On the 4th of June, the Duke of Wellington, accompanied by Prince Blucher, reviewed the fifth division in the vicinity of Brussels. The Prince was lavish of his praise; and the Duke seemed quite delighted on perceiving so many of his old Peninsular friends again under his command. On passing the venerable warrior, and his more youthful compeer, my attention was completely abstracted from the business in which we were engaged, and rivetted on the countenances of the two heroes, to whom, above all others, Europe was most indebted for her liberty in 1814. But for the noble stand which the Duke of Wellington made in the Peninsula, the Russian Autocrat would never have braved the collossal power of the French Ruler; and had Blucher shewn less spirit and enterprise, the allies would not have arrived before the gates of Paris in March 1814. Such being the facts, was there any thing unreasonable in us looking forward to the military talents of the Duke, and the spirit and enterprise of the Prince, producing, in 1815, results similar to those of the previous campaign? I think not: but yet I must confess that our expectations were considerably lowered on a minute examination of the number and quality of the troops composing the hostile armies. The Emperor of France having recalled to his standard a great proportion of his old soldiery, had many thousands who just returned from prison in Britain, Russia, &c. were not only ready, but, their natural bravery having been whetted, rather than blunted by a residence in a foreign land, were also willing, indeed anxious, to undertake the most hazardous enterprises, if directed against their former antagonists.
To oppose an army of 140,000 or 150,000 men, to whom danger had long been familiar, and spoliation but too long their daily occupation, the two chiefs had under their command a force equally numerous, but not all so efficient in the field. The Prussians were a fine body of men, brave, hardy, and well-disciplined, but not a few of them were militia. The Hanoverians were very young men, and many of the officers were little better than children. The Dutch and the Belgians were fine looking fellows, but some of the latter had fought too long under the tri-color flag. The British were animated with the best spirit, but their numbers were small, and nearly one-half of them had never been in a field of strife. Therefore, although the armies of the Duke of Wellington and Prince Blucher were equally formidable in point of numerical strength, still they were in many other respects greatly inferior to their opponents.
With this force, however, inferior in physical strength as it was, they had no alternative, but to meet the foe should he venture across the frontier. Circumstances, unfortunately, prevented the British general from having the several divisions of his army cantoned so favourably as he could have wished. This, although occasioned by the difficulty experienced by the commissary in finding forage for such a large body of cavalry and baggage animals, has been made the subject of a very grave charge against the Field-Marshal, by those who have permitted the necessity of the case to escape their observation. But another and more serious charge has been preferred against the Duke on this occasion, viz. attending a ball given by the Duchess of Richmond, when he should have been engaged in making arrangements for the dreadful meeting between himself and his formidable opponent. Had the latter been preferred by some hair-brained or disappointed person, I should not have considered it necessary to notice it here. But having heard the charge preferred by thousands who actually believed it to be true, and knowing, as I do, the whole to be a malicious fabrication propagated to detract from the honours which the Duke had won on many a bloody field, I trust I may be permitted to state a few facts connected with this subject, which is to be hoped will set the matter at rest in the breasts of those who may do me the honour to look into the pages of this volume.
Every thing being prepared on the part of the enemy to open the campaign with eclat, Bonaparte quitted Paris on the 12th of June, and on the 14th issued a proclamation to the soldiers, in which, after recalling to their remembrance the deeds of former times, he very candidly told them they had battles to fight, and dangers to encounter, but assured them, that with steadiness and valour, victory would be theirs.
Early on the morning of the 15th of June, the French army crossed the Sambre at various places, and then directed its march upon Charleroi, where General Ziethen, with the first corps of the Prussian army, was posted. After a smart affair, the latter retired upon Fleurus, the point of assembly, whether they were pursued by the right wing, and right of the left wing under Napoleon himself. At a subsequent period of the day, the Prussians retired still farther to Ligny, followed by the enemy. The left of the French army, under Marshal Ney, moved upon the high road to Brussels, and drove back a corps of Belgians, under the Prince of Weimar, first to the position of Frasne, and latterly to Quatre-Bras.
At seven o'clock that evening, Captain H——, Lieutenant G——, and myself, strolled as far as the park to enjoy our usual promenade. We had scarcely gone half way down one of the walks, when Dr H——, who had dined with the Duke of Wellington, (or rather who did so every day,) stepped hastily up to Captain H——, who was an old acquaintance, and with considerable earnestness requested us to go home and pack up our baggage, as Napoleon was in motion. Being curious, as may be conceived, to know a few more particulars, we pressed the Doctor so hard to satisfy our curiosity, that he at length informed us that during dinner, the Field-Marshal received a despatch from Prince Blucher, intimating that he had been attacked. On the cloth being removed, the Duke, filling his glass, called a bumper, and then gave as a toast, "Prince Blucher and the Prussian army, and success to them." On paying this mark of respect to his gallant colleague, the Field-Marshal rose from the table, retired to his closet, and in a few minutes dispatched the necessary orders to every division of the allied army. The reader must remember that this was three hours before the ball commenced, and four before the Marshal entered the ball-room, which he did but for a few minutes, a little after eleven o'clock. But more; the troops in Brussels had not only received orders of readiness, but had received six day's bread, and were actually on the streets long before the ball began. All these things, therefore, afford the most convincing proof that the whole story has been fabricated for the worst of purposes, viz. to injure the character of the Duke of Wellington, and by contrast to raise that of Napoleon.
CHAPTER XXIX.
Between eight and nine o'clock in the evening, the troops in Brussels received orders to be ready to fall in at a moment's notice, and at the same time six day's bread and biscuit was issued to each man. This was rather too much, for the soft staff of life was so bulky, that few of the men could stow the whole of it away. In many instances, therefore, the bread was either left in the street, or with those on whom the soldiers were quartered. About half-past eleven, the bugles and bag-pipes gave signal to prepare for battle. At the first sounds of the warlike instruments, the fifth division flew to arms, and a little after mid-night was drawn up in the park and Place Royal in marching order. At half-past three we moved out of Brussels by the Namur gate, and directed our march upon the then obscure, but now immortalized village of Waterloo. Close to this place we halted from half-past eight till nearly eleven, when we resumed our arms, and proceeded towards the enemy, followed by the Brunswick infantry. At one, we halted on a height in rear of Genappe for a quarter of an hour, and then again advanced, and on descending the height, the thunder of the enemy's artillery was for the first time heard in the distance; and about half-past two we arrived at Quatre-Bras, just in time to prevent that post falling into the hands of the enemy.
Various circumstances conspired to render the defence of this post a measure of indispensible necessity. At the village, or rather large farm-steading of Quatre-Bras, the highway from Brussels to Charleroi is intersected by another, running from Nivelles, &c. to St Amand and Ligny, where father Blucher and his gallant children had just engaged in mortal combat with their inveterate enemies. To have tamely yielded up, or abandoned this position, therefore, on the 16th, would have placed the whole of the Prussian army in a situation of great and imminent peril, for by doing so we would have left their extreme right so completely uncovered, that as soon as Ney saw us fairly out of the road, he would have carried his troops from Quatre-Bras to St Amand in a couple of hours, and in the heat of the conflict with Napoleon, attacked the right of Blucher with fatal effect. Of this there can be no doubt; and I conceive there can be as little, that had Marshal Ney been permitted to throw such a preponderating force into the scale against the Prussians on the afternoon of the 16th of June, they must have suffered a severe defeat. Their line of communication with us would, in all probability, have been cut off—the original plan of operations rendered abortive, and the allied army placed in a perilous situation.
On first coming in sight of the French, we found their right wing resting on the heights of Frasne, and their left stretching across the plain as far as the wood of Bossu. The latter skirted the right of the road from Brussels, till it passed the village about 150 yards. But although it run no farther in that direction, the wood extended a great way to the right, bounding numerous fields of wheat and rye, which lay between it and the French position, and which for some time tended to screen the enemy, not from our fire, but from our view.