3. But as in his plans there were these two errors, so in actual execution we meet with three egregious faults. Having found Wellington with his weak army apart from Blucher, why did he allow several hours to elapse before he seized the opportunity for which he had been hoping? He speaks of the softened state of the ground after several hours’ rain. But, as we have seen, when Grouchy advances the same excuse for inaction at Wavre, he styles it “ridiculous!” and who can say that the movements which he actually made at eleven o’clock, could not have been made at ten, or even at nine o’clock? Meanwhile, although Napoleon was waiting, the Prussians were marching. They found the task difficult, while he deemed it impossible. In earlier days he would have replied that “there was no such word in his vocabulary.”
4. Again, to what strange hallucination was it owing, that, all through the day, attacks which might have been made simultaneously were only discharged in succession? Thus, at three or four o’clock, he sorely tried the nerve and pluck of the English infantry by pouring in upon them “twelve thousand select horse.” It took them three hours to kill or drive away these formidable intruders. And then, when the French cavalry had been destroyed, Napoleon next attacked the English line with six or eight thousand of his Imperial Guard. But what prevented his moving this formidable column up the heights of Mont St. Jean, while the cuirassiers were already in possession of the plateau? They had seized or silenced the English artillery; they had compelled the infantry to throw themselves into squares. If a mass of the finest infantry in France had then been thrown upon the British centre, how fearful would have been the trial? But Napoleon still delayed. He sent on his cavalry, unsupported by any infantry; and then, when the cavalry had been “massacred,” he sent on a column of infantry, unsupported by any cavalry. Will the greatest admirer of his genius hesitate to admit that his practical generalship, his excellence as a leader in battle, was not conspicuous at Waterloo? Yet, wherefore was he less vigorous, less audacious at Waterloo, than at Austerlitz or Jena? He was still in the very prime of life. Must we suppose that the toils and troubles and disappointments of 1812–1814 had prematurely worn out his mind; and that he was already, at only forty-six years of age, mentally decrepit?
5. The most singular exhibition of defect in generalship, however, and of blindness to that defect, is seen in this,—that he could not lose a battle without utterly losing his army also!
The general who can bear a defeat well, and can carry off his army with only a moderate loss, is entitled to take a high rank amongst commanders. He who cannot do this is only a fair-weather general.
The Prussian commander was attacked on the 16th before his army was all assembled. He placed his men badly,—so badly that Wellington predicted their certain defeat. Yet, when that defeat fell upon him, he rallied his army at a distance of a quarter of a league, and was ready and eager to fight another battle on the second day after. It was this unconquerability which made Blucher one of the most formidable antagonists of his time.
But let us turn to Napoleon. He invites us to do this, by the pertinacity with which he assails Wellington on this very point. Again and again he brings the charge vehemently against him, that at Waterloo he had made no provision for a retreat. Thus, in Book ix, p. 124, he says:—
“He had in his rear the defiles of the forest of Soignes, so that, if beaten, retreat was impossible.”
And again, at p. 158—
“The enemy must have seen with affright how many difficulties the field of battle he had chosen was about to throw in the way of his retreat.”
And again, at p. 207—