Ollech, pp. 187-192; Delbrück's "Gneisenau," vol. ii., p. 205. I cannot credit the story told by Hardinge in 1837 to Earl Stanhope ("Conversations," p. 110), that, on the night of the 16th June, Gneisenau sought to dissuade Blücher from joining Wellington. Hardinge only had the story at second hand, and wrongly assigns it to Wavre. On the afternoon of the 17th Gneisenau ordered Ziethen to keep open communications with Wellington (Ollech, p. 170). The story that Wellington rode over to Wavre on the night of the 18th on his horse "Copenhagen" is of course a myth.
"Blackwood's Magazine," October, 1896; "Cornhill," January, 1901.
Beamish's "King's German Legion," vol. ii., p. 352. Sir Hussey Vivian asserts that the allied position was by no means strong; but General Kennedy, in his "Notes on Waterloo" (p. 68), pronounces it "good and well occupied." A year previously Wellington noted it as a good position. Sir Hudson Lowe then suggested that it should be fortified: "Query, in respect to the construction of a work at Mt. Jean, being the commanding point at the junction of two principal chaussées" ("Unpublished Memoirs").
Wellington has been censured by Clausewitz, Kennedy and Chesney for leaving so large a force at Hal. Perhaps he desired to protect the King of France at Ghent, though he was surely relieved of responsibility by his despatch of June 18th, 3 a.m., begging the Duc de Berri to retire with the King to Antwerp. It seems to me more likely that he was so confident of an early advance of the Prussians (see his other despatch of the same hour and Sir A. Frazer's statement—"Letters," p. 553—"We expected the Prussian co-operation early in the day") as to assume that Napoleon would stake all on an effort against his right; and in that case the Hal force would have crushed the French rear, though it was very far off.