The Battle of Waterloo by William Sadler
‘On a perdu la France’ was Napoleon’s comment to d’Erlon,
referring to Ney’s mistakes at Quatre Bras when he joined him there at midday
on 17 June. The comment might equally well have applied to Grouchy. When on
that same day Napoleon detached Grouchy and his 33,000 men to follow up and
harass the Prussians, Grouchy himself and Soult tried to dissuade him, but the
Emperor insisted. Not only was he giving himself too many objectives, he was
dissipating his forces. A single aim – the defeat of Wellington – and a
concentration of force to do so would have served him better. Moreover, his
instructions to Grouchy were far from clear. Grouchy was required to pursue the
Prussians and reconnoitre their movements so that Napoleon could determine
their intentions. He needed to know what Wellington and Blücher meant to do.
During the early hours of 18 June, Napoleon received a despatch from Grouchy
announcing his intention to follow the Prussians towards Wavre and prevent
their moving towards Brussels and Wellington’s position. The Emperor’s reply confounded
confusion and contained these words: ‘His Majesty desires you will head for
Wavre in order to draw near to us [my italics] . . .’ This in itself was
contradictory for whereas Wavre was to the north of Grouchy, Napoleon was to
the west. Had Napoleon’s former Chief of Staff, Berthier, been there instead of
Soult, he would never have permitted such sloppy phrasing. But Soult did at
least press for the instant recall of Grouchy, only to have his intervention
dismissed by the Emperor. The full impact of Grouchy’s detachment was still to
be felt.
In his most agreeable account of Marcellin Marbot’s
adventures as a cavalry général de brigade, based on Marbot’s own memoirs,
Vyvyan Ferrers suggests that these memoirs gave Conan Doyle the inspiration for
writing his stories about Brigadier Gérard. Ferrers also notes that the choice
of the name Gérard was surprising, for as already recorded, one of the corps
commanders at Waterloo was General Etienne Gérard, and on the fateful afternoon
of 18 June he was with the newly appointed Marshal Grouchy, who was vainly
attempting to follow up Blücher’s army to Wavre and engage it. It was while
Grouchy was pondering what to do that the thunder of guns at Waterloo was
heard. If ever the initiative inherent to any great military commander needed
to be employed, it was now. To march to the sound of the guns – at a time when
your own force was contributing nothing to the battle’s resolution – was so
fundamental that Grouchy should have given instant orders to do so. Yet at this
very moment General Gérard intervened and publicly told Grouchy that it was his
duty to march upon the guns. Despite his own indecision, the one thing Grouchy
was not prepared to tolerate was a lesson in command from one of his own
subordinates, and after an ill-tempered dispute, the Marshal made it plain that
his duty was to carry out the Emperor’s orders and proceed to Wavre. And so he
turned his back on the struggle which was to determine Europe’s future. Had he
marched to the guns with his 33,000 or so men, he would have intercepted the
Prussian movement towards Waterloo and reinforced Napoleon at a moment when
such reinforcement would have been decisive. Napoleon would not then have had
to respond to Ney’s plea for more troops with a petulant: ‘Troops? Where do you
expect me to find them? Do you expect me to make them?’ They would have been to
hand at the very moment when Ney was poised to execute the coup de grâce.
It is clear, therefore, that the various Ifs that we have
looked at so far spring from mistakes made by Ney, Soult, Grouchy and Napoleon
himself. Vincent Cronin names three blunders committed by the Emperor before
the main battle had even begun: first, not crushing Wellington on the morning
of 17 June, when the Prussians were retreating and the French could have
brought overwhelming numbers against Wellington; second, his misjudgement both
of the quality of British soldiers and the tactical skill of their commander;
third, his gross overconfidence – had he taken the whole affair much more seriously,
he would not have delegated Grouchy on his fruitless errand and ignored his
subordinates’ plea to get Grouchy back in time for the main attack.
A. G. Macdonnell finds fault not so much with Napoleon as
with Marshals Ney, Soult and Grouchy. We have examined Grouchy’s fatal
indecision; Soult fell down by not stemming the tide of mistakes; Ney lost the
battle by his ill-tempered countermanding of the Emperor’s order on 16 June to
send up d’Erlon’s corps so that Napoleon could have destroyed Blücher’s army
rather than simply mauling it and pushing it back. Had this been done, Grouchy
would have remained with the main body and Napoleon would have had an extra
33,000 men to dispose of Wellington, who in turn would have received no
last-minute support from the Prussians. The mere fact that Wellington called it
a close-run thing indicates how easily the scales might have been turned. Yet
when all is said, we may be sure that Napoleon would have taken the credit for
victory, and so must bear responsibility for defeat.
But what if he had won? In his essay ‘Ruler of the World’
Alistair Horne argues that victory at Waterloo would not have brought about
Napoleon’s ultimate success.
There were vast fresh forces of Russians, Austrians and
Germans already moving towards France. A second battle, or perhaps several
battles, would probably have followed Waterloo. But even if the ultimate
engagement had ended in the likely defeat of Napoleon, with Britain out of the
war, it would have been a continental and not a British victory. What followed
would have, therefore, been a peace dominated by Metternich’s Central European
powers – by Russian, Austria and Prussia instead of Great Britain.
On hearing of Napoleon’s escape from Elba and with the Allied resolution to outlaw him, Czar Alexander of Russia had told Wellington at the Congress of Vienna that it was for him to save the world again. With Wellington and Blücher beaten, would the resolve of the other powers have held firm? We have to imagine a triumphant Emperor entering Brussels at the head of his troops, frantic enthusiasm from the Belgians, who instantly declare for him, the Netherlands also changing sides, then Napoleon’s return to Paris, acclaimed by all, even Talleyrand and Fouché – whose heads Napoleon might or might not have demanded – overtures for peace pouring out from the Tuileries, promises of democratic reform, the formerly circumspect Marshals rallying to their Commander-in-Chief, France jubilant, Napoleon overhauling the Grande Armée and preparing for the defence of the country’s frontiers. In spite of the gathering Allied armies, their leaders might have recalled Napoleon’s former ability to defeat them one by one or two at a time. They might have recalled the Emperor’s pulling on his long boots in 1813 and 1814, winning battle after battle at Lützen, Bautzen, Champaubert, Château-Thierry, Vauchamp, Montereau – and these victories won with a small army of some 50,000 men. What he might now do with an army of four or five times that number, commanded by the most valiant and able set of lieutenants under his own unique direction, would surely have given the Allied sovereigns pause for reflection and compromise.
Besides, it is so agreeable to picture yet one more Congress
of Vienna, convened by Metternich, who by then would have appreciated that
Napoleon was not un homme perdu after all, a Congress at which not only did
dancing gild the scene and amorous intrigue rule the plot, but at which
Napoleon and Wellington finally met, with Talleyrand – whose cynical
observation that treason was simply a matter of dates would have come full
circle – hovering in the background, and Alexander once more falling under the
spell of his brother Emperor. Would Marie Walewska have been there to consort
with Napoleon, or would the wicked, dashing Hussar General, Count Neipperg,
have been constrained to escort the Empress of France, Marie-Louise, to Vienna,
bringing with them the King of Rome, Napoleon’s son, destined six years later –
if we assume that the Emperor still met his death in 1821 – to succeed his
father as Napoleon II? If we are going to rewrite history, we might as well do
it with a flourish.
There is perhaps one further diversion here. However
insubstantial the Ifs of history may be, we must all applaud Stendhal’s
captivating suggestion that had Napoleon won at Waterloo, not only would there
have been no liberals to be afraid of in the 1820s, but all the ancient
sovereigns of Europe would only have kept their thrones by marrying the
daughters of Napoleon’s Marshals. Judging by the mettle of these Marshals, the
sovereigns in question could have done a great deal worse. There would have
been one further benefit from Napoleon’s winning – George IV would not then
have boasted that he had been present on the battlefield.
And what if Napoleon had been killed at Waterloo – the ‘good death’ that he pondered on St Helena? Why, the whole of France would have honoured him. Marshal Ney’s comment as he gazed at Bessières’ corpse on the field of Lützen, ‘C’est notre sort. C’est une belle mort,’ would have echoed round the world in honour of the General, whom Wellington called ‘un grand homme de guerre’, the greatest ever to appear at the head of a French army, and the magnificent ceremony, which took place in 1840, with Louis-Philippe on the throne of France, when Napoleon’s coffin, returned from St Helena, was received by Marshal Moncey, Governor of Les Invalides, would have been enacted twenty-five years earlier.
There is one last If we may perhaps contemplate when we
recall A. P. Herbert’s delightful book, Why Waterloo?, in which he argues that
Napoleon did not break out of Elba but was driven out. Had the French
government honoured the treaty of Fontainebleau with regard to money, had
Marie-Louise joined her husband on Elba, had Talleyrand been less malignant, or
Colonel Campbell more vigilant, had Royal Navy frigates blockaded the island
properly, there would perhaps have been no escape, no Hundred Days, no
Waterloo. A. P. Herbert concludes that no single person could be arraigned for
the tragedy that ensued. Yet he adds this: ‘The Emperor of Austria, if he had
had more humanity; Louis XVIII, if he had had more sense and honesty;
Marie-Louise, if she had had more faith and fortitude, could have altered
history and let one of the world’s great men die peaceful and happy.’
It was while Napoleon was still on Elba that his brother,
Lucien, wrote to Masséna: ‘Voilà donc enfin le drame terminé. Tant de gloire
perdue par la plus lâche fin. Bon Dieu! Que de souvenirs. Que de regrets.’ It
was when on that other island that Napoleon himself could not resist a resort
to the ‘what ifs’ of history. Had he appointed some other general instead of
Grouchy. Blücher would not have arrived in time to save Wellington from defeat.
Yet we must recall that Napoleon, who was so often to reiterate, ‘Be clear and
all the rest will follow,’ broke his own rule in his confusing instruction to
Grouchy. On St Helena the Emperor, like Lucien, has his regrets. He should have
had Talleyrand and Fouché hanged. What a difference that might have made to the
Hundred Days. Then again: ‘To die at Borodino would have been to die like
Alexander: to be killed at Waterloo would have been a good death; perhaps
Dresden would have been better; but no, better at Waterloo. The love of the
people, their regret.’
He regrets, too, ever having left Egypt. He would have
preferred to be Emperor of the East than of the West. The desert had always
fascinated him and his own name meant lion of the desert. Besides, to have been
master of Egypt would have been to be master of India. What rascals the English
were! ‘If I had been able to get to India from Egypt with the nucleus of an
army, I should have driven them from India.’ Now the English would have to see
what would come to them from Russia. ‘The Russians, already in Persia, have not
far to go to reach India.’ It was this last point of Napoleon’s which some
twenty years later was the cause of concern in the minds of the Englishmen who
ruled India, and the cause also of their beginning to play the Great Game.
