An Infamous Army (25 page)
May came in, bringing trouble. There seemed to be no end to the difficulties for ever springing up round his lordship. Now it was Major-General Hinuber, querulously demanding leave to resign his staff, and to retire to some German spa, because he was not to command the Legion as a separate division: he might go with the Duke's goodwill, but it meant more letter writing, more trouble; now it was news from his brother William, in London: the Peace party was attacking his lordship in Parliament, accusing him of being little better than a murderer, because he had set his name to the declaration that made Napoleon hors la loi: he did not really care, he had never cared for public opinion, but it annoyed him. To attack a public servant absent on public service seemed to him "extraordinary and unprecedented". Then there was the constant fret of being obliged to deal with the Dutch King, a jealous man, continually raising difficulties, or turning obstinate over petty issues. He could be managed, in the end he would generally give way, but it took time to handle him, and time was what his lordship could least spare.
The question of the Hanoverian subsidy had become acute; King William should have shared the payment with Great Britain, but he was wriggling out of that obligation, on the score that he had only been bound to pay it while he had no troops of his own. His lordship had had an interview with the M. de Nagel over the business, but in the end he supposed the whole charge of the Hanoverian subsidy would fall upon Great Britain.
Trouble sprang up in the Prussian camp. The Saxon troops at Liege mutinied over some question of an oath of allegiance to the King of Prussia, and poor old Blucher was obliged to quit the town. The Saxons would have been willing enough to have come over to the British camp, but his lordship did not want such fellows, and knew that the Prussians would never agree to his having them if he did. They would have to be got rid of before they spread disaffection through the Army, but the question was how to get them out of the country. Blucher wanted them to be embarked on British ships, but his lordship had no transports; his troops were sent out to him on hired vessels, which returned to England as soon as their cargoes were landed. If they were to be escorted through the Netherlands, King William's permission must be obtained, but there was no inducing Blucher to realise the propriety of referring to the King. It would fall on his lordship's shoulders to arrange matters, writing to Hardinge, to Blucher, to King William.
And, like a running accompaniment to the rest, the bickering correspondence with Torrens over staff appointments dragged on, until his lordship dashed off one of his hasty, biting notes, requesting that it should cease. "The Commander-in-Chief has a right to appoint whom he chooses, and those whom he appoints shall be employed," he wrote in a stiff rage. "It cannot be expected that I should declare myself satisfied with these appointments till I shall find the persons as fit for their situations as those whom I should have recommended to his Royal Highness."
On May 6th his lordship was able to tell Lord Bathurst that King William had placed the Dutch-Belgian Army under his command. The appointment had been delayed on various unconvincing pretexts, but at last. and when his lordship had reached the end of his patience, it had been made. Things should go better now; he could begin to pull the whole Allied Army into shape, drafting the troops where he thought proper without the hindrance of having to make formal application for permission to His Majesty.
The month wore on; the weather grew warmer; no more friendly logfires in the grates, no more fur-lined pelisses for the ladies. Out came the cambrics and the muslins: lilac, pomona green, and pale puce, made into wispy round dresses figured with rosebuds, with row upon row of frills round the ankles. Knots of jaunty ribbons adorned low corsages, and gauze scarves floated from plump shoulders in a light breeze. The feathered velvet bonnets and the sealskin caps were put up in camphor. Hats were the rage; chip hats, hats of satin straw, of silk, of leghorn, and of willow: high-crowned, flat-crowned, with full-poke fronts, and with curtailed poke fronts: hats trimmed with clusters of flowers, or bunches of bobbing cherries, with puffs of satin ribbons, drapings of thread net, and frills of lace. Winter half boots of orange Jean or sober black kid were discarded: the ladies tripped over cobbled streets in sandals and slippers. Red morocco twinkled under rushed skirts; Villager hats and Angouleme bonnets framed faces old or young, pretty or plain; silk openwork mittens covered rounded arms; frivolous little parasols on long beribboned handles shaded delicate complexions from the sun's glare. Denmark Lotion was in constant demand, and Distilled Water of Pineapples; strawberries were wanted for sunburnt cheeks; Chervil Water, for bathing a freckled skin.
The balls, the concerts, the theatres continued, but picnics were added to the gaieties now, charming expeditions, with flowering muslins squired by hot scarlet uniforms; the ladies in open carriages; the gentlemen riding gallantly beside; hampers of cold chicken and champagne on the boxes; everyone lighthearted; flirtation the order of the day. There were reviews to watch, fetes to attend; day after day slid by in a pursuit of pleasure; days that were not quite real, that belonged to some half-realised dream. Somewhere in the south was a Corsican ogre, who might at any moment break into the dream and shatter it, but distance shrouded him; and, meanwhile, into the Netherlands was streaming an endless procession of British troops, changing the whole face of the country, swarming in every village; lounging outside estaminets, in forage caps, with their jackets unbuttoned; trotting down the rough, dusty roads with plumes flying and accoutrements jingling; haggling with shrewd Flemis farmers in their broken French; making love to giggling girls in starched white caps and huge voluminous skirts: spreading their Flanders tents over the meadows: striding through the streets with clanking spurs and swinging sabretaches. Here might be seen a looped and tasselled infantry shako, narrow-topped and leathernpeaked; there the bell-topped shako of a Light Dragoon, with its short plume and ornamental cord; o: the fur cap of a hussar; or the glitter of sunlight on a Heavy Dragoon's brass helmet, with its jutting crest and waving plume.
Like bright colours in a kaleidoscope, merging into everchanging patterns, the troops were being drafted over the countryside. Life Guardsmen in scarlet and gold, mounted on great black chargers, sleek as satin and splendid with polished trappings, woke dozing villages on the Dender; Liedekerke gaped at the Blues, swaggering up the street as though they owned it: Schendelbeke girls came running to see the hussars ride past with tossing pelisses, and crusted jackets: Castre and Lerbeke billet Light Dragoons in blue with silver lace, and facings of every colour; crimson, yellow, buff, scarlet; Brussels fell in love with Highland kilts and jaunty bonnets, and blinked at trim riflemen in their Jack-a-Dandy green uniforms; Enghien and Grammont swarmed with the Footguards, the Gentlemen's Sons, with their hosts of dashing young ensigns and captains, all so smart and gay, riding in point-to-point races, hurrying off to Brussels in their best clothes to dance the night through, or entertaining bevies of lovely ladies at fetes and picnics. But thundering and clattering along the roads that led from Ostend came the Artillery, grim troops in sombre uniforms and big black helmets, scaring the lighthearted into momentary silence as they passed, for though the Guards danced, and the cavalry made love, and line regiments scattered far and near swarmed over the country like noisy red ants, it was the sight of the guns that made the merrymakers realise how close they stood to war. All through April and the early weeks in May they landed one after another in the Netherlands: Ross, with his Chestnut Troop of 9-pounders; bearded Major Bull, with heavy howitzers; Mercer, with his artist's eye for landscape and his crack troop; Whinyates, with his cherished Rockets; Beane; Gardiner; Webber-Smith; and the beau ideal of every artillery officer, Norman Ramsay, of Fuentes de Onoro fame. After the troops game the field brigades: Sandham's, Bolton's, Lloyd's, Sinclair's, Rogers'; all armed with five gleaming 9 pounders and one howitzer. They were an imposing sight; ominous enough to give a pause to gaiety.
But the merrymaking went on, uneasy under the surface, sometimes a little hectic, as though while the sun continued to shine and the Ogre to remain in his den, the civilians and the soldiers and the lovely ladies were being driven on to cram into every cloudless day all the fun and the gaiety it could hold. The Duke gave ball after ball; there were Court parties at Laeken; reviews at Vilvorde; excursions to Ath, and Enghien, and Ghent; picnics in the cool Forest of Soignes.
There was a rumour of movement on the frontier; a tremor of fear ran through Brussels. Count d'Erlon was marching on Valenciennes with his whole corps; the French were massing on the Allied front, a hundred thousand strong; the Emperor had left Paris: he was at Conde; he was about to launch an attack. It was false: the Emperor was still in Paris, and had postponed his meeting of the Champ de Mai until the end of the month. The ladies and the civilians, poised for flight, could relax again: there was nothing to fear. The Duke had told Mr Creevey that it would never come to blows; and was holding another ball.
"Pooh! Nonsense!" said the Duke. "Nothing to be afraid of yet!"
"I never saw a man so unaffected in my life!" said Mr Creevey. "He is as cheerful as a schoolboy, and talks as though there were no possibility of war!"
"Then he is damned different with you from what he is with me," said Sir Charles Stuart bluntly.
"I have got an infamous Army, very weak, and ill-equipped, and a very inexperienced staff," wrote the Duke, in the midst of his balls, and his reviews, his visits to Ghent, and his latest charming flirtation.
"Pooh! Nonsense," said the Duke, but wrote to Hill at Grammont: "Matters look a little serious on the frontier."
The Duke knew as well as any man what was stirring beyond the frontier, for he had got Colonel Grant out in charge of the Intelligence, and no one knew better than Grant how to obtain desired information. More reliable than the data collected by Clarke and his French spies were Grant's brief reports sent in to General Dornberg at Mons, and forwarded on by him to Brussels. Grant told of bridges and roads being broken up in the Sambre district, as though for defence; of Count d'Erlon's Corps lying between Valenciennes and Maubeuge in four divisions of infantry; of Reille at Avesnes, with five infantry divisions and three cavalry; of Vandamme between Lezieres and Rocroi; and of Count Lobau, at Laon. His information was precise and always to be trusted: no flights into the realms of conjecture for Colonel Grant, a dry Scot, dealing only in facts and figures. Oh Yes! matters certainly looked serious on the frontier; and his lordship had received, besides, disquieting Intelligence of a huge body of cavalry forming. Sixteen thousand heavy cavalry were in readiness to take the field, and all over France horses were being bought, to bring the total up to forty thousand or more. A report -was spread of Murat's having fled by sea from Italy; it was supposed that he would be put in command of this mass of cavalry, for who so brilliant as Murat in cavalry manoeuvres? More serious still was the news that Soult had accepted the office of Major-General under the emperor. That would bring many wavering men over to Napoleon, for Soult's was a name that carried weight.
The Duke of Brunswick arrived, with his Black Brunswickers: men in sable uniforms, with a skull and crossbones on their shakos, and the death of the Duke's father at Jena to avenge. A handsome man, the Duke, gallant in the field and stately in the ballroom, with gentle manners and a grave, sweet smile. His men were quartered at Vilvorde, north of Brussels, but he himself was continually at Headquarters, troubled over the eternal question of subsidies.
The Nassauers were on the way, led by General Kruse, and a hopeful young Prince, whom his lordship had promised to take into his family. Rather an anxiety, these hereditary princelings, but they were all of them agog to fight under his lordship, flatteringly deferential and eager to be of use.
Blucher moved his Headquarters from Liege to Hannut, drawing closer to the Anglo-Allied Army; De Lancey arrived from England with his young bride. taking Sir Hudson Lowe's place. With a deputyquartermaster-general he knew, and could trust to do his work without for ever wishing to copy Prussian methods, his lordship found his path smoother. He still had General Roder with him, but meant to drop a word in Blucher's ear when he next saw him. The fellow would have to be removed: he could not learn to fit into the pattern, or to get over his anti-British prejudice. The other commissioners gave his lordship no trouble: Alava was an old friend; he had a real value for clever Pozzo di Borgo from Russia; liked Baron Vincent from Austria; and was on pretty good terms with Netherlands Count van Reede.
He had been shifting his troops about all the month, skilfully concentrating them, forming new brigades, extending here, drawing his regiments in there, until he felt himself to be in a position to withstand any attack. The Prince of Orange's Headquarters were fixed at Braine-le-Comte, but his lordship placed Lord Hill, wise in war, farther west, at Grammont, because to the west lay his communication lines, and the great Mons and Tournay roads from France. In addition to Clinton's and Colville's divisions, forming the 2nd Corps under Hill, his lordship transferred Prince Frederick's corps to him, moving it north-west from Soignes and Braine-le-Comte, by way of Hal and Grammont to Sotteghem, like a piece on a chessboard. Prince Frederick, surviving an interview with his lordship, betrayed a flash of unsuspected humour. "II ne m'a ni gronde, ni mis aux arrets," he wrote to his brother.
On May 29th, a day of blazing sunshine, the Duke reviewed the British cavalry in a natural theatre of ground on the banks of the Dender, not far from Grammont. It was an event that drew the fashionables from Brussels and Ghent on horseback and in carriages: ladies in their newest gauzes, gentlemen very natty in polished topboots, long-tailed blue coats, and skin-tight pantaloons. Worth drove his Judith there in a curricle; Lady Barbara drove herself in a phaeton, with a tiger perched up behind; the Vidals came sedately in their carriage; the amazing Sir Sydney Smith, newly arrived from Vienna, and looking so like a mountebank -that it was almost impossible to see in him the hero of Acre, sat beside his lady in an open barouche; Sir Peregrine Taverner rode out on a mettlesome bay, like a score of others; and a host of French Royalists flocked out from Ghent to gaze, gasp, fling up their hands, and exclaim to see such magnificent troops, such noble horses, such glittering accoutrements!