Waterloo Part 12

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Footnotes:

[1] I use the word "English" here to emphasise the character of Wellington's command; for though even this second half of the allied line was not in its majority of British origin, yet it contained a large proportion of British troops; the commander was an Englishman, the Duke of Wellington, and the best elements in the force were from these islands.

[2] Rather more than 106,000; guns 204.

[3] Surely an error in judgment, for thus the whole ma.s.s of the army, all of it except the First and Second Corps, would be crossing the Sambre at that one place, with all the delay such a plan would involve. As a fact, the Fourth Corps, or right wing of the advance, was at last sent over the river by Chatelet, but it would have been better to have given such orders at the beginning.

[4] There were some five hundred Prussian prisoners.

[5] See _ante_, pp. 27 and 32.

[6] A lengthy digression might here be admitted upon the question of how defence against aerial scouting will develop. That it will develop none can doubt. Every such advantage upon the part of one combatant has at last been neutralised by the spread of a common knowledge and a common method to all.

[7] To be accurate, not quite five-twelfths.

[8] It is worth remarking that Perponcher had been told by Wellington, when he first heard of Napoleon's approach, to remain some miles off to the west at Nivelles. Wellington laboured, right up to the battle of Waterloo, under the fantastic impression that the French, or a considerable body of them, were, for some extraordinary reason, going to leave the Brussels road, go round westward and attack his _right_. He was, as might be expected of a defensive genius, nervous for his communications. Luckily for Wellington, Perponcher simply disobeyed these orders, left Nivelles before dawn, was at Quatre Bras before sunrise, and proceeded to act as we shall see above.

[9] Or at the most sixteen.

[10] This first division of the Guards consisted of the two brigades of Maitland and of Byng.

[11] Let it be remembered, for instance, that Ziethen's corps, which helped to turn the scale at Waterloo, two days later, only arrived, on the field of battle _less than half an hour before sunset_.

[12] I have in this map numbered separate corps and units from one to ten, without giving them names. The units include the English cavalry and Dornberg's brigade, with the c.u.mberland Hussars, the First, Second, Third, and Fifth Infantry Divisions, the corps of Brunswick, the Na.s.sauers, and the Second and Third Netherlands Divisions. All of these ultimately reached Quatre Bras with the exception of the Second Infantry Division.

[13] In which 15,000, as accurate statistics are totally lacking, and the whole thing is a matter of rough estimate, we may a.s.sign what proportion we will to killed, to wounded, and to prisoners respectively.

[14] The reason he was thus ignorant of what had really happened to the Prussians was, that the officer who had been sent by the chief of the Prussian staff to the Duke after nightfall to inform him of the Prussian defeat had never arrived. That officer had been severely wounded on the way, and the message was not delivered.

[15] There has arisen a discussion as to the whole nature of this retreat between the French authorities, who insist upon the close pursuit by their troops and the precipitate flight of the English rearguard, and the English authorities, who point out how slight were the losses of that rearguard, and how just was Wellington's comment that the retreat, as a whole, was unmolested.

This dispute is solved, as are many disputes, by the consideration that each narrator is right from his point of view. The French pursuit was most vigorous, the English rearguard was very hard pressed indeed; but that rearguard was so well handled that it continually held its own, gave back as good as it got, and efficiently protected the unmolested retreat of the ma.s.s of the army.

[16] "Dead" ground means ground in front of a position sheltered _by its very steepness_ from the fire of the defence upon the summit. The ideal front for a defence conducted with firearms is not a very steep slope, but a long, slight, open and _even_ one.

[17] Almost exactly ten per cent.

[18] It is from thirty to fifty feet above the spur on which he had just ranged his guns in front of the army, some twenty-five feet higher than the crest occupied a mile off by the allied army, and a few feet higher than the bare land somewhat more than four miles off, upon which Napoleon first discerned the arriving Prussians.

[19] See map opposite t.i.tle-page.

[20] There is conflict of evidence as to how long the brigade was exposed to this terrible ordeal. It was slightly withdrawn at some moment, but what moment is doubtful.

[21] The group marked "C" upon the coloured map. It was for the most part under the command of Milhaud, but the rear of it was under the command of Desnoettes.

[22] See sketch opposite page 134.

[23] This is the wood upon the extreme right hand of the coloured map.

[24] In the model on p. 155 Plancenoit is not shown. It would be out of the model, nearer the spectator, behind Napoleon's position at A, and between A and N.

[25] The Guard as a whole had lain behind the French line in reserve all day upon the point marked D upon the coloured map.

[26] Virtually, this advance in echelon had turned into four columns.

[27] We may allow certainly 7000 prisoners and 30,000 killed and wounded, but that is a minimum. It is quite possible that another 3000 should be added to the prisoners and other 5000 to those who fell. The estimates differ so widely because the numerous desertions after the fall of the Empire make it very difficult to compare the remnant of the army with its original strength.