When Blücher reached Ligny, with eighty thousand men, Napoleon met him, and a desperate battle ensued in which the Prussian general suffered terrible loss, but, still undefeated, retreated in good order on Wavre, so that he might join Wellington at Waterloo, according to a previous arrangement which he had made with Wellington. Napoleon thought that the Prussians were retreating on the Rhine, and detached thirty-three thousand men under Grouchy to hang on their rear. Grouchy missed the Prussians, and his troops took no part in the great battle.
On the same day Ney, with twenty thousand men, appeared before Quatre Bras, where only ten thousand British and an equal force of Belgians had been able to assemble. The Belgians fled before the French cavalry, but the British infantry kept up a dogged resistance while corps after corps was hurried up. At the close of the day Ney saw that he was outnumbered, and withdrew, while Wellington retreated to the line of heights upon which we are now gazing.
Napoleon now pushed on to measure swords with Wellington in person for the first time. On Sunday morning, the 18th of June, the two armies faced each other. As Napoleon looked across the valley and saw the British redcoats on the rising ground opposite, he cried, “I have them.” He had good reason to believe that he would win. His forces numbered between seventy and eighty thousand men, and he was superior both in guns and in cavalry to his foes. Wellington had about sixty-seven thousand men; but his British troops were mainly raw recruits, and the rest of his forces were very mixed, and included the Belgians who had already fled before the French cavalry.
The preceding night had been wet and stormy, and when morning broke Napoleon considered the ground too heavy for cavalry. He therefore delayed the opening of the battle until between eleven and twelve in the forenoon. This delay was fatal. Time was most important to both commanders. Napoleon knew well that he must beat Wellington before Blücher could join him; Wellington, on the other hand, was determined to hold his ground to the last man, so as to give the Prussians time to come up in force and settle the issue of the day.
The battle began with a fierce attack on Hougoumont; but it was held right manfully by the British Guards, and though the French won the gardens and orchards, they could not drive the defenders from the buildings. Then Napoleon sent his heavy columns against the British left, but they were utterly routed. His third effort was against the British centre, which he tried to break by heavy artillery fire and furious cavalry charges.
The British formed square, and, though assailed for five hours, held fast. They seemed, said an onlooker, “rooted” to the earth. Every attempt to pierce them failed, until even the British privates saw the uselessness of the attempt, and cried, as Napoleon’s squadrons charged them, “Here come those fools again.” Every attempt to take the ridge was repulsed with terrible slaughter. At last, in the thick of the fighting, the cannon of the advancing Prussians were heard, and Napoleon made one last desperate effort to break the British line.
La Haye Sainte was captured about six in the evening, and Napoleon’s cannon were now so near that Wellington’s centre was in dire danger. Blücher was rapidly drawing near, and already he was threatening the French right and rear. Like a desperate gambler, Napoleon now staked all on a charge of the Old Guard. A little after seven he gave the word, and six thousand of his veterans, led by Marshal Ney, were hurled at the long-tried British. As the French rushed up the slope, the British Guards, who had been lying down behind the top of the ridge, sprang to their feet and poured a volley into the enemy. Their columns wavered, and our soldiers charged with the bayonet, hurling the enemy down the hill in utter confusion. Soon after eight o’clock the Prussians made their appearance on the scene, and speedily Napoleon found himself assailed on his flank by forty thousand men.
At this juncture, “on the ridge, near the Guards, his figure standing out amidst the smoke against the bright north-eastern sky, Wellington was seen to raise his hat with a noble gesture—the signal for the wasted line of heroes to sweep like a dark wave from their covered positions, and roll out their lines and columns over the plains. With a pealing cheer the whole line advanced just as the sun was sinking.” In vain the French Guards rallied, only to be swept away by the fierce British charges. When darkness fell, the whole French army was in flight. The Prussians went in hot pursuit, and before long the proud French army of the morning was almost annihilated. Wellington and Blücher had lost twenty-two thousand men. The French loss will never be known.
The battle was decisive; the long struggle was at an end; and Napoleon’s star had set. He put spurs to his horse, and rode hard through the midsummer night to escape capture. Fearing death at the hands of the Prussians, he surrendered himself to the captain of the British man-of-war Bellerophon. The British Government banished him to the lonely isle of St. Helena, where he languished in captivity until his death in 1821.
But what of the victor of Waterloo—