The Campaign of Waterloo: A Military History / Third Edition

by John Codman Ropes

It is nevertheless very strange that no reconnoissance should have been ordered in the direction of Tilly and Wavre.[464] This may perhaps be partly due to the fact that the cavalry divisions belonging to the 3d and 4th Corps, upon which such duties would most naturally fall, were exhausted by their efforts of the day before, that the 6th Corps, which bivouacked nearest to Brye, had no cavalry division attached to it, and that the rest of the cavalry was on the right of the position. These facts may perhaps serve to account in a way for what cannot but be considered as an inexcusable neglect. There was plenty of cavalry with the army. Exelmans could have been sent out towards Wavre, as easily as Pajol towards Namur. Both routes were equally open to the enemy. It was certainly by no means impossible that Blücher should, in spite of his defeat, endeavor to keep up his communication with Wellington, especially considering that half his army,—the IIId and IVth Corps,—was untouched, as Napoleon very well knew. The neglect, therefore, to explore the country to the north of the turnpike cannot be excused. The blame for this neglect must fall primarily upon Napoleon, for he ought to have ordered Soult to attend to this matter in the early morning. This he certainly failed to do. Soult ought, to be sure, to have had the reconnoissance made, on his own motion; and in neglecting this, he shows that he was not a good chief-of-staff. But the Emperor seems to have been satisfied with what Soult had done; hence, the blame of not ascertaining that the two beaten Prussian Corps had retreated in the direction of Wavre, falls finally on his shoulders. Nor can Napoleon’s fault in this matter be explained or excused on the ground of his fatigue; it costs no exertion to order a cavalry officer to make an exploration in a certain direction; the reason the order was not given was because the Emperor was so sure that such an exploration would result in nothing,—because in fact he was so confident that the Prussians had retired to the eastward, towards their base of operations. There was, it is true, as we have pointed out above, strong reason to believe this to be the fact; but there was also a possibility that it might not be the fact; and if it should turn out not to be the fact, the plan of Napoleon would have to be essentially modified, for a retreat of the two beaten corps in the direction of Wavre, where they could easily be united with the two unbroken corps, could hardly have any other object than a junction with the English army, retiring, as that army was sure to do, from Quatre Bras towards Brussels.

Before Napoleon left the field of battle for Marbais, shortly before twelve o’clock, he called Grouchy to him and gave him instructions by word of mouth. Up to this time no further information had been received since Pajol had reported the capture of guns and prisoners on the Namur road. The Emperor at first simply told him to take the 3d and 4th Corps and the cavalry of Pajol and Exelmans and to pursue the enemy.

“I replied to him,” says Marshal Grouchy, whose account[465] we are now giving, “that the Prussians had commenced their retreat at ten o’clock the evening before; that much time must elapse before my troops, who were scattered over the plain, were cleaning their guns and making their soup, and were not expecting to be called upon to march that day, could be put in movement; that the enemy had seventeen or eighteen hours the start of the troops sent in pursuit; that although the reports of the cavalry gave no definite information as to the direction of the retreat of the mass of the Prussian army, it was apparently on Namur that they were retiring; and that thus, in following them, I should find myself isolated, separated from him, and out of the range of his movements. These observations,” Marshal Grouchy goes on to say, “were not well received; the Emperor repeated his orders, adding that it was for me to discover the route taken by Marshal Blücher; that he himself was going to fight the English, ‘if they will stand on this side of the Forest of Soignes’[466] that it was for me to complete the defeat of the Prussians in attacking them as soon as I should have caught up with them, and that I must communicate with him by the paved road,”[467]—the Namur-Quatre-Bras turnpike.

These objections raised by Marshal Grouchy were clearly not well taken. His two corps had done the principal part of the fighting the day before; they were unquestionably in need of repose the forenoon after the battle. The fresh troops in the army were required for the operations which were to be immediately undertaken against the English. Hence the delay in beginning the pursuit of the Prussians, of which Grouchy complained, was unavoidable, unless the whole plan of campaign was to be changed. It would have been very desirable, no doubt, had it been possible, to follow up the defeated Prussians with the greatest promptness and vigor. But under the circumstances this was not practicable, unless, as we have said, Napoleon should change his plan, and should march against Blücher with the bulk of his army, consisting almost entirely of fresh troops, and should leave Grouchy with the corps of Vandamme and Gérard to watch the English. This the Emperor was not proposing to do. Moreover, if the Prussians were really retiring on their base, as both Napoleon and Grouchy at this time supposed was the case, delay in following them up could not be a very material matter.[468]

Then, as for the objection that, if he followed the Prussians towards Namur, he would “find himself isolated, separated from the Emperor, and out of the range of his movements,” this was to a certain extent unavoidable. The fact that such an objection should be raised shows how unfit Grouchy was for an independent command. The slightest reflection should have convinced him that the task assigned to him could not well be assigned to any one else; and that it was a task which some one must perform. It was, therefore, his manifest duty to undertake it with cheerful alacrity, and not in the fault-finding spirit which he does not even attempt to conceal.

These were the only orders which Marshal Grouchy ever admitted having received on the 17th; he denied, over and over again, in his pamphlets written about the battle, ever having received any written order, whether from Napoleon or Soult, until the next day.[469] In consequence of these formal and explicit denials, which were very generally credited, the statements made by Napoleon in his St. Helena narratives, which, though anything but exact, nevertheless conveyed the truth substantially, were generally disbelieved. For nearly thirty years after the battle of Waterloo a wholly false notion was prevalent as to the task assigned by Napoleon to Marshal Grouchy. Neither Siborne, who wrote in 1844, nor Van Loben Sels, who wrote in 1849, was aware of the existence of the written order which we are now about to give. The mischievous influence which this deliberate concealment of his orders by Marshal Grouchy has exerted upon the general opinion of Napoleon’s conduct of this campaign can hardly be exaggerated.

Shortly after giving these verbal orders to Grouchy, which were plainly based on the theory that Blücher had fallen back on Namur, Napoleon received[470] a report from Berton, who commanded the brigade which was sent out in support of Pajol, to the effect that he had been led by the statements of the inhabitants to proceed to Gembloux, where he had seen, at 9 A.M., a Prussian corps of some 20,000 men.[471] This certainly looked as if the Prussians were not retiring on Namur. The first thing to be done, therefore, was to find out where they were going, and what they were proposing to do. At Gembloux, so it now appeared, one would be sure to get on the track of the Prussians, and obtain news of their movements and designs. Accordingly the Emperor, in the temporary absence of Marshal Soult, dictated to General Bertrand the following order[472] to Grouchy:—

“Proceed to Gembloux with the cavalry corps of General Pajol, the light cavalry of the 4th Corps, the cavalry corps of General Exelmans, the division of General Teste, of which you will take particular care, it being detached from its own corps,[473] and the 3d and 4th corps of infantry.

“You will explore in the directions of Namur and of Maestricht,[474] and you will pursue the enemy. Explore his march, and instruct me respecting his manœuvres, so that I may be able to penetrate what he is intending to do.[475]

“I am carrying my headquarters to Quatre Bras, where the English still were this morning. Our communication will then be direct by the paved road of Namur. If the enemy has evacuated Namur, write to the general commanding the second military division at Charlemont to cause Namur to be occupied by some battalions of the national guard and some batteries which he will organize at Charlemont. He will give the command to a brigadier-general.