Waterloo

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

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.

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.”

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 — NEY — Transcriber’s Notes

“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:

To a friend he wrote:

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.

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!