Wellington may have been a brave and skilful general, but he did not know how to be generous to an unfortunate enemy who was himself always kind and considerate in the hour of victory. Wellington's expressions about Lowe are more than significant, though his conduct towards the poor cat's-paw is characteristic of a mean, flinty soul. But his behaviour towards Napoleon would have put any French Jacobin to the blush, and has belittled him for all time in the eyes of everybody who has a spark of human feeling in him.
Meneval[22] says that Waterloo was won by the French in the middle of the day of that fateful battle, but a caprice of fortune—the arrival of Bulow's corps and Blucher's army, and the absence of Grouchy's corps—snatched from Napoleon's hands the triumph which was within his grasp. Wellington had even said to General Hill, who came to take his orders at the most critical moment of the battle: "I have no orders to give you. There is nothing left for us but to die here. Our retreat is even cut off behind us."
Wellington's despairing words have been handed down in various forms. Notably he is reported to have said, "Oh! for night or Blücher." When he heard the firing, "That is old Blücher at last!" &c. That he was in a tight place there is little doubt, and many authorities have stated that had Grouchy come up according to orders, the allied forces would have been cut to pieces.
Whether it was "caprice of fortune" or not, Wellington claimed to have won the battle. "Caprice of fortune" had nothing to do with it. It was a hard-fought battle. Treachery and desertion at an important juncture undoubtedly weakened the chances of French success. Meneval adds that "in no encounter of such importance did the French army display more heroism and more resolution than at the Battle of Waterloo." Napoleon at St. Helena attributed his defeat to a variety of circumstances: to treachery, and to his orders not being carried out as they should have been by some of his generals, and often concludes: "It must have been Fate, for I ought to have succeeded." He was accustomed to say that "One must never ask of Fortune more than she can grant," and possibly he erred in this.
Though nearly a century has passed since the catastrophe to France, the cause of it is still controversial. It is certain that the conduct of Marshal Soult, who was second in command, gave reason for suspicion. An old corporal told the Emperor that he was to "be assured that Soult was betraying him." General Vandamme was reported to have gone over to the enemy. It was also reported to the Emperor by a dragoon that General Henin was exhorting the soldiers of his corps to go over to the Allies, and while this was going on the General had both legs blown away by a cannon shot. Lieutenants, colonels, staff officers, and, it is said, officers who were bearing despatches deserted, but it is significant that there is not a single instance given of the common soldier forsaking his great chief's cause. Lord Wolseley declares that if Napoleon had been the man he was at Austerlitz, he would have won the Battle of Waterloo. Wolseley is supported in this view by many writers.
After Lutzen, Bautzen, and Dresden, Byron said that "bar epilepsy and the elements, he would back Napoleon against the field." It is well known the odds he had to battle with, including the vilest treachery within his own circle.
Marshal Grouchy's conduct will always remain doubtful, even to the most friendly critics. High treason bubbling up everywhere must have had a dulling effect on the mind of the great genius, though he battled with the increasing vigour of it with amazing courage. He saw the current was running too strong for him to stem unless he determined to again risk the flow of rivers of blood. This he shrank from, and abdicated the throne a second time. And then the barbarous, crimeful story began.
Sir Hudson Lowe's appointment was a national calamity, but he was the nominee of Wellington's coadjutors, and carried out their wishes with a criminal exactitude, and they should have stood by him in his dire distress, instead of which they allowed him to die in poverty, broken in spirit, and a victim to calumny which they ought to have been manly enough to share.
Whatever may be said in exculpation of them and him, they were undoubtedly too seriously involved to enter upon a fight that would have ended disastrously for all of them, and so, with unusual wisdom, they never got further than threats.
Sir Hudson was dead something like nine years before Forsyth burst upon the public with his eccentric vindication of the unamiable and unfortunate ex-Governor. The zealous biographer's research for material favourable to his deified hero caused him to ransack prints that were written by unfriendly authors and vindictive critics of the great captive. Even the State Papers, the most unreliable of all documents on this particular subject, were used to prove the goodness of Sir Hudson, and when quotations were unavailing, the author proceeded to concoct the most amazing ideas in support of the task he had set himself to prove.