Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places

A >> Archibald Forbes >> Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places

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Napoleon's plan of campaign was founded on the circumstance that the bases
of the allied armies lay in opposite directions--the English base on the
German Ocean, the Prussian through Liege and Maestricht to the Rhine. The
military probability was that if either army was forced to retreat, it
would retreat towards its base; and to do this would be to march away from
its ally. Napoleon was in no situation to manoeuvre leisurely, with all
Europe on the march against him. His engrossing aim was to gain immediate
victory over his adversaries in Belgium before the Russians and Austrians
should close in around him. His expectation was that Bluecher would offer
battle about Fleurus and be overwhelmed before the Anglo-Dutch army could
come to the support of its Prussian ally. To make sure of preventing that
junction the Emperor's intention was to detail Ney with the left wing to
reach and hold Quatre Bras. The Prussians thoroughly beaten, drifting
rearward toward their base, and reduced to a condition of comparative
inoffensiveness, he would then turn on Wellington and force him to give
battle.

Mr. Ropes refutes the contention maintained by a great array of
authorities, that Napoleon's design was to "wedge himself into the
interval between the allied armies" by seizing simultaneously Sombreffe
and Quatre Bras, in order to cut the communication between the two armies
and then defeat them in succession. Against this view he successfully
marshals Napoleon himself, Wellington by the mouth of Lord Ellesmere, and
the great German strategist Clausewitz. It will suffice to quote
Napoleon:--

The Emperor's intention was that his advance should
occupy Fleurus, the mass concealed behind this town;
he took good care ... above all things not to occupy
Sombreffe. To have done so would have caused the
failure of all his dispositions, for then the battle of Ligny
would not have been fought, and Bluecher would have had
to make Wavre the concentration-point for his army.

Wellington alludes pointedly to the obvious danger to the French army of
the suggested wedge position in what the Germans call _die taktische
Mitte_, where, instead of being able to defeat the allies in succession,
it would itself be liable to be crushed between the upper and the nether
millstone.

At daybreak of the 15th Napoleon took the offensive, driving in Ziethen on
and through Charleroi although not without sharp fighting. On that evening
three French corps, the Guard, and most of the cavalry, were concentrated
about Charleroi and forward toward Fleurus, ready to attack Bluecher next
day. Controversy has been very keen on the question whether or not on the
afternoon of the 15th Napoleon gave Ney verbal orders to occupy Quatre
Bras the same evening. Mr. Ropes holds it "almost certain" that the order
was given. From Napoleon's bulletin despatched on the evening of the 15th,
which is the only piece of strictly contemporary evidence, he quotes: "Le
Prince de la Moskowa (Ney) a eu le soir son quartier general aux
Quatres-Chemins;" and he remarks that this must have been the belief in
the headquarter "unless we gratuitously invent an intention to deceive the
public." There is no need for Mr. Ropes to put that strain on himself,
since the main purport of Napoleon's bulletins notoriously was to deceive
the public. But if Napoleon had not intended that Ney should occupy Quatre
Bras on the night of the 15th, the statement that this had been done would
have been a purposeless futility; and if he had intended that Ney should
do so it is unlikely that he should have omitted to give him instructions
to that effect. Grouchy claims to have heard Napoleon censure Ney for his
omission to occupy Quatre Bras; an omission which had its importance, for
the reason, among others, that it was ominous of the Marshal's infinitely
more harmful disobedience of orders next day.

All writers agree that Bluecher ordered the concentration of his army in
the fighting position previously chosen in the event of the French
advancing by Charleroi, "without," in Mr. Ropes's words, "any definite
agreement or undertaking with Wellington that he was to have English aid
in the impending battle." He was content to take his risk of the English
general's possible inability for sundry obvious reasons, to come to his
support. And while the Prussian army with the unfortunate exception of
Buelow's corps, was on the 15th moving toward the chosen position of Ligny,
where its right was to be on St. Amand, its centre on and behind Ligny,
and its left about Balatre, what was happening in the Anglo-Dutch army
lying spread out westward of the Charleroi--Brussels chaussee?

Wellington was at Brussels expecting the French invasion by or west of the
Mons-Brussels road, to meet which he considered his army very well placed,
but could expect no Prussian cooperation. His courier service, with his
forces so dispersed, should have been well organised and alert, but it was
neither; and Napoleon's secrecy and suddenness in taking the offensive
were worthy of his best days. It has been freely imputed to Wellington
that he was thereby in a measure surprised. There is the strange and
probably mythical story in the work professing to be Fouche's _Memoirs_ to
the effect that Wellington was relying on him for information of
Napoleon's plans, and that he--Fouche--played the English commander false.
"On the very day of Napoleon's departure from Paris," say the _Memoirs_,
"I despatched Madame D----, furnished with notes in cipher, narrating the
whole plan of the campaign. But at the same time I privately sent orders
for such obstacles at the frontier, where she was to pass, that she could
not reach Wellington's headquarters till after the event. This was the
real explanation of the inactivity of the British generalissimo which
excited such universal astonishment." Readers of the _Letters of the First
Earl of Malmesbury_ will remember the apparently authentic statement of
Captain Bowles, that Wellington, rising from the supper-table at the
famous ball,

whispered to ask the Duke of Richmond if he had a good
map. The Duke of Richmond said he had, and took
Wellington into his dressing-room. Wellington shut the
door and said, "Napoleon has humbugged me, by God;
he has gained twenty-four hours' march on me.... I
have ordered the army to concentrate at Quatre Bras;
but we shall not stop him there, and if so I must fight
him _there_" (passing his thumb-nail over the position of
Waterloo). The conversation was repeated to me by the
Duke of Richmond two minutes after it occurred.

Facts, however, are stronger evidence than words; and this confession on
Wellington's part is inconsistent with the circumstance that he had not
hurried to retrieve the time he is represented as having owned that
Napoleon had gained on him--that he had, on the contrary, allowed his
adversary to gain several hours more. Wellington's combination of caution
and decision throughout this momentous period is a very interesting study.
It was not until 3 P.M. (of the 15th) that there reached him tidings
almost simultaneously of firing between the outposts about Thuin and that
Ziethen had been attacked before Charleroi, the two places ten miles apart
and both occurrences in the early morning. Those affairs might have been
casual outpost skirmishes; and the Duke, in anticipation of further
information, took no measures for some hours. At length, in default of
later tidings he determined on the precautionary step of assembling his
divisions at their respective rendezvous points in readiness to march;
further specifically directing a concentration of 25,000 men at Nivelles
on his then left flank, when it should have been ascertained for certain
that the enemy's line of attack was by Charleroi. These orders were sent
out early in the evening--"between 5 and 7." Later in the evening came a
letter from Bluecher announcing the concentration of the Prussian army to
occupy the Ligny fighting position, in which disposition Wellington
acquiesced; but, still uncertain of Napoleon's true line of attack--his
conviction being, as is well known, that Napoleon should have moved on the
British right--he would not definitely fix the point of ultimate
concentration of his army until he should receive intelligence from Mons.
But Bluecher's tidings caused him to issue about 10 P.M. a second set of
orders, commanding a general movement of the army, not as yet to any
specific point of concentration but in prescribed directions towards its
left (eastward). At length, when the news came from Mons that he need have
no further serious solicitude about his right since the whole French army
was advancing by Charleroi, he saw his way clear. Towards midnight, writes
Mueffling the Prussian Commissioner at his headquarters, Wellington
informed him of the tidings from Mons, and added: "The orders for the
concentration of my army at Nivelles and Quatre Bras are already
despatched. Let us, therefore, go to the ball."

There are three definite evidences that before midnight of the 15th
Wellington had resolved to concentrate about Quatre Bras, and had issued
final orders accordingly--his statement to the Duke of Richmond, his
statement to Mueffling, and his statement in his official report to Lord
Bathurst. Yet Mr. Ropes believes that his decision to that effect "could
not have been arrived at very long before he left Brussels" on the morning
of the 16th, which he did "probably about half-past seven." He founds this
belief on two orders dated "16th June" sent to Lord Hill in the early
morning of that day, in which there is no allusion to a concentration at
Quatre Bras. But those were merely supplementary instructions as to points
of detail; for example, one of them enjoined that a division ordered
earlier to Enghien should move instead by way of Braine le Comte, that
being a nearer route toward the final general destination of Quatre Bras
specified in the earlier (the "towards midnight") orders. The latter
orders are not extant, having been lost according to Gurwood, with De
Lancey's papers when he fell at Waterloo; but that they must have been
issued is proved by the fact that they were acted upon by the troops; and
that they were issued before midnight of the 15th is made clear by
Wellington's three specific statements to that effect.

When the Duke left Brussels for the front on the morning of the 16th he
took with him a singularly optimistic paper styled "Disposition of the
British Army at 7 A.M., 16th June," which was "written out for the
information of the Commander of the Forces by Colonel Sir W. de Lancey,"
his Quartermaster-General. In the nature of things for the most part
guess-work, the wish as regarded almost every particular set out in this
document was father to the thought. Wellington was no doubt reasonably
justified in accepting and relying on this flattering "Disposition;" but
its terms, as Mr. Ropes conclusively shows, simply misled him and caused
him also unconsciously to mislead Bluecher, both by the expressions of the
letter written by him to that chief on his arrival at Quatre Bras and
later when he met the Prussian commander at the mill of Brye. Wellington
was indeed trebly fortunate in finding the Quatre Bras position still
available to him--fortunate that Ney on the previous evening had defaulted
from his orders in refraining from occupying it; fortunate that Ney still
on this morning was remaining passive; and more fortunate still that it
had been occupied, defended, and reinforced by Dutch-Belgian troops not
only without orders from him but in bold and happy violation of his
orders. Perponcher's division was scarcely a potent representative of the
Anglo-Dutch army, but there was nothing more at hand; and pending the
coming up of reinforcements Wellington, with rather a sanguine reliance on
Ney's maintenance of inactivity, rode over to Brye and had a conversation
with Bluecher. There are contradictory accounts of its tenor, and Gneisenau
certainly seems to have formed the impression that the Duke gave a
positive pledge of support. Mr. Ropes considers that, misled by the
erroneous "Disposition," Wellington honestly believed he would be able to
co-operate with Bluecher, and that he "certainly did give that commander
some assurance of support by the Anglo-Dutch army in the impending
battle." Mueffling, who was present, states that the Duke's last words were:
"Well, I will come, provided I am not attacked myself;" and this probably
was the final undertaking. Wellington's words were in accordance with the
caution of his character; and it is certain that Bluecher had decided to
fight at Ligny whether assured or not of his brother-commander's support.
That Wellington regarded Bluecher's dispositions for battle as
objectionable is proved by his blunt comment to Hardinge--"If they fight
here they will be damnably licked!"

It would have been possible for Napoleon to have crushed the Prussian army
in the early hours of the 16th when it was in the throes of formation for
battle; and this he would probably have done if Ney had occupied Quatre
Bras on the previous evening. But in Ney's default of accomplishing this
Napoleon, in his solicitude that Wellington should be hindered from
supporting Bluecher, determined to delay his own stroke against the latter
until Ney should be in possession of Quatre Bras with the left wing,
where, in Soult's words, "he ought to be able to destroy any force of the
enemy that might present itself," and then come to the support of the
Emperor by getting on the Prussian rear behind St. Amand. Napoleon's
instructions were explicit that Ney was to march on Quatre Bras, take
position there, and then send an infantry division and Kellerman's cavalry
to points eastward, whence the Emperor might summon them to participate in
his own operations. If Ney had fulfilled his orders by utilising the whole
force at his disposal, in all human probability he would have defeated
Wellington at Quatre Bras, whose troops, arriving in detail, would have
been crushed by greatly superior numbers as they came up. As it was,
although at the beginning of the battle he was in superior strength, Ney
never utilised more than 22,000 men; whereas by its close Wellington had
31,000, and, thanks to the stanchness of the British infantry, was the
victor in a very hard-fought contest. But Mr. Ropes has reason in holding
it humanly certain that he would have been beaten--in which case the
battle of Waterloo would never have been fought--had not D'Erlon's corps
of Ney's command while marching towards Quatre Bras, been turned aside in
the direction of the Prussian right.

In the justifiable belief that Ney was duly carrying out his orders
Napoleon at half-past one opened the battle of Ligny. He had expected to
have to deal with but a single Prussian corps, but the actual fact was
that, while he had 74,000 men on the field, Bluecher had 87,000 with a
superior strength of artillery. The fighting was long and severe. From the
first, recognising the defects of his adversary's position, Napoleon was
satisfied that he could defeat the Prussian army. But he needed to do
more--to crush, to rout it, so that he need give himself no further
concern regarding it. This he saw his way to accomplish if Ney were to
strike in presently on the Prussian right; and so, with intent to stir
that chief to vigorous enterprise, the message was sent him that "the fate
of France was in his hands." The battle proceeded, Bluecher throwing in his
reserves freely, Napoleon chary of his and playing the waiting game
pending Ney's expected co-operation. About half-past five he was preparing
to put in the Guard and strike the decisive blow, when information reached
him from his right that a column, presumably hostile, was visible some two
miles distant marching toward Fleurus. Napoleon sent an aide to ascertain
the facts and until his return postponed the decisive moment. Two hours
later the information was brought back that the approaching column was
D'Erlon's from Ney's wing. This intelligence dispelled all anxiety.
Strangely enough, no instructions were sent to the approaching
reinforcement, and the suspended stroke was promptly dealt. The Prussians,
after desperate fighting, were everywhere driven back. Napoleon with part
of the Imperial Guard broke Bluecher's centre, and the French army deployed
on the heights beyond the stream. In a word, Napoleon had defeated the
Prussians, but had neither crushed nor routed them. There was no pursuit.

D'Erlon's corps on this afternoon had achieved the doubly sinister
distinction of having prevented Ney from gaining a probable victory at
Quatre Bras, and of detracting from the thoroughness of Napoleon's actual
victory at Ligny. While it was leisurely marching towards Frasnes in
support of Ney, it was diverted eastward towards the Prussian right flank
in consequence of an order given (whether authorised or not is uncertain)
by an aide-de-camp of the Emperor. It was about to deploy for action,
when, on receiving from Ney a peremptory order to rejoin his command; and
in absence of a command from Napoleon to strike the Prussian flank, it
went about and tramped back towards Frasnes. D'Erlon's promenade was as
futile as the famous march of the King of France up the hill and then down
again.

Mr. Ropes considers that on the morning of the 17th Napoleon had thus far
in the main fulfilled his programme. This view may be questioned. He had
merely defeated two of the four Prussian corps; he had not wrecked
Bluecher. He had failed to occupy Quatre Bras; the Anglo-Dutch army had
succeeded in effecting a partial concentration and in repulsing his left
wing there. Still it must be admitted that with two corps absolutely
intact and with no serious losses in the Guard and cavalry, Napoleon was
in good shape for carrying out his plan. If Ney had sent him word
overnight that Wellington's army was bivouacking about Quatre Bras in
ignorance, as it turned out, of the result of Ligny, he might have
attacked it to good purpose in conjunction with Ney in the early morning
of the 17th. But Ney was silent and sulky; Napoleon himself was greatly
fatigued, and Soult was of no service to him.

During the night the Prussians "had folded their tents like the Arabs, and
as silently stolen away." They had neither been watched nor followed up,
all touch of them had been lost, and there was nothing to indicate their
line of retreat. This slovenliness on the part of the French would not
have occurred in Napoleon's earlier days; nor in those days of greater
vigour would he have delayed until after midday of the 17th to follow up
an army which he had defeated on the previous evening, and which had
disappeared from before him in the course of the night. The reports which
had been sent in from a cavalry reconnaissance despatched in the morning
indicated that the Prussians were retiring on Namur. No reconnaissance had
been made in the direction of Tilly and Wavre. This was a strange error,
since Bluecher had two corps still untouched, and as above everything a
fighting man, was not likely to throw up his hands and forsake his ally
after one partial discomfiture. Napoleon tardily determined to despatch
Grouchy on the errand of following up the Prussians with a force
consisting of about 33,000 men with ninety-six guns. Thus far all
authorities are agreed; but as regards the character of the orders given
to Grouchy for his guidance in an obviously somewhat complicated
enterprise, there is an extraordinary contrariety of evidence. It is
stated in the _St. Helena Memoirs_ that Grouchy received positive orders
to keep himself always between the main French army and Bluecher; to
maintain constant communication with the former and in a position easily
to rejoin it; that since it was possible that Bluecher might retreat on
Wavre, he (Grouchy) was to be there simultaneously; if the Prussians
should continue their march on Brussels and should pass the night in the
forest of Soignies, he was to follow to the edge of the forest; should
they retire on the Meuse, he was to watch them with part of his cavalry
and himself occupy Wavre with the mass of his force, where he should be in
position for easy communication with Napoleon's headquarters. Those orders
are certainly specific enough, but there is no record of them; and they
may be assumed to represent rather what Napoleon at St. Helena considered
Grouchy should have done, than what he was actually ordered to do.

Grouchy's version, again--and it is adequately corroborated--is to the
effect that about midday of the 17th on the field of Ligny, the Emperor
gave him the verbal order to take the 3rd and 4th Corps and certain
cavalry and "go in pursuit of the Prussians." Grouchy raised sundry
objections which the Emperor overruled and repeated his commands, adding
that "it was for me (Grouchy) to discover the route taken by Bluecher; that
he himself was going to fight the English, and that it was for me to
complete the defeat of the Prussians by attacking them as soon as I should
have caught up with them." So much for Grouchy for the moment.

Soon after the Emperor had given Grouchy this verbal order, tidings came
in from a scouting party that a body of Prussian troops had been seen
about 9 A.M. at Gembloux, considerably northward of the Namur road. The
abstract probability no doubt was that the Prussians would retire towards
their base. But that Napoleon kept an open mind on the subject is
evidenced by his instruction to Grouchy to "go and discover the route
taken by Bluecher," and this later intelligence, it may be assumed, opened
his mind yet further. He thought it well, then, to send to Grouchy a
supplementary written order which in the temporary absence of Marshal
Soult he dictated to General Bertrand. This order enjoined on Grouchy to
proceed with his force to Gembloux; to explore in the directions of Namur
and Maestricht; to pursue the enemy; explore his march; and report upon
his manoeuvres, so that "I (Napoleon) may be able to penetrate what the
enemy is intending to do; whether he is separating himself from the
English, or whether they are intending still to unite in trying the fate
of another battle to cover Brussels or Liege." To me I confess--and the
view is also that of Chesney and Maurice--this written order is simply an
amplification in detail of the previous verbal order, which by instructing
Grouchy "to discover the route taken by Bluecher" clearly evinced doubt in
Napoleon's mind as to the Prussian line of retreat. Mr. Ropes, on the
other hand, bases an indictment on Grouchy's conduct on the argument that
not only was the tone of the written order altogether different from that
of the verbal order, but that the duty assigned to Grouchy by the former
was wholly different from that specified in the latter.

He adds that Grouchy constantly and persistently denied having received
any other than the verbal order, that in this denial Grouchy lied, and
that "the mischievous influence of this deliberate concealment of his
orders by Grouchy caused for nearly thirty years after the battle of
Waterloo to be prevalent a wholly false notion as to the task assigned by
Napoleon to the Marshal." Certainly Grouchy's conduct is inexplicable to
any one holding the belief, as I do, that there is nothing in the written
order to account for Grouchy's denial of having received it. It is more
inexplicable than Mr. Ropes appears to be aware of. It is true, as Mr.
Ropes proves, that Grouchy vehemently denied receiving the written order
in all his works printed from 1818 to 1829. But he had actually
acknowledged its receipt almost immediately after Waterloo. In his son's
little book, _Le Marechal de Grouchy du 16me au 19me Juin, 1815,_ is
printed among the _Documents Historiques Inedits_ a paper styled
"Allocution du Marechal Grouchy a quelques-uns des officiers generaux sous
les ordres, lorsqu'il eut appris les desastres de Waterloo." From this
document I make the following extract: "A few hours later the Emperor
modified his first order, and caused to be written to me by the Grand
Marshal Bertrand the order to betake myself to Gembloux, and to send
reconnaissances towards Namur. 'It is important,' continued the order, 'to
discover the intentions of the Prussians--whether they are separating from
the English, or have the design to take the chance of a new battle.'" It
is strange that this acknowledgment should never have been cited against
Grouchy; stranger still that in the face of it he should have maintained
his denials; yet more strange that those denials were never exposed; and
most strange of all, that finally the "written order" should have appeared
for the first time in a casual article published in 1842, without evoking
any explanation from Grouchy, or any strictures on his persistent
mendacity.

It may be questioned whether the force of 33,000 men entrusted to Grouchy
was not either too large or too small. The main French army, in the
possible contingencies before it, could not safely spare so large a
detachment, as events showed. Grouchy's command was not sufficiently
strong to oppose the whole Prussian army; two corps of which could
certainly have "held" it, while the other two were free to support
Wellington. Mr. Ropes thinks it might have been diminished by one-half,
but then a single Prussian corps could have dealt with it. It is difficult
to discern in what respect the 6000 cavalry assigned to Grouchy should
have been inadequate to such service as could reasonably have been
expected of his whole command.

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