BATTLE OF WATERLOO. Page 434.
In order to escape from the danger which might result from too great an inferiority of numbers, Napoleon strove, from the commencement of the campaign, to separate the English from the Prussians, and manœuvred actively to throw himself between them. His plan was strikingly successful on the 16th at the battle of Ligny; Blucher, being attacked alone, was completely beaten, and left twenty-five thousand men on the field of battle. But this enormous loss did not materially enfeeble an army which had such masses of soldiers in line, and behind, still more numerous reserves. In the position in which the Emperor found himself, he required a more decisive advantage, a victory which should annihilate the army of Blucher, and allow him to fall upon Wellington next, in order to crush him in his turn. This successive defeat of the English and Prussians had been most skilfully prepared by the orders and instructions he dispatched on all sides. But, we cannot too often repeat it, his destiny was accomplished; and fatal misunderstandings deceived the calculations of his genius. Moreover, he had himself a presentiment that some unforeseen incident would disarrange his combinations, and that fortune had more disasters in store for him. “It is certain that in these circumstances,” he said to his suite, “I had no longer in myself that definitive feeling; there was nothing of former confidence.” His presentiments were too soon realized.
At daybreak on the 17th, Grouchy, at the head of thirty-four thousand men, was dispatched in pursuit of the enemy, who had fled in two columns by way of Tilly and Gembloux, with orders to proceed to Wavres. About seven in the morning, the Emperor galloped forward with Count Lobau’s cavalry towards Quatre-Bras, which place he expected to find in possession of Ney; the latter, however, had not been able to retrieve his error of the 16th, and remained facing the position of the British, although now occupied only by their rear-guard, which made off as soon as its commander perceived the approach of Lobau’s horsemen. Pursuit was immediately given, Napoleon hoping that he might yet be able to overtake and defeat the English. In consequence of the state of the roads, from the heavy rains, it was near four o’clock before the retreating column reached the plain of Waterloo, and nearly seven before the troops were in position on the rising ground in front of Mount St. Jean.
That night the English bivouacked on the field they were to maintain in the battle of the morrow. Between six and seven, Napoleon reached Planchenois; and perceiving the enemy established in position, fixed his head-quarters at the farm of Cailloux, and posted his followers on the heights around La Belle Alliance. The reinforcements received by the Duke of Wellington during the 16th and 17th, had raised his army to seventy-five thousand men, who were supported by two hundred and fifty pieces of cannon. Napoleon’s forces have been estimated at seventy thousand men, and about two hundred and forty pieces of cannon; it must, however, be borne in mind, that the Duke could not depend on the Belgian, Nassau, and Hanoverian troops.
“Never,” says Alison, “was a more melancholy night passed by soldiers than that which followed the halt of the two armies in their respective positions on the night of the 17th of June, 1815.
“The whole of that day had been wet and cloudy; but towards evening the rain fell in torrents, insomuch that, in traversing the road from Quartre-Bras to Waterloo, the soldiers were often ankle deep in water. When the troops arrived at their ground, the passage of the artillery, horse, and wagons over the drenched surface had so completely cut it up, that it was almost every where reduced to a state of mud, interspersed in every hollow with large pools of water. Cheerless and dripping as was the condition of the soldiers, who had to lie down for the night in such a situation, it was preferable to that of those battalions who were stationed in the rye-fields, where the grain was for the most part three or four feet high, and soaking wet from top to bottom. The ground occupied by the French soldiers was not less drenched and uncomfortable. But how melancholy soever may have been their physical situation, not one feeling of despondency pervaded the breasts either of the British or French soldiers. Such was the interest of the moment, the magnitude of the stake at issue, and the intensity of the feelings in either army, that the soldiers were almost insensible to physical suffering. Every man in both armies was aware that the retreat was stopped, and that a decisive battle would be fought on the following day. The great contest of two-and-twenty years’ duration was now to be brought to a final issue: retreat after disaster would be difficult, if not impossible, to the British army, through the narrow defile of the forest of Soignies: overthrow was ruin to the French. The two great commanders, who had severally overthrown every antagonist, were now for the first time to be brought into collision; the conqueror of Europe was to measure swords with the deliverer of Spain. Nor were sanguine hopes and the grounds of well-founded confidence wanting to the troops of either army. The French relied with reason on the extraordinary military talents of their chief, on his long and glorious career, and on the unbroken series of triumphs which had carried their standards to every capital in Europe. Nor had recent disasters weakened this undoubting trust, for the men who now stood side by side were almost all veterans tried in a hundred combats: the English prisons had restored the conquerors of Continental Europe to his standard, and for the first time since the Russian retreat, the soldiers of Austerlitz and Wagram were again assembled round his eagles. The British soldiers had not all the same mutual dependence from tried experience, for a large part of them had never seen a shot fired in battle. But they were not on that account the less confident. They relied on the talent and firmness of their chief, who they knew, had never been conquered, and whose resources the veterans in their ranks told them would prove equal to any emergency. They looked back with animated pride to the unbroken career of victory which had attended the British arms since they first landed in Portugal, and anticipated the keystone to their arch of fame from the approaching conflict with Napoleon in person. They were sanguine as to the result; but, come what may, they were resolute not to be conquered. Never were two armies of such fame, under leaders of such renown, and animated by such heroic feelings, brought into contact in modern Europe, and never were interests so momentous at issue in the strife.”
The field of Waterloo, rendered immortal by the battle which was fought on the following day, extends about two miles in length from the old chateau, walled garden, and inclosures of Hougoumont on the right, to the extremity of the hedge of La Haye Sainte on the left. The great chaussee from Brussels to Charleroi runs through the centre of the position, which is situated somewhat less than three quarters of a mile to the south of the village of Waterloo, and three hundred yards in front of the farm-house of Mount St. Jean. This road, after passing through the centre of the British line, goes through La Belle Alliance and the hamlet of Rossomme, where Napoleon spent the night. The position occupied by the British army, followed very nearly the crest of a range of gentle eminences, cutting the high road at right angles, two hundred yards behind the farm-house of La Haye Sainte, which adjoins the highway, and formed the centre of the position. An unpaved country road ran along this great summit, forming nearly the line occupied by the British troops, and which proved of great use in the course of the battle. Their position had this great advantage, that the infantry could rest on the reverse of the crest of the ridge, in a situation in great measure screened from the fire of the French artillery; while their own guns on the crest swept the whole slope, or natural glacis, which descended to the valley in their front. The French army occupied a corresponding line of ridges, nearly parallel, on the opposite side of the valley, stretching on either side of the hamlet of La Belle Alliance. The summit of these ridges afforded a splendid position for the French artillery to fire upon the English guns; but their attacking columns, in descending the one hill and mounting the other, would of necessity he exposed to a very severe cannonade from the opposite batteries. The French army had an open country to retreat over in case of disaster; while the British, if defeated, would in all probability lose their whole artillery in the defiles of the forest of Soignies, although the intricacies of that wood afforded an admirable defensive position for a broken array of foot soldiers. The French right rested on the village of Planchenois, which is of considerable extent, and afforded a very strong defensive position to resist the Prussians, in case they should so far recover from the disaster of the preceding day as to be able to assume offensive operations and menace the extreme French right.
This is an admirable picture of the position and condition of the respective armies which were to decide the fate of Europe. It could not be improved.
The farm-house of Cailloux, in which the Emperor was busy with his maps and plans, and surrounded by his celebrated marshals, was surrounded with the meagre fires which the guard had kindled; but the rain frequently extinguished them and drove many of the veterans to seek the shelter of sheds.