The Battle of Waterloo: Europe in the Balance (11 page)

It was with enormous relief that Gneisenau saw a group of dragoons arrive, supporting among them the bruised, battered, but very much alive, figure of Blücher.

While leading the charge of Prussian cavalry at the French infantry, Blücher had had his horse shot dead. The horse collapsed, throwing Blücher into the mud but with his leg entangled in the stirrup leathers. The French cuirassiers then charged over him, but either did not see him or thought he was dead for they made no effort to attack him. A few minutes later the French cavalry charged right over him again as they retreated before a unit of Prussian cavalry. After the Prussians then charged over the stricken field marshal, also without taking any notice of him, Blücher finally managed to get free of his dead horse and clambered to his feet, which is when he was spotted by the Prussian dragoons and rescued.

Blücher, Gneisenau and half a dozen staff officers went into a barn and sat on barrels of pickled cabbage to decide their next moves. Gneisenau, still smarting from what he saw as Wellington’s betrayal, wanted to retreat to Germany at once. Blücher wanted to stay close to Brussels so that he could co-operate with Wellington. That move was fraught with danger, for if Wellington was retreating to be evacuated by the Royal Navy the Prussians would have to face Napoleon alone. Blücher angrily ended the debate by saying that ‘I have given my word, which is my sword and I am too old to break it.’

It was decided that the army would continue to fall back on Wavre while scouts went out to try to locate both Wellington and the French. A final decision would be made at Wavre. Blücher then went off to have his bruises bathed in brandy – and to drink a fair amount of it, as well.

Dawn at Quatre Bras

Wellington slept the night in an inn at Genappe, a few miles north of Quatre Bras, but was up early the next day and arrived at Quatre Bras at dawn. He found that still only about half his army had arrived, and those men were cooking breakfast. He did, at least, know where the rest of it was. The units were strung out along the road running west from Quatre Bras to Nivelles. Both Quatre Bras and Nivelles were linked to Brussels by roads that converged at the hamlet of Mont-Saint-Jean, just south of Waterloo, a few kilometres north.

Looking south, Wellington could see the French forces of Ney arranged in some depth. He calculated that Ney had about the same number of men as himself, though with more artillery. It was clear to him that his position was exposed and vulnerable. If the Prussians had halted Napoleon at Ligny then he and Blücher could still co-operate, but if Napoleon had broken through then Wellington might easily find himself outflanked. Müffling had already sent riders east to try to locate Blücher and find out what was happening. At 6 am Wellington sent his own man, Colonel Alexander Gordon, with a troop of the elite 10th Light Dragoons. Wellington did not want to make a move until he knew what the Prussians were doing, but nor did he want to hang around at Quatre Bras longer than was necessary.

Ney, too, was at Quatre Bras by dawn, scanning Wellington’s position. He knew that Napoleon had driven the Prussians out of Ligny, but without securing a total victory. At 6.30 am he sent a message to Napoleon telling him that Wellington was at Quatre Bras with about 25,000 men (in fact he had 40,000), with the rest of his army dispersed around the countryside south of Brussels. If Napoleon could send one corps, or preferably more, to attack the British from their left-rear the British army would be destroyed. Ney promised to attack Wellington with his entire force as soon as he heard Napoleon’s guns.

At 8.30 am he received a message from Napoleon, written before Ney’s message had arrived. After giving a brief overview of the fighting at Ligny, the message continued, ‘The emperor is proceeding by the Quatre Bras Road to engage the enemy in front of you, whilst you attack them from in front with your divisions.’ This was almost exactly what Ney had suggested. The key difference was that Napoleon had decided to wait until he heard Ney’s guns before advancing. But Soult had not put that critical piece of evidence into his orders to Ney. So Ney waited until he heard Napoleon’s guns, and Napoleon waited until he heard Ney’s. Once again, the lack of Berthier was hampering Napoleon’s action.

Napoleon orders pursuit of Blücher

Meanwhile, reports from French cavalry scouts came in regarding the movements of the Prussians. The reports were confusing and contradictory. One force of 6,000 Prussians was reported going south-east to Namur, another 5,000 were going north-east to Gembloux, 20,000 were going north to Wavre and a dozen other roads were clogged with stragglers, wounded and supply carts.

Not until noon did it become clear to Napoleon that the bulk of the Prussian army was retiring toward Wavre. This was bad news, for it meant that Blücher would be able to co-operate with Wellington once his army had recovered from the mauling it had received at Ligny. On the other hand, the Prussian army would be unable to fight on this day, nor probably on the next. That gave Napoleon two days to deal with Wellington.

Napoleon surveys the positioning of Wellington’s army on the morning of 18 June as he seeks to determine his plan of attack. On the day of the battle he rode the mare Desirée, as his favoured stallion Marengo was tired after the previous two days.

To make sure that Blücher could not interfere in his plans to deal with Wellington, Napoleon decided to detach Grouchy to pursue the Prussians and stop them from joining Wellington. Napoleon gave to Grouchy command of Vandamme’s III Corps and Gérard’s IV Corps plus the light cavalry of Pajol and heavy cavalry of Exelmans. Napoleon told Grouchy to chase Blücher ‘with your sword in his back’.

Soult put Napoleon’s orders into writing and sent these on after Grouchy later. These differed slightly from the verbal orders, telling Grouchy also to ‘reconnoitre the roads towards Namur and Maastricht’, to summon the National Guard from Charlemont to occupy Namur and a number of other tasks. The final instruction told Grouchy to maintain contact with Napoleon by way of cavalry units. This was quite a lot for Grouchy to do, in addition to keeping his sword in Blücher’s back. Undoubtedly these extra tasks slowed his pursuit of the Prussians.

At noon it occurred to Napoleon that he had not yet heard Ney’s guns from Quatre Bras. He sent a terse order to Ney telling him to get on with attacking Wellington at once.

Wellington’s planned retreat

But Wellington was no longer there to be attacked. One of Müffling’s couriers had found Blücher on the road to Wavre. For the first time Blücher and Gneisenau learned that Wellington had been busy fighting Ney all the previous day and that the troops they had seen had been French, not Dutch. Reappraising his view of Wellington, Gneisenau now agreed with Blücher that the Prussians should co-operate with them. Until he had a better idea of the state of the Prussian army and what Napoleon was doing, Blücher was not able to give Wellington any sort of firm commitment as to what he would do, but he was definite that if Wellington stood and fought, so would he.

As soon as the news that the Prussians were going to Ligny reached Wellington he made a decision. He was going to retreat and fight Napoleon on ground of his own choosing. A year earlier, Wellington had ridden to Paris from Brussels using the very same road through Quatre Bras that he was now defending. During that ride he had passed the time by analysing the ground for its military potential. He had noted that there was a ridge south of Waterloo at Mont-Saint-Jean that would be easy to defend. It was at Mont-Saint-Jean that the roads from Nivelles and Quatre Bras joined. Moreover, a road heading north-west to Hal gave a good escape route to the Scheldt and the Royal Navy. Wellington therefore decided to hold Napoleon at Mont-Saint-Jean.

He sent orders that those units not yet at Quatre Bras should march north along the Nivelles-Brussels road to reach Mont-Saint-Jean. Those units at Quatre Bras would fall back directly north to the rendezvous. Wellington guessed that Napoleon would try to crush his army while the Prussians were still reeling from defeat at Ligny. He also guessed that Napoleon would be desperate for a quick victory and so would not try any clever, large-scale manoeuvres as he had done at Ulm in 1805. By blocking the road to Brussels just south of Waterloo, Wellington was making a large battle inevitable.

A troop of horse artillery in their distinctive helmets pass Wellington who salutes them as they go by. The heavy rain on the 17 June meant that artillery and heavy wagons had to stay on the paved main road, shown here, while the infantry and cavalry slogged through the mud.

Wellington sent a short note to Blücher outlining his intended actions and concluding, ‘I will give Napoleon battle if I may hope to be supported by a single Prussian corps. But if this support is denied me, I shall be compelled to sacrifice Brussels and take up position behind the Scheldt.’ Wellington still could not reveal his secret orders to Blücher, but went as far as he dared in warning the Prussians that if he did not receive their help he would be off. At 10 am Wellington began to retreat from Quatre Bras. He began by moving off those units that were not within sight of the French, hiding his retreat from them for as long as he could. The retreat was complicated by the large numbers of supply wagons that had been coming south from Brussels and which now needed to be turned around, but nonetheless it was got underway and by 12 noon units visible to the French began to move.

Ney saw them go and soon afterwards received the message from Napoleon telling him to get a move on. As he was starting to get his men moving, Napoleon arrived, attacking from the east into Wellington’s rearguard commanded by Lord Uxbridge.

Almost at once, Napoleon’s cavalry captured a man who had been making a tidy sum selling baked goods to the English and Dutch soldiers. Dragged in front of the emperor, the man was overawed and gabbled out that the British army had gone. Napoleon pointed to Uxbridge’s force and demanded to know who they were then. The man replied that they were only a thin screen of troops, all the rest had marched north earlier.

Leaping on his horse, Napoleon led forward his cavalry and horse artillery, leaving Soult behind to bring up the infantry as fast as he could. It was 2 pm when he came within sight of the Quatre Bras crossroads. Wellington was on a hill to the north with Lord Uxbridge. For the first time Wellington saw Napoleon, though Napoleon did not notice him.

Uxbridge’s rearguard action

‘Well, well’, commented Wellington. ‘I don’t care about the crossroads now, our infantry are gone.’ He then tasked Uxbridge with fighting a rearguard action to slow the French advance as much as he could and rode off to rejoin the bulk of his army. Uxbridge had with him both heavy and light cavalry, plus horse artillery.

Napoleon was now in a hurry, and put all his energies into driving Uxbridge north as fast as possible. He was worried that Wellington would fall back beyond the Forest of Soignes, which lay south of Brussels, then link up with Blücher to defend Brussels. Barely bothering to deploy for battle, as a cautious commander would, Napoleon advanced on Uxbridge’s position.

The task of a rearguard commander was to slow the pursuit of the enemy. This was usually done by deploying as if to contest a river crossing, defile through a wood or steep ridge. This forced the pursuer to stop the chase and himself deploy for action. As soon as a few shots had been exchanged, the rearguard would retreat again and the pursuit went on. With Napoleon leading forward his cavalry and horse artillery without himself deploying, Uxbridge was hard pushed to slow the chase. Instead the French were advancing almost as fast as if Uxbridge were not there.

All day long, clouds had been gathering overhead. A little before 3 pm a tremendous clap of thunder reverberated around the landscape. Moments later torrential rain began to fall, drenching uniforms and equipment and making it difficult to fire weapons that used loose gunpowder.

At the small town of Genappe, Uxbridge decided it was time for some real fighting. He appeared to have fallen back out of the town, and the lead units of French light cavalry trotted in. Springing from hiding, Uxbridge threw the 7th Light Dragoons at the French. After a brief tussle, the 7th turned and fled. The jubilant French gave chase, but it was a trap. The British heavy cavalry were waiting just outside the town. As the disordered French light cavalry emerged from the buildings, the heavy cavalry charged home to inflict heavy casualties and drive the French before them. Satisfied that Napoleon would be more cautious next time, Uxbridge continued his retreat.