Too bad Nap didn’t die with the Old Guard. At La Belle Alliance in the midst of that last square of his death-devoted friends and lovers Napoleon should have died. “The Guard dies, it does not surrender” replied that gallant band as they awaited the last terrible onslaughts of the victor-breathing troops and thus were they hewn down even to a man. And while this slaughter of his Guard was going on, Napoleon, urged and aided by Marshal Soult, was galloping away from the field. Too bad Napoleon didn’t die at Waterloo.
Quatre-Bras and Ligny.
Hoping to strike a decisive blow at the Prussian forces under Blücher before they could effect a junction with Wellington’s advancing army, Napoleon marched upon Ligny (June 16, 1815). He left Marshal Ney at Quatre-Bras with instructions to oppose the advance of the English army towards Ligny, and to fight if necessary. Ney, taking advantage of Wellington’s temporary absence, (he had ridden across to confer with Blücher and was then hastening back) resolved to attack the Anglo-Netherland forces under the Prince of Orange. He was repulsed; nevertheless he succeeded in checking the advance of the army towards Ligny.
In the meantime Napoleon had gained a victory over eighty thousand Prussian troops under Blücher, and they were even then in ignominious retreat towards Wavre. Napoleon ordered Marshall Grouchy to follow up the Prussians and to prevent them, at any cost, from joining forces with Wellington. Blücher had been wounded at Ligny and his army thoroughly demoralized: Grouchy, with an army of thirty thousand men, seemed more than a match for such an opponent; and doubtless, Napoleon, when hastening away from Ligny to oppose his more formidable foe, felt sure that the Prussians and Blücher were happily eliminated from the conflict confronting him.
But in that conference between Wellington and Blücher, it had been agreed upon that in case of defeat at Ligny, Blücher should retreat towards Wavre, and Wellington would withdraw towards Waterloo; so that they would still be in line of direct communication, and a union of forces might be effected. Wellington and Blücher trusted each other implicitly. “Whether after victory or defeat, come to me at Waterloo,” said Wellington. “I will come,” answered Blücher grimly and—he came.
The following day (June 17) a reinforcement under Bülow reached Blücher at Wavre; thus the loss sustained at Ligny was made good. At Grouchy’s approach the following morning (June 18) Blücher resolved to sacrifice deliberately a regiment of seventeen thousand men in order to detain Grouchy and keep him from returning to Napoleon, while he (Blücher) and Bülow with the bulk of the Prussian army should hasten to the aid of Wellington at Waterloo.
Not at Wavre but at Waterloo was destiny at work; this Blücher knew and he acted accordingly: this Grouchy did not know; and after completely routing with great slaughter the Prussians under Thielman, he kept up a meaningless pursuit following a will-o-the-wisp, whilst Napoleon, after sending to him messenger after messenger urging his aid, stood still at last and deadly pale under the gorgeous June sunset, and saw all his hopes and dreams go down in darkness as the ominous moving cloud emerging from the direction of Wavre and advancing, glitteringly advancing, proved to be Blücher—not Grouchy.
That deliberate leaving of seventeen thousand men as a bait in a trap for the victorious French forces thundering onward from Ligny is typical of the demon ingenuity of war. I have read somewhere that in darkest Africa the lure to the tiger trap is a kid securely fastened. Its fearful bleatings attract the night prowling brute: there is a spring: then awful shrieks arise growing shriller and shriller as the pangs of being devoured alive grow tenser and more terrible: by this time the cannibals are upon the scene and the trap is sprung.
Seventeen thousand soldiers as kid to the tiger lure—and men call themselves civilized! Could a woman do that? No; woman is higher in the moral scale than man. And the higher, thank God, is the kinder, tenderer, the more compassionate. Wars and all hellish machinations of cruelty must cease as the race, as a whole, advances into that higher. And advancement, even tho’ zigzag, shall ultimately attain to the higher and even to the highest. We dream so.