THIERS ON WATERLOO. THOUGHTFUL persons must long have been accustomed to look on history as a serious and important branch of fiction. Indeed the domain of romance is unjustifiably narrowed by the limits commonly assigned to it. General John Pope has proved that it may include the operations of an army. Mr Seward shows us how fiction may be made the grand element in politics, while even religion in such hands as Dr Cumming's is like a mad chapter of a wild sensation novel. For the most part, it is true, any success which can attend the effort to deal with facts on this shadowy basis is quite ephemeral. All who attempt it find a terrible enemy in to-morrow. Defeat confutes the warrior, derision overwhelms the politician, and the world, by its continued existence, contradicts the prophet. But the success of the historical fictionist is far more enduring. It may be true, but it is by no means evident, that in his case honesty is the best policy. In fact, the evidence is quite the other way. No lies live so long, or are so successful, as those which are nursed by the muse of history, and their extinction often occasions general regret. Most people have lamented that Horatius should be wiped out of the page by Niebuhr, after he had successfully kept the bridge for so many centuries, and that Brennus, after giving birth to a proverb, should no longer be permitted to throw his sword into the scale. It is unpleasant and perplexing to discover that some of the most familiar articles of the furniture of our minds are phantoms. But if we are induced to forgive, and even to applaud, those who in the interest of truth detect and expose these agreeable impostures, what excuse shall we make for those literary conjurors who give us stones for bread and counters for our good money; who pull facts from under VOL. XCII.-NO. DLXV. us, and give us shadows to sit upon; and whose researches are guided by the wish not to elicit truth, but to maintain a theory or a sentiment which may be popular with a party or a people? An eminent place among these manipulators is occupied by M. Thiers. He knows what is expected of him by his audience. He knows that if he calls himself a French military historian he ought to behave as such. The glory of France is to be his first consideration. There is to be no glory but French glory, and Napoleon is its prophet. A French historian is like the advertising tradesmen, who, not content with vaunting their own wares, insist that all others are fraudulent impostures. English writers are always weak enough to admit the merit of their rivals. The compliments paid to French skill and valour by Napier and Alison are numerous and hearty; nor can higher and truer encomiums on Napoleon be found than those which they have bestowed. But your Thiers or your De Bazancourt make no such admissions. French readers do not want to hear about English gallantry or Russian tenacity. would displease them to be told that French battalions could recoil from any mortal foes, except under the pressure of numbers absolutely overwhelming, before which they are on rare occasions permitted to retire, performing prodigies of valour, and covering the earth with the bodies of their enemies. When disaster cannot be denied, either "Dieu" or "destiny" is called in to excuse the discomfiture, like an Olympian deity joining in the fight; or the numbers of the opposing forces are shuffled till failure in the face of such odds becomes astonishing heroism; or inconvenient facts, too stubborn to move at anybody's bidding, are obscured in a haze of sentiment and glorification. On 2 S It this sort of history Frenchmen are brought up, and probably would not believe in any other. We remember to have seen, in a hotel at Strasburg, a specimen of caligraphy, framed and hung up there as the advertisement of a writingmaster, the subject of which was the career of Napoleon. Each line in various kinds of penmanship contained some memorable event of his life; and the final one set forth that he was TRAHI à Mont St Jean, 18 Juin 1815." M. Thiers is likely to find a congenial audience, when they are grown up, in the little boys at the Strasburg schools, who write in their copy-books that Napoleon was "betrayed" at Waterloo. by the Spanish generals, the glory It is the narration of this decis- But in the Waterloo campaign ive event which most severely taxes the problem presented to M. Thiers the ingenuity of M. Thiers. In was much more difficult of solution. previous volumes his task has been Everything promised well for Nacomparatively easy. Napoleon's poleon's success. His troops had achievements were in reality so ex- never, M. Thiers tells us, been so traordinary, that little effort was filled with enthusiasm. Their deneeded to raise them into the region votion was unparalleled. Wellingof the miraculous. Rivoli and Mar- ton and Blucher were, of course, engo, each deciding the fate of according to our historian, a couple Italy Austerlitz, Jena, Wagram, of bunglers set up by fortune like single blows that laid monarchies nine-pins, to be bowled down by prostrate, here the very magnitude the military genius of France, and of the successes seems to demand, their superiority of numbers was in the processes which could lead neutralised only by the futility of to such results, a succession of su- their measures. The most astoundperhuman feats. No patriotic Ger- ing consequences-the acquisition man, so far as we know, has sought of the Rhine frontier, the withto diminish their lustre by declar- drawal of England from the coaliing that Melas was betrayed" at tion, the successive discomfiture of Marengo, Hohenlohe at Jena, or the the Austrians and Russians—were Archduke Charles at Wagram. In to ensue from the defeat of the the Russian campaign, though the Allies, and that defeat seemed asdisasters were terrific, yet they sured. On the 14th June, then, the might be placed to the account of French army crossed the Sambre the climate. The Peninsular epi- with the most brilliant prospects; sodes, to be sure, were rather em- but, unfortunately for our historian, barrassing, but still Napoleon was on the night between the 18th and not accountable for them; and by 19th, the remains of that army rerepresenting his lieutenants as in- crossed the Sambre a disordered capable, changing the numbers of and panic-stricken rabble. It had the opposing forces, and dwelling been actually beaten by the bungstrongly upon the difficulties and lers, with odds against it, scarce perplexities of the marshals, mag- worth mentioning in such a case. nifying small successes, depreciat- Hence the distresses of M. Thiers, ing the English victories, and mak- who has, from these adverse condiing the most of the defeats suffered tions, to arrive at a solution favour 66 able to the glory of Napoleon and of France. If the reader has not a map of Belgium at hand, let him take a half sheet of square letter paper, and fold it perpendicularly from top to bottom, a fourth from the left edge. A dot at the bottom of this fold will represent Charleroi; another, a third of the space up, Quatre Bras; another, near the top, Brussels. Then let him make, through Quatre Bras, another fold, not at right angles to the first, but obliquing to a point an inch above the right-hand corner. Its extremity at the right-hand corner will be not far from the position of Namur, and that at the left Nivelles. From Quatre Bras let him mark off towards Namur a distance equal to about two-thirds of that from Quatre Bras to Charleroi, and call the point Sombref, and join Sombref to Charleroi. Here are the points, then, of immediate importance at the outset. Napoleon is moving towards Charleroi, aiming at Brussels, and his two primary objects, as indispensable steps towards Brussels, are the two points Quatre Bras and Sombref. The possession of these points is of equal importance to the Allies, because they are the points of assemblement, the one of Wellington's troops coming from their right by Nivelles, and from their rear by the Brussels road; and the other of Blucher's corps, two from the direction of Namur, and one from Liege, a point higher up the paper from Namur, which joins the NamurNivelles road near Sombref. Blucher's army will be collected on its own right at Sombref, Wellington's on its own left at Quatre Bras, and their communication each other will be by the strip of highroad, seven miles long, between those points. Thus with The triangle formed by the three roads Charleroi-Quatre Bras, Charleroi-Sombref, and Quatre Bras-Sombref, is the immediate theatre of action. Not only are Sombref and Quatre Bras the points of assem blement of the individual armies, but they are the only points where the two armies can easily act in concert. The loss of either would not only entail the disintegration of that army whose point of assemblement it should be, but also the disunion of the two armies. For in the rear of the piece of road uniting those points lay the country watered by the Dyle,-a country of marshy valleys and crossroads, which the passage of large bodies of troops would speedily render impracticable, and where, consequently, great manoeuvres for a general concentration could not be relied on. The first steps of Napoleon's policy, then, are clear-namely, to move rapidly and with the largest possible masses on these two points, without leaving a perilous gap between his wings. The principle which Napoleon, in a despatch, told Ney he had adopted, was that which was natural and almost inevitable. It was to operate with two wings, and a central reserve which, under his immediate orders, could be brought to aid that wing whose action would be most decisive. Thus, at Ligny, the central reserve reinforced the right wing against the Prussians, and then moved to aid Ney against Welling ton. The only force covering the decisive points against the advance of Napoleon was the Prussian corps of Zieten, 30,000 strong. Its office was, of course, to fall back slowly, retarding the enemy by forcing the heads of his columns to deploy, so as to give time for the assemblement of the other corps in his rear. And this he could calculate on doing so long as he was attacked only by the heads of columns; but he could not hope to hold his ground against considerable portions of those columns arrayed in line of battle. On the first day of the French advance, the 15th June, he fell back firmly and skilfully, so that the enemy spent the whole day in driving him upon Fleurus, and thus he still covered the point of junction. That night Thielemann's corps bivouacked six miles off on the Namur road; Pirch's just outside of Namur; and Bulow's was more than a day's march off in the direction of Liege. Had, then, Napoleon's right wing and centre bivouacked in front of Zieten on the night of the 15th in order of battle, instead of order of march which would, of course, have entailed a prolonged movement of the rearward portions of the columns the following results were certain: Zieten would be overwhelmed, disorganised, and driven off the field in any direction he could find open; not, probably, the road of Namur, for that would be a flank march within reach of a victorious enemy. He would either have been thrust back on Bulow coming from Hannut, or on Wavre, altogether apart from the other corps. The point of junction seized, Thielemann must recoil on Pirch towards Namur; for to continue his forward movement would only deliver him into the hands of the enemy. The situation on the 16th, then, would be, that Napoleon, without any of the losses which a pitched battle must entail, would have his centre and right wing massed between Pirch and Thielemann on his right, and Bulow and 'Zieten on his left. The Prussian fractions could only reunite by the road from Namur by Hottomont to Louvain. But another movement in advance, whether opposed by Bulow or not, would bring the French on the 17th to Hottomont, where they would be on the Prussian line of communication with Liege and Maestricht. To recover their communications, and to concentrate for united action with Wellington, the Prussians must take up the line by Liege and St Frond to Louvain and Brussels. But Napoleon's end would have been answered. They would have been days apart from Wellington, and he could always, by shorter lines, interpose and keep them apart. If it be asked what Wellington would be doing on the 17th in such circumstances as we have imagined, we answer that he would have employed the day exactly as he did employ it-namely, in falling back to Waterloo. For he held Quatre Bras only because it was his point of union with Blucher at Sombref; and when Blucher's point should be lost, either with or without a battle, he must seek a fresh line of communication with him at points in his rear. Under such circumstances as we have supposed, he would have sought it in vain. Everything depended upon the ability of Blucher to retreat on Wavre, where alone he could reunite with Wellington before Brussels. Now, the possession of Quatre Bras would confer on Napoleon advantages of exactly the same kind as the possession of Sombref. As in the one case the Prussian corps would be driven apart on the roads of Namur and Liege, so in the other case the English troops would be separated on the roads of Nivelles and Brussels, and forced to make a circuit to reunite. Napoleon hoped to seize both points, so as to force both armies, thus disintegrated, to make circuits. But if he could only possess one, which would be the most decisive ? To answer this question it is necessary first to observe the lines of communication of the two armies, with their respective bases: each being supplied from its own base, was of course under the necessity of preserving its own line of communication. That of Wellington was with Ostend by his right, and with Antwerp by his rear. That the communication with Ostend was very important to him, his continued jealousy for his own right testifies; but he was not wholly dependent on it. Now Blucher was wholly dependent on his communication with the Rhine at Cologne, by his own left. The farther back he was driven in the direction of Brussels, the more that line was imperilled. The extent of the danger may be estimated from what actually occurred. On the morning after the battle of Waterloo, Grouchy drove the covering force of Thielemann from the Dyle, near Wavre. He was thus actually on the Prussian line of communication. Had Wellington relinquished the field before the arrival of the Prussians, Blucher would have been in this disastrous position: his ally would have been in retreat on a divergent line; he would have been cut from his own base, and the mass of the French would be ready to profit by the situation. Blucher's movements, then, were more hampered by the accident of the direction of his base than those of Wellington. Again, the roads by which Wellington would move to reunite his fractions in rear of Quatre Bras, should he lose that point, were numerous and good. He could easily reunite, for instance, at Hal. But the roads in rear of Sombref, as we have said, were few and bad. Considering, then, the relative values of the two points of assemblement, it appears that the loss of Blucher's entails greater difficulty in moving towards his ally, because of the direction of his base; and also a longer circuit to reunite his fractions, on account of the nature of the roads in his rear. Hence, to seize Sombref would isolate the armies far more effectually than to seize Quatre Bras. The ability of Napoleon's plan should now be evident:-to throw his mass first on the Prussians, and secure their disintegration, as most important; then to follow them only with such a force as should embarrass their movements and retard their reunion, and to join his reserve to his other wing for movement on his grand aim, Brussels. Should Wellington bar the way, he would meet him singly, with a superior force, and drive him back upon the coast. Should Wellington seek to reunite with Blucher farther back, Napoleon would seize Brussels, the political consequences of which would be immense; and he could, moreover, be still interposed between the discomfited armies of the Allies. Such, we say, was his excellent plan, as illustrated by his real movements, and by the circumstances we have described, which alone could render those movements judicious. And it was these circumstances which placed the Allied commanders at an unavoidable disadvantage, only neutralised by their tactical skill and immense determination. Now, the conception of an excellent plan is a great step to success. But something else is requirednamely, execution. And for the execution of this design the main requisite was celerity of movement. It would be to little purpose to concentrate the French army secretly, opposite the centre of the Allies, unless the advantage should be instantly followed up. Delay would neutralise it, and place the Allies in concert on his front and flank for a united attack. Here, then, we have reached the point where we are first seriously at issue with M. Thiers. There have occurred previously some minor points to which we must except, but which only call for passing notice. He tells us, for instance, that Brussels was Wellington's "base," an error which one who aspires to be the historian of the campaign should be incapable of. Classing Wellington and Blucher together, he tells us that they were inferior generals-which being, however, a matter of opinion, we will not dispute. But when he tells us that the motives which induced them to act with zeal against the common enemy were, in Blucher's case, vindictiveness, in Wellington's, ambition, we think M. Thiers passes out of the domain of opinion to violate notorious facts. And when he says that they committed an error in extending their forces too widely, he shows that his national prejudices are much too strong for his military knowledge, or he would have perceived |