John Codman Ropes - The Battle of Waterloo

The opinion expressed here in regard to the health of the Emperor is substantially that entertained by Thiers and Chesney. The former says that the Emperor’s brother Jerome, and also one of the surgeons on the Emperor’s staff, both told him that Napoleon was a sufferer at this time from an affection of the bladder. But this was, he says, denied by Marchand, the Emperor’s valet. “Whatever may have been the health of Napoleon at this epoch, his activity was not diminished.”39

To the same effect is Chesney’s opinion,40 opposing that of Charras.41 Further evidence on the subject has been collected by Mr. Dorsey Gardner.42 His conclusion is entirely opposed to that of Colonel Chesney, and in our judgment he places altogether too much reliance on that delightful, but gossipy, writer, the Comte de Ségur. Ségur’s History of the Russian Campaign is the best known work on the subject, but it is essentially a romance. In it he advances with great boldness his favorite theme of the breaking down of Napoleon’s health.43 But the Emperor’s health was able to endure without injury that terrible strain; he certainly showed in 1813 and 1814 every evidence of physical vigor. No doubt the peculiar maladies from which he suffered occasionally impaired the activity of both mind and body; but the talk of Ségur verges at times on puerility. Gourgaud’s Examen Critique of Ségur’s work points out its defects cleverly and unsparingly. As for the conversation, referred to by Gardner, which the Earl of Albemarle44 reports as having taken place in 1870 between his son and General Gudin, who was, in 1815, a page in waiting on the Emperor, to the effect that Napoleon secluded himself all the forenoon of the day of the battle of Waterloo, and that “it was nearly noon when the Emperor descended the ladder that led to the sleeping room and rode away,” it is really impossible to accept the story. Charras, who for his own reasons (and, by the way, not for the reasons which Chesney very naturally supposes actuated him), endeavors to magnify Napoleon’s inactivity throughout this campaign, represents him as, on this morning of the 18th, reconnoitring the position after eight o’clock,45 giving his orders for the marshalling of the army, watching the deployment of the troops between nine and half-past ten, riding along the lines, and dictating the order of battle before eleven o’clock. On all such points we are quite safe in following Charras, and we must consider Gudin’s story as having (to say the least) suffered greatly in its transmission. Besides, there was no “ladder that led to the sleeping room,” in the house46 in which Napoleon slept the night before Waterloo.

To repeat, then, once more. Napoleon in this campaign was troubled by and doubtless suffered considerably from some painful maladies; and, even apart from this fact, we cannot look for the youthful vigor and activity of 1796 or 1805 in the year 1815. He was not in these respects equal to his former self; and it was further to be expected that the deficiency of his physical energy would be accompanied by a diminished mental alertness and vigilance. All the same, we think it will be found that he showed in this campaign a very fair degree of strength and activity. But we shall know more about this as we proceed with the narrative.

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The army which was commanded by Field Marshal Blücher numbered about 124,000 men, and was thus composed:—47

The headquarters of Zieten’s Corps were at Charleroi, of Pirch I. at Namur, of Thielemann at Ciney, and of Bülow at Liége. The first three of these places were near the frontier.

The Prussian army was mainly composed of veterans; even of the youngest soldiers most had seen service in 1813 or 1814. The corps-commanders were experienced officers, though only one of them, Bülow, had ever had an independent command. Bülow had in 1813 won the battle of Dennewitz against Marshal Ney. The troops were certainly not so inured to war as were those of Napoleon’s army, nor were they so well led; but they knew their trade, and were prepared for battle. Blücher himself was a veteran of the Seven Years’ War. He had seen more than fifty years of service. In the campaigns of 1806 and 1807 he had displayed conspicuous zeal and courage. In those of 1813 and 1814, although too old and infirm to assume all the tasks which ordinarily devolve on an army-commander, he had yet, with the assistance of his chief-of-staff, markedly increased his reputation. Nevertheless no one considered him a general of a high order of talent. His conceptions of strategy were crude and imperfect, and his blunders caused his command to be more than once badly defeated by Napoleon in the winter campaign in France in 1814. But Blücher was a thorough soldier, active, daring and resolute, and never was afraid of taking responsibility. He was moreover a great favorite with the army. He was animated by an almost insane hatred of Napoleon, and he entered on the work assigned to him by the allied powers with an eager determination that bordered upon ferocity. This spirit of his infused itself into the army;48 every man was ready to fight, and every man expected to beat in the end. His chief-of-staff, Gneisenau, was an able administrator, and relieved the old field-marshal from all attention to details.

The army commanded by the Duke of Wellington was a very heterogeneous body of troops. Although nominally divided into corps, after the fashion of the armies of the continent, this arrangement, being one which had never been adopted by the Duke before, was only imperfectly49 practised in the campaign of 1815. We shall get a better idea of the strength of Wellington’s forces if we enumerate them according to their different nationalities. Leaving out the troops employed on garrison duty at Antwerp, Ostend, Ghent and other places, estimated at 12,233 men,50 we find the forces available for the field to have been thus composed:—