The Battle (2 page)

ILLUSTRATIONS

MAPS

Europe in 1815

Overview of the Battle Area

Allied Advances in June/July 1815

Deployment of French Troops

Battle of Waterloo, 10.00hrs, 18 June 1815

Battle of Waterloo, 16.00hrs

Napoleon Bonaparte. Painting by Robert Lefevre.
(Wellington Museum, London)

Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington, 1814. Painting by Sir Thomas Lawrence.
(The Art Archi\efWellington Museum London/Eileen Tweedy)

The elderly Field Marshal Gebhard Leberecht von Blucher.
(The Art Archive/Wellington
Museum London/Eileen Tweedy)

Napoleon giving orders to an aide-de-camp for Marshal Grouchy on the morning of the battle.
(The Art Archive)

General Reille, commander of Napoleon's II Corps. Engraving by A. Tardieu.
(Collection Viollet)

Jerome Bonaparte, division commander and Napoleon's youngest brother. Painting, 1808.
(The Art Archive/Musee du Chateau de Versailles/Dagli Otti)

The Duke of Wellington outside his headquarters at Mont-Saint-Jean. Painting byj. C. Aylward.
(The Art Archive/Eileen Tweedy)

The ceremonial Eagle, mounted on a pole with the French tricolor.
(Collection
Viollet) A 12-pounder gun, one of
les belles filles de VEmpereur. (Mark Adkin)
Crops of rye in June.
(Mark Adkin)

British soldiers form a square to defend against cavalry attacks. (Mary
Evans)

The Guards brigade attack the French to alleviate the pressure on the defenders of the chateau, just visible in the far right background. Painting by Denis Dighton.
(Bridgeman)

The French bombard Hougoumont, prompting the British artillery to open fire, against Wellington's orders.
(Mary Evans)

General von Biilow German engraving.
(Bridgeman)

Marshal Grouchy. Engraving.
(The Art Archive/Musee Carnavelet Paris/Dagli Orti)

The battle around the farmhouse and stables at La Haye Sainte. Painting by R. Knotel. (Mary
Evans)

Count d'Erlon holding his marshal's baton. Engraving by Collier after Lariviere.
(Collection Viollet)

"That old rogue," Sir Thomas Picton. (Mary
Evans)

The charge of the Scots Grays. Painting by Lady Butler. (Mary
Evans)

French cuirassiers charging a Highlanders' square. Painting by Felix Philippoteaux, 1874.
(The Art Archive/Victoria & Albert Museum/Eileen Tweedy)

Colonel von Ompteda.
(National Army Museum)

Nassauers defending their position at La Belle Alliance. Painting by R. Knotel. (Mary
Evans)

Blucher orders his men to attack Plancenoit. Painting by Adolf Northern.
(Bridgeman)

An officer of the mounted chasseurs of the Imperial Guard. Painting by Gericault. (Mary
Evans)

Napoleon, viewing the attack on his Imperial Guards through a spyglass. Painting by James Atkinson.
(The Art Archive)

Colonel Hew Halkett captures the French general Cambronne. Painting by R. Knotel. (Mary
Evans)

Wellington signalling the general British advance on Waterloo. Painting by James Atkinson.
(The Art Archive/The British Museum)

The Earl of Uxbridge, commander of the Allied cavalry. Painting by Peter Edward Stroehling,
c.
1816.
(National Army Museum)

The surgeon's saw used to amputate Lord Uxbridge's leg.
(National Army Museum)

The famous meeting between Wellington and Blucher, depicted here in front of the inn at La Belle Alliance. (Mary
Evans)

General von Gneisenau.
(Victoria & Albert Museum)

Napoleon among his men as he faces defeat. His carriage awaits his flight. Painting by Ernest Crofts. (Mary
Evans)

Napoleon Bonaparte burning the eagles and standards of his Imperial Guard after the battle.
(The Art Archive)

A
burial party at work near La Belle Alliance, seven days after the battle. Engraving by E. Walsh, drawn on the spot. (Mary
Evans)

British soldiers removing French cannons, July 1815.
(Collections Viollet/Bibliotheque
Nationale)

Detail of a Ferraris & Capitaine map of 1797, as used by Napoleon and on which Wellington's own map was based.

Europe in 1815

Overview of the Battle Area

Allied Advances in June/July 1815

Deployment of French troops

Battle of Waterloo, 10.00hrs, 18 June 1815

Battle of Waterloo, 16.00hrs, 18 June 1815

PROLOGUE

I
n the afternoon of March 1, 1815, a fleet consisting of one warship and six smaller vessels dropped anchor off Golfe-Juan on the southeastern coast of France, in view of what are today the most luxurious vacation spots on the Cote d'Azur but were then miserable fishing villages clinging to the edge of an inhospitable landscape. As soon as they were anchored, the ships lowered their small boats. Shortly thereafter squads of soldiers began to disembark on the shore, despite the protests of the flabbergasted customs official who had rushed to the scene to contest this highly irregular landing. The first troops to reach solid ground went to knock on the gates of the nearby French fort at Antibes and were immediately placed under arrest; but the small boats kept bringing ashore other soldiers, and soon more than a thousand grenadiers had been disembarked, along with two cannon and an entire squadron of lancers who spoke Polish among themselves. Finally, toward evening, the leader of this host came ashore in person, walking over an improvised gangway, which his men, standing in water to their waists, held up for him; and an officer was sent to notify the commandant of the fort that the emperor Napoleon, after ten months of exile on the island of Elba, had returned to France to reclaim his throne.

Even in an age without the benefit of mass media, the news of Napoleon's return was so astonishing that it traveled throughout the continent in a few days, arousing consternation or enthusiasm everywhere. Europe had really believed that the Napoleonic Wars were over, and with them the French Revolution, which together had inflamed the world for twenty-five years. Kings had regained possession of their thrones, armies had been demobilized, and a cosmopolitan, self-satisfied political class was preparing for the tranquil task of managing a long period of peace. The fact that Napoleon was still alive, exiled to an island somewhere in the Mediterranean Sea, was certainly irritating, but people tried hard not to think about it. When the Duke of Wellington announced to the Congress of Vienna—where, since Napoleon's abdication, representatives of the European powers were leisurely redrawing the political map of Europe—that the exile had escaped from Elba and landed in France, the delegates burst into laughter, believing that the announcement was some sort of joke. A few days sufficed to change their minds: On March 13, the Congress published a resolution, couched in the diplomatic French of the period, in which Napoleon was proclaimed an outlaw, subject to
"vindicte publique"
whereupon the English Parliament and half the chancelleries of Europe began discussions to decide whether this formula meant that anyone could kill him with impunity, or whether it would first be necessary to arrest him and put him on trial.

Meanwhile, on March 20, the emperor made a triumphant entry into Paris, while King Louis XVIII and the whole Bourbon family fled hurriedly to Belgium. From there he sent personal letters to all the sovereigns of Europe, assuring them in the most modest tones that he desired only peace and that he renounced all claims whatsoever to any of the territories that previously, at the apogee of his empire, had belonged to France. But the European chancelleries did not deign to respond to these missives; in London, the prime minister would not even permit the prince regent to open the letter and had it returned with its seal intact. One year earlier, four great powers—England, Austria, Russia, and Prussia—had combined to defeat Napoleon; now, on March 25, 1815, the same four countries signed a treaty in which each of them pledged to put an army of 150,000 men into the field as soon as possible, with the set purpose of invading France from all sides. England, then the dominant economic power in the world, agreed to finance the mobilization of the Allies, and the Rothschild bank began gathering quantities of cash, eventually furnishing His Majesty's government with the immense sum of 6 million pounds sterling, which corresponded to the estimated total cost of the undertaking.

In these circumstances, Napoleon's only recourse was to rearm, and he did so with all his extraordinary talent for organization, a talent that the passage of time had not diminished. The army he inherited from the Bourbons was brought back up to full strength, the previous year's conscripts were recalled, the National Guard was mobilized, the mass production of muskets began, and all available horses were either bought or confiscated; as a result, French treasury reserves were consumed in a few weeks' time, and financing had to be extorted from reluctant banks. Even with their help, however, the emperor could not hope to be successful in opposing the four armies that were about to invade France; he had tried to accomplish such a feat a year before, when his resources were decidedly more extensive, and things had not turned out well for him. His only hope was to beat his opponents to the punch.

Even though the training period for new conscripts could be reduced, in times of emergency, to a few weeks, the armies of the day still required several months to equip their forces properly and put themselves on a war footing. As spring drew to an end, only two of the four invading armies had assembled on the borders of France. The one commanded by the Duke of Wellington included, along with its British contingent, troops from the Low Countries and from various German principalities; the other army was Prussian, commanded by the elderly field marshal Gebhard Leberecht von Blucher. Considered alone, each of these two armies was weaker than the Armee du Nord, which Napoleon had assigned to defend his northern border. If the emperor could manage to attack them separately, therefore, he had a good chance of defeating them.

A quartered army awaiting the start of military operations occupied a vast amount of territory. Soldiers were lodged with civilians, who were legally obligated to provide the troops with room and board, and it was indispensable to spread out such a great number of men and horses if they were to obtain proper food and shelter. In early June, Wellington's and Blucher's armies were quartered over nearly all of Belgium, one in the northwest and one in the southeast. Calculating that each of these generals would need at least two or three days to concentrate his forces and give battle under optimum conditions, the emperor planned to make a surprise advance between the two armies and destroy the first one he came upon before the other could intervene. Obviously, secrecy was indispensable to the success of Napoleon's plan: In the first days of June, he closed the borders and ordered that not one man, not one carriage, not one letter should exit France. Then, very swiftly, he concentrated the Armee du Nord close to the Belgian border, and at dawn on June 15 the first cavalry patrols crossed over into enemy territory, followed at once by long columns of infantry. Thus began the Waterloo campaign, which survivors from both sides—all equally convinced of having striven in a just cause—would later consider, in the words of an English officer, "a terrible fight fought for a terrible stake: freedom or slavery to Europe."