur; but his columns at nightfall are close to these, and his adversaries already are placed in danger. Blücher, meanwhile, acting as Napoleon had hoped, marches to Sombreffe with three-fourths of his army only; the Duke, fulfilling the expectations of his foe, lingers, hesitates, and delays his movements; and on the 16th Napoleon has a grand chance of reaching and beating his enemy in detail. His plans, if formed on a false impression, are nevertheless so correct in principle, that had they been carried out ably the Prussian army must have been destroyed; but Ney, Reille, and D’Erlon failed: the Emperor is perhaps over-cautious in not pressing D’Erlon’s advance on St. Amand; and Blücher escapes, through misadventures, which alone save him from complete ruin. Ligny, however, is a real French victory; and, meanwhile, Ney, though unequal to his task, fights an indecisive action at Quatre Bras; and though forced to fall back, he so far succeeds that he prevents Wellington from sending aid to his colleague, and, in fact, gains a strategic advantage. The close of the 16th sees Napoleon victorious upon the main scene of the contest, having only just failed to make Ligny a counterpart of the rout of Jena.

The 17th has come; the Allies, compelled to abandon their proper line of junction, retreat separately and in distant groups on a second line, between Wavre and Waterloo; they intend ultimately to unite on this; and this project, though crowned with success, was false strategy that might have proved their ruin. The French army, on this eventful day, makes a long halt not easy to explain; the retiring enemy is not pursued or watched; and this delay and remissness--utterly unlike the energy of Napoleon on the path of victory--and probably largely due to his declining health, save Blücher and Wellington from the gravest peril, and singularly aid their future projects. Napoleon does not move until noon from Ligny, his purpose being to attack Wellington, for several hours falling back on Waterloo; he has a noble army 72,000 strong to cope with 70,000 men of the Duke, more than a third of these being inferior troops; and he detaches Grouchy, with about 34,000, to pursue Blücher and to keep him away from Wellington. The Emperor follows the Duke from Quatre Bras, and finds his adversary in force near Waterloo; and meantime, though he remains convinced that Blücher is retiring on his base, he directs Grouchy to occupy Gembloux, having heard that Prussians were approaching that place. Grouchy reaches Gembloux by the night of the 17th; he informs his master that the Prussian army is in retreat in two great masses, one directed to Wavre, the other to Liège: and he shows that he understands his mission, and that he will endeavour “to separate Blücher and Wellington.” This report perfectly reassures the Emperor; he makes preparations for a decisive battle; but the elements interfere to retard his purpose, and he does not attack the Duke until near noon on the 18th. Meanwhile Grouchy, whose plain duty it was to leave Gembloux early, and to march on Wavre across the Dyle on the flank of Blücher as rapidly as his troops could move, breaks up hours too late, proceeds with strange slowness, and reaches Wavre in the afternoon only, striking Blücher in the extreme rear, but still detaining a part of his army. During all this time the great fight of Waterloo has been raging with varying fortunes; the French tactics are faulty, the Duke’s admirable. In the afternoon Bülow reaches Napoleon; the Emperor is engaged in a double battle. Ney recklessly squanders his master’s cavalry, but Bülow is for a time repulsed; and the Emperor makes a final effort to break Wellington’s centre with the Guard. The attack fails, but all is not over until part of two fresh Prussian corps turns the scale decisively against the French, and Waterloo ends in a frightful rout. The Prussians, in fact, who might have been detained by Grouchy, were all but left free to advance on Waterloo; they reached the field in the very nick of time. Grouchy kept back directly only 18,000 men; and yet, miserable as his operations were, they indirectly retarded the Prussian army, a significant proof of what might have occurred had Grouchy been a capable chief.

Having reviewed the incidents of this great Campaign, let us disengage the permanent lessons it teaches an impartial student of war. Napoleon operated with too small an army: 128,000 men could hardly overcome 224,000. He had a right to count on his transcendent genius; he had no right to assume that the Allies would make the grave strategic mistakes they made, or would give him the opportunities they gave. In consequence of this numerical weakness he was compelled to divide his army into two masses not sufficiently connected by an intermediate body; and this partly explains, though it does not excuse, the errors of Ney to the left on the 16th, and those of Grouchy to the right on the 18th. Had the Emperor had the 20,000 men he had intended to bring into the field, he would have had a force sufficient to fill this interval, and in that event he would have doubtless triumphed. The intellectual powers of Napoleon were splendidly exhibited in the contest; his plan for the Campaign is a masterpiece of art; his plan of attack at Waterloo defies criticism; his general ideas, though he made mistakes--for the greatest generals must necessarily err--reveal the wholly unrivalled strategist. His bodily strength, however, failed him: to this, I doubt not, we ought to ascribe the delays and carelessness of the 17th, and certainly this weakness had much to do with the inactivity and slackness he betrayed at Waterloo. It may well be, too, that his complete faith in himself had been diminished by recent events. Like Richard at Bosworth, he has recorded--

I had not the alacrity of spirit,
Or cheer of mind that I was wont to have;

and the great player against Fate may, in this mighty hazard, have thrown his last die with a trembling hand. We may perhaps see hesitation, and even timidity, in his allowing D’Erlon to return to Quatre Bras, and in not pressing the movement on St. Amand home; and the same shortcomings may be possibly traced in his not seizing a real chance at Waterloo, when La Haye Sainte had been taken, and before Bülow had made a serious attack on his flank. Yet it was his lieutenants’ errors that lost the campaign; on the 16th they failed on the left; Grouchy, on the 18th was worse than useless; and we can understand his bitter expression that victory was twice wrested from his hands through incomprehensible faults of subordinates. In this campaign, so to speak, the sun of Austerlitz seems about to break out in its old splendour; but malignant influences intercept its rays, and it sets at last in disastrous night.

To turn to the Allies, Blücher and Wellington were adversaries of a very different kind from the Beaulieu and Colli of 1796. Both certainly, made great strategic mistakes; both were more than once in imminent peril; and we see in their conduct the divided counsels repeatedly fatal to a Coalition and its chiefs. But both, in different ways, were great soldiers; they cordially co-operated in a common design; and the heroism of Blücher, mastering defeat, and the tenacity and tactical skill of Wellington, are admirable specimens of great parts in war. Another cause of the ultimate success of the Allies should be carefully noted. Napoleon, in his last address to his troops, referred scornfully to the Prussians of Jena, and exclaimed “Are not we and they the same men?” and like many great chiefs he took no heed of national and patriotic passion. The Prussian army of 1815 was not, however, “the same men” as the Prussian army of 1806; it was fired with an intense hatred of France, and with an intense love of the Fatherland; and it was capable of very different efforts from those of the serf-like troops of Brunswick. Napoleon, relying on former experience, believed that the army defeated at Ligny would recoil on its base, and, beyond doubt, would not make a dangerous march on Waterloo; but the reasoning of strategy, as has often happened, was baffled by the ardour of a devoted soldiery; though had Grouchy been equal to his task all this energy would have come to nothing. In Spain and Russia Napoleon had suffered immense disasters from his inborn contempt of patriotic and popular sentiment; and this indifference had something to do with the final issue of the strife at Waterloo. But when all has been said, the Emperor’s genius all but triumphed in the campaign of 1815; he was nearly successful although opposed to adversaries almost twofold in numbers; and victory was only wrested from him through the mistakes of others. Notwithstanding Zama, Hannibal remains the pre-eminent figure of ancient war; Napoleon is the great captain of modern times, though ruin overtook him on the plains of Belgium.

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FOOTNOTES:

[1] _Napoleon Correspondence_, vol. xxxi., p. 365.

[2] Compare this with the movement, described on p. 8, which was made by Gustavus Adolphus in pursuit of Tilly.

[3] French armies had before this taken many of these fortresses, but they had been retaken on the first turn of fortune.

[4] Napoleon never made use of lines of this kind, but nothing escaped him, and he had the example of Torres Vedras; at St. Helena he made admirable observations on this system of defence.

[5] Every real student of the wars of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries knows the difficulty of forming anything like a just estimate of the numbers of the armies in conflict. This is mainly due to the systematic practice of enumeration by battalions and squadrons, bodies always in a state of change; and besides, national pride and interest have obscured the truth. I have taken some pains to collate the authorities, and to arrive at an estimate approximately correct.

[6] This march, in fact, strongly resembles Eugene’s famous march up the Po in 1706, described by Napoleon as “a marvellous piece of audacity,” but it was far more perilous.

[7] Coxe, though a dull is a conscientious writer, and occasionally he had good military assistance. Alone, as far as I know, of commentators on the campaign of 1704, he points out the risk to which, at this juncture, Eugene and Marlborough were exposed. Napoleon wrote on Marlborough, but his observations have never been published; it would be most interesting to know his judgment on this passage in the campaign.

[8] It is more difficult to arrive at an estimate of the strength of the contending armies in the case of Malplaquet than in that of any other great battle of the war. I think my calculation is fairly accurate.

[9] “_Semper et ubique fideles_” was the proud and well-merited device on the flag of the Irish brigade.

[10] This is the sagacious and just judgment of Wellington, a genius of quite a different kind, but a great admirer of Napoleon.

[11] Bulletin of the Grand Army the day after the battle: “L’armée ennemie était nombreuse et montrait une belle cavalerie; ses manœuvres étaient executées avec précision et rapidité.”

[12] This saying has been ascribed to Napoleon; it belongs to Turenne: “Les plus habiles sont ceux qui font seulement le moins de fautes.”--_Memoires_, p. 5. Ed. Hachette, 1877.

[13] The last words of Napoleon’s despatch to Masséna are characteristic: “Activité. Activité, vitesse! Je me recommande à vous.”

[14] The monarchies and aristocracies of old Europe had an immense opinion of the Archduke Charles; but his reputation has steadily declined. He was as inferior to Napoleon as Pompey, the admiration of the Roman patricians, was to Cæsar.

[15] “Mais, Monseigneur, figurez vous qu’au lieu de Bonaparte, c’est Jourdan que vous avez devant vous,” was the exclamation of an aide-de-camp, when the Archduke was in this mood of fear and hesitation.

[16] See a masterly paper, from Wellington’s hand, on the campaign of 1812. The Duke’s knowledge of the facts is not complete, for the _Napoleon Correspondence_ had not yet been published; but the criticism is admirable. I have made ample use of it in this sketch. _Despatches, Correspondence, and Memoranda of Field-Marshal the Duke of Wellington, K.G._, vol. iii., 1866.

[17] Napoleon was certainly unwell; poison has been suspected; but probably he was again showing signs of disease.

[18] It has been said--and the fact is probable--that the general scheme of the operations of the Allies was formed by Moreau, a chief of the second order, but a capable, sagacious, and far-sighted soldier. Their strategy was better than that of the Russians in 1812, and than their own in 1814.

[19] Owing to the losses of the French by disease, desertion, and defection, it is impossible to determine, even approximately, the numbers of the Grand Army in this part of the campaign. Those of the Allies are better known; but patriotism and pride have tended to make them smaller than they were.

[20] Napier insists on this, though he was so enthusiastic an idolator of Napoleon that he is not an impartial judge.

[21] Napoleon’s exultation at his feats and those of his army was extravagant. “Ce qu’ils ont fait,” he wrote on 12th February, “ne peut se comparer qu’aux romans de chevalerie et aux hommes d’armes de ces temps où, par l’effet de leurs armures et l’adresse de leurs chevaux, un en battait trois ou quatre cents.”

[22] Lord Caetlereagh, who was at this council, could not comprehend why Blücher and Schwartzenburg could not defeat Napoleon with their enormous superiority of numbers; and demurred to the expense--England was the paymaster of the Coalition--of bringing up Wintzingerode and Bülow. “Milord,” said a bystander, “vous ne connaissez pas cet homme!”

[23] The authorities on the state of Napoleon’s health during the campaign of 1815 will be found in Mr. Dorsey Gardener’s book on Waterloo, pp. 34, 36.

[24] “Si le maréchal Grouchy eût campé devant Wavre le soir du 17, l’armée prussienne n’eut fait aucun détachment pour secourir l’armée anglaise.”--_Correspondence_, vol. xxxi., p. 213. No doubt Grouchy could not have reached Wavre on the night of the 17th, but he might have been there at 11 A.M. on the morning of the 18th; and the result would have been practically the same. Bülow would not have attacked, or perhaps even approached Waterloo, had he been isolated.

[25] Jomini knew more about Napoleon than any other commentator on the Emperor and is naturally astonished at the delays of the 17th of June. The real cause was not then known, but Jomini’s words are significant. _Précis de la Campagne de 1815_, p. 185. “Pour ceux qui se rappellent l’étonnante activité qui présida aux évènements de Ratisbonne en 1809, de Dresde en 1813, de Champaubert et de Montmirail en 1814, ce nouveau temps perdu sera toujours une chose inexplicable de la part de Napoléon.”

[26] Lord Wellesley’s epitaph, chosen by himself, is strikingly characteristic:--“Super et Garamantas et Indos protulit imperium.”

[27] It is most remarkable how many of the Irish Protestant aristocracy have distinguished themselves in India. Besides the two Wellesleys, the names of Eyre Coote, of Gough, of the Lawrences, of Canning, of Dufferin, will at once occur to the reader. This, no doubt, may in part be traced to their hereditary ascendency over the Celtic Irish.

[28] Napoleon wrote thus to Clarke 18th August 1809: “Quelle belle occasion on a manquée! 30,000 Anglais et 150 lieues des côtes devant 100,000 hommes des meilleures troupes du monde! Mon Dieu! qu’est ce qu’une armée sans chef!”--_Correspondence_, vol. xix., p. 362.

[29] Napoleon received the news of Salamanca on the eve of Borodino. His criticism of Marmont is striking and just.

[30] I refer to the combined forces of the Allies. The Duke’s army was from 100,000 to 106,000 strong, counting all the troops in Belgium.

[31] This is the expression of Napoleon in a somewhat analogous case. The orders of a Government, if not precise, obviously should not excuse a general-in-chief on the spot.

[32] Chanzy, a singularly modest and truthful man, gives this account of the state of the Germans after the retreat to Le Mans: “L’ennemi, contenu partout, était devenu de moins en moins entreprenant; il était facile de voir que pas plus que les nôtres, ses troupes n’avaient pas résisté à la fatigué; ses hommes étaient, eux aussi, grandement démoralisés par cette resistance d’une lutte qui se reproduisait constamment, alors qu’ils la croyaient terminée; le désordre se mettait parfois dans ses colonnes malgré sa solide organisation et sa discipline.”

[33] This message from Berlin, at this juncture, is very significant:--“La position militaire est regardée comme critique dans les cercles bien informés. On a des inquietudes sur l’issue finale de la lutte.”

[34] My limits preclude me from citing extracts from these authorities. But I shall, when it is required, indicate them; and I hope I shall accurately express their meaning and purport.

[35] Napoleon had shown signs of illness in the campaigns of 1812, 1813, and 1814, and was in bad health in 1815. Mr. Dorsey Gardner in his useful work on Waterloo, pp. 34–36, has adduced ample evidence to prove that Napoleon was unwell and out of sorts on the 16th, 17th, and 18th June; and this, I know, was remarked by Soult on the morning of Waterloo.

[36] After the publication of these despatches, and of other documents, especially those collected by the son of Ney, we must reject Napoleon’s statement that Ney received “positive orders,” to occupy Quatre Bras on the evening of the 15th, and to advance from that place, “at daybreak,” on the 16th. Still, I think Napoleon indicated a movement of the kind to his lieutenant on the 15th; the _Moniteur_ of the 18th contains a despatch of the 15th, which announces that “Ney had his head-quarters at Quatre Bras.” The point, however, is not of very great importance; had the Emperor’s orders of 8 A.M. on the 16th been intelligently and rapidly carried out, Ney would have done all that was required, and Napoleon would have gained decisive success.

[37] The failure of Ney to attain Quatre Bras, and to send a division to Marbais, before the arrival of a sufficient part of Wellington’s army to arrest the Marshal’s progress, saved Blücher from destruction on the 16th of June, and was fraught with the most momentous consequences, and the truth on this subject has been studiously concealed. Charras and the detractors of Napoleon, eager to condemn the Emperor, and English writers, desirous of hiding what might have happened through Wellington’s tardiness, concur in insinuating that Reille and D’Erlon were not to begin their movement until they had received their orders from Ney, who would have to send despatches from Frasnes back to them, and contend, therefore, that Ney could not have been in great force at Quatre Bras before 3.30 or 4.30 P.M., at which time he was fully engaged with Wellington, and could not even master Quatre Bras. This, however, is a complete mistake: Reille and D’Erlon have acknowledged that they received the order for their movement from the aide-de-camp at about 10 A.M.; and, in fact, Ney could have swept all before him at Quatre Bras soon after 1 P.M., and have made the detachment to Marbais, had the order been properly carried out. See the letters of D’Erlon, of Reille, and of Durutte, quoted by the Prince La Tour D’Auvergne in his book on Waterloo, p. 149, p. 170, and p. 171.

[38] A host of witnesses, Soult is the most conspicuous--his well-known testimony of the 17th of June, the day after Ligny, has been shamefully garbled by Charras--have proved that Napoleon sent this order to D’Erlon; and the fact, I conceive, is indisputable. It is denied, in the face of the evidence, by those only who, seeking to censure Napoleon and to excuse Wellington, pretend that the Emperor had not the means of gaining a decisive victory over Blücher after 1 P.M. on the 16th of June. Even after the failure of the projected movement from Marbais the means were ample; D’Erlon would have annihilated Blücher had he struck the Prussian right and rear at St. Amand.

[39] This was Dejean, a favourite aide-de-camp of Napoleon. As the evidence shows that the Emperor ordered D’Erlon to Ligny, so it indicates that he must have permitted D’Erlon to abandon his march, and to retrace his steps towards Quatre Bras when peremptorily ordered to do so by Ney. This, in the events which happened, was over-caution, for D’Erlon would have destroyed Blücher had he carried out Napoleon’s order, and Ney, hard pressed as he was at Quatre Bras, could have held his ground against Wellington without the aid of D’Erlon; and this, I conceive, is the reason that Napoleon’s commentaries on this most important subject are vague and unsatisfactory.

[40] D’Erlon detached a division to observe St. Amand before he counter-marched to Quatre Bras. This division, however, merely reconnoitred, and took no part in the battle; it was simply useless.

[41] With Kellerman’s heavy cavalry.

[42] “L’armée Prussienne a été mise en déroute” is the expression of Soult, in the well known letter of the 17th, written under the eye perhaps of Napoleon, certainly according to his ideas.

[43] Dorsey Gardner (p. 34) cites conclusive testimony to show “that Napoleon went to bed immediately after the close of the battle of Ligny, and was in such a condition that none of his staff dared enter his chamber to procure his sanction for vitally important orders, and that on the morning of the 17th there was the same impossibility of getting access to him.”

[44] See, again, Soult’s letter of 17th, “La journée d’aujourd’hui est nécessaire pour terminer cette opération, et pour compléter les munitions, rallier les militaires isolés et fair rentrer les détachements.”

[45] What Napoleon might have accomplished on the morning of the 17th is very ably shown by Charras (p. 203, vol. i.), but with too much regard to mere theory.

[46] This has been denied by Grouchy, but is distinctly to be inferred from his own letters; and, as Jomini observes, the situation dictated the order. Gerard, who however, is unjust to Grouchy, declares that Napoleon gave the most precise instructions nearly to this effect.

[47] Napoleon, conscious of the evil results of the delays of the 17th, condemns Ney for not having fallen on Wellington, at least when the Imperial army was on the march. This criticism, however, is not well founded, or even honest. Napoleon had a right to complain of Ney on the 16th and 18th, not on the 17th.

[48] The operations of Grouchy on the 17th and 18th of June had a decisive effect on the issue of the campaign, and have been the subject of volumes of controversy. I have relied mainly on the papers written at the time, but in part guided by Jomini’s sagacious direction. Napoleon, writing at St. Helena, was largely ignorant of the details of these movements, and is unjust to his luckless subordinate. Thiers, and authors of the Napoleonic school, exaggerate the unfairness of the Emperor; on the other hand, Charras, Chesney, and others are not trustworthy authorities, and are thoroughly prejudiced against Napoleon. This part of Charras’ book is the theoretic reasoning, after the event, of a malignant partisan critic.

[49] Grouchy also incidentally refers to a third column retreating by Namur.

[50] This despatch was discovered by the Prince La Tour D’Auvergne (see his book on _Waterloo_, p. 318), and is of extreme importance. It was written “at daybreak, on the 18th, and ordered Pajol to hasten to Tourinnes, “_afin que nous poussions en avant de Wavre, le plus promptement possible_.”

[51] This is one of the most obscure and disputed passages of the campaign. Napoleon positively declares that he ordered Grouchy to detach 7,000 men from Gembloux to attack Wellington, and he is followed by Thiers and a number of writers. But, as Charras and others have fairly pointed out, no copy of the order can be found in the register of the Chief of the Staff; the name of the bearer has never been given, and the order seems inconsistent with a subsequent message sent to Grouchy in the morning of the 18th. Still there are indications that the order was given; Napoleon would hardly utter an audacious falsehood on such a subject. Thiers narrates an anecdote which confirms his conclusion; and, as we have already seen, the Emperor did not always convey his directions through Soult. The matter, however, is scarcely of the capital importance ascribed to it by some writers.

[52] This is placed beyond doubt by Prince La Tour D’Auvergne, _Waterloo_, p. 251, and disposes of the able but ill-founded remarks of Charras.

[53] Detractors of Napoleon and encomiasts of the Allies have concurred in endeavouring to excuse Grouchy. They begin by referring to the state of the weather on the morning of the 18th as accounting for Grouchy’s delay in leaving Gembloux. It is enough to reply that Bülow started for Waterloo at daybreak through a most difficult country.

[54] I cannot accept General Shaw Kennedy’s statement that La Haye Sainte was not taken until 6 P.M.; it is contradicted by every other contemporaneous authority.

[55] See on this point Blücher’s official account of Waterloo, never contradicted by Wellington. English writers will not acknowledge the enormous importance of Bülow’s attack.

[56] Napoleon, to the latest hour of his life, attributed to Ney the sacrifice of his last cavalry reserve, and declared it was one main cause of the rout of Waterloo. Ney acted recklessly on the 18th June; he had the hot fit and cold fit of a desperate man by turns in this campaign.

[57] Dorsey Gardner, on the authority of two of Napoleon’s staff officers, gives this account of the Emperor at Waterloo (p. 36): “he remained motionless, for long intervals, seated at a table, frequently sinking upon it.”

[58] Grouchy might, I think, have been over the Dyle before 11 A.M.; but I accept the time of Charras, who has made it as late as possible; “before noon” is his exact phrase.

Transcriber’s Notes:

1. Obvious printers’, punctuation and spelling errors have been corrected silently.

2. Some hyphenated and non-hyphenated versions of the same words have been retained as in the original.

3. Italics are shown as _xxx_.