The Battle of Waterloo: Europe in the Balance (19 page)

The Austrian attack pushed the French back across the open ground, though the French did not lose cohesion as they retreated. Rapp, standing with his reserves on the nearby hill of Hiderhausbergen, noticed that the Austrian left flank was becoming exposed as it advanced. Ordering his reserve infantry to follow on as quickly as possible in column, Rapp led two regiments of cavalry down the hill and charged headlong in to the Austrian flank. The crashing impact of the French cavalry threw the Austrians into confusion. When the French infantry came up and opened fire, the Austrians collapsed and fled. The panic spread along the line and soon the entire Austrian army was in retreat.

So rapid was the Austrian collapse that Rapp’s cavalry were able to capture Württemberg’s carriage, paperwork and most of his supplies and baggage. The pursuit went on for more than 15 km, but came to a sudden halt when large numbers of soldiers were spotted in the distance. This was a force of 30,000 Russians hurrying forward to the sound of guns. Rapp halted the pursuit, and marched back to his start lines to prepare a rearguard action. The Russians then proceeded to loot every village within reach and set fire to the houses and churches.

Appalled by the behaviour of the Russians, and aware of the advance of Wellington and Blücher, Rapp sent a messenger to Württemberg, suggesting an armistice. He asked for time to send a messenger to Paris for orders, and that the Russians be withdrawn until an answer was received. Württemberg, smarting from this defeat, refused.

Knowing from his scouts that some 70,000 Austrians and Russians were advancing against him, Rapp fell back to the fortified city of Strasbourg and prepared to endure a long siege. Before entering Strasbourg, Rapp put garrisons into Strasbourg, Landau, La Petite-Pierre, Huningue, Sélestat, Lichtenberg, Phalsbourg, Neuf-Brisach and Belfort with orders to hold out for as long as possible.

Frimont’s attack from the south

Further south, the Austro-Italian army under Frimont had been advancing into southern France from Italy. On 21 June Frimont had his first clash with the French of Marshal Suchet’s Army of the Alps at the Pass of Meillerie. Suchet had started his own advance on 14 June, the same day as Frimont. He had reached Geneva next day, and left behind a small force to conduct a siege while marching on to grab the passes at Meillerie and St Maurice.

Suchet reached the passes first, but had not yet finished fortifying the positions when the larger army of Frimont arrived. After a short, stiff fight Suchet fell back and by 27 June was back on the river Arve inside France. Frimont’s left-hand column, meanwhile, had met little opposition and got over the Mount Cenis Pass without difficulty. On 28 June the column reached the town of Conflans (now Albertville) where it met a force sent by Suchet to block its advance. After a stiff fight, the Austrians got control of Conflans, but could not advance any further.

The right-hand column, meanwhile, had crossed the Arve and relieved Geneva. They were stopped on 29 June at the Pass of Les Rousses by strongly defended French redoubts and the campaign paused.

Lamarque takes on royalists in the Vendée

Another area in which the fighting was very far from over was the Vendée. Royalist noblemen Suzannet and Autichamp had been on the defensive since Napoleon had arrived in Paris. The Napoleonic commander, General Lamarque, had spent the intervening weeks building up his strength. On 17 June he finally felt strong enough to move with his 7,000 men to face the royalists’ 9,000.

On 20 June Lamarque attacked the royalists at Rocheservière. After some preliminary cavalry skirmishing, Suzannet led an infantry attack across open heathland. When Suzannet was hit by a bullet and collapsed, mortally wounded, his men fled. Autichamp managed to organize a fighting retreat with a small rearguard and so saved the royalists from total defeat.

Autichamp retreated back to Cholet, where he adopted a strong defensive position that he thought he could hold for some weeks. On 25 June news arrived that Napoleon had defeated the Prussians at Ligny. That prompted Autichamp to accept a truce under which he retained the town of Cholet but undertook to launch no offensive actions in return for a ceasefire. On 29 June news of Waterloo arrived, prompting Autichamp and Lamarque to meet again. This time the terms of the truce were confirmed almost unaltered and both sides sat down to await developments.

The developments turned out to be the arrival of some Prussian cavalry, to whom Lamarque surrendered his men before fleeing into exile. He returned to France on being pardoned in 1819 and spent the next decade or so devoted to the cause of agricultural improvements and social reform. Lamarque died in Paris in 1832. His funeral on 5 June attracted a vast crowd, which turned into a general protest against the government of King Louis Philippe. The protest turned into a riot, which in turn became the ‘June Rebellion’ in which more than 800 people died. The funeral and subsequent uprising were immortalized in the Victor Hugo novel Les Misérables, and the subsequent stage and movie versions. Autichamp resumed his pre-war government positions and faded into gentle obscurity.

Austrians and Russians on the move

On 4 July Schwarzenberg received an urgent message from Blücher asking him to march on Paris as quickly as possible. Schwarzenberg again chose the Bavarians to lead the advance and on 7 July the advance cavalry scouts of the Bavarians linked up with some Prussian cavalry units at Epernay. Blücher sent word asking the Bavarians to veer to the south, blocking the Marne Valley.

Hearing of the outbreak of hostilities, Tolly had ordered his columns of Russian troops to speed up across Germany. The lead units reached the Rhine about the 24 June and went across the river to follow the Austrians the following day. The Russian army was thrown forward piecemeal as it arrived and lost its cohesion as an army. Instead the various divisions were assigned to Austrian columns as they came up, so Tolly found that he had little to do except to co-ordinate the movements of his more slowly moving units and seek to sort out the customary confused state of his supply system.

Frimont and Suchet

Meanwhile, Frimont resumed his attacks on the passes over the Jura Mountains on 4 July. This time he succeeded by weight of numbers in pushing Suchet back. Suchet fought a skilled retreat, blowing bridges and blasting holes in roads to slow the Austro-Italian supply wagons.

Once Frimont was out of the mountains, his advance was rapid. On 12 July he reached the great city of Lyons, where Suchet and his army were waiting. Envoys from Suchet rode forwards seeking an armistice. Frimont and Suchet agreed that fighting on their front would come to an immediate end. Suchet agreed to evacuate his forces to the west banks of the Rhône and Saône rivers, handing over the cities of Lyons, Mâcon and Valence to the Austro-Italians. The rival armies would then go into camp and await news from the main theatre of war in the north. Frimont then sent a force north up the Saône to ensure that the French forces had evacuated the east bank as agreed.

While Frimont had been fighting his way over the mountains, an army of Piedmontese-Sardinian troops commanded by Lieutenant General d’Osasco had been working along the coast. They captured Nice on 9 July, and pushed forward meeting minimal resistance from the French Armée du Var under Marshal Brune. When news of the armistice between Frimont and Suchet arrived, d’Osasco and Brune likewise called a ceasefire.

With Rapp bottled up in Strasbourg, Schwarzenberg decided he could risk spreading his units out to cover and occupy as much of eastern France as possible. On 20 July forward cavalry units reached Autun, where they met units of Frimont’s army pushing north up the Saône to ensure that Suchet had, as he had promised, pulled his troops back to the west bank of that river.

Napoleon’s surrender

Five days before Schwarzenberg’s forces met those of Frimont at Autun the Royal Navy warship HMS Bellerophon had been patrolling of the French Atlantic port of La Rochelle. Captain Frederick Maitland saw his ship being approached by a small French smack. On board was the famous cartographer and author Count de las Cassas. Cassas announced that he was the emissary of Napoleon and asked Maitland to talk.

Cassas told Maitland that Napoleon had been offered political asylum in the United States of America, and asked that the ship carrying the former emperor be allowed to pass. Maitland had orders to allow no French craft to leave port and was uncertain what to do about this sudden diplomatic conundrum. He told Cassas that he was prepared to take Napoleon on board and sail to Britain to see what the British government decided.

Cassas left and returned with Napoleon. The former Emperor climbed aboard and approached Maitland. He then lifted his hat, bowed and announced ‘I am come to throw myself on the hospitality of your Prince and your laws.’ Maitland moved out of his own cabin, which was given to Napoleon, while other ship’s officers made space for Napoleon’s retinue.

As it transpired, the British government was not entirely certain what to do with Napoleon. In the end he was sent to live in exile, under armed guard, on the remote island of St Helena in the South Atlantic for the rest of his life.

Aftermath of the war

News reached Rapp in Strasbourg of Napoleon’s surrender and the end of hostilities in early August, but he still refused to surrender. Although the war was clearly over, for the men bottled up in fortresses the length and breadth of France the future was not entirely clear. For a start, these garrisons were genuinely isolated in a way that modern soldiers would find hard to understand. With no radios or telephones, the garrisons were reliant on their surrounding enemy for news of the outside world. Just because an Austrian general said the war was over did not mean that it was. The message might simply be a trick to get the garrison to surrender.

Perhaps more pressing was the issue of retribution. Those soldiers who had taken up arms for Napoleon had quite clearly taken up arms against King Louis XVIII. Many soldiers and officers had sworn an oath of loyalty to Louis in 1814, which made them traitors. It was not entirely certain how forgiving Louis was likely to be of such treachery. Given the track record of the returning noble émigrés in 1814, it did not seem likely that Louis would be prepared to overlook the crime. Imprisonment or execution seemed likely punishments. The soldiers in garrisons knew that they were safe where they were, at least for the time being, and were understandably reluctant to give up their arms until they knew exactly where they stood with regard to King Louis.

The scene at Waterloo the day after the battle. The speed of Wellington’s pursuit of Napoleon meant that the dead and wounded remained in the open longer than was normal. Families and comrades searched for the missing, hoping to carry them to the field hospitals set up behind the lines.

They had good reason to be wary. De la Bédoyère had been arrested, courtmartialled and shot in August. Ney was under arrest for treason, and would be executed in December. Murat was also under arrest, and would be shot by firing squad in October. Others would suffer a similar fate.

It was not until early September that a French general approached the walls of Strasbourg under the flag of the king of France. He brought with him a proclamation which, after he had read it himself, Rapp had read out to the troops. King Louis of France offered to pay all the soldiers their back pay immediately in cash, together with a bonus. On payment of the money, the regiments were to be disbanded and the men allowed to go home without any interference from the Austrians. The war, the king said, was over.

Rapp told his men to think over the offer, then report to their officers who in turn would report to him. The men decided to accept the offer. They laid down their weapons and marched out of Strasbourg under the eyes of the watching Austrians. As promised, the men were paid and then allowed to wander off as they wished. Rapp himself was not certain if the terms extended to himself. He went to Switzerland and wrote a letter to King Louis asking permission to live at his home in France. Permission was granted and he went home at Colmer in October 1815.