Napoleon’s Awful Mistake at Waterloo

Everybody knows Napoleon’s awful mistake: Grouchy expected, Blucher coming up; death instead of life.

Continuing The Battle of Waterloo,
with a selection from Les Miserables by Victor Hugo published in 1862. This selection is presented in 6 easy 5 minute installments. For works benefiting from the latest research see the “More information” section at the bottom of these pages.

Previously in The Battle of Waterloo.

Time: 1815
Place: Waterloo Crossroads, 9 miles south of Brussels

Still the English army was the worse of the two; the furious attacks of these great squadrons with their iron cuirasses and steel chests had crushed their infantry. A few men round the colors marked the place of a regiment and some battalions were only commanded by a captain or a lieutenant. Alten’s division, already so maltreated at La Haye Sainte, was nearly destroyed; the intrepid Belgians of Van Kluze’s brigade lay among the wheat along the Nivelles road; hardly any were left of those Dutch grenadiers who in 1811 fought Wellington in Spain on the French side and who in 1815 joined the English and fought Napoleon. The loss in officers was considerable: Lord Uxbridge, who had his leg interred the next day, had a fractured knee. If on the side of the French in this contest of the cuirassiers Delord, L’Heretier, Colbert, Duof, Travers and Blancard were hors dc combat, on the side of the English, Alten was wounded, Barnes was wounded, Delancey killed, Van Meeren killed, Ompteda killed, Wellington’s staff decimated — and England had the heaviest scale in this balance of blood.

The Second Regiment of foot-guards had lost five lieutenant-colonels, four captains and three ensigns; the first battalion of the Thirtieth had lost twenty-four officers and one hundred twelve men; the Seventy-ninth Highlanders had twenty four officers wounded and eighteen officers and four hundred fifty men killed. Cumberland’s Hanoverian Hussars, an entire regiment, having Colonel Hacke at its head (who at a later date was tried and cashiered), turned bridle during the flight and fled into the forest of Soigne, spreading the rout as far as Brussels. The wagons, ammunition-trains, baggage-trains and ambulance carts full of wounded, on seeing the French, gave ground and approaching the forest, rushed into it; the Dutch, sabered by the French cavalry, broke in confusion.

From Vert Coucou to Groenendael, a distance of two leagues on the Brussels roads, there was, according to the testimony of living witnesses, a dense crowd of fugitives and the panic was so great that it assailed the Prince de Condé at Mechlin and Louis XVIII at Ghent. With the exception of the weak reserve échelonned behind the field-hospital established at the farm of Mont St. Jean and Vivian’s and Vandeleur’s brigades, which flanked the left wing, Wellington had no cavalry left and many of the guns lay dismounted. At five o’clock Wellington looked at his watch and could be heard muttering, “Blucher or night!” At this moment a distant line of bayonets glistened on the heights on the side of Frischemont. This was the climax of the gigantic drama.

Everybody knows Napoleon’s awful mistake: Grouchy expected, Blucher coming up; death instead of life. If the little shepherd who served as guide to Buelow, Blucher’s lieutenant, had advised him to debouche from the forest above Frischemont, instead of below Planchenoit, the form of the nineteenth century would have been different, for Napoleon would have won the Battle of Waterloo. By any other road than that below Planchenoit the Prussian army would have come upon a ravine impassable by artillery and Buelow would not have arrived.

It was high time for Buelow to arrive. He had bivouacked at Dieu-le-Mont and marched at daybreak, but the roads were impracticable and his division stuck in the mud. The ruts came up to the axletrees of the guns; moreover, he was compelled to cross the Dyle by the narrow bridge of Wavre; the street leading to the bridge had been burned by the French and the artillery train and limbers, which could not pass between the two rows of blazing houses, were compelled to wait till the fire was extinguished. By midday Buelow’s vanguard had scarce reached Chapelle St. Lambert.

Had the action begun two hours sooner, it would have been over at four o’clock and Blucher would have fallen upon the battle gained by Napoleon. Buelow was obliged to wait for the main body of the army and had orders to concentrate his troops before forming line; but at five o’clock, Blucher, seeing Welling ton’s danger, ordered Buelow to attack and employed the remarkable phrase, “We must let the English army breathe.”

A short time after this, Losthin’s, Hiller’s, Hacke’s and Ryssel’s brigades deployed in front of Lobau’s corps, the cavalry of Prince William of Prussia debouched from the Bois de Paris, Planchenoit was in flames and the Prussian cannon-balls began pouring even upon the ranks of the guard held in reserve behind Napoleon.

The rest is known — the irruption of a third army; the battle dislocated; eighty-six cannon thundering simultaneously; Pirch the First coming up with Buelow; Zieten’s cavalry led by Blucher in person; the French driven back; Marcognet swept from the plateau of Ohain; Durutte dislodged from Papelotte; Donzelat and Quiot falling back; Lobau attacked on the flank; a new battle rushing at nightfall on the weakened French regiments; the whole English line resuming the offensive and pushed forward; the gigantic gap made in the French army by the combined English and Prussian batteries; the extermination, the disaster in front, the disaster on the flank and the guard forming line amid this fearful convulsion. As they felt they were going to death, they shouted, “Long live the Emperor!” History has nothing more striking than this death rattle breaking out into acclamations.

Each battalion of the guard, for this denouement, was commanded by a general: Friant, Michel, Roguet, Harlot, Mallet and Pont de Morvan were there. When the tall bearskins of the Grenadiers of the Guard with the large eagle device appeared, symmetrical in line and calm, in the twilight of this fight, the enemy felt a respect for France; they fancied they saw twenty victories entering the battlefield with outstretched wings and the men who were victors, esteeming themselves vanquished, fell back; but Wellington shouted, “Up, guards and take steady aim!”

Wolfgang Menzel begins here. William Siborne begins here. Victor Hugo begins here.

More information here and here, and below.

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