The Campaign of Waterloo: A Military History / Third Edition

by John Codman Ropes

This question has been the subject of a great deal of controversy, as every student of the campaign knows to his cost. In our view, as we have just pointed out, it is not a matter of much consequence. Napoleon nowhere claims that the failure of Marshal Ney to carry out this order was a serious matter, although he does attribute his failure to carry it out to an undue prudence and an unnecessary caution, for which he censures him. Still, the matter has been so hotly contested, that it may be best to address ourselves to it briefly.

The statements in Gourgaud’s narrative[119] and the Memoirs,[120] that Napoleon ordered Ney, at their meeting near Gilly, to advance boldly to Quatre Bras with his two corps and to take up a position beyond it, with guards on the roads to Nivelles, Brussels and Namur, are exceedingly positive and explicit. These statements were written in 1818 and 1820. The only piece of strictly contemporaneous evidence that we have is the statement in the official bulletin of the army,[121] which was sent off from Charleroi on the evening of the 15th, that Ney’s headquarters were that evening at Quatre Bras,—and it certainly is a very strong confirmation of Gourgaud and the Memoirs.[122]

Again, the reason given in Gourgaud[123] and the Memoirs[124] as inducing Ney to halt this side of Quatre Bras, namely, that he deemed it unwise to advance further to the front than the main body had proceeded,—judging by the sound of the cannon, which came from the neighborhood of Fleurus and Gilly,—is a very natural[125] one. It is no doubt the reason he gave to the Emperor at their interview that very night at Charleroi.

Neither Ney nor Soult have left any statements in writing[126] about the matter. Nor is it claimed that Ney ever made any verbal statement on the subject. Thiers[127] asserts that Soult “frequently said * * * that on the afternoon of the fifteenth of June he heard Napoleon order Marshal Ney to proceed to Quatre Bras,” and he cites the memoirs of General Berthezène, who commanded one of Vandamme’s divisions, to the effect that Soult had told him that Napoleon gave these orders to Ney.

On the other hand we have a statement of Ney’s son, then Duke of Elchingen, that Colonel Heymès, Ney’s aide-de-camp, said in 1841 to him,[128] that the name of Quatre Bras was not pronounced in the conversation between the Emperor and Marshal Ney on the afternoon of the 15th. The Duke furthermore tells us[129] that in 1829, Marshal Soult told him and Colonel Heymès that the Emperor had no idea of having Quatre Bras occupied on the evening of the 15th, and gave no orders to that effect.

But how is it possible to reconcile this hearsay evidence, with the undeniable fact that the official bulletin states Ney’s headquarters on the evening of the 15th to be at Quatre Bras? It is surely much more likely that these reports by Marshal Ney’s son, of statements by Heymès and Soult, of their recollections, given respectively fourteen and twenty-six years after the occurrence, are defective in some way, than that the bulletin made up on the very evening should have contained a statement that Ney was at Quatre Bras when he had never been directed to go there. The contents of the bulletin must have been known to Soult, the chief-of-staff of the army; in fact, the bulletin itself must have been either actually composed by him or under his immediate direction; and it is simply incredible that he should have inserted a statement that Ney’s headquarters were, on the evening of the 15th, at Quatre Bras if he knew that the Emperor had no intention of having Quatre Bras occupied that evening, and had given no orders to that effect. It is to be noted also that Charras makes but an incidental mention of the bulletin,[130] which is the only bit of contemporaneous evidence that we have, and confines his discussion of the testimony to an examination of these reported sayings of Soult and Heymès. When we take also into account that, in his carefully drawn Narrative,[131] Heymès does not explicitly state that Quatre Bras was not mentioned, that there is nothing whatever from Soult over his own signature, that these sayings of Soult and Heymès rest on mere hearsay evidence, and that they were spoken, if spoken at all, many years after the campaign, it is evident that the statement in the bulletin is by far the best evidence that we have. The mention of Quatre Bras in the bulletin was made at the time,—before any controversy had arisen,—it was moreover a mere incidental mention, and cannot be supposed to have been intended to serve a purpose of any kind.

Where the evidence is so conflicting, it is impossible for many persons to make up their minds. As we remarked before, the matter is not one of any great importance in its bearing on the fortunes of the campaign. The question, whether Ney received at five in the afternoon of the 15th of June verbal orders to seize Quatre Bras that evening, is of consequence mainly with reference to the scope of Napoleon’s plan at that moment, and also with respect to his reproach of unwarrantable hesitation on the part of Marshal Ney. It seems to us, we frankly say, on the whole, almost certain that the order was given. At any rate, we can hardly doubt that, when the bulletin was sent off that evening to Paris, it was believed at the headquarters of the army that Marshal Ney was at Quatre Bras; we must admit this, unless we gratuitously invent an intention to deceive the public on a point of this kind. And as Ney could hardly have been supposed to occupy Quatre Bras without orders, he must have been supposed by those who drew up the bulletin,—that is, Soult, the chief-of-staff of the army, and the Emperor himself,—to have proceeded to Quatre Bras in conformity with the verbal order given him that afternoon.[132]

The fact that the subsequent written orders to proceed to Quatre Bras, issued on the morning of the 16th, make no mention either of this verbal order, or of Ney’s failure to comply with it, does not seem to us to tend in any way to show that the verbal order had not been given. There would not only be no need of referring to such a fact in a subsequent written order, but such a mention of it would be unusual and unmilitary.[133] What light, if any, the contents of the written orders throw on the question of the previous giving of a verbal order, is a matter that will be considered hereafter.