Kitabı oku: «Battles of English History», sayfa 16

Though the defeated army was seriously disorganised beyond its heavy losses, Clausel nevertheless tried to make a stand beyond the Douro, in the expectation that king Joseph, with the small army at his immediate disposal, would there join him. Joseph was distracted between many counsels, and consequently did not act promptly. Wellington however decided the question for him. Forcing Clausel from the Douro, he entered Valladolid, seizing the French stores there. Then leaving a small force to face Clausel, who had retreated towards Burgos, and who could not be in a condition to resume offensive operations for some time, Wellington turned upon Joseph, and easily drove him from Madrid. The intruding king, after much hesitation, retired eastwards, and sent positive orders to Soult to evacuate Andalusia and bring his army to the east side of Spain. The occupation of Madrid by Wellington involved the capture of a vast quantity of French material of war, which they found it difficult to replace; but the moral effects were incomparably greater, as an encouragement to the Spanish people. A great part of the north was already in a state of insurrection, in spite of the presence of French troops: this stroke stimulated them by the hope of speedy success, besides setting the whole south free from the invaders. Wellington was perfectly aware that his hold on Madrid could be but temporary: as soon as Soult and Joseph were united, they would have strength enough to compel him to retire. This could not however take place immediately: so Wellington, leaving Hill at Madrid, marched northwards, hoping to inflict another blow on Clausel's army, now commanded by Souham, in the time at his disposal. At Burgos he allowed himself to be drawn into a siege of the castle, which was bravely and skilfully defended, and proved impregnable to field artillery, which was all that Wellington had with him. The concentration of the enemy's armies in the east rendered it impossible for him to maintain his position much longer. Accordingly on October 21 he began for the last time a retreat into Portugal, Hill also abandoning Madrid. The latter part of the retreat had to be conducted in frightful weather, and was marked by more disorder in the British army than occurred at any other time during the war; thus the losses were severe, out of all proportion to the pressure which the French were able to exercise.

Just at the time when Wellington turned his back on Burgos, Napoleon's retreat from Moscow began. Before the end of the year he was driven out of Russia, having lost nearly half-a-million of men: Prussia also, hitherto his nominal ally, rose in arms against him. In order to make head against Russia and Prussia on the Elbe, he had to withdraw troops from Spain, besides directing to Germany reinforcements and supplies which otherwise might have been devoted to the Spanish armies. Hence when the campaign of 1813 began, Wellington had the superiority of strength, though his enemies were now less widely scattered than before the evacuation of Andalusia. There could be no doubt that to invade Spain once more in the same general direction as in 1812 would be the most effective. Even Sir John Moore's small force, boldly plunging into Spain by that route at the end of 1808, had made Napoleon fear for his line of communication with France, and compelled him to detach overwhelming forces against the English. A fortiori Wellington, advancing by that line with an army equal to all that king Joseph could bring together, must compel him to evacuate Madrid, and retreat sufficiently far northwards to guard the main road to France. Wellington knew by his experience of the last year that the line of the Douro beyond Salamanca was difficult to force in the face of a fairly equal enemy. He therefore resolved that a large portion of his army should cross the Douro down in Portugal, and then move eastwards, while he himself advanced viâ Salamanca. The pressure of his left wing would compel the French in his front to retire, for fear of being completely outflanked. And here came in the advantage which he derived from the English command of the sea. Instead of dragging behind him an ever-lengthening chain, in the shape of communication with Lisbon, which had hitherto been his base for supplies, he could, if confident of having the upper hand in the north-west of Spain, have his supplies brought to the northern ports, and conveyed thence by comparatively short journeys. And he was confident, so thoroughly so as to let it be seen; it is told that when he passed the frontier into Spain, he rose in his stirrups, and looking round waved his hand, exclaiming: "Farewell, Portugal!" During four weary years he had stood substantially on the defensive, guarding the frontier if he could, retreating if he could not, obliged to withdraw behind it after incursions into Spain. Now at last his turn was come, and he knew it.

Wellington's movements were at the beginning so far concealed that the French did not penetrate his purpose. King Joseph did not understand that the game was substantially lost, and hoped to concentrate the French armies behind the Douro, and stop Wellington, if he could not force him back to Portugal once more. Graham's divisions appearing north of the Douro, and steadily pushing forwards, undeceived him. The French retreated first to Burgos, protecting as long as possible the vast amount of property of all kinds which was being poured along the great high-road to Bayonne, from the reserve artillery to the pictures robbed from Spanish churches and palaces, all the treasure and apparatus of the usurping government and court, all the military stores which had accumulated during five years of war, all the non-military persons who had so identified themselves with the invaders that they dared not stay in Spain. Wellington continued moving in the same manner, pushing his left forward while with his right he followed up the French, thus ever threatening to cut their communications, ever securing the command of more and more of the north coast. King Joseph found it necessary to retreat still further, till at Vittoria he had to choose between abandoning Spain altogether, and risking a battle. That he could have fought with at least equal chances of success two or three times, at earlier stages of the retreat, seems clear: but there was no sound directing head at the French head-quarters. Joseph was always incompetent, his military adviser, Marshal Jourdan, was either over-ruled or failed even less excusably because he had more experience; the subordinate generals received vacillating orders. The whole machine in fact was out of gear; though in the various combats, large and small, generals and soldiers fought as well as ever, the army as a whole expected to be beaten and was beaten.

The basin of Vittoria is about twelve miles in length, from the defile of Salinas, where the river Zadorra enters it on the east, to the defile of Puebla, where the river quits it to flow towards the Ebro. The great royal road, the only one good enough for the enormous convoys with which the French army was burdened, traversed these defiles, running through the town of Vittoria on the south side of the river. The basin is more or less completely surrounded with hills, crossed by rough and difficult roads. To the west is the valley of the small river Bayas, which converges towards the Zadorra, joining the Ebro just above it. From the Bayas there is a way into the basin of Vittoria by a gap in the hills behind the village of Subijana de Morillos, four or five miles from the Puebla defile. A dozen miles higher up the Bayas the road from Bilbao crosses that stream, and threading the defiles of the northern hills comes down straight on Vittoria. The French, who were in fact to fight for the plunder of Spain and the accumulated material of the army, had been already weakened by large detachments sent forward in charge of convoys. Outnumbered in fact, outweighed still more in imagination, they were massed, except Reille's divisions, at the western end of the basin, the plain behind them being full of waggons of all descriptions. Reille was posted north of Vittoria, facing the Bilbao road, so far from the rest of the army that he could not possibly be supported if attacked by superior numbers, though it is obvious that if Reille were overpowered the great road would be lost. Nothing could better illustrate the extreme unwisdom of not standing to fight earlier: defeat at Vittoria meant the loss of everything, and the dispositions made invited defeat. Wellington fully realised his advantage: he sent Graham with some 20,000 men up the Bayas, to cross into the basin of Vittoria by the Bilbao road and attack Reille, while the rest of the army attacked the main body of the French posted behind the Zadorra at the west end of the basin.

At daybreak on June 21 Wellington's immediate right under Hill moved forwards and slowly crossed the Zadorra just below the defile of Puebla. There was no occasion for haste, rather it was expedient to be leisurely, so as to give time for Graham to accomplish his much longer march. Then a brigade of Spanish infantry was sent to scale the heights which form the eastern side of the defile, and push along them so as to threaten to turn the French left. The remainder of the right wing passed through the defile and attacked the French left in front. Meanwhile Wellington with his centre had made his way through and over the hills separating the Bayas from the Zadorra, part by the gap of Subijana de Morillos, so as to converge on Hill's force, part some distance further to the northwards. By this time it was one o'clock, and the distant sound of cannonading told that Graham was already engaged. The French main army began to retreat, pressed steadily in front by Wellington, till they were driven back to within a mile of Vittoria. By this time Graham, who had considerably larger forces than those immediately opposed to him, had obtained command of the royal road. Carrying out on a small scale in action the same idea which had inspired Wellington's movements on the large scale, he had pushed forwards his left, winning possession of the village of Gamarra Mayor on Reille's extreme right. The French here held their ground with admirable tenacity, and Graham could seize neither the bridge at Gamarra, nor that directly in his front by which the Bilbao road enters Vittoria, though his guns could sweep the great road towards France. Reille thus saved the French army from annihilation: if he had been driven over the Zadorra a comparatively small part would have been able to escape at all. Thanks to him, the bulk of the soldiers were able to retire by the Pampeluna road; but it could scarcely be called an army. The losses in the battle, or rather in the pair of simultaneous battles, had not been exceptional, and had been tolerably equal, about 6000 killed and wounded on each side; but nothing escaped except the men. To quote the words of a French officer who took part in the action: "They lost all their equipages, all their guns, all their treasure, all their stores, all their papers, so that no man could prove how much pay was due to him: generals and soldiers alike were reduced to the clothes on their backs, and most of them were barefoot."

The deliverance of Spain was not yet complete, but it was virtually achieved by the battle of Vittoria. Before Wellington could capture San Sebastian, the fortress which guarded the Spanish side of the frontier at the extreme south-west corner of France, Soult had been sent by Napoleon to reorganise the disordered fragments of several separate commands which had escaped from Vittoria. As soon as he could move, Soult crossed the passes of the western Pyrenees, trying to break up the scattered parts of the English army, which had to besiege San Sebastian and Pampeluna, besides its other duties. Wellington was able to concentrate just in time, and after some very complicated warfare in the mountain country, involving serious losses on both sides, Soult was driven back into France. Before the end of the year Wellington was in France; he had stormed San Sebastian, converted the siege of Pampeluna into a blockade, driven Soult successively across the two little rivers beyond the frontier, and surrounded Bayonne. The fall of Napoleon early in 1814 put an end to the war, not without two more battles, in the latter of which Soult was driven from a very strong position close to the city of Toulouse, while inflicting very great loss on his assailants. Wellington had contributed largely to the overthrow of Napoleon by his direct efforts, by his caution and foresight so long as was necessary, by his daring at the right moment, by his skilful and bold offensive strategy. How much he contributed indirectly, by keeping up resistance to the universal conqueror in one corner of Europe, it would be difficult to estimate.

CHAPTER XIV
WATERLOO

[NOTE. – Controversy has raged over almost every point of the Waterloo campaign. Matters of fact have been disputed, whether or not given things happened, and if they did happen, when and how. Still more naturally have questions of inference and judgment been disputed, under the influence of partisanship, or supposed patriotism, or preconceived ideas. I have deemed it unnecessary to enter into any of these controversies. I have narrated the facts as I believe them to have occurred, without citing evidence, and have left doubtful inferences to the reader. To have done more would have been inconsistent with the scope of this book.]

The combined efforts of the great powers of Europe overthrew Napoleon early in the year 1814. In spite of amazing efforts on his part, the allied armies marched to Paris; and the emperor, finding himself almost deserted, was compelled to abdicate. The allied powers made the great mistake, as events proved, of allowing him to take possession in full sovereignty of the little island of Elba. A man of more chivalrous spirit would probably have felt that it was a mockery to call him emperor of so minute an empire, and would have preferred to disappear entirely from the observation of a world in which he had risen to so vast a height and fallen so decisively. Napoleon took his small kingdom seriously, and seems to have been contented for a time, until reports of the state of affairs in France led him to think that he might recover his throne. The legitimate line of the Bourbon kings had been restored on Napoleon's overthrow, in the person of Louis XVIII., brother of the king executed in 1793. How far this restoration was acceptable at the time to the French nation as a whole it is difficult to judge. Certainly the knot of selfish politicians who seized the opportunity of speaking in the name of France desired it for their own ends. Certainly also the allied sovereigns, who for the moment held the fate of France in their hands, most or all of them thought it the most desirable course in the interests of Europe generally. But the Bourbons, like their English forerunners in disaster, had learned nothing and forgotten nothing. The great mass of Frenchmen had no wish to lose the great fruits of the Revolution, abolition of aristocratic privilege, limitation of the royal authority, curtailment of the vast influence of the clergy. Still less were they willing to see the crown and the royalist exiles resume possession of the lands of which they had been deprived, and which had mostly been sold to new owners. Least of all were they inclined to allow the rejection, in favour of the Bourbon white flag, of the tricolour which was the emblem alike of the liberty and equality won by the Revolution, and of the military glories won by Napoleon. The king himself seems to have been at least willing to abide by the constitution he had proclaimed, and to accept the great social results of the Revolution; but his brother and destined successor, and many of the restored exiles, made no secret of their desire to revert to the ancien régime. Naturally a large amount of discontent was engendered, and of this Napoleon took advantage to try his luck once more. On March 1, 1815, he landed near Cannes with a few hundred followers. The population of the provinces through which his way to Paris lay were on the whole favourable, more so probably than the average of the whole of France. The soldiers could nowhere be induced to fight against the emperor; and many of the officers, though by no means all, set them the example of defection. The king fled into Belgium, and Napoleon marched to Paris in triumph, and resumed the government without a blow.

The allied powers however were in no mind to see their vast sacrifices thrown away, and to allow Napoleon the chance of once more consolidating his power in France, and beginning a fresh series of wars of aggression. Their representatives were still assembled in congress at Vienna, occupied in the difficult task of resettling Europe after the universal removing of landmarks which had been produced by the recent wars. They at once declared Napoleon a public enemy, and began preparations for launching enormous hosts against him. Months must pass before, in the then state of roads and modes of locomotion, a single Russian soldier could be seen on the French frontier. A shorter, but still considerable, interval must elapse before the Austrian armies could take the field. But England was only across the narrow seas, and Prussia held great territories on the Rhine. Accordingly these two powers, acting in concert, poured their troops, one army under Wellington, the other under Blucher, into the new kingdom of the Netherlands, which had but recently formed part of Napoleon's empire. From the Belgian frontier starts the easiest and shortest line of invasion of France, assuming invasion to be directed at the capital. And the intention was that the English and Prussian armies should take this route, when the Austrians had reached the eastern frontier, and the Russians were getting within supporting distance. Napoleon no doubt realised that his game was lost if his enemies once gathered in their irresistible numbers. At any rate he saw plainly enough that his best chance lay in defeating his opponents piecemeal. Could he succeed in destroying the Anglo-Prussian army, the other powers might be intimidated, or possibly bribed, into letting him alone. The indications are that this would never have happened; the Czar would probably have receded before nothing but overwhelming defeat, and the overthrow of Wellington and Blucher would not have meant the annihilation of the power of Prussia, still less of Great Britain. Nevertheless Napoleon had a chance in this way, and in no other, and he proceeded to try it with characteristic vigour and resolution, though with less than his usual skill and care when the actual stress came.

In order that the campaign may be understood, of which Waterloo was the climax, it must be always remembered that political reasons rendered it essential for Napoleon to assume the offensive in spite of inferior numbers, and offered every inducement to the allies to await attack, and also that this gave Napoleon the great strategical advantage of the initiative. The allies had to guard the Belgian frontier; he could select his own point for invasion. Accordingly the allies occupied a line from east to west, some thirty miles south of Brussels, and a little north of the actual frontier. The Prussians on the eastern half lay chiefly on the north side of the Meuse and its tributary the Sambre.

Wellington's army was only a third English, another third being Dutch-Belgians of very poor quality and doubtful fidelity,⁷² the remainder Germans, some of them excellent troops, the rest mere recruits. He covered the western part of the frontier, as was natural, seeing that he drew his supplies from England by the Belgian ports of Ostend and Antwerp. The two armies met just south of Brussels, near Charleroi, where a main road crosses the Sambre. The allies could not of course know by what route Napoleon, if he assumed the offensive, as was probable, would enter Belgium. They therefore had to watch the whole line; and partly for this reason, partly for convenience of subsistence, they quartered their forces over a space of country fully 100 miles in length from east to west. On the Prussian side, where the rivers formed a protection, and where there was less reason to expect attack, the troops were comparatively near the frontier line. On the English side none except outposts were close to the frontier, and some were at least thirty miles behind it.

Napoleon could bring into the field about 125,000 men, practically all veterans commanded by excellent officers, though the successive re-organisations after his first overthrow and on his restoration had left it lacking in the perfect mutual confidence of officers and men which makes a veteran army so formidable. Of these nearly 24,000 were cavalry; and there were 344 field guns. The Prussians under Blucher were not much inferior in numbers to the French, about 121,000, but their proportion of cavalry (12,000) and guns (312) was lower, and the quality of part at least of the army inferior. Wellington had about 94,000 men, of whom over 14,000 were cavalry, with 196 guns, but, as has been said before, barely half⁷³ of them were really trustworthy troops. Thus Napoleon was nearly equal to his opponents in number of cavalry, but was outmatched in guns in the proportion of about three to two, and in infantry by at least seven to four, though the superior quality of his troops went some way towards compensating for this inequality. He had the further advantage of unity of command, while the armies of the allies not only were separate, with no further concert of action than what the voluntary accord of the chiefs might establish, but drew their supplies from opposite directions, the Prussians from the Rhine, the English from the Belgian ports. Both sides seem to have been fairly well informed as to the strength of the other. Napoleon also had information as to the position of the allied troops, nor were Wellington and Blucher quite in the dark when the French troops concentrated on the frontier, skilfully as Napoleon had arranged their movements, though they could not at first be certain what was real attack, what feint.

Napoleon had practically a choice between two plans. He might invade Belgium on the west, opposite the right of Wellington's widely divided army, and by advancing northwards cut Wellington off from his communication with the sea. This was what Wellington expected; he was very anxious about his supplies, being probably more than doubtful whether his army would find subsistence if compelled to depend on the Prussians, who had quite enough to do in supplying their own army. A corresponding movement on the left of the Prussians was obviously possible, but for many reasons not worth Napoleon's while. The alternative plan, which he adopted, and which all critics consider to have been the best open to him, was to concentrate his army due south of Brussels, at the nearest point to that capital, and cross the Sambre at Charleroi, which would bring him on the point where the English and Prussian armies met. Napoleon knew that the Prussian forces were less dispersed, and generally nearer the frontier than those of Wellington. He therefore calculated that if, as was probable, Blucher concentrated his army for battle, it would be at a point comparatively near to Charleroi, and that Wellington could not be in time to give him serious assistance. He further calculated that Blucher, if defeated, would retreat eastwards in the direction of his proper line of communication, and that then Wellington ought to be an easy prey to the French army, superior in both numbers and quality.

Accordingly Napoleon issued orders that his whole army should move at dawn on June 15, and cross the Sambre at or near Charleroi. At the same time he ordered slight demonstrations to be made much further west, in the neighbourhood of Mons, in order that Wellington might be kept as long as possible in doubt as to what Napoleon's real purpose was. Ziethen, who commanded the Prussian corps nearest to Charleroi, had unaccountably taken no steps to destroy the bridges over the Sambre, which would have delayed the French greatly: but he disputed their advance with much skill and pertinacity, and slowly retired north-eastwards to Fleurus. Blucher had on the night of June 14, on receiving certain tidings that the French were in great force beyond the Sambre, ordered his whole army to concentrate at Sombref, four or five miles behind Fleurus, at the point where the road from Charleroi crosses the great high-road that runs a little north of west from Namur to Nivelles, and thence towards the coast. It was at this point that it had been agreed between the allies, some weeks before, that the Prussians should concentrate in case of an advance by Napoleon, which they then thought improbable. One of the four Prussian corps, that of Bulow, was at a great distance, and failed to arrive in time; but those of Pirch and Thielemann duly joined Ziethen. On the 16th Blucher, with nearly 90,000 men, took up a position at Ligny, a mile or so south of the great Namur road, and awaited attack. Napoleon's intention had been to bring his whole army across the Sambre on the 15th, to occupy Fleurus in force, in anticipation of battle with Blucher, and to send a detachment to Quatre-Bras, where the Charleroi-Brussels road crosses the Namur-Nivelles road, in order to intercept the main line of communication between Wellington and Blucher. This was only approximately carried out: at nightfall, some French divisions were still on the wrong side of the Sambre. Quatre-Bras was found to be occupied, and the French left therefore did not go beyond Frasne, two or three miles to the south; and Ziethen's rear-guard still held Fleurus. The difference was of no serious consequence, the less so as the allied generals played into Napoleon's hands, Blucher by committing himself to battle with only three-fourths of his army and with no assurance of assistance from his colleague, Wellington by his slowness in concentrating his army. The English general, ill served as to intelligence, only heard the news of the French advance in the afternoon: even then, slow to abandon his belief that Napoleon would try to cut him off from the sea, he only warned his troops to be ready. In the evening he ordered concentration on Nivelles, and not till the morning of the 16th did he direct movements on Quatre-Bras.⁷⁴

On the morning of June 16 Napoleon was in no hurry to move. He had entrusted Ney with the command of his left wing, and given him orders to attack the English at Quatre-Bras. There was much delay, which seems attributable partly to Ney's doing nothing to hasten the march (he had only joined the army on the 15th and had no staff), and partly to the remissness of the corps commanders, Reille and D'Erlon. About two o'clock however he began, with Reille's corps only, the battle of Quatre-Bras. It was extremely fortunate for Wellington that Ney had not moved earlier, for the position at daybreak was only held by one brigade, and it was but slowly that fresh troops came up. At first the French seemed likely to carry all before them: the Dutch-Belgian troops suffered severely, and some of them fled. No reader of Vanity Fair can have forgotten Thackeray's description of the panic caused in Brussels by the arrival of these fugitives, reporting that the allied army was cut to pieces. The Brunswick division was also broken for the time, and their duke killed.⁷⁵ But reinforcements came up in succession, and Wellington, who was on the field in person, grew relatively stronger as evening approached, and foiled every effort Ney made. Why Ney did not make greater efforts, why especially he made so little use of his cavalry, of which arm Wellington had very few on the field, is hard to say. Possibly his Peninsular experiences made him feel convinced that Wellington would not risk a battle without adequate strength. Certainly the woods interfered with his seeing fully the amount of Wellington's force. The absence of D'Erlon's corps was, as will appear presently, no fault of his, except so far as he was responsible for not having brought D'Erlon up to the front in the morning. At any rate he failed: at nightfall on the 16th the French were at Frasne, the English at Quatre-Bras, as they had been on the night of the 15th; only each side had lost between 4000 and 5000 men, the English rather more than the French.

Meanwhile Napoleon had taken for granted that Ney would be able to dislodge the English,⁷⁶ and had not only told him how far to advance on the Brussels road, but had also ordered him to despatch part of his troops, as soon as Quatre-Bras was occupied, down the Namur road, to co-operate in his own attack on the Prussians. He had waited until Ney was engaged before beginning his own battle, which he did not doubt winning, and hoped by Ney's aid to render decisive. On the Prussian left Thielemann's corps covered the road to Namur: the centre and right, formed by Ziethen's corps, with Pirch in second line, were thrown forward almost at a right angle to the left, behind the villages of Ligny and St. Amand, so as to cover the same road further west, by which communication was to be kept up with Wellington. The duke had seen Blucher in the morning, and had promised to assist the Prussians if not himself attacked. Thus both French and Prussians were hoping at least for help from Quatre-Bras, which neither combatant there was in any condition to afford. Napoleon decided to begin by assailing the Prussian right: for this he had every motive, as it was unprotected by any natural obstacle, and success there would not only tend to separate Blucher from Wellington, but would also drive Blucher to retreat towards Namur, which Napoleon naturally desired. His plan however aimed at a much more decisive stroke. He had determined, after the Prussian right had been shaken by some hours of fighting, to assail the centre with his reserve. If that attack succeeded, and one of Ney's corps took the Prussians in rear, as was to be done when Quatre-Bras had been won, half of the Prussian army would be virtually surrounded, and must either be destroyed or surrender. The fighting all through was of a most desperate character, but the French had, on the whole, the best of it, and Napoleon was preparing for his attack on the centre, when the news that a considerable body of troops were in sight a couple of miles or so on his left, naturally caused him to wait. They might be Wellington's, in which case caution was obviously expedient: they might be Ney's expected succour appearing in the wrong place, in which case time would be needed for them to work round the flank of the Prussians. It had just been ascertained that the approaching troops were French, when they suddenly halted and began to return the way they had come. They were D'Erlon's corps, which had been on their way to join Ney, and had been directed towards the field of Ligny, apparently by a staff officer who thought he was rightly interpreting Napoleon's wishes. Ney, on hearing what had happened, very properly recalled D'Erlon: his orders were to dislodge the English from Quatre-Bras, which he could not do without D'Erlon's troops, and then, but not till then, to reinforce Napoleon. The result however was that D'Erlon's corps wasted the day in marching to and fro, and took part in neither battle, though its active co-operation ought to have been decisive on either field.