The Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World from Marathon to Waterloo - Edward Creasy (best novels to read in english txt) 📗

Bachelu’s, Foy’s, and Jerome Bonaparte’s divisions of infantry, and of Pire’s division of cavalry. The right wing of the second general French line was formed of Milhaud’s corps, consisting of two divisions of heavy cavalry. The left wing of this line was formed by Kellerman’s cavalry corps, also in two divisions. Thus each of the corps of infantry that composed the first line had a corps of cavalry behind it; but the second line consisted also of Lobau’s corps of infantry, and Domont and Subervie’s divisions of light cavalry; these three bodies of troops being drawn up on either side of La Belle Alliance, and forming the centre of the second line. The third, or reserve line, had its centre composed of the infantry of the Imperial Guard. Two regiments of grenadiers and two of chasseurs, formed the foot of the Old Guard under General Friant.

The Middle Guard, under Count Morand, was similarly composed; while two regiments of voltigeurs, and two of tirailleurs, under Duhesme, constituted the Young Guard. The chasseurs and lancers of the Guard were on the right of the infantry, under Lefebvre Desnouettes; and the grenadiers and dragoons of the Guards, under Guyot, were on the left. All the French corps comprised, besides their cavalry and infantry regiments, strong batteries of horse artillery; and Napoleon’s numerical superiority in guns was of deep importance throughout the action.

Besides the leading generals who have been mentioned as commanding particular corps, Ney and Soult were present, and acted as the Emperor’s lieutenants in the battle.

English military critics have highly eulogised the admirable arrangement which Napoleon made of his forces of each arm, so as to give him the most ample means of sustaining, by an immediate and sufficient support, any attack, from whatever point he might direct it; and of drawing promptly together a strong force, to resist any attack that might be made on himself in any part of the field. [Siborne, vol. i. p. 376.] When his troops were all arrayed, he rode along the lines, receiving everywhere the most enthusiastic cheers from his men, of whose entire devotion to him his assurance was now doubly sure. On the northern side of the valley the Duke’s army was also drawn up, and ready to meet the menaced attack.

Wellington had caused, on the preceding night, every brigade and corps to take up its station on or near the part of the ground which it was intended to hold in the coming battle. He had slept a few hours at his headquarters in the village of Waterloo; and rising on the 18th, while it was yet deep night, he wrote several letters to the Governor of Antwerp, to the English Minister at Brussels, and other official personages, in which he expressed his confidence that all would go well, but “as it was necessary to provide against serious losses; should any accident occur, he gave a series of judicious orders for what should be done in the rear of the army, in the event of the battle going against the Allies. He also, before he left the village of Waterloo, saw to the distribution of the reserves of ammunition which had been parked there, so that supplies should be readily forwarded to every part of the line of battle, where they might be required, The Duke, also, personally inspected the arrangements that had been made for receiving the wounded, and providing temporary hospitals in the houses in the rear of the army. Then, mounting a favourite charger, a small thorough-bred chestnut horse, named “Copenhagen,” Wellington rode forward to the range of hills where his men were posted. Accompanied by his staff and by the Prussian General Muffling, he rode along his lines, carefully inspecting all the details of his position. Hougoumont was the object of his special attention. He rode down to the south-

eastern extremity of its enclosures, and after having examined the nearest French troops, he made some changes in the disposition of his own men, who were to defend that important post.

Having given his final orders about Hougoumont, the Duke galloped back to the high ground in the right centre of his position; and halting there, sat watching the enemy on the opposite heights, and conversing with his staff with that cheerful serenity which was ever his characteristic in the hour of battle.

Not all brave men are thus gifted; and many a glance of anxious excitement must have been cast across the valley that separated the two hosts during the protracted pause which ensued between the completion of Napoleon’s preparations for attack and the actual commencement of the contest. It was, indeed, an awful calm before the coming storm, when armed myriads stood gazing on their armed foes, scanning their number, their array, their probable powers of resistance and destruction, and listening with throbbing hearts for the momentarily expected note of death; while visions of victory and glory came thronging on each soldier’s high-strung brain, not unmingled with recollections of the home which his fall might soon leave desolate, nor without shrinking nature sometimes prompting the cold thought, that in a few moments he might be writhing in agony, or lie a trampled and mangled mass of clay on the grass now waving so freshly and purely before him.

Such thoughts WILL arise in human breasts, though the brave man soon silences “the child within us that trembles before death,”

[See Plato, Phaedon, c. 60; and Grote’s History of Greece, vol.

viii. p. 656.] and nerves himself for the coming struggle by the mental preparation which Xenophon has finely called “the soldier’s arraying his own soul for battle.” [Hellenica, lib.

vii. c. v. s. 22.] Well, too, may we hope and believe that many a spirit sought aid from a higher and holier source; and that many a fervent though silent prayer arose on that Sabbath morn (the battle of Waterloo was fought on a Sunday) to the Lord of Sabaoth, the God of Battles, from the ranks, whence so many thousands were about to appear that day before his judgment-seat.

Not only to those who were thus present as spectators and actors in the dread drama, but to all Europe, the decisive contest then impending between the rival French and English nations, each under its chosen chief was the object of exciting interest and deepest solicitude. “Never, indeed, had two such generals as the Duke of Wellington and the Emperor Napoleon encountered since the day when Scipio and Hannibal met at Zama.” [See SUPRA, p. 82.]

The two great champions, who now confronted each other, were equals in years, and each had entered the military profession at the same early age. The more conspicuous stage, on which the French general’s youthful genius was displayed, his heritage of the whole military power of the French Republic, the position on which for years he was elevated as sovereign head of an empire surpassing that of Charlemagne, and the dazzling results of his victories, which made and unmade kings, had given him a formidable pre-eminence in the eyes of mankind. Military men spoke with justly rapturous admiration of the brilliancy of his first Italian campaigns, when he broke through the pedantry of traditional tactics, and with a small but promptly-wielded force, shattered army after army of the Austrians, conquered provinces and capitals, dictated treaties, and annihilated or created states. The iniquity of his Egyptian expedition was too often forgotten in contemplating the skill and boldness with which he destroyed the Mameluke cavalry at the Pyramids, and the Turkish infantry at Aboukir. None could forget the marvellous passage of the Alps in 1800, or the victory of Marengo, which wrested Italy back from Austria, and destroyed the fruit of twenty victories, which the enemies of France had gained over her in the absence of her favourite chief. Even higher seemed the glories of his German campaigns, the triumphs of Ulm, of Austerlitz, of Jena, of Wagram. Napoleon’s disasters in Russia, in 1812, were imputed by his admirers to the elements; his reverses in Germany, in 1813, were attributed by them to treachery: and even those two calamitous years had been signalised by his victories at Borodino, at Lutzen, at Bautzen, at Dresden, and at Hanau. His last campaign, in the early months of 1814, was rightly cited as the most splendid exhibition of his military genius, when, with a far inferior army, he long checked and frequently defeated the vast hosts that were poured upon France. His followers fondly hoped that the campaign of 1815 would open with another “week of miracles,” like that which had seen his victories at Montmirail and Montereau. The laurel of Ligny was even now fresh upon his brows. Blucher had not stood before him; and who was the Adversary that now should bar the Emperor’s way?

That Adversary had already overthrown the Emperor’s best generals, and the Emperor’s best armies; and, like Napoleon himself, had achieved a reputation in more than European wars.

Wellington was illustrious as the destroyer of the Mahratta power, as the liberator of Portugal and Spain, and the successful invader of Southern France. In early youth he had held high command in India; and had displayed eminent skill in planning and combining movements, and unrivalled celerity and boldness in execution. On his return to Europe several years passed away before any fitting opportunity was accorded for the exercise of his genius. In this important respect, Wellington, as a subject, and Napoleon, as a sovereign, were far differently situated. At length his appointment to the command in the Spanish Peninsula gave him the means of showing Europe that England had a general who could revive the glories of Crecy, of Poictiers, of Agincourt, of Blenheim, and of Ramilies. At the head of forces always numerically far inferior to the armies with which Napoleon deluged the Peninsula;—thwarted by jealous and incompetent allies;—ill-supported by friends, and assailed by factious enemies at home; Wellington maintained the war for several years, unstained by any serious reverse, and marked by victory in thirteen pitched battles, at Vimiera, the Douro, Talavera, Busaco, Fuentes d’Onore, Salamanca, Vittoria, the Pyrenees, the Bidassoa, the Nive, the Nivelle, Orthes, and Toulouse. Junot, Victor, Massena, Ney, Marmont, and Jourdain,—marshals whose names were the terrors of continental Europe—had been baffled by his skill, and smitten down by his energy, while he liberated the kingdoms of the Peninsula from them and their Imperial master.

In vain did Napoleon at last despatch Soult, the ablest of his lieutenants, to turn the tide of Wellington’s success and defend France against the English invader. Wellington met Soult’s manoeuvres with superior skill, and his boldness with superior vigour. When Napoleon’s first abdication, in 1814, suspended hostilities, Wellington was master of the fairest districts of Southern France; and had under him a veteran army, with which (to use his own expressive phrase) “he felt he could have gone anywhere and done anything.” The fortune of war had hitherto kept separate the orbits in which Napoleon and he had moved.

Now, on the ever memorable 18th of June, 1815, they met at last.

It is, indeed, remarkable that Napoleon, during his numerous campaigns in Spain as well as other countries, not only never encountered the Duke of Wellington before the day of Waterloo, but that he was never until then personally engaged with British troops, except at the siege of Toulon, in 1793, which was the very first incident of his military career. Many, however, of the French generals who were with him in 1815, knew well, by sharp experience, what English soldiers were, and what the leader was who now headed them. Ney, Foy, and other officers who had served in