1.C.1.11. A BAD GUIDE TO NAPOLEON; A GOOD GUIDE TO BULOW
THE painful surprise of Napoleon is well known. Grouchy
hoped for, Blucher arriving. Death instead of life.
Fate has these turns; the throne of the world was expected;
it was Saint Helena that was seen.
If the little shepherd who served as guide to Bulow, Blucher's
lieutenant, had advised him to debouch from the forest
above Frischemont, instead of below Plancenoit, the form of
the nineteenth century might, perhaps, have been different.
Napoleon would have won the battle of Waterloo. By any
other route than that below Plancenoit, the Prussian army
would have come out upon a ravine impassable for artillery,
and Bulow would not have arrived.
Now the Prussian general, Muffling, declares that one hour's
delay, and Blucher would not have found Wellington on his
feet. "The battle was lost."
It was time that Bulow should arrive, as will be seen. He
had, moreover, been very much delayed. He had bivouacked
at Dion-le-Mont, and had set out at daybreak; but the roads
were impassable, and his divisions stuck fast in the mire. The
ruts were up to the hubs of the cannons. Moreover, he had
been obliged to pass the Dyle on the narrow bridge of Wavre;
the street leading to the bridge had been fired by the French,
so the caissons and ammunition-wagons could not pass between
two rows of burning houses, and had been obliged to wait until
the conflagration was extinguished. It was mid-day before
Bulow's vanguard had been able to reach Chapelle-Saint-Lambert.
Had
the action been begun two hours earlier, it would
have been over at four o'clock, and Blucher would have
fallen on the battle won by Napoleon. Such are these
immense risks proportioned to an infinite which we cannot
comprehend.
The Emperor had been the first, as early as mid-day, to
descry with his field-glass, on the extreme horizon, something
which had attracted his attention. He had said, "I see yonder
a cloud, which seems to me to be troops." Then he asked the
Duc de Dalmatie, "Soult, what do you see in the direction of
Chapelle-Saint-Lambert?" The marshal, levelling his glass,
answered, "Four or five thousand men, Sire; evidently Grouchy."
But it remained motionless in the mist. All the glasses
of the staff had studied "the cloud" pointed out by the Emperor.
Some said: "It is trees." The truth is, that the cloud
did not move. The Emperor detached Domon's division of
light cavalry to reconnoitre in that quarter.
Bulow had not moved, in fact. His vanguard was very
feeble, and could accomplish nothing. He was obliged to wait
for the body of the army corps, and he had received orders to
concentrate his forces before entering into line; but at five
o'clock, perceiving Wellington's peril, Blucher ordered Bulow
to attack, and uttered these remarkable words: "We must give
air to the English army."
A little later, the divisions of Losthin, Hiller, Hacke, and
Ryssel deployed before Lobau's corps, the cavalry of Prince
William of Prussia debouched from the forest of Paris,
Plancenoit was in flames, and the Prussian cannon-balls began
to rain even upon the ranks of the guard in reserve behind
Napoleon.