The Campaign of Waterloo: A Military History / Third Edition

by John Codman Ropes

While these operations were going on in front, Napoleon was personally superintending the desperate and gallant fight made by the two divisions of the 6th Corps under Lobau against Bülow’s advance. The two leading divisions of the IVth Corps, which moved out about 4.30 P.M., were easily checked at first; but they rallied, and were reinforced by the rest of the corps; and, between 5 and 6 P.M., Lobau was driven back, and Planchenoit itself was threatened. The Emperor was obliged to put in the Young Guard, which, with three batteries, occupied Planchenoit, while the 6th Corps extended on its left so as to connect with the right of the 1st Corps. But the Prussians drove the Young Guard out of the village; and the Emperor had to order in three battalions of the Old and Middle Guard with two batteries. These troops, gallantly supported by the Young Guard, retook the town, and the Prussians fell back some distance. Napoleon then seems to have thought that the attack of the Prussians was exhausted. It was nearly seven o’clock.[717] In this action the fighting on both sides was very obstinate. The French troops were superior in point of experience to those of Bülow,—those of the 6th Corps were led by a very able officer, Lobau, and the regiments of the Guard were the élite of the army. Hence, though much inferior in numbers, they obtained this success, which under other circumstances, would have been decisive. But in this case their enemies had reinforcements at hand. Pirch I., at the head of the IId Corps, was only two miles in rear.

This, however, Napoleon of course could not know. Hence, thinking that the danger from the Prussians was practically over, he hastened towards the front, where for the last hour, ever since the conclusion of the cavalry attacks, the battle had languished. It had in fact consisted during this period only of a general skirmish firing along the centre of the English position to the west of the Brussels pike, the result of which, however, was, undoubtedly, to weaken perceptibly the strength and moral of the allied troops. This part of the English line was in fact in a bad way at this period of the battle.[718] As Sir James Shaw-Kennedy, who was on this part of the line on the staff of the 3d division, says:—[719]

“La Haye Sainte was in the hands of the enemy; also the knoll on the opposite side of the road; also the garden and ground on the Anglo-Allied side of it; Ompteda’s brigade was nearly annihilated, and Kielmansegge’s so thinned, that those two brigades could not hold their position. That part of the field of battle, therefore, which was between Halkett’s[720] left and Kempt’s[721] right, was unprotected; and being the very centre of the Duke’s line of battle, was consequently that point, above all others, which the enemy wished to gain. The danger was imminent; and at no other period of the action was the result so precarious as at this moment. Most fortunately Napoleon did not support the advantage his troops had gained at this point by bringing forward his reserve; proving that he did not exert that activity and personal energy in superintending and conforming to the progress of the action, which he ought to have done.”

As to this last observation, we have just seen how the Emperor was employed during this critical period of the action. He was in truth fighting another battle with inferior forces against the Prussians, and this, too, at a distance of a mile and a half from the English line of battle.[722] The criticism on Napoleon is therefore unfounded; it is due simply to the fact that his occupation during this period of the battle was not borne in mind by General Shaw-Kennedy. But the fact remains; if there had been no other battle to fight,—no desperate action at Planchenoit, requiring the presence and personal direction of the Emperor,—if the attack upon the allied lines could have been made under the eye and direct orders of Napoleon himself,—in the opinion of Kennedy, whose account of the battle is one of the best we have, it would have gone hard with Wellington’s army. Add to this, that if there had been no other battle to fight, the Emperor could have brought 16,000 fresh men to bear upon this exhausted force of Wellington’s. It should be added, also, that the English heavy cavalry of Somerset and Ponsonby, which had been well nigh exhausted by their charges at the beginning of the action, and had suffered more or less during the afternoon, were not able to render efficient service at the close of the day.

Napoleon, as we have seen, as soon as he had, as he supposed, definitely repulsed the Prussians in the neighborhood of Planchenoit, hastened to the front, where he must have arrived somewhere about seven o’clock. His absence from the field during this time was, as we have seen, not due to any fault or neglect of his, but nevertheless it was most unfortunate for the success of his army.[723] Marshal Ney had exhausted, as he supposed,[724] all the resources available to him. Over the Imperial Guard he had no authority; and the only infantry in the army that had not been put in belonged to the Guard. Meanwhile Wellington had exerted himself to the utmost to restore at least a semblance of strength to his line of battle west of the turnpike; he had rallied the men of Alten’s division, who had been shaken by the fall of that officer, who was severely wounded; he had brought forward some Brunswick troops; he had ordered Chassé’s (3d) Dutch-Belgian division from its position near Merbe Braine to a position in rear of the guards; he had brought over to the centre the light cavalry brigades of Vivian and Vandeleur from the extreme left. He had, in fact, done all that could be done, and he was now awaiting the next move of his antagonist with a coolness, vigilance and alertness which the discouraging aspects of the fight did not in the least affect. But his situation was a perilous one. His losses had been very great. His English troops were much exhausted; the patience and confidence of most of his foreign allies were nearly worn out; and on that part of his line lying to the west of the turnpike his artillery was mostly dismounted. He had, however, in reserve some of his best troops, and one or two batteries.

Maitland’s brigade of guards and Adam’s brigade of Clinton’s division had suffered but little, and were troops of the best quality.

Ney had acquainted the Emperor with the state of things in his front, and had been informed that, as soon as he could, the Emperor would sustain him with a part of the Guard. Meantime, he was to collect as much of the cavalry, and of Reille’s infantry, as he could, to support the attack which might soon be expected to be made by the Guard, supported by the infantry of the 1st Corps.

It was, as must be sufficiently apparent to the reader, out of the question at this period of the action for Napoleon to organize an attack against the English lines with the Imperial Guard, in any such fashion as that which he employed with such crushing effect on the day but one before, at Ligny. To begin with, the cavalry of the Guard, both the light and the heavy, had been shattered, and virtually ruined for the time being, by their repeated, ineffectual and costly efforts to carry the plateau during the previous few hours. Then, but a fraction of the infantry and artillery of the Guard was disposable. The Young Guard, consisting of eight battalions, organized in four regiments, with twenty-four guns, was in Planchenoit,[725] where, also, was one of the eight battalions of the Old Guard (grenadiers), two battalions of the Middle Guard (chasseurs), and two batteries.[726] Two more battalions[727] of the Old Guard and one battery were on the road which, leading from Planchenoit to the Charleroi pike, comes out near the Maison du Roi, and one battalion of the Middle Guard was at the farm of Chantelet, in the neighborhood of the Caillou house, where were the headquarters-baggage and trains. As each of the divisions of the Guard consisted of eight battalions, there were therefore but ten battalions left which could be employed against the English.[728] But, in addition to these detachments, for which we have the authority of Charras, we learn from Damitz,[729] who states with more minuteness than any other author the disposition made of the Imperial Guard, that one battalion of grenadiers and one of chasseurs were brought forward from Rossomme and stationed near La Belle Alliance. This left but eight battalions disposable for the projected attack.