A. Let us first consider this question so far as it affects the operations of the centre and right of the army,—that is, with reference to the non-occupation of Sombreffe on the 15th.
Rogniat’s criticism, that the Emperor ought to have aimed at seizing Sombreffe on the 15th, is especially interesting, as it was answered by Napoleon himself from St. Helena.
“He [Napoleon] ought to have carried his whole army the same day as far as Fleurus, by a forced march of eight to ten leagues, and to have pushed his advance guard as far as Sombreffe; but, instead of hastening to arrive in the midst of his enemies, he stopped at Charleroi, whether because he was retarded by the bad weather or for other motives.”[102]
To this Napoleon replied:—[103]
“The Emperor’s intention was that his advance guard should occupy Fleurus,[104] keeping [the bulk of] his troops concealed behind the wood near this city;[105] he took good care not to let his army be seen, and, above all, not to occupy Sombreffe.[106] This [the occupation of Sombreffe] would of itself have caused the failure of all his manœuvres; for then Marshal Blücher would have been obliged to make Wavre the place for the concentration of his army, the battle of Ligny would not have taken place, and the Prussian army would not have been obliged to give battle [as it did] in its then not fully concentrated condition, and not supported by the English army.”
In his “Réponse aux Notes critiques de Napoléon,”[107] Rogniat criticises this observation as follows:—
“In occupying Sombreffe on the 15th, Napoleon would have won, without striking a blow, the immense result of isolating the two opposing armies in order to fight them separately, a result which the victory of Ligny, so dearly purchased, did not obtain for him.”[108]
While Rogniat thus condemns Napoleon for not having proposed to himself to occupy Sombreffe on the 15th, Charras[109] summarily dismisses Napoleon’s statement just quoted, as unworthy of serious attention. Not to have aimed at occupying Sombreffe on the 15th, he says, would have been contrary to “the very principles of his strategy.” He accordingly finds that in this respect Napoleon had failed on the evening of the 15th to attain his objective point.
Jomini’s view[110] of Napoleon’s plan, as we have seen above, coincides with that of Charras.[111]
In respect to these criticisms, we observe in the first place that these writers have adduced no sufficient reason for distrusting Napoleon’s own account of his plan and intentions. That account is perfectly clear and consistent throughout. He wanted, he tells us, to fight at the outset a decisive battle with one of the allied armies. He looked for great results from such a battle. He expected, he says, that the Prussians would be promptly concentrated, and would offer battle near Fleurus,—to the south of Sombreffe; and that owing to the unreadiness of the Anglo-allied army, and his proposed seizure of Quatre Bras on the first day of the campaign, he would be able to fight the Prussians, isolated, for the time being, from the English.[112] While he claims to have ordered the occupation of Quatre Bras on the first day, he nowhere says that he proposed to occupy Sombreffe on the first day. When he is criticised for not having attempted this, he maintains that he was right. He considered, he says, that Blücher’s object in fighting a battle at this stage in the campaign must be the maintenance of his communications with his allies;[113] the Prussians would, therefore, fight, if they fought at all, to the south of the Namur-Quatre-Bras turnpike, somewhere to the south of Sombreffe. And, as he expected great and perhaps decisive results[114] from such a battle, he contented himself on the 15th of June with threatening with his centre and right this turnpike, and purposely abstained from occupying Sombreffe. For if Blücher should find Sombreffe occupied and his line of communications with Wellington actually in the enemy’s hands, it was probable, so Napoleon thought, that he would retire to some point further north, where a union of the two armies could easily be effected, and so this opportunity of fighting the Prussians alone and isolated from the English would be lost.