The Eagle of the Empire: A Story of Waterloo

by Cyrus Townsend Brady

Comes the day of Waterloo. Blücher had retreated north to Wavre and was within supporting distance of Wellington. His army had been beaten but not crushed, its spirit was not abated. The old Prussian Marshal, badly bruised and shaken from being unhorsed and overridden in a cavalry charge in which he had joined like a common trooper, but himself again, promised in a famous interview between the two to come to the support of the younger English Marshal, should he be attacked, with his whole army. Wellington had retreated as far as he intended to. He established his headquarters on a hill called Mont St. Jean, back of a ridge near a village called Waterloo, where his army commanded the junction point of the highroads to the south and west. He drew up his lines, his red-coated countrymen and his blue-coated allies on the long ridge in front of Mont St. Jean, facing south, overlooking a gently sloping valley which was bounded by other parallel ridges about a mile away. On the right center of Wellington's lines, a short distance below the crest of the ridge, embowered in trees, lay a series of stone buildings, in extent and importance between a château and a farmhouse, called Hougomont. These were surrounded by a stone wall and the place was impregnable against everything but artillery if it were properly manned and resolutely held. Both those conditions were met that day. Opposite the left center of the Duke's line was another strong place, a farmhouse consisting of a series of stone buildings on three sides of a square, the fourth closed by a wall, called La Haye Sainte. These outposts were of the utmost value, rightly used.

The Duke had sixty-seven thousand men and one hundred and eighty guns. His right had been strengthened at the expense of his left, because he expected Napoleon to attack the right and he counted on Blücher's arrival to support his left. To meet him Napoleon had seventy-five thousand men and two hundred and sixty guns. Off to the northeast lay Blücher at Wavre with nearly eighty thousand more men and two hundred guns, and wandering around in the outer darkness was Grouchy with thirty-five thousand.

The valley was highly cultivated. The ripening grain still stood in the fallow fields separated by low hedges. Broad roads ran through the valley in different directions. The weather was horrible. It rained torrents during the night and the earlier part of the morning. The fields were turned into quagmires, the roads into morasses. It was hot and close. The humidity was great. Little air was stirring. Throughout the day the mist hung heavy over the valley and the ridges which bordered it. But the rain ceased in the morning and Napoleon made no attack until afternoon, waiting for the ground to dry out somewhat. It was more important to him that his soldiers should have good footing than to the English, for the offensive, the attack, the charge fell to him. Wellington determined to fight strictly on the defensive. Nevertheless, precious hours were wasted. Every passing moment brought some accession to the allied army, and every passing hour brought Blücher nearer. With all the impetuosity of his soul, the old man was urging his soldiers forward over the horrible roads.

"Boys," he said in his rough, homely way to some bitterly complaining artillerists stalled in the mud, "I promised. You would not have me break my word, would you?"

Grouchy meanwhile had at last determined that the Prussians had gone the other way. He had learned that they were at Wavre and he had swung about and was coming north. Of course, he should have marched toward the sound of the cannon—generally the safest guide for a soldier!—but, at any rate, he was trying to get into touch with the enemy. No one can question his personal courage or his loyalty to his cause.

Napoleon, when he should have been on the alert, was very drowsy and dull that day at Waterloo. He had shown himself a miracle of physical strength and endurance in that wonderful four days of campaigning and fighting, but the soldiers passing by the farmhouse of La Belle Alliance—singular name which referred so prophetically to the enemy—sometimes saw him sitting on a chair by a table outside the house, his feet resting on a bundle of straw to keep them from the wet ground, nodding, asleep! And no wonder. It is doubtful if he had enjoyed as much as eight hours of sleep since he crossed the Sambre, and those not consecutive! Still, if ever he should have kept awake, that eighteenth of June was the day of days!

So far as one can discern his intention, his battle plan had been to feint at Hougomont on the right center, cause the Duke of Wellington to weaken his line to support the château, and then to break through the left center and crush him by one of those massed attacks under artillery fire for which he had become famous. The line once broken, the end, of course, would be more or less certain.

The difference in the temperaments of the two great Captains was well illustrated before the battle was joined. The Duke mainly concealed his men behind the ridge. All that the French saw when they came on the field were guns, officers and a few men. The English-Belgian army was making no parade. What the British and Flemish saw was very different. The Emperor displayed his full hand. The French, who appeared not to have been disorganized at all by the hard fighting at Ligny and Quatre Bras, came into view in most splendid style; bands playing, drums rolling, swords waving, bayonets shining even in the dull air of the wretched morning. They came on the field in solid columns, deployed and took their positions, out of cannon-shot range, of course, in the most deliberate manner. The uniforms of the army were brand-new, and it was the fashion to fight in one's best in those days. They presented a magnificent spectacle.

Presently the Duke, his staff, the gunners and the others who were on the top of the ridge and watching, saw a body of horsemen gallop rapidly along the French lines. One gray-coated figure riding a white horse was in advance of the rest. The cheers, the almost delirious shouts and cries, told the watchers that it was the Emperor. It was his last grand review, his last moment of triumph.

It was after one o'clock before the actual battle began. More books have been written about that battle than any other that was ever fought. One is tempted to say, almost than all others that were ever fought. And the closest reasoners arrive at different conclusions and disagree as to many vital and important details. The Duke of Wellington himself left two accounts, one in his dispatches and one in notes written long afterward, which were irreconcilable, but some things are certain, upon some things all historians are agreed.