As for the statement in the “Disposition” that Major General Dörnberg’s brigade and the Cumberland Hussars were “beyond Waterloo” at 7 A.M., it certainly was far from correct. Dörnberg had been directed by an order sent off from Brussels between 5 and 7 P.M. of the 15th to retire his brigade from the neighborhood of Mons to Vilvorde, a town seven miles north of Brussels. He could not have reached Vilvorde, which is a distance of forty-five miles, until late in the afternoon.
As for the “remainder of the cavalry,” which was stationed in and near Ninove, it not only was not at Braine-le-Comte at 7 A.M., as stated in the “Disposition,” but it did not receive the first order,—sent off from Brussels about 10 o’clock in the evening of the 15th,—until shortly before six in the morning.[243] It was therefore only an hour’s march from Ninove on its way to Enghien at seven o’clock. It did not reach the field till “the evening was far advanced and the conflict had ceased.”[244]
Nor could Kruse’s Nassau brigade have passed Waterloo at 7 A.M., as stated in the “Disposition,” en route for Genappe, for it did not arrive at Quatre Bras in season to take part in the action.
We have been at some pains to lay the facts in regard to this “Disposition” before the reader, because it certainly is the most misleading statement ever drawn up “for the information” of a commanding general. No thought seems to have been given either to the time at which the orders could be received, or to the time required to carry them out. An officer of sufficient experience in war to occupy the post of chief-of-staff to the Duke of Wellington ought certainly to have been quite competent to give to his commanding officer an estimate of the probable positions at any given time of the various divisions of the army, on which it would be safe to rely.[245]
2. Whether, if such an estimate had been made, Wellington would have stayed at Quatre Bras, may be a question, but he probably would have risked it, as he evidently did not suppose the French to be in great force in his front, and it was obviously of prime importance to retain his communications with Blücher, if possible.
3. Finally, it must be said that the Duke of Wellington was not well served by his subordinates on the day of the 15th in respect to the transmission to him of information from the front.[246] His first news of the attack on the Prussian lines near Thuin did not arrive till 3 P.M., although the French movement must have been pronounced some ten or eleven hours before that hour. Charleroi was occupied by the main French column at noon, but all the Duke had heard at 10 P.M. simply warranted him in writing that the enemy “appeared to menace Charleroi.” Brussels is only 35 or 36 miles from Charleroi; and by a good despatch system news of such importance ought to have been transmitted in four hours. If that had been done,—if Wellington had known at four or five o’clock in the afternoon positively that the French had occupied Charleroi in force, and if his information from Mons had arrived at the same time, as certainly ought to have been the case,—there is every reason to suppose that he would at once have issued orders for the concentration of the army at Quatre Bras. The orders which he did issue to this effect were not sent out, as we have seen, till the early morning hours of the 16th, some nine or ten hours later than those which we may fairly suppose he would have issued, had information of the French movements been promptly transmitted to him. But how far the commander-in-chief is himself responsible for such delays as this is, of course, a question. It is and must be for him to devise efficient methods, and to put them to the test often enough beforehand to feel justified in relying on them in a sudden emergency. And the situation in which the Duke of Wellington was in the month of June, 1815, certainly would seem to have called for the utmost watchfulness and for the taking of every precaution. It is impossible not to conclude that he failed in these respects.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE MORNING OF THE SIXTEENTH OF JUNE: NEY.
Marshal Ney, as we have seen,[247] rode back from the front at Frasnes to report to the Emperor at Charleroi, where he arrived at midnight of the 15th. He informed the Emperor, so Colonel Heymès says,[248]