Still, it must be remembered that both Wellington and Blücher were anxious to close the campaign with a great battle, which was certain to take place if Wellington stood at Waterloo, and that it was by no means certain that Napoleon would push through the forest of Soignes only to find the combined armies confronting him. They also thought that there was a very fair chance that they would succeed in effecting the union of their armies at Waterloo.
NOTES TO CHAPTER XIV.
1. Colonel Maurice has recently examined the evidence in reference to the communications which passed between the Duke of Wellington and Marshal Blücher on the subject of the support to be given to the English army by the Prussians.[546] We think he has shown that the account given in Siborne is not altogether correct, and we have followed Colonel Maurice in preferring the statements of Müffling and Ollech.
Siborne says[547] that the Duke, on the morning of the 17th, sent back the Prussian officer[548] who first brought him the news of Blücher’s defeat, with a letter to the Field Marshal, “proposing to accept a battle on the following day in the position in front of Waterloo, provided the Prince would detach two corps to his assistance”; and that, in the course of the evening[549] he received from Blücher a reply in these terms:—
“I shall not come with two corps only, but with my whole army; upon this understanding, however, that, should the French not attack us on the 18th, we shall attack them on the 19th.”
Colonel Maurice is inclined to the opinion that the letter which is quoted by Siborne is really one written to Müffling at Blücher’s dictation on the following morning, after nine o’clock, in which Müffling is desired to inform the Duke of Blücher’s intentions, and in which some of the words given above are employed. If this be so, and it seems very likely, the Duke not only took up his position for battle before he had received any definite assurance of support from his ally, but he did not get any until the arrival at the Duke’s headquarters at Waterloo of the letter sent off from Wavre between 11 and 12 P.M.,[550] which could hardly be before 2 A.M. of the 18th. How much longer the Duke would have remained in his position waiting for the promise of Prussian support, no one, of course, can say. He certainly did not propose to stay and fight single-handed. He had sent word to Blücher by Massow that without Prussian support he would be obliged to fall back to Brussels.[551] Yet according to Siborne, he waited till evening,[552] according to Ollech, he must have waited till two o’clock in the morning, before receiving any definite assurance of assistance.
2. But there is a story, which rests on testimony which it is impossible to disregard, to the effect that the Duke, after having caused his army to take up its position on the field of battle, rode over to Wavre in the evening to ascertain for himself whether or not he was to be supported by Marshal Blücher in the battle of the ensuing day. This story has been carefully investigated by Colonel Maurice,[553] and we shall state, as briefly as we can, the evidence collected by him.
We first find the story in print in the year 1835, in Lockhart’s Life of Napoleon.[554] It reads as follows:—