Adopting, therefore, Napoleon’s own method of calculation, we may say, that the Duke had an army nominally amounting to about 68,000 men, really equal to something less than 50,000.
And now we turn to the other side of the account. Here we must, to be safe, accept only French testimony. If we draw together all the credible statements of this class that we can find, we shall probably be able to arrive at a just conclusion.
There was published at Paris, in 1815, a volume by an officer attached to the staff, which may be considered to be “the French account,” at the time and in detail, of this battle. In this volume, the whole army which entered Belgium is stated to have been “150,000 effective men of whom about 30,000 were cavalry.” It seems improbable that a staff-officer should have greatly erred, or that a Frenchman should have exaggerated the strength of the beaten army. Reckoning, therefore, the gross number to have been 150,000; and deducting 15,000 for losses at Ligny, and at Quatre Bras, we may estimate the force detached under Grouchy on the 17th, at about 38 or 40,000 men, and the strength of the French army at Waterloo at something more than 90,000.
And this estimate precisely agrees with Napoleon’s own statement, written at Paris three days after the battle. In this bulletin he says, “We estimated the force of the English army at 80,000 men. We supposed that a Prussian corps which might be in line toward the right might be 15,000 men. The enemy’s force, then, was upwards of 90,000 men; ours less numerous.”
He is here speaking of the morning. But there was not a Prussian soldier in the field until five o’clock in the afternoon; and this Napoleon well knew. Why, then, does he here introduce a “supposed” Prussian corps? Clearly, in order to bring up the allied force to 95,000 men, so that he might be able to add, “Ours, less numerous.” He had every possible motive, as a beaten General, striving to make the best of his case,—for saying, if he had dared,—“The enemy was more than 90,000 strong, but we had not quite 70,000.” But he could not venture, in the face of abundant evidence then existing, to say that his army was less than 80,000, the force he assigns to the English. He therefore, by an “ingenious device,” augments the allied force to 95,000; and then he can venture to assert that his own army was inferior in numbers. There is clearly implied in this statement an admission that his own force was not greatly below 95,000.
Yet when Ney and others were dead, and the records, in all probability, scattered or destroyed, the same man who wrote this bulletin, concocted at St. Helena, four or five years after, a widely-different account. In his “Book ix,” p. 128, he puts forth an elaborate table, purporting to show, that the whole force of the French army at Waterloo was only 68,650 men! And such has been the imposing effect of this table, that many English writers, while they could detect the falsehood of other statements in that same volume, still accepted, as an undeniable fact, the conclusion, that Napoleon’s army at Waterloo consisted of only 68,650 men! Yet only common prudence, and the use of a little careful scrutiny, was needed, to prove that these same elaborate tables in “Book ix” were nothing more than what is usually called, in railway language, “a cooked account.”
The proof of this shall be given from French writers alone. And, first, let “Book ix” refute itself, by its own self contradictions. At page 71, it gives the second corps, 19,800 infantry; while at p. 95-97, it states the same infantry, at the same moment, at 21,000. At page 128 it gives the first corps 16,500 infantry, and at table F it calls the same infantry, 17,600. At page 128 the cavalry of the Guard and the third and fourth corps of cavalry are stated at 10,000; while at pp. 158 and 173 they are twice called 12,000. At p. 35 we are told that “the regiments generally had but two battalions; each battalion consisting of 600 men, present and under arms.” Yet in the principal table, F, the regiments are always estimated at either 1000 or 1100 men, the battalions at 500 or 550. Thus it is abundantly clear, even from the pages of “Book ix” itself, that its writer is one who “plays at fast and loose with figures.”
But other refutations, from purely French sources, are abundant. We have seen that Napoleon states, in “Book ix,” p. 35, that his battalions had 600 men; but that he quietly puts them down in table F, as being only 500 or 550.
Now in his portfolio, captured at Charleroi, and published at Brussels, there was one report, made by an officer named De Launoy, and dated “Montalimert, June 4th,” which said, “The first battalion, 720 strong, marched on the 1st of June.” And, in the Moniteur of May 28th, published at Paris under Napoleon’s own authority, there was given a letter dated “Lille, May 26th,” which says, “Our garrison is entirely composed of battalions of select troops, which successively arrive: the 20th arrived yesterday; almost all consist of 720 men; we are expecting two battalions of veterans.” Now these troops formed part of the first corps, as stated in “Book ix,” p. 31; and in table F they are all set down as having in each battalion, 550 men!
It was of this first corps that Marshal Ney spoke in his letter of June 26th, 1815, in which he complained of having it taken away from him on the 16th. He describes it as having consisted of “between 25,000 and 30,000 men.” He must have had the actual returns in his pocket when he wrote this. Now if the battalions generally consisted of 720 men, as the Moniteur of May 28th had told us, then its thirty-two battalions would have contained 23,040; which added to 1400 cavalry, and 1564 artillery men, would be accurately described as “between 25,000 and 30,000 men.” But Napoleon, in his statement of the force at Waterloo, sets down the infantry of this corps as only 16,500; thus contradicting at once the statement of the Moniteur, the report found in his own portfolio, and the declaration of the Marshal who commanded that corps!