CHAPTER VII.

THE MORNING OF THE SIXTEENTH OF JUNE: WELLINGTON.

The Duke of Wellington, as we have seen, did not decide on ordering a general concentration of his army at Quatre Bras until the early morning hours of the 16th of June.

We have produced above two orders, both addressed to Lord Hill, written at Brussels on the morning of the 16th of June, and we have shown that the first, at any rate, was written and sent out before the Duke had made up his mind to concentrate his army at Quatre Bras. We have also, however, shown, that before he left Brussels, he did make up his mind to do this, and that orders to this effect were, no doubt, then issued. We cannot fix the hour or hours at which this was done, but it was undoubtedly before the Duke left Brussels. This last hour has been differently fixed,[230] but it was probably about half-past seven. He, then, leaving the Deputy Quarter Master General and the other heads of departments in Brussels,—[231] presumably to attend to the issuing of the orders for the concentration of the army at Quatre Bras,—rode to the latter place, where he arrived about 10 o’clock. Here he found only Perponcher’s division of Dutch-Belgian troops, under command of the Prince of Orange.

At half-past ten, he wrote to Marshal Blücher the letter before referred to, which, as we have said above, never, as we believe, saw the light until it was published in Berlin,[232] in 1876, in Von Ollech’s History[233] of the Campaign of 1815. We give a translation of it here in full.

On the Heights behind Frasnes: June 16, 1815. 10.30 A.M.

My dear Prince:

My army is situated as follows:

The Corps d’Armée of the Prince of Orange has a division here and at Quatre Bras, and the rest at Nivelles.

The Reserve is in march from Waterloo to Genappe, where it will arrive at noon.

The English Cavalry will be at the same hour at Nivelles.

The Corps of Lord Hill is at Braine-le-Comte.

I do not see any large force of the enemy in front of us, and I await news from your Highness and the arrival of troops in order to determine my operations for the day.

Nothing has been seen on the side of Binche, nor on our right.

Your very obedient servant,

Wellington.

Let us see precisely how far this letter agrees with Colonel De Lancey’s Memorandum, which he drew up—presumably before the Duke left Brussels—for the Duke’s information, and of which we have before spoken, entitled “Disposition of the British army at 7 o’clock A.M., 16th June.” (See Map 4.)

The 1st Corps, says the Duke in his letter, has a division here,—that is, in rear of Frasnes,—and at Quatre Bras. This, as we have seen above, was the 2d division of Dutch-Belgian troops,—Perponcher’s. The rest of the 1st Corps, says the Duke, are at Nivelles. Now, of the three divisions,—those of Chassé (Dutch-Belgian), Alten, and Cooke, which constituted the rest of the 1st Corps,—the first two had been ordered to Nivelles the previous evening,—the last, Cooke’s, is stated in the De Lancey “Disposition” to be, at 7 A.M., at Braine-le-Comte. The Duke, therefore, might well suppose that it would accomplish the greater part of the distance between Braine-le-Comte and Nivelles, nine miles, in three hours and a half.

The Duke next says “The Reserve is in march from Waterloo to Genappe, where it will arrive at noon.” For this statement the Duke did not have to refer to the “Disposition.” He had passed Picton’s division on the road, a mile or two north of Waterloo, probably a little before 9 A.M.; and, supposing, as he did, that Picton either had then received, or shortly would receive, orders to push on to Quatre Bras, he was warranted in saying that the division would reach Genappe at noon. He did not take the trouble to except from his general statement, which he doubtless thought was sufficiently accurate for all practical purposes, the division of Sir Lowry Cole, which the “Disposition” placed at Assche, eight miles north-west of Brussels, nor the 5th Hanoverian brigade, which was at Hal.

The Duke next says that the English Cavalry will be at Nivelles at noon. The “Disposition” puts them at Braine-le-Comte at 7 A.M. Relying on this statement, the Duke says they will accomplish the nine miles between that place and Nivelles by noon.

“The Corps of Lord Hill is at Braine-le-Comte,” is the next and last statement in the letter. That corps consisted of the 2d and 4th British divisions, of the 1st Dutch-Belgian division, and of Anthing’s brigade. As respects the 2d division, the “Disposition” states that it was at 7 A.M. at Braine-le-Comte. The 4th division, the “Disposition” states, was at Audenarde at 7 A.M. and was marching on Braine-le-Comte; but the Duke certainly could not have supposed it possible that that division could have marched from Audenarde to Braine-le-Comte, a distance of more than thirty miles, between seven and half-past ten in the morning. And as for the 1st Dutch-Belgian division and the Indian brigade, the “Disposition” puts them at Sotteghem, a village near Audenarde, at 7 A.M., and states that they are marching on Enghien. The Duke, therefore, had not the authority of the “Disposition” for the statement made in his letter as to these portions of Lord Hill’s Corps; but then these divisions had been stationed so far away, that probably he never counted on them at all in his own mind in connection with a concentration at Quatre Bras. These were the troops which he left at Hal and Tubize on the day of Waterloo to protect his right.

It is, therefore, we submit, easy to see that the Duke had the “Disposition” before him when he wrote the letter to Marshal Blücher. He seems to have taken it,—so to speak,—blindfold; it never seems to have occurred to him that it was practically impossible that his various divisions could have been at seven o’clock that morning where his chief-of-staff had said that they were. He accepted the memorandum as official, and followed it substantially—with a few deviations, to be sure, as we have pointed out—in his letter to Blücher. Not only this; the Duke acted at once on the faith of the representations contained in the “Disposition.” He, about noon, rode over to Brye to confer with Marshal Blücher, and to propose to coöperate with him. It is evident from the narrative[234] of Baron Müffling, who accompanied the Duke, that Wellington was, in his opinion, laboring under grave misconceptions as to the whereabouts of his army. The conversation, according to Müffling, was mainly concerned with the manner of the promised coöperation,—Gneisenau wishing the Duke to march from Quatre Bras to Brye, and Wellington being unwilling thus to expose his communications with Brussels and Nivelles. Towards the close of the discussion, says Müffling, the Duke adopted a suggestion of his, and said “I will overthrow what is before me at Frasnes and will direct myself on Gosselies.” We cite this simply to show how confident Wellington was that he would find a sufficiently large force at Quatre Bras on his return from Brye, at about half-past two o’clock. If Alten’s division was at Nivelles at 7 A.M., _en route_ for Quatre Bras, it should have arrived there before noon. The reserves, which marching from Brussels for Quatre Bras, had by 7 A.M. nearly reached Waterloo, ought to be at Quatre Bras, which is not over eleven miles further, by 2 or 3 P.M. If the cavalry was actually at Braine-le-Comte at 9 A.M. it might well be at Nivelles by noon, and at Quatre Bras, only seven miles further, by 3 P.M. Cooke might be expected about the same time, with his division of Guards. These expectations were no doubt in the mind of the Duke of Wellington as he rode back to Quatre Bras from his meeting with Marshal Blücher. The theory advanced, or perhaps suggested, by the Prussian biographer of Gneisenau, Delbrück,[235] that the Duke misrepresented the position of his army for the purpose of inducing Blücher to give battle at Ligny on the strength of his promise to support him, and of his ability to keep his promise, so that he, Wellington, might gain the necessary time for the concentration of his army, has not, in our judgment, anything to support it.[236] The truth plainly is, that the Duke was himself entirely deceived by the statement drawn up for his information by his chief-of-staff. He took it for granted that the troops were where they were stated to be, and made his dispositions accordingly. He was destined thereby not only to be greatly disappointed, but to incur imminent danger of defeat. For, as a matter of fact, many of his divisions were at seven that morning nowhere near the positions assigned them in Colonel De Lancey’s Memorandum. We shall refer to this matter in another place; suffice it to say now that the Duke’s reinforcements came on the field very much later than he had reason to expect; that the allied troops were for a couple of hours or so in a very precarious situation, and would without doubt have been disastrously defeated had Napoleon’s orders been carried out.

FOOTNOTES:

[230] Müffling (Passages, p. 230) says about 5. Mudford puts it at 7. Gardner, p. 58, at 8. Sir A. Frazer (Letters of Colonel Sir A. S. Frazer, London, 1859, p. 536), writes at 6 A.M., that he has “just learned that the Duke moves in half an hour.” The Duke had 22 miles to ride to arrive at Quatre Bras, and he got there about 10 A.M. His letter to Blücher is dated 10.30 A.M. Oldfield (MSS.) puts the time of the Duke’s departure as before that of Sir George Wood and Lieutenant Colonel Smyth, who “drove out in a calêche of the latter” “between seven and eight o’clock,” and soon after the departure of the Brunswick troops, which was “at an early hour.”

[231] Oldfield, MSS.

[232] Von Ollech, p. 125. Maurice, June, 1890, p. 257. App. C, xvi; _post_, pp. 376, 377.

[233] Charras, vol. 1, p. 192, note, refers to it to show that Wellington was opposite Frasnes at 10.30 A.M., but he makes no other reference to it.

[234] Müffling, Passages, p. 236. Ollech, p. 126.

[235] Gneisenau, vol. 4, pp. 369, 370.

[236] At the same time, it must be said that Delbrück was quite naturally led to adopt this suggestion. It is only on the supposition that the “Disposition” is an authentic document and that the Duke followed it blindly, but honestly, in his letter to Marshal Blücher, that we can find a satisfactory answer to Delbrück’s suggestion.

_NOTES TO CHAPTER VII._

1. It may be worth while to state, as nearly as we can, the actual positions at 7 A.M. of the 16th of the various bodies of troops mentioned in the “Disposition.” (See Map 5.)

The 1st division was not at 7 A.M. at Braine-le-Comte. It did not reach that place from Enghien until 9 A.M.[237] Its commander, General Cooke, having received no further orders, halted the division till noon, when he took upon himself the responsibility of continuing the march to Nivelles, where he arrived at 3 P.M. Here he received orders to proceed at once to Quatre Bras.

The 2d division, Clinton’s, which was also stated in the “Disposition” to have been at 7 A.M. at Braine-le-Comte, and to be marching on Nivelles, did not, in fact,[238] receive the order to march from the neighborhood of Ath, where it was stationed, to Enghien till twelve hours after it was dated,—_i.e._, not until 10 A.M. of the 16th! The troops did not reach Enghien till 2 P.M., and missing, apparently, the direct road, did not arrive at Braine-le-Comte till midnight.

The 3d division, Alten’s, is said in the “Disposition” to have been at Nivelles at 7 A.M., and marching to Quatre Bras. It did not arrive at Nivelles till noon.[239]

The 4th division, Colville’s, was no doubt correctly stated in the “Disposition” to have been at Audenarde at 7 A.M. The 10 P.M. orders of the 15th of June directed it on Enghien; and we must presume, for the reasons given above, that further orders to march on Braine-le-Comte had been issued.

The 5th division, Picton’s, was not “beyond Waterloo” at 7 A.M., as stated in the “Disposition.” In point of fact, it must have been some six miles on the Brussels side of Waterloo at that hour.[240] Included in this division was the 4th Hanoverian brigade,[241] and the Duke of Brunswick’s Corps.

The 6th division, Cole’s, is no doubt correctly stated in the “Disposition” to have been at 7 A.M. at Assche; but whether orders for it to march to Genappe and Quatre Bras had arrived at so early an hour, may be doubted.

Similar observations apply to the 5th Hanoverian brigade, stated in the “Disposition” to have been at 7 A.M. at Hal, and marching to Genappe and Quatre Bras, and to the 1st Dutch-Belgian Division and Anthing’s Indian brigade, stated to be at Sotteghem, and marching to Enghien.

The “Disposition” states that the 2d and 3d divisions of the Army of the Low Countries were at Nivelles and Quatre Bras at 7 A.M. This was not true of the 3d division, Chassé’s, which did not assemble at Nivelles till near noon.[242] The 2d division, Perponcher’s, as we have seen, was at Quatre Bras at 7 A.M.

As for the statement in the “Disposition” that Major General Dörnberg’s brigade and the Cumberland Hussars were “beyond Waterloo” at 7 A.M., it certainly was far from correct. Dörnberg had been directed by an order sent off from Brussels between 5 and 7 P.M. of the 15th to retire his brigade from the neighborhood of Mons to Vilvorde, a town seven miles north of Brussels. He could not have reached Vilvorde, which is a distance of forty-five miles, until late in the afternoon.

As for the “remainder of the cavalry,” which was stationed in and near Ninove, it not only was not at Braine-le-Comte at 7 A.M., as stated in the “Disposition,” but it did not receive the first order,—sent off from Brussels about 10 o’clock in the evening of the 15th,—until shortly before six in the morning.[243] It was therefore only an hour’s march from Ninove on its way to Enghien at seven o’clock. It did not reach the field till “the evening was far advanced and the conflict had ceased.”[244]

Nor could Kruse’s Nassau brigade have passed Waterloo at 7 A.M., as stated in the “Disposition,” _en route_ for Genappe, for it did not arrive at Quatre Bras in season to take part in the action.

We have been at some pains to lay the facts in regard to this “Disposition” before the reader, because it certainly is the most misleading statement ever drawn up “for the information” of a commanding general. No thought seems to have been given either to the time at which the orders could be received, or to the time required to carry them out. An officer of sufficient experience in war to occupy the post of chief-of-staff to the Duke of Wellington ought certainly to have been quite competent to give to his commanding officer an estimate of the probable positions at any given time of the various divisions of the army, on which it would be safe to rely.[245]

2. Whether, if such an estimate had been made, Wellington would have stayed at Quatre Bras, may be a question, but he probably would have risked it, as he evidently did not suppose the French to be in great force in his front, and it was obviously of prime importance to retain his communications with Blücher, if possible.

3. Finally, it must be said that the Duke of Wellington was not well served by his subordinates on the day of the 15th in respect to the transmission to him of information from the front.[246] His first news of the attack on the Prussian lines near Thuin did not arrive till 3 P.M., although the French movement must have been pronounced some ten or eleven hours before that hour. Charleroi was occupied by the main French column at noon, but all the Duke had heard at 10 P.M. simply warranted him in writing that the enemy “appeared to menace Charleroi.” Brussels is only 35 or 36 miles from Charleroi; and by a good despatch system news of such importance ought to have been transmitted in four hours. If that had been done,—if Wellington had known at four or five o’clock in the afternoon positively that the French had occupied Charleroi in force, and if his information from Mons had arrived at the same time, as certainly ought to have been the case,—there is every reason to suppose that he would at once have issued orders for the concentration of the army at Quatre Bras. The orders which he did issue to this effect were not sent out, as we have seen, till the early morning hours of the 16th, some nine or ten hours later than those which we may fairly suppose he would have issued, had information of the French movements been promptly transmitted to him. But how far the commander-in-chief is himself responsible for such delays as this is, of course, a question. It is and must be for him to devise efficient methods, and to put them to the test often enough beforehand to feel justified in relying on them in a sudden emergency. And the situation in which the Duke of Wellington was in the month of June, 1815, certainly would seem to have called for the utmost watchfulness and for the taking of every precaution. It is impossible not to conclude that he failed in these respects.

FOOTNOTES:

[237] Grenadier Guards, vol. 3, p. 15.

[238] Leeke, vol. 1, pp. 10, 11.

[239] Siborne, vol. 1, p. 90.

[240] Siborne, vol. 1, p. 102, note. Gomm, pp. 353, 354. Waterloo Letters, pp. 23, 24. Gomm says Picton’s division left Brussels at 5 A.M., marched to Waterloo (a distance of about eleven miles), and halted there two hours; and then at 1 P.M. resumed its march for Quatre Bras, where it arrived at 3.30 P.M. Siborne (vol. 1, p. 102) says that Picton arrived at a quarter before 3 P.M., having left Waterloo about noon. As the distance is about thirteen miles, the later hour of arrival given by Gomm is probably correct.

[241] Siborne, vol. 1, p. 103, n.

[242] Van Loben Sels, p. 232.

[243] Historical Record of the Life Guards, p. 193: 2d Ed. London; Longmans: 1840. Bullock’s Journal; English Historical Magazine, July, 1888, p. 549.

[244] Life Guards, p. 194. Bullock, p. 549, says eight o’clock.

[245] It ought to be remembered, however, that the “Disposition” was in all probability drawn up in a great hurry. Wellington had put off the decision to concentrate at Quatre Bras so late that both the giving of the necessary orders and the preparation of this “Disposition” must have been done in the greatest haste.

[246] _Cf._ Siborne, vol. 1, p. 166, note.