1815. 323 CHAPTER XXI.1 1815. THE BATTLE OF WATERLOO. ONE of the most important struggles of modern times was now about to commence- -a struggle which for many years was to decide the fate of Europe. Napoleon and Wellington at length stood opposite one another. They had never met; the military reputation of each was of the highest kind, the 1 This chapter, like two which preceded it, first appeared in the 1836 edition, and is not from the pen of M. de Bourrienne. 2 For full details of the Waterloo campaign see Siborne's History of the War in France and Belgium in 1815, giving the English contemporary account; Chesney's Waterloo Lectures, the best English modern account, which has been accepted by the Prussians as pretty nearly representing their view; and Waterloo by Lieutenant-Colonel Prince Edouard de la Tour d'Auvergne (Paris, Plon, 1870), which may be taken as the French modern account. There are also the accounts in Thiers, tome xx. livre lx., valuable but somewhat florid, as are all M. Thiers' writings, and that in Jomini, tome iv. Jomini also published a summary of the campaign of 1815, and in the American edition of his Napoleon the summary is substituted for the chapter in tome iv. Hamley, Operations of War, 1872 edition, pp. 133, 179, and 389, has a very valuable summary. Most readers will probably be contented with Dorsey Gardner's Quatre Bras, Ligny, and Waterloo (Kegan Paul, 1882), where will be found a summary of all the writers on the subject, very conveniently designed, but containing extracts from Victor Hugo and MM. Erckmann-Chatrian, and several poets, interesting as specimens of the style and of the power of imagination of those writers, but distracting and not precisely of any historical value. In judging this campaign the reader must guard himself from looking on it as fought by two different armies-the English and the Prussian-whose achievements are to be weighed against one another. Wellington and Blucher were acting in a complete unison rare even when two different corps of the same nation are concerned, but practically unexampled in the case of two armies of different nations. Thus the two forces became one army, divided into two wings, one, the left (or Prussian wing) having been defeated by the main body of the French at Ligny on the 16th of June, the right (or English wing) retreated to hold the position at Waterloo, where the left (or Prussian wing) was to join it, and the united force was to crush the enemy. Thus there is no question as to whether the Prussian army saved the English by their arrival, or whether the English saved the Prussians career of both had been marked by signal victory; Napoleon had carried his triumphant legions across the stupendous Alps, over the north of Italy, throughout Prussia, Austria, Russia, and even to the foot of the Pyramids, while Wellington, who had been early distinguished in India, had won immortal renown in the Peninsula, where he had defeated, one after another, the favourite generals of Napoleon. He was now to make trial of his prowess against their Master. Among the most critical events of modern times the battle by their resistance at Waterloo. Each army executed well and gallantly its part in a concerted operation. The English would never have fought at Waterloo if they had not relied on the arrival of the Prussians. Had the Prussians not come up on the afternoon of the 18th of June the English would have been exposed to the same great peril of having alone to deal with the mass of the French army, as the Prussians would have had to face if they had found the English in full retreat. To investigate the relative performances of the two armies is much the same as to decide the respective merits of the two Prussian armies at Sadowa, where one held the Austrians until the other arrived. Also in reading the many interesting personal accounts of the campaign it must be remembered that opinions about the chance of success in a defensive struggle are apt to vary with the observer's position, as indeed General Grant has remarked in answer to criticisms on his army's state at the end of the first day of the battle of Shiloh or Pittsburg Landing. The man placed in the front rank or fighting line sees attack after attack beaten off. He sees only part of his own losses, as most of the wounded disappear, and he also knows something of the enemy's loss by seeing the dead in front of him. Warmed by the contest, he thus believes in success. The man placed in rear or advancing with reinforcements, having nothing of the excitement of the struggle, sees only the long and increasing column of wounded, stragglers, and perhaps of fliers. He sees his companion fall without being able to answer the fire. He sees nothing of the corresponding loss of the enemy, and he is apt to take a most desponding view of the situation. Thus Englishmen reading the accounts of men who fought at Waterloo are too ready to disbelieve representations of what was taking place in the rear of the army, and to think Thackeray's life-like picture in Vanity Fair of the state of Brussels must be overdrawn. Indeed, in this very battle of Waterloo, Zieten began to retreat when his help was most required, because one of his aides de camp told him that the right wing of the English was in full retreat. "This inexperienced young man," says Muffling, p. 248, "had mistaken the great number of wounded going, or being taken, to the rear to be dressed, for fugitives, and accordingly made a false report." Further, reserves do not say much of their part or, sometimes, no part, of the fight, and few people know that at least two English regiments actually present on the field of Waterloo hardly fired a shot till the last advance. 33 The Duke described the army as the worst he ever commanded, and said that if he had had his Peninsular men, the fight would have been over much sooner. But the Duke, sticking to ideas now obsolete, had no picked corps. Each man, trusting in and trusted by his comrades, fought under his own officers and under his own regimental colours. Whatever they did not know, the men knew how to die, and at the end of the day a heap of dead told where each regiment and battery had stood. 1815. THE THREE GREAT LEADERS. 325 of Waterloo stands conspicuous. This sanguinary encounter at last stopped the torrent of the ruthless and predatory ambition of the French, by which so many countries had been desolated. With the peace which immediately succeeded it confidence was restored to Europe. The following account of the battle of Waterloo appeared in the first edition of this translation, and is retained with some corrections. Possibly too much was spoken or written at the time about Waterloo, for even the Duke of Wellington said he felt ashamed, "as if it were the only battle the English army had ever fought." But Waterloo was won close to home, and the nation received the news without the long delays they were accustomed to when tidings came from Spain. After the weary struggle of past years there was intense joy to find that peace had been gained in a day. The struggle, too, was one of a nature to be understood by, and to be most gratifying to, the English mind. Few would have comprehended long scientific manoeuvring: every one could understand the steady, patient resistance of the gallant men who lined the ridge of Waterloo and died on it. The almost dramatic close of the battle, too, went straight to the heart of the three nations, and all were proud when they read how, at the end of the day, the glad last cheer went up, as the Duke, stirred for once to some emotion and saying his life was no longer valuable, led on his scanty red line from the ridge where a thicker red line. of dead and wounded told how fierce had been attack and resistance. The forces of the Allies were led by the two generals who were probably the very men of all others to be opponents of Napoleon. Wellington had for years met and overcome the French, and though he had acknowledged that he looked on the very presence of Napoleon as equivalent to so many thousand more enemies, still his calm and cold nature was not liable to be dismayed by the prestige of the Great Captain he was now to meet for the first time. "I at least," said he, "will not be frightened beforehand." Blucher had no pretensions to strategic or tactical skill, but he was animated by an intense hatred to the cause of |