3. It may be worth while to correct a curious error into which Siborne has fallen in his anxiety to show that Ney was not ordered to seize Quatre Bras early in the morning. He[434] calls attention to the fact that the 2 P.M. order to Ney was addressed on the back of the letter to the Marshal at Gosselies. “This circumstance,” he says, “proves that Napoleon was under the impression that Ney had not at that time (two o’clock) commenced his attack, but was still at Gosselies.” But this argument, if it is good for anything, shows that Napoleon supposed that Ney and, of course, the bulk of his command also, would be at Gosselies when the bearer of the letter arrived there, say at 3 o’clock, which is simply absurd. The fact is that, Ney having the previous night had his headquarters at Gosselies, all orders to him were naturally and properly sent there first.
4. Jomini,[435] in a letter to the Duke of Elchingen, suggests that Napoleon might well have left Reille’s corps and Lefebvre-Desnouettes’ cavalry at Frasnes to watch the enemy at Quatre Bras, and thrown d’Erlon’s Corps and Kellermann’s cavalry on the rear of the Prussians at Brye, a manœuvre which, he says, “could be executed from Frasnes as well as from Quatre Bras.” Into the merits of this suggestion we do not propose to enter; there is certainly much to recommend it. But in a postscript General Jomini takes special pains to express his opinion that General Reille is not “deserving of the least censure” for having deferred putting his corps in motion from Gosselies for Frasnes, on the morning of the 16th, until he had communicated Girard’s information to Marshal Ney.
“We must not forget that General Reille had just sent—nine o’clock—positive information of the presence of the entire Prussian army towards Ligny: he must have concluded from this that the left would be called upon to take part in the attack of this army, and that it would be unfortunate if, after such information, he took the Genappe [Quatre Bras] route when it would be necessary to turn to the right towards Brye. This reasoning was more than logical, it was based on the laws of la grande tactique.”[436]
In this passage Jomini seems to overlook what he has just before said about Frasnes. Even if the left should be called upon to take part in the attack of the Prussians instead of being concentrated for the attack of Quatre Bras, it would still be necessary for a large force to establish itself at Frasnes, in order to observe the enemy at Quatre Bras; to proceed then to Frasnes, with the two divisions of Foy and Jerome, from Gosselies, where he was when the Emperor’s order reached him, was the right thing for Reille to do in any event. Jomini in fact suggests this very thing as in his judgment the correct course, viz.: to leave the 2d Corps at Frasnes and to throw the 1st Corps on Brye. This attempt, therefore, to justify Reille’s delay in marching to Frasnes, fails.
5. Other theories than the one we have adopted as to the cause of the wanderings of d’Erlon’s Corps have been broached. Thiers thinks that Napoleon sent d’Erlon a direct order; Charras[437] has combated this view in a careful examination of the evidence, and we agree with him. There is, however, considerable conflict of testimony. Lieutenant-Colonel de Baudus, who was on the staff of Marshal Soult in this campaign, in his “Études sur Napoléon,”[438] tells this story:—
“At the moment when the affair [the battle of Ligny] was at its height, Napoleon called me and said to me: ‘I have sent an order to the Comte d’Erlon to direct his whole corps in the rear of the right of the Prussian army; go and carry to Marshal Ney a duplicate of this order, which ought to be communicated to him. You will tell him that, whatever may be the situation in which he finds himself, it is absolutely necessary that this disposition should be executed; that I do not attach any great importance to what is passing to-day on his wing; that the important affair is here, where I am, because I want to finish with the Prussian army. As for him, he must, if he cannot do better, confine himself to keeping the English army in check.’[439] When the Emperor had finished giving me his instructions, the major-general [Soult] recommended me in the most energetic terms to insist most forcibly on the Duke of Elchingen that, on his part, nothing should hinder the execution of the movement prescribed to the Comte d’Erlon.”
Notwithstanding this circumstantial narrative, we do not believe that Napoleon sent d’Erlon a direct order. Napoleon had in all his communications with Ney placed d’Erlon under him; the letter written to Ney that morning by the Emperor said:—“The major-general has given the most precise instructions, so that there shall be no difficulty about obedience to your orders when you are detached from the main army; when I am present, the corps-commanders will take their orders from me.” Now Napoleon must have supposed that d’Erlon would be with Ney at 5 P.M.
Baudus’ book was published twenty-six years after the battle. His recollection of the fact that he was sent on such a mission was no doubt clear; very likely he remembered with approximate accuracy what Napoleon and Soult said to him; but he may easily have been mistaken as to the order itself. It would be very natural that an order to Ney directing him to send the 1st Corps to attack the Prussian right might be mistaken for an order to d’Erlon, who commanded the 1st Corps, to do this. And what to our mind settles the matter is, that if the order had really been one directed to d’Erlon, neither the Emperor nor Soult would have wasted their time in asking Baudus to ask Ney not to interfere with its execution. If, on the other hand, it was an order to Ney, urging on him to detach a part of his command to take the Prussians in rear, such remarks as Napoleon and Soult made to Baudus were directly apposite, and were made, no doubt, in order that they might be repeated to Ney, so that he might enter more fully into the Emperor’s view of the situation. Lastly, although no specific mention might be made in the written order of the troops which Ney was to detach, it is extremely probable that both Napoleon and Soult spoke of the 1st Corps in this connection, as it was of course known that d’Erlon was to come up in rear of Reille, who might very probably be actively engaged, and that d’Erlon’s Corps, therefore, would probably be sent, if any was sent.
We have little doubt that Baudus carried the duplicate of the 3.15 P.M. order to Marshal Ney. Everything that he says about it points to this; the statement that the battle was at its height when the order was given to him would be true at a quarter-past three; the strong language of the Emperor and Soult as to the importance of persuading Ney to comply with their request has the same ring as the language of the order.[440] Baudus tells us that when he was nearing Quatre Bras he was nearly run down by Kellermann’s cuirassiers, who were, as we have seen,[441] routed between 6 and 7 P.M.[442] Charras says that the 3.15 P.M. order[443] arrived at 6 o’clock.[444] This duplicate of it, dated 3.30 P.M.[445] the transmission of which was delayed, as we have seen, by the verbal messages to Ney, may very possibly not have reached the Marshal till half-past six. Baudus found Ney in a state of great exasperation against the Emperor, who had, as he had been told, ordered the 1st Corps to march upon St. Amand without informing him of this change of plan. The fact that Baudus saw nothing of the 1st Corps on the road confirms our hypothesis that that corps had been turned off by the bearer of the 2 P.M. despatch.