begun till late in the afternoon; and that, on the next day, Blucher would not have failed to have burst through the opposing division of the enemy and have marched to our support. It must at the same time be admitted that the extent of mischief might have been fully as serious in this case as in that which actually took place, and would have been owing in both to the same cause.

This cause forms one of the principal points that we shall endeavour to discuss. It is a very general notion, even among the Duke of Wellington's admirers, that at the outset of the operations he allowed himself to be taken by surprize, and some of them have gone so far as to apologize for him by throwing the blame on Fouché: who, it is gravely alleged, sent a female with an exact plan of Bonaparte's operations to the frontier, but managed so that her arrival at the British headquarters should not take place till after the battle of Quatre Bras. (Paul's Letters, p. 92.) Some sagacious politicians imagine that Fouché acted thus in order that he might keep in with both parties: but the fact will be found to be that the Duke of Wellington, like other eminent commanders, would not place much faith in intelligence received from sources that may so easily be corrupted. Frederick II. was surprized at Hochkirchen, in consequence (it is said) of his secret correspondent in the Austrian camp being discovered by Marshal Daun and obliged to send him a false dispatch *: but, be this as it may, the truth is that the greatest military successes are obtained not by relying on such precarious information, but by vigilance and activity in watching the enemy's movements. If ever a General was fitted for the intriguing business of espionnage, it was Bonaparte; yet, if we scrutinize the causes of his mightiest victories, whether in his memorable campaign of 1796, in his capture of Mack in 1805, or in the movements that led to the still more disastrous day of Jena, we shall perceive that the whole may be explained without a reference to such mysterious communications. It admits of no doubt that at the battle of Quatre Bras our troops were in a very unprepared state: but the explanation of this fact will be found to involve very little censure on a General who had been always distinguished, when commanding separately, for his promptitude in point of information. The Duke seems to have erred in nothing but in placing too much confidence in the vigilance of the officers, whether Prussian, Belgian, or British, who were stationed on the frontier: but the great cause of our fighting unprepared is to be sought in the temper

See the article on Gley's Journey into Germany and Poland, in the APPENDIX to our Ixxxth Volume, published with this Review.

of

of a veteran glowing with all the impatience of youth to come into contact with the oppressors of his country, and determined to fight in Flanders, as he had done in Champagne, without allowing much time for the co-operation of his allies.

The plan of the Prussians, against so active an enemy as Bonaparte, should have been to place in the advanced posi tions such small bodies of horse or foot as might have made a temporary resistance, during the two days that were evidently necessary to collect the numerous bodies of the allied troops scattered over an extent of fifty or sixty miles. These detachments might have been ordered to retreat, or authorized to surrender, as soon as their commanders had ascertained the decided superiority of the enemy, and could transmit such intelligence to head-quarters as would enable the allied Generals to determine with confidence the real direction of Bonaparte's march. On this system, the day for a general action would have been the 17th; by which time all the allied troops might have arrived, from right and left, at a central position on the Brussels road in the neighbourhood of Waterloo or Genappe. Blucher, however, chose to try the fate of arms on the 16th, without calculating the time required by the British to arrive, and even without waiting for one of the divisions of his own army. "The Marshal's plan," says the Prussian official account, "was to fight a general engagement with the enemy as soon as possible. On the 16th, Bulow's corps had been delayed in its march, and had not yet come up; nevertheless, the Field-Marshal resolved to give battle:"-a resolution in which he persisted without considering that the British General was not on the frontier but at Brussels.

No time appears to have been lost by the Duke in acting on the intelligence transmitted to him by the Prussians. It reached him only on the evening of the rgth, and our troops (at least our infantry) began their march from all points at daylight on the 16th. Had the assembling of the French force been made from the east, the Duke would have had less hesitation in directing his march immediately towards the Prussians: but a great part of the enemy came from the west, and might have threatened Brussels by a shorter road than that which they actually took. The consequence of making a stand in so advanced a position as Ligny was that, as early as the forenoon of the 16th, Ney's vanguard was in possession of the great road of communication between the British and the Prussians. The intercourse of the two armies was thus interrupted; so that the Duke remained during the whole of the succeeding night in uncertainty as to

the issue of the battle of Ligny. A patrole sent by his Grace in the direction of Ligny, in the morning of the 17th, seems to have brought him the first account of Blucher's retreat: it was confirmed by a Prussian aide-de-camp some time afterward, but too late to save the double labour of first bringing up our artillery, and afterward dragging it back all the way to Waterloo.

In thus animadverting on the over-eagerness of Blucher, we must not be deemed insensible to the merits of that gallant and estimable veteran. His fierce impetuous mode of fight-. ing had great effect in checking and enfeebling the French; which was apparent, among other things, by Bonaparte finding it necessary to call to his assistance on the 16th the corps of 25,000 men from under the command of Ney.

Battle of Waterloo. The early part of the 17th had been devoted by the British to bringing in their wounded companions, and preparing for a new conflict at Quatre Bras: but, on receiving intelligence from the Prussians, the main body of our army began to retreat about ten o'clock. The day passed without any action, except at the village of Genappe; where the French cuirassiers and lancers having debouched from a lane, a charge was ordered first with our hussars, which did not succeed, and afterward with our heavy horse, the result of which was completely favourable. After a fatiguing march of twelve miles, our army reached the eminences of Mont St. Jean; when, as if to complete their hardships, they were saluted by a very heavy fall of rain, which deluged the ground and made their night's bivouac extremely uncomfortable. The evening was occupied by the different divisions in repairing to their respective posts, and in making various preparations for the expected attack of the next day.

The intelligence of Blucher's retreat had been accompanied by a notice that it was to be made on Wavre, a place distant twelve miles from Waterloo; and that by the 19th the Prussians would be in a state to act with vigour against the French but an interval of two days was not to be passed with impunity in the face of such an enemy as Bonaparte. He had now great hopes of accomplishing his desired object of fighting the British separate and unsupported; and he detached under Grouchy 40,000 men who had fought at Ligny, with orders to follow the track of the Prussians, to occupy them as Ney had occupied the British on the 16th,

See the account of the battle of Waterloo, by Don Miguel Alava, the Spanish General accompanying the Duke of Wellington.

and

and to prevent their moving to the right to the assistance of their allies. Proceeding himself with his fresh troops in the direction of our army, he employed the 17th less in pressing on our rear than in making every arrangement for the decisive conflict of the succeeding day. Notwithstanding the torrents of rain, and the wretched state of the roads, the French army and artillery were moved forwards from their respective positions fifteen, sixteen, or eighteen miles along the road to Waterloo. The van, accompanied (as usual) by Bonaparte in person, reached the ground opposite to our army in the evening, and a partial cannonade took place between their light artillery and the guns planted in our position. Sufficient day-light remained to enable the French staff-officers to reconnoitre our situation: but the main body of their army passed the night at Genappe, and in the villages, a considerable way in the rear. Much, then, remained to be done on the morning of the 18th in bringing up both troops and artillery; otherwise Bonaparte, who strongly felt the value of the interval, would have begun the action at an earlier hour.

The Duke of Wellington had very decisive reasons for trying the issue of a battle at Waterloo. He was acquainted with the position, having previously had it surveyed in the contemplation of its becoming the scene of an engagement: he was assured of Blucher's alacrity to co-operate with him; and he might calculate that, even after an ample allowance for bad roads and unfavourable weather, the Prussians, setting out in the morning, would arrive at the scene of action by two, three, or four o'clock in the afternoon. Besides, Brussels could be defended only by fighting at Waterloo. Our position there was favourable, not in its front, the slope being too slight to impede a charge of horse or the advance of a column of foot, but from its compact nature, as it did not extend in all above two miles, and was covered on the right and left by ravines. It had one more advantage which was not put to the test; that of providing for the eventual preservation of the army in case of the most unfavourable alternative. "What would have been the consequence," said an officer to the Duke, after the battle, "if by misfortune the position had been carried?” "We had the wood behind to retreat into."-" And if the wood also was forced?"" No, no; they could never have so beaten us but we could have made good the wood against them." (See Paul's Letters, p. 172.)

In front, the British position had only two small outworks, one in the centre consisting of a farm-house called

la Haye Sainte; the other to the right, of greater conse quence, and so well known of late under the name of Hougoumont. In drawing up our troops, the Duke mixed the Belgian and Hanoverian regiments in every part of the position with regiments of British, so as to give them the full benefit of the example and support of our gallant countrymen: the front consisting almost throughout of infantry formed in squares, each side several files deep, with directions to preserve that order whatever might be their loss, by drawing closer as their ranks were thinned. Between the squares, considerable spaces were left for the purpose of enabling the battalions to deploy when ordered into line; as well as for affording our cavalry an opening when advancing from the rear to charge the disordered enemy. The squares being placed en echiquier, (like a chess-board,) a body of cavalry venturing to penetrate through an opening exposed So itself to a fire in front from the square behind that interval, and to a discharge on each flank from those which it passed. desperate an attempt would not have been made by ordinary cavalry: but the cuirassiers, confiding in the protection of their armour, frequently tried the deadly experiment, in vain. Such was the position of our infantry:-a position which, with the well-known firmness of our men, would have baffled without difficulty all the efforts of the enemy, had not the artillery made dreadful ravages among our squares. Some of them were in a degree protected by the unevenness of the ground, but others were unavoidably in sight; and all, even those that were behind the eminence, were exposed to the destructive effect of shells.

The French were likewise posted with every advantage which talents and familiarity with the art of war could suggest. Along the ridge opposite to the British were 45,000 men, cavalry and infantry, which supplied successive columns for the early attacks; behind was a reserve of 15,000 men, most of whom were of the Imperial guards; while on the right was stationed the 6th corps, (20,000 strong,) which had not been in action on the 16th, and which was destined to resist the approach of the Prussians. The force under the Duke's command in the field on the 18th of June was nearly 60,000 men; of whom about two-thirds were of first-rate character, but among the rest, particularly the Hanoverians and Belgians, were troops of recent levy, or of doubtful firm ness in the hour of trial. Though Bonaparte, after the arrival of his reinforcements in the afternoon, had under his command nearly 80,000 men, justice requires that, in calcu lating the force opposed to us, we should make a deduction

of