The IVth Corps marched in two columns, by way of Walhain and Tourinnes to Dion-le-Mont, a village about two miles east of Wavre, where it arrived about 10 P.M. of the 17th.
One brigade of infantry belonging to the IId Corps and some cavalry were stationed for a time at Mont St. Guibert for purposes of observation,[532] and General Groeben, of Blücher’s staff, who accompanied these troops, witnessed from a high hill near Tilly[533] the march of the troops which Napoleon carried with him to Quatre Bras, and the movement of a smaller body, estimated by him at about 12,000 or 15,000 men, in the direction of Gembloux. He supposed, naturally, that this was all the force which had been detached for the pursuit of the Prussians.[534] The march of the rest of Grouchy’s command was concealed by the inequalities of the ground.
The artillery trains, containing the needful ammunition for the coming battle, for the arrival of which Gneisenau had felt great anxiety, arrived safely at Wavre about 5 P.M. of the 17th.
Thus the retreat of the Prussians on Wavre had been successfully and quickly accomplished, and, what is almost as important, it had escaped the observation of the French. Marshal Blücher had collected at Wavre somewhere about 90,000 men, and both the army and its leaders were animated by the best spirit, impatient to encounter the enemy again, and confident of success in another battle.
The Duke of Wellington spent the night after the battle of Quatre Bras at Genappe, but returned to the front “at daybreak, or soon after.”[535] A detachment of cavalry was soon afterwards sent out, which ascertained that the Prussians had been beaten the day before, and were now retreating on Wavre. This information reached Wellington about 7.30 A.M.[536]
Blücher had sent an officer, Major Winterfeldt, from the field of battle the evening before to inform General Müffling of his intended retreat, but he had been wounded,[537] and the information had not reached the Duke.
At 9 o’clock another officer arrived from Blücher,[538] Lieutenant Massow.[539] The Duke told him that he would fall back to the position of Mont St. Jean where he would give battle, if he were supported by one Prussian corps. This answer Massow carried to Blücher. He arrived at Wavre at noon. At this hour, as we are told by the latest Prussian historian,[540] it was not known where the IIId or IVth Corps was, and the reserve ammunition had not arrived.[541] No decided assurance could, therefore, be given during the day. Finally, about 11.30 P.M., news arrived from Bülow of the arrival of his corps at Dion-le-Mont, and about the same time a despatch from Müffling arrived, stating that the Anglo-Dutch army had taken position for battle at Mont St. Jean. Then Grolmann wrote to Müffling Blücher’s answer. It was sent off about midnight of the 17th.
This despatch stated that Bülow would move at break of day by way of St. Lambert to attack the right flank of the enemy, and that the IId Corps would support the IVth Corps in this operation. The Ist and IIId Corps were to hold themselves in readiness to do the like.
This despatch, which could not have reached Wellington until the morning of the battle of Waterloo, seems actually to have contained the first definite promise of support from Blücher.[542] Long before its arrival the Duke had taken up his position at Waterloo in the hope—in fact, in the expectation,—of receiving some such promise of assistance and support. Messages were doubtless exchanged, as we are told,[543] between the English and Prussian headquarters during the whole day. But the Duke received no positive assurance until the early morning of the 18th that the Prussian army, or any part of it, would come to his assistance. It is true that he was aware that the Prussians were concentrating at Wavre; and he knew that their object in so doing could be nothing else than to tender him their support in the battle that was sure to occur the next day. But it must have required all the resolution and courage which he possessed to have decided him to take up position for battle without having received any definite assurance that the necessary support would be furnished.
For it was a perfectly possible thing that he might the next morning be assailed by a hundred thousand men. Blücher had, no doubt, sent him the information obtained by Groeben, that Napoleon had detached only 12,000 or 15,000 men to follow the Prussians, and was bringing against the Anglo-Dutch army all his remaining troops.[544] As we see it now, that would have been Napoleon’s best course. If he had known the facts at the time, as he might easily have done had he not neglected to take the proper measures to ascertain them, that is what he probably would have done. At any rate, Wellington had no assurance from any quarter whatever that Napoleon would not do exactly that thing. If Napoleon had done it, and if the weather had been fine and the ground hard, what chance would Wellington have stood? The question is asked simply to define the situation in which the Duke placed himself on the night of the 17th and 18th. That is, we desire to bring out the fact that Wellington in taking up position at Waterloo, instead of continuing his retreat to Brussels and arranging with Blücher to do the like from Wavre, ran a very great risk of being beaten before he could get help from the Prussians, whereas if both commanders had proceeded to Brussels, where the roads from Waterloo and Wavre converge, they would have greatly outnumbered the French. This course was the one which Napoleon maintained would have been the safer and wiser.[545]