Perhaps no other battlefield of the historic past has been more frequently described or rendered more vivid to mental vision than the field of Waterloo. Victor Hugo’s masterly portrayal in Les Miserables is doubtless the best; but Sir Walter Scott, Lord Byron, Captain Siborne, and Napoleonic writers ad infinitum have added richness of tonal qualities to the monochrome.
Those two long lines of undulating hills running nearly parallel, with a valley half a mile in width between; the allied army under Wellington on the northern ridge, the devoted French forces on the southern; the artillery of each army firing incessantly upon the other over the heads of the combatants in the valley and on the lower slope; the forest of Soignies darkly waving in the rear of Wellington’s forces; the village and ravine at the right warding off a possible flank movement; the two hamlets La Haye and Papillote at the left, strongly garrisoned of course and then, too, expectant of Blücher’s approach from Wavre; Hougoumont, an old stone chateau surrounded by a copse of beech trees, half way down the slope nearly in front of the British right center—strongly fortified, most important, strategic; Hougoumont—to be taken and retaken seven times during that day of destiny and held at last in flaming ruins by the British; the farm house La Haie Sainte somewhat down from the British left center, heavily garrisoned, expectant of what came; the French forces in superb battle array on the Charleroi crest of the hill, with an open way to France behind them and the hamlet La Belle Alliance, Napoleon’s headquarters, and their idol Napoleon—before: why every school-boy knows the plan of this most famous battlefield!
Had Napoleon’s star not been fatally descendant he must have won at Waterloo. His forces, seventy-two thousand, were numerically stronger than the opposing forces seventy-one thousand eight hundred and five, under Wellington; then, too, his army was a unit and unanimously devoted to him, whereas Wellington’s army was a mixup of Belgians, Dutch, Nassauers, Brunswickers, Hanoverians, with only twenty-four thousand English troops upon whom he could implicitly rely. Wellington knew and Napoleon knew that the Belgian and Netherland forces would far rather be fighting under the French eagles than against them. And in truth these regiments did disgracefully run away from before the advancing French columns in the crisis of the strife, and the demoralizing effect of their flight was counteracted only by the superhuman efforts and life-sacrificing devotedness of England’s two brave heroes Picton and Ponsonby.
It is true that Wellington confidently awaited a strong Prussian reinforcement, eighty thousand—and Blücher. It is equally true that owing to heavy rainfall and consequently almost impassable roads between Wavre and Waterloo, Blücher who was eagerly looked for at 3 p. m. did not reach the field until 7 p. m. and at that time the battle was practically won by the British.
Had Napoleon’s pristine favor been accorded him—the magic favor of fate that had made possible Areola, Rivoli, Jena, Ulmn, Wagram, Austerlitz—he would have defeated Wellington at Waterloo, advanced upon the advancing Prussians and completely routed them; and then he would have hastened to crush separately and before a junction could be effected the various contingencies of the Coalition even then converging upon him by way of the Rhine, the Alps, and the Pyrenees. But fate forsook her favorite at Waterloo. Olympian Zeus, jealous of Promethean man, has decreed that if once, then certainly not twice, shall a mortal transcend the lot of mortals.
It rained all night long that memorable seventeenth of June, the night before the battle. Of those forces that thus drearily bivouacked upon the opposing hills, some fifty thousand men thus passed their last night upon earth. Nature wept for them. The skies dissolved in tears at the mad folly of mortals. Rain, inconsolable rain, fell from the early afternoon of the seventeenth, thro’ all the night, and sobbingly drizzled late on the morning of the eighteenth as the armies went out to battle.
That dreary last night of life for fifty thousand men—what did it mean to them! Did any flint-glitterings, struck out of sullen gloom, zigzag thro’ the darkness of their minds? Why should they fight? Why should they kill and be killed on the morrow? Wellington, Napoleon—what were they to the common soldier; he would be free, he would go to his home, he would live his life as God gave it to him to live. Desert on the eve of battle! Ah, no! Yet, why not?
“So free we seem, so fettered fast we are.” Honor bound tonight and death bound tomorrow night! Who of those sleeping in yonder tents, under the rain, shall fall tomorrow? Whom shall he kill? Who may kill—him?
“Some one has blundered.”
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