Hilaire Belloc - Premium Collection: Historical Works, Writings on Economy, Essays & Fiction. Hilaire Belloc
he has only to deal in front of Abingdon with this second or western half, which hurried up too late to help the defeated eastern half, he has very fair chances of success. He is slightly superior numerically; he has, upon the whole, better troops and he has more guns. But the eastern half of the defending army, which has been beaten at Newbury, though beaten, was neither destroyed nor dispersed, nor thrust very far back from the line of operations. It has retreated to Wallingford, that is towards the north, parallel to the retreat of the western half; and a few hours after this western half is engaged in battle with the invader in front of Abingdon, the eastern half appears upon that invader’s right flank, joins forces with the line of the defenders at Abingdon, and thus brings not only a crushing superiority of numbers upon the field against the invader, but also brings it up in such a manner that he is compelled to fight upon two fronts at once. He is, of course, destroyed by such a combination, and his army routed and dispersed. An action of this sort fought at Abingdon would correspond to the action which was fought upon the field of Waterloo, supposing, of course, for the purpose of this rough parallel, an open countryside without the obstacle of the river.
The actual positions of the two combined commands, the command of Blucher and the command of Wellington, which between them held the long line between Tournay and Liège, will be grasped from the sketch map upon the next page.
The reader who would grasp the campaign in the short compass of such an essay as this had best consider the numbers and the positions in a form not too detailed, and busy himself with a picture which, though accurate, shall be general.
Let him, then, consider the whole line between Liège and Tournay to consist of the two halves already presented: a western half, which we will call the Duke of Wellington’s, and an eastern half, which we will call Blucher’s: of these two the Duke of Wellington was Commander-in-chief.
Next, note the numbers of each and their disposition. The mixed force under the Duke of Wellington was somewhat over 100,000 men, with just over 200 guns.2 They consisted in two corps and a reserve. The first corps was under the Prince of Orange, and was mainly composed of men from the Netherlands. Its headquarters were at Braine le Comte. The second corps was under Lord Hill, and contained the mass of the British troops present. Its headquarters were at Ath. These two between them amounted to about half of Wellington’s command, and we find them scattered in cantonments at Oudenarde, at Ath, at Enghien, at Soignies, at Nivelles, at Roeulx, at Braine le Comte, at Hal. A reserve corps under the Duke’s own command was stationed at Brussels, and amounted to more than one-fifth, but less than one-quarter, of the whole force. The remaining quarter and a little more is accounted for by scattered cavalry (mainly in posts upon the river Dender), by the learned arms, gunners and sappers, distributed throughout the army, and by troops which were occupying garrisons—in numbers amounting to rather more than ten per cent. of the force.
The eastern Prussian or left half of the line was, as is apparent in the preceding map, somewhat larger. It had a quarter more men and half as many guns again as that under the Duke of Wellington, and it was organised into four army corps, whose headquarters were respectively Charleroi, Namur, Ciney, and Liège.
The whole line, therefore, which was waiting the advance of Napoleon, was not quite two and a third hundred thousand men, with rather more than 500 guns. Of this grand total of the two halves, Wellington’s and Blucher’s combined, about eighteen per cent. came from the British Islands, and of that eighteen per cent., again, a very large proportion—exactly how large it is impossible to determine—were Irish.
Now let us turn to the army which Napoleon was leading against this line of Wellington and Blucher. It was just under one hundred and a quarter thousand men strong, that is, just over half the total number of its opponents. It had, however, a heavier proportion of guns, which were two-thirds as numerous as those it had to meet.
This “Army of the North” was organised in seven great bodies, unequal in size, but each a unit averaging seventeen odd thousand men. These seven great bodies were the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th Army Corps, the 6th Army Corps, the Imperial Guard, and the reserve cavalry under Grouchy.
The concentration of this army began, as I said in a previous section, upon the 5th of June, and was effected with a rapidity and order which are rightly regarded as a model by all writers upon military science.
The French troops, when the order for concentration was given, stretched westward as far as Lille, eastward as far as Metz, southward as far as Paris, in the neighbourhood of which town was the Imperial Guard. The actual marching of the various units occupied a week. Napoleon was at the front on the night of the 13th of June; the whole army was upon the 14th drawn up upon a line stretched from Maubeuge to Philippeville, and the attack was ready to begin.
The concentration had been effected with singular secrecy, as well as with the promptitude and accuracy we have noted; and though the common opinion of Wellington and Blucher, that Napoleon had no intention of attacking, reposed upon sound general judgment—for the hazard Napoleon was playing in this game of one against two was extreme—nevertheless it is remarkable that both of these great commanders should have been so singularly ignorant of the impending blow. Napoleon himself was actually over the frontier at the moment when Wellington was writing at his ease that he intended to take the offensive at the end of the month, and Blucher, a few days earlier, had expressed the opinion that he might be kept inactive for a whole year, since Bonaparte had no intention of attacking.
By the evening of Wednesday, June the 14th, all was ready for the advance, which was ordered for the next morning.
It would but confuse the general reader to attempt to carry with him through this short account the name and character of each commander, but it is essential to remember one at least—the name of Erlon; and he should also remember that the corps which Erlon commanded was the First Corps; for, as we shall see, upon Erlon’s wanderings with this First Corps depended the unsatisfactory termination of Ligny, and the subsequent intervention of the Prussians at Waterloo, which decided that action.
It is also of little moment for the purpose of this to retain the names of the places which were the headquarters of each of these corps before the advance began. It is alone important to the reader that he should have a clear picture of the order in which this advance took place, for thus only will he understand both where it struck, and why, with all its rapidity, it suffered from certain shocks or jerks.
Napoleon’s advance was upon three parallel lines and in three main bodies.
The left or westernmost consisted of the First and Second Corps d’Armée; the centre, of the Imperial Guard, together with the Third and Sixth Corps. The third or right consisted of the Fourth Corps alone, with a division of cavalry. These three bodies, when the night of Wednesday the 14th of June fell, lay, the first at Sorle and Leer; the second at Beaumont, and upon the road that runs through it to Charleroi; the third at Philippeville.
It is at this stage advisable to consider why Napoleon had chosen the crossing of the Sambre at Charleroi and the sites immediately to the north on the left bank of that river as the point where he would strike at the long line of the Allies.
Many considerations converged to impose this line of advance upon Napoleon. In the first place, it was his task to cut the line of the Allies in two at the point where the extremity of one army, the Prussian, touched upon the extremity of the other, that of the Duke of Wellington. This point lay due north of the river-crossing he had chosen.
Again, the main road to Brussels was barred by the fortress of Mons, which, though not formidable, had been put in some sort of state of defence.
Again, as a glance at the accompanying map will show, the Prussian half of the allied line was drawn somewhat in front of the other half; and if Napoleon were to attack the enemy in detail, he must strike at the Prussians first. Finally, the line Maubeuge-Philippeville, upon which he concentrated his front, was, upon the whole, the most central position in the long line of his frontier troops, which stretched