KING-MAKING WATERLOO
"Last noon beheld them full of lusty life,
Last eve in Beauty's circle proudly gay,
The midnight brought the signal-sound of strife;
The morn the marshalling in arms—the day
Battle's magnificently stern array!
The thunder-clouds close o'er it, which when rent
The earth is cover'd thick with other clay,
Which her own clay shall cover, heap'd and pent,
Rider and horse—friend, foe—in one red burial blent!"
—BYRON.
"I look upon Salamanca, Vittoria, and Waterloo as my three best battles—those which had great and permanent consequences. Salamanca relieved the whole south of Spain, changed all the prospects of the war, and was felt even in Prussia. Vittoria freed the Peninsula altogether, broke off the armistice at Dresden, and thus led to Leipsic and the deliverance of Europe; and Waterloo did more than any other battle I know of towards the true object of all battles—the peace of the world."—WELLINGTON, Conversation with Croker.
On June 18, 1815, the grey light of a Sunday morning was breaking over a shallow valley lying between parallel ridges of low hills some twelve miles to the south of Brussels. All night the rain had fallen furiously, and still the fog hung low, and driving showers swept over plain and hill as from the church spires of half-a-dozen tiny villages the matin bells began to ring. For centuries those bells had called the villagers to prayers; to-day, as the wave of sound stole through the misty air it was the signal for the awakening of two mighty armies to the greatest battle of modern times.
More ink has, perhaps, been shed about Waterloo than about any other battle known to history, and still the story bristles with conundrums, questions of fact, and problems in strategy, about which the experts still wage, with pen and diagram, strife almost as furious as that which was waged with lance and sword, with bayonet and musket, more than eighty years ago on the actual slopes of Mont St. Jean. It is still, for example, a matter of debate whether, when Wellington first resolved to fight at Waterloo, he had any express promise from Blücher to join him on that field. Did Wellington, for example, ride over alone to Blücher's headquarters on the night before Waterloo, and obtain a pledge of aid, on the strength of which he fought next day? It is not merely possible to quote experts on each side of this question; it is possible to quote the same expert on both sides. Ropes, for example, the latest Waterloo critic, devotes several pages to proving that the interview never took place, and then adds a note to his third edition declaring that he has seen evidence which convinces him it did take place! It is possible even to quote Wellington himself both for the alleged visit and against it. In 1833 he told a circle of guests at Strathfieldsaye, in minute detail, how he got rid of his only aide-de-camp, Lord Fitzroy Somerset, and rode over on "Copenhagen" in the rain and darkness to Wavre, and got from Blücher's own lips the assurance that he would join him next day at Waterloo. In 1838, when directly asked by Baron Gurney whether the story was true, he replied, "No, I did not see Blücher the day before Waterloo." If Homer nodded, it is plain that sometimes the Duke of Wellington forgot!
