The Political History of England – Vol XI

THE CAMPAIGN OF 1815.

In the end, about 80,000 men were assembled in Belgium under Wellington's orders, but of these not half were British soldiers, including untrained drafts from the militia, who replaced veteran Peninsular regiments still detained in Canada and the United States. Yet Napoleon admitted the British contingent to be equal, man for man, to his own troops, while he estimated these to be worth twice their own number of Dutchmen, Prussians, or other Germans. The first blow in the war was struck by Murat. Already in February, dissatisfied with his ambiguous position, he had levied troops and summoned Louis XVIII. to declare whether he was at war with him. As soon as he heard of Napoleon's return, he invaded the Papal States, and summoned the Italians to rise in the cause of Italian unity and independence. Though disowned by Napoleon, he persevered in this plan, but he was attacked and twice defeated by an Austrian army. On May 22 the British and Austrians took the city of Naples, and Murat fled to France. In October he made an attempt to recover his kingdom, but was captured and shot. It is noteworthy that, on hearing of his fate at St. Helena, Napoleon showed but little sympathy with his brother-in-law.

On the morning of June 12, Napoleon left Paris, saying as he entered his carriage that he went to match himself with Wellington. All his troops were already marshalled on the Belgian frontier, and numbered 124,588 men, with 344 guns. The Imperial Guard alone was 20,954 strong, and the whole army was largely composed of seasoned veterans. The Prussian army consisted of 116,897 men, with 312 guns under Marshal Blücher, whose headquarters were at Namur. Though the majority of these were veterans, there was a considerable leaven of inferior troops, hastily raised from the Westphalian and Rhine militia. Between this town and Quatre Bras lay the Prussian line of defence, Sombreffe being the centre, with Ligny and St. Amand in front of it, and rather on the south-west. Wellington's headquarters were at Brussels, and, having no certain intelligence of Napoleon's movements, he kept the various divisions of his army within easy distance of that capital until the very eve of the final conflict. Of the 93,717 men under his command, 31,253 were British, two-thirds of whom had never been under fire; 6,387 were of the king's German legion; 15,935 Hanoverians; 29,214 (including 4,300 Nassauers in the service of the Prince of the Netherlands) Dutch and Belgians; 6,808 Brunswickers; 2,880 Nassauers; the engineers, numbering 1,240, were not classified by nationality. He fully expected that Napoleon would move upon Brussels along the route by Mons and Hal, and maintained in later days that such would have been the best strategical course. Napoleon thought otherwise, and resolved to strike in between the Prussian and British armies, crushing the former before the latter could be fully assembled. He very nearly succeeded, and, if all had gone as he hoped, he could scarcely have failed to win one of his greatest victories.

LIGNY AND QUATRE BRAS.

On the evening of the 15th, Wellington was still at Brussels, with the great body of his army, and only a weak force of Dutch and Belgians was at Quatre Bras, some sixteen miles to the south. Blücher, with about three-fourths of his army, was at Sombreffe, a few miles south-east of Quatre Bras. Napoleon himself was at or close by Charleroi, ten or twelve miles south of Quatre Bras; the mass of his army was at Fleurus, south-west of Sombreffe, with Ligny and St. Amand between it and the Prussians; and Marshal Ney, with Reille's corps, was at Frasnes, opposite to and due south of Quatre Bras. On the morning of the 16th, Napoleon arrived from Charleroi at Fleurus, and carefully inspected his enemy's position, but delayed his attack upon Ligny and St Amand until half-past two in the afternoon. The Prussians outnumbered the French, and a murderous conflict ensued among the streets, gardens, and enclosures of these little towns, which lasted until eight or nine o'clock. At last Napoleon ordered his guard to advance, and the plateau behind Ligny was taken, with a loss to the French of 12,000, and to the Prussians of over 20,000. Blücher himself was unhorsed and severely bruised in a furious charge of cavalry, but the Prussians retired in good order towards Wavre, north of the battlefield.

Had Ney been in a condition to obey an urgent message from Napoleon, and to envelop the Prussian right and rear, this defeat would have been overwhelming in its effect. But while the battle of Ligny was raging, another battle was going on at Quatre Bras, six miles distant, in which the French sustained a serious check. Happily for the British, Ney failed to bring up his divisions for an attack on Quatre Bras until two o'clock in the afternoon, when the Dutch and Belgians under the Prince of Orange were still his only opponents. The news for which Wellington had been waiting did not reach him until just before the memorable ball, given by the Duchess of Richmond at Brussels on the night of the 15th, which he nevertheless attended, hurrying off his troops to Quatre Bras. They arrived just in time to reinforce the Prince of Orange and save the position; but Ney, too, was receiving fresh reinforcements every hour, the Duke of Brunswick was killed, and a fearful stress fell on Picton's division and the Hanoverians, who alone were a match for Ney's splendid infantry and Kellermann's cuirassiers.

These made a charge like that which had borne down the Austrians at Marengo, but the British squares were proof against it, and when a division of guards came up from Nivelles, the French in turn were put on the defensive and retreated to Frasnes. The loss on the British side was 4,500 men; that on the French somewhat less. It is not difficult to imagine what the issue of the battle must have been if D'Erlon's corps had been brought into action. This corps was occupied in marching and countermarching, under contradictory orders from Napoleon and Ney, between the British left and the Prussian right during the whole of this eventful day. Its appearance in the distance just when Napoleon was about to launch his guard against the Prussians at Ligny, caused him to hesitate long, and lose the decisive moment for demolishing his enemy. Its failure to appear at Quatre Bras, and to roll up the wavering Dutch-Belgians, before Picton took up the fighting, enabled Wellington to hold his ground at first, to repulse Ney afterwards, and on hearing of Blücher's defeat at Ligny, to fall back in good order on Waterloo. Even then, something was due to good fortune. Had Napoleon joined Ney and marched direct on Quatre Bras early on the 17th, it is difficult to see how his advance to Brussels could have been arrested. But whether he was exhausted by his incessant labours since leaving Paris, or whether his marvellous intuition was deserting him, certain it is that he allowed that critical morning to slip by without an effort – and without a reconnaissance. He assumed that Blücher must retire upon Namur as his base of operations, and that Wellington, retiring towards Brussels, would be cut off from his allies. He therefore despatched Marshal Grouchy, with 33,000 men, to follow up the Prussians eastward by the Namur road. His assumption was unfounded. Blücher, loyal to his engagements, retired upon Wavre; Wellington, relying upon Blücher's loyalty, took his stand on the field of Waterloo; and this error on the part of Napoleon determined the fortunes of the campaign.61

WATERLOO.

The British army retreated upon Waterloo almost unmolested. Ney was probably awaiting orders, and Napoleon, believing the Prussians to be at Namur, probably thought he might safely rest himself and his army before crushing Wellington at his leisure. When they realised that Wellington was deliberately moving his army to a position nearer Brussels, they both followed in pursuit along different roads converging at Quatre Bras, and a brisk skirmish took place near Genappe between Ney's cavalry and that of the British rear-guard. Heavy rain came on, and the two armies spent a miserable night, half a mile from each other, close to Mont St. Jean, and south of Waterloo. Napoleon rose before daybreak on the 18th, reconnoitred the British position, and convinced himself that Wellington intended to give battle. He expressed to his staff his satisfaction and confidence of victory, when General Foy, who had experience of the Peninsular war, replied in significant words: "Sire, when the British infantry stand at bay, they are the very devil himself". Why Napoleon did not begin the battle at eight o'clock has been the subject of much discussion. It is said that he waited for Grouchy to join him before the close of the action. But neither he nor Grouchy, though aware that at least a large force of Prussians had gone to Wavre and not to Namur, suspected that Blücher had promised Wellington to march with his whole army on the morning of the 18th to support the British at Waterloo. It is more likely that he waited for his men to assemble and for the ground to dry and become more practicable for his powerful artillery.62

Exception has been taken to the conduct of Wellington in detaching 17,000 men to guard the approach to Brussels at Hal, and, still more, in not recalling them, when he must have ascertained that nothing was to be feared on that side, and when such a reinforcement of his right wing must have been all-important. But it must be remembered that in this force there were only 1,500 English troops, and 2,000 Hanoverian militia. The rest were Dutch and Belgians. At all events, Napoleon left his right flank undefended, though he was already somewhat anxious about the Prussian movements, and Wellington fought the battle of Waterloo with a force numerically inferior to that under Napoleon's command, though it might have been rendered superior by the accession of the Hal contingent. The effective part of this force, numbering in all 67,661 men, consisted of 24,000 British soldiers, 6,000 soldiers of the king's German legion, and about 11,000 Hanoverians. Napoleon's force numbered 72,000 men, and it was stronger both in cavalry and in guns. It represented the flower of the French army; there were few, if any, recruits as raw as those who swelled the ranks of the British regiments; there were thousands upon thousands who had formed part of that Grande Armée which had overawed the continent of Europe. It is fair, however, to record that, while the British rank and file suffered much for want of sufficient food, the French had fared still worse, and that very many of them could have been in no fit condition for the struggle impending over them.

Both armies occupied ground extending from west to east, on opposite ridges, and crossed at right angles by the great highway running north and south from Charleroi to Brussels. In front of the British right were the château and enclosures of Hougoumont which were occupied by the British; nearly in front of the centre were the large farm-house and buildings of La Haye Sainte. Further to the left were the hamlet of Smohain and the farms Papelotte and La Haye. Wellington had arranged his brigades so as to distribute the older troops as much as possible among the less experienced. Sir Thomas Picton's fifth division formed the left of the line; to his right was Alten's second division, and beyond him to the right was the guards division under Cooke. Further to the right and partly in reserve was Clinton's second division, while Chassé's Dutch division on the extreme right occupied the village of Braine l'Alleud. Somerset's brigade of heavy cavalry and Kruse's Dutch cavalry were posted behind Alten's division, and Ponsonby's "union brigade," consisting of the royal dragoons, Scots greys, and Inniskillings, was stationed in Picton's rear. The whole line lay on the inner slopes of the ridge with the exception of Bylandt's Dutch-Belgian brigade which was posted on the outer slope in front of Picton's division. D'Erlon's corps was opposite the British left, Reille's opposite the British right. Squadrons of cavalry covered the outer flank of either of the two French corps. The magnificent squadrons of French cavalry, 15,000 strong, under Milhaud, Kellermann, and other famous leaders, were in the second line; the imperial guard, as usual, was massed in the rear.

WATERLOO.

The battle opened about half-past eleven with a furious attack on Hougoumont. It was defended with desperate gallantry, mainly by the British guards, who reopened the old loopholes in the garden-walls, and closed by sheer muscular force the eastern gate of the yard, which had been forced open by the French. In the fruitless siege of Hougoumont, as it may be called, the French left wing thus wasted most of its strength, and incurred enormous loss. Meanwhile, the French right wing under D'Erlon, advanced to attack the British left, which had been assailed for an hour and a half by the fire of a battery with seventy-eight guns. The Dutch and Belgians, who in their exposed position had suffered severely from the French artillery fire, soon gave way; but Picton's division, after a single volley, charged with the bayonet and drove their assailants reeling backward, though Picton himself fell dead on the field. Without orders from Wellington, Lord Uxbridge, in command of the British cavalry, seized the opportunity, and launched the union brigade with other regiments upon the flying masses. This whirlwind of British horsemen swept all before it, slaughtering many of the French cavalry in passing, taking 3,000 prisoners, sabring the gunners of Ney's battery, and spiking fifteen of the guns. But their ardour carried them too far. By Napoleon's orders a large force of French cuirassiers and lancers fell upon their flank before they could take breath again, and their ranks were frightfully thinned in a disorderly retreat. But their charge had saved the day.

At one o'clock, while the fate of D'Erlon's onslaught was still undecided, Napoleon observed Prussian troops on his right. An intercepted despatch proved these to be Bülow's corps. He instantly sent off a despatch to Grouchy, whom he supposed to be within reach, ordering him to attack Bülow in the rear. Then followed the memorable succession of charges by the whole of the French cavalry upon the squares of the British infantry. Not one of these squares was broken; a great part of the French cavalry was mown down by volleys or cut to pieces by the British cavalry in their precipitate retreat, and the British line remained unmoved, though grievously weakened, behind its protecting ridge. This was the crisis of the fight. Much of the British artillery was dismounted, and Wellington confessed to one of his staff that he longed for the advent of night or Blücher. Napoleon next felt himself compelled to detach Lobau's corps for the purpose of meeting the advancing Prussians. Soon afterwards Ney carried La Haye Sainte by a most determined assault, aided by the failure of ammunition within its defences, and thus captured the key of the British position. But Napoleon saw that his one chance of victory lay in a final coup before the Prussians could wrest it from him. He ordered the imperial guard to the front, leading it himself across the valley, and then handing over the command to Ney. The guard was but the remnant of its original strength, for all its cavalry had been wrecked in wild charges against the British squares, and several battalions of its infantry were kept in reserve to hold back the Prussians and protect the baggage train. Nevertheless, the advance of this superb corps, the heroes of a hundred fights, who had seldom failed to hurl back the tide of battle at the most perilous junctures, was among the most impressive spectacles in the annals of war. They swerved a little to the left, thereby exposing themselves to the fire of the British footguards and of a battery in excellent condition. The former were lying down for shelter, but when the imperial guard came within sixty paces of them they started up at the word of command from Wellington himself. The footguards poured a deadly fire into the front, and the 52nd regiment into the flank of their columns; as they wavered under the storm of shot a bayonet charge followed, and the imperial guard, hitherto almost invincible, was dissolved into a mob of fugitives scattered over the plain.

It was now past eight o'clock; Bülow's Prussians had long been engaged on the British left, and Blücher, with indomitable energy, was pressing forward with all his other divisions. Wellington first sent Vandeleur's and Vivian's cavalry, still comparatively fresh, to sweep away what remained of the French reserves, and then ordered a general advance. The French retreat speedily became a rout, and a rout to which there is no parallel except that which succeeded the battle of Leipzig. Wellington and Blücher met at La Belle Alliance on the high road, just south of the battlefield, and lately the French headquarters. The British troops were utterly tired out, but the Prussian cavalry never drew rein until they had driven the last Frenchman over the river Sambre in their relentless pursuit. The slaughter had been prodigious, though far short of that at Borodino. The British army lost 13,000 men, the Prussian 7,000, and the French 37,00063 (including prisoners), besides the whole of their artillery, ammunition, baggage-waggons, and military train. But the battle was one of the most decisive recorded in history, and was the real beginning of a peace which lasted over the whole of Europe for nearly forty years. Grouchy heard the cannonade of Waterloo on his march from Ligny to Wavre, and was strongly urged by Gérard to hasten across country, with his whole force, in the direction of the firing. But he pleaded the letter of Napoleon's instructions, and reached Wavre only to find Blücher gone. After an encounter with a Prussian corps, which had been left behind, he received news of Napoleon's defeat, and ultimately escaped into France.

NAPOLEON'S SECOND ABDICATION.

The march of the allies into France after the battle of Waterloo was not wholly unchecked, but it was far more rapid than in 1814. The French could not be rallied, and in the first week of July Paris was occupied by Anglo-Prussian troops. The Austrians and Prussians were moving again upon the eastern frontiers of France, but were still far behind. The Prussian general and soldiers were animated by the bitterest spirit of vengeance, and it needed all the firmness of Wellington to prevent the bridge of Jena from being blown up, and a ruinous contribution levied on the citizens of Paris. Napoleon himself was now at Rochefort, having quitted Paris after a second abdication on June 22, but four days after the battle. No other course was open to him. When he started for his last campaign, he was no longer the champion of an united nation, and consciously staked his all on a single throw. When he returned from it, discomfited and without an army, he found the chambers actively hostile to him. Carnot, who had formerly opposed his assumption of the imperial title, was now the only one of his ministers to deprecate his abdication, but Napoleon himself saw no hope of retaining his power, or transmitting it to his son, without a reckless appeal to revolutionary passions. From this he shrank, and he represented himself at St. Helena as having sacrificed personal ambition to patriotism.

The chamber of deputies appointed an executive commission of five, including the infamous Fouché, and from this body the late emperor actually received an order to quit Paris. He retired to Malmaison, where he received a fresh order to set out for Rochefort, which he reached on July 3. On the next day Paris capitulated to the allies, and the necessity for his leaving the shores of France became more urgent. Two frigates were assigned for his escape to America, but a British squadron was lying ready to intercept them. Some of his bolder companions devised a scheme for smuggling him on board a swift merchant ship, but it was foiled by the vigilant watch of the British squadron off the islands of Oléron and Ré. At last he surrendered himself on board the Bellerophon, relying, as he said, on the honour of the British nation, and claiming the generous protection of the prince regent. He was, however, clearly informed that he would be at the disposal of the government. Under an agreement with the allied powers, the ministers decided, and were supported by the nation in deciding, that he could not be detained in England, either as a guest or as a prisoner, with any regard to public safety or the verdict of Europe at Vienna. The proposal of banishing him to St. Helena, suggested in the previous year, was finally adopted, and he sailed thither in the Northumberland on August 8, vehemently protesting against the bad faith of Great Britain. Louis XVIII. was restored, and the treaty of Vienna, signed on the eve of the Waterloo campaign, was but slightly modified.

The action of Murat had solved the difficulties which the congress had to face in Italy. The kingdom of the Two Sicilies reverted to the Bourbon, Ferdinand; and the Bourbons also acquired a right of reversion in Parma, where the protest of Spain against the rule of Maria Louisa could now be ignored. Genoa was annexed to the kingdom of Sardinia; the pope received back the states of the Church; the Grand Duke of Tuscany and the Duke of Modena were restored; while Austria had to be content with Venetia and Lombardy as far as the Ticino. The organisation of Germany occupied the congress until June, and was the least durable part of its work. The basis of it was a confederation of thirty-eight states, represented and in theory controlled by a diet under the presidency of Austria. This diet naturally resolved itself into a mere permanent congress of diplomatists for the purpose of settling the mutual relations of the constituent states. Each state was ordered to adopt a constitutional form of government, but, as no provision was made for enforcing this clause, it remained a dead letter. Prussia regained her provinces on the left bank of the Rhine, with a population exceeding 1,000,000, and was allotted the northern part of Saxony, with a population of 800,000, besides retaining her original share of Poland, with the province of Posen, which had formed part of the duchy of Warsaw. Most of this duchy was annexed by Russia, but Cracow was left a republic. Prussia also gained Swedish Pomerania. Bavaria, Hanover, and Denmark profited more or less by the repartition of Germany. Denmark, however, finally lost Norway, and Sweden paid the price of this acquisition by resigning Finland to Russia. The neutrality of Switzerland was proclaimed and her constitution simplified. The Belgian Netherlands were united to Holland, the two forming together the kingdom of the Netherlands, to which Austria ceded all her claims in the Low Countries.

THE SECOND TREATY OF PARIS.

The treaty of Vienna left the boundaries of France itself as they had been defined by the first treaty of Paris in 1814. The second treaty of Paris, however, signed on November 20, 1815, was less favourable to France, which had already ceded Western Savoy to Sardinia, and was now required to abandon Landau and other outlying territories beyond the frontier of 1792. She was also compelled to restore all the works of art accumulated during the war.

Great Britain had failed to obtain from the congress any binding regulation on the subject of the slave trade. The most that she could obtain was a solemn denunciation of that trade issued on February 8, which declared it to be "repugnant to the principles of civilisation and of universal morality". The moderation of the British demands, as embodied in these treaties, excited not only the amazement but the contempt of Napoleon, who discussed the subject at St. Helena with great freedom. Well knowing that his paramount object throughout all his wars and negotiations had been to crush Great Britain, and that Great Britain had been the mainstay of all the combinations against him, he could find no explanation of our self-denial except our insular simplicity. Perhaps it might be attributed with greater reason to politic magnanimity; nor, indeed, could Great Britain, as a member of the European council, dictate such terms as Napoleon suggested. Still, the gains of Great Britain were substantial. She retained Ceylon, the Cape of Good Hope, the Isle of France (Mauritius), Trinidad, St. Lucia, Tobago, and, above all, Malta. She also obtained possession of Heligoland and the protectorate of the Ionian Islands, both of which she has since resigned of her own accord. If she afterwards lost the commanding position which she had attained among the allied powers, it was chiefly because the colossal empire which she had defied was effectually shattered, because neither her armies nor her subsidies were any longer needed on the continent of Europe, and perhaps because the energies of her statesmen were no longer braced up by the stress of a struggle for national life.