NOTES TO CHAPTER XIV.

1. Colonel Maurice has recently examined the evidence in reference to the communications which passed between the Duke of Wellington and Marshal Blücher on the subject of the support to be given to the English army by the Prussians.546 We think he has shown that the account given in Siborne is not altogether correct, and we have followed Colonel Maurice in preferring the statements of Müffling and Ollech.

Siborne says547 that the Duke, on the morning of the 17th, sent back the Prussian officer548 who first brought him the news of Blücher’s defeat, with a letter to the Field Marshal, “proposing to accept a battle on the following day in the position in front of Waterloo, provided the Prince would detach two corps to his assistance”; and that, in the course of the evening549 he received from Blücher a reply in these terms:—

“I shall not come with two corps only, but with my whole army; upon this understanding, however, that, should the French not attack us on the 18th, we shall attack them on the 19th.”

Colonel Maurice is inclined to the opinion that the letter which is quoted by Siborne is really one written to Müffling at Blücher’s dictation on the following morning, after nine o’clock, in which Müffling is desired to inform the Duke of Blücher’s intentions, and in which some of the words given above are employed. If this be so, and it seems very likely, the Duke not only took up his position for battle before he had received any definite assurance of support from his ally, but he did not get any until the arrival at the Duke’s headquarters at Waterloo of the letter sent off from Wavre between 11 and 12 P.M.,550 which could hardly be before 2 A.M. of the 18th. How much longer the Duke would have remained in his position waiting for the promise of Prussian support, no one, of course, can say. He certainly did not propose to stay and fight single-handed. He had sent word to Blücher by Massow that without Prussian support he would be obliged to fall back to Brussels.551 Yet according to Siborne, he waited till evening,552 according to Ollech, he must have waited till two o’clock in the morning, before receiving any definite assurance of assistance.

2. But there is a story, which rests on testimony which it is impossible to disregard, to the effect that the Duke, after having caused his army to take up its position on the field of battle, rode over to Wavre in the evening to ascertain for himself whether or not he was to be supported by Marshal Blücher in the battle of the ensuing day. This story has been carefully investigated by Colonel Maurice,553 and we shall state, as briefly as we can, the evidence collected by him.

We first find the story in print in the year 1835, in Lockhart’s Life of Napoleon.554 It reads as follows:—

“All his arrangements having been effected early in the evening of the 17th, the Duke of Wellington rode across the country to Blücher, to inform him personally that he had thus far effected the plan agreed on at Brye, and express his hope to be supported on the morrow by two Prussian divisions. The veteran replied that he would leave a single corps to hold Grouchy at bay as well as they could, and march himself with the rest of his army upon Waterloo; and Wellington immediately returned to his post.”

To this the following note is appended:—

“The fact of Wellington and Blücher having met between the battles of Ligny and Waterloo is well known to many of the superior officers in the Netherlands; but the writer of this compendium has never happened to see it mentioned in print. The horse that carried the Duke of Wellington through this long night journey, so important to the decisive battle of the 18th, remained till lately, it is understood, if he does not still remain, a free pensioner in the best paddock at Strathfieldsaye.”

Lord Ellesmere, however, writing, as we have before had occasion to remark, under the inspiration of the Duke of Wellington, states in a review of a biography of Blücher that Lockhart is mistaken.555 But it is curious that no statement whatever is given by him of the manner in which the Duke passed the evening of the 17th. His actions are accounted for only till dark.

The story is most circumstantially told in the journal of the Rev. Julian Charles Young:—556

“In the year 1833, while living in Hampshire, no one showed my wife and myself more constant hospitality than the late Right Honorable Henry Pierrepont, the father of the present Lady Charles Wellesley. * * * On one of our many delightful visits to Conholt, Mr. Pierrepont had but just returned from Strathfieldsaye as we arrived. He had been there to meet the judges, whom the Duke was accustomed to receive annually, previously to the opening of the assizes. After dinner, Mr. Pierrepont was asked by the Duke of Beaufort, who, with the Duchess, was in the house, if he had had an agreeable visit. ‘Particularly so,’ was the answer. ‘The Duke was in great force and, for him, unusually communicative. The two judges and myself having arrived before the rest of the guests, who lived nearer Strathfieldsaye than we did, the Duke asked us if we were disposed to take a walk, see the paddocks, and get an appetite for dinner. We all three gladly assented to the proposition. As we were stumping along, talking of Assheton Smith’s stud and hounds, one of the judges asked the Duke if we might see Copenhagen, his celebrated charger. ‘God bless you,’ replied the Duke, ‘he has been long dead; and half the fine ladies of my acquaintance have got bracelets or lockets made from his mane or tail.’ ‘Pray, Duke, apart from his being so closely associated with your Grace in the glories of Waterloo, was he a very remarkable—I mean a particularly clever horse?’

“Duke—‘Many faster horses, no doubt, many handsomer; but for bottom and endurance, never saw his fellow. I’ll give you a proof of it. On the 17th, early in the day, I had a horse shot under me. Few know it, but it was so. Before ten o’clock I got on Copenhagen’s back. There was so much to do and to see to, that neither he nor I were still for many minutes together. I never drew bit, and he never had a morsel in his mouth till eight P.M., when Fitzroy Somerset came to tell me dinner was ready in the little neighbouring village, Waterloo. The poor beast I saw myself stabled and fed. I told my groom to give him no hay, but, after a few go-downs of chilled water, as much corn and beans as he had a mind for, impressing on him the necessity of his strewing them well over the manger first. Somerset and I despatched a hasty meal, and as soon as we had done so, I sent off Somerset on an errand. This I did, I confess, on purpose that I might get him out of the way; for I knew that if he had had the slightest inkling of what I was up to, he would have done his best to dissuade me from my purpose, and want to accompany me.

“‘The fact was, I wanted to see Blücher, that I might learn from his own lips at what hour it was probable he would be able to join forces with us the next day. Therefore, the moment Fitzroy’s back was turned, I ordered Copenhagen to be resaddled, and told my man to get his own horse and accompany me to Wavre, where I had reason to believe old ‘Forwards’ was encamped. Now, Wavre being some twelve miles from Waterloo, I was not a little disgusted, on getting there, to find that the old fellow’s tent was two miles still farther off.

“‘However, I saw him, got the information I wanted from him, and made the best of my way homewards. Bad, however, was the best, for, by Jove, it was so dark that I fell into a deepish dyke by the roadside; and if it had not been for my orderly’s assistance, I doubt if I should ever have got out. Thank God, there was no harm done, either to horse or man!

“‘Well, on reaching headquarters, and thinking how bravely my old horse had carried me all day, I could not help going up to his head to tell him so by a few caresses. But hang me, if, when I was giving him a slap of approbation on his hind-quarters, he did not fling out one of his hind legs with as much vigour as if he had been in stable for a couple of days. Remember, gentlemen, he had been out with me on his back for upwards of ten hours, and had carried me eight and twenty miles besides. I call that bottom! ey?’”

Then there is another piece of evidence. Colonel Maurice says:—557

“Mr. Coltman—a well-known barrister now alive—remembers to have distinctly heard his father, then Mr. Justice Coltman of the Common Pleas, tell the story, and say that he had heard it from the Duke’s own mouth during a particular visit to the Duke at Strathfieldsaye in a named year, 1838. He wrote to me, giving the story substantially, though not with quite as much detail, and making the horse’s kicking out in reply to the caress take place on the 18th instead of on the 17th, as it appears in Young’s narrative. He had at the time never seen Young’s book. Obviously, the difference as to the day of the kick is just such a lapse as would naturally occur in a narrative not written down at the time. Either may be right.”

Notwithstanding the improbable features in these accounts,—and there are many,558—it is at first sight difficult to account for the existence of this evidence, except on the supposition that the story is true. But a close examination of the so-called Diary of the Rev. Mr. Young shows that it is not, strictly speaking, a diary at all, for the stories and remarks contained in it were not set down at the time, as in an ordinary journal. Thus, this very story, the date of which is given as 1833, is entered under the date of October 7, 1832. (Diary, p. 153.) Take another instance. The writer is speaking of Mr. John Wilson Croker, and he says, under date of March, 1832 (pp. 144, 145), that “for forty years he [Croker] filled a prominent position in the world of letters.” Now forty years before 1832, Croker was only twelve years old. Again, in this very story of the ride to Wavre, which is said to have been told in 1833, the Duke is made to say of his horse Copenhagen that he had then “been long dead.” But, in fact, Copenhagen did not die till 1836; the date of his death is given on the grave-stone erected over his remains at Strathfieldsaye.

As for the letter of Mr. Coltman to Colonel Maurice, which is a statement recently made of the former’s recollection of what he had heard his father say that the Duke of Wellington told him in 1838, it clearly cannot have much weight, unless corroborated.

There is, moreover, some newly-discovered evidence. It consists of notes taken by the late Baron Gurney, of the Court of the Exchequer, of conversations with the Duke of Wellington. In one of these, the Duke was asked “whether a story was true of his having ridden over to Blücher the night before the battle of Waterloo and returned on the same horse. He said: ‘No; that was not so. I did not see Blücher the day before Waterloo.’” This seems to settle the question.

3. We have spoken briefly of Napoleon’s opinion, that the Duke of Wellington and Marshal Blücher ought to have retired on Brussels. The passage to which we referred reads as follows:—559

“One may ask,—What ought the English general to have done after the battle of Ligny and the combat of Quatre Bras? There cannot be two opinions on this subject. He ought on the night of the 17th and 18th to have traversed the Forest of Soignes by the Charleroi pike, while the Prussian army was traversing it by the Wavre pike; the two armies could then unite at daybreak before Brussels, leaving rearguards to defend the forest,—gain some days to give those of the Prussians who had been dispersed by the battle of Ligny time to rejoin the army,—obtain reinforcements from the fourteen English regiments which were either in garrison in Belgium or had just landed at Ostend on their return from America,—and leave the Emperor of the French to manœuvre as he liked. Would he, with an army of 100,000 men, have traversed the forest of Soignes to attack on the other side of it the two hostile armies united, more than 200,000 strong, and in position? That would certainly have been the most advantageous thing that could happen to the allies. Would he have been contented to take up a position himself? He certainly could not have kept it long, for 300,000 Russians, Austrians, and Bavarians, already arrived at the Rhine, would in a few weeks have been on the Marne, which would have obliged him to fly to the defence of the capital. Then, the Anglo-Prussian army could have marched forward, and joined their allies under the walls of Paris.”

It is plain that the course pointed out by the Emperor would have avoided all the risks incurred by Wellington in giving battle at Waterloo, with the needed support not available until afternoon. But Clausewitz560 denies that Wellington incurred any risk.

“Wavre is distant from Wellington’s field of battle about two [German, or about ten English] miles. From the moment when the Duke of Wellington saw the enemy appear in his front up to Blücher’s arrival, six or eight hours would therefore have to elapse, unless Blücher had started still earlier; but in that time a battle against 70,000 men cannot be begun, fought and decided; it was therefore not to be feared that Wellington would be defeated before Blücher arrived.”

It is, perhaps, a sufficient reply to this remark to recall the fact that the battle of Ligny was begun at half-past two and was completely finished at half-past nine, and that this period of seven hours includes the delay of nearly two hours caused by the unexpected appearance of d’Erlon’s Corps. It seems to us foolish to contend that Wellington did not run a great risk of being defeated before the arrival of the Prussians. Had the battle been begun five or six hours earlier, all the troops in Napoleon’s army could have been employed against the Anglo-Dutch forces, and the battle could have been fought as the Emperor intended to fight it. The risk of being beaten, we repeat, was a great risk; and we believe the Duke was quite aware that it was such when he assumed it. The question then is,—recurring to Napoleon’s censure on Blücher and Wellington for not having avoided this risk by continuing their retreat to the immediate neighborhood of Brussels,—whether the possibility of overthrowing Napoleon at the beginning of the campaign by effecting a union of the allied armies at Waterloo warranted the two allied commanders in taking the risk of the defeat of the Anglo-Dutch army before this union could be effected. As this question is evidently one capable of indefinite discussion, we content ourselves with stating it.