2. It hardly needs to be said that if Napoleon had known that the Ist and IId Prussian Corps were retiring on Wavre, he would not have ordered Grouchy on Gembloux. Exactly what he would have done, it is needless to conjecture, but in all probability he would have kept the whole army together, or within easy reach, so as to have concentrated an overwhelming force against Wellington the next morning, if not on that afternoon.
3. To illustrate the effect which the concealment of the Bertrand order by Marshal Grouchy has produced on the mind of an able critic, take the following passages from Clausewitz,[496] who wrote his narrative before the order came to light:—
“Bonaparte, it is claimed, ordered Grouchy to keep between Blücher and the road from Namur (Charleroi) to Brussels, for the second battle would have to be fought on this road, and only thus was there a possibility of Grouchy’s coöperating in it. But of such an order nothing can be found except in the untrustworthy account[497] of Bonaparte and of the men who have copied him. The account which Grouchy gives of the movements of the 17th bears too much the character of the simple truth[498] not to gain credence; and, according to this, Bonaparte’s instruction was directed in very general terms towards pursuing Blücher, and was drawn up in very uncertain expressions.”
[499]“As we read Marshal Grouchy’s account of the events which took place with Bonaparte on the morning of the 17th, we see:—
(1) That this Marshal in all probability actually received no other direction for his action on the 17th besides a very general instruction to pursue the Prussians:
(2) That Bonaparte had no idea of the retreat of the Prussians towards the Dyle, and considered the opinion that they had gone towards Namur not unreasonable, and therefore did not give the Marshal the direction of Wavre.”
Clausewitz concludes by surmising that Napoleon was “affected by a sort of lethargy and carelessness.” Had Clausewitz known the truth, namely, that Grouchy was sent off with a letter of instructions, telling him in so many words that the Prussians might be intending to unite with the English to fight a battle for the defence of Brussels on the turnpike on which Napoleon was now marching with the intention of encountering the English, we should have had a very different criticism from this, we may be sure.
4. But it is a curious thing, that, even with those historians who wrote after the Bertrand letter came to light, the influence of Grouchy’s misrepresentations has induced a sort of ignoring of the letter, and an acquiescence in the erroneous judgment of Napoleon’s conduct formed when the existence of the letter was unknown, and when the verbal instructions, as given by Grouchy, were all the orders which it was believed that Napoleon ever gave to Grouchy. Thus Chesney,[500] after giving the substance of the document, says:—
“Such was the whole tenor of this important letter, which serves to show two things only: that Napoleon was uncertain of the line of Blücher’s retreat, and that he judged Gembloux a good point to move Grouchy on in any case.”