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Title: Waterloo
Author: Thomas E. Watson
Release date: March 22, 2025 [eBook #75682]
Language: English
Original publication: United States: The Neale Publishing Company, 1908
Credits: Peter Becker and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WATERLOO ***
Transcriber’s Note: Italics are enclosed in _underscores_. Additional
notes will be found near the end of this ebook.
WATERLOO
[Illustration]
WATERLOO
BY
THOMAS E. WATSON
Author of “The Story of France,”
“Napoleon,” and “The Life of Thomas Jefferson.”
[Illustration]
New York and Washington
THE NEALE PUBLISHING COMPANY
1908
Copyright, 1908, by
THE NEALE PUBLISHING COMPANY
WATERLOO
INTRODUCTORY
The warder of the Tower has his bout with the citizen on the green;
Sir Walter Raleigh looks on from above, and the lieutenant’s wife from
below and neither of the three--warder, lieutenant’s wife, nor the
prisoner, Sir Walter--can agree with either of the other two as to
what took place. Inside the Tower three different tales are told. It
is reasonably certain that still another version was given when the
citizen got back to town and began to talk.
How, then, can any one expect to learn exactly what occurred on
Sunday, June 18th, 1815, in front of the village of Mont-Saint-Jean?
Many witnesses testify, and the conflict of testimony is utterly
irreconcilable. Much of the battle was not seen by Napoleon, and much
of it was hidden from Wellington. Every officer who took part in it and
who afterward wrote about it contributed something to the story, but
what officer could tell it all?
From the day after the battle down to the present time, men and women
have studied the field itself, have pored over dispatches, have
devoured Memoirs, have eagerly listened to the slightest word which
anybody who was in possession of a fact had to say about Waterloo: yet
a mystery hangs over the entire campaign.
Did Wellington really believe that he fought D’Erlon’s corps at Quatre
Bras? He says so, positively, in his official report of the action.
Yet we _know_ that D’Erlon’s corps did not come even within striking
distance, at any time during the day. Full of inaccuracies as his
account of the battle is, the Duke would never correct the statement;
nor could he ever be persuaded to give any other. In fact, whenever the
subject was mentioned he grew testy; and curtly referred the questioner
to his official report.
On the Prussian side, there was a current of intense feeling against
Wellington; but there were such powerful motives for silence that the
truth crept out slowly, and at long intervals. At first, Waterloo
was claimed to be an English victory. Wellington led the way in this
by his slighting reference to “the flank movement of Bülow.” No one
would gather from the Duke’s report that 16,000 of the French troops,
during the afternoon of the 18th, had been fighting desperately, for
several hours to hold the Prussians in check. No one could possibly
learn from this report the fact that the French did not give way on
the English front until the cannon balls of the oncoming Prussians
of Zeiten’s corps were crossing those of the English batteries which
swept the approaches to Mont-Saint-Jean. Reading Wellington’s official
report of the battle, one would believe that the Prussians arrived
after the fight was won--that they had nothing to do but chase the
defeated. Only by degrees did the world learn that Wellington entirely
disregarded the pledge he had given Blücher at the conference in May;
that he wrote Blücher a letter on the morning of June 16th that was
full of deception; left his troops widely scattered when the enemy
was upon him; gave orders which his lieutenants had the nerve and the
wisdom to violate, and was saved from annihilation at the very opening
of the campaign by the incredible mistakes of Napoleon’s officers and
the heroic gallantry of the Prussians. Lord Wolseley complacently
states that Wellington was an English gentleman of the highest type
and, therefore, incapable of falsehood. Yet the Duke’s official report
states that on the 15th he ordered the concentration of his army at
Quatre Bras; _and Lord Wolseley demonstrates that the statement was
untrue_. It was on Nivelles that a partial concentration was ordered,
and had the orders been obeyed the campaign would have been wrecked.
Only of late years has it been perfectly clear that at half-past one
o’clock in the afternoon of June 18th Napoleon had to divide his army,
and to withhold the corps of Lobau which had been ordered to support
the great charge of D’Erlon and Ney. Suppose this corps of fresh men
had been thrown against the English line when it had already been
well-nigh broken. At the time the premature cavalry charges were being
made, and the English, in squares, were suffering so terribly from the
French skirmishers and artillery, suppose 16,000 men whom Napoleon had
sent to drive the Prussians back from Plancenoit, where they threatened
his rear, had been in hand to clinch the cavalry charges! How could the
English have prevented these fresh troops from pouring through the gap
in their line behind La Haye-Sainte?
Only of late years has it been generally known that it was the arrival
of Zeiten’s Prussians on his left that released the troops with which
Wellington filled this break in his line.
It was only when the Prussians of Zeiten’s corps, breaking through
to the right of the French who were attacking the English and to the
left of the French who were withstanding Blücher, came thundering on
their flank that the French army cried “_Treachery! Treachery!_” and
dissolved in universal dismay.
As to Napoleon, whenever he talked of Waterloo he either confined
himself to despairing ejaculations or involved himself in
contradictions. He blamed himself for not having reconnoitered
Wellington’s position; he admitted that he had not had a good view of
the field; he confessed that he had made a mistake in changing his plan
of assailing the English right; he denied giving the order for the
heavy cavalry to charge, although this order had been carried by his
own aide-decamp, Count Flahaut--the father of one or two of Hortense’s
queerly mixed brood of children; and he severely blamed D’Erlon, Ney
and Grouchy.
A curious evidence of the difficulty of learning the truth about
Waterloo is to be found in Victor Hugo’s “Les Miserables.” Describing
the struggle for Hougoumont, he speaks of the fight in the chapel.
He represents the sacred building as having gone through all the
horrors of war, having been splashed with blood, having been torn
by shot and shell, and having been ravaged by fire. All this seems
probable enough, and yet the English authoress of “Waterloo Days”
visited the battlefield a few hours after the fight and she makes
particular mention of this same chapel; and she declares that it “stood
uninjured”! Listen to this lady--Charlotte Eaton: “No shot or shell
had penetrated its sacred walls; and no sacrilegious hand had dared
to violate its humble altar, which was still adorned with its ancient
ornaments and its customary care.” This is quite different from Hugo’s
“Soldiers massacred each other in the chapel.”
After Hugo’s famous description of Waterloo appeared, all the world
talked of “the old road of Ohain” which had, the novelist declared,
been the pitfall and the tomb of the French cavalry. Painters caught
up the theme, and the legend lives on imperishable canvas. But now
history discards the story. The road from Ohain to Braine l’Alleud
_does_ become a hollow way, between steep banks, for about 400 yards;
but the French were aware of the fact, and the cavalry did _not_ charge
across the trench. The charges passed over the road where it was on a
level with the plain. It _is_ true, however, that in the bewildering
movements incident to charge and countercharge, a small body of French
cavalry came upon this “hollow way,” walked their horses down the bank,
got upon the road, and were about to ride up the other bank to get
at the English, when the English cavalry charged the road, making it
impossible for the French to mount the bank. They then rode up “the
hollow way,”--hacked at by the English above,--until they reached the
level ground, when they retired into the open field to reform.
There has been much controversy as to whether the Duke of Wellington
rode over to Blücher’s camp on the night of the 17th. There is now
conclusive evidence that no such visit was made.
In Archibald Forbes’s “Camps, Quarters and Casual Places,” published
in 1896, we find: “Quite recently there have been found and are
now in the possession of the Rev. Frederick Gurney, the grandson
of the late Sir John Gurney, the notes of a ‘conversation with the
Duke of Wellington and Baron Gurney and Mr. Justice Williams, Judges
on Circuit, at Strathfieldsaye House, on 24th February, 1837.’ The
annotator was Baron Gurney, to the following effect: ‘The conversation
had been commenced by my inquiring of him (the Duke) whether a story
which I had heard was true of his having ridden over to Blücher on the
night before the battle of Waterloo, and returned on the same horse.
He said, “No, that was not so. I did not see Blücher on the day before
Waterloo. I saw him the day before, on the day of Quatre Bras. I saw
him after Waterloo, and he kissed me. He embraced me on horseback. I
had communicated with him the day before Waterloo.” The rest of the
conversation made no further reference to the topic of the ride to
Wavre.’”
In Houssaye’s “1815” the statement is made that the French troops
did not receive their rations on the night of the 17th until after
midnight, or even later.
The truth seems to be that some of the troops got nothing at all to
eat. They went into the fight on empty stomachs--stimulated by a drink
of brandy. The enemy, of course, suffered no such disadvantage, for
ample supplies came from Brussels. Again, the English had camp-fires
to keep themselves warm and to dry their clothing; the French had no
fires, and went into action chilled, and in wet clothing.
To understand the physical disadvantage against which the French had to
struggle, we should remember that they had to charge _up hill over miry
ground_. The English were stationary on the crest, excepting when they
charged, and _then_ they charged _down hill_. Those who have walked
over a ploughed field, or who have galloped a horse up a miry slope,
will know how to appreciate the immense difficulties under which the
French labored.
WATERLOO
CHAPTER I
In 1815 the Emperor was no longer a lean, sinewy, tireless, eternally
vigilant human tiger--the Napoleon of Rivoli and Marengo. He was no
longer the consummate General-in-Chief of Austerlitz and Wagram. The
mysterious lethargy which had overwhelmed him at the critical hour
of Borodino, when he withheld the order for the Old Guard to charge
and convert the Russian defeat into a decisive disaster, had been the
first visit of the Evil Genius which was to come again. The strange
loss of _the power to decide_ between two totally different lines of
action, which, at the Château Düben had kept him idle two days, lolling
on a sofa, or sitting at his writing-table tracing on the paper big
school-boy letters, was to become a recurrent calamity, puzzling all
who knew him, and paralyzing the action of his lieutenants in the most
critical emergencies.
At Leipsic the reins had fallen from his hands; only one permanent
bridge over the deep river in his rear had been provided to let him
out of the death trap; and when the strong currents of the rout tore
through the frantic city, the great Napoleon drifted with the furious
tide, whistling vacantly.
The same unexplainable _eclipse of genius_, which General E. P.
Alexander described as occurring to Stonewall Jackson, in the Malvern
Hill movements of our Civil War, happened to the French Emperor, time
and again, after that first collapse at Borodino.
In Spain he ordered a madly reckless charge of his Polish Light
Cavalry against the heights of Sommo Sierra, where the Spanish army
was entrenched and where the position easily admitted of successful
flanking, got his best troops wastefully butchered--and could not
afterward remember who gave the order to charge!
In Dresden, in 1813, he had won a brilliant victory which needed only
to be ruthlessly pushed; and he was pushing it with all his tremendous
driving power when, in the twinkle of an eye, his Evil Genius descended
upon him, took his strength away, held him in invisible but inexorable
bonds;--and when the spell passed, the fruits of the glorious triumph
were all gone, and Despair had thrown its baleful shadow athwart every
possible line of action.
The mighty Emperor, in years gone by, had overdrawn his account at the
bank of Nature, and his drafts were now coming back on him, protested.
He who had once slept too little, now slept too much. Often in the
earlier campaigns he had abstained from eating; now he over-ate.
The reckless exposures and the intensely sustained labor of sixteen
hours out of the twenty-four were taking their revenge. The corpulent
Napoleon now loved his ease, was soon fatigued, spent hours in the
tepid bath, and slept away the early morning when every advance of the
sunbeam meant lost ground to the eagles of France.
Talkative, when he had once been reticent; undecided, where he had
been resolute; careless, where he had been indefatigable and cautious;
despondent, where he had been serenely confident, the Emperor who had
sprung with hawk-like determination upon the plotting Bourbons, had
clutched their unsuspecting Duc D’Enghien, dragged him to Paris in the
night, shot him, and buried him in a ditch before day--this Emperor
did not have enough of that terrific energy left to even fling the
traitors, Fouché and Talleyrand, into prison.
He knew that these two men were at their old tricks again, but he could
not act. Looking at Fouché calmly, Napoleon said, “I ought to have you
shot.” Nothing could prove more conclusively that the Napoleon of old
no longer lived. Had he been the man of Brumaire, or Lodi, or Jena, he
would have shot the traitor first, and talked about it afterward.
In the sere and yellow leaf of life, but still Titanic in his
proportions, the Emperor, once the charity-boy of Brienne,--he who
fought the whole school when the young aristocrats of France made fun
of his shabby clothes and Corsican birth,--_stood at bay against a
world in arms_.
Feudalism against him: Caste against him: Hereditary Aristocracy
against him: The Divine Right of Kings against him; and above all,
the ignorance, the prejudice, and _the unwillingness of mankind
to be forced out of old ruts_ were against him. Against him was a
Church hierarchy which panted for ancient powers and immunities and
wealth. Against him were the Privileged Few of every government on
earth--_those who feast on Class legislation and resent interruption_.
Against him were all those who denied the right of a nation to choose
its own ruler, those who hated the dogma that the true foundation
to government is the consent of the governed. To meet so powerful a
combination, the _one_ sure resource was that from which Napoleon
shrank in horror--an appeal to the Jacobins, the Sansculottes, the
fierce men of the masses who hated the priest and the aristocrat.
“_When one has had misfortunes one no longer has the confidence which
is necessary to success._”
With this mournful remark, made in private to that noble old
Revolutionary patriot, Carnot, the Emperor made ready to leave Paris to
join his army.
In gathering up the scattered remnants of his former hosts Napoleon had
worked at a vast disadvantage. Time and money were what he needed most.
He had not enough of either.
His escape from Elba had found the Congress of Vienna still in
session. The Kings who had pulled him off his throne, in 1814, were
all in Vienna, together. The armies which had outnumbered him and
crushed him, were still in battle array. The traitors who had plotted
his overthrow, the traitors who had deserted him on the field of
battle--the Talleyrands, on the one hand, and the Marmonts on the
other--were all in lusty life, ready to make sure of their guilty heads
by bringing the wounded colossus down.
In the midst of the splendid festivities in Vienna; in the midst
of the pomps and parades, the jubilations over the fall of the one
Throned Democrat of the world; in the midst of the congratulations, the
gayeties, the feasting and dancing, the illuminations and the joyous
music, there comes the clap of thunder from the clear sky.
_Napoleon has left Elba!_
In Dumas’s story, “Twenty Years After,” do you remember that thrilling
chapter in which the news is brought to the immortal Three that their
deadly foe, Mordaunt, _whom they supposed they had killed_, is alive?
Do you remember how Athos, the loftiest man of the Three, rose _and
took down his sword_, which he had momentarily hung upon the wall,
_gravely buckling it around him_? A desperate man is on his track; his
sword must be at his hand.
So it was with the European Kings, at Vienna. They had banded
themselves together to break the scepter of the Crowned Democrat whose
Civil Code, with its glorious maxims, all tending to _Justice_ and
to _Equality before the law_, was a deadly menace to the existence
of _Divine Right_ and _Special Privilege_. They had deceived their
own peoples with lies about Napoleon, and with promises of reforms
which they never meant to keep; they had deluged France with a flood
of foreign invasion that swept all before it; they had bought the
Fouchés and Talleyrands; they had seduced the Murats and Bernadottes
and Moreaus and Marmonts; they had captured Napoleon’s wife and child,
and had deafened their ears and hardened their hearts to the appeals of
the husband and father. They had stricken the sword out of his hand,
the crown off his head. They thought that they had made an end of
this “Disturber of the Public Peace”--this enthroned Democrat, whose
levelling watchword of “_All careers open to talent_,” they hated as a
tyrant hates a rebel, as _despotism hates liberty_. And now _Napoleon
was in France again._ No wonder that consternation seized Vienna.
“_Look to yourself; the lion is loose!_” was the warning cry which a
King of France had sounded in the ears of a false and affrighted King
of England, ages before. If Richard Coeur de Lion’s escape from the
Castle of Dürrenstein turned to water the blood of Philip and John,
the sensation in Europe was as nothing compared to that created by
Napoleon’s escape from Elba.
_Back to France!_ In those three words burns the purpose of the
European Kings. The Russian army is far advanced on its homeward march,
but it must be halted; the tired feet of the soldiers must not rest
an hour. _Back to France!_ The Austrian legions are at home, ready
to enjoy the well-earned rest. Must the bugles call once more?--once
more the streets and the lanes thrill at the beat of the drums? _Back
to France!_ The Prussian and the British armies have not had time to
start home. They are in cantonments, in the Low Countries, close to the
frontier of France. Old Blücher--“_that drunken hussar who has given me
as much trouble as anybody_,” as Napoleon used to say--is already in
the saddle, with a splendid staff which plans his campaigns for him.
The Duke of Wellington, the hero of the Congress of Vienna, must now
hasten to Brussels to take command of his army. All the world believes
that Napoleon will force the fighting, and that he will strike the
enemy nearest him, there on the Belgian frontier.
Thus, in 1815, as the month of June lavishes its splendors on the
earth, the eyes of all Christendom are fastened upon Napoleon
Bonaparte. It is hardly too much to say that the world stands still,
this fateful month, to watch the unequal fight--Napoleon against the
Kings!
How hard it is to understand the delusion under which some of the best
men of the time labored! With eyes to see, why were they so blind? With
ears to hear, why were they so deaf?
Grattan!--why did _your_ electric oratory smite with its lightnings
this great enemy of tyranny, when Ireland, _your own home_, was
bleeding under the remorseless cruelty of the very system which
Napoleon had struggled to tear down? La Fayette!--why were _you_
throwing stumbling blocks in this big man’s way, fettering him with
shackles and cords, when your French Samson needed the uttermost length
of his locks?
Why was it that every Liberal in Europe could not realize as Carnot
did,--he of the Great Committee which piloted France through the storm
of the Revolution!--that in Napoleon’s fate, _at that time_, was bound
up the best interests of the human race?
Behind the confederated Kings _lurked the Ancient Régime_. It panted
for life. It wanted to re-establish the blessed order of things in
which the Few, booted and spurred, put into governmental form their
modest claim to the privilege of riding the Many. It wanted to stamp
out the revolutionary principles which had been _lifting the masses_,
and lowering the monstrous pretensions of the classes.
Had not Metternich declared, “There can be no peace with such
principles”? Had not the restored Bourbons of 1814 proved to an
astonished world that they had learned nothing, and forgotten nothing?
Had they not set about annihilating the glorious work of reform which
had cost France so much--so much in consecrated toil, so much in
well-spent treasure, so much in patriotic sacrifice, so much in heroic
blood? Had they not done their level best, in 1814, to blow the trump
of resurrection for every abuse, every wrong which France had buried
amid the rejoicings of the Progressives all over the world?
What was the “Revolution of July, 1848,” but the final triumph of
Napoleon Bonaparte? _It was that and nothing more._ Had France been
true to herself in 1815 there would have been no Bourbon Charles the
Tenth; there would have been no Bourbon Louis Philippe; there would
have been no occasion for the long postponement of the supremacy of the
Revolutionary Principles.
“_With such principles there can be no peace_,” said Metternich, the
favorite minister of the Confederated Kings; and what La Fayette ought
to have known, and Grattan ought to have known, and the Progressives
everywhere ought to have known, was that _the war of the allied Kings
was against those democratic principles_.
Had Napoleon been willing to be _just a king as they were_, there would
have been for him no Waterloo.
“_Emperor, Consul, Soldier!_--I owe everything _to the
people_!”--declared Napoleon, throwing down the gauntlet of
duel-to-the-death at the feet of Legitimacy, Divine Right and
Absolutism.
No wonder the crafty Metternich, who guided the policies of hereditary
kings, snatched up the glove and said, “_With such principles there
can be no peace._”
In America the masses of the people sympathized with the French
Emperor, and hoped that he would win. At the Hermitage, in Tennessee,
the dauntless warrior who had recently whipped the flower of
Wellington’s army at New Orleans, ardently hoped that Napoleon would
win.
In Great Britain tens of thousands of the followers of Fox hoped
that the right of the French to select their own rulers would be
vindicated. Throughout Continental Europe a powerful minority yearned
for the system of the Code Napoleon, and secretly prayed for the great
Law-giver’s success.
Byron’s friend, Hobhouse, wrote June 12, 1815: “Regarding Napoleon
and his warriors as the partisans of the cause of peoples against the
Conspiracy of Kings, I cannot help wishing that the French may meet
with as much success as will not compromise the military character of
my own countrymen. As an Englishman, I will not be a witness of their
triumphs; as a lover of liberty, I would not be a spectator of their
reverses. I leave Paris to-morrow.”
Wherever men understood the tremendous issues that were about to be
fought out; wherever there was an intelligent comprehension of the
consequences that were inevitably connected with the triumph of the
Allied Kings, there was intense longing for the triumph of the French.
The French masses eagerly besought the Emperor to give them arms--but
he shrank from the menace of Communism, even as he had done when he
refused to arm the Russian serf against his lord.
* * * * *
In the hours of trial, three of Napoleon’s brothers had drawn to
him again. They had been much to blame for his downfall. Joseph had
abandoned Paris in 1814, when there was no urgent necessity for it, and
when Napoleon was flying toward it, on horseback, at headlong speed.
Lucien had been wrong-headed, turbulent, making trouble at Rome and
elsewhere. Jerome’s management in Westphalia had incensed and disgusted
Germany. As to Louis, the fourth brother, that impossible dolt and
ingrate did not show his face, but retired into Switzerland. He was
the younger brother with whom Napoleon had shared his slender pay when
lieutenant, and who had lived with the elder brother and been taught
by him, and in every way treated by him as a father treats a son.
As to Madame Mère, the heroic old mother, she had refused to come to
Paris to take part in the gorgeous ceremonial of Napoleon’s Coronation;
she stayed away, at Rome, where Lucien Bonaparte, in temporary
disgrace, drew the maternal sympathy to the less fortunate son. No,
she would not go to Napoleon in 1800, when all Europe was at his feet,
and he was the King of Kings. She stayed at Rome with Lucien. But when
the awful reverses came, when the scepters were broken in the hands
of the Bonapartes, when Napoleon was prostrate and outlawed, Madame
Letitia,--Madame Mère,--remembered only that he was her son. Josephine,
frail at first, but at last loyal and loving, could not go to Elba;
she was dead. Maria Louise, the Austrian wife, frail as well as false,
would not go to Elba; she had already turned her lewd eyes toward the
gallant Neipperg. But Madame Mère could go to Elba, and she went. And
when Napoleon left for France, she soon followed. So, she is with him
now, heart and soul. For the day is dark and dreary. The somber clouds
hang low. Thunder rolls in the distance--rolls with sullen menace and
ominous reverberation. And because the whole world is against her son,
Madame Mère turns from the whole world _to him_! Heroic old woman! From
her adamantine character was drawn the strength which laid Europe at
Napoleon’s feet.
In the “Barrington Sketches” is drawn a vivid picture of the last
public occasion on which appeared together the most remarkable mother
and son that ever lived. It was on the 8th of June, four days before
Napoleon left Paris to join his army.
The dignitaries of the Empire were assembled in the Chamber of Deputies
to take the oath of allegiance to the Emperor. It was a magnificent
ceremonial. In the streets, on the quays and in the parks were great
throngs of people, and among the military the enthusiasm was unbounded.
No longer crying “_Vive l’Empereur_,” their shouts rolled in thunder
tones, “_Empereur! Empereur!_” The roar of cannon shook the earth, and
the air thrilled with the music of the bands. In the great and splendid
Chamber of Deputies were assembled a brilliant array of the nobility
of France--those who had been born great, those who had achieved
greatness, and those who had had greatness thrust upon them. They had
assembled to swear loyalty to their Emperor, Napoleon--and not one
of those who were present knew better the frailty of such a bond of
allegiance than the Emperor himself. And when Fouché took the oath,
Napoleon turned his head and looked fixedly, calmly at the traitor. Sir
Jonah Barrington says that Fouché faltered and flushed. But I doubt
it. Sir Jonah Barrington says that he watched Napoleon’s countenance,
intently studying its every detail. He says that the Emperor sat
unmoved, his face somewhat shaded by the ostrich plumes of his black
Spanish hat, the size of his bust concealed by “the short cloak of
purple velvet, embroidered with golden bees.” Sir Jonah speaks of the
“high and ungraceful shoulders,” and declares that he was “by no means
a majestic figure.” “I watched his eye. It was that of a hawk.” He then
describes how this brilliant glance swept from one face to another,
throughout the assemblage, without a movement of the Emperor’s head.
Sir Jonah describes Napoleon’s mother as “a very fine old lady,
apparently about sixty, but looking strong and in good health, well
looking, and possessing a cheerful, _comfortable_ countenance. In
short, I liked her appearance; it was plain and unassuming.” Then Sir
Jonah tells how he settled down to study her expression to learn her
sensations during the splendid ceremonial. And after the most critical
attention to the varying expressions of the “comfortable countenance”
of this fine old lady, Sir Jonah reaches the conclusion that the
emotions which move her as the brilliant function progresses, are just
those _of a mother proud of her son_!
“I could perceive no lofty sensations of gratified ambition, no
towering pride, no vain and empty arrogance, as she viewed underneath
her the peers and representatives of her son’s dominions.”
What emotion was it, then, that filled her bosom on that last great day
in Paris? “A tear occasionally moistened her cheek, but it evidently
proceeded from a happy rather than a painful feeling--it was the tear
of parental ecstasy.”
After Napoleon had been caged at St. Helena, and was being denied
comforts that had become necessary to him, his mother was one of those
who supplied the captive with funds. Some one remonstrated with her,
telling her that she would reduce herself to poverty, and that she
would be destitute in her old age. The heroic old Corsican answered,
“What does it matter? When I shall have nothing more, I will take my
stick and go about _begging alms for Napoleon’s mother_.”
CHAPTER II
It was half-past three on the morning of June 12th when Napoleon
entered his carriage and set out for the Belgian frontier. On the
13th he was at Avesnes, on the 14th at Beaumont. One who was near the
imperial carriage, on its rapid course from Paris, states that the
Emperor was often asleep during the day; and that he declared that he
was utterly worn out by his three months’ toil. Little wonder. A man
who had gone through the tremendous ordeal which Napoleon had passed
since his return from Elba--an ordeal which taxed soul, mind, and
body--was fortunate in being left with any strength at all. His actual
hours of labor had been an average of fifteen per day, to say nothing
of the anxieties, the discouragements, and the humiliations which made
such enormous demands upon his fortitude, his patience, his tact, his
powers of self-control.
Asked at St. Helena what had been the happiest period of his life,
Napoleon answered, “The progress from Cannes to Paris.”
But however elated he may have been during that bloodless re-conquest
of an empire, the illusion that all France rejoiced in his return soon
passed away. The indifference of Paris chilled him. The absence of many
a companion-in-arms who had fought under his eagles was depressing. The
knowledge that he would have to accept fettering conditions, and the
services of men who denounced him the year before, mortified him. To
Count Molé he declared that had he known how many concessions he would
have to make, he would never have left Elba.
These were concessions to those who were called Republicans, and
who were dreaming of popular self-government--for which Napoleon
did not believe that France was prepared. Having become an Emperor,
he was naturally opposed to a republic. Besides, a man of his vast
superiority over other men naturally believes that he can achieve the
best results when given a free hand. With pathetic earnestness he had
appealed to the Legislative to help him save France from her enemies,
reminding them of the decadent Roman senate which had wrangled over
vain abstractions while the battering-rams of the barbarians thundered
against the walls. To no purpose. Until his power had been fully
re-established by victory over the Allies, the Legislative would remain
factious and obstructive; should the Allies triumph, the Legislative
would be ready to renounce him, as in 1814.
And where were his old comrades? Where were those who had grown famous
under his flag, made great by his lessons, rich and powerful by his
munificence?
Lannes had fallen, during the awful days of Wagram. Duroc had been
disembowelled by a cannon ball, in one of the bloody struggles of 1813.
Junot had killed himself in a fit of madness. LaSalle had thrown away
his life, on the Danube, in a needless cavalry charge. The gallant
Poniatowski, of the royal house of Poland, had gone to a watery grave
in the Elster, after the Titanic struggle at Leipsic. Bessières,
Commander of the Old Guard, who had led the great cavalry charges at
Eckmuhl and at Wagram, had met a soldier’s death, at the head of his
men, at the battle of Lutzen. Oudinot had shown incapacity during 1814,
and Napoleon would have no more to do with him. Souham had acted the
traitor; and when he came to seek command again, Napoleon said, “What
do you want of me? Can’t you see that I do not know you any more?”
Masséna renewed his allegiance to the Emperor, and sought military
command; but he was too old and feeble for active service, and Napoleon
disappointed his hopes of getting the 9th division. Suchet was put in
command of the Army of the Alps. Jourdan was made Governor of Besancon.
Brune also renewed his allegiance--an act for which the White Terror
was to inflict upon him a horrible penalty. Gouvion Saint-Cyr had
disobeyed Napoleon’s orders in 1814, and had commanded his troops to
resume the white cockade, after the 20th of March, when the Chamber
voted Napoleon’s deposition. The Emperor now exiled him to his castle.
Sérurier and the elder Kellerman had voted for deposition, but Napoleon
punished neither. Marshall Moncey would have been willing to take
command again under the Emperor, but, as he had published a violent
order of the day against Napoleon in 1814, he was not given a military
appointment, but, like Lefebre, he was raised to the Chamber of Peers.
Bernadotte sat firmly on the throne of Sweden, ready to renew the fight
against his countrymen, to insure the reward of his treachery--Norway.
Marmont, in mortal terror of the vengeance which his base betrayal
of Paris deserved, had fled with the Bourbons across the Rhine.
Augereau had offered his services, but he was no longer the Augereau of
Castiglione, and the Emperor could not overlook the personal insult to
which the recreant Marshal had subjected him on the high-road, while
on his way to Elba. Macdonald, who had led the great charge against
the Austrian center at Wagram, had taken service under the Bourbons,
and refused to serve Napoleon again. Mortier was ready for the final
campaign and joined the army, but, falling sick, sold his chargers to
Ney and took no part in the fighting of the Hundred Days. Berthier,
the favorite of his chief, the bosom friend, the constant companion;
Berthier, of whom Napoleon was so fond that he petted him like a spoilt
child and would not dine in his tent until Berthier came to share the
meal--Berthier had put on the King’s uniform, accepted high position
in his household, and fled the country upon the Emperor’s return. At
the castle of Bamberg, in Bavaria, he saw the Russians pouring by on
their march to France. Overcome by the miseries of his situation, the
remorseful traitor threw himself from an upper window and died on the
pavement below.
_Where was Murat?_ The most brilliant cavalry officer that the world
ever saw had offered his sword to Napoleon, and had been spurned. God!
what a mistake. The Emperor, who had retained Fouché, and given a
command to Bourmont, might well have trusted his own brother-in-law,
who had everything to gain by a victory which would restore the
fortunes of all the Napoleonic connection. But Murat had appeared in
arms against France, and this Napoleon would not forgive. Besides,
he had attacked the Austrians, with whose Emperor there is reason to
believe that Napoleon had come to an understanding before leaving
Elba. Murat’s insane conduct not only brought ruin upon himself, but
destroyed whatever chance Napoleon had to detach Austria from the
Alliance. So it was that Murat was in concealment at Toulon while the
battle raged at Waterloo.
Greatest of Napoleon’s Marshals was Davout, the victor of Auerstadt--a
greater feat of arms than Napoleon’s own triumph at Jena on the same
day. But he was wasted during the Hundred Days. He begged hard for a
command, but the Emperor chose to have him remain in Paris, Minister of
War, and thus the great soldier who might have given such a different
account of the Prussians, had he instead of Grouchy been sent after
them, sat useless in the office in Paris, while the cannon roared at
Fluerus, at Ligny, at Quatre Bras, at Wavre, at La Belle Alliance.
Soult was a commander of ability, and he was loyal and full of zeal;
but he had long held independent command, had practically no experience
as a staff-officer; and yet he applied for and was given the position
of Chief of Staff. This unfortunate choice proved to be one of the
principal causes of the disaster of the campaign.
_And where was Ney?_ Where was Napoleon’s “Bravest of the brave”?--the
heroic figure that had held the rearguard all through the horrors of
the Retreat from Moscow; the impatient lieutenant who had almost used
threats of personal violence to his Emperor to compel him to sign the
first abdication; the turn-coat who had gone over to the Bourbons, and
who had promised the King to bring Napoleon to Paris in an iron cage?
The torrent which was bearing the exile back to his throne proved too
strong for Ney; and when his own troops cried, “_Vive L’Empereur!_” Ney
was swept off his feet. When the big-hearted, impulsive man began to
make explanations and denials, Napoleon stopped him with, “Embrace me,
Ney.”
Weeks afterward, when the Marshal felt that the Emperor must have
learned about the iron cage threat, he was clumsy enough to mention
the matter to Napoleon, and to claim that he merely made the remark to
deceive the King as to his real design, which was to go over to the
returning Emperor. Napoleon said nothing, but gave Ney one of those
looks which made even Vandamme grow ill at ease.
Mortified, feeling that he had blundered throughout,--in 1814 and in
1815,--Ney withdrew to his estate.
Only at the last moment, and then out of pity, did Napoleon send word
to Ney that he might serve. The message was fatal--for it cost Napoleon
his throne, and Ney his life.
It was not until the 12th of June that Ney set out for the army, and he
was so ill prepared that he made the journey to Avesnes in a coach, and
from there to Beaumont in a peasant’s cart. It was that evening that he
bought from Marshal Mortier the horses he rode into battle. At the head
of his army, Napoleon was cordial to his old lieutenant. “I am glad to
see you, Ney. You will take command of 1st and 2nd Army Corps. Drive
the enemy on the Brussels road, and take possession of Quatre Bras.”
* * * * *
What of the composition and temper of the army with which the great
Captain was to make his last campaign?
The officers did not possess the confidence of the troops, and were
themselves without confidence in the star of Napoleon. Even those
generals who were at heart his friends and were ready to die by him,
had little or no hope of success. How could it be otherwise? Napoleon
could not inspire others with a faith which he did not himself feel;
and we have overwhelming evidence to the effect that he was depressed,
filled with forebodings.
It was in the troops of the rank and file that confidence lay. These
were in a frenzy of enthusiasm for their Emperor, and of hatred against
his enemies. In their way of judging events, their Captain had never
been defeated. The Russian snows had been the cause of his failure
in 1812, and the treachery of his Marshals had been his ruin in the
Campaign of 1813 and 1814. Nothing but treachery could check him now;
but that there _was_ treason afoot was a universal suspicion among
the men of the rank and file. “Don’t trust the Marshals,” they were
constantly saying; and even at Waterloo a soldier ran from the ranks,
caught the bridle rein of the white Arabian mare that the Emperor rode,
and exclaimed, “Sire, don’t trust Marshal Soult! He betrays you!”
“Be calm. Trust Marshal Soult, and trust me,” was Napoleon’s reply.
Evidently here was an army that would strike with terrific force, but
which might _break all to pieces on the field at the slightest evidence
of bad faith on the part of its commanders_.
At the very outset, Soult’s unfitness for his position as Chief of
Staff was demonstrated. When orders to concentrate the army were flying
as fast as couriers could bear them, Napoleon came upon the cavalry
of Grouchy, at Laon, before that officer had stirred a step. _He had
received no orders._ Had Napoleon been the vigilant, quickly resolute
Captain of old, his Chief of Staff would have been dismissed at once.
Like the leak in the dyke, _such_ a mistake indicated the danger of a
colossal disaster. In person, Napoleon had to order Grouchy forward;
and practically the same thing had to be done with the corps of
Vandamme. Soult had sent marching orders to that officer _by a single
courier_, whose horse fell with him, breaking his leg; and the poor
fellow lay there all night with the undelivered order.
Both of these delays were felt throughout the campaign. The cavalry had
to make a forced march of 20 leagues and this tired the horses; and in
the cavalry charges of the following days the mounts of the French were
jaded, while those of the enemy were fresh. Vandamme’s failure to get
his orders caused the combination of the Emperor to fall short of what
it ought to have accomplished, and this in turn caused other losses to
the end of the campaign.
Even at this late day the armies of Blücher and Wellington were spread
over a front line of 35 leagues. The base of the Prussians was Liege;
that of the English, Brussels and Ghent. The point of contact of the
two armies was the road from Charleroi to Brussels. Napoleon determined
to seize this road, strike the Allies at the point of contact and
drive them apart, so that he could crush each in detail. This done, he
believed that Austria would withdraw from the Alliance, the Belgians
rise in his favor, Italy assert her friendship for him, and all France
unite against the Bourbons. If these very probable changes should
take place, he could either conclude an honorable peace with Russia,
Prussia, and Great Britain, or he could safely defy them.
* * * * *
On the 14th of June the Emperor slept among his troops. Next morning he
addressed them in the order of the day:
“Soldiers, to-day is the anniversary of Marengo and Friedland, which
twice decided the fate of Europe. We were too generous after Austerlitz
and Wagram. And now banded together against us, the sovereigns we left
on their thrones conspire against the independence and the most sacred
rights of France. They have begun by the most iniquitous aggression.
Let us march to meet them; are we not the men we were then? The time
has come for every Frenchman who loves his country to conquer or to
die.”
The army of 124,000 men to whom those burning words were addressed
had been swiftly concentrated within cannon-shot of the enemy, before
Blücher or Wellington had the faintest idea of what had happened.
While it was possible for the French Emperor to strike at once, with
the crushing weight of the whole army, _three days_ were necessary to
Blücher and Wellington. _How did they get those three days?_ Through
the blunders and disobedience of Napoleon’s own officers. Contributing
immensely to the same result was the refusal of Wellington’s officers
to obey the orders which he sent from Brussels and which, had they been
obeyed, would have left Quatre Bras in the hands of the French, and put
Napoleon in overwhelming numbers _between_ the scattered forces of his
enemies. To have destroyed them would have been child’s play for such a
captain.
On the 15th of June, Wellington wrote to the Czar of Russia stating his
intention to take the offensive at the end of the month. As to Blücher,
that indomitable but short-sighted soldier was writing to his wife, “We
shall soon enter France. We might remain here a year, for Bonaparte
would never attack us.”
About the time that the wife of “Marshal Forwards” was reading this
reassuring letter, the Prussian army was flying before the French
Emperor, and old Blücher himself, unhorsed and bruised almost to
unconsciousness, had escaped capture because of the darkness, and was
being borne off the lost field of Ligny.
CHAPTER III
On the morning of June 15th, at half-past three, the French army
crossed the Belgian frontier.
Disobeying orders, D’Erlon did not set his troops in motion until
half-past four. Receiving no orders, Vandamme did not move at all--not
until the approach of Lobau’s corps warned him that some mistake had
been made. Gérard was ordered to start at three; he did not appear at
the rendezvous until seven.
To increase the ill effect which these delays were making upon the
mind of the suspicious troops, General Bourmont, commander of the head
division of the 4th Corps, went over to the enemy, accompanied by his
staff, some other officers, and an escort of five lancers.
This act of treachery threw the whole of the 4th Corps into confusion,
and it became necessary for Gérard and General Hulot to harangue the
troops to restore their confidence. Two hours were thus lost. Napoleon
had not wished to give Bourmont a command, but had yielded at the
urgent entreaties of Gérard and Labedoyére.
To the credit of Blücher, it must be said that he gave the traitor a
contemptuous reception, and spoke to his staff scornfully of the “cur.”
Between nine and ten o’clock on the morning of the 15th of June the
French reached the Sambre. At Thuin, at Ham, in the woods of Montigny,
at the farm of La Tombe they had struck the Prussian outposts and
driven them, killing, wounding and capturing some 500 of them. Then
there was a fight for the bridge over the Sambre at Marchienne.
Too much time was lost both here and at the bridge of Charleroi. The
cavalry awaited the infantry, and Vandamme, commander of the infantry,
was four hours late. It was not until the Emperor himself appeared on
the scene that the bridge was stormed.
At the bridge of Marchienne there was a fight of two hours, and even
after the bridge had been carried it required several hours for so many
troops to pass so narrow a bridge.
To a civilian it seems strange that no preparation had been made,
beforehand, to throw other bridges over this stream; equally so that
the retreating Prussians left any bridges standing.
Amid the cheers of the inhabitants Napoleon entered Charleroi, a little
after noon, and dismounted, and sat down by the side of the road. At
this point he commanded a full view of the valley of the Sambre.
The troops were on the march. As they passed they recognized the
Emperor, and the wildly enthusiastic cheering of the men drowned the
roll of the drums. Soldiers broke ranks to run and hug the neck of
Desirée, the Emperor’s horse.
And so tired was Napoleon that he fell asleep in the chair, even as he
had slept on the battlefield of Jena.
* * * * *
From Brussels the English would come by the Charleroi road; from
Namur the Prussians would come by the Nivelles road. These highways
cross each other at Quatre Bras, hence the supreme importance of that
position. To seize it was Napoleon’s purpose, and he entrusted the task
to Ney, giving him the order verbally and personally:
“Drive the enemy on the Brussels road and take up your position at
Quatre Bras.”
Having ordered the left wing of his army to Quatre Bras, the Emperor
meant to post his right wing at Sombreff, while he, himself, with his
reserve, should take position at Fluerus, to be ready to act with the
right wing or the left, as circumstances might dictate.
About 10,000 Prussians were behind Gilly, protected in front by the
little stream, Le Grand-Rieux. Grouchy, deceived by the length of the
enemy’s line, estimated their strength at 20,000, and hesitated to
advance. “At most they are 10,000,” said the Emperor, and he ordered
Grouchy to ford the stream and take the Prussians in flank; Vandamme’s
division and Pajol’s cavalry would attack in front.
Then the Emperor left the field to hurry the coming of Vandamme’s
corps. The moment Napoleon was gone, Grouchy and Vandamme began to
waste time, and for two hours they were arranging the details of the
movement. While they were doing so, the Prussians quietly walked off
from the trap.
Enraged at the conduct of his lieutenants, the Emperor, just returned,
ordered Letort to charge with four squadrons of cavalry. Two
battalions of Prussians were overtaken and cut to pieces; the others
escaped into the woods of Solielmont.
It was now the close of the day, and Grouchy wished to drive out of
Fluerus the two battalions of Prussians which occupied it. These were
the positive orders of the Emperor, but Marshal Vandamme refused to
advance any farther, saying that his troops were too tired and that,
at any rate, he would take no orders from a commandant of the cavalry.
As Grouchy could not take Fluerus without the support of infantry, the
village remained untaken, and Napoleon’s plan incomplete.
On the left wing the same failure to obey orders was even more marked.
Instead of advancing upon Quatre Bras, as the Emperor distinctly told
him to do, Ney posted three of his divisions at Gosselies, and tolled
off nothing but the lancers and the chasseurs of the Guard to Quatre
Bras.
The lancers of the Guard had got in sight of Fresnes about half-past
five in the afternoon. This village was occupied by a Nassau battalion
and a battery of horse artillery. They were under the command of Major
Normann, who had been left without any instructions, but on hearing the
sound of cannon toward Gosselies, he had at once divined the supreme
importance of Quatre Bras, and determined to defend it desperately.
Had Ney continued his advance with any considerable portion of his
infantry, the Nassau battalion would have been crushed. As it was, the
small force of the French which had been sent forward was able to drive
Major Normann out of Fresnes and along the Brussels road. In fact a
squadron of the French cavalry entered Quatre Bras where there were
then no English; but fearing to be cut off, did not attempt to hold the
place. Prince Bernard, of Saxe-Weimar, had also acted without orders;
and with the instinct of a soldier had taken the responsibility of
moving his own troops to occupy this important strategical position.
Under him were four Nassau battalions; therefore there were now 4,500
men with artillery to defend Quatre Bras against the 1,700 lancers and
chasseurs which Ney had thrown forward.
The sound of cannon in front caused Marshal Ney to join his vanguard.
Instead of realizing the necessity of ordering up infantry supports and
storming the position of the enemy as he could easily have done, he
made only a few feeble charges against the Nassau infantry, and then
went back to Gosselies for the night. Had he continued to advance with
even one-fourth of the troops which the Emperor had given, he might
have destroyed the entire force of Prince Bernard and of Major Normann
before a single Englishman came within miles of the place.
Nevertheless, the Emperor had substantially gained his point. Almost
without any real fighting, and in spite of the clumsy working of his
great military machine, he now had 124,000 men encamped near the point
of junction between the allied armies, ready to strike either. On the
night of the 15th, when, at Charleroi, Napoleon examined the reports
sent in by Grouchy and Ney, he reached a conclusion that was wrong,
but which, fastening itself on his mind, could never be shaken, and
contributed vastly to his ruin. He believed, judging from the direction
in which the Prussians had retreated, that they were retreating upon
Liege, their natural base of operations, instead of adhering to the
design of so conducting their retreat as to be at all times in reach of
the English.
The various delays of the French, and their failure to advance as
far as the Emperor’s orders had directed, made it possible for the
indefatigable Blücher to bring up a large part of his army, and
instead of retreating on his base,--as Napoleon thought he would
do,--Blücher advanced to Sombreffe to give battle.
Toward morning, in the night of the 15th, the Prussians had evacuated
Fluerus. Grouchy took possession of it, and the Emperor reached it
shortly before noon. Going to the tower of a brick mill, which stood at
the end of Fluerus, Napoleon had the roof breached and a platform made,
upon which he could stand and view the various positions of the enemy.
The willingness of the Prussian commander to fight was partly the
result of Wellington’s diplomacy. The Englishman had been caught
napping, and to secure time to concentrate his badly scattered forces
he had given Blücher a written promise to support him. It was extremely
necessary to Wellington that Blücher should stand between the English
army and the French, and fight them off, until the English could get
themselves together. Besides, if Blücher retreated upon Liege, the
English army would be left alone before Napoleon. In that event it
would have to fight with inferior forces, or fall back on its base of
operations, leaving Brussels to be occupied by the Emperor.
In 1876 there was found in the Prussian archives the letter in which
Wellington encouraged his ally to make a stand. This letter was sent
from the heights north of Fresnes, about two miles south of Quatre
Bras, at half-past ten o’clock in the morning of the 16th. In this
much-debated letter the wily Englishman misrepresents the positions of
his own troops, puts them some hours nearer to the scene of action than
they really were, and assures Blücher of their support if he will stand
and fight. Wellington tells Blücher that he will at least be able to
effect such a powerful diversion in his behalf that Napoleon will not
be able to use against the Prussian more than a moiety of his army.
Lord Wolseley, in his book, “The Decline and Fall of Napoleon,” admits
that Wellington’s statements to Blücher were false, but naively
remarks, “Wellington, an English gentleman of the highest type, was
wholly and absolutely incapable of anything bordering on untruth or
deceit in dealing with his allies.”
Lord Wolseley’s ingenious explanation is that Wellington must have been
deceived “by his inefficient staff.”
Yet the undisputed record is that Wellington himself had issued all
the orders to his scattered troops, a few hours before, and he knew
precisely the distance of each division from the field.
To the “English gentleman of the highest type” it was supremely
necessary that his ally should break the force of the French onset,
delay its advance, and thus give himself time to concentrate his
too-widely scattered troops. To influence Blücher he stated to him what
he _knew_ to be untrue, and made his ally a promise which he _knew_ he
could not keep.
CHAPTER IV
The Napoleon of the Italian campaign had said: “The Austrians lose
battles because they do not know the value of fifteen minutes.”
Alas! Neither the Emperor nor his lieutenants now seemed to know the
value of time.
In former years the French moved forward before dawn. In this final
campaign, upon which all was staked, they started late and they moved
slowly, when the enemy was crowding into every minute the utmost that
human energy could achieve.
Standing upon the roof of the mill-tower, Napoleon could not perceive
the full strength of Blücher’s position. To the Emperor it seemed that
the enemy was posted opposite to him on a slope leading upward to a low
range of hills with the village of Sombreff in the center. From the
tower he could not see the importance of the small river Ligne, with
the ravine formed by the broken ground and the stream itself. In the
center of the valley was the village of Ligny, in which stood an old
castle, and a church surrounded by a cemetery enclosed by brick walls.
Through this village runs the stream of Ligne. There were several other
villages in the valley between the two opposing ranges of hills. The
Prussian position was in reality strong, with this weakness--the open
slope revealed all the movements made over it, and exposed the troops
to the cannon of the French.
It was not till long after two o’clock that the French were ready
to attack. Then the battery of the Guard fired the signal guns, and
Vandamme dashed upon the enemy, while the military bands played
“La victoire enchantant.” The Prussians posted in the village, the
cemetery, the church, the orchards, the houses, fought desperately.
Entrenched in the old castle and in the farm buildings, they raked the
advancing French with a terrible fire, which littered the ground with
the dead and wounded. Under the cannonade of the French, houses burst
into flames. The villages became a roaring hell, in which the maddened
soldiers fought from house to house, in the streets, in the square,
with a ferocity which amazed the oldest officers. No quarter was asked
or given.
Driven over the Ligne, the Prussians lined the left bank, and across
this brook the soldiers shot each other, with guns only a few feet
apart. In the houses wounded men were being burned to death, and their
frightful cries rang out above the roar of battle. The hot day of June
was made hotter by the fierce flames which wrapped the buildings;
clouds hung in the heavens, and the smoke from the guns, dense and
foul, was pierced by tongues of fire from the blazing houses and by the
flashes of the guns as Prussians and Frenchmen shot each other down.
After four charges in force; after sanguinary hand-to-hand fights for
every hedge and wall and house; after the fiercest struggle for the
brook, the Prussians fell back--the French pouring over the bridges.
That Blücher had failed to blow up the bridges was a disastrous mistake.
But this was only the right wing of Blücher’s army; the center and the
left wing were unhurt. Blücher came down from his observatory, on the
roof of the mill of Bussy, to order in person a movement on Wagnalée,
from which the Prussians would take the French in flank. While the
Prussians, reanimated by the presence of “Old Marshal Forwards,” sprang
forward with cheers, and began to drive the French back, Napoleon made
ready for his master-stroke.
Ney at Quatre Bras is in the rear of the Prussians. Let him merely hold
in check whatever force of English is coming from Brussels, and detach
D’Erlon with his 20,000 men to fall upon the Prussian flank and rear.
This done, 60,000 Prussians will be slaughtered or captured.
Directly to D’Erlon flew the order to march to the rear of the Prussian
right. Colonel de Forbin-Janson, who carried the order to D’Erlon, was
instructed to inform Ney, also.
This order had been sent at two o’clock. It was now half-past five.
At six the Emperor expected to hear the thunder of D’Erlon’s cannon
in the rear of the Prussian army. As soon as he should hear that he
would send in his reserves,--hurling them at the enemy’s center,--cut
through, block its retreat on Sombreff, and drive it back upon the
guns of Vandamme and D’Erlon. For the 60,000 men of Zeiten and Pirch
there would be no escape. The Emperor was greatly elated. In order
to annihilate Blücher and end the war with a clap of thunder it was
only necessary that Ney obey orders. So thought Napoleon. He said to
Gérard, “It is possible that three hours hence the fate of the war may
be decided.” To Ney himself he had written, “The fate of France is in
your hands.”
With a soul full of the pride of success, the Emperor made his
dispositions for the final blow.
But what thunder-cloud is that which suddenly darkens the radiant sky?
Away off there to the left, Vandamme’s scouts have caught sight of
a column of twenty or thirty thousand troops who march as if their
intention is to turn the French flank. An aide-de-camp sent by Vandamme
dashes across the field to carry this fateful message to the Emperor.
Thus, with hand uplifted to strike Blücher down, he must not deal the
blow--his own flank is exposed. It does not occur to Napoleon that this
column on the left may be D’Erlon’s corps, going in a wrong direction,
by mistake. Vandamme had said they were the enemy; D’Erlon had no
business to be _there_; the column _must_ be Prussian or English.
Nothing can be done until an aide-de-camp can ride several miles,
reconnoiter, ride back and report. The grand attack is delayed until
this can be done.
At length the aide-de-camp returns and reports that the suspicious
column is D’Erlon’s corps.
Filled with chagrin for not having guessed as much, and with rage for
the precious hour of daylight lost, the Emperor gives the word, the
grand attack begins.
Black clouds have been gathering over the winding stream of Ligne,
along whose banks the fighting has raged for several miles. The
lightning now begins to flash and the thunder to roll, but even the
voice of the storm is lost in the more terrible voice of battle as
Napoleon’s batteries turn every gun on Ligny.
The Old Guard deploys in columns of attack; cuirassiers make ready to
dash forward; the drums beat the charge, and the splendid array moves
onward amid deafening peals of “_Vive l’Empereur!_”
Blücher has stripped his center to feed his right: he has no reserves:
and the whole strength of Napoleon’s power smites the Prussian center.
It is swept away. As Soult wrote Davout: “It was like a scene on the
stage.”
The sun is now about to go down--the storm is over--and Blücher gets
a view of the whole field. His army has been cut in two. Desperately
he calls in the troops on his right; desperately he gallops to his
squadrons on the left to lead them to the charge. Bravely they come
on in the gathering gloom to fling themselves against the French. In
vain--torn by musketry and charged by the cuirassiers, they fall back.
Blücher’s horse is shot down and falls on his rider.
“Nostitz, now I am lost!” cries the old hero to his adjutant.
But the French dash by without noticing these two Prussians, and when
the Prussians, in a countercharge, pass over the same ground, Blücher’s
horse is lifted and the old Marshal borne from the field.
Night puts an end to the conflict and saves the Prussian army
from annihilation. Had the attack been made when Napoleon first
ordered, there would have been no Blücher to rescue Wellington at
Mont-Saint-Jean.
The carnage of the day had been prodigious. Twelve thousand Prussians
and eighty-five hundred Frenchmen strewed the villages, the ravine, and
the plain. At this cost the great Captain won his last victory.
As he returned to Fluerus that night Napoleon’s heart must have been
very heavy. The fortune of France had slipped through his fingers.
The enemy should have been destroyed. Had his orders been obeyed,
Blücher’s army would have been swept off the face of the earth. As it
was, Blücher had simply received one of the ordinary drubbings to which
he was so much accustomed that he was not even discouraged. Neither his
staff nor his troops were demoralized. They had given way to an onset
which they could not withstand; but they meant to reform, retreat to
another position, and fight again.
Most of those who have written of Ligny and of the fatality which
deprived both Ney and the Emperor of D’Erlon,--whose corps would have
accomplished such decisive results had it gone into action at either
Ligny or Quatre Bras,--dwell upon the ignorance and presumption of the
staff-officer, Col. Laurent, who took it upon himself to direct the
march of D’Erlon’s leading column upon Ligny when it was upon its way
to Quatre Bras.
But it seems to me that had the staff-officer not turned D’Erlon’s
corps away from Quatre Bras and toward Ligny, the Emperor’s own order,
sent by Forbin-Janson, would have brought about precisely the same
result.
CHAPTER V
“There is my ugly boy, Arthur,” said Lady Mornington on seeing
Wellington at the Dublin Theater after a long absence.
Like Alexander the Great, Charlemagne, Frederick the Great, Washington,
Byron, Webster, Disraeli, and many other great men, Arthur Wellesley,
Duke of Wellington, owed nothing to his mother!
The sentimental notion that all great men derive their strength from
their mothers is an idle fancy.
Born into the ruling caste of Great Britain, Arthur Wellesley was given
the best opportunities, and he improved them to the best advantage.
In Hindustan he won military fame similar to that of Clive, and was
finally sent to Portugal when the British Cabinet decided to make the
Peninsula a base of operations against Napoleon. Displeased with the
Convention of Cintra, which his superior officer concluded with Junot,
after the latter had lost the battle of Vimiera, Wellington quit the
Continent and returned to England, where he served in Parliament. It
required the utmost exertion of his family influence to again secure
employment for him in the army.
His subsequent career in Spain, where, by a cautious steadiness and
unflinching courage, he won victory after victory over Napoleon’s
lieutenants, left him the military hero of the day when Marmont’s
treachery had put an end to the campaign of 1814.
He was at the Vienna Congress when Napoleon left Elba, and the Kings
turned to him, saying: “You must once more save Europe.”
* * * * *
The Duke of Wellington, associated as he is with the national pride of
the country, is England’s military hero. The greatness of the Duke is
the greatness of old England. He identified himself wholly with the
government of his country, believed that it was the best that human wit
could devise, antagonized innovations, detested reform measures, and
had a hearty contempt for the populace.
It is doubtful if any human being ever _loved_ Wellington. His wife did
not; his sons did not; his officers did not; his soldiers did not. Yet
he had the unbounded confidence of his army, the warm admiration of
most Englishmen, and the personal esteem of every sovereign of Europe.
Like Washington, he had few intimacies; and like Washington, he was
exacting even in very small matters.
That he should have won the title of “the Iron Duke” is significant. In
many respects he was a hard man. _He was never known to laugh._
“Kiss me, Hardy,” said the dying Nelson to his bosom friend. We cannot
imagine any such tenderness of sentiment in Wellington.
Nelson came near throwing his fame away for a wanton, as Marc Antony
did: we could never imagine Wellington in love with a woman. He married
with as little excitement as he managed a military maneuver, and he
begat children from a stern sense of duty.
He heartily favored flogging in the army, and he bitterly opposed penny
postage.
In his old age he was asked whether he found any advantage in being
“great.” He answered, “Yes, I can afford to do without servants. I
brush my own clothes, and if I was strong enough I would black my own
shoes.”
He had ridden horseback all his life, but had a notoriously bad seat.
Often in a fox hunt he gave his horse a fall, or was thrown. Like
Napoleon, he always shaved himself. He was a man of few words, never
lost his head, and was as brave as Julius Caesar.
* * * * *
It is Thackeray who relates the incident which illustrates how the
English regarded the Duke in his old age.
Two urchins, one a Londoner and the other not, see a soldierly figure
ride by along the street.
“‘That’s the Duke,’ says the Londoner.
“‘The Duke?’ questions the other.
“‘Of Wellington, booby!’ exclaims the Londoner, scornful of the
ignoramus who did not know that when one spoke of ‘the Duke,’
Wellington alone _could_ be meant.”
CHAPTER VI
“There was a sound of revelry by night,
And Belgium’s capital had gathered then
Her beauty and her chivalry, and bright
The lamps shone o’er fair women and brave men”.
The dance is the harmony of motion wedded to the harmony of sound.
Since men have loved music they have loved dancing, and the perfection
of the dance will be a fascination until the love of music is dead in
the souls of men.
Herodias dances before the King, and off goes the head of John--a
victim to the sensuous poetry of motion. Nor was Herod the only
intoxicated monarch whose imperial will was seduced by music and the
dance. Ancient history is full of it--this witchery of voluptuous music
and voluptuous motion, the sway of the woman of the dance.
As far back as we can see into the dim ages of the past, the record
is the same. The story of the witchery of melodious sound and the
rhythmical movement which brings the charm of music to the eye as
well as to the ear, is traced in whatever of sculpture, of painting,
of literature has been saved from the ravages of time. Graven on the
stone, carved upon the frieze, cast in the entablature, delicately
wreathed about the vase, we still see how the ancients loved music, and
how the music made the dance.
Out of the annals of the dead nations come the living names of their
national dances, and it may be that the fire which burned in the heart
of the Spartan when he went through the Pyrrhic dance was the same as
that which kindled the ardor of the Red Man of the American tribes when
he celebrated his war dance.
There was the dance of the Furies, the dance of the Harvest, the dance
of May-day, the dance of the religious rite, the dance of rejoicing,
the dance of the marriage feast, the dance of the funeral rite.
In the Greek Chorus the whole city gave itself to the melody of sound
and the harmony of motion, just as the _farandola_ of to-day is, in
Southern France, an unlooped garland of music and dance drawing into
itself the entire community. Only the Roman refused to dance, and the
Roman is the most unlovely national character in history.
“Wine, woman, and song!” cried the revellers in the dawn of time;
“Wine, woman, and song!” shout the revellers now; and between these
flowery banks of Pleasure runs the steady, everlasting stream of
earnest purpose, consecration to duty, and love of noble standards,
that bears precious freight toward havens yet unknown.
* * * * *
As Thackeray says, there never was, since the days of Darius, such a
brilliant train of camp-followers as hung around Wellington’s army in
the Low Countries, in the year 1815.
French noblesse who had fled their country, English lords and ladies
who had crossed over to the Continent, diplomats connected with
various European courts, travellers who had stopped at Brussels to
await the issues of the campaign--all these crowded the city. With the
officers of the English and Belgian armies, this made a brilliant and
distinguished society, and many social entertainments were being given.
Owing principally to the fact that hers was connected with the march of
the English army and the crowning victory of Waterloo, the Duchess of
Richmond’s ball has, historically, obliterated every other. Lord Byron
immortalized it in “Childe Harold”; and after him came Thackeray with
his masterly descriptions in “Vanity Fair.”
Until a comparatively recent date it has not been known for certain
where the ball took place, for it was well known that it was not given
in the house which the Duke of Richmond was temporarily occupying.
Sir William Fraser has published a most interesting account of how his
industrious search for the famous ball-room was at length rewarded
by the discovery that the place actually used for the dance was the
store-room, or dépot, of a carriage-builder, whose establishment
joined the rear of the Duke of Richmond’s palace. Instead of being a
“high-hall” as Byron imagined, it was a low room, 13 feet high, 54
feet broad, and 120 feet long. For the two hundred invited guests it
afforded ample accommodations.
We can assume that this storage-room for vehicles had been transformed
with hangings and decorations until it presented an appearance
sufficiently brilliant, and we can imagine the eagerness with which
“the beauty and the chivalry” had looked forward to this night. We can
imagine the intrigues for tickets. We can imagine fair women leaning on
the arms of the brave men, and the crash of music, as the band strikes
up, and then,
“On with the dance!”
Yonder is the Prince of Orange, heir to the illustrious house which
boasts such names as William III and William the Silent. To whom does
the modern world owe more,--for freedom of conscience, of speech, of
person,--than to the heroic Dutchman who stood, almost alone--and
triumphantly!--against the whole power of the Spanish Empire and the
Pope? From whom have we received a finer lesson in patriotism, and in
desperate determination to be free, than from William III when, as the
armies of the Grand Monarch came irresistibly on, sternly ordered,
“_Cut the dykes! We’ll give Holland back to the sea, rather than become
the slaves of France!_”
Over there is the Duke of Brunswick--whose father, in 1789, had led
into France that ill-fated invasion which struggled with mud and rain
and green grapes until it was in condition to be demoralized by the
slight cannonade of Dumouriez and the cavalry charge of Kellerman--thus
bringing derision upon its commander who had issued the famous
proclamation in which he threatened Paris with destruction.
There is Pozzo di Borgo, the Corsican, the boyhood acquaintance of
Napoleon. They had taken different sides in petty Corsican politics;
there had been an affray at the polls, Pozzo had been knocked down and
roughly handled by the Bonaparte faction. Here was the origin of one
of the most active, vindictive and persistent hatreds on record; and
there is no doubt whatever that the Corsican gentleman who now glitters
in this brilliant throng, in the Duchess of Richmond’s ball-room, has
done Napoleon a vast deal of harm. It was he, more than any other,
who influenced the Emperor Alexander against Napoleon. It was he,
more than any other, who in 1814 persuaded the Allies to revoke the
order, already given, to retreat upon the Rhine and, instead, to march
straight upon Paris.
More notable still, is another opponent of Napoleon whom we see in this
famous ball-room. It is Sir Sydney Smith. “_That man caused me to miss
my destiny!_” exclaimed Napoleon. For Sir Sydney was the unconquerable
Englishman who threw himself into Acre and showed the Turks how to
defend it. Against those walls the French dashed themselves in vain.
Baffled, exhausted, his rear threatened, his heart filled with impotent
rage, Napoleon had to abandon his gorgeous visions of Eastern conquest
and drink to the dregs a bitter cup of humiliation.
Of course the Duke of Wellington is here, and many of the officers
of his army. The French nobles (emigrés) are represented by some of
the proudest names of the _Ancient Régime_. Ladies of high degree are
present--ladies of beauty, wit, and grace, some from Belgium, France,
England, but none of these are so well known as a certain pretty,
doting, neglected wife named Amelia, and a dashing, brilliant, wicked
adventuress, Becky Sharp, whom Thackeray brings to the ball. As long
as there is such a thing as English literature these two, together
with the prodigal George Osborne and honest William Dobbin, will move
amid those revellers and live amid the stirring scenes of the Eve of
Waterloo.
“A thousand hearts beat happily; and when
Music arose with its voluptuous swell,
Soft eyes looked love to eyes that spake again,
And all went merrily as a marriage bell.”
There was no boom of cannon to halt the dance. There was no opening
roar of battle that broke in upon the revelry. The Duke of Wellington
sat down comfortably to the table where the midnight supper was served,
and the officers remained at the ball hours later. Then, as they had
been ordered, they withdrew quietly, one by one, and finally the Duke
came to make his own adieus.
The youngest daughter of the Duchess of Richmond was awakened and
brought down to the ball-room. With her tiny fingers she buckled on the
great soldier’s sword.
Do we not all of us recall how Major Dobbin seeks out Captain George,
who has been madly gaming and madly drinking?
“‘Hullo, Dob! Come and drink, old Dob! The Duke’s wine is famous.’
“‘Come out, George,’ said Dobbin gravely. ‘Don’t drink.’
“Dobbin went up to him and whispered something to him, at which George,
giving a start and a wild hurray, tossed off his glass, clapped it on
the table, and walked away speedily on his friend’s arm.”
What Dobbin said was this: “The enemy has crossed the Sambre: our left
is already engaged. Come away. We are to march in three hours.”
“And there was mounting in hot haste; the steed,
The mustering squadron, and the clattering car,
Went pouring forward with impetuous speed,
And swiftly forming in the ranks of war;
And the deep thunder peal on peal afar;
And near, the beat of the alarming drum
Roused up the soldier ere the morning star,
While throng’d the citizens with terror dumb,
Or whispering, with white lips--‘The foe! They come, they come!’”
Again, Thackeray: “The sun was just rising as the march began--it was a
gallant sight--the band led the column, playing the regimental march;
then came the major in command, riding upon Pyramus, his stout charger;
then marched the grenadiers, their captain at their head; in the center
were the colors, borne by the senior and junior ensigns; then George
came marching at the head of his company. He looked up, and smiled at
Amelia, and passed on; and even the sound of music died away.” And
Amelia and thousands of other wives go back to wait, to weep, to pray.
How hard it is to believe that after the officers had hurried away
to join their commands, after the Duke of Wellington had left, after
every young man and young woman in the ball-room _knew_ that their late
partners were hastening to the battlefield, _the ball should continue_.
Instead of being broken up by the booming cannon and the agonizing
leavetakings imagined by Lord Byron, the revel went on till morning,
when it ended in the usual way.
* * * * *
Not until six in the morning of June 16th did the Duke of Wellington
leave Brussels, and, had the orders which he issued the evening before
been carried out, he would have found Ney between himself and the
English army, with the Prussians annihilated! Acting upon their own
responsibility, Major Normann and the Prince of Saxe-Weimar had taken
possession of Quatre Bras. The Prince of Orange’s Chief of Staff,
Constant Rebecque, delivered to the officers the written orders of
Wellington, but told them verbally, in effect, not to obey. As a matter
of fact, these officers paid no attention to the written orders, but
acted upon their own judgment. They could see for themselves what ought
to be done, and they did it. They all rushed to Quatre Bras, determined
to hold it at whatever cost.
At ten o’clock, Wellington arrived, and he congratulated General
Perponcher on being in possession of Quatre Bras, whose vital
importance he now recognized for the first time.
Not being attacked at Quatre Bras, Wellington rode to the heights of
Brye to see, for himself, what was going on at Ligny. He and Blücher
went up in the mill of Bussy, from whose roof they could plainly see
every movement of the French.
It was now too late for the Prussians to escape battle. Therefore,
Wellington, in parting from Blücher to return to Quatre Bras, coolly
said, “I will come to your support provided I am not attacked myself.”
To his aide Wellington remarked, “If he fights here he will be damnably
licked.”
No wonder that Gneisenau, Chief of Staff to Blücher, formed the opinion
that Wellington was a “master-knave.”
Had the Prussian hero, Blücher, been as craftily selfish as Wellington,
there would have been no Waterloo.
On his arrival at Quatre Bras, Wellington found that Ney had at last
realized the true meaning of the Emperor’s orders, and he made frantic
efforts to regain what he had lost. Too late. Vainly Jerome Bonaparte
fights with desperate courage to win and hold the Boissou wood: vainly
Kellerman hurls his handful of horsemen upon the ever-increasing
infantry of the enemy; vainly Ney exposes himself to the hottest fire,
rallying broken lines and leading them back to the charge. Too late.
Regiment after regiment of the English army arrives. In hot haste, the
young officers, who, a few hours ago, had been dancing at the Duchess
of Richmond’s ball, throw themselves into the fight, still in the silk
stockings and buckled shoes of the ball-room.
So impetuous had been the assault of the French that at first the
English and Hanoverians were driven. The Duke of Wellington, narrowly
escaping capture, was borne backward by the rout. In person he rallied
his men and led a cavalry charge which broke on the French line. Not
until the coming up of Picton’s division did the tide decisively turn;
but then the French, heavily outnumbered, were worsted at all points.
“The fate of France is in your hands,” the Emperor had written, and
Ney had not understood. All the hours of the morning of the 16th he
had not understood. Precious hours had glided by unimproved. Now it is
afternoon, and at last Ney understands.
And it is too late. Were he the ally of Wellington and Blücher, he
could not serve them better. Were he the mortal enemy of France, he
could not serve her worse.
Overwhelmed by the sudden consciousness of his terrible mistake, the
heroic Ney was almost demented. “Oh, that all these English balls were
buried in my body!” Impotent rage, vain remorse: _the English were up,
and all of Wellington’s delays and blunders were remedied_.
Verily, those who say there is no such thing as _Luck_ have never
studied the history of the Hundred Days!
* * * * *
The fatality of the day was, of course, the pendulum swing of D’Erlon’s
corps--a pendulum which swung first toward Napoleon, then toward Ney,
reaching neither. Had not the Emperor turned it back when on its way to
join Ney, Wellington would have been crushed. Had not Ney recalled it
when it was in sight of the Emperor, Blücher would have been destroyed.
But Napoleon took it away from Ney, and Ney took it away from Napoleon,
and neither got to use it.
D’Erlon’s corps of 20,000 men was utterly lost to the French, although
it was on the march all day and burning to be in the fight. Nothing in
military history equals the ill-luck of this day. In the first place,
Soult’s order to D’Erlon was ambiguous. D’Erlon did not understand
it, and the inexperienced staff-officer, Forbin-Janson, was unable to
explain it. This accounts for D’Erlon showing up at the wrong place and
creating consternation among the French which delayed the final blow
and saved Blücher.
In the second place, Soult sent only one staff-officer, and this one
did not carry out orders. _He did not inform Ney._
An experienced staff-officer would have understood the necessity of
notifying Ney of the Emperor’s orders to D’Erlon, for the Emperor had
placed D’Erlon under the immediate command of Ney. As it was, Marshal
Ney was needing D’Erlon as badly as the Emperor needed him, and was
expecting him every minute. Therefore, he continued to send urgent,
peremptory orders that D’Erlon should hasten to join him.
Even when General Delcambre, sent by D’Erlon after D’Erlon was well on
his way back to Ligny, reported the retrograde movement to Ney, the
insubordinate Marshal flew into a passion and sent General Delcambre
back with an imperative order that D’Erlon should march on Quatre
Bras. In taking upon himself to overrule his Emperor, he did not even
consider the lateness of the hour, which made it impossible for D’Erlon
to join him in time to be of any service.
CHAPTER VII
While it was not disorganized or demoralized, Blücher’s army was in
great peril. Two of his army corps were concentrated at Wavre, one was
at Gembloux, and the fourth at Wandesett. Had the French been vigilant,
these separated corps might have been overwhelmed in detail. Through
the carelessness of videttes, the lack of enterprise in the leaders
of reconnoitering parties and the unpardonable neglect of General
Exelmans, neither Napoleon nor Grouchy was informed of the movement of
the Prussian corps.
After Grouchy was given command of 33,000 troops to pursue the
Prussians, the delays in starting, the slowness of the march, the
lack of harmony between Grouchy and his two lieutenants, Vandamme and
Gérard, made the “pursuit” the most futile on record.
How it was that an army of 70,000 Prussians could get lost to the
French, then found, then lost again, is something that the untutored
civilian labors in vain to understand.
Yet that is the truth about it. The morning after the battle of Ligny
the French did not know what had become of the Prussian army. They
began to hunt for it. The search was clumsy and far afield. But at
length Thielman’s corps was located at Gembloux. Grouchy’s entire army
might have enveloped and crushed it. Not being attacked, Thielman
sensibly retired, and when the French entered Gembloux they did not
even know what had become of those Prussians. A strange “pursuit,”
truly.
Although he still had two hours of daylight, Grouchy decided that the
“pursuit” had been pushed far enough for one day, and he postponed
further activities until the morrow. During the night he received
intelligence that the whole Prussian army was marching on Wavre. That
Wavre was on a parallel line to the line of Wellington’s retreat, and
that Blücher’s purpose might be to succor Wellington when necessary
never once entered Grouchy’s head. On the contrary, he believed that
Blücher was making for Brussels and would not tarry at Wavre. Yet he
knew that the Emperor was expecting a battle _just where that of the
next day was fought_.
Then why not put his 33,000 men nearer to the Emperor than Blücher
would be to Wellington? To do so he had but to cross the little river
Dyle and march along its left bank. Wavre is on the left bank of the
Dyle, and therefore he would have to cross it in any event, going
to Wavre. And by maneuvering on that side of the river he could the
more readily keep in communication with the Emperor and succor him
in case of need. That Napoleon expected Grouchy to do this is shown
by the orders which he gave to General Marbot to throw out cavalry
detachments in that direction. On the morning of the fateful 18th the
well-rested troops of Grouchy might have marched at three. Yet they
were not ordered to move till six, and did not actually get under way
until about eight. When the French of Grouchy left Gembloux for Wavre,
_the Prussians had already been four hours on the desperate march to
Waterloo_.
Having at length got his army off, the admirable Grouchy rode as far as
Walhain, where he entered the house of a notary to write a dispatch to
the Emperor. Having done this,--it was now about ten o’clock,--Marshal
Grouchy coolly sat down to his breakfast. At this hour the Prussian
advance guard had reached St. Lambert, and Wellington knew it. And here
was Napoleon’s lieutenant, placidly working his way to those historic
strawberries, blissfully ignorant of the fact that his stupendous folly
had wrecked Napoleon’s last campaign.
Upon this breakfast enter the excited officers who have heard the
opening guns at Waterloo. “A rearguard affair, no doubt,” thinks the
admirable Grouchy. But soon the distant thunder and the cloud of smoke
tell of a battle, a great battle--a battle of which men will talk as
long as there are human tongues to wag, as long as there are human
hearts to feel.
“The battle is at Mont-Saint-Jean,” says a guide. And that is where
the Emperor thought the fight would be. “We must march to the
cannon,” says Gérard. So says General Valezé. But Grouchy pleads his
orders. “If you will not go, allow me to go with my corps and General
Vallin’s cavalry,” pleads Gérard. “No,” said Grouchy; “it would be an
unpardonable mistake to divide my troops.” And he galloped away to
amuse himself with Thielman, as Blücher had meant that he should do.
So, all day long, while the Emperor strained his eyes to the right,
looking, looking, oh how longingly! for his own legions, his own
eagles, Grouchy was in a mere rearguard engagement with Thielman.
When Bülow appeared like a sudden cloud in the horizon, the Emperor
hoped it was Grouchy. When the cannonade at Wavre reached La Belle
Alliance, the Emperor fancied that the sound drew nearer--that Grouchy
was coming, at last. The agony of suspense which drew from Wellington
the famous “Blücher, or night,” could only have been equalled by the
storm which raged within the Emperor’s breast--the storm of impotent
rage, and of regret that he had leaned so heavy upon so frail a reed as
Grouchy.
The positive order which the Emperor sent to Grouchy, after the
appearance of the Prussians at Chapelle-Saint-Lambert, were delivered
in time for a diversion in Bülow’s rear which would have released
Napoleon’s right. But Grouchy decided that he would obey this order
_after_ he had taken Wavre. As he did not take Wavre until nightfall,
he might just as well have been openly a traitor to his flag. During
the whole of two days he had been repeating “my orders, my orders,”
and his apologists are forever prating about those orders; but what
about this last order, hot and direct, from the field where all was
at stake? How could a victory over Thielman be anything but a trivial
affair in comparison with the tremendous conflict going on over there
at Mont-Saint-Jean?
Ah, well, he took Wavre, licked his Thielman, extricated his army very
cleverly from a most perilous position made for it by the disaster
of Waterloo, got back into France in admirable shape, and had the
satisfaction of knowing that he had made a record unique in the history
of the world.
As the man who did not do the thing he was sent to do, Grouchy has
no peer. As a man who, in war, exemplified the adage of “penny wise
and pound foolish,” Grouchy is unapproachable. As a man who,--by an
almost miraculous union of inertness, stupidity, pig-headed obstinacy,
complacent conceit, jealous pride, and inopportune wilfulness,--caused
the last battle of the greatest soldier of all time to become the
synonym for unbounded and irremediable disaster, Grouchy occupies a
lofty, lonely pillar of his own--a sort of military Simeon Stylites.
CHAPTER VIII
WATERLOO
Why had the Emperor been so late in getting into motion on the
morning of the 16th? Why had he not started at five o’clock, and
caught Zieten’s corps unsupported? Why did he give Blücher time to
concentrate? Why did he not press the attack farther on the evening of
the day when the Prussians were in full retreat? Why did he fail to
give Grouchy the customary order to pursue with all the cavalry?
Satisfactory answers cannot be made. That Napoleon’s conceptions were
as grand as ever is apparent, but his failure in matters of detail is
equally clear. Perhaps mental and physical weariness after several
hours of sustained exertion and anxiety, furnish the most plausible
explanation of these errors.
At any rate, when he threw himself on his bed at Fluerus on the night
of the 16th, Napoleon was worn out. Yet he did not know the true state
of the Prussian army, nor what Ney had done at Quatre Bras. Soult sent
no dispatches to Ney, and Ney sent none to Soult.
The Emperor went to sleep _believing_ but not _knowing_ that Blücher
had been so badly battered that it would take him at least two days
to gather together the remnant of his army. More unfortunately still,
Napoleon believed that the Prussians had taken up a line of retreat
which would carry them beyond supporting distance of the English.
To the contrary of both these convictions of the Emperor, the bulk of
the Prussian army was preserving its formation, and Gneisenau, acting
for Blücher, who was believed to be dead or a prisoner, had directed
the retreat on Wavre. Thus the Prussians were keeping within supporting
distance of the English, although this was not Gneisenau’s motive in
issuing the order. He chose Wavre for the reason that at Wavre the
separated corps of the army could best reunite.
* * * * *
The morning of the 17th of June dawns, and Napoleon has Wellington in
his power. _But neither Wellington nor Napoleon knows it._ The Duke
does not know what has become of the Prussians, and the Emperor does
not know that the English are where he and Ney, acting in concert, can
utterly destroy them.
It seems incredible that Ney sent no report to Napoleon, and that the
Emperor sent no courier to Ney. But that is just the fact. It was
not until _after_ Wellington had received the report of the Prussian
retreat, had realized his peril, and was backing away from it, that
Napoleon awoke to a sense of the opportunity which fortune had held
for him all that morning, while he lay supinely upon his bed, or idly
talked Parisian politics with his officers.
When he _did_ realize what might have been, he was ablaze with a fierce
desire to make up for lost time. Too late. Wellington was already at a
safe distance, in full retreat on Brussels, and Ney had not molested
him by firing a single shot.
Soon the Emperor reached Quatre Bras, but what could he do? True, he
could dash after the English cavalry and chase it as the hunter chases
the hare, but even the rearguard of the enemy made good its escape.
They say that as the black storm cloud spread over the heavens to the
North the hills behind were still bathed in sunlight, and that as
the English officer, Lord Uxbridge, looked back, he saw a horseman
suddenly emerge from a dip in the road and appear on the hill in
front--and they knew it to be Napoleon, leading the pursuit.
A battery galloped up, took position, opened fire. And as it did so,
the thunder from the storm-cloud mingled with the thunder of the guns,
and the great rain of June 17th had begun to pour down.
“Gallop faster, men! For God’s sake, gallop, or you will be taken!” It
was Lord Uxbridge speeding his flying cavalry.
After them streamed the French. Almost, but not quite, the English were
overtaken. So close came the French that the English heard their curses
and jeers, just as Sir John Moore’s retreating men heard them as they
took to their boats after the death-grapple at Corunna.
Torrents of rain were pouring down. The roads became bogs. Where
the highways passed between embankments each road was a rushing
stream. Horses mired to their knees. Cannon carriages sank to the
hubs. The infantry was soaked with water and covered with mud. The
labor of getting forward was exhausting to man and beast. But the
French pressed on until they reached the hills opposite the heights
of Mont-Saint-Jean. Upon those heights, and between the French and
Brussels, Wellington had come to a stand.
A reconnaissance in force caused the English to unmask, and Napoleon
was happy. The English army was before him. That he would crush it on
the morrow, he had not the slightest doubt. He not only believed this,
but had good reason to believe it. Had not the Prussians gone away
to Namur, out of supporting distance? Such was his firm conviction,
based partly on the knowledge of what would be the natural course for
the retreating army to take, and partly on the report of his scouts.
Besides, had he not sent Grouchy, Vandamme, and Gérard to take care of
Blücher?
Could the great soldier believe that his lieutenants, trained in his
own school by years of service in the field, could manage so stupidly
as to allow the Prussians to take him in flank, while he was giving
battle to the English?
Regarding the vexed question as to whether the order given to Grouchy
was sufficient, a civilian can but say that it would seem that Grouchy
ought to have known what was expected of him even if he had not been
specially instructed. The very size of the army entrusted to him was
enough to denote its purpose. The fact that Napoleon was going after
Wellington and was sending Grouchy after Blücher said as plainly as
words, “You take care of Blücher, while I take care of Wellington.”
By necessary implication, the mere sending of Grouchy with 33,000 men
after Blücher meant that Grouchy’s mission was to keep the Prussians
off Napoleon while Napoleon was fighting the English.
This was the common sense of it, and the Emperor had every reason
to believe that no intelligent officer of his army could possibly
understand it otherwise.
Therefore, when he saw that Wellington meant to give battle, he felt
the stern joy of the warrior who expects a fair fight and a brilliant
victory.
To Napoleon, a victory there meant even more. It meant the possible
end of arduous warfare, an era of peace for France, the return to
his arms of his son, and the crowning of his wonderful career by the
continuation and completion of that system of internal improvements and
beneficent institutions to which Europe owes so much. Therefore, when
he plowed through the mud, drenched with rain, and went the rounds of
his army posts, peering through the mists toward the English lines,
listening for any sound of an army breaking camp to retreat, he was
happy to be convinced, “They mean to fight.”
No one could shake his belief that the Prussians had gone off toward
Namur. That they had retired by a parallel line with the English was
incredible. That Blücher would appear on the morrow, _and strike his
flank within two hours after the signal for battle was fired_, was a
thought which could not possibly have been driven into Napoleon’s head.
In vain did his brother Jerome tell him of what a servant of the inn
had overheard the English officers say, that very afternoon--that
Blücher was to come to their aid the next day. Napoleon scouted the
story. To his dying day, it is doubtful whether he believed that
Wellington’s decision to stay and fight was based upon the practical
certainty that Blücher would come to his aid. To that effect Blücher
had given his promise--and Wellington knew that Blücher was not the man
to make his ally a false promise to induce him to fight.
Although Napoleon had slept but little on Saturday night (the 17th)
and had been out in the rain and mud for hours making the rounds of
his outposts, a distance of two miles, he seemed fresh and cheerful at
breakfast, and chatted freely with his officers.
There was a question of fixing the hour of the attack. To give the
ground time to become drier and firmer under sun and wind, hour after
hour was suffered to pass. All this while the more energetic Blücher
was plowing his way toward the field, over ground just as wet. To a
civilian it would seem if the soil was firm enough to march on, it was
firm enough to fight on. If the Prussians could drag their artillery
through the defiles of the Lasne, the French should have been able to
handle theirs in the valleys of Smohaine and Braine-L’Alleud.
Therefore, it would seem to this writer that on the morning of June
18th, when Napoleon Bonaparte sat idly in his lines waiting for sun
and wind to harden the ground, he had no one but himself to blame
for giving Blücher time to reach the field. During these hours of
waiting it appears singular that no details of the plan of attack
were discussed. It seems strange that no preparations were made to
cannonade the château of Hougoumont and its outbuildings and walls. It
seems strange that no battery was planted to shell the farmhouses of La
Haye-Sainte. It seems equally strange that nails and hammers were not
provided for the spiking of captured cannon.
* * * * *
One of the most horribly fascinating of historical manuscripts is the
warrant against his enemies which Robespierre was signing when Bourdon
broke into the room and shot him. There is the incomplete signature
of the erstwhile Dictator, and there are the stains made by the blood
which spurted from his shattered jaw.
Even more profoundly interesting are a few words written in pencil by
Marshal Ney, upon an order which Soult was about to send to General
D’Erlon: “Count D’Erlon will understand that the action is to commence
on the left, not on the right. Communicate this new arrangement to
General Reilé.”
Why had the Emperor changed his mind? At St. Helena, he appears not to
have recalled the fact that he changed his plan of battle because Ney
reported that a small stream, which was on the line of advance to the
right, had been swollen by the rains and it was impassable.
Stonewall Jackson was one of the many military experts who studied the
field of Waterloo, and who said that the attack should have been made
on the right. It was there that Wellington was weakest. Had the French
struck him there, Hougoumont would have been worthless to him and would
not have cost such a frightful loss to the French. But the Emperor, at
the last moment, changed his mind.
THE LAST BATTLE
“_Magnificent! Magnificent!_” exclaimed Napoleon as he overlooked the
legions that were moving over the plateau, going into position.
Seated on his white mare, his gray dust-coat covering all but the front
of the green uniform, on his head the small cocked hat of the Brienne
school, silver spurs on the riding-boots which reached the knee, and
at his side the sword of Marengo--the great Captain was never more
radiant, never surer of success than now.
_Vive l’Empereur!_ rolled in thunder tones as the troops marched
before him. The drum-beat was drowned in the mighty shout of the
legions as they went down into the valley of the shadow of death.
It was, on the vastest scale, the old, old cry of the gladiators as
they trooped past the imperial box to take their stations in the
arena--“_Caesar! we, who are about to die, salute you!_”
As the regiments passed in review, the eagles were dipped to the
Emperor, every saber flashed in the sun, every bayonet waved a hat
or cap, every pennon was wildly shaken, every band struck up the
national air, “_Let us watch over the safety of the Empire_”--and over
everything, drowning the roll of the drums and the call of the bugles,
rose that frantic cry of frenzied devotion, “_Vive l’Empereur!_”
Napoleon’s eye dilated, his breast expanded with pride--for the
last time, the very last time. Proud he had often been, and in most
instances he had won the right to be so. On the heights of Rossomme
and on the plateau of La Belle Alliance, he was, this Sunday morning,
deservedly proud. He had reconquered an empire without drawing
the sword, had almost done what Pompey had boasted that he could
do--_called forth an army by the stamp of his foot_; had smitten his
enemies and put them to rout, and now while his lieutenant, on the
right, would “cut off the Prussians from Wellington,”--as Grouchy had
written that he would,--he, Napoleon, would crush the English, and so
win back peace with honor.
A more magnificent army than that which he proudly views has never
been marshalled for battle, for here are heroes whose record reaches
all the way back through Montmirail, Dresden, Wagram, Jena, Borodino,
Austerlitz, Eylau and Friedland, to Marengo.
And Napoleon is proud, this last time.
* * * * *
In the field Napoleon had 74,000 men and 246 guns; Wellington had
67,000 men and 184 guns. But the British position was strong. The
hollow road of Ohain gave them the benefit of its trench for 400 yards.
There were barricades of felled trees on the Brussels and Nivelles
roads. There was a sand-pit which served as an intrenchment, and the
strong buildings and enclosure of Hougoumont, La Haye-Sainte and
Papelotte were formidable defences.
Yet General Haxo, who was sent by Napoleon to inspect the enemy’s
lines, reported that he could not perceive any fortifications!
In addition to the hollow road, the natural advantage of the position
of the English was that, from the crest which they were to defend, the
ground fell away so as to form a declivity behind the crest, and along
this hillside the English were partially sheltered from the French fire
and altogether hidden from view. From where he was, Napoleon could not
see more than half of Wellington’s army. Another natural protection to
the English position were the tall, thick hedges, impassable to the
French cavalry.
All things considered, the attempt of the Emperor to break the center
of an English army, so well posted as this, can be fairly compared to
Lee’s efforts to storm the heights of Gettysburg. And in each case the
attack was made in ignorance of vitally important facts.
Well might Napoleon afterward reproach himself for not having
reconnoitered the English position.
* * * * *
At thirty-five minutes past eleven the first gun was fired.
Reillé had been ordered to occupy the approaches to Hougoumont, and
had entrusted the movement to Jerome Bonaparte. At the head of the
1st Light Infantry he charged the wood held by Nassau and Hanoverian
carbineers. An hour of furious fighting in the dense thickets--in which
General Bauduin was killed--resulted in clearing the woods of the
enemy; but on getting clear of the thicket the French found themselves
coming upon the strong walls and the large buildings of the château.
Jerome had no orders to lead infantry against a fortress like this,
but he did it, nevertheless. Wellington had thrown a garrison into
Hougoumont; the walls were loopholed for musketry; and the French were
led to slaughter. It was impossible for infantry to break these thick
walls of solid masonry, yet Jerome, in spite of the advice of his chief
of staff and the orders of his immediate superior, Reillé, persisted
until Hougoumont had cost the lives of 1,600 Frenchmen and had called
away from the main battle nearly 11,000 men.
Why it was that the walls were not breached with cannon before the
infantry was led against them can only be explained upon the hypothesis
that the Emperor never once thought his brother capable of so mad an
undertaking.
It was nearly one o’clock when Napoleon formed a battery of eighty guns
and was ready to make a great attack on the English center. Before
giving word to Ney, who was to lead it, the Emperor carefully scanned
the entire battlefield through his glass.
_What is that black cloud which has come upon the distant horizon,
there on the northeast?_ Every staff officer turns his glasses to the
heights of Chapelle-Saint-Lambert. “Trees,” say some. But Napoleon
knows better. Those are troops. But whose? Are they his? Is it Grouchy?
Suppose it is the advance guard of Blücher!
A hush, a chill falls upon the staff. A cavalry squad is sent to
reconnoiter; but before it has even cleared itself of the French
lines, a prisoner taken by Marbot’s hussars is brought to the Emperor.
This prisoner was the bearer of a letter from Bülow to Wellington to
announce the arrival of the Prussians! Even now the Emperor does not
realize his danger, does not suspect the truth of the situation, for
he believes that Grouchy is so maneuvering as to protect the French
right and to prevent the Prussians from falling on his flank. Napoleon
sends him the dispatch: “A letter which has just been intercepted tells
us that General Bülow is to attack our right flank. We believe we can
perceive the corps on the heights of Chapelle-Saint-Lambert. Therefore
do not lose a minute to draw nearer to us and to join us and crush
Bülow, whom you will catch in the very act.”
Immediately the Emperor detached the cavalry divisions of Domon and
Subervie to the right to be ready to hold the Prussians in check, and
the 6th Corps (Lobau) was ordered to move up behind this cavalry.
_Thus from half-past one in the afternoon Napoleon had two armies with
which to deal._
Had he suspected that Blücher had left Thielman’s corps to amuse
Grouchy while the bulk of the Prussian army was hastening to join Bülow
on the right flank of the French, the Emperor would probably not have
gone deeper into this fight. Expecting every moment to hear the roar
of Grouchy’s guns in Bülow’s rear, the Emperor now ordered Ney to the
grand attack on the English line.
Eighty cannon thundered against Mont-Saint-Jean, and the English
batteries roared in reply. For half an hour the earth quivered with the
shock, and in Brussels, twenty miles away, every living soul hung upon
the roar of the guns. Merchants closed their stores; business of all
sorts suspended; eager crowds hurried to the Namur gate to listen, to
question stragglers from the front; timid travellers, who had come in
the train of Wellington’s army, hastily secured conveyances and fled by
the Ghent road. In the churches, women prayed.
Is Blücher the only man who could play the game of leaving a part of
his troops to detain the enemy? Cannot Grouchy leave 10,000 men to die,
if necessary, in holding Thielman, while with the remainder he pushes
for the distant battlefield?
There are those who say he could not have arrived in time had he made
the effort. How can anybody know that? Certainly his cavalry could have
covered the distance, and the infantry in all probability would have
arrived in time to take the exhausted English in the rear, after their
advance to La Belle Alliance, and cut the surprised troops to pieces.
Thus while the Prussians were chasing Napoleon, Grouchy would have been
chasing Wellington, with the net result that the Prussians, within a
few days, would have been caught between Napoleon’s rallied troops and
the victorious army of Grouchy. But it was not to be so. Grouchy did
precisely what Blücher wanted him to do--spent the golden hours with
Thielman at Wavre.
After the cannonade of half an hour, Ney and D’Erlon led the grand
attack on the English position. And a worse managed affair it would
be difficult to imagine. Instead of forming columns of attack,
admitting of easy and rapid deployment, the troops were massed in
compact phalanxes, with a front of 166 to 200 files, with a depth
of twenty-four men. The destruction which canister causes on dense
masses like these, exposed in the open field, is something horrible
to contemplate. The error was so glaring that one of the division
commanders, Durutte, flatly refused to allow his men to be formed in
that way.
Where was the eagle glance of Napoleon that he did not detect the
faulty formation which Ney and D’Erlon were making? Is such a detail
beneath the notice of a commander-in-chief?
If the Emperor saw the mistake he gave no sign, and the troops of
D’Erlon, ashamed of not having been in the fights of the 16th, rushed
into the valley shouting, “_Vive l’Empereur!_”
“Into the jaws of death” they marched, for as they crossed the valley
and mounted the slopes beyond, the English batteries cut long lanes
through their deep, dense lines and they fell by the hundreds.
A part of the attacking force was thrown against the walls and
buildings of La Haye-Sainte, and here, as at Hougoumont, infantry were
slaughtered from behind unbreached walls. But the great charge against
the English position went on heedless of such detail as the attack on
La Haye-Sainte. Through the rye, which was breast-high, and over ground
into which they mired at every step, the columns of D’Erlon pressed
upward, crying “_Vive l’Empereur!_”
The defenders of the sand pit were driven out and thrown beyond the
hedges. The Netherlanders and Dutch broke, and in their flight behind
the hedges disordered the ranks of an English regiment. The Nassau
troops, which held the Papelotte farm, were dislodged by the French
under Durutte, and the great charge seemed to be on the point of
succeeding. But the faulty formation of the attacking columns ruined
all. When the attempt was made to deploy, so much time was consumed
that the English gunners had only to fire at the dense mass of men
to litter the earth with the wounded and the dead. The carnage was
frightful.
Picton, the English general, seeing the efforts of the French to
deploy, seized the opportunity, led a brigade against the French
column, delivered a volley, and then ordered a bayonet charge. Pouring
from behind the hedges, the English rushed upon the confused mass of
French, and a terrible fight at close quarters took place. It was here
that Picton was killed.
While the column of Donzelot was engaged in this desperate struggle,
the column of Marcognet had broken through the hedges and was advancing
to take a battery. But as the French shouted “Victory,” the sound of
the bag-pipes was heard, and the Highlanders opened fire. Owing to
their faulty formation, the French could only reply by a volley from
the front line of a single battalion. Their only hope was to charge
with the bayonet. While desperately engaged with the Scotch troops,
Lord Uxbridge dashed upon them with his cavalry.
The issue could not be doubtful. The French could not deploy; the
confused mass could not defend itself against infantry or cavalry. They
were raked by cannon shot, and by musketry, and the English cavalry
hacked them to pieces. The slaughter was pitiable and was mainly due to
a formation which gave these brave men no chance to fight.
In their exultation the English carried their charges too far. The
Scotch Greys, indeed, dashed up the slope upon which the French were
posted, captured the division of batteries of Durutte and attempted
to carry the main battery. Napoleon himself ordered the countercharge
which swept the English cavalry beyond La Haye-Sainte.
All this while, Jerome Bonaparte was still assaulting Hougoumont.
Defenders and assailants had each been reinforced. The Emperor ordered
a battery of howitzers to shell the buildings. Fire broke out, and
the château and its outbuildings were consumed. The English threw
themselves into the chapel, the barn, the farmer’s house, a sunken
road, and continued to hold the position.
It was now half-past three o’clock. Wellington and Napoleon were both
becoming uneasy--the former because Blücher’s troops were not yet in
line, the latter because he had begun to doubt that Grouchy would come.
The Emperor ordered Ney to make another attack on La Haye-Sainte. The
English, from behind hedges of the Ohain road, repulsed it.
While the movement was being made the main French battery of eighty
guns cannonaded the English right center. “Never had the oldest
soldiers heard such a cannonade,” said General Alten.
The English line moved back a short distance so as to get the
protection of the edge of the plateau. Ney, mistaking this movement,
ordered a cavalry charge. At first he meant to use a brigade only, but
owing to some misunderstanding that cannot be cleared up, this intended
charge of a brigade drew into it practically all the cavalry of the
French army. Napoleon himself did not see what was happening. From his
position near the “Maison Decoster” inn, Napoleon did not have a view
of the ground in which the cavalry divisions were forming for this
premature disastrous attack.
The English saw it all, and were glad to see it. What better could they
ask? Their lines had not been disordered by artillery or by infantry;
what had they to fear from cavalry? Nothing. They sprang up, formed
squares and waited. The English gunners, whose batteries were in front,
were ordered to reserve their fire till the last moment, and then to
take shelter within the squares.
As the French advanced, they were exposed to the full fury of the
English batteries. The slope up which the cavalry rode is not steep,
but the tall grain and the deep mud made it extremely difficult.
Yet this magnificent body of horse, in spite of dreadful losses, drove
the gunners from the batteries and took the guns!
But they had nothing to spike them with, they could not drag them away,
they did not even break the cannon sponges.
Therefore when they found that the English infantry was not in
disorder, but in squares upon whose walls of steel no impression could
be made; when they fell into confusion because of their own numbers
crowded in so small a space, when Uxbridge’s five thousand fresh horses
were hurled upon the jaded French, and they fell back before the shock,
the English gunners had but to run back to their guns and renew the
murderous cannonade.
Yet no sooner had the wonderful soldiers of Milhaud and
Lefebre-Desnoette reached the bottom of the valley than they charged
up the muddy slopes again. Once more they drove in the cannoneers:
once more they carried the heights, and fell upon the English squares.
At this moment some of the English officers believed that the battle
was lost. But Napoleon watched the cavalry charge with uneasiness and
called it “premature.” Soult declared that “Ney is compromising us as
he did at Jena.”
The Emperor said, “This has taken place an hour too soon, but we must
stand by what is already done.” Then he sent to Kellerman and Guyot an
order to charge. This carried into action the remaining cavalry. It was
now after five o’clock.
In a space which offered room for the deployment of only one thousand,
eight or nine thousand French cavalry went to fight unbroken infantry!
A storm of cannon balls broke upon these dense masses, and the
slaughter was terrific, but nothing stopped the French. Again they
swept past the guns, again they assaulted the squares, time and again
and again--while an enfilading fire emptied saddles by the hundred
at every volley. Some of the squares were broken, an English flag was
captured, the German Legion lost its colors, the French horse rode
through the English line, to be destroyed by the batteries in reserve.
Wellington had taken refuge within a square, but he now came out and
ordered a charge of his cavalry. For the third time the French were
driven off the plateau.
Yet Ney, losing his head completely, led another cavalry charge! Again
ran the gunners away from the batteries, and again the cavalry broke on
the squares. In fact, the wounded and dead were piled so high in front
of the squares that each had a hideous breastwork before it which made
it almost impossible for the French to reach the English.
Inasmuch as the Emperor had decided to support Ney in his cavalry
charges, it seems strange that neither he nor Ney used the infantry.
The 6,000 men of the Bachelu and Foy division were close by, watching
the cavalry charges and eager to support them. As Ney was personally
leading the cavalry, it is easy to understand how he came to forget
everything else; but the Emperor’s failure to send in this infantry is
not readily understood.
Only after the fourth charge of the cavalry had been repulsed, did Ney
call in the infantry. But he was too late; the English batteries tore
this closely packed body of men to shreds, and in a few minutes 1,500
had fallen and the column was in retreat.
It was now six o’clock. La Haye-Sainte was at length taken, with great
loss of life on both sides. From this point of vantage Ney assailed
the English lines. The sand pit was again abandoned by the enemy, and
Ney used this and a mound near La Haye-Sainte to pour a destructive
fire upon the center of Wellington’s line. The French infantry charged,
drove the English, captured a flag, and there was now a gap in the very
center of the English line. Wellington was in a critical condition, and
had the Old Guard charged _then_, neither Blücher nor night might have
come in time.
Ney saw the opportunity and sent to the Emperor for a few infantry to
complete the work. “Troops?” exclaimed Napoleon to the officer who
brought Ney’s message. “Where do you expect me to get them? Do you
expect me to make them?”
At the same moment, one of Wellington’s lieutenants sent for
reinforcements. “There are none,” he said. Suppose that at this moment
Napoleon could have hurled on the English line the 16,000 men who were
holding back the Prussians!
Yet the fact is that the Emperor had in hand fourteen battalions
which had not been engaged, and what amazes the civilian is that,
after refusing to take advantage of the impression Ney had made upon
the enemy’s line, Napoleon organized another general advance against
Mont-Saint-Jean an hour later.
* * * * *
Ever since two o’clock the Prussians had been operating on the French
right wing. Bülow’s corps was having a bloody struggle with Lobau
and the Young Guard. Time and again the Prussians were thrown back;
time and again they returned to the attack. At the instant when Ney
was demanding more troops, Lobau’s corps was in retreat and the Young
Guard was driven out of Plancenoit. Napoleon’s own position on La Belle
Alliance was threatened. To prevent the Prussians from coming upon his
rear, the Emperor sent in eleven battalions of the Old Guard which,
with fixed bayonets and without firing a shot, drove the Prussians out
of Plancenoit and chased them six hundred yards.
It was now after seven o’clock. There were still two hours of daylight.
In the distance were heard the guns of Grouchy; the sound seemed to
draw nearer. The Emperor, counting too much on Grouchy always, believed
that at last his tardy lieutenant was engaged with the bulk of the
Prussian army, and that he himself would have to deal with the corps of
Bülow only.
The Emperor swept the field of battle with his glass. On the right,
Durutte’s division held Papelotte and La Haye and was advancing up the
slope toward the English line. On the left, Jerome had stormed the
burning château of Hougoumont, and the Lancers had crossed the Nivelles
road. In the center, and above La Haye-Sainte, the French were driving
the enemy along the Ohain road. The valley was crowded with the wrecks
of broken French regiments.
Placing himself at the head of nine battalions of the Old Guard,
Napoleon led it down into the valley, spoke to his men briefly, and
launched them against the enemy. It was too late. A deserter had given
Wellington full notice of the preparations for the attack and he had
thrown reinforcements into the weak portions of his line. The arrival
of Zeiten’s Prussians relieved the flanking squadrons of Vivian and
Vandeleur, and Wellington now had 2,600 fresh horsemen to throw into
the fight.
At full gallop, the Prussian Commissioner to the Allies, Muffling, rode
to Zeiten, exclaiming, “The battle is lost if you do not go to the
Duke’s rescue.”
On came the Prussians, striking the French flank from Smohain, and in
spite of all the personal exertions of the Emperor, a panic spread
throughout that part of his army.
Couriers had been sent all along the line to tell the French that
Grouchy was approaching. Yet the battle on the right where Lobau and
the Young Guard were struggling to keep Bülow back must have been known
to thousands of the troops. Then, when they actually saw the Prussians
taking them in flank, all their fears of treachery were intensified and
they were filled with terror.
But the Emperor had raised his arm to strike the enemy one final blow
and he could not stay his hand. Even had he tried to recall Ney,
D’Erlon, Reillé, it is doubtful whether the situation would have been
improved. There was so much confusion, so many shattered commands,
that an orderly retreat had become impossible.
Encouraged by the report that Grouchy had come, the charging columns
shouted “_Vive l’Empereur!_” and passed on.
Freeing himself from the fifth horse which had been shot under him that
day, the dauntless Ney went forward on foot, sword in hand. Losing
terribly at every step, the French advanced up the slope. They took
some batteries, they almost gained the Crest; but suddenly Maitland’s
Guards, 2,000 strong, sprang up out of the wheat where they had been
lying concealed, and poured a deadly volley into the French. Why was
there no officer with presence of mind enough to cry then, “_Give them
the bayonet_”? That was the one hope of the French. Instead of doing
this, the officers tried to place the men in line so as to exchange
volleys with the enemy. Fatal mistake. Wellington, noting the confusion
and the hesitation, took advantage of it like a good soldier.
“Up, Guards, and at ’em!” cried the Duke.
“Forward, boys, now is your time!” cried Colonel Saltoun.
The French, fighting frantically, were beaten back to the orchard of
Hougoumont.
Here a fresh battalion (4th Chasseurs) came to the relief of the
retreating French, and the English returned rapidly to their own lines.
Once more the Old Guard moves up the muddy slope, under the tremendous
cannonade of the English guns. As they cross the Ohain road, an English
brigade opens four lines of fire upon their flank; Maitland’s Guards
and Halkett’s brigade oppose them in front; and a Hanoverian brigade,
coming from the hedges of Hougoumont, fire upon them from the rear. The
finishing blow is Colborn’s charge with fixed bayonets.
“The guard gives way!” rings over the battlefield--a wail of despair,
of terror.
“Treachery!” is the cry throughout the field.
Now is the time to make an end of this panic-stricken army, and
Wellington, spurring to the crest, waves his hat--the signal for an
advance all along the line.
As night closes in, the English army, 40,000 strong, rush down the
bloody, corpse-strewn slope, trampling the wounded and the dead,
crying, “No Quarter!”
The drum, the bugle, the bagpipe quicken the march of the English and
the flight of the French. Making no stand at La Haye-Sainte, none at
Hougoumont, none anywhere, the French army, already honeycombed with
suspicion, dissolves in terror. Never had so strong a war-weapon shown
itself so brittle.
Napoleon was at La Haye-Sainte, forming another column of attack which
he meant to lead in person, when he looked up and saw the Old Guard
falter and stop.
“They are confused. All is lost!” Hoping to stem the tide of the
English advance and to establish rallying points for his flying troops,
he formed four squares from a column of the Old Guard which had not
been engaged. These he posted above La Haye-Sainte. As the English
horsemen came on, they dashed in vain against these walls of steel and
fire. But nothing so frail as four squares could arrest the advance of
40,000 men. The English cavalry poured through the gaps which separated
the squares and continued their headlong pursuit of the terrified
French.
When the English infantry came up and raked the squares with musketry;
when the English batteries began to hail grapeshot upon them, the
Emperor gave the order to abandon the position. Attended by a small
escort he galloped to the height of La Belle Alliance.
The three squares fell back, slowly, steadily, surrounded on all sides
by the enemy. With the regularity of the paradeground these matchless
soldiers of the Old Guard halted to fire, to reform their ranks, and
then move on again.
“Fugitives from the battlefield looked back from the distance and
marked the progress of the retreat by the regular flash of these guns.”
On that black valley of death and vast misfortune it was the repeated
flashes of lightning irradiating a stormcloud.
Filled with admiration and sympathy, let us hope, an English officer
cried out, “Surrender!”
And Cambronne shot out the word which Victor Hugo indecently glorified,
but which with convincing emphasis spurned the very thought of
surrender. The squares, unbroken, reached the summit of La Belle
Alliance, where Cambronne fell, apparently dead, from a ball which
struck him in the face.
It was here that the Prussians, who had at last broken in on the right,
bore down on the squares. Assailed by overwhelming odds--infantry,
artillery, cavalry--they were destroyed.
Several hundred yards back there were two battalions of the Old Guard,
formed in squares. Within one of these squares was the Emperor.
Planting a battery of 12-pounders, he made a final effort to check the
pursuit and to rally his troops. The Guard’s call to arms was sounded,
but the fugitives continued to pour by and none rallied. The battery
exhausted its ammunition and the gunners, refusing to fly, were cut
down by the English hussars.
Upon the squares themselves the enemy could make no impression until
overpowering masses of Prussian and English infantry came up. Then the
Emperor ordered a retreat. In good order these veterans marched off the
field, stopping from time to time to fire a volley upon their pursuers.
At the farm of Le Caillou the battalion formed in column, and on its
flank slowly rode the Emperor, reeling with fatigue, so that he had
to be supported in the saddle. His bridle reins were loose upon his
horse’s neck.
CHAPTER IX
As the moon came out that night, her cold face was hateful to the
fleeing French, for it lit the roads for the merciless pursuers.
The exhausted English had halted at La Belle Alliance.
The Prussians came thundering on, and the two victors, Wellington and
Blücher, embraced. Each called the other the winner of the day. Justly
so--for each _was_ the winner. To success both had been necessary.
The Prussians had made a most fatiguing march in the morning, and had
fought with desperation for many hours, but they alone had strength
left for the pursuit. Wellington’s troops fell down among the dying
and the dead, to rest and sleep. But not until they had cheered the
Prussians passing by. “Hip, hip, hurrah!” shout the English, while the
bands play.
The Prussians go by, singing Luther’s hymn, “Now praise we all our God.”
And then these devout Christians hot-foot upon the track of other
Christians, hurry on to a moonlight hunt--vast, terrible, murderous.
These Prussians remember the pursuit after Jena; yes, and the pursuit
after Austerlitz; yes, and the long years of French military occupation
of the Fatherland. And now it is their turn.
“As long as man and horse can go--push the pursuit!” cried Blücher.
Not a great many Prussians are needed. A few cannon to make a
noise, a few bugles to sound the charge, a few drums to send terror
ahead--these, with about 4,500 troops, will be quite sufficient to
chase Napoleon’s army like a flock of sheep.
Forty thousand Frenchmen, unwounded, as brave a lot of men as ever
stepped into line, are now so crushed by unexpected disaster, so filled
with the terror of sheer panic, that no human power can check their
stampede.
Ney has tried it, vainly. Napoleon has tried it, vainly. They abandon
the artillery, they throw away their guns, they cast off their
accouterments, intent only on running for dear life. They cut through
the fields, they fight for passage on the road, they murder one another
in their frantic efforts to get on.
The Prussians chase them, cut them down, ride over them--the roads, the
fields, the woods are strewn with slaughtered Frenchmen. If any stand
is made and a few of the firmer rally, the first blare of Prussian
trumpets sets them running again. The 4,500 Prussians dwindle, as the
chase lengthens, until scarcely a thousand pursue. But the French have
lost their senses. The mere blare of a Prussian bugle throws them
into agonies of fright. One drummer-boy, galloping on horseback, a
dozen cavalrymen to yell the Prussian “Hourra!” are enough to keep the
stampede going.
“No quarter!” cry the pursuers. Yet after Ligny Napoleon had gone,
in person, to take care of the Prussian wounded, and had threatened
the Belgian peasants with the terrors of hell if they did not succor
these sufferers. “God bids us love our enemies,” said the Emperor
to these peasants. “Take care of the wounded, or God will make you
burn.” But the English had cried “No quarter!” as they charged down
from Mont-Saint-Jean, and now the Prussians are repeating the cry and
slaughtering, with indiscriminate fury, those who surrender, those who
are wounded and those who are overtaken.
So mad is the panic of the French that at Gemappe, where the little
river Dyle is only about fifteen feet wide and three feet deep, they
have a frightful crush at the narrow bridge and never once think of
wading across.
Here, once more Napoleon vainly endeavors to stop the rout. The
Prussians appear, beat the drum, blow the trumpets, fire cannon,
and the thousands of Frenchmen fight madly with each other for the
privilege of running away. They slash each other with their swords,
stab each other with their bayonets, and even shoot each other down.
To appreciate the state of mind of this fleeing army it is necessary
that one should have a good idea of what happens to the crowd in a
packed theater when the red tongues of the flames are seen in the
hangings and the cry of “_Fire! Fire!_” smites the startled ear. The
horrible scene which invariably follows is the outcome of exactly
the uncontrollable, unreasoning terror which made the flight from
Napoleon’s last battlefield such a disgrace to human nature.
* * * * *
The moon which held a light for the pursuit silvered also the slopes
where the great battle had been fought, shone upon the unburied corpses
that still lay at Ligny and Quatre Bras, shone upon 25,000 Frenchmen,
6,000 Prussians, and 10,000 of the English army, who lay on the field
of Waterloo; shone also upon other thousands who lay dead or dying
on the futile battle-ground of Wavre. Within three days and within
the narrow radius of a few miles more than 70,000 men had been shot
down--for what?
For what? To force upon the French a King and a system which they
detested, and to prevent the spread of democratic principles to other
countries where kings and aristocracies were in power.
Creasy numbers Waterloo among the Twelve Decisive Battles of the World,
but it does not deserve the rank. It did not give democratic principles
anything more than a temporary set-back. It did not permanently restore
the Bourbons. It did not even keep the Bonaparte heir off the throne.
Much less did it settle the principle that one nation may dictate to
another its form of government.
In his old age, Wellington was asked to write his Memoirs. “No,” he
answered. “It wouldn’t do. If I were to tell what I know, the people
would tear me to pieces.”
I think I understand. If the ruling oligarchs of England,--Eldon,
Castlereagh, Pitt, Canning, Liverpool, Bathurst,--had revealed the
inner secrets of the Tory administration, the last one of them would
have been torn to pieces--deservedly.
* * * * *
The man-hunt rolls off toward the Sambre, the drum dies away in
the distance, the horror of the retreat goes farther and farther
away,--while the moon looks down upon the English army, asleep on
La Belle Alliance, upon the blood-stained valleys and slopes that
lead to Mont-Saint-Jean, upon the smouldering ruins of Hougoumont,
of La Haye-Sainte, of Papelotte, of Plancenoit. There are dead men
everywhere. Everywhere are dying men, dismounted cannons, broken
swords, abandoned guns and knapsacks, dead horses, and mangled horses
that scream as they struggle with pain and death, wounded men who moan
and groan and curse their fate.
A mile wide and two miles long, this strip of hell writhes beneath the
unpitying stars; and perhaps the most awful sound that shocks the ear
and the soul is that choked yell of terror and agony of the officer who
is being clubbed to death with a musket by the night prowler who wants
the officer’s watch, decorations and money.
Enter the ground of the Château of Hougoumont, pass the shattered
buildings and go into the flower garden. Here was once the beauty of
nature and the beauty of art, combined. This morning, when the sun
broke through the mists, these formal walks were bordered by the bloom
of flowers; these balustraded terraces were fragrant with the incense
of the orange and the myrtle. The birds were singing in the garden
overhead, along these quiet covered walks in the old Flemish garden,
vine clad with honey-suckle and jessamine, where many a word of love
had been spoken as lovers wandered here in years long past.
And now it is one of the frightful spots of the world, reeking with
blood, cumbered with dead and dying men, torn by shells, gutted by
fire. The well is ever so deep and ever so large, but is never so deep
nor so large as to hold all the dead and the dying. To-morrow it will
be filled. The dauntless defenders and the fearless assailants will
embrace in the harmony of a common grave. And for many and many a year
the peasant at his fireside at night will tell, in hushed tones, of the
sounds--the groans, the faint calls for help--which are said to have
been heard coming from the well, nights after its hasty filling in.
* * * * *
Few partisans of Napoleon now contend that he was free from serious
fault in this, his last campaign.
First of all, he should have made his appeal to the people, put himself
once more at their head as the hero of the French Revolution, remained
in France, and nationalized the war.
Again, he should not have placed two such generals as Vandamme and
Gérard under Grouchy.
He showed no vigor in following up his victory at Ligny, and made
a capital error in not breaking up the retreating foe with cavalry
charges.
He lost a great opportunity at Quatre Bras.
On the night of the 17th he should have sent definite orders to
Grouchy, and should have hearkened to Soult when he was urged by that
thorough soldier to call in at least a portion of Grouchy’s force.
He took the reports of Haxo and Ney, and based the battle upon their
erroneous reports. The Napoleon of earlier years would have _gone to
see for himself_.
He did not have a good view of the field and consequently missed
detailed movements of immense importance.
He treated with too much scorn the opinion of Soult and Reillé (who
had tested the English soldier in Spain), when they warned him that
the English, properly posted and properly handled--as Wellington could
handle them--were invincible.
He made the attack without maneuvering, in just the bare-breasted,
full-face way that best lent itself to bloody repulse.
The premature cavalry movement which contributed most to the
final disaster was under full headway,--too far advanced to be
stopped,--before he knew that it was contemplated.
In holding off the Prussians, the Emperor displayed his genius,
directing every movement himself. On the field of Waterloo, he left too
much to Ney and Jerome. Had he taken Ney out of the fight at the time
that he recalled Jerome, the issue might have been different.
The last grand charge should not have been made at all. He should have
stopped, as Lee did at Gettysburg, in time to save his army, for by
this time he _knew_ that Grouchy would not come. To stake so much on
one last desperate throw was the act of a man who was no longer what
he had been at Aspern and Essling when he withdrew into the Island of
Lobau.
When the Emperor was giving the order for the last great charge,
General Haxo would have remonstrated. “But, Sire--” he began. Napoleon
flapped his glove lightly across Haxo’s face and said, “Hold your
tongue, my friend. There is Grouchy who will give us other news.” He
had mistaken Bülow’s cannonade for Grouchy’s.
One can understand what was passing in his mind when he said to
Gourgaud, a few weeks later, “Ah, if it were to be done over again!”
On Wellington’s side the management was superb. It was practically
faultless. He made the most of every advantage, and made the most of
the errors of his enemy.
With this exception: He left 18,000 of his men at Hal, four or five
miles away, protecting a road which he feared the French might take.
But with Napoleon facing him, here at Mont-Saint-Jean, the 18,000 men
were no longer needed at Hal; and no one has ever been able to explain
why Wellington did not call them in during the early morning of the
18th.
* * * * *
In other books than this you will read of how the wreck of Napoleon,
the man, and the wreck of Napoleon, the Emperor, found their way to
Paris; how the well-meaning but weak-headed La Fayette, dreaming of
an impossible Republic, worked in reality for the Bourbon restoration
in working against Napoleon; how the Chambers, honeycombed by the
intrigues of Fouché, demanded the second abdication; how the wreck
of Napoleon floated aimlessly down the current of misfortune; how he
signed away his throne; how the masses thronged about his palace,
wildly clamoring for him to put himself at the head of a national
uprising; how he sends his empty coach and six through the mob,
and makes off by the back way in a cab; how he stops at Malmaison,
weeps for his lost Josephine, listens to all kinds of counsel, takes
none, and has no plan; how the soldiers, marching past in straggling
detachments, cheer him with the same old enthusiasm, and how he calmly
remarks, “They had better have stood and fought at Waterloo.”
Napoleon was no longer the volcanic man of action, of connected ideas,
of sustained exertion, of inflexible purpose. The Waterloo campaign had
been a sputtering of the candle in the socket--a brief eruption of a
Vesuvius that made Europe quiver; and then all was over.
From Malmaison he is ordered off by Fouché, and he meekly obeys. At
Rochefort he dawdles, doubts, delays, and does nothing. Logically, he
becomes a prisoner to those by whom he has been beaten.
To St. Helena, and a few years of torture; to hopeless captivity
and the bitter inbrooding that eat the heart out; to the depths
of humiliation and the canker of impotent rage; to weary days of
depression and dreary nights of pain; to a long agony of vain regrets,
of wrath against fate, of soul-racking memories--to these go Napoleon
Bonaparte, the greatest man ever born of woman.
At last, the reprieve comes. At last there comes the day when the
little man can no longer torture the big one. Sir Hudson Lowe may at
length rest easy--the sweat of the final pain gathers on his captive’s
brow. English sentinels may slacken their vigilance now--the death
rattle is in the prisoner’s throat.
The storm comes up from out the wrathful sea, and the terrible anger of
the tempest beats upon the tropical rock. The thunder, peal on peal,
volleys over the crags, and the glare of the lightning lights up the
track of devastation. Within the renovated cow-house, and within a room
which will soon be used again as a cow-stall, is stretched the dying
warrior.
What was it that the storm said to the unconscious soldier? By what
mysterious law, yet to be made plain, does the sub-consciousness move
and speak when deep sleep or the delirium of disease has paralyzed
the normal consciousness of man? We do not know. In poetry, the
sub-conscious produces the weird “Kubla Khan”; in music it notates “The
Devil’s Sonata.” It is the sub-conscious which often gives warning of
evil to come; it is the sub-conscious that sometimes tells us the right
road when all is doubt.
As the thunder volleyed over Longwood, and the roar of the storm held
on, the dying Captain was strangely affected. Just such thunder had
rolled over his head that Saturday night and Sunday morning, when
he went the rounds of his outposts in the drenching rain--which may
have been the main cause of his loss of Waterloo. He and the faithful
Bertrand had made those night-rounds alone, and Napoleon, as he stopped
to listen to the thunder, muttered, “We agree.”
It must have been that in his delirium he fancied he was again on the
front line, listening to the storm which preceded his last battle.
“The Army! The head of the Army!” he muttered. “Desaix! Bessiéres!
Hasten the attack! Press on! The enemy gives way--they are ours!”
With a convulsive start he sprang up, out of the bed, and got upon his
feet. Montholon seized him, but he bore the Count to the floor. Others
rushed in; he was already exhausted, and they put him back in bed.
Afterward he lay still, and the boat drifted on, quietly on, toward the
bar.
The storm had passed away, and the Emperor, lying on his back, with one
hand out of the bed, fixed his eyes “as though in deep meditation.”
Those about the bed thought they heard him say, “France! Josephine!”
Then he spoke no more.
A light foam gathered on the parted lips. There was peace on his
face--for the pain had done what it came to do.
As the clear sun dipped beneath the distant rim of the sea, Napoleon
died.
It was May 5th, 1821.
* * * * *
In Hillaire Belloc’s magnificent study of Danton, the author makes
reference to a legend which is said to be current among the peasants of
Russia.
It is a story of “a certain somber, mounted figure, unreal, only an
outline and a cloud, that passed away to Asia, to the East and North.
They saw him move along their snows through the long, mysterious
twilight of the Northern autumn, in silence, with the head bent and
the reins in the left hand, loose, following some enduring purpose,
reaching toward an ancient solitude and repose. _They say that it
was Napoleon._ After him, there trailed for days the shadows of the
soldiery, vague mists bearing faintly the forms of companies of men.
It was as though the cannon-smoke of Waterloo, borne on the light west
wind of that June day, had received the spirits of twenty years of
combat, and had drifted farther and farther during the fall of the year
over the endless plains.
“But there was no voice and no order. The terrible tramp of the Guard
and the sound that Heine loved, the dance of the French drums, was
extinguished; there was no echo of their songs, for the army was of
ghosts and was defeated. They passed in the silence which we can never
pierce, and somewhere remote from men they sleep in bivouac round the
most splendid of human swords.”
A SUPPLEMENTARY CHAPTER
BLÜCHER
“Captain Blücher has full permission to resign, and to go to the devil,
if he likes.”
Thus endorsed by Frederick the Great, Captain Blücher’s written request
for leave to retire from the Prussian Army went into effect.
Yet this headstrong, boisterous, hard-drinking, hard-riding,
hard-fighting, indefatigable Blücher became one of the most thorough
and effective soldiers that ever led an army to battle. He possessed
some of those very qualities which made Washington, Cromwell, and
Frederick so great. He was tireless, he was iron-willed, he was
true-hearted, he was fearless, he was not to be discouraged, and he
never could be whipped so badly that he did not come back to fight
again, harder than ever.
Something of a national hero, something of a typical German soldier,
something of an ideal patriot, he was something of a ruthless Goth. He
had gone to England after the Campaign of Paris, in 1814, and rode
conspicuously in the great procession through London. As he looked
upon the wealth displayed on every side, he growled, “What a town to
sack.” Yet he was a devoted husband, a most loyal subject; a generous,
faithful, daring ally.
He had fought against the French a greater number of times than any
other commander. He had been whipped oftener and harder than any other
commander. He had been captured, and had grazed annihilation oftener
than any other commander.
After Jena, his king owed his escape from being made prisoner to a
bold falsehood--to General Klein--that an armistice had been declared.
At Bautzen he just did get out of the trap Napoleon laid for him, and
he did it because Ney, in making the turning movement, stopped to do
some fighting which gave the Prussian his warning. In 1814 he just did
miss being bagged time and again--but he missed it. And now in 1815
his pluck, his dash, and his luck were to save him, as by fire, again
and again. He was beloved by his troops. Wherever he sent them, he
was ready to go himself. He shirked nothing, and was whole-hearted in
everything. Like the Russian soldier, Skobeleff, he was sublime on the
field of battle, and led his men in person. With a kindly word, “Come,
comrades, follow me!” he could lead them into the jaws of hell. With a
plea like this, “Comrades, I gave my word to be there; you won’t make
me break it!”--he could inspire them to superhuman efforts, to drag the
heavy guns through the mud, and thus reach his ally in time to save.
Heading a cavalry charge at Ligny, his horse was shot under him,
and the French passed over him twice--once in advancing, once in
retreating--and the darkness was his friend each time. Dragged by
one of his officers from under his horse, he was borne off the field
bruised, almost unconscious. In two days, he is leading charges again.
Too generous to suspect an ally, he stands and fights at Ligny on
Wellington’s promise of support, and when the support doesn’t come he
still does not suspect his ally of calculating selfishness. His staff
_does_. Hence it was that his staff opposed him when he wished to yield
to Wellington’s plea for help, on the night of the 17th. Long did
Gneisenau resist Blücher, contending that Wellington meant to leave
them in the lurch again. But at length the chief of staff consented
that the promise of relief be sent, and old Blücher was happy. The
promise was sent, and Wellington _knew_ it would be kept! Hence he
fought at Waterloo, with the knowledge that his task consisted in
holding out until the Prussians could arrive.
The heroic struggle of Blücher to make progress over the terrible
roads, his enormous energy, his magnificent devotion to the common
cause, his unselfish renunciation of credit for the victory which
was due to him more than to Wellington, raise him to the pinnacle of
military glory. No student of this last campaign of Napoleon can fail
to reach the conclusion that while Wellington was delaying at Brussels,
sending out orders not suited to the condition of things at the front,
and taking his supper at Lady Richmond’s ball, it was Blücher who was
where he should have been, and doing what he should have done. But for
the skilful retreat of Thielman, followed by the bold concentration at
Ligny and the stubborn fight there, the French would have gone into
Brussels without firing a shot.
On the night of the 18th, Blücher followed the pursuit as far as
Genappe, where his strength gave out. He went into the inn to go to
bed, but before undressing, wrote his wife:
“On the 16th I was compelled to withdraw before superior forces,
but on the 18th, in concert with my friend Wellington, I have
annihilated the army of Napoleon.”
To a friend he wrote:
“The finest of battles has been fought, the most brilliant of
victories won. I think that Bonaparte’s history is ended. I cannot
write any more, for I am trembling in every limb. The strain was
too great.”
Blücher was seventy-three years old. Napoleon and Wellington were
nearly the same age, both being born in 1769, and therefore forty-seven
years old.
Blücher was notoriously a hard drinker, and had been so all his life.
Both Napoleon and Wellington were extremely sober men; yet Blücher had
shown more energy than the other two together.
NEY
A mournful interest must always attach to Ney.
As Napoleon said, his “Bravest of the Brave” was no longer the same
man. First of all, in this campaign he was not handled right. The
Emperor should have employed him sooner, or not at all: should have
trusted him further, or not at all. The manner in which he was caught
up at the last moment and cast into the activities of the campaign was
most unwise.
In spite of the bad behavior of Ney in 1814, the troops were glad to
see him in their midst. Their nickname for him was “Red-head,” and
they called him this to each other as they saw him join the Emperor at
Beaumont. “All will go well now--Red-head is with us!”
But Ney was not at himself. There is no other phrase that will do,--all
of us know what it means. When the orator whom we _know_ to be a
heaven-born orator fails to move us, we say, “He is not at himself.”
When the brilliant writer is dull; when the expert mechanic is awkward;
when the painter’s brush misses the conception, when the sculptor’s
chisel cannot follow his thoughts, when the master musician makes
discord, we have nothing better to say than “He is not at himself.”
So it was with Marshal Ney. Advancing upon Quatre Bras, he stopped,
afraid of going too far. When had Ney been timid before?
Realizing at length what was expected of him, he fought furiously to
take the position which would have been his without a fight had he
simply not stopped in sudden fear the evening before. Then, having
been the Ney of old on the 16th, he became timid again on the morning
of the 17th, and let Wellington draw off without any attempt to
molest the retreat. Why no reports to the Emperor all that day of the
16th? Why none on the night of the 16th? Very near to the treason
for which officers are shot, was this sullen silence. He was not at
himself. Then at Waterloo, the Ney of old comes out again. He is not
only bold, but rash. He is possessed of a devil of fight. He is no
longer a general: he is just a reckless brigadier. Headlong charges,
blind rushes, frantic management which is calamitous mismanagement;
premature sacrifice of cavalry, false formation of columns of attack,
then wild rage and despair, and prayers for death! The soldier never
lived that fought harder and longer than Ney at Waterloo. As darkness
closed down, and the torrents of retreat ran past him, this heroic
and ill-starred soldier, his face black with powder smoke, his uniform
in tatters, the blood oozing from bruises, a broken sword in his hand,
cried out, “Come and see how a Marshal of France dies!” But alas, the
flood of disaster bore him away, and this leonine Frenchman was left to
make a target for French muskets. All of Ney’s horses had been killed
under him, and he owed his life--a bad debt, as it turned out--to a
faithful subaltern.
* * * * *
The restored Bourbons were determined to put Ney to death. Instead of
leaving his fate in the hands of his old companions in arms, as his
lawyer wanted him to do, Ney foolishly gave preference to a trial by
the civilians of the Chamber of Peers. This tribunal condemned him, and
he was shot. So says History.
But Tradition is persistent in claiming that the execution was a fake:
that blank cartridges were fired, that Ney fell unhurt, and that his
body was spirited away, and that he was shipped off to America, and
that he lived in North Carolina, a school-teacher, until he died a
natural death.
Many a time I have ridiculed this tradition, and marshaled in
convincing array the evidence against it. I must confess, however, that
a statement in the book of Sir William Fraser, called “Wellington’s
Words,” startled me. He expresses a doubt as to the genuineness of the
execution of Marshal Ney, _and Sir William was close to Wellington_.
Indeed, the account which Sir William gives of the alleged execution is
somewhat suggestive of a mock execution.
It was a beautiful morning, and the Garden of the Luxembourg was filled
with children, attended by their nurses, taking the morning air, amid
the trees and birds and flowers. A closed carriage drove up to the gate
and four men, leaving the carriage, entered the garden. One was Marshal
Ney, the others an officer and two sergeants. The officer placed Ney
against the wall, called the picket guarding the gate, gave the word
“Fire!” and Ney fell on his face. The body was immediately put into the
carriage and driven off. The nurses and the children had not realized
what was happening. Says Sir William Fraser (who had this account from
Quentin Dick, an eye-witness), “I confess to have got a lingering
doubt whether Ney was shot to death.”
But Sir William himself supplies a bit of evidence which resettles
my own conviction that Ney _was_ shot to death. The second Duke of
Wellington was invited by Queen Victoria to meet at Windsor Castle
the Emperor of the French. In the train of Louis Napoleon, the French
Emperor, was the son of Marshal Ney. The Emperor said, “I must
introduce two great names,” leading the Duke of Wellington to the
Prince of Moscowa. The Duke made a low bow: the Prince did not return
it. He remembered the murder of his father, and knew that the first
Duke of Wellington should have prevented it. In answer to the Emperor’s
whispered remonstrance, Ney’s son firmly declared that he did not
wish to make the acquaintance of Wellington’s son. To my mind this is
conclusive. Had Ney’s life been saved by the first Duke of Wellington,
as Sir William Fraser broadly hints, two things are certain: (1) Ney’s
son would have known it, and (2) Ney’s family would have gratefully
honored Wellington’s memory, instead of detesting it.
No: the lion-like Ney did not teach school in North Carolina; he died
a dog’s death in the garden of the Luxembourg. A victim to the cold
perfidy of Wellington, a bloody sacrifice to the vindictive ferocity
of Bourbon royalism, the magnificent French soldier was shot to death
by Frenchmen--shot like a dog, and fell on his battle-worn face dead,
dead, while the song of birds was in the trees, and the innocent
laughter of children rang in his ears. Well did he say when they were
reading his death-sentence, in which all of his high-sounding titles
were being enumerated, “Just Michel Ney--soon to be a handful of dust.”
Full of error, yet full of virtue: pure gold at one crisis, mere
dross at another; superbly great on some occasions, and pitiably weak
on others; true as steel one day, unsubstantial as water the next;
dangerous to the enemy on some fields, fatally dangerous to Napoleon
in the last campaign, the truth remains that this strenuous soldier
had been fighting the battles of France all his life, had never failed
her at any trial, had never joined her enemies, and must have died of
heart-break as well as bullet-wound when he heard a French officer give
the word, and saw French soldiers raise their guns to shoot him down.
Honor to the son of Ney who refused to take the hand of Wellington’s
son, although a Queen was the hostess, and an Emperor whispered a
remonstrance!
Transcriber’s Notes
Punctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were made consistent when a
predominant preference was found in the original book; otherwise they
were not changed.
Simple typographical errors were corrected; unbalanced quotation
marks were remedied when the change was obvious, and otherwise left
unbalanced.
Page 40: “Auerstadt” was printed that way.
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