“Wavre is distant from Wellington’s field of battle about two [German, or about ten English] miles. From the moment when the Duke of Wellington saw the enemy appear in his front up to Blücher’s arrival, six or eight hours would therefore have to elapse, unless Blücher had started still earlier; but in that time a battle against 70,000 men cannot be begun, fought and decided; it was therefore not to be feared that Wellington would be defeated before Blücher arrived.”
It is, perhaps, a sufficient reply to this remark to recall the fact that the battle of Ligny was begun at half-past two and was completely finished at half-past nine, and that this period of seven hours includes the delay of nearly two hours caused by the unexpected appearance of d’Erlon’s Corps. It seems to us foolish to contend that Wellington did not run a great risk of being defeated before the arrival of the Prussians. Had the battle been begun five or six hours earlier, all the troops in Napoleon’s army could have been employed against the Anglo-Dutch forces, and the battle could have been fought as the Emperor intended to fight it. The risk of being beaten, we repeat, was a great risk; and we believe the Duke was quite aware that it was such when he assumed it. The question then is,—recurring to Napoleon’s censure on Blücher and Wellington for not having avoided this risk by continuing their retreat to the immediate neighborhood of Brussels,—whether the possibility of overthrowing Napoleon at the beginning of the campaign by effecting a union of the allied armies at Waterloo warranted the two allied commanders in taking the risk of the defeat of the Anglo-Dutch army before this union could be effected. As this question is evidently one capable of indefinite discussion, we content ourselves with stating it.
CHAPTER XV.
THE EIGHTEENTH OF JUNE: GROUCHY AND BLÜCHER.
Napoleon received Marshal Grouchy’s letter, dated Gembloux, 10 P.M. of June 17th, about 2 A.M. of the 18th, at the Caillou House, on the Brussels turnpike, where he passed the night of the 17th. A close examination of it might have raised a suspicion in his mind that Grouchy did not thoroughly comprehend his task, and that he might possibly fail to take the right course, if the emergency, which he had in his letter represented as not unlikely to occur, should actually confront him. He had said, that, if he found that the mass of the Prussians were retiring on Wavre, he “would follow them in that direction, in order that they might not be able to gain Brussels, and to separate them from Wellington,” but if they were retiring on Perwez, that he would direct himself on that city. We have pointed out above that it was clearly impossible for him to prevent the Prussians from getting to Brussels. He was thirty miles from Brussels,—the Prussians less than twenty,—and they were directly between him and Brussels. And as for separating the Prussians at Wavre from Wellington, while Grouchy must of course follow them in the direction of Wavre as distinguished from that of Perwez, yet the only thing really open to him was to cross the Dyle at once by the bridges of Moustier and Ottignies and then to act in close connection with the main French army,—to stand between it and the Prussians, and ward off the danger as best he might. This could be done; but this was all that could be done. It was not to be expected that an attack upon the Prussian rearguard at Wavre,—which was the only other thing that Grouchy could do,—however vigorously made, could have the result of detaining their whole army. But, in Grouchy’s letter, a movement on his part to rejoin or to approach the main army by crossing the Dyle, in case he found that the Prussians were massing at Wavre, was not even mentioned.
Napoleon and Soult, therefore, one would suppose, might have seen by the programme which Grouchy had marked out for himself in his despatch that in all probability he was not clearly apprehending the situation, and that it was therefore possible that he might make a serious, perhaps a very serious, mistake the next day. They ought, therefore, if they suspected this to be the state of the case, to have replied at once, giving him precise instructions as to his course in the event of the retreat of the Prussians on Wavre. They should have told him, that, if he should find this to be the fact, he must at once march to cross the Dyle above Wavre, at Moustier and Ottignies, approach the main army, and act in conjunction with it. Yet although Grouchy told the officer who carried the 10 P.M. despatch to wait for an answer, none was returned.[561] Grouchy was not even informed where the army was, and that it was confronted by the English army in position. Nor was he advised, as he surely should have been, that Domon’s reconnoissance had proved that a strong Prussian column,—consisting, as we have seen, of the two beaten corps, those of Zieten and Pirch I.,—had retired on Wavre by way of Gery and Gentinnes.[562] It is impossible to account for these omissions.[563]
Now this last-mentioned fact, that “a pretty strong (Prussian) column” had “passed by Gery and Gentinnes, directed on Wavre,” was the most important fact that could be ascertained, both for Napoleon and Grouchy. Napoleon had in fact, at 2 A.M. of the 18th, when Grouchy’s letter arrived, strong reason to apprehend that Grouchy might, during the night, ascertain that the whole of Blücher’s army had retired on Wavre. It certainly would seem that this was one of those cases where nothing should be omitted that could assist the mind of a subordinate in arriving at a correct conclusion.[564]
Napoleon, however, seems to have thought it unnecessary to send Grouchy any precise directions. We know that he expected Grouchy to arrive the next afternoon by the bridge of Moustier. Marbot, whose Memoirs have just been published, states,[565] that, towards 11 A.M. of the day of the battle, he was sent with his own regiment of hussars and a battalion of infantry to and beyond the extreme right of the army, with instructions, brought to him by one of the Emperor’s aides, to push reconnoissances to the bridges of Moustier and Ottignies. He says that these detachments were connected by cavalry-posts, “so that they could quickly inform him of their junction with the advance guard of the troops of Marshal Grouchy, which were to arrive on the Dyle.”