“As to the Saxons, your Highness will probably receive by this same opportunity the reports of their conduct yesterday evening: and as I have not enough of good troops to be able to detach any of them to watch a body of men disposed to mutiny, I think I shall do best in having nothing to do with such troops; and if they do not get out of the affair of last evening in an honourable manner, and consistently with the military character, in spite of my respect for the powers who have placed them at my disposal, I shall beg to decline taking them under my command.
“Wellington.”
Writing to sir Henry Hardinge, two days afterwards, the Duke observes that:
“The Saxon troops, it is very obvious, will be of no use to anybody during the war; and our object must be to prevent them from doing mischief.... I do not think fourteen thousand men will have much weight in deciding the fate of the war. But the most fatal of all measures will be to have fourteen thousand men in the field who cannot be trusted; and who will require nearly as many more good troops to observe them.”
These Saxon mutineers were, at the suggestion of the Duke, immediately sent off as prisoners, through Holland and Hanover, into Prussia, by the orders of marshal Blücher. But for this foresight and determined maintenance of military discipline, much greater mischief would have ensued amongst certain contingents of the allied troops, who, as it was, by their doubtful attachment to the cause in which they were enlisted and unsoldierlike behaviour in the field, provoked many a hearty curse on the day of Waterloo.
FOOTNOTES:
[81] Lieutenant-colonel the Hon. sir Alexander Gordon was sent, escorted by captain John Grey’s troop of the 10th hussars, to ascertain the real line of retreat of the Prussians, and to communicate with their head-quarters, as to cooperation with the British army, which was ordered to retire to the position in front of Waterloo.
[82] Most writers on Waterloo, particularly those from St.-Helena, appear totally ignorant of the existence of this road.
[83] Art of War, page 598.