It has been asserted[281] that this letter restricted Ney in the employment of the cavalry of the Count of Valmy; but it seems perfectly clear that all the above-mentioned bodies of troops are put explicitly at Ney’s disposal for the purpose of carrying out the orders which he would receive from the major-general; and that the dispositions of his command which Ney is requested to make, are to be made only after the accomplishment of the main object of the movement,—the seizure of the cross-roads.
But it is impossible that Ney could have had any doubt on the subject, inasmuch as there was a third formal order sent by Marshal Soult.
This order[282] informs Ney that an officer of lancers reports considerable bodies of the enemy near Quatre Bras. It then proceeds thus: “Unite the corps of the Counts Reille and d’Erlon and that of the Count of Valmy,[283] who has this instant started to join you; with these forces you ought to be able to beat and destroy any force of the enemy which you may meet.” It then says that it is not very likely that Blücher has sent any troops to Quatre Bras, so that Ney will have to do only with the troops coming from Brussels. It concludes by stating that Grouchy has made the movement on Sombreffe of which Ney had been informed in the former order.
Now these orders, and certainly the last one, are as plain as plain can be. They do not admit of two constructions. Yet Ney, still unwilling to surrender his own judgment, still deeming it injudicious to push his command so far in advance of the main army, orders[284] the first three divisions of the 1st Corps to take up a position at Frasnes. Frasnes, it must be remembered, is two miles and a half from Quatre Bras,—nearly two miles from the field of battle,—an hour’s march. Not only this, but he orders the two divisions of cavalry of the Count of Valmy to establish themselves at Frasnes and Liberchies,—the latter a village two miles southwest of Frasnes.
Consider this a moment. The principal formal order directed Ney, in so many words, to unite the two corps d’armeé, and the corps of cavalry, and to take position at Quatre Bras,—not at Frasnes. Even if the Emperor’s letter admitted of a construction at variance with this, so far as the cavalry of the Count of Valmy was concerned, the last order of Soult’s was unmistakable. It left no room for latitude of construction. All the troops were to be united in the effort to get possession of the intersection of the roads, and the cavalry of the Count of Valmy is explicitly included. Instead of carrying out this order, which was both plain and peremptory, and called for the simultaneous employment of his entire command, or, at any rate, for the employment of as much of his command as he could assemble, more than half the force which had been placed at Ney’s disposal was ordered by him to halt and “take position,” “establish themselves,” two miles and more to the south of the cross-roads. He himself, in his letter to the Duke of Otranto,[285] states that the 1st Corps “had been left by him in reserve at Frasnes.” Although this statement is incorrect, inasmuch as that unlucky command never got quite so far as Frasnes, yet it shows beyond controversy what Marshal Ney intended to do with the 1st Corps. He furthermore says in this letter, that it was at the moment when he was about to order it up from Frasnes, that he learned that the Emperor had disposed of it. That is to say, he had actually intended to keep a whole corps of 20,000 men (or at least three-fourths of them) two miles from the battle-field till five o’clock in the afternoon, for (as we shall see hereafter) it was not until five o’clock that he learned that d’Erlon’s Corps had wandered off.
NOTES TO CHAPTER VIII.
1. The conduct of Marshal Ney on the 15th and 16th has been the subject of violent and bitter disputes. One principal cause of these disputes lies in the supposition that Napoleon in his accounts of the campaign has misrepresented the facts, so as to throw a large part of the blame for the final disaster undeservedly upon Ney. Accordingly, what Napoleon has said about Ney, and his motives in saying it, have been the subjects of discussion, rather than what Ney himself did. We have strictly confined our narrative to the consideration of Ney’s acts, orders, and statements, supplemented by those of one of his corps-commanders and his chief-of-staff. From these it appears,