The Campaign of Waterloo: A Military History / Third Edition

by John Codman Ropes

These risks and chances, and others, Napoleon took, when he sent Grouchy off with his 33,000 men; and for what?

The fact probably is this; that Grouchy was originally ordered to follow up and observe the Prussians when every one supposed them to be retreating towards the Rhine, and especially to prevent or check any offensive return upon the French communications; and that when Napoleon, between 12 and 1, received information which awakened in his mind doubts of the correctness of this supposition, and even some apprehension that Blücher might be intending to unite with Wellington and fight another battle for the defence of Brussels, he adhered to his original disposition of Grouchy’s force, contenting himself with giving him an express warning of the danger to be apprehended.

The question then comes down to this:—

If the Prussians were going to separate themselves from the English, there was no great risk in making such a large detachment from the main army, and there might very possibly be occasions in which a force of 33,000 men might accomplish more than a smaller one. It may, however, well be questioned whether half the number would not have answered every end, and allowed the Emperor the use of 15,000 more men in his contest with Wellington, who certainly could have brought to the encounter 18,000 more men than he actually had on the field.

On the other hand, if the Prussians were intending to unite with the English, as Napoleon had some reason at any rate to believe, and if Grouchy did not rejoin the main army, or at least act in connection with it, or defeat the Prussians while marching to the field of battle, Napoleon was ruined. There was then the risk of his not doing either of these things,—whether through the Prussians having so many hours the start of him,—or through ignorance of the facts,—bad roads,—broken bridges,—unsound judgment,—it matters not,—and that risk was assumed by Napoleon when he detached him, without, as it seems to us, any compensating advantage.

Our conclusion, then, is this: if Napoleon had sent off Grouchy with his 33,000 men in the full belief that the Prussians had fallen back on Namur, he would be chargeable only with neglect in not having found out where they had gone; but his sending off this large force after he had so much reason to apprehend that the Prussians were intending to unite with the English that he expressly warned Grouchy to that effect, was to take a wholly unnecessary and very dangerous risk. It was to persist in carrying out a plan which new information had rendered entirely inapplicable to the circumstances as now understood to exist.

Had Napoleon, when he had come to entertain the apprehension that the Prussians might be intending to unite with the English, followed on the 17th the same general plan which he had adopted on the 15th, and, leaving, say, Pajol with the division of Teste, to find out where the Prussians had gone and what they were proposing to do, had taken the rest of the army with him, sending Grouchy at daybreak of the 18th with one, or perhaps both, of his corps to St. Lambert, with instructions to delay the Prussians in every way possible should they come from Wavre either to attack the main army or to reinforce Wellington, he would have taken no serious risk, and he would have had his whole army under his own eye and subject to his immediate control on the day of the great battle. In this case Grouchy would have performed at St. Lambert the task which Ney performed at Quatre Bras,—of preventing the intervention of the other allied army in the battle then in progress. There is not the least reason to suppose that this course would have affected the decision either of Wellington to accept battle or of Blücher to support him. But the chances in favor of Napoleon’s success in the battle would have been vastly greater than they actually were.

2. We have expressed the doubt whether, even if the Prussians were known to be separating from the English, it would not have been wiser if Napoleon had given Grouchy only one corps wherewith to pursue them. But while this may be true, we cannot agree with Sir James Shaw-Kennedy in his reasons for criticising the detachment of Grouchy’s force from the main army. He says:—[638]

“His (Napoleon’s) great difficulty—as he ought well to have known from the experience of a whole succession of disastrous campaigns to his armies in Spain—was the overthrow of the Anglo-Allied army; and against it he should have led his last man and horse, even had the risk been great in the highest degree; which, as has been seen,[639] it clearly was not. Had Napoleon attacked the Anglo-Allied army with his whole force, and succeeded in defeating it, there could be little question of his being able to defeat afterwards the Prussian army when separated from Wellington.”

And again:—[640]