Waterloo: The Campaign of 1815, Volume 2: From Waterloo to the Restoration of Peace in Europe

By John Hussey and Mungo Melvin

Winner of the 2019 RUSI Duke of Wellington Medal for Military HistoryWinner of the 2017 Society for Army Historical Research Templer MedalShortlisted for Military History Monthly's "Book of the Year" AwardThe first of two groundbreaking volumes on the Waterloo campaign, this book is based upon a detailed analysis of sources old and new in four languages. It highlights the political stresses between the Allies, and their resolution; it studies the problems of feeding and paying for 250,000 Allied forces assembling in Belgium during the undeclared war, and how a strategy was thrashed out. It studies the neglected topic of how the slow and discordant Allies beyond the Rhine hampered the plans of Blcher and Wellington, thus allowing Napoleon to snatch the initiative from them. Napoleons operational plan is analyzed (and Soult's mistakes in executing it). Accounts from both sides help provide a vivid impression of the fighting on the first day, 15 June, and the volume ends with the joint battles of Ligny and Quatre Bras the next day.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Sep 30, 2017
• ISBN: 9781784382025

Book preview

WATERLOO

The Campaign of 1815

Volume 2

Napoleon’s letter from Rochefort, dated 13 July 1815, surrendering to the Prince Regent. (Royal Collection)

WATERLOO

The Campaign of 1815

Volume 2

FROM WATERLOO

TO THE

RESTORATION

OF

PEACE

IN

EUROPE

John Hussey

Foreword by

Major General Mungo Melvin

Greenhill Books

Waterloo, The Campaign of 1815

This edition published in 2017 by

Greenhill Books,

c/o Pen & Sword Books Ltd,

47 Church Street, Barnsley,

S. Yorkshire, s70 2

AS

www.greenhillbooks.com

[e-mail]

ISBN: 978-1-78438-200-1

eISBN: 978-1-78438-202-5

Mobi ISBN: 978-1-78438-201-8

All rights reserved.

© John Hussey, 2017

Foreword © Major General Mungo Melvin, 2017

The right of John Hussey to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyrights Designs and Patents Act 1988.

CIP data records for this title are available from the British Library

Designed and typeset by Donald Sommerville

Maps by Peter Wilkinson

The lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne,

Thassay so hard, so sharp the conquering.

Geoffrey Chaucer, The Parlement of Fowles

If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants.

Isaac Newton to Robert Hooke, 1676

Contents

List of Plates and Illustrations

List of Maps, Diagrams and Tables

Foreword by Major General Mungo Melvin

Preface

Prologue

Chapter 31 The Allies

Dawn to Midday, 17 June

Chapter 32 Napoleon

Morning, 17 June

Chapter 33 Napoleon Pursues Wellington

Afternoon to Nightfall, 17 June

Chapter 34 Grouchy and the Prussians

Afternoon to Evening, 17 June

Chapter 35 Wellington and the Battleground

Overnight, 17/18 June

Chapter 36 Napoleon Plans his Battle

First Light to 11.30 a.m., Sunday 18 June 1815

Chapter 37 Battle Commences

The Attack on Hougoumont

Chapter 38 The Second Act

d’Erlon’s Great Attack and its Defeat

Chapter 39 The Third Act

The Great Cavalry Attacks

Chapter 40 In Another Part of Brabant

Chapter 41 First Signs of the Prussian Advance

And Grouchy’s Decision

Chapter 42 The Fourth Act

La Haye Sainte Falls, The Centre Begins to Crumble

Chapter 43 The Prussian Intervention

Bülow, Ziethen, Müffling

Chapter 44 The Fifth Act

Climax and Decision

Chapter 45 The Victory

The Reckoning

Chapter 46 The Aftermath of Battle

The Prussians and Grouchy, 19–20 June

Chapter 47 After the Battle

Wellington and his Army, 19–20 June

Chapter 48 France and the Problem of Napoleon

Return to Paris, the Abdication, the Danger

Chapter 49 The Allied Advance

And the Return of King Louis

Chapter 50 The Fall of Paris

And Napoleon’s Surrender

Chapter 51 The Settlement of 1815

Chapter 52 Retrospect

Envoi

Notes

APPENDICES

1Wellington’s Waterloo Despatch

2Gneisenau’s Report

3Napoleon’s Accounts, 1815 & 1820

4Bertrand’s Letter of 10 June 1815

ORDERS OF BATTLE

1Anglo-Allied Army

2Prussian Army of the Lower Rhine

3French Army of the North

Sources Consulted

Plates and Illustrations

Plates

The Duke of Wellington in 1814, by Sir Thomas Lawrence (1769–1830). (Historic England Archive)

Lieutenant-General Lord Hill. (Anne S. K. Brown Military Collection [ASKB])

Lord Fitzroy Somerset, watercolour by William H. Haines (1812–84). (ASKB)

The bridge at Genappe. (Musée Wellington, Waterloo)

The charge of the British heavy cavalry. (Musée Wellington, Waterloo)

Closing the gates at Hougoumont (1903), by Robert Gibb (1845–1932). (National Museums Scotland)

French attack on La Haye Sainte, by Richard Knötel (1857–1914). (ASKB)

British squares receiving a French cavalry charge (1874), by Félix Philippoteaux (1815–84). (Victoria and Albert Museum)

French and Prussian troops in Plancenoit, 1818 watercolour by Charles Warren (1762–1823). (ASKB)

General Graf Gneisenau, 1819 engraving by B. Smith, after A. W. Devis (1762–1822). (ASKB)

General Lobau, colour lithograph of 1835, after a painting by Antoine Maurin (1793–1860). (ASKB)

The field of Waterloo (1818), by J. M. W. Turner (1775–1851). (Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge)

Moonlight pursuit of the French Army, 1818 watercolour by Charles Warren. (ASKB)

Napoleon surrendering on HMS Bellerophon, 1816 aquatint by Thomas Sutherland, after a painting by William Heath (1794–1840). (ASKB)

Maps, Diagrams and Tables

Maps

Main Theatre of Operations

Waterloo, 18 June 1815 the Topography

Waterloo, 11.15–11.30 a.m., 18 June 1815

Hougoumont and La Haye Sainte

Hougoumont, June 1815

La Haye Sainte, June 1815

D’Erlon’s Attack Begins, approximately 2.30 p.m.

The Cavalry Attacks Begin, approximately 4 p.m.

The Prussians: Wavre 17/18 June 1815

The Prussian March: 18 June 1815

Wavre, About 5 p.m., 18 June 1815

Plancenoit, 18 June 1815

The Garde Attacks, 7.15 to 7.30 p.m.

Waterloo, 7.45 p.m., 18 June 1815

Wavre, About 10 a.m., 19 June 1815

French and Prussian Movements, 18–19 June 1815

The March to Paris after Waterloo: Northern Sector

The March to Paris after Waterloo: Southern Sector

Paris Defences, June 1815

Napoleon and HMS Bellerophon, July 1815

The Second Treaty of Paris, 20 November 1815

Army Dispositions for 13 June: the 10 June order of the day

Army Dispositions for 13 June: the 10 June Bertrand letter

Charts and Diagrams

Section: From the Forest of Soignies to Genappe Bridge

‘La Rente’, French Government Funds, 1815

Tables

Wellington’s Field and Horse Artillery, 1815

Balance of Forces at Waterloo

French Heavy Cavalry Casualties

Dutch–Belgian Heavy Cavalry Casualties

Garde Infantry Casualties

Wellington’s Casualties

Foreword

by Major General (ret’d) Mungo Melvin, cb, obe

EDWARD CREASY’S CLASSIC WORK

of military history, The Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World, was first published in 1851, the year of the Great Exhibition. With this demonstration of British industrial prowess in mind, Creasy triumphantly concluded his account of Waterloo, his fifteenth battle, by claiming that ‘no battlefield’:

ever witnessed a victory more noble, than that, which England, under her Sovereign Lady and her Royal Prince, is now teaching the peoples of the earth to achieve over selfish prejudices and international feuds, in the great cause of the general promotion of the industry and welfare of mankind.

Although such patriotic bombast reads oddly today, it must be remembered that Creasy penned his words at nearly the midpoint of Britain’s long peace following the Napoleonic Wars. The brief interruption of the Crimean War had yet to break the heady national optimism of the times.

While Napoleon had certainly lost the Battle of Waterloo on 18 June 1815, Wellington only had secured victory over the French with the assistance of Blücher’s Prussians. Yet overall Britain won the resultant peace. This second volume of John Hussey’s magisterial account of the Waterloo campaign helps explain why. Wellington, as commander-in-chief of the Anglo-Allied army, not only fought Napoleon’s proud army to a standstill on the low ridge of Mont St Jean, thus garnering much military prestige and glory in the process, but also exercised a moderating influence in the Allied cause thereafter. Rather than seeking a destructive vengeance on the French, as the Prussians were bent on, Wellington’s diplomatic skills as a political general helped shape the capitulation of Paris on 3 July 1815, which effectively terminated both the Waterloo campaign, and the Napoleonic Wars as a whole, without further recourse to costly battle.

Waterloo, famously, had been a close-run affair of hard pounding, coming two days after the preliminary actions at Ligny and Quatre Bras on 16 June 1815, both described in detail in Volume 1. In terms of intensity of casualties in both short time and confined space, Waterloo was probably the hardest and closest-fought battle of the Napoleonic era. The explanation is quite simple: there was little to distinguish between the armies concerned in either quality or quantity. Therefore it is entirely apt in my view for John Hussey to quote from Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig’s final despatch following the end of the First World War:

In every stage of the wearing-out struggle losses will necessarily be heavy on both sides, for in it the price of victory is paid. If the opposing forces are approximately equal in numbers, in courage, in morale and in equipment, there is no way of avoiding payment of the price or of eliminating this phase of the struggle.

Such truths historians, politicians and soldiers ignore at their peril for seldom are there cheaply won shortcuts to success and victory. And so it had proved at Waterloo. Whereas in the case of the campaign of 1815 the ‘wearing out’ stage only took a few days, the continuous engagement on the Western Front of the First World War, the opening and closing stages of which took place over much the same piece of terrain, lasted over four years.

While battlefield tactics and weapon technologies steadily evolve, much of land combat has an enduring nature. Thus it is still possible to draw valuable lessons for today from the Battle of Waterloo some two centuries and more ago. The senior commanders concerned – the ‘giants’ – had to make a series of difficult decisions in the heat of battle; to inspire and lead their troops throughout; and to attempt to make good wherever possible their own miscalculations or mistakes (or those of their subordinates), of which there were several. In this respect, John Hussey spares none of Napoleon, Wellington or Blücher in his meticulous but fair-minded analysis, bringing the actions of the last’s chief of staff, August Graf Neithardt von Gneisenau, into particularly sharp relief.

Carl von Clausewitz, who served as the chief of staff in Thielemann’s III Corps that fought Marshal Grouchy in the parallel fight at Wavre on 18–19 June 1815, reminds us of the ever-present elements of friction and chance in war. The Battle of Waterloo proved no exception to the general rule that no plan survives first contact with the enemy (Moltke the Elder’s dictum): even the apparently simple task can turn out far less straightforward and take far longer than originally envisaged. The much-delayed, but ultimately vital, Prussian march from Wavre to the Waterloo battlefield on 18 June 1815 surely serves as a case in point. Yet it is tempting for retired armchair generals, academic historians and battlefield guides alike to re-run or war game the battle far away from the contemporary realities – the real fear and fog of war. John Hussey, however, avoids such temptations. He tells the story of Waterloo strictly ‘as it was’, and not as it might have been, carefully distinguishing between cause and effect, scrupulously dissecting order and counter-order, and painstakingly comparing at times quite contradictory accounts of particular engagements, battles and campaign.

Furthermore, as masterfully as Hussey narrates the events of 17 and 18 June 1815, what makes this volume stand out is his equally compelling examination of Waterloo’s immediate aftermath – the Allies’ march to Paris, the abdication of Napoleon and the forging of the peace – and his sage reflections on the main battle. Throughout, readers will be engaged not only by his vivid descriptions of decisions and combat, but also by his compassion in documenting the terrible human price of conflict. I therefore warmly commend this second volume as Hew Strachan did so eloquently for the first: John Hussey has taken the historical field of Waterloo by storm. He richly deserves to hold it for a very long time to come.

Preface

THIS VOLUME CONCLUDES

my study of the 1815 campaign and in all likelihood the historical researches that began in 1988 when, following my retirement from globe-trotting after thirty years’ service with BP, I first met that great historian the late John Terraine. The book was conceived long after his death in 2003, but a mutual friend – Captain Christopher Page, RN (rtd), a hands-on engineer officer, an historian of the magnificent Royal Naval Division of 1914–1918, and latterly head of the Naval Historical Branch – on reaching the end of my first Waterloo volume touched me deeply in writing ‘John would have been proud of you.’ Those words have more than repaid the weary months when it seemed almost impossible that I could shape my researches into something coherent, let alone convincing.

During many of these last thirty years I worked as an historical ‘powder monkey’, researching and writing up topics, often in great detail, and producing some result that could be delivered to the ‘master gunner’ for his use; the small article that would in its way help an author of some future great book. That skill in detail, in explaining the specific incident, and the reshaping of some event, has a value; and to be a footnote in some masterpiece of the next Gibbon or a new Macaulay or a future Maitland brings its own reward.

So it required something seismic to enlarge my perspectives and to switch my line of investigation, to decide to write a large book; just as, once that had actually happened, it needed the quiet persistent encouragement from friends and those dear to me to help me write what has proved to be a very large book. Their names graced my first Preface, and if I now pick out for mention in this second Preface one friend only it is because without Lionel Leventhal the project would have foundered totally in the near shipwreck of my life in 2014.

Readers of this second instalment may find it less full of fresh or surprising matter than the first. For after all the great battle is familiar, and not many histories devote much time to events much before or after the great four days. Moreover, in the telling of 18 June I have sought to retain some sense of scale between that one day and the inception, events, and aftermath of the Hundred Days’ adventure: as Sir Hew Strachan pointed out in his Foreword to Volume 1, Clausewitz spoke of a battle as a phase in ‘the purposes of the war’. In a story a thousand pages long I think rather more than two hundred devoted to 18 June is not unreasonable.

Due to the size of Volume 1, Orders of Battle could not be included there, and we judged that as the second and shorter volume would appear within months, their absence would not be an irritant for very long. They now take their due place at the end of this volume, but I suspect that specialists may find them a happy hunting ground for error, just as they may for the statistics appearing in various places. In part this is because standard authorities disagree between themselves, because the original compilers of returns sometimes made mistakes, because fresh error can creep in during successive transcriptions – and in my own case because at 83 and with cataracts, proofing has been a troublesome tiring business. What I warned my late friend Paddy Griffith about when discussing Sir Charles Oman’s pages of statistics (see Chapter 36, Section V) is sadly as true as ever in my own case.

History being an endless debate, Volume 1 had no sooner gone to the printers than my comment that new material ‘is indeed still surfacing’, proved almost embarrassingly accurate. A most important document emerged thanks to an American researcher, Stephen Beckett’s, enthusiastic quest. This letter, dictated by Napoleon to the trusted General Bertrand on 10 June 1815, materially affected the story told in my Chapter 19 of French planning for the campaign; but although concerning an important point of detail, it has a further significance as touching on the Emperor’s method of command. The result is a fifteen-page Appendix 4 to my second volume.

So the old story changes, but that does not diminish my admiration and respect for the earlier writers, many, like the great Prussian historian Pflugk-Harttung, working over a hundred years ago. The reader will note from my ‘Sources Consulted’ that a fair number of modern works have been used, but that probably the older ones predominate. For when scrutinised closely and then copied by hand a word at a time, I found that they often yielded information and valuable insights not apparent on a first reading. Pure scholarship is a fine thing in itself and among such scholars I admire the great Latinist A. E. Housman, who in his Cambridge Inaugural Lecture as Kennedy Professor in 1911 made a telling plea for our predecessors, and one that I support:

If a man, fifty or a hundred years after his death, is still remembered and accounted a great man, there is a presumption in his favour which no living man can claim . . . It is the dead and not the living who have most advanced our learning and science; and though their knowledge may have been superseded, there is no supersession of reason and intelligence. Clear wits and right thinking are essentially neither of today nor yesterday, but historically [i.e. in the span of human history] they are rather of yesterday than of today . . . If our concepts of scholarship and our methods of procedure are at variance with theirs, it is not indeed a certainty or a necessity that we are wrong, but it is a good working hypothesis . . . Do not let us disregard our contemporaries, but let us regard our predecessors more.

*

It is a pleasure once more to thank my dedicated production team of Michael Leventhal, Peter Wilkinson my cartographer who took my changes of mind and late instructions with splendid equanimity, and above all the endlessly patient, minutely careful, and ever agreeable Donald Sommerville, my copy-editor. Together they have worked so hard to ensure that the book should be worthy of its great subject and that the two volumes should stand side by side as a most handsome set.

As Sir Hew was to my first volume, so Major-General Mungo Melvin stands godfather with his very generous Foreword to Volume 2. I had long since been struck by the incisiveness and masterly treatment of his study Manstein: Hitler’s Greatest General, and when some years later I met Mungo at a conference, I found to my delight not only a man of strong but considered views, but a genial one as well, who had gone to my Cambridge college, Downing, twenty-three years after me. I thank him not only for what he has written but also for his probing questions as he read my text, forcing me into further and useful reflection.

*

Now it is time to bid my account farewell and wish it a fair wind. But I hope that it may be said of my two volumes what was said about the greatest of modern English historians, Frederic William Maitland (1850–1906), when unveiling his memorial in Westminster Abbey: ‘he sought to open a subject up, not also close it down’.

*

Illustration Acknowledgements

I thank The Royal Collection and Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, for her gracious permission to reproduce Napoleon’s letter to the Prince Regent dated Rochefort, 13 July 1815, as the frontispiece. For supplying the illustrations reproduced in the plates I also thank the curators and staff of the Anne S. K. Brown Military Collection; the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge; the Historic England Archive; the Musée Wellington at Waterloo; National Museums Scotland; and the Victoria and Albert Museum.

Editorial Conventions

As the corps system was used to a greater or lesser extent by all three armies in the 1815 campaign, I have adopted Roman numerals for the Allies and Arabic numerals and italics for the French, so as to make the difference plainer for the reader. Thus: British II Corps, Prussian II Corps, but French 2e Corps. The same non-italic and italic rule applies to smaller units in the respective armies: 1/52nd Foot, 13th Infantry Regiment, 13e Ligne.

Prologue

The first volume of Waterloo, The Campaign of 1815, told of Europe’s defeat of Napoleon in 1814, of the problems that arose thereafter in France and in central Europe, of the stresses between the victorious powers and how, in early 1815, Napoleon judged that he might once again become ruler of France (and a France larger than its post-1814 borders). It described his sudden return, the collapse of opposition to him in France, and how a fresh European coalition determined to defeat him once and for all.

The coalition’s primary intention was totally clear, but the many secondary questions – the future of France, the establishment of a coalition strategy, the commanding, manning, payment and feeding of grouped allied armies took an unconscionable time to agree. I considered these matters essential to an understanding of how the campaign came to be fought, and my book bulked large as a result.

Such problems produced an unforeseen situation. The eastern front beyond the Rhine, so integral a part of the allied plan for the invasion of France, was still awaiting a final agreed plan in mid-June because of bickering monarchs and a weak high commander. Meanwhile in Belgium the two allied armies under Blücher and Wellington, by now in reasonable though not perfect shape for the impending task, were marking time, necessarily dispersed, and had increasingly taken the view that Napoleon would most probably (though not certainly) conduct a defensive campaign behind riverlines in France. Together Blücher and Wellington judged that, united, they had a 2 : 1 numerical superiority over Napoleon. Wellington’s army was an assemblage of contingents and the Prussians had doubts over its cohesion; some of Prussia’s forces were relatively raw. But provided they held together they were confident of riding Napoleon’s blows: numbers would tell. By contrast Napoleon’s smaller but veteran army was fanatically devoted to him, though there were difficult relationships among the higher commanders. The continuing delays beyond the Rhine gave Napoleon his chance. He snatched the initative and attacked the allies in Belgium, trusting to defeat decisively each in turn, to capture Brussels within three days and Antwerp within seven. He would re-annexe Belgium and the Rhineland and then settle matters with the defeated powers whose will he would have broken.

It had been the Emperor’s intention to attack on a favourite anniversary, 14 June. Confused orders forced a delay of one day, but it seemed the allies were not aware of the impending offensive. He would first attack the Prussians, one of whose four army corps was exposed very close to the frontier around Charleroi. He would thrust them back north-east and away from the easternmost Brussels highway, take on the rest of the Prussian army as it hastened up from the far rear, and smash it decisively. One wing of Napoleon’s army would meanwhile thrust up that Brussels highway as far as possible. The thrust would sever communication between Blücher and Wellington and, once the Prussians were smashed, the French could pivot north and march on Brussels and a now isolated Wellington.

Blücher and Wellington were both surprised; they were still widely dispersed. The Prussians at least knew at once that they were being battered by Napoleon, but their messages to the Duke were inadequate to the occasion. He, by contrast, could not be sure that this first attack was not a feint and that the main attack might yet come in his sector, which contained three great highways to Brussels and one to Ghent and Antwerp. His concentration had to be rushed and still without certainty as to Napoleon’s real intention, but unlike the Prussians Wellington had planned his concentration far back from the frontier so that contact with the enemy could not occur on Day 1, whereas by Day 2 Napoleon’s plans would be clearer. Thus in Wellington’s mind any major battle would be on Day 3, by which time both allies would be concentrated and assembled close to each other. The Prussians on the other hand were intent on a major battle well forward and on Day 2, irrespective of whether Wellington was present or not.

The first day, 15 June, went generally very well for Napoleon. He tumbled the isolated Prussian troops, took Charleroi and moved north-east to Fleurus. By nightfall much, but not all, of his army, was in its intended positions north of the River Sambre at Charleroi and his right wing and centre were well placed for a further advance on the 16th. His left wing had made good progress up the Brussels highway but, having marched 25 miles, and fought several combats, it just failed to take the Quatre Bras crossroads that the two allies depended upon for communication. Nevertheless the crossroads could easily be taken at first light on the morrow, and the timetable that the Emperor had set himself was not badly adrift. However, it did require the most perfect understanding between imperial headquarters and the semi-independent commanders of the two wings, and already on this first day confusion and changes of orders had been too noticeable in the French high command.

Napoleon expected his cavalry to drive the Prussians back northeastwards on 16 June but it soon became clear that Blücher was standing firm just north of Fleurus and intending to give battle. Napoleon marshalled his central forces but had to wait until about 1 p.m. for his most rearward corps to join the battle line. Two Prussian corps held a line of quickly fortified villages along an S-shaped brook, in the central stretch of which was Ligny, all the villages being backed by more infantry and artillery up the slopes to the crest line, along which ran the high road from Namur to Quatre Bras. On this crest road and to the east stood the small III Corps awaiting the arrival of the most easterly IV Corps hastening from beyond Namur. But belatedly it was learned that IV Corps could not arrive that day, so that support from Wellington had now to be sought.

Wellington’s army on 15 June had received orders to shift away from a western defence to one more protective of the southern approaches to Brussels and Nivelles. Only at midnight did the Duke learn of a French presence at Quatre Bras and the unexplained abandonment of that highroad by the Prussians. His army now had to scramble from the west and from Brussels to block the French, and he himself went forward, reaching the crossroads in mid-morning of the 16th and finding it still held by some of his own Netherlands units. Everything appeared quiet. There was no sign of the French nor of the Prussians. He rode 5 miles to Blücher’s command post, saw the Prussians and French massed in battle array, and discussed possible actions with Blücher. He would support the Prussians if he was not himself attacked by the French.

Napoleon meanwhile discovered that Ney, commanding his left wing, was wasting the morning. He sent him imperative orders to take Quatre Bras and then swing round east against the Prussians to produce an annihilating success. Ney launched his attack on the crossroads at 2 p.m., but just before the thin screen of defenders gave way the first of Wellington’s reinforcements came up. From a situation of overwhelming superiority at 2 p.m. Ney found the balance steadily moving against him. Each successive thrust he made during the afternoon found the Duke’s reinforcements arriving just in time. Finally in late evening he was forced to retire south onto his previous camping place. At no time had he found himself free to turn against the Prussian flank.

Soon after opening his attack on Ligny Napoleon had realised that he needed more support. The Prussian resistance was tough and unyielding and Napoleon’s numbers were insufficient. He had left a small corps in the rear, available for himself or for Ney. He called that forward. But he also summarily called upon one of Ney’s two large army corps to leave Ney’s force and come to his own left flank. What then followed was one of the great command muddles of all time. D’Erlon, the corps commander, received the order as he was moving up to support Ney. He turned east to march to the Emperor. Ney, desperate for troops, overrode the order and called d’Erlon back. The latter, though nearing the battlefield of Ligny, left part of his force there, stationary, and took the rest back to Ney, arriving after dark with the battle of Quatre Bras ended. Due to confusion in orders and weak leadership, d’Erlon’s 20,000 men served neither at Ligny nor at Quatre Bras, when their intervention on either field might have been decisive.

Nor was that all. By late afternoon in stifling sultry weather and with villages ablaze there was near stalemate along the Ligny stream. Casualties were very heavy and still the Prussians were holding out. Yet when d’Erlon’s urgently awaited force was perceived in the distance, Napoleon ordered his left flank to cease attacking and be ready lest that body should be a foe. The uncertainty took some time to resolve, by which time half d’Erlon’s force had retired and the rest simply stood still. Vital, irrecoverable time lost played to the Prussians’ advantage. At 7 p.m. Napoleon launched a final attack with his exhausted troops, in a great thunderstorm. He backed it with his elite Garde, and the Prussians finally gave way. In a last rally Blücher was unhorsed and hurt but was carried from the field, and his chief of staff accepted that the battle was lost. The two Prussian corps most heavily engaged dispersed and went north over the crest and into the night, the third corps fell back northeast.

But although the casualties on both sides were heavy, and some 11,000 Prussians had fled, it was not the annihilating victory Napoleon needed. He could not long afford to incur such casualties when the outcome was not decisive. His troops launched no pursuit. In the Napoleonic timetable ‘Brussels by 17 June’ was now infeasible: a day had been lost. And meanwhile the Prussians, or some of them, were still ‘in being’ and Wellington was certainly undefeated. As I said at the end of Volume 1:

The first two days of this campaign have now passed. Opinions and plans have had to undergo sudden and great changes. Misunderstandings and mistakes have occurred – and on both sides. The fighting has seen increasingly savage action in an attempt to secure a decisive victory on the second day, and the outcome has fallen short of that. The balance of advantage as it stood on the morning of Thursday 15 June has been shifting, first one way, but now another. Despite mistakes and setbacks each of the three greatest commanders of their time is bringing his mind and will to bear so that decisive victory shall indeed shortly be achieved for his side. What Saturday 17 June 1815 will bring we shall see at the start of Volume 2.

Chapter 31

The Allies

Dawn to Midday, 17 June

I

THE FIGHTING AT LIGNY AND QUATRE BRAS

had died down with the onset of darkness around 9 p.m., and overnight there were no messages exchanged between the two allies. From 2.30 p.m. on the 16th the fighting on both fronts had been intense and by 5.30 p.m. it was understood by both Allied commanders that no decision had been reached at Ligny although the balance of advantage at Quatre Bras that the French had originally enjoyed was moving to equilibrium. During the afternoon Müffling had sent several messages to Ligny about the struggle, and although a Prussian messenger from Ligny, Major von Winterfeldt, was shot down at Thyle, about a mile and a half from Quatre Bras, and was unable to deliver a message,¹ he was followed by Lieutenant von Wussow, who told Wellington at between 5 and 6 p.m. that the Prussians thought they could hold the Ligne brook till nightfall, but being without Bülow’s support they would need Wellington’s help if they were to secure victory. Wussow saw for himself how matters stood at Quatre Bras and was told by the Duke that his immediate intention to pass to the counter-attack was the best help that he could offer. Wussow reported this to Gneisenau at a time when Ligny was still held by the Prussians (therefore before 8 p.m. at the latest). Müffling said that another messenger reached Quatre Bras at about 8.30 p.m. reporting that Blücher was still at his command post and hoping to retain Ligny, while the injured Hardinge sent his brother to Wellington with a message that arrived after dark, that the Prussians were ‘still holding their position’ despite confusion and some desertions. Certainly the Prince of Orange and FitzRoy Somerset believed that night that the Prussians had retained the field or even gained the advantage. Blücher’s final attempt to snatch victory, his fall, Gneisenau’s assumption of command, and the successful French attack all occurred between 7.30 and 8 p.m. in the final hour of daylight, at a time when both headquarters seem to have felt that sending couriers across a battlefield on a moonless night would have been too difficult.²

The night of 16/17 June was not trouble-free at Quatre Bras and, as shadows moved, peering sentries fired occasional shots. At one time this turned into a prolonged musketry exchange between French and Hanoverian pickets as a result of which, for the day of 17 June, the Bremen battalion reported 4 killed, 39 wounded, and 18 missing, out of the entire 1st Hanoverian Brigade’s casualty figure of 121.³ The firing was actually heard by Thielemann as far away as Gembloux. But by full morning the situation seemed calm enough, and on waking at Genappe Wellington’s thoughts were on renewing the action and pushing Ney back.

As neither army sent out messengers overnight, on rising Wellington rode from Genappe to Quatre Bras while ordering one of his ADCs, Lieutenant-Colonel Sir Alexander Gordon, to take a patrol and ride east to establish the facts. Around 3 a.m. Gordon left with Captain Grey and some troopers of the 10th Hussars, and somewhere near Tilly he encountered men of the second brigade of the Prussian II Corps cavalry and possibly their commander Sohr, and thus learned that they were the rearguard of the retreat from Ligny. Enemy scouts were also seen. Gordon returned and reached Wellington between 7.30 and 8 a.m.⁴

The previous day’s assessments from Lieutenant Wussow, possibly from a second Prussian officer, and even from Captain Hardinge now appeared to have been far too optimistic. Müffling says that the Duke looked ‘as if he wished to ask whether I had known the thing and concealed it from him on good grounds. But on my saying quite naturally, This is probably the account which the officer, who was shot down, was bringing me, and adding, but now you cannot remain here, my Lord, he immediately entered with me as usual on the measures to be taken . . . We knew nothing farther of the Prussian army but the direction of their retreat . . .’⁵ FitzRoy Somerset wrote that they were surprised at Müffling’s saying that the Prussian destination was Wavre, the Duke remarking, ‘Ma foi, c’est bien loin’ (‘Faith! That’s a very long way’). Müffling then sent off one of his own ADCs, Lieutenant Wucherer, to find Blücher and tell him that if the Prussians returned to the attack Wellington would still advance from Quatre Bras that day.⁶

Shortly after Gordon’s return there arrived Lieutenant von Massow, with word from Gneisenau, the acting C-in-C. His arrival is usually given as around 8 a.m. on 17 June, and certainly cannot have been much later than 9;⁷ this implies that he may have started out from Mellery a little after daybreak. His message was that the Prussians needed to eat and to replenish their ammunition but, after that, they were prepared to return to the attack if Wellington did likewise. The reply was immediately given, and can be seen in a letter of Gneisenau written at noon on this day. With Wucherer’s and Massow’s reports fresh in the mind, he wrote of a message from Wellington early that morning (‘heute früh’) in which the Duke had said that he would ‘offer battle at Waterloo in front of the forest of Soignies’, if the Prussians sent two corps (zwei Korps geben wollen’).⁸

II

Wellington now had to disengage his forces from their over-exposed position. Several eye-witnesses recorded seeing him from early to mid-morning, and there are the usual occasional discrepancies in their recollections. Four are particularly vivid, and cannot be omitted, even if they do not exactly agree, and all demonstrate the extraordinary calm that he evinced as he recast his plans.⁹

Captain Bowles of the Coldstream Guards, the Duke of Richmond’s close assistant and friend, met Wellington, who conversed with him for some time until a staff officer came up and said something to the Duke. Wellington had said to Bowles that he was surprised to have heard nothing from Blücher; now he turned and said, ‘Old Blücher has had a good licking and gone back to Wavre, eighteen miles. As he has gone back, we must go too. I suppose in England they will say we have been licked. I can’t help it; as they have gone back, we must go too.’ He stood there and issued the orders within five minutes.

Lieutenant James Hope of the 92nd Foot saw Wellington ride up to Quatre Bras (this must have been at around 4 a.m.), and as the morning was cold the Duke called, ‘Ninety-Second, I will be obliged to you for a little fire.’ The men rushed to find materials and built a fire in front of a bivouac of tree branches, and it was here that he received the news of the Prussian retreat. He remained inside the shelter for a while, met there all his senior commanders including Lord Hill, and issued the orders for the retreat, then,

for an hour walked alone in front of it. Now and then his meditations were interrupted by a courier with a note, who, the moment he had delivered it, retired some distance to wait his Grace’s will. The Field Marshal had a small switch in his right hand, the one end of which he frequently put to his mouth, apparently unconscious that he was doing so. His left hand was thrown carelessly behind his back.

Constant Rebecque noted in his journal that the Duke,

seated in a hut of foliage behind Quatre Bras farm dictates his marching orders to Colonel De Lancey. According to these orders the army must start moving at 10 a.m. in order to take up the position in front of Waterloo, where the Duke will have his headquarters.

Sir Hussey Vivian commanded the cavalry on the left wing along the Namur road and it was one of his regiments from which Grey’s patrol had been selected. Vivian rode up to the Duke. His timing differs slightly from the others (he was writing in 1839), and he suggests that it was after the day had warmed up. He recounts that:

The Duke received some despatches from England, and shortly after that I think he gave orders for the retreat . . . He then lay himself down on the ground, covered his head with one of the newspapers he had been reading, and appeared to fall asleep, and in this way he remained some time; when he again rose and mounted his horse and rode down the field in front of Quatre Bras a little distance, and looked about through his glass . . . expressing his astonishment at the perfect quiet of the enemy.

III

The first task was to evacuate the wounded. From first light Wellington’s army had been searching in the corn for wounded survivors of the previous day’s battle. Then at around 10 a.m. the assembly was called and soon after the contingents began their retreat. So early an hour was made necessary by the impossibility of moving at speed. A sad procession of men, horses, and ambulances trailed north among and between the marching regiments. Several observers recorded the scene. Sir A. S. Frazer claimed that ‘on our side we left the enemy nothing but his own wounded, and the dead on both sides. Our own wounded we brought off on cavalry horses, except such as could not be found in the standing corn.’ Clark Kennedy’s squadron of the Royal Dragoons was employed ‘in conveying as many of the wounded men to the rear as were able to bear the motion of the horse, and a considerable number were removed in this manner to the rear of the position of Waterloo, though several that were severely wounded were necessarily left behind’. Basil Jackson remarked that Picton first knew that he would have to abandon the Quatre Bras position from the Duke’s order ‘to gather in the wounded’. He added:

the first sign of the army being about to retire was the gathering in of the wounded, troopers were sent out to the front, who placed such disabled men as could sit in a saddle on their horses, they themselves walking by their side, lending them support with one hand while with the other they led the docile animals. Sometimes a poor fellow might be seen toppling from side to side, requiring two men to keep him in his seat, the horses moving gently, as if conscious that the motion was torture to their suffering riders. Some required to be carried in a blanket, but, one way or another, every man that could be found with life in him was brought in and sent to the rear. I think it was near mid-day ere this duty was completed.

A Nassauer noted that ‘on the road were ambulances carrying the wounded and an endless wagon train’.¹⁰

Lord FitzRoy Somerset wrote that Lord Hill had ridden to Quatre Bras ahead of his marching forces and was there in the morning (as Lieutenant Hope had also noted). Thus Wellington was able to set out his intentions to his three senior subordinates, the Prince of Orange, Lord Uxbridge and Lord Hill, and these were embodied in orders timed ‘9 a.m.’, itemising each division’s duties for the day. They indicated several destinations for the different units or columns. For instance, the 4th Division, marching from Braine-le-Comte, was now ordered to remain there; the baggage on the road from Braine to Nivelles was ordered back to Braine and thence to Hal and Brussels; three divisions were ordered to march ‘to Waterloo’; the spare musket ammunition and the reserve artillery were to be taken north of Genappe, while the reserve artillery wagons were ‘to be parked in the Forest of Soignies’.¹¹

The infantry and foot artillery formed up, and the retirement began with the Belgians, Nassauers and Dutch, followed by the Brunswickers, Hanoverians and British. Some of Alten’s men marched on the right of the high road to keep it unencumbered, probably to assist the movement of the wounded. FitzRoy Somerset suggests that the retirement was even ‘leisurely’.¹²

IV

The Prussian retreat during the night of 16/17 June had been preceded by a sizeable mass of 11,000 fugitives and deserters. Blücher had disappeared and was perhaps dead, and Gneisenau had initially thought to re-group at Tilly, but later changed this to Mellery. But the lack of any pursuit enabled a degree of control to re-emerge, and by daybreak much of I and II Corps (minus their deserters) were resting between Tilly, Mellery and Gentinnes, Grolman commanding the rearguard. Grolman indeed seems to have been the leading spirit at this time, for it was he who had sent Wussow along the roads and gradually given direction to the retreat,¹³ with Wavre as the rallying point in the north. It was Grolman, as QMG, who prescribed the sites for the army to bivouac, close to Wavre: two on each side of the River Dyle: I Corps at Bierges (1 mile west of Wavre), II at St Anne (now in Wavre), III at la Bavette (on a hill north of Wavre), IV at Dion-le-Mont (2 miles south-east of Wavre), and any artillery needing repair going to Maastricht.

As the headquarters staff sought shelter for the night in Mellery, they came across Nostitz and the battered and bruised Commander-in-Chief sheltering there, laid on straw and only partly conscious. Nostitz recorded that the old man slept well and was even able to mount a horse in the morning. His personal servants were nowhere to be found, and his beautiful horse was dead, so he went on with the horse that Under-Officer Schneider had found for him. As he swayed along the way to Wavre the troops cheered him, and the effect on both Prince and the men must have been electrifying, for when Nostitz spoke of the troops’ rising morale – and desire to resume fighting – Blücher replied ‘That is my firm intention [fester Wille]’. Napoleon’s admiring words to Neil Campbell return to mind: ‘That old devil, if he was beaten, then the next moment he would rise again ready for battle.’ But the ride exhausted him and on reaching Wavre he was put to bed there and slept for much of the day, having returned the horse to Schneider with a gift of 20 gold Fredericks: noblesse oblige.¹⁴

Towards noon Lieutenant Massow arrived from Quatre Bras, bearing Wellington’s message of being ready to fight at Mont St Jean if provided with Prussian assistance. However, at this time the high command faced a serious ammunition shortage, and was not certain when III and IV Corps could be expected at Wavre. Colonel Röhl, temporarily commanding the Prussian artillery during the later hours of 16 June, had sent the artillery parks of I and II Corps back to Gembloux; these he later ordered to continue to Wavre. Orders had gone to Liège to send the siege artillery back as far as Maastricht and, if necessary, even to destroy the cannon foundry. This had to be countermanded, and so messengers were sent to Maastricht to bring ammunition in carts and wagons of any description if the normal ammunition wagons were insufficient. Similar orders went to Cologne, Wesel and Münster.¹⁵

Contact had been lost with III and IV Corps. What had happened was this. The last orders sent to Lieutenant-General Thielemann told him that if he could not join the western units of the army he was to fall back about 3 miles north-eastwards on Gembloux, seek General Bülow, and await further orders. III Corps had begun to move at 2 a.m., with its 9th Brigade and cavalry forming the rearguard on the Namur road. Most of the corps was at Gembloux by 6 a.m. or a little after. Patrols went out and found Bülow at Baudeset (3 miles north of Gembloux), and handed him a letter from Thielemann. Thielemann reported the defeat and scattering of the army, but said that III Corps still had 18,000 men, and that Jagow of 3rd Brigade, I Corps, had joined him with five battalions and two regiments of cavalry:

I have had no orders from Prince Blücher but imagine [vermute] that he is going to St Trond [another 30 miles to the north-east]. Early this morning there was fighting on my right flank, probably with Wellington. The enemy is not pursuing us. I will move towards your Excellency at 1 p.m,, but I should wish to receive your intentions before I march.¹⁶

Thielemann at Gembloux, 3 miles from the battlefield, was about 10 miles south-southeast of Wavre but, as this letter clearly shows, had no knowledge of any intention to re-group there, further proof of how casually Wavre was chosen. Yet for him to suggest to Bülow that they should retreat some 25 miles further to the north-east to St Trond (on the way to the Rhine) was surely unjustified. He had heard firing at Quatre Bras (possibly the noisy flare up between the Bremen battalion and the French), although it was somewhat misleading to say it was on his ‘right flank’ when it was all of 10 miles away. The firing must mean that over there, at least, resistance was continuing, while on this front the French were quiescent. To commit to St Trond in such circumstances was a grave decision, and a premature one. However, that was the message Thielemann sent to Bülow.

Bülow instantly and rightly rejected the idea that Blücher could think of retiring on St Trond, and, although Bülow’s message has not survived, Thielemann’s extant reply to him shows that the latter dropped the St Trond idea and adopted Bülow’s requirement that the march should be towards Wavre, and issued orders accordingly.¹⁷

In the meantime Thielemann had sent Major Weyrach, one of Blücher’s ADCs, separated from his master in the battle, to find the Feldmarschall and get new instructions. Weyrach found him at Wavre, and on riding back encountered Bülow at Baudeset, at some time after 10 a.m. Based upon Weyrach’s report, Bülow wrote to Thielemann at 10.30. This extant message is his second instruction to III Corps’ commander:

I have just received the order to move to Dion-le-Mont, near Wavre. I imagine that by the time this reaches you, your Excellency will have received the same order. The direction of march sent to you previously [in the non-extant message] is not amended by this. I will deploy my rearguard at Mont-St-Guibert, with its support at Vieux Sart [half way between Mont-St-Guibert and Dion-le-Mont]. I shall march at once, and leave to you the choice of time of your departure, but it would not be good to become caught in any serious rearguard action, as it would be better to save our strength until we are together. The cavalry and artillery which, according to your report, is on your left flank, could be Colonel v. Borcke, coming from Namur, according to the Field Marshal’s staff officer.

As Lettow-Vorbeck pointed out, the force seen by Thielemann could not have been Borcke’s Neumark Dragoons (1st Brigade of II Corps Reserve Cavalry), but may have been some of Exelmans’s French dragoons which were closing upon Gembloux at 9 o’clock. Since the ADC was coming south from Wavre, his suggestion that the troops in question could be Borcke coming north-west from Namur must have been based on assumptions spoken of at headquarters rather than on any direct knowledge – a good instance of the dangers of imagination. But for our immediate purpose it is sufficient to note that army headquarters could hope that once Weyrach had delivered his message (probably before noon), the two missing corps would begin to march on Wavre.

In some respects the high command was indeed better informed about the French than about the eastern segments of its army. This was because Count Gröben had been posted on a hill near Tilly to watch Napoleon’s movements, and his excellent reports (the first was signed at 7 a.m.) told of French inactivity at Sombreffe and Brye and even of a reduction in their numbers, although units were moving about; and he even reported a battalion marching on the Roman road, apparently in a south-westerly direction. (His further reports were not received at Wavre until the afternoon, and so will be mentioned later.)

Royal headquarters at Heidelberg had been warned by both Blücher and Gneisenau on the evening of 15 June that battle was impending, that the entire army of four corps would be assembled in a chosen position against a French army of perhaps 120,000 men. Virtually nothing had been said about Wellington’s situation, but Gneisenau had suggested that the French might have advanced so far that communications with Nivelles might be cut.¹⁸ Now, by noon on the 17th, enough information from his various commanders had reached Gneisenau for a report to be written. Explaining a defeat is never easy, and it must surely have been complicated by an inner consciousness that concentration and marching orders had been handled very belatedly (but he may not have realised that his wording of the midnight order to Bülow was open to misunderstanding), and that Müffling had been left poorly informed. Additionally, Bülow was well regarded at royal headquarters whereas he himself had critics there and even enemies.

What Gneisenau knew by now was that Ziethen’s I Corps was approaching Bierges, and II Corps was not far behind, while III and IV had been traced and given orders to move on Wavre. The army was still in being, and the report from Gröben assured him that the French were not in pursuit so far. Blücher was now with the army, though it was not yet possible to judge if he would be fit enough to take command in the next day or so. Gneisenau had also received a series of reports the previous day from Müffling as to the fight at Quatre Bras and even if he discounted Müffling’s capacity he had additionally received an informative account from his own man Wussow. Today, Massow had reported his morning interview with Wellington, so that Gneisenau knew that a considerable body of the French had been engaged at Quatre Bras and had been checked and repulsed, and that Wellington had wished to press forward to maintain the advantage.

The full text of the report written on 17 June can be read in the appendix to this chapter.¹⁹ In essence, Gneisenau explained that the Prussian army at Ligny had suffered a setback. It had fought hard and long against greatly superior numbers (80,000 Prussians to 120,000 French, including the corps of d’Erlon and Reille) and forced a standstill, expecting further help. For it had engaged in battle on the basis of orders to IV Corps and because of a ‘written guarantee’ of support from Wellington, who undertook to strike at the enemy rear if the Prussians should be attacked (just as they had promised to assist him in return, if needed). Assistance from either of these formations would have produced a glorious victory. Bülow’s IV Corps had been warned at noon on 14 June to be ready to march from Liège and orders had been given before midnight for it to do so, and on all reasonable calculations it was expected to reach the battlefield ‘by noon’ on 16 June. Why this had not happened was as yet unknown. And there was more: ‘on the morning of 16 June, the Duke of Wellington promised to be at 10 a.m. with 20,000 men at Quatre Bras, his cavalry at Nivelles’.

Hence, the report stated, the decision taken to give battle at Ligny had been ‘based upon’ receiving these reinforcements. This was not a correct statement of the matter. We know that at noon and again on the evening of 15 June Blücher was determined that the next day would be the ‘decisive’ one; that by late morning on the 16th the high command knew from Feldjäger Rothe that it would not be joined that day by IV Corps; and that Wellington did not reach Brye for his meeting with Blücher until around 1 p.m., by which time (as J. C. Ropes pointed out) Blücher had already firmly decided on battle that afternoon, certainly without IV Corps and irrespective of what Wellington might do.²⁰

Gneisenau’s account of the fighting was fairly factual, amounting to about a quarter of his whole report. He emphasised that the position was excellent for the Prussian artillery and that the infantry fought well, although a considerable number of guns were eventually lost. But Gneisenau had almost nothing good to say of the cavalry. This seems unduly sweeping, for the cavalry arm was known to be the weakest element in the army in terms of numbers, organisation and training, and the position chosen limited their actions to short counter-attacks ordered by Blücher and the high command. Of Prussian battle tactics and the premature commitment of valuable reserves there was, understandably, no mention. Gneisenau made no effort to minimise the losses of cannon, but he did indicate that, although the Prussians had been obliged to retire by divergent routes, the enemy had taken such a pummeling that there was no active pursuit.

One should allow for the fact that Gneisenau had been through a couple of days of strain by the time he penned his report. It does not seem to have struck him that the Prussian officers’ accounts of the struggle at Quatre Bras meant that not all of Napoleon’s army could at Ligny. And his memory may have become fogged concerning those messages received the previous day. This was apparent from his remark that Wellington had given a ‘written promise’ to have ‘20,000 men at Quatre Bras by 10 a.m., the cavalry at Nivelles’ and to ‘attack the enemy’s rear’. Müffling had written of an assembly at Nivelles during the 16th and Wellington at Frasnes had written that the Reserve could be at Genappe by noon, but both forecasts had a clear qualification: there should be a meeting with Blücher before deciding on any commitment to action. Gneisenau either forgot or ignored the qualification. As to attacking the enemy’s rear, a possibility raised in Müffling’s letter of the 15th, it had certainly been discussed at the Brye meeting but had actually been strongly opposed by Gneisenau.²¹ And the Brye discussions were obviously conditional on whether or not the French took action against the Prussians only, or also struck at Quatre Bras. All this suggests that Gneisenau was still confused and was snatching at recollection. For instance, one such item may have come from Brunneck’s report of Orange’s views at Quatre Bras at 6.30 a.m. on the morning of the 16th that much of the army could be at Nivelles within three hours and seventeen battalions were coming from Brussels to support his Netherlands forces already or soon to be at Quatre Bras: hence Gneisenau’s ‘20,000 men at Quatre Bras by 10 a.m.’

But if we put down to mis-recollection and stress these quite serious mistakes of record, it is more difficult to excuse Gneisenau’s overall treatment of his ally’s performance in this report. In explaining the Prussian setback, the essence of Tacitus’ warning must have been loud in his ears: ‘the crowning injustice of war: all claim credit for success, while defeat is laid to the account of one’.²² The responsibility for the Ligny defeat needed shifting. Thus Wellington’s concentration was belated (one might ask: whose was not?) and only ‘a part of his Reserve’ reached Quatre Bras, and four hours late at that. There they had to fight, winning glory ‘for the British’, but then retreated for reasons not explained. Yet by the time that he wrote Gneisenau certainly knew from the reports of Müffling and Wussow on the 16th, of Massow and Wucherer before he wrote, how the fighting developed at Quatre Bras. It was only after Massow had told Wellington of the Prussian retreat that Wellington had dropped plans for a morning offensive and had felt obliged to order a retirement to Mont St Jean, and from Gneisenau’s own letter we can see that Massow had already told his chief of that interview and the Duke’s reply. Gneisenau’s depiction of a tardy, selfish, and un-cooperative ‘ally’ insistent on retreat, when added to his earlier suspicions, became his idée fixe from this time on.²³ Certainly he convinced himself. Did he set out to convince others? One can guess at its effect on the minds of distant recipients hoping to read good news, and indeed it became an article of faith for some Prussian historians thereafter.

This unfortunate way of presenting matters was not totally redeemed by the statement that ‘the Duke of Wellington’s left wing was apparently attacked early this morning, from the sounds heard, but this has not been confirmed. He will accept battle at Waterloo at the entrance to Soignies forest if we will give him two corps.’ That would depend upon fresh munitions reaching the Prussians. ‘If this can be found then we will agree the Duke’s request, send Bülow’s corps to him, with the remaining full-strength battalions from the other corps, and with the rest we will stage a feint.’

Limiting about half the Prussian army to ‘staging a feint’ or demonstration, was Gneisenau’s own intention as acting C-in-C. Had the old man not recovered, that would have