During the year 1811 the French arms made considerable progress on the east side of Spain: this did not however give them any real additional advantage as against Wellington. They had more fortresses to garrison, more territory to occupy, and the Spanish armies went on causing much the same trouble to them as before. Moreover Napoleon's system of giving the various generals independent spheres of action, with no common control except his own, worked in Wellington's favour. If he made a threatening movement against Marmont, who commanded what was called the army of Portugal, occupying the basin of the upper Douro, or against Soult in Andalusia, neither marshal could order the other to assist him by a diversion. There was an obvious difference between combined action ordered by a chief who controlled the whole, and co-operation arranged between equals who had each his own separate ends in view. Napoleon should either have come to Spain in person—he was too far off in point of time to direct from Paris—or have given one marshal[71] command throughout the country. When towards the end of 1811 Wellington judged that the time was come for operations no longer merely defensive in purpose, he formed his plans to take advantage of this want of union among his enemies.
It has been pointed out that the ways into Spain from Portugal are practically three: but the central one by the valley of the Tagus being ill suited for the movements of armies, there are but two really advantageous. That by the basin of the Douro is guarded at the frontier by two fortresses, Almeida and Ciudad Rodrigo; that by the Guadiana is guarded by Elvas and Badajos. Without possession of the pair of fortresses commanding one route or the other, invasion is scarcely feasible: with both pairs in his hands Wellington could choose, and he already held both Almeida and Elvas. Accordingly he resolved during the winter season, when the French would have serious difficulty in moving, to besiege first one and then the other of the Spanish border fortresses. He began with Ciudad Rodrigo, partly because it was the easier task to prepare for, as he had a battering-train in Almeida of which the French knew nothing (the guns were supposed to have been brought there to arm the fortress), partly because he then purposed to move against Soult if he succeeded in capturing Badajos. The preparations for the siege were very quietly made in Almeida, and on January 8, 1812, the first British troops appeared before Ciudad Rodrigo. That very evening a detached fort to the north of the town was suddenly stormed, which enabled the trenches to be begun much nearer to the walls than could otherwise have been done. Wellington had calculated that he should require twenty-four days, but the uncertainties were great, for besides the prospect of Marmont coming to its relief, there was always the risk that heavy rain might raise the river Agueda in flood prematurely, which would have stopped the siege by intercepting communication across it. On the 19th the walls were sufficiently breached to make storming them possible, though according to the ordinary rules of siege warfare much remained to be done before an assault was made. Wellington however knew as well how and when to make a sacrifice in order to attain an adequate object, as how to spare his men: he issued orders for the assault to take place that night, ending with the emphatic words: "Ciudad Rodrigo must be stormed this evening." There were two breaches near together on the north face of the fortress, both of which were directly assailed, besides minor attacks on other points. The fighting at the main breach was desperate, for the French were well prepared: possibly the attack there might not have succeeded, but the conflict was ended by the success of the light division at the smaller breach.
"The bottom of the ditch was dark and intricate, and the forlorn hope took too much to their left; but the storming party went straight to the breach, which was so contracted that a gun placed lengthwise across the top nearly blocked up the opening. Here the forlorn hope rejoined the stormers, but when two-thirds of the ascent were gained, the leading men, crushed together by the narrowness of the place, staggered under the weight of the enemy's fire; and such is the instinct of self-defence, that although no man had been allowed to load, every musket in the crowd was snapped. The commander, Major Napier, was at this moment stricken to the earth by a grape-shot which shattered his arm, but he called on his men to trust to their bayonets, and all the officers simultaneously sprang to the front, when the charge was renewed with a furious shout, and the entrance was gained. The supporting regiments, coming up in sections abreast, then reached the rampart, the 52nd wheeled to the left, the 43rd to the right, and the place was won."
The loss of life was great, the English having nearly as many killed and wounded as the whole garrison: General Craufurd, the brilliant commander of the light division, was killed. The officer who led the forlorn hope at the lesser breach was the man to whom the governor of Ciudad Rodrigo surrendered, an incident probably unique in the annals of siege warfare. The advantage gained, which was attainable in no other way, was well worth the cost. It was henceforth impossible for Marmont seriously to invade the north-east of Portugal: and the capture in Ciudad Rodrigo of Marmont's battering-train made it certain that he would not even try.
Wellington's calculations were nicely adapted to the season of the year, as well as to the other conditions. He felt sure that in the rains of February and March, with all the rivers in flood, Marmont could not practically move at all, and that therefore he might be watched by a very small force, while he himself went south to continue the scheme he had formed. Elvas served, as Almeida had done, for a convenient place to make siege preparations within a short distance of Badajos, and on March 16 the famous siege was begun, ten days at least later than Wellington had intended, through the default of the Portuguese in providing transport. This was a much more serious task than the capture of Ciudad Rodrigo, the garrison being three times as large, the defences stronger, and the governor, Phillipon, a man of great energy and fertility of resource. Two of Soult's divisions were near at hand; but Wellington, having decided that he might practically ignore Marmont, had plenty of men to spare for covering the siege, at least until Soult should approach with his whole army. He had also arranged, so far as it was possible to arrange anything with the Spanish armies, that one of them should be in a position to march on Seville if Soult denuded Andalusia too completely of troops.
Badajos is situated on the south bank of the Guadiana, with a strong fort on the north bank. The castle was at the north-east corner of the town, close to the river: along the east face a rivulet flowing into the Guadiana had been artificially extended into a complete defence for nearly half the length. A small outwork covered the northern end of this piece of water, and outside its southern end, on an isolated hill, stood a work called the Picurina. The plan was to breach, at the south-eastern corner of the town, the two great bastions known as the Trinidad and the Sta. Maria, and the curtain uniting them. In order that this might be done effectually, the Picurina must first be taken, and after the siege works had made sufficient progress, on the night of March 25, this work was stormed, and batteries constructed on its ruins. As the siege progressed, Soult drew near, and arrangements were actually made for leaving two divisions to hold the trenches, and marching with the rest of the army to give him battle. On April 6 however the breaches were reported practicable, Soult being still some way off; Badajos could therefore be assaulted with adequate force.
Three separate attacks were arranged, besides minor ones merely to distract attention, all to begin at ten p.m. The third division, Picton's, was to cross the rivulet on the east side and scale the castle walls; the fifth was to attack the west face of the town; to the fourth and light divisions was assigned the frightful task of storming the breaches. A fireball thrown by the French however disclosed to them the third division ready formed and awaiting the signal: the assault was consequently begun half-an-hour sooner on the east and south-east, and the perfect concert with the other distant attacks was lost. After one failure, the third division succeeded in scaling the castle and driving the French out of it, but were unable for some time to advance any further. The assault on the breaches was one of the most terrible scenes on record. Nothing could exceed the determination of the stormers, but the French had made preparations for defence which were simply insuperable.
"Now a multitude bounded up the great breach as if driven by a whirlwind, but across the top glittered a range of sword-blades, sharp-pointed, keen-edged on both sides, and firmly fixed in ponderous beams, which were chained together and set deep in the ruins; and for ten feet in front, the ascent was covered with loose planks, studded with sharp iron points, on which the feet of the foremost being set the planks moved, and the unhappy soldiers, falling forward on the spikes, rolled down upon the ranks behind. Then the Frenchmen, shouting at the success of their stratagem, and leaping forward, plied their shot with terrible rapidity, for every man had several muskets; and each musket in addition to its ordinary charge contained a small cylinder of wood stuck full of leaden slugs which scattered like hail when they were discharged.
"Again the assailants rushed up the breaches, and again the sword-blades, immovable and impassable, stopped their charge, and the hissing shells and thundering powder-barrels exploded unceasingly. Hundreds of men had fallen, and hundreds more were dropping, but still the heroic officers called aloud for new trials, and sometimes followed by many, sometimes by a few, ascended the ruins; and so furious were the men themselves, that in one of these charges, the rear strove to push the foremost on to the sword-blades, willing even to make a bridge of their writhing bodies, but the others frustrated the attempt by dropping down; and men fell so fast from the shot, that it was hard to know who went down voluntarily, who were stricken, and many stooped unhurt that never rose again. Vain also would it have been to break through the sword-blades, for the trench and parapet behind the breach were finished, and the assailants, crowded into even a narrower space than the ditch was, would still have been separated from their enemies, and the slaughter would have continued.
"Two hours spent in these vain efforts convinced the soldiers that the breach of the Trinidad was impregnable; and as the opening in the curtain, although less strong, was retired, and the approach to it impeded by deep holes, and cuts made in the ditch, the troops did not much notice it after the partial failure of one attack which had been made early. Gathering in dark groups and leaning on their muskets, they looked up with sullen desperation at the Trinidad, while the enemy stepping out on the ramparts, and aiming their shots by the light of the fire-balls which they threw over, asked, as their victims fell, 'Why they did not come into Badajos?'"
Meanwhile the attack on the west face of the town had succeeded, after one or two attempts, and soldiers of the fifth division were making their way into the empty streets. Wellington, ignorant of this, and perceiving no movement from the castle, the capture of which had been reported to him, ordered the assailants of the breaches to withdraw and re-form for a fresh attack. This however was not necessary: the French, taken in flank both from the castle and from the west, abandoned the defence. The relics of the garrison which had withdrawn to the outlying fort north of the Guadiana surrendered next morning. Over the frightful expenditure of life in this storm, and over the horrors of the sack of Badajos, it is better to draw a veil. Wellington's Peninsular veterans were capable of any deeds of desperate courage, or of steady endurance, but they were also capable of great atrocities on the rare occasions when their officers lost control over them.
The Spaniards, to whom Ciudad Rodrigo had been handed over, had so grossly neglected the duty of repairing the fortifications, and the Portuguese government was so dilatory, to use no stronger word, in supplying all four fortresses, that Wellington's plan for invading Andalusia, to fight Soult there, was necessarily abandoned. The defensive side of his duty was obviously the essential one. Still he had it now in his power to choose his own route and his own time for entrance into Spain: and he utilised the interval to render the communications of the French circuitous and difficult. Soult's bridge train having been captured in Badajos, a stroke of good fortune which matched the capture of Marmont's siege train in Ciudad Rodrigo, they could only cross the Tagus at permanent bridges. The lowest bridge on the Tagus, a boat bridge protected by three small forts, was at Almaraz; and General Hill by a brilliant dash seized the forts and destroyed the bridge. Almost simultaneously the bridge over the Tagus at Alcantara, down in Portugal, was skilfully repaired. The combined result of the two operations was to make the communication between Hill, who was left to watch the Guadiana, and Wellington when he moved to the Douro region, a fortnight shorter than the distance between Marmont and Soult's northernmost division.
On June 13, the spring rains being over, Wellington, having concentrated his immediate army near Ciudad Rodrigo, marched on Salamanca. His motives for deciding to operate against Marmont rather than in Andalusia seem to have been various, some embracing the whole area of the Peninsula, one at least the practical consideration that his supplies, brought by water up the Douro, could more quickly and easily be conveyed to the army. He had no intention of running serious risks, or of fighting a great battle unless he could do so under favourable conditions. If successful, he could greatly shake the French hold on Spain: if he found Marmont too strong, his retreat into Portugal was insured by possession of the fortresses. Marmont retired at once, leaving garrisons in the forts round Salamanca. These forts offered unexpectedly long resistance, and Wellington, encamped on the high ground north-east of the city, did not think it prudent to risk a battle until they were in his hands, though Marmont's somewhat rash manœuvres, undertaken in the hope of saving them, gave him more than one opportunity. On the 27th the forts fell, and Marmont, having no longer any motive for lingering near Salamanca, and expecting reinforcements from the north, promptly retreated behind the Douro. Wellington followed, but could not pass the river, of which the enemy held or had destroyed the bridges, except by deep and dangerous fords. He could only wait for his antagonist to make the next move, which soon came. On receiving his reinforcements, Marmont re-crossed the Douro, and a series of complicated movements ensued, in which Marmont out-manœuvred Wellington, compelling him to retire on Salamanca again, and seizing passages over the river Tormes above the city. That river, after flowing northwards for some distance, makes a great bend to the westward from a point about east of Salamanca, and then after passing the town, which is on its right bank, flows away north-westwards into the Douro. It was in the space enclosed by this curve of the Tormes, south-east from Salamanca, that the great battle was fought. Marmont's purpose in crossing the river into this space was to threaten the Ciudad Rodrigo road, and so compel Wellington to retreat or lose his one line of communication. Wellington naturally also crossed the Tormes by the fords near Salamanca: being aware that further reinforcements, especially of cavalry, in which Marmont was relatively deficient, would arrive in a day or so, he had made up his mind to retreat at night unless something unexpected should happen. And the unexpected did happen: Marmont, who had hitherto carried off the honours of the campaign so far as manœuvring went, for there had been no important fighting, suddenly committed a gross tactical blunder.
Early on the morning of July 22, Wellington's army occupied a position three or four miles from Salamanca, the left resting on the ford of Santa Marta above the town, with Pakenham's division beyond the river, and the right extending nearly to two small rugged hills, called the Arapiles. Marmont, whose object was to turn the English right, and so cut them off from the Ciudad Rodrigo road, and compel them to fight with their backs to the Tormes, made a demonstration towards Wellington's right front, driving in the cavalry occupying posts in front, while the mass of the French army marched in a direction to bring them across the flank of the English line. The possession of the Arapiles would have enabled him to form line across Wellington's flank unopposed, if not undiscovered: accordingly he sent forward a detachment to seize them. A staff officer saw this movement beginning, and informed Wellington, who hitherto had neglected the little hills, apparently not expecting Marmont's movement. Just in time a Portuguese regiment occupied the northernmost of the two Arapiles, but the French could not be prevented from seizing the other. Marmont had thus secured part of the advantage he aimed at, on the other hand Wellington was now fully aware of his adversary's purpose. Accordingly he formed his army on a new front facing southwards: what had been his right became the left resting on the Arapiles hill, the main body massed on the slopes behind the hill, while the right occupied the little village of Arapiles. Pakenham's division, with its attendant brigade of cavalry, was at the same time brought across the Tormes, and posted at Aldea Tejada, two or three miles off, where it covered the Ciudad Rodrigo road, and was completely out of sight of the French. Wellington had thus gone far towards neutralising the advantage which he had allowed Marmont to gain in turning his right: he held a strong position, difficult to assail, and it was open to him to retreat under cover of the darkness, though it would have been more than dangerous to do so in the day-time.
Several hours passed away, for a great part of Marmont's army had far to march before coming into position. The marshal at last grew impatient, and in order to draw Wellington from his position, ordered his left, Thomière's division of infantry with a quantity of cavalry and guns, to move westwards so as to threaten the Ciudad Rodrigo road. Marmont was of course totally ignorant that Pakenham's division was ready to stop any such movement: but anyhow the mistake was flagrant, as gross as the blunder of the allies at Austerlitz. Wellington instantly poured his troops down from behind the Arapiles hill on to the lower ground about the village of the same name, and formed in two lines, the right flanked by cavalry. At the same time he ordered Pakenham to advance against the line of march of the French left. Marmont saw too late that he had been over hasty: the divisions which were to form his centre were not yet on the ground. Wellington's advance had brought him under a heavy fire from the enemy's artillery ranged opposite him, and Marmont hoped that this might serve to check the English until he could retrieve his mistake. It was too late: suddenly he saw Pakenham's troops come into view and meet Thomière's long column of march, while two English batteries took it in flank. Marmont personally was spared further effort, for a shell struck him down with a broken arm and other wounds as he descended from the Arapiles. The fall of the commander increased the confusion, the more so as the next in command was soon also wounded. The rout of Thomière's division was soon complete, and its commander was killed. Wellington had only waited for Pakenham to come well into action before advancing in the centre, at the same time sending a brigade to assail the Arapiles hill held by the French. The battle raged fiercely for a short time along the front, where Clausel, on whom the command had devolved, had now come up into line. The French left was to all intents and purposes destroyed, partly by Pakenham, partly by a grand charge of Le Marchant's cavalry, which dashed forward from the right of the main body. The centre and right kept up the conflict for some time longer, all the better because the English attack on the Arapiles had been heavily repulsed. The battle however was lost, and Clausel had only to retreat as best he could. This he managed with great skill, covering his rear with clouds of skirmishers, until gradually his troops gained the shelter of the forest from which they had emerged in the forenoon with every prospect of victory. The oncoming darkness prevented direct pursuit, but Wellington was little concerned at this, for he had pushed forward on his left the divisions that had formed his reserve towards the fords by which alone the French could cross the Tormes, assuming that the castle of Alba de Tormes was held by the Spanish troops which he had placed there. The Spanish commander had however evacuated the place on Marmont's approach the previous day, and had carefully omitted to inform Wellington. Hence the French were able to escape by Alba with much less loss in prisoners than well might have been. The French loss however was very serious: out of about 42,000 men nearly 12,000 were killed, wounded, or taken prisoners. Wellington had to pay the heavy price of 6000 men out of 46,000 for his victory; but by it he shook the French hold on Spain in every corner of the country.
Though the defeated army was seriously disorganised beyond its heavy losses, Clausel nevertheless tried to make a stand beyond the Douro, in the expectation that king Joseph, with the small army at his immediate disposal, would there join him. Joseph was distracted between many counsels, and consequently did not act promptly. Wellington however decided the question for him. Forcing Clausel from the Douro, he entered Valladolid, seizing the French stores there. Then leaving a small force to face Clausel, who had retreated towards Burgos, and who could not be in a condition to resume offensive operations for some time, Wellington turned upon Joseph, and easily drove him from Madrid. The intruding king, after much hesitation, retired eastwards, and sent positive orders to Soult to evacuate Andalusia and bring his army to the east side of Spain. The occupation of Madrid by Wellington involved the capture of a vast quantity of French material of war, which they found it difficult to replace; but the moral effects were incomparably greater, as an encouragement to the Spanish people. A great part of the north was already in a state of insurrection, in spite of the presence of French troops: this stroke stimulated them by the hope of speedy success, besides setting the whole south free from the invaders. Wellington was perfectly aware that his hold on Madrid could be but temporary: as soon as Soult and Joseph were united, they would have strength enough to compel him to retire. This could not however take place immediately: so Wellington, leaving Hill at Madrid, marched northwards, hoping to inflict another blow on Clausel's army, now commanded by Souham, in the time at his disposal. At Burgos he allowed himself to be drawn into a siege of the castle, which was bravely and skilfully defended, and proved impregnable to field artillery, which was all that Wellington had with him. The concentration of the enemy's armies in the east rendered it impossible for him to maintain his position much longer. Accordingly on October 21 he began for the last time a retreat into Portugal, Hill also abandoning Madrid. The latter part of the retreat had to be conducted in frightful weather, and was marked by more disorder in the British army than occurred at any other time during the war; thus the losses were severe, out of all proportion to the pressure which the French were able to exercise.
Just at the time when Wellington turned his back on Burgos, Napoleon's retreat from Moscow began. Before the end of the year he was driven out of Russia, having lost nearly half-a-million of men: Prussia also, hitherto his nominal ally, rose in arms against him. In order to make head against Russia and Prussia on the Elbe, he had to withdraw troops from Spain, besides directing to Germany reinforcements and supplies which otherwise might have been devoted to the Spanish armies. Hence when the campaign of 1813 began, Wellington had the superiority of strength, though his enemies were now less widely scattered than before the evacuation of Andalusia. There could be no doubt that to invade Spain once more in the same general direction as in 1812 would be the most effective. Even Sir John Moore's small force, boldly plunging into Spain by that route at the end of 1808, had made Napoleon fear for his line of communication with France, and compelled him to detach overwhelming forces against the English. A fortiori Wellington, advancing by that line with an army equal to all that king Joseph could bring together, must compel him to evacuate Madrid, and retreat sufficiently far northwards to guard the main road to France. Wellington knew by his experience of the last year that the line of the Douro beyond Salamanca was difficult to force in the face of a fairly equal enemy. He therefore resolved that a large portion of his army should cross the Douro down in Portugal, and then move eastwards, while he himself advanced viâ Salamanca. The pressure of his left wing would compel the French in his front to retire, for fear of being completely outflanked. And here came in the advantage which he derived from the English command of the sea. Instead of dragging behind him an ever-lengthening chain, in the shape of communication with Lisbon, which had hitherto been his base for supplies, he could, if confident of having the upper hand in the north-west of Spain, have his supplies brought to the northern ports, and conveyed thence by comparatively short journeys. And he was confident, so thoroughly so as to let it be seen; it is told that when he passed the frontier into Spain, he rose in his stirrups, and looking round waved his hand, exclaiming: "Farewell, Portugal!" During four weary years he had stood substantially on the defensive, guarding the frontier if he could, retreating if he could not, obliged to withdraw behind it after incursions into Spain. Now at last his turn was come, and he knew it.
Wellington's movements were at the beginning so far concealed that the French did not penetrate his purpose. King Joseph did not understand that the game was substantially lost, and hoped to concentrate the French armies behind the Douro, and stop Wellington, if he could not force him back to Portugal once more. Graham's divisions appearing north of the Douro, and steadily pushing forwards, undeceived him. The French retreated first to Burgos, protecting as long as possible the vast amount of property of all kinds which was being poured along the great high-road to Bayonne, from the reserve artillery to the pictures robbed from Spanish churches and palaces, all the treasure and apparatus of the usurping government and court, all the military stores which had accumulated during five years of war, all the non-military persons who had so identified themselves with the invaders that they dared not stay in Spain. Wellington continued moving in the same manner, pushing his left forward while with his right he followed up the French, thus ever threatening to cut their communications, ever securing the command of more and more of the north coast. King Joseph found it necessary to retreat still further, till at Vittoria he had to choose between abandoning Spain altogether, and risking a battle. That he could have fought with at least equal chances of success two or three times, at earlier stages of the retreat, seems clear: but there was no sound directing head at the French head-quarters. Joseph was always incompetent, his military adviser, Marshal Jourdan, was either over-ruled or failed even less excusably because he had more experience; the subordinate generals received vacillating orders. The whole machine in fact was out of gear; though in the various combats, large and small, generals and soldiers fought as well as ever, the army as a whole expected to be beaten and was beaten.
The basin of Vittoria is about twelve miles in length, from the defile of Salinas, where the river Zadorra enters it on the east, to the defile of Puebla, where the river quits it to flow towards the Ebro. The great royal road, the only one good enough for the enormous convoys with which the French army was burdened, traversed these defiles, running through the town of Vittoria on the south side of the river. The basin is more or less completely surrounded with hills, crossed by rough and difficult roads. To the west is the valley of the small river Bayas, which converges towards the Zadorra, joining the Ebro just above it. From the Bayas there is a way into the basin of Vittoria by a gap in the hills behind the village of Subijana de Morillos, four or five miles from the Puebla defile. A dozen miles higher up the Bayas the road from Bilbao crosses that stream, and threading the defiles of the northern hills comes down straight on Vittoria. The French, who were in fact to fight for the plunder of Spain and the accumulated material of the army, had been already weakened by large detachments sent forward in charge of convoys. Outnumbered in fact, outweighed still more in imagination, they were massed, except Reille's divisions, at the western end of the basin, the plain behind them being full of waggons of all descriptions. Reille was posted north of Vittoria, facing the Bilbao road, so far from the rest of the army that he could not possibly be supported if attacked by superior numbers, though it is obvious that if Reille were overpowered the great road would be lost. Nothing could better illustrate the extreme unwisdom of not standing to fight earlier: defeat at Vittoria meant the loss of everything, and the dispositions made invited defeat. Wellington fully realised his advantage: he sent Graham with some 20,000 men up the Bayas, to cross into the basin of Vittoria by the Bilbao road and attack Reille, while the rest of the army attacked the main body of the French posted behind the Zadorra at the west end of the basin.
At daybreak on June 21 Wellington's immediate right under Hill moved forwards and slowly crossed the Zadorra just below the defile of Puebla. There was no occasion for haste, rather it was expedient to be leisurely, so as to give time for Graham to accomplish his much longer march. Then a brigade of Spanish infantry was sent to scale the heights which form the eastern side of the defile, and push along them so as to threaten to turn the French left. The remainder of the right wing passed through the defile and attacked the French left in front. Meanwhile Wellington with his centre had made his way through and over the hills separating the Bayas from the Zadorra, part by the gap of Subijana de Morillos, so as to converge on Hill's force, part some distance further to the northwards. By this time it was one o'clock, and the distant sound of cannonading told that Graham was already engaged. The French main army began to retreat, pressed steadily in front by Wellington, till they were driven back to within a mile of Vittoria. By this time Graham, who had considerably larger forces than those immediately opposed to him, had obtained command of the royal road. Carrying out on a small scale in action the same idea which had inspired Wellington's movements on the large scale, he had pushed forwards his left, winning possession of the village of Gamarra Mayor on Reille's extreme right. The French here held their ground with admirable tenacity, and Graham could seize neither the bridge at Gamarra, nor that directly in his front by which the Bilbao road enters Vittoria, though his guns could sweep the great road towards France. Reille thus saved the French army from annihilation: if he had been driven over the Zadorra a comparatively small part would have been able to escape at all. Thanks to him, the bulk of the soldiers were able to retire by the Pampeluna road; but it could scarcely be called an army. The losses in the battle, or rather in the pair of simultaneous battles, had not been exceptional, and had been tolerably equal, about 6000 killed and wounded on each side; but nothing escaped except the men. To quote the words of a French officer who took part in the action: "They lost all their equipages, all their guns, all their treasure, all their stores, all their papers, so that no man could prove how much pay was due to him: generals and soldiers alike were reduced to the clothes on their backs, and most of them were barefoot."
The deliverance of Spain was not yet complete, but it was virtually achieved by the battle of Vittoria. Before Wellington could capture San Sebastian, the fortress which guarded the Spanish side of the frontier at the extreme south-west corner of France, Soult had been sent by Napoleon to reorganise the disordered fragments of several separate commands which had escaped from Vittoria. As soon as he could move, Soult crossed the passes of the western Pyrenees, trying to break up the scattered parts of the English army, which had to besiege San Sebastian and Pampeluna, besides its other duties. Wellington was able to concentrate just in time, and after some very complicated warfare in the mountain country, involving serious losses on both sides, Soult was driven back into France. Before the end of the year Wellington was in France; he had stormed San Sebastian, converted the siege of Pampeluna into a blockade, driven Soult successively across the two little rivers beyond the frontier, and surrounded Bayonne. The fall of Napoleon early in 1814 put an end to the war, not without two more battles, in the latter of which Soult was driven from a very strong position close to the city of Toulouse, while inflicting very great loss on his assailants. Wellington had contributed largely to the overthrow of Napoleon by his direct efforts, by his caution and foresight so long as was necessary, by his daring at the right moment, by his skilful and bold offensive strategy. How much he contributed indirectly, by keeping up resistance to the universal conqueror in one corner of Europe, it would be difficult to estimate.
[NOTE.—Controversy has raged over almost every point of the Waterloo campaign. Matters of fact have been disputed, whether or not given things happened, and if they did happen, when and how. Still more naturally have questions of inference and judgment been disputed, under the influence of partisanship, or supposed patriotism, or preconceived ideas. I have deemed it unnecessary to enter into any of these controversies. I have narrated the facts as I believe them to have occurred, without citing evidence, and have left doubtful inferences to the reader. To have done more would have been inconsistent with the scope of this book.]
The combined efforts of the great powers of Europe overthrew Napoleon early in the year 1814. In spite of amazing efforts on his part, the allied armies marched to Paris; and the emperor, finding himself almost deserted, was compelled to abdicate. The allied powers made the great mistake, as events proved, of allowing him to take possession in full sovereignty of the little island of Elba. A man of more chivalrous spirit would probably have felt that it was a mockery to call him emperor of so minute an empire, and would have preferred to disappear entirely from the observation of a world in which he had risen to so vast a height and fallen so decisively. Napoleon took his small kingdom seriously, and seems to have been contented for a time, until reports of the state of affairs in France led him to think that he might recover his throne. The legitimate line of the Bourbon kings had been restored on Napoleon's overthrow, in the person of Louis XVIII., brother of the king executed in 1793. How far this restoration was acceptable at the time to the French nation as a whole it is difficult to judge. Certainly the knot of selfish politicians who seized the opportunity of speaking in the name of France desired it for their own ends. Certainly also the allied sovereigns, who for the moment held the fate of France in their hands, most or all of them thought it the most desirable course in the interests of Europe generally. But the Bourbons, like their English forerunners in disaster, had learned nothing and forgotten nothing. The great mass of Frenchmen had no wish to lose the great fruits of the Revolution, abolition of aristocratic privilege, limitation of the royal authority, curtailment of the vast influence of the clergy. Still less were they willing to see the crown and the royalist exiles resume possession of the lands of which they had been deprived, and which had mostly been sold to new owners. Least of all were they inclined to allow the rejection, in favour of the Bourbon white flag, of the tricolour which was the emblem alike of the liberty and equality won by the Revolution, and of the military glories won by Napoleon. The king himself seems to have been at least willing to abide by the constitution he had proclaimed, and to accept the great social results of the Revolution; but his brother and destined successor, and many of the restored exiles, made no secret of their desire to revert to the ancien régime. Naturally a large amount of discontent was engendered, and of this Napoleon took advantage to try his luck once more. On March 1, 1815, he landed near Cannes with a few hundred followers. The population of the provinces through which his way to Paris lay were on the whole favourable, more so probably than the average of the whole of France. The soldiers could nowhere be induced to fight against the emperor; and many of the officers, though by no means all, set them the example of defection. The king fled into Belgium, and Napoleon marched to Paris in triumph, and resumed the government without a blow.
The allied powers however were in no mind to see their vast sacrifices thrown away, and to allow Napoleon the chance of once more consolidating his power in France, and beginning a fresh series of wars of aggression. Their representatives were still assembled in congress at Vienna, occupied in the difficult task of resettling Europe after the universal removing of landmarks which had been produced by the recent wars. They at once declared Napoleon a public enemy, and began preparations for launching enormous hosts against him. Months must pass before, in the then state of roads and modes of locomotion, a single Russian soldier could be seen on the French frontier. A shorter, but still considerable, interval must elapse before the Austrian armies could take the field. But England was only across the narrow seas, and Prussia held great territories on the Rhine. Accordingly these two powers, acting in concert, poured their troops, one army under Wellington, the other under Blucher, into the new kingdom of the Netherlands, which had but recently formed part of Napoleon's empire. From the Belgian frontier starts the easiest and shortest line of invasion of France, assuming invasion to be directed at the capital. And the intention was that the English and Prussian armies should take this route, when the Austrians had reached the eastern frontier, and the Russians were getting within supporting distance. Napoleon no doubt realised that his game was lost if his enemies once gathered in their irresistible numbers. At any rate he saw plainly enough that his best chance lay in defeating his opponents piecemeal. Could he succeed in destroying the Anglo-Prussian army, the other powers might be intimidated, or possibly bribed, into letting him alone. The indications are that this would never have happened; the Czar would probably have receded before nothing but overwhelming defeat, and the overthrow of Wellington and Blucher would not have meant the annihilation of the power of Prussia, still less of Great Britain. Nevertheless Napoleon had a chance in this way, and in no other, and he proceeded to try it with characteristic vigour and resolution, though with less than his usual skill and care when the actual stress came.
In order that the campaign may be understood, of which Waterloo was the climax, it must be always remembered that political reasons rendered it essential for Napoleon to assume the offensive in spite of inferior numbers, and offered every inducement to the allies to await attack, and also that this gave Napoleon the great strategical advantage of the initiative. The allies had to guard the Belgian frontier; he could select his own point for invasion. Accordingly the allies occupied a line from east to west, some thirty miles south of Brussels, and a little north of the actual frontier. The Prussians on the eastern half lay chiefly on the north side of the Meuse and its tributary the Sambre.
Wellington's army was only a third English, another third being Dutch-Belgians of very poor quality and doubtful fidelity,[72] the remainder Germans, some of them excellent troops, the rest mere recruits. He covered the western part of the frontier, as was natural, seeing that he drew his supplies from England by the Belgian ports of Ostend and Antwerp. The two armies met just south of Brussels, near Charleroi, where a main road crosses the Sambre. The allies could not of course know by what route Napoleon, if he assumed the offensive, as was probable, would enter Belgium. They therefore had to watch the whole line; and partly for this reason, partly for convenience of subsistence, they quartered their forces over a space of country fully 100 miles in length from east to west. On the Prussian side, where the rivers formed a protection, and where there was less reason to expect attack, the troops were comparatively near the frontier line. On the English side none except outposts were close to the frontier, and some were at least thirty miles behind it.
Napoleon could bring into the field about 125,000 men, practically all veterans commanded by excellent officers, though the successive re-organisations after his first overthrow and on his restoration had left it lacking in the perfect mutual confidence of officers and men which makes a veteran army so formidable. Of these nearly 24,000 were cavalry; and there were 344 field guns. The Prussians under Blucher were not much inferior in numbers to the French, about 121,000, but their proportion of cavalry (12,000) and guns (312) was lower, and the quality of part at least of the army inferior. Wellington had about 94,000 men, of whom over 14,000 were cavalry, with 196 guns, but, as has been said before, barely half[73] of them were really trustworthy troops. Thus Napoleon was nearly equal to his opponents in number of cavalry, but was outmatched in guns in the proportion of about three to two, and in infantry by at least seven to four, though the superior quality of his troops went some way towards compensating for this inequality. He had the further advantage of unity of command, while the armies of the allies not only were separate, with no further concert of action than what the voluntary accord of the chiefs might establish, but drew their supplies from opposite directions, the Prussians from the Rhine, the English from the Belgian ports. Both sides seem to have been fairly well informed as to the strength of the other. Napoleon also had information as to the position of the allied troops, nor were Wellington and Blucher quite in the dark when the French troops concentrated on the frontier, skilfully as Napoleon had arranged their movements, though they could not at first be certain what was real attack, what feint.
Napoleon had practically a choice between two plans. He might invade Belgium on the west, opposite the right of Wellington's widely divided army, and by advancing northwards cut Wellington off from his communication with the sea. This was what Wellington expected; he was very anxious about his supplies, being probably more than doubtful whether his army would find subsistence if compelled to depend on the Prussians, who had quite enough to do in supplying their own army. A corresponding movement on the left of the Prussians was obviously possible, but for many reasons not worth Napoleon's while. The alternative plan, which he adopted, and which all critics consider to have been the best open to him, was to concentrate his army due south of Brussels, at the nearest point to that capital, and cross the Sambre at Charleroi, which would bring him on the point where the English and Prussian armies met. Napoleon knew that the Prussian forces were less dispersed, and generally nearer the frontier than those of Wellington. He therefore calculated that if, as was probable, Blucher concentrated his army for battle, it would be at a point comparatively near to Charleroi, and that Wellington could not be in time to give him serious assistance. He further calculated that Blucher, if defeated, would retreat eastwards in the direction of his proper line of communication, and that then Wellington ought to be an easy prey to the French army, superior in both numbers and quality.
Accordingly Napoleon issued orders that his whole army should move at dawn on June 15, and cross the Sambre at or near Charleroi. At the same time he ordered slight demonstrations to be made much further west, in the neighbourhood of Mons, in order that Wellington might be kept as long as possible in doubt as to what Napoleon's real purpose was. Ziethen, who commanded the Prussian corps nearest to Charleroi, had unaccountably taken no steps to destroy the bridges over the Sambre, which would have delayed the French greatly: but he disputed their advance with much skill and pertinacity, and slowly retired north-eastwards to Fleurus. Blucher had on the night of June 14, on receiving certain tidings that the French were in great force beyond the Sambre, ordered his whole army to concentrate at Sombref, four or five miles behind Fleurus, at the point where the road from Charleroi crosses the great high-road that runs a little north of west from Namur to Nivelles, and thence towards the coast. It was at this point that it had been agreed between the allies, some weeks before, that the Prussians should concentrate in case of an advance by Napoleon, which they then thought improbable. One of the four Prussian corps, that of Bulow, was at a great distance, and failed to arrive in time; but those of Pirch and Thielemann duly joined Ziethen. On the 16th Blucher, with nearly 90,000 men, took up a position at Ligny, a mile or so south of the great Namur road, and awaited attack. Napoleon's intention had been to bring his whole army across the Sambre on the 15th, to occupy Fleurus in force, in anticipation of battle with Blucher, and to send a detachment to Quatre-Bras, where the Charleroi-Brussels road crosses the Namur-Nivelles road, in order to intercept the main line of communication between Wellington and Blucher. This was only approximately carried out: at nightfall, some French divisions were still on the wrong side of the Sambre. Quatre-Bras was found to be occupied, and the French left therefore did not go beyond Frasne, two or three miles to the south; and Ziethen's rear-guard still held Fleurus. The difference was of no serious consequence, the less so as the allied generals played into Napoleon's hands, Blucher by committing himself to battle with only three-fourths of his army and with no assurance of assistance from his colleague, Wellington by his slowness in concentrating his army. The English general, ill served as to intelligence, only heard the news of the French advance in the afternoon: even then, slow to abandon his belief that Napoleon would try to cut him off from the sea, he only warned his troops to be ready. In the evening he ordered concentration on Nivelles, and not till the morning of the 16th did he direct movements on Quatre-Bras.[74]
On the morning of June 16 Napoleon was in no hurry to move. He had entrusted Ney with the command of his left wing, and given him orders to attack the English at Quatre-Bras. There was much delay, which seems attributable partly to Ney's doing nothing to hasten the march (he had only joined the army on the 15th and had no staff), and partly to the remissness of the corps commanders, Reille and D'Erlon. About two o'clock however he began, with Reille's corps only, the battle of Quatre-Bras. It was extremely fortunate for Wellington that Ney had not moved earlier, for the position at daybreak was only held by one brigade, and it was but slowly that fresh troops came up. At first the French seemed likely to carry all before them: the Dutch-Belgian troops suffered severely, and some of them fled. No reader of Vanity Fair can have forgotten Thackeray's description of the panic caused in Brussels by the arrival of these fugitives, reporting that the allied army was cut to pieces. The Brunswick division was also broken for the time, and their duke killed.[75] But reinforcements came up in succession, and Wellington, who was on the field in person, grew relatively stronger as evening approached, and foiled every effort Ney made. Why Ney did not make greater efforts, why especially he made so little use of his cavalry, of which arm Wellington had very few on the field, is hard to say. Possibly his Peninsular experiences made him feel convinced that Wellington would not risk a battle without adequate strength. Certainly the woods interfered with his seeing fully the amount of Wellington's force. The absence of D'Erlon's corps was, as will appear presently, no fault of his, except so far as he was responsible for not having brought D'Erlon up to the front in the morning. At any rate he failed: at nightfall on the 16th the French were at Frasne, the English at Quatre-Bras, as they had been on the night of the 15th; only each side had lost between 4000 and 5000 men, the English rather more than the French.
Meanwhile Napoleon had taken for granted that Ney would be able to dislodge the English,[76] and had not only told him how far to advance on the Brussels road, but had also ordered him to despatch part of his troops, as soon as Quatre-Bras was occupied, down the Namur road, to co-operate in his own attack on the Prussians. He had waited until Ney was engaged before beginning his own battle, which he did not doubt winning, and hoped by Ney's aid to render decisive. On the Prussian left Thielemann's corps covered the road to Namur: the centre and right, formed by Ziethen's corps, with Pirch in second line, were thrown forward almost at a right angle to the left, behind the villages of Ligny and St. Amand, so as to cover the same road further west, by which communication was to be kept up with Wellington. The duke had seen Blucher in the morning, and had promised to assist the Prussians if not himself attacked. Thus both French and Prussians were hoping at least for help from Quatre-Bras, which neither combatant there was in any condition to afford. Napoleon decided to begin by assailing the Prussian right: for this he had every motive, as it was unprotected by any natural obstacle, and success there would not only tend to separate Blucher from Wellington, but would also drive Blucher to retreat towards Namur, which Napoleon naturally desired. His plan however aimed at a much more decisive stroke. He had determined, after the Prussian right had been shaken by some hours of fighting, to assail the centre with his reserve. If that attack succeeded, and one of Ney's corps took the Prussians in rear, as was to be done when Quatre-Bras had been won, half of the Prussian army would be virtually surrounded, and must either be destroyed or surrender. The fighting all through was of a most desperate character, but the French had, on the whole, the best of it, and Napoleon was preparing for his attack on the centre, when the news that a considerable body of troops were in sight a couple of miles or so on his left, naturally caused him to wait. They might be Wellington's, in which case caution was obviously expedient: they might be Ney's expected succour appearing in the wrong place, in which case time would be needed for them to work round the flank of the Prussians. It had just been ascertained that the approaching troops were French, when they suddenly halted and began to return the way they had come. They were D'Erlon's corps, which had been on their way to join Ney, and had been directed towards the field of Ligny, apparently by a staff officer who thought he was rightly interpreting Napoleon's wishes. Ney, on hearing what had happened, very properly recalled D'Erlon: his orders were to dislodge the English from Quatre-Bras, which he could not do without D'Erlon's troops, and then, but not till then, to reinforce Napoleon. The result however was that D'Erlon's corps wasted the day in marching to and fro, and took part in neither battle, though its active co-operation ought to have been decisive on either field.
Sunset was approaching, and Napoleon, seeing that it was too late to send effective orders after D'Erlon, made his attack on the Prussian centre as before arranged. Its success gave him an undoubted victory, but dearly bought, and not overwhelming. The Prussians were able to retreat unmolested under cover of the darkness, leaving behind them over 20,000 men, killed, wounded and prisoners, or about a third of the two corps, Ziethen's and Pirch's, on which the stress of the fighting had fallen. The French army bivouacked on the field how they could: their loss had amounted to 11,000 or 12,000 men.
Thus up to nightfall on June 16 Napoleon had gained considerable success. He had attained his first object, of engaging and defeating Blucher before Wellington could come to his assistance, and might reasonably expect to attain his second object, of attacking Wellington with his main force while separated from the Prussians, in which case with a superior army he ought to win a decisive victory. That more had not been achieved was due to the delay on the French left, which neutralised the advantage resulting from Wellington's undue slowness in concentrating his army. As often happens in war, one mistake but cancelled the other. On the 17th most part of the advantage which the French possessed over the allies was lost, largely by Napoleon's own fault, partly by the loyal co-operation of Blucher and Wellington. Critics who treat war like a game of chess, and forget that soldiers are men who must eat and sleep, say that Napoleon ought to have started at daybreak, to take Wellington at Quatre-Bras in flank, while Ney renewed the attack in front. But the emperor himself was exhausted by two extremely long and fatiguing days: nor could even the troops that had taken but little part in a battle ending at 9.30 p.m. be expected to be in marching order again in six hours. Napoleon made the grievous mistake of taking for granted two things, both of them likely, but neither of them in fact true. First he more or less assumed that Wellington, informed of the result of the battle of Ligny, would have retreated, leaving only a rearguard at Quatre-Bras; if this were so, there was no use in Napoleon's trying to attack him. As a matter of fact, Wellington did not receive the news of Ligny till the morning of the 17th, and he then waited to exchange communications with Blucher before ordering a retreat, for which there was no immediate hurry, unless the French resumed the offensive. Napoleon's other and far more disastrous mistake was taking for granted that Blucher had retreated on Namur, that is to say straight away from his ally. As a matter of fact the Prussians were retreating northwards on Wavre, true to the general agreement between Blucher and Wellington that they would co-operate as thoroughly as possible; and since that movement was ordered, news had come from Wellington that he was on the point of retreating on Waterloo, and would stand to fight there if assured of assistance from one Prussian corps. Napoleon had plenty of cavalry available, for Ligny was essentially an infantry battle, and certainly ought to have pushed cavalry along every road by which the Prussians could possibly have retreated. If they were gone eastwards, as he hoped and believed, all was plain sailing: if they were gone north, they might still unite with Wellington, and the game was by no means won. As it was, he contented himself with one reconnaissance along the Namur road, which confirmed him in his error by capturing a few stragglers, and so threw away the advantages gained already by his skilfully-devised plan of campaign.
In the course of the morning of the 17th, Wellington withdrew his forces from Quatre-Bras, and retreated to the position at Waterloo which he had noted the year before, as an excellent one for a defensive battle to protect Brussels. In the afternoon heavy rain came on, which lasted all night, soaking the ground, seriously injuring the roads, and thus interfering with the march of the French, who followed at some distance. By nightfall the French were in front of Wellington's position; and both armies bivouacked on the wet ground, no very favourable preparation for the work of the morrow. Before moving from Ligny with the guard and Lobau's corps, to unite them to the troops under Ney, and with the whole body follow up the retreating English, Napoleon had given his orders for the pursuit of the defeated Prussians. Marshal Grouchy was put at the head of the two corps, Vandamme's and Gérard's, on which the stress of the fighting at Ligny had fallen, which with some cavalry amounted to about 33,000 men.
Napoleon after the event attempted to make Grouchy entirely responsible for the loss of the battle of Waterloo, and Napoleon's partisans have followed his example. A few writers have exempted Grouchy from all blame: the majority of reasonably impartial critics blame him more or less severely, though without holding Napoleon faultless. In any case the absence of Grouchy at Waterloo, without his thereby preventing Blucher from participating, was a decisive fact, however it was brought about. Hence it is necessary to understand clearly what his intentions were, and what was the discretionary power left to him. In personal conversation Napoleon told Grouchy that he was himself going to fight the English "if they will stand on this side of the forest of Soignies," and ordered him to pursue the Prussians and complete their defeat by attacking them as soon as he came up with them: and it is clear that he then still supposed the Prussians to have retreated on Namur, and therefore that the pursuit of them was not a matter of primary importance. Afterwards he heard news which implied the probability that part at least of the Prussian army might have gone further north: and he sent Grouchy written orders to take his forces to Gembloux (N.E. from Ligny), explore in the direction of Namur and of Maestricht (still further to N.E.), and find out what the Prussians were doing, whether they were or were not intending to unite with the English, to cover Brussels or Liège,[77] and try another battle. These orders still treat as most probable the separation of the Prussians from Wellington, but they contemplate the other possibility—they do not however tell Grouchy what to do in that event. Unfortunately for Napoleon, Grouchy was without experience in independent command, of rather limited range of ideas, and sharing the abject dread of disobeying Napoleon which cramped the energy and clouded the judgment, at times if not always, of most of his generals. He was capable enough, as he showed when left altogether to himself after the rout of Waterloo; but so long as he was under Napoleon's orders, he dared not think for himself. Grouchy accordingly marched to Gembloux: and having ascertained beyond further doubt that the Prussians had not gone to Namur, but that part of them had gone north to Wavre, and the main body as he believed north-eastward towards Maestricht, he reported this late at night to Napoleon, adding his intention to follow the enemy, if it turned out after all that they were moving on Wavre, "in order to prevent their gaining Brussels and to separate them from Wellington." As a matter of fact, the whole Prussian army had gained Wavre, in accordance with the agreement between Blucher and Wellington, in order to be able to support Wellington on the next day. That there existed between the two allied generals a substantial and hearty accord is certain enough, though Gneisenau, who was Blucher's chief of staff, always suspicious of Wellington, was inclined to doubt his sincerity, and to take care of the Prussian army only, not of the common cause. These suspicions were in fact groundless, and were very bad policy also; Gneisenau reminds one of a whist-player who plays for his own hand and will not co-operate with his partner, a style of play which is equivalent to giving the other side odds. That Gneisenau was overruled, that the co-operation was carried through to a triumphant end, was due to Marshal Blucher personally, a man far inferior to Gneisenau in military ability, but stanch to the backbone, and moreover hating the French with a keen personal hatred.
On the morning of the 18th Grouchy moved on Wavre: the hour named for starting was not a very early one, as it would have been if Grouchy had deemed time of great importance; and the troops, doubtless still feeling the effects of Ligny, in spite of an easy day's work on the 17th, were slow to get into motion. About eleven o'clock, while Grouchy was halting to eat at Walhain, about one-third of the way to Wavre, the opening cannonade of the battle of Waterloo was heard. General Gérard at once urged him to "march towards the cannon," and a vehement discussion arose, which ended in Grouchy deciding to obey what he averred to be the emperor's orders, and continue his march on Wavre. That Grouchy ought to have crossed the Dyle at once, cannot reasonably be doubted: if Blucher gave large assistance to Wellington, the emperor must be overwhelmed, and there was no means of preventing this, if Grouchy failed in achieving it. True, Blucher might not be sending any large force across from Wavre to Waterloo, but if he were not, Grouchy would have discovered this eventually, and might have pushed on Wavre as easily from the south-west as from the south. If however, as was actually the case, the bulk of the Prussian army was moving to support Wellington and take the French in flank, there would be little compensation for Napoleon's total defeat to be derived from a slight success of Grouchy at Wavre. The marshal however could not rise to the opportunity, he dared not depart from what he understood to be the purpose of his master. And it may pretty confidently be conjectured that in a different case, had Napoleon beaten Wellington before Blucher could come up, and had Grouchy's march towards the cannon left it feasible for Blucher to unite with Wellington before Brussels, Grouchy would have been blamed without mercy.
It remains to be seen whether Grouchy, acting on Gérard's advice, could have saved the defeat of Waterloo. He had to take 33,000 men with all their guns and ammunition waggons across the river Dyle, by two bridges, one narrow and steep, the other of wood and presumably not strong enough for artillery. He had to march fourteen or fifteen miles by very bad country roads, rendered much worse by the rain. The Prussians from Wavre had a shorter distance to go with no river to cross, and the foremost corps, Bulow's, had considerably the start: the head of his column was in sight of the battle-field when Grouchy's resolution was taken. Moreover one corps, Ziethen's, took a parallel road further to the north, entirely out of Grouchy's reach. It is pretty certain that if Grouchy had marched on Waterloo, he would have prevented Pirch's corps, which followed Bulow's, from taking part in the battle, and so would have rendered the rout a little less absolute. It is pretty certain also that Bulow need have taken no notice of him, but it is not so clear that he might not have been sufficiently disquieted by Grouchy's appearance to think it expedient to turn back and encounter him. Blucher however was with Bulow's corps, and he was eager to press forward, at whatever cost. If Napoleon had been in Blucher's place, he would have seen that the defeat of the enemy's main army was of primary importance, and would have taken his chance of Grouchy achieving some success against the Prussians left behind. It is however unprofitable to conjecture what might have been. Happily for Wellington and for Europe, Grouchy was afraid to face the responsibility, and marched on Wavre. Here, to finish his story, he encountered Thielemann's corps, left to play against him the very game which Napoleon intended him to play against the whole Prussian army, to detain and occupy as much as possible a superior force. There was some fighting on the evening of the 18th, and again on the next morning, to the advantage of the French. But when Grouchy heard of the total defeat of the emperor, he naturally thought only of regaining France. His retreat was conducted with skill and audacity, and ended, thanks to the protection afforded him in crossing the Meuse by the fortifications of Namur, in his reaching French territory with his army unbroken.
When Napoleon and Wellington stood at length face to face on the night of June 17, both were naturally anxious about the morrow, but in singularly different ways. The emperor, justly believing that his army was the better of the two, was only afraid that Wellington might yet rob him of victory by decamping in the dark; and this fear haunted him so obstinately that in the middle of the night, and again at daybreak, he rode out to satisfy his own eyes that the English army was still in position. Strangely enough he does not seem to have been at all apprehensive of the contingency which in fact happened to his ruin: he still supposed the Prussian army out of reach. On the morning of the 18th he sent a despatch to Grouchy, which accepted as the right thing to be done that general's intention of marching on Wavre. Not till eleven a.m., when the battle was on the point of beginning, did he send a regiment[78] of cavalry towards the bridges by which Grouchy would have had to cross the Dyle, as if that were a chance worth taking account of. But he took no steps to secure Grouchy's coming, till the first Prussian troops were in sight,[79] as he certainly would have done had he seriously feared Blucher taking him in flank. And this reduplication of the grievous mistake he had made on the field of Ligny was absolutely fatal.
Wellington on the other hand had fully made up his mind to fight, in spite of the great risk he ran of being overwhelmed before the Prussians could reach him, assuming always that Blucher would come to his assistance. How great that risk was, it is a little hard to realise after the event. He could have no knowledge of the amount of Grouchy's army, though he may well have guessed that Napoleon had detached some troops to observe the Prussians. For all he knew the French might be outnumbering him considerably, the more so as he still deemed it necessary to guard his right by leaving a large force at Hal, some ten or twelve miles off. Napoleon made a miscalculation, as most critics think, in giving Grouchy so large a force. If Grouchy was merely to follow up the Prussians retreating eastwards, less would suffice: if the emperor was to encounter at Waterloo the allied armies united, he needed every man. And Wellington made a similar miscalculation in leaving 18,000 men at Hal: if he was beaten at Waterloo, there would be no longer a flank to guard; if he was successful, a French detachment sent to turn his flank would have great difficulty in escaping destruction. Even on the assumption that Wellington knew the strength of the army facing him, he was outmatched so long as he stood alone: and what was his security for being supported? It has been said already that he and Blucher acted cordially together, but there was not, and could not be, a common plan of action worked out in detail. The very fact that they had to await attack, wherever Napoleon might assail them, rendered any such elaborate concert impossible. Moreover Wellington was doubtless aware that Gneisenau would be slow to take a course that endangered the Prussians. If after all the Prussians were not coming, there was yet time to retreat from an untenable position. Under the pressure of this anxiety, Wellington is said to have spent a great part of the night in riding over to Wavre and back, in order to see Blucher and make sure. Whatever passed at that interview,[80] the duke was satisfied, and on the fateful morning of the 18th, his troops stood to their arms in the stations already assigned to them.
The field of Waterloo has probably been visited by more travellers than any other battle-field in the world: but its aspect has been changed in some respects since 1815, so that the description to be given of it will not be found to tally exactly with what is to be seen to-day. Wellington's army was posted on a slight ridge, running about east and west, and occupied a front of over two miles. The ridge is crossed about the centre of the position by the high road from Charleroi to Brussels, and a country road runs along it, a little below the top on the southern side. Less than three miles to the northward the Brussels road enters the forest of Soignies; and Wellington calculated that this would protect him in case of defeat. There were roads enough to withdraw the artillery, &c.; and the forest, being thick but free of underwood, would present no obstacle to infantry retiring, and would assist them in keeping off pursuit. At the extreme western end of the ridge lies a small village called Merbe Braine, somewhat sunk in a hollow: this protected Wellington's extreme right from being easily turned. The front of his right was covered by the château of Hougomont, a good-sized country house with gardens and orchard, enclosed by a wall. This lay down in the valley separating the two armies; and it is obvious that no attack could be made on Wellington's right unless the assailants had first seized this château, while on the other hand their possession of Hougomont would have given them great facilities for further advance. Similarly, in advance of Wellington's left, lay two farms, La Haye and Papelotte, and a little hamlet called Smohain, but the ground gave no protection to the left flank of the position. Close to the Charleroi-Brussels road, near the bottom of the slope lies the farm of La Haye Sainte; this also formed some little protection to the centre. The ground was practically all open, and the slope down into the little valley that divided the two armies before the battle not very steep, but still an unmistakable descent. The slope up the opposite side was at about the same inclination, so that the fronts of the two armies, a little over three-quarters of a mile apart, lay on two roughly parallel ridges. The English ridge was narrow enough for it to be feasible to place the troops, when not actually standing to repel attack, on the reverse or northern slope leading towards the village of Waterloo, so that they were partially sheltered from the French artillery. To complete the picture of Wellington's position, it is necessary to add that the road which runs along it leads to Ohain and thence to Wavre: this was one of the routes by which Prussian succour might come, and was in fact the road by which Ziethen arrived shortly before the close of the battle. The shortest way from Wavre, by which the first Prussians came, leads through the valley and up against the eastern end of the French line.
The position was an excellent one for defence, considering the range of artillery and infantry fire of that date, and would have fully compensated for the slight advantage of numbers which Napoleon possessed, had the quality of the two armies been equal. They were substantially equal in infantry, a little under 50,000 each: but Napoleon had 15,000 cavalry as against 12,000, and many more guns, 246 to 156. Wellington however could not place much reliance on the Dutch-Belgian contingent, nearly 18,000 strong. The sympathies of many of them were with the French, and none of them had seen service, unless perchance in the emperor's army before his first abdication. Consequently the duke thought it expedient to distribute these troops among the English and Germans: he would obviously have done better, assuming that he was convinced of the necessity of leaving a strong body at Hal, to have posted none but Dutch and Belgians there, the more so as the command at Hal was entrusted to a Dutch prince, and to have had Colville's English on the field of Waterloo.