Kitabı oku: «The Story of Wellington», sayfa 13
When Wellington reached the Austrian capital in January 1815—destined to be the greatest year in modern European history—he found that the wolves in sheep’s clothing had almost concluded their deliberations. Russia, supported by Prussia, was intent upon securing Poland, a plan bitterly opposed by Great Britain and Austria. France was wishful for Holland and Belgium. The quarrelling suddenly ceased when, on the 7th March, Metternich received the most astounding news. Napoleon, King of Elba, had left his little island state, landed on the French coast, and was marching in the direction of Paris! Wellington heard on the same day from another source, and immediately communicated the scanty news detailed to him by Lord Burghersh to the Emperor of Austria and the Czar.
“I do not entertain the smallest doubt that, if unfortunately it should be possible for Buonaparte to hold at all against the King of France, he must fall under the cordially united efforts of the Sovereigns of Europe.” Thus writes the Duke to Castlereagh, but in a dispatch of the same date, namely the 12th March, he shows that he entirely failed to appreciate the fascination still exercised by the name “Napoleon.” “It is my opinion,” he writes, “that Buonaparte has acted upon false or no information, and that the King will destroy him without difficulty, and in a short time.” We know that the ex-Emperor’s reception was at first somewhat lukewarm, but as he marched towards the capital it assumed the form of a triumphal procession, with Ney and the 6000 men who were “to bring him back in an iron cage” as enthusiastic followers. The inhabitants of the south alone refused to recognize the former Emperor of the French.
Far from Louis XVIII destroying Napoleon “without difficulty,” that brave monarch left France to its own devices on the 19th March, the day before his predecessor and successor reached the Tuileries. “What did he do in the midst of the general consternation of Paris?” asks the Baron de Frénilly. “He acted. A great crowd saw him in the morning proceeding in pomp with Monsieur to the Chamber of Deputies; he was seen to enter and throw himself into his brother’s arms, with the solemn promise to remain in Paris and be buried under the ruins of the monarchy; and on the following day the population learnt that he had fled in the night by the road to Flanders!” Soult, now Minister of War, apparently under the impression that an Army Order would tend to dispel any affection the soldiers might feel towards their former Head, issued the most stupid of nonsensical proclamations. “Bonaparte,” it reads in part, “mistakes us so far as to believe that we are capable of abandoning a legitimate and beloved sovereign in order to share the fortunes of one who is nothing more than an adventurer. He believes this—the idiot!—and his last act of folly is a convincing proof that he does so.”
Without loss of time the Fifth Coalition was formed, Great Britain, Russia, Austria and Prussia entering into a treaty on the 17th March, whereby each of them guaranteed to put 150,000 men in the field against “the enemy and disturber of the peace of the world,” Great Britain, as usual, financing the Allies, this time to the enormous extent of £5,000,000.
With commendable dispatch Napoleon formed a new ministry and began to marshal his troops, which at first numbered 200,000 and eventually 284,000, excluding a quarter of a million of men for internal defence. “It was the finest army,” writes Professor Oman, “that Napoleon had commanded since Friedland, for it was purely French, and was composed almost entirely of veterans; but it was too small for its purpose.”83 Murat, king of Naples, precipitated matters by invading the Papal States, and failed at the hands of Austria, thereby robbing his brother-in-law of his only possible ally. But this was finished by the beginning of May, over a month before Napoleon started for the front, leaving 10,000 of his none-too-numerous troops to quell an outburst of royalist enthusiasm in La Vendée, ever the most warlike province of France and apt to flame into insurrection on the slightest provocation.
CHAPTER XVIII
Ligny and Quatre Bras
(1815)
“I go to measure myself with Wellington.”
Napoleon.
Napoleon left Paris at dawn on the 12th June, and travelled to Laon. His troops were divided into the Army of the North, intended for the invasion of Belgium, which totalled a little over 124,000; the Army of the Rhine, commanded by Rapp, about 20,000, with a reserve of 3000 National Guards; Le Courbe’s corps of observation, watching the passes of the Jura, about 8000; the Army of the Alps, with Suchet, some 23,000; a detachment, under Brune, guarding the line of the Var, 6000; the 7th Corps, watching the line of the Pyrenees, 14,000, in two sections under Decaen and Clausel. The Army of the North was distributed at Lille, Valenciennes, Mézières, Thionville, and Soissons, under D’Erlon, Reille, Vandamme, Gérard and Lobau respectively; the Imperial Guard near Paris, and the Reserve Cavalry, under Grouchy, between the Aisne and the Sambre.84 Soult was chief of the staff, an appointment not particularly happy.85
In Belgium there was the nucleus of an army, consisting of some 10,000 soldiers, mostly British. Wellington arrived at Brussels on the 5th April, with the formidable task in hand of organizing a substantial body to oppose the returned Exile. He managed it, but the result was almost as motley a crowd of fighting men as Napoleon had for his disastrous Russian campaign. Wellington bluntly called them “not only the worst troops, but the worst-equipped army, with the worst staff that was ever brought together.” There were Hanoverians, Belgians, Dutch, Brunswickers, and Nassauers, as well as men of his own country. The 1st Corps, under the Prince of Orange, totalled 25,000, with headquarters at Braine-le-Comte; the 2nd Corps, commanded by Lord Hill, numbered 24,000, with headquarters at Ath; the Reserve Corps, with the Duke at Brussels, 21,000; the Cavalry, under the Earl of Uxbridge, 14,000; in the garrisons were 12,000, and the artillery and engineers reached 10,000—grand total 106,000.86 The Prussian Army, commanded by Blücher, reached 124,000 men, some few thousands of whom were already in Belgium in March. It was made up of four corps stationed at Charleroi, Namur, Ciney, and Liége, with headquarters at Namur. Both armies were in touch with each other, although distributed over a large extent of territory. It was intended that 750,000 men should be available for the invasion of France, but none of the other allies was ready. Napoleon acted promptly, his idea being to deal with each separately and drive them back on their bases before they were able to concentrate. He would then turn on the Austrians before the Russians were ready.
Napoleon succeeded in concentrating the Army of the North without definite particulars of his movements reaching either Wellington or Blücher. On the 15th June he was across the frontier and had made a preliminary success by driving Ziethen, who commanded Blücher’s first corps, from the banks of the Sambre, gaining the bridges, and securing Charleroi. The Emperor followed the Prussians to within a short distance of Gilly, where the French right wing defeated them with the loss of nearly 2000 men. The enemy then fell back in the direction of Ligny, and Napoleon made his headquarters at Charleroi. Meanwhile Ney, who had only arrived in the afternoon, was given charge of Reille’s and D’Erlon’s corps, and it is usually contended that he had told Lefebvre-Desnoëttes to reconnoitre towards Quatre Bras, then held by some 4500 Nassau troops, commanded by Prince Bernard of Saxe-Weimar.
Lefebvre first encountered the enemy at the village of Frasnes, some twenty-three miles from Brussels and covering Quatre Bras, where about 1500 men were stationed, who fell back towards Quatre Bras. The French General occupied the village in the evening after an indecisive action.
When information reached Wellington from Ziethen, vague because it was dispatched early in the morning, he ordered the majority of the troops at his disposal to be “ready to move at the shortest notice,” and a few only were told to change the positions they then occupied. He issued his final instructions at 10 p.m., and then went to the ball given by the Duchess of Richmond, who had invited some of the non-commissioned officers and privates in order “to show her Bruxelles friends the real Highland dance,” as Wellington afterwards averred. The Commander-in-Chief was quite easy in his mind, for he had done all that it was possible for him to do, and his appearance at such a festivity tended to allay the anxiety of the inhabitants as to Napoleon’s movements. Surely the capital was safe if Wellington was so unconcerned as to go to a dance?
There was a sound of Revelry by night;
And Belgium’s Capital had gather’d then
Her Beauty and her Chivalry; and bright
The lamps shone o’er fair women, and brave men:
A thousand hearts beat happily; and when
Music arose with its voluptuous swell,
Soft eyes look’d love to eyes which spake again;
And all went merry as a marriage-bell:
But Hush! Hark! a deep sound strikes like a rising knell!
Did ye not hear it? No: ’twas but the wind;
Or the car rattling o’er the stony street:
On with the dance! let Joy be unconfined:
No sleep till morn, when Youth and Pleasure meet
To chase the glowing Hours with flying feet:
But, Hark! that heavy sound breaks in once more;
As if the clouds its echo would repeat;
And nearer, clearer, deadlier than before!
Arm! Arm! it is; it is; the Cannon’s opening Roar!
Had Byron pictured the entry of Lieutenant Webster with a dispatch for the Prince of Orange he would have been more literally, if not artistically, correct. The nineteen words which the Prince read were momentous: “Captain Baron von Gagern has just arrived from Nivelles, reporting that the enemy had pushed up to Quatre Bras.” It had been written at Braine-le-Comte at 10.30 p.m. No further instructions were issued by Wellington, for he had already arranged “for a movement tending to draw the right of his forces in towards the left.”87 He therefore remained at the ball until about 2 a.m., on the 16th, and then went to bed.
He left the city very early and arrived at Quatre Bras about 10 o’clock. There he found, according to his own statement,88 “the Prince of Orange with a small body of Belgian troops, two or three battalions of infantry, a squadron of Belgian dragoons, and two or three pieces of cannon which had been at the Quatre Bras—the four roads—since the preceding evening. It appeared that the picket of this detachment had been touched by a French patrol, and there was some firing, but very little; and of so little importance that, after seeing what was doing, I went on to the Prussian army, which I saw from the ground, was assembling upon the field of St Amand and Ligny, about eight miles distant.
“I reached the Prussian army; was at their headquarters; stayed there a considerable time; saw the army formed; the commencement of the battle; and returned to join my own army assembled and assembling at the Quatre Bras. I arrived then at Quatre Bras a second time on that day, as well as I recollect, at about two or three o’clock in the afternoon.
“The straggling fire there had continued from morning; the Prince of Orange was with the line troops still in the same position. I was informed that the army was collecting in a wood in front. I rode forward and reconnoitred or examined their position according to my usual practice. I saw clearly a very large body of men assembled, and a Maréchal reviewing them, according to their usual practice, preparatory to an attack. I heard distinctly the usual cries: ‘En avant! en avant! L’Empereur récompensera celui qui s’avancera!’
“Before I quitted the Prince of Orange, some of the officers standing about had doubted whether we should be attacked at this point. I sent to the Prince of Orange from the ground on which I was standing, to tell him that he might rely upon it that we should be attacked in five minutes, and that he had better order the retreat towards the main position of the light troops and guns which were in front, and which could make no resistance to the fierce attack about to be made upon us. These were accordingly withdrawn, and in less than five minutes we were attacked by the whole French army under Maréchal Ney. There was in fact no delay nor cessation from attack from that time till night. The reserves of the British army from Brussels had arrived at the Quatre Bras at this time; and the corps of Brunswick troops from the headquarters, and a division of Belgian troops from Nivelles, Braine, &c.”
Ney did not begin his attack until 2 p.m. He had only Reille’s corps at his disposal, and he was uncertain as to the movements of the Prussians. But when a move was made against the farm of Gémioncourt,89 the key of the position, the 7000 troops of the Prince of Orange were speedily driven back, and the wood of Bossu also fell into the enemy’s hands. It was at this precise moment that Wellington and reinforcements arrived. Picton with his brave 5th Division, although exhausted by a long march on a sultry day, were ordered to retake the wood. It was then that Ney hurled his cavalry at them in a determined endeavour to save the situation at all costs.
“One regiment,” we are told, “after sustaining a furious cannonade, was suddenly, and on three different sides, assailed by cavalry. Two faces of the square were charged by the lancers, while the cuirassiers galloped down upon another. It was a trying moment. There was a death-like silence, and one voice alone, calm and clear, was heard. It was their Colonel’s, who called upon them to be ‘steady.’ On came the enemy—the earth shook beneath the horses’ feet; while on every side of the devoted band, the corn,90 bending beneath the rush of cavalry, disclosed their numerous assailants. The lance-blades approached the bayonets of the kneeling front rank—the cuirassiers were within forty paces—yet not a trigger was drawn. But when the word ‘Fire!’ thundered from the colonel’s lips, each piece poured out its deadly volley, and in a moment the leading files of the French lay before the square, as if hurled by a thunderbolt to the earth. The assailants, broken and dispersed, galloped off for shelter to the tall rye; while a stream of musketry from the British square carried death into the retreating squadrons.” At length Maitland’s division of the Guards secured possession of the wood. The French continued to attack with ardour, but with the close of day Ney fell back upon the road to Frasnes. The British remained at Quatre Bras.
Many brave incidents are recorded. A soldier of the 92nd was wounded in the thigh. After having been attended by a surgeon the medical man dismissed him by saying, “There is now no fear of you, get slowly behind.” His reply, unpremeditated and instant, was, “The presence of every man is necessary,” and calmly went back to his post, from which he never returned. Another fellow had his knapsack carried away from his shoulders by a cannon-ball. He caught it by a dexterous movement before it reached the ground. Wellington happened to be near, and the incident afforded him considerable amusement.
The 2nd Battalion of the 69th Regiment of Foot91 had its flag captured, the precious symbol being wrenched from the hands of the officer almost at the same time as the attempted capture of another colour during a charge of French cuirassiers. The latter was preserved, although the bearer received severe wounds. Ensign Christie also saved a flag by throwing himself upon it. As the soldier lay on the ground a portion of the colour was torn off by the lancer who had made the attempt, but before the prize could be taken the captor was shot and the piece recovered.
Wellington lost 4600 killed and wounded at Quatre Bras, but although he remained in possession of the field, Ney’s grim determination had precluded him from sending reinforcements to Blücher, who had been contesting Napoleon at Ligny, eight miles distant. On the other hand, the Emperor had ordered his Marshal to assist him at Ligny after having dispersed the troops at Quatre Bras, which he was far too heavily engaged all day to do, although it is conceivable that had he begun his attack earlier he might have carried out his Chief’s instructions. Napoleon himself delayed his attack because some of his soldiers had not arrived, and when he was ready to open fire he totalled 20,000 men less than the Prussian commander. D’Erlon’s troops, forming Ney’s reserve, were sent for, but before they were pressed into service were ordered back by Ney to assist him. Had D’Erlon remained, Napoleon would have won a decisive victory. As it was, Blücher’s losses reached over 20,000, and he narrowly averted capture. He was thrown during a cavalry charge and badly injured. The Prussians abandoned the field, retiring towards Wavre, which enabled them to be in touch with Wellington, and where they later formed a junction with the fresh corps of Bülow. Napoleon, who had 11,000 men killed or wounded, was convinced that the enemy would fall back on Namur and Liége, which would enable him to deal with Wellington alone on the morrow.
Napoleon was unusually lethargic on the following day, and squandered much precious time until noon in various useless ways. He then ordered Grouchy, with 33,000 men, to ascertain the position occupied by the Prussians, while he joined Ney. Wellington, hearing of Blücher’s defeat and realizing that every moment was of value, had evacuated Quatre Bras almost without interference, although Napoleon’s cavalry came up with the British rear and the situation was saved by a propitious downpour of rain which soon transformed road and field alike into a quagmire. Still, Napoleon chased in pursuit to the ridge of Waterloo, where a heavy cannonade put an end to his advance. The Emperor made his headquarters at the Caillou farm, retiring to rest only after he had seen that Wellington’s army was not retreating from the position it had taken up at Mont St Jean. Unable to sleep, he again satisfied himself that the army he was bent on shattering had not stolen a march on him, and when the 18th June dawned he was still gazing in the direction of Wellington and his men.
CHAPTER XIX
Waterloo
(1815)
“The history of a battle is not unlike the history of a ball. Some individuals may recollect all the little events of which the great result is the battle lost or won; but no individual can recollect the order in which, or the exact moment at which they occurred, which makes all the difference as to their value or importance.”
Wellington.
The British General had already sent word to Blücher that he was prepared to fight Napoleon if the Prussian Commander could see his way to send him one army-corps, the assistance of which he deemed imperative. He did not receive a reply until the early hours of the 18th, and it was in the affirmative. He promised Bülow’s corps, which would march at daybreak against Napoleon’s right, followed by that of Pirch. Those of Thielmann and Ziethen would also be sent provided the presence of Grouchy did not prevent. As events turned out, Thielmann’s corps was sufficient for this purpose of defending the Dyle against the French Marshal. The first report from Grouchy received by Napoleon on the 18th was sent from Gembloux, and contained news up to 10 o’clock on the previous night, namely, that part of the Prussians had retired towards Wavre, that Blücher with their centre had fallen back on Perwez, and a column with artillery had moved in the direction of Namur.92
From another source Napoleon gathered that three bodies of the Prussians were concentrating at Wavre, vital information which, for some inexplicable reason, he did not dispatch to Grouchy until 10 a.m. We have it on the authority of Foy, who had fought in Spain, that at daybreak Napoleon was told that the junction of Wellington and Blücher was possible. This he refused to believe, stating that such an event could not take place before the 20th. Grouchy was ordered to keep up his communications with Napoleon, pushing before him “those bodies of Prussians which have taken this direction and which may have stopped at Wavre.” In addition, he was to “follow those columns which have gone to your right.” Dr Holland Rose pronounces these instructions as far from clear: “Grouchy was not bidden to throw all his efforts on the side of Wavre; and he was not told whether he must attack the enemy at that town, or interpose a wedge between them and Wellington, or support Napoleon’s right. Now Napoleon would certainly have prescribed an immediate concentration of Grouchy’s force towards the north-west for one of the last two objects, had he believed Blücher about to attempt a flank march against the chief French army. Obviously it had not yet entered his thoughts that so daring a step would be taken by a foe whom he pictured as scattered and demoralized by defeat.”93
As Houssaye, one of the most painstaking of historians, says, “It is necessary to walk over the ground, to perceive its constantly undulating formation, similar to the billows of a swelling sea.” I have followed his advice for the purposes of the present volume. The configuration of the land near the ridge, which was at first the right centre of the Allies, has been altered somewhat by the excavation of earth for the celebrated but unsightly Lion Mound, otherwise the field is much the same as it was in 1815. Major Cotton, who fought at Waterloo, tells us that on the day of the battle there were “splendid crops of rye, wheat, barley, oats, beans, peas, potatoes, tares, and clover; some of these were of great height. There were a few patches of ploughed ground.” Exactly the same is true now. The soil which covers the mouldering bones of many a hero yields a mighty harvest. Practically every inch of it is either pasture or under cultivation.
By far the most interesting point is the château and farm-house of Hougoumont. The buildings were then over two centuries old, and were erected with a view to defence, the garden being strongly walled on the south and east sides. In 1815 it was replete with orchard, outbuildings, banked-up hedges, and a chapel. Additional loop-holes were made by Wellington’s orders, a scaffold was erected so that the troops could discharge their muskets over the wall, and the flooring over the south gateway hastily taken up “to enable our men to fire down upon the enemy should they force the gate which had been blocked up.” This strong strategic position before the right flank of the allied line was admirably defended by the light companies of the second battalions of Coldstream and Foot Guards.
The battle began with a protracted but successful attack by Napoleon’s brother, Jerome, on the Nassauer and Hanoverian troops, which held the wood in front of the château. Proud of his triumph, and contrary to the Emperor’s orders, three attempts to assault the grim building were made and failed. At length Napoleon made up his mind to bombard Hougoumont, which he did to some effect, the chapel and barn blazing fiercely, but its brave defenders never surrendered. Four days after the battle, Major W. E. Frye visited the spot. “At Hougoumont,” he says, “where there is an orchard, every tree is pierced with bullets. The barns are all burned down, and in the courtyard it is said they have been obliged to burn upwards of a thousand carcases, an awful holocaust to the War-Demon.”
On one of the outside walls of the little chapel, within which many gallant soldiers breathed their last, is a bronze tablet erected in 1907, “to the memory of the brave dead by His Britannic Majesty’s Brigade of Guards and by Comte Charles van der Burch.”94 The sacred building has been thoroughly repaired, and the interior white-washed. The latter is to be regretted, but was incumbent owing to the vandalism of visitors whose one aim in life apparently is to carve or scrawl their names upon monuments and buildings.
Within easy distance is the farm of La Haye Sainte, still used for the purpose for which it was originally built. If the thick wall which abuts the road to the Belgian capital is not so strong as it was—and there are signs of recent repair—the most cursory examination is sufficient to prove that it offered a strong resistance. La Haye Sainte was the key of the allied position. It was Napoleon’s ambition to secure it, together with the farm of Mont St Jean, so that the enemy’s communications with Brussels and Blücher might be cut off. Wellington had unwisely left the defence of La Haye Sainte to a mere handful of men, 376 in all, of the King’s German Legion. The buildings were attacked on all sides during the eventful day, and it was not until 6.30 p.m., or thereabouts, when ammunition was exhausted, that the place fell. Professor Oman points out that the Emperor should have sent the Guard “to the front en masse” the moment that happened. This he did not do, and a golden opportunity was irretrievably lost.
A little farther up the road, and on the opposite side, is a long, white-washed building known as the farm of Mont St Jean, the hamlet of that name being the centre of the position. This was the chief hospital of the Allies, and once a monastery of the Knights Templar. Near here the Iron Duke drew up the second line of his reserve, with three reserve batteries. Napoleon’s headquarters were on the Belle Alliance height, where he spent the greater part of the day, and where he kept the Imperial Guard, nick-named “The Immortals,” in reserve until after 7 p.m. It was not until evening had given place to night that the French troops were routed.
When you enter La Belle Alliance Inn you are shown “the historical chamber of Napoleon.” But let me warn visitors who admire the grotesque painting of “Wellington Meeting Blücher,” which is nailed to the outside wall, against believing that this is the scene of the memorable incident. Mutual congratulations took place before La Belle Alliance was reached, the Duke turning off the high road leading to the village of Waterloo to meet the rugged old soldier when he descried him surrounded by his staff.
Within a few hundred yards of the inn is a memorial “to the last combatants of the Grand Army.” It is by far the most artistic and apposite of the several monuments on the field. With shattered wings the French eagle guards the tattered standard of “The Immortals” on the ground where the last square of Napoleon’s famous Guard was cut down. “It was a fatality,” said the fallen Emperor of the West, “for in spite of all, I should have won that battle.”
Having glanced at the chief objects of interest on the field of Waterloo, we must now turn our attention to the leading features of the fight. It is not proposed to enter into minute details, or to discuss the many vexed points which have been raised from time to time. Sir Harry Smith, who took part in the battle, issued a word of warning years ago, which we shall endeavour to bear in mind. “Every moment was a crisis,” he said, “and the controversialists had better have left the discussion on the battle-field.”
The morning of Sunday, the 18th June 1815, was dismal, foggy, and wet. No “Sun of Austerlitz” pierced the low clouds that scudded across the sky. The state of the weather being then, as now, a universal topic of conversation and record, we have abundant documentary evidence on the subject. After this uninteresting, but not unimportant, fact, our witnesses, to a large extent, break down. It would be much easier to detail what we do not know about the battle of Waterloo than to put down in black and white what may be regarded as indisputable truth. For instance, there is an amazing disparity between the times at which eye-witnesses assert the first cannon was fired. The Duke says eleven o’clock, Napoleon two hours later. Alava mentions half-past eleven, Ney one o’clock. Lord Hill, who used a stop-watch, avers with some semblance of authority, 11.50 a.m. The Emperor certainly delayed giving battle. Soult issued an order between 4 and 5 a.m. for the army to be “ready to attack at 9 a.m.” At 11 o’clock Napoleon stated that the soldiers were to be “in battle array, about an hour after noon.” Scores of volumes and thousands of pages have been devoted to the subject of the conflict which concluded Napoleon’s military career. It seems fairly reasonable to suppose that after the lapse of one hundred years any further research, although it may throw valuable sidelights on the battle, will not solve the problem. We have the Duke’s assurance that “it is impossible to say when each important occurrence took place, nor in what order.” To a would-be narrator he wrote, “I recommend you to leave the battle of Waterloo as it is,” to another, “the Duke entertains no hopes of ever seeing an account of all its details which shall be true,” and again, “I am really disgusted with and ashamed of all that I have seen of the battle of Waterloo.” That being so, it is not purposed to view it from a critical standpoint, but merely to detail the leading events of the day as these are generally accepted.
The ridge on which Napoleon posted his forces in three lines, with a reserve of 11,000 troops behind the centre, was opposite Mont St Jean, with the farm of La Belle Alliance, on the high road from Charleroi to Brussels, in the centre. The number of troops at his immediate disposal was 74,000, and they occupied a front of about two miles. The spectacle as the French troops deployed “was magnificent,” Napoleon afterwards averred, not without a touch of imagination, “and the enemy, who was so placed as to behold it down to the last man, must have been struck by it: the army must have seemed to him double in number what it really was.”
Just before the conflict began there was scarcely a mile between the French and Wellington’s 67,000 troops, who were posted across the high roads leading respectively from Charleroi and Nivelles to Brussels, just in front of Mont St Jean, where they cross. His right extended to Merbe Braine, and his left, which he considered was protected by the advancing Prussians, was to the westward of the high road. The army was drawn up in two lines, the second of which was composed entirely of cavalry under Lord Uxbridge. To the left Wellington held the villages of La Haye, Papelotte, and Smohain; Hougoumont was before his right, La Haye Sainte in front of the centre, and all were occupied by his troops. His reserves, numbering about 17,000, were unseen by the enemy owing to the formation of the ground, and were posted behind his centre and right. At the rear was the forest of Soignes, through which he could retreat if necessary. At Hal, nine miles away, the corps of Prince Frederick of Orange and two brigades of Colville’s division, some 14,000 men in all, were stationed. They took no part in the battle. Their presence at so great a distance was due to the somewhat unnecessary anxiety of Wellington, as after events proved, regarding the right flank. The Allies’ guns numbered 156, those of the French 246.
