The Eagle of the Empire Part 45

In more detail his first plan was to confuse Wellington, who held the right of the allied line, then fall upon him before he had time to concentrate, and beat him or contain him with a detachment under Ney, while the Emperor in person thereafter put Blucher to rout--and all of these things he came very near accomplishing completely. Certainly, he carried out his plans successfully and to the letter until the final day of battle.

He reasoned that if he could beat Blucher and threaten his communications, what was left of the Prussian army, which Napoleon hoped would not be much, would immediately retreat eastward; and that when Blucher had been thrown out of the game for the present, he could turn on Wellington and his English and allies and make short work of him. It did not occur to him that even if he beat Blucher and beat Wellington, provided the defeats did not end in utter routs, and they both retreated, they might withdraw on parallel lines and effect a junction later when even after the double defeat they would still so greatly outnumber him that his chances of success would be faint indeed.

The possibility of their pursuing any other course than that he had forecast for them never entered his mind. His own conception of their action was, in fact, an obsession with him. Yet that which he thought they would do they did not; and that which he was confident they would not do they did!

CHAPTER XXIX

WATERLOO--THE FINAL REVIEW

In a romance like this, in which campaigns and marches, maneuvers and battles, however decisive they may be in history, are only incidental to the careers of the characters herein presented to the reader, it is not necessary for the chronicler to turn himself into a military historian, much as he would like it. Therefore, in great restraint, he presses on, promising hereafter only so much history as may serve to show forth the somber background.

In this setting of the scene of the great drama to be played, young Marteau has been necessarily somewhat lost sight of. He was very much in evidence during that hundred days of feverish and frantic activity.

Napoleon had distinguished him highly. He had given him the rank of a Colonel of the Guard, but he had still retained him on his staff. Good and experienced staff-officers were rare, and the Emperor needed all he could get; he could have used many more than were available. And as Marteau was one of those who were attached to the Emperor by the double motive of love of the man and love of his country, believing as he did that the destiny of the two could not be dissevered, he had served the Emperor most efficiently, with that blind, pa.s.sionate devotion to duty by which men give to a cause the best that is in them and which sometimes leads them to almost inconceivable heights of achievements.

Suffice it to say that the great strategic conception of Napoleon was carried out with rather striking success in the first three days of the campaign. The Emperor, crossing the Sambre, interposed himself between Wellington and Blucher, completely deceived the Englishman, who thought his extreme right was threatened, detached Ney to seize the village of Quatre Bras, where Wellington had at last decided to concentrate, and with eighty thousand men fell on the Prussians at Ligny.

Ney did not seize Quatre Bras; Wellington got there ahead of him and stubbornly held the position. Although Ney had twice the number of troops at the beginning of the battle that the English Field-Marshal could muster, they were not well handled and no adequate use was made of the French preponderance. Napoleon, on the far right of Ney, at Ligny, on the contrary, fought the Prussians with his old-time skill and brilliance. The contending forces there were about equal, the Prussians having the advantage in numbers, but victory finally declared for the Emperor. It was the last victory, not the least brilliant and not the least desperately fought of his long career. The importance and quality of the battle has been lost sight of in the greater struggle of Waterloo, which took place two days after, but it was a great battle, nevertheless. One of the crude ways in which to estimate a battle is by what is called the "butcher's bill" and eighteen thousand dead and wounded Prussians and twelve thousand Frenchmen tells its tale. But it was not the decisive battle that Napoleon had planned to make it.

The Prussians retreated. They had to. But they retreated in good order. Blucher having been unhorsed and temporarily incapacitated in a charge, the command and direction of the retreat devolved upon Gneisenau. His chief claim to military distinction lies in the fact that he did not do what Napoleon expected, and what Blucher would have done. He retreated to the north instead of the east! A pursuit was launched, but it did not pursue the Prussians. It went off, as it were, into thin air. It pursued Napoleon's idea, his forecast, which owing to the accident to Blucher was wrong!

One reason why the victory of Ligny and the drawn battle at Quatre Bras were not decisive was because of a strange lack of generalship and a strange confusion of orders for which Napoleon and Ney are both responsible. Ney was constructively a victor at Quatre Bras, finally.

That is, the English retreated at nightfall and abandoned the field to him; but they retreated not because they were beaten but because Wellington, finding his position could be bettered by retirement and concentration, decided upon withdrawal. But Ney could have been the victor in every sense, in spite of his indifferent tactics, if it had not been for the same blunder that the Emperor committed.

D'Erlon, at the head of perhaps the finest corps in the army, numbering twenty thousand men, through the long hours of that hot June day marched from the vicinity of Quatre Bras to Ligny, whence he could actually see the battle raging, only to be summoned back from Ligny to Quatre Bras by orders from Ney. Retracing his course, therefore, he marched back over the route he had just traversed, arriving at Quatre Bras too late to be of any service to Ney! Like the famous King of France who with twenty thousand men marched up the hill and then marched down again, this splendid corps which, thrown into either battle, would have turned the Prussian retreat into a rout on the one hand, or have utterly cut to pieces Wellington on the other, did nothing. The princ.i.p.al fault was Napoleon's. He saw d'Erlon's corps approaching, but he sent no order and took no steps to put it into the battle.

Well, in spite of the fact that the energies of d'Erlon had been spent in marching instead of fighting, the Emperor was a happy man that night. He had got himself safely placed between the two armies and he had certainly severely if not decisively beaten one of them.

Strategically, his operations had been characterized by unusual brilliancy. If things went as he hoped, surmised and confidently expected, all would be well. He was absolutely sure that Blucher was retiring to the east, toward Namur. He dispatched Grouchy with thirty-five thousand of his best men to pursue him in the direction which he supposed he had taken.

Napoleon's orders were positive, and he was accustomed to exact implicit obedience from his subordinates. He had a habit of discouraging independent action in the sternest of ways, and for the elimination of this great force from the subsequent battle the Emperor himself must accept the larger responsibility. But all this does not excuse Grouchy. He carried out his orders faithfully, to be sure, but a more enterprising and more independent commander would have sooner discovered that he was pursuing stragglers and would earlier have taken the right course to regain his touch with his chief and to harry the Prussian Field-Marshal. He did turn to the north at last, but when the great battle was joined he was miles away and of no more use than if he had been in Egypt. His attack on the Prussian rear-guard at Wavre, while it brought about a smart little battle with much hard and gallant fighting, really amounted to nothing and had absolutely no bearing on the settlement of the main issue elsewhere. He did not disobey orders, but many a man has gained immortality and fame by doing that very thing. Grouchy had his chance and failed to improve it. He was a veteran and a successful soldier, too.

Comes the day of Waterloo. Blucher had retreated north to Wavre and was within supporting distance of Wellington. His army had been beaten but not crushed, its spirit was not abated. The old Prussian Marshal, badly bruised and shaken from being unhorsed and overridden in a cavalry charge in which he had joined like a common trooper, but himself again, promised in a famous interview between the two to come to the support of the younger English Marshal, should he be attacked, with his whole army. Wellington had retreated as far as he intended to. He established his headquarters on a hill called Mont St. Jean, back of a ridge near a village called Waterloo, where his army commanded the junction point of the highroads to the south and west.

He drew up his lines, his red-coated countrymen and his blue-coated allies on the long ridge in front of Mont St. Jean, facing south, overlooking a gently sloping valley which was bounded by other parallel ridges about a mile away. On the right center of Wellington's lines, a short distance below the crest of the ridge, embowered in trees, lay a series of stone buildings, in extent and importance between a chateau and a farmhouse, called Hougomont. These were surrounded by a stone wall and the place was impregnable against everything but artillery if it were properly manned and resolutely held. Both those conditions were met that day. Opposite the left center of the Duke's line was another strong place, a farmhouse consisting of a series of stone buildings on three sides of a square, the fourth closed by a wall, called La Haye Sainte. These outposts were of the utmost value, rightly used.

The Duke had sixty-seven thousand men and one hundred and eighty guns.

His right had been strengthened at the expense of his left, because he expected Napoleon to attack the right and he counted on Blucher's arrival to support his left. To meet him Napoleon had seventy-five thousand men and two hundred and sixty guns. Off to the northeast lay Blucher at Wavre with nearly eighty thousand more men and two hundred guns, and wandering around in the outer darkness was Grouchy with thirty-five thousand.

The valley was highly cultivated. The ripening grain still stood in the fallow fields separated by low hedges. Broad roads ran through the valley in different directions. The weather was horrible. It rained torrents during the night and the earlier part of the morning. The fields were turned into quagmires, the roads into mora.s.ses. It was hot and close. The humidity was great. Little air was stirring.

Throughout the day the mist hung heavy over the valley and the ridges which bordered it. But the rain ceased in the morning and Napoleon made no attack until afternoon, waiting for the ground to dry out somewhat. It was more important to him that his soldiers should have good footing than to the English, for the offensive, the attack, the charge fell to him. Wellington determined to fight strictly on the defensive. Nevertheless, precious hours were wasted. Every pa.s.sing moment brought some accession to the allied army, and every pa.s.sing hour brought Blucher nearer. With all the impetuosity of his soul, the old man was urging his soldiers forward over the horrible roads.

"Boys," he said in his rough, homely way to some bitterly complaining artillerists stalled in the mud, "I promised. You would not have me break my word, would you?"

Grouchy meanwhile had at last determined that the Prussians had gone the other way. He had learned that they were at Wavre and he had swung about and was coming north. Of course, he should have marched toward the sound of the cannon--generally the safest guide for a soldier!--but, at any rate, he was trying to get into touch with the enemy. No one can question his personal courage or his loyalty to his cause.

Napoleon, when he should have been on the alert, was very drowsy and dull that day at Waterloo. He had shown himself a miracle of physical strength and endurance in that wonderful four days of campaigning and fighting, but the soldiers pa.s.sing by the farmhouse of La Belle Alliance--singular name which referred so prophetically to the enemy--sometimes saw him sitting on a chair by a table outside the house, his feet resting on a bundle of straw to keep them from the wet ground, nodding, asleep! And no wonder. It is doubtful if he had enjoyed as much as eight hours of sleep since he crossed the Sambre, and those not consecutive! Still, if ever he should have kept awake, that eighteenth of June was the day of days!

So far as one can discern his intention, his battle plan had been to feint at Hougomont on the right center, cause the Duke of Wellington to weaken his line to support the chateau, and then to break through the left center and crush him by one of those ma.s.sed attacks under artillery fire for which he had become famous. The line once broken, the end, of course, would be more or less certain.

The difference in the temperaments of the two great Captains was well ill.u.s.trated before the battle was joined. The Duke mainly concealed his men behind the ridge. All that the French saw when they came on the field were guns, officers and a few men. The English-Belgian army was making no parade. What the British and Flemish saw was very different. The Emperor displayed his full hand. The French, who appeared not to have been disorganized at all by the hard fighting at Ligny and Quatre Bras, came into view in most splendid style; bands playing, drums rolling, swords waving, bayonets shining even in the dull air of the wretched morning. They came on the field in solid columns, deployed and took their positions, out of cannon-shot range, of course, in the most deliberate manner. The uniforms of the army were brand-new, and it was the fashion to fight in one's best in those days. They presented a magnificent spectacle.

Presently the Duke, his staff, the gunners and the others who were on the top of the ridge and watching, saw a body of hors.e.m.e.n gallop rapidly along the French lines. One gray-coated figure riding a white horse was in advance of the rest. The cheers, the almost delirious shouts and cries, told the watchers that it was the Emperor. It was his last grand review, his last moment of triumph.

It was after one o'clock before the actual battle began. More books have been written about that battle than any other that was ever fought. One is tempted to say, almost than all others that were ever fought. And the closest reasoners arrive at different conclusions and disagree as to many vital and important details. The Duke of Wellington himself left two accounts, one in his dispatches and one in notes written long afterward, which were irreconcilable, but some things are certain, upon some things all historians are agreed.

The battle began with an attack on the Hougomont Chateau and the conflict actually raged around that chateau for over six hours, or until the French were in retreat. Macdonell, Home and Saltoun, Scotsmen all, with their regiments of the Household Guard, held that chateau, although it was a.s.sailed over and over again, finally, by the whole of Reille's corps. They held that chateau, although it burned over their heads, although the French actually broke into it on occasion. They held it, although every other man in it was shot down and scarcely a survivor was without a wound. It was a.s.saulted with a fury and a resolution which was only matched by the fury and resolution of its defense. Why it was not battered to pieces with artillery no one knows. At any rate, it occupied practically the whole of Reille's corps during the whole long afternoon of fighting.

The s.p.a.ce between Hougomont and La Haye Sainte was about a thousand yards. La Haye Sainte was a.s.saulted also but, to antic.i.p.ate events, it held out until about five o'clock in the evening, when, after another wonderful defense, it was carried. The French established themselves in it eighty yards from Wellington's line.

CHAPTER x.x.x

WATERLOO--THE CHARGE OF D'ERLON

Meanwhile the French had not confined their efforts to the isolated forts, if they may be so called, on Wellington's center and left center. After a tremendous artillery duel d'Erlon's men had been formed up for that ma.s.sed attack for which the Emperor was famous, and with which it was expected the English line would be pierced and the issue decided. The Emperor, as has been noted, had intended the attack on Hougomont as a mere feint, hoping to induce the Duke of Wellington to reinforce his threatened right and thereby to weaken his left center. It was no part of the Emperor's plan that an attempt to capture Hougomont should become the main battle on his own left that it had, nor could he be sure that even the tremendous attack upon it had produced the effect at which he aimed. Nevertheless, the movement of d'Erlon had to be tried.

It must be remembered that Napoleon had never pa.s.sed through the intermediate army grades. He had been jumped from a regimental officer to a General. He had never handled a regiment, a brigade, a division, a corps--only an army, or armies. Perhaps that was one reason why he was accustomed to leaving details and the execution of his plans to subordinates. He was the greatest of strategists and the ablest of tacticians, but minor tactics did not interest him, and the arrangement of this great a.s.sault he left to the corps and its commander.

Giving orders to Ney and d'Erlon, therefore, the Emperor at last launched his grand attack. One hundred and twenty guns were concentrated on that part of the English left beyond the westernmost of the two outlying positions, through which it was determined to force a way. Under cover of the smoke, which all day hung thick and heavy in the valley and clung to the ridges, d'Erlon's splendid corps, which had been so wasted between Quatre Bras and Ligny, and which was burning to achieve something, was formed in four huge parallel close-ranked columns, slightly echeloned under Donzelot, Marcognet, Durutte and Allix. With greatly mistaken judgment, these four columns were crowded close together. The disposition was a very bad one. In the first place, their freedom of movement was so impaired by lack of proper distance as to render deployment almost impossible. Unless the columns could preserve their solid formation until the very point of contact, the charge would be a fruitless one. In the second place, they made an enormous target impossible to miss. The attack was supported by light batteries of artillery and the cavalry in the flanks.

Other things being equal, the quality of soldiers being the same, the column is at an obvious disadvantage when attacking the line. It was so in this instance. Although it was magnificently led by Ney and d'Erlon in person, and although it comprised troops of the highest order, the division commanders being men of superb courage and resolution, no valor, no determination could make up for these disadvantages. The tremendous artillery-fire of the French, which did great execution among the English, kept them down until the dark columns of infantry mounting the ridge got in the way of the French guns which, of course, ceased to fire.

The drums were rolling madly, the Frenchmen were cheering loudly when the ridge was suddenly covered with long red lines. There were not many blue-coated allies left. Many of them had already laid down their lives; of the survivors more were exhausted by the fierce battling of the preceding days when the Belgians had n.o.bly sustained the fighting traditions of a race to which nearly two thousand years before Caesar himself had borne testimony. As a matter of fact, most of the allies were moved to the rear. They did not leave the field. They were formed up again back of the battle line to const.i.tute the reserve. The English did not intend to flee either. They were not accustomed to it and they saw no reason for doing it now.

Wellington moved the heavy cavalry over to support the threatened point of the line and bade his soldiers restrain their fire. There was something ominous in the silent, steady, rock-like red wall. It was much more threatening to the mercuric Gallic spirit than the shouting of the French was to the unemotional English disposition. Still, they came intrepidly on.

Meanwhile, renewed attacks were hurled against the chateau and the farmhouse. Ney and d'Erlon had determined to break the English line with the bayonet. Suddenly, when the French came within point-blank range, the English awoke to action. The English guns hurled shot into the close-ranked ma.s.ses, each discharge doing frightful execution.

Ney's horse was shot from under him at the first fire. But the unwounded Marshal scrambled to his feet and, mounting another horse, pressed on.

The slow-moving ranks were nearer. At point-blank range the English infantrymen now opened fire. Shattering discharges were poured upon the French. The fronts of the divisions were obliterated. The men in advance who survived would have given back, but the pressure of the ma.s.ses in their rear forced them to go on. The divisions actually broke into a run. Again and again the British battalions spoke, the black muskets in the hands of the red coats were tipped with redder flame. It was not in human flesh and blood to sustain very long such a fire.

It was a magnificent charge, gloriously delivered, and such was its momentum that it almost came in touch with the English line. It did not quite. That momentum was spent at last. The French deployed as well as they could in the crowded s.p.a.ce and at half-pistol-shot distance began to return the English fire. The French guns joined in the infernal tumult. The advance had been stopped, but it had not been driven back. The French cavalry were now coming up. Before they arrived that issue had to be decided. The critical moment was at hand, and Wellington's superb judgment determined the action. He let loose on them the heavy cavalry, led by the Scots Grays on their big horses.

As the ranks of the infantry opened to give them room, the men of the Ninety-second Highlanders, mad with the enthusiasm of the moment, caught the stirrup-straps of the Horse and, half running, half dragged, joined in the charge.

The splendid body of heavy cavalry fell on the flank of the halted columns. There was no time for the French to form a square. Nay more, there was no room for them to form a square. In an instant, however, they faced about and delivered a volley which did great execution, but nothing could stop the maddened rush of the gigantic hors.e.m.e.n. Back on the heights of Rossomme Napoleon, aroused from his lethargy at last, stared at the great attack.

"_Mon Dieu!_" he exclaimed as he saw the tremendous onfall of the cavalrymen upon his helpless infantry, "how terrible are those gray hors.e.m.e.n!"

Yes, they were more terrible to the men at the point of contact than they were to those back of La Belle Alliance. No infantry that ever lived in the position in which the French found themselves could have stood up against such a charge as that. Trampling, hacking, slashing, thrusting, the horses biting and fighting like the men, the heavy cavalry broke up two of the columns. The second and third began to retreat under an awful fire. But the dash of the British troopers was spent. They had become separated, disorganized. They had lost coherence. The French cavalry now arrived on the scene. Admirably handled, they were thrown on the scattered English. There was nothing for the latter to do but retire. Retire they did, having accomplished all that anyone could expect of cavalry, fighting every step of the way. Just as soon as they opened the fronts of the regiments' in line, the infantry and artillery began again, and then the French cavalry got its punishment in its turn.

It takes but moments to tell of this charge and, indeed, in the battlefield it seemed but a few moments. But the French did not give way until after long hard fighting. From the beginning of the preliminary artillery-duel to the repulse of the charge an hour and a half elapsed. Indeed, they did not give way altogether either, for Donzelot and Allix, who commanded the left divisions, were the men who finally succeeded in capturing La Haye Sainte. And both sides suffered furiously before the French gave back.

There was plenty of fight left in the French yet. Ney, whatever his strategy and tactics, showed himself as of yore the bravest of the brave. It is quite safe to say that the hero of the retreat from Russia, the last of the Grand Army, the star of many a hotly contested battle, surpa.s.sed even his own glorious record for personal courage on that day. Maddened by the repulse, he gathered up all the cavalry, twelve thousand in number, and with Kellerman, greatest of cavalrymen, to second him and with division leaders like Milhaud and Maurice, he hurled himself upon the English line between Hougomont and La Haye Sainte. But the English made no tactical mistakes like that of Ney and d'Erlon. The artillerists stood to their guns until the torrent of French hors.e.m.e.n was about to break upon them, then they ran back to the safety of the nearest English square.

The English had been put in such formation that the squares lay checkerwise. Each side was four men deep. The front rank knelt, the second rank bent over at a charge bayonets, the third and the fourth ranks stood erect and fired. The French hors.e.m.e.n might have endured the tempest of bullets but they could not ride down the _chevaux de frise_, the fringe of steel. They tried it. No one could find fault with that army. It was doing its best; it was fighting and dying for its Emperor. Over and over they sought to break those stubborn British squares. One or two of them were actually penetrated, but unavailingly.