The Battle of Waterloo: Europe in the Balance (4 page)

Equestrian Portrait of Joachim Murat by Antoine-Jean Gros, c.1812, oil on canvas, Louvre Museum

Murat began by invading the Papal States with an army of about 50,000 men and 90 cannon. The pope fled and Murat was welcomed by cheering crowds. He marched on to Ancona, Rimini and Bologna. There were localized outbreaks of rioting and unrest in northern Italy, but Frimont’s troops quickly restored order. Frimont sent an army south under General Frederick Bianchi to block Murat’s march north. At the Battle of Panaro on 3 April, Murat smashed the Austrian army and marched on into Modena and Florence. Five days later Murat was on the banks of the Po river.

As the situation threatened to spiral out of control, Frimont marched almost his entire army towards Ferrara, then being besieged by Murat. At the Battle of Casaglia on 12 April the fighting was inconclusive, but Murat – suffering supply problems – fell back towards Bologna, then on to Ancona. Murat fought a skilful retreat, but he was outnumbered and handicapped by his lack of supplies. On 20 May Naples surrendered. There was no sign of Murat. Nobody knew where he had gone.

This Neapolitan War, as it was known, had seriously dislocated Frimont’s plans for an invasion of southern France. Most of his army was spread out over Italy, garrisoning unreliable towns and seeking to overawe revolutionaries – and intimidate them into inaction. Without knowing where Murat had gone or what his plans might be, Frimont could not afford to relax. He gathered as many of his men as he dared in Piedmont, but he was still under strength and was worried about his rear.

Intending to co-operate with Frimont in his invasion of southern France was the British Mediterranean fleet under Lord Exmouth. On board Exmouth’s ships were troops of King Ferdinand III of Sicily. Ferdinand was one of the most reactionary monarchs in Europe. He had held on to his throne only because the British fleet backed him in order to retain Sicily as a useful naval base in the central Mediterranean. Nobody, least of all Exmouth, expected much from the Sicilian army.

Some other nations were making token preparations, but with no real prospect of taking part in the coming war. Portugal, for instance, was putting together an army of 14,000 veterans. However, they did not have clearance to march through Spain to reach France, nor had they got the permission of King John VI. John was rather inconveniently on a tour of the interior of Brazil and nobody could get hold of him. Without their monarch’s permission the army could not go to war.

The Danish army seemed rather more promising, but it was small and had trouble producing weapons for its men. King Frederick VI thought his forces might be ready to march sometime early in July, though in the event it was the end of that month before they left Denmark.

British and Prussian forces

Of all the armies promised by the allies only two would certainly be ready by the agreed date of 1 July. The first of these was the main Prussian army under the command of Field Marshal Gebhard von Blücher. Blücher had a force of 116,000 men mustered in the Netherlands by early June. He had his headquarters in Namur, but problems with supply and accommodation meant that the army was spread over a large band of territory stretching from Liège to near Charleroi.

The four corps of the Prussian army varied in size between 23,000 and 30,000. Each corps was a balanced body of infantry, cavalry and artillery – in effect, a miniature army. The men were mostly veterans, though there was a large minority of recent recruits. As all the men came from Prussia there was no doubt of their willingness to fight for their king.

Blücher was 73 years old in 1815, but he was fit and active in body and had a sharp mind. He was, moreover, respected by his generals and loved by his men who nicknamed him ‘Marshal Forwards’ after his favourite command. His aggressive nature was matched by an ability to organize an army with ruthless efficiency. Indeed, as commander of an army, Blücher had only been defeated once – at Lübeck in 1806. Even then Blücher had managed to persuade his French opponent to mount a guard of honour to salute the defeated Prussians.

Also in the Netherlands by early June was an army of 93,000 men under the British duke of Wellington. Most of these men were British, but there were also substantial allied units. Of these, the most reliable and best trained were probably the King’s German Legion. This unit was recruited mostly from Hanoverians, the king of Britain at this date being also the ruler of Hanover. Almost as good were the Brunswickers, led by their duke, Frederick William – known as ‘the black duke’, due to his swarthy good looks and the jet-black uniforms of his men.

Wellington also commanded the Netherlands troops, led by their prince, William of Orange. Until little over a year earlier the Netherlands had been enthusiastic partisans of Napoleon and the revolutionary reforms. Nobody was entirely certain how reliable they would be in the coming campaign, however.

This large army was, like that of Blücher and for similar reasons, spread out across the western Netherlands. The right-wing units were near Braine-le-Comte, while the left wing was around Brussels.

Unknown to Blücher, Wellington had two orders from the British government to which he had to give absolute priority no matter what the circumstances. The first was to keep the British part of his mixed army intact. If there was a real possibility of defeat, Wellington was to retreat to the Scheldt Estuary, where the Royal Navy was waiting to evacuate his troops. The British government was aware that the grand alliance was fragile and had no intention of needlessly sacrificing the only large British army in existence. Almost all available troops had been sent to Wellington, and the government was going to need them back for the defence of Britain if everything went badly.

The second priority order was to keep the French king, Louis XVIII, both safe and close to Wellington’s headquarters. The post-war government of France had not yet been decided. Some diplomats wanted France to become a republic, arguing that this would at least give stability; others wanted Napoleon’s son to take over – the young child would be easily steered by ‘advisers’ appointed by the allies; others supported Louis. The British government favoured Louis, who for all his faults was the legitimate monarch, and wanted to make sure that he was on the spot in Paris after the war to be able to take power if that is what the allies decided to do.

Napoleon’s options

Faced by this impressive mass of armies and states ranged against him, Napoleon soon realized that he had only limited options. By recalling veterans to the colours and mobilising garrison troops, Napoleon was able to get 198,000 men ready to march by late in May, with 66,000 more being equipped and probably ready by the middle of June. By early July he might have been able to muster as many as 450,000 men. The problem with waiting for these impressive numbers to be gathered, however, was that the allies were bringing up their armies just as rapidly.

Napoleon knew that whenever the fighting began, he was going to be heavily outnumbered by the allies gathering against him. If he stood on the defensive behind France’s borders of the Pyrenees, Alps and Rhine he would be able to fight a long defensive campaign, but the final result was hardly in doubt. In the end Napoleon would be defeated. Before that it was likely that there might be a coup back in Paris organized by those who did not want to see France fought over yet again.

If Napoleon was going to win the coming war he calculated that he had to win a quick, impressive victory that would cow the other allies into making a hasty peace treaty. Knowing as he did the disputes that had been taking place between the allies at the recent Congress of Vienna, Napoleon hoped that a swift victory would reopen these disputes. If he could knock out the Prussian army, for instance, the Austrians might be tempted to occupy Saxony. Such an aggressive move by the Austrians would undoubtedly cause the Russians to fall back to defend their gains in Poland. There might even be war between Russia and Austria.

Napoleon needed a victory – and he needed one quickly. Looking around at his enemies he very quickly reached a decision as to where that victory was to be won.

The Spanish were on the far side of the Pyrenees and had not yet mustered. They could be beaten with ease, but it would be a hollow and unimpressive victory that would not shake the coalition ranged against Napoleon. Much the same reasoning ruled out an attack into northern Italy to defeat the Austro-Italian army commanded by Frimont.

Schwarzenberg’s large Austrian army on the Rhine offered possibilities, for if Napoleon could crush an army of 150,000 men or more it would be a real blow to the allies. But that victory by itself would achieve little. With the vast Russian army ponderously rolling west through Germany, Napoleon would have little time to exploit his victory before he would need to fight a second and even more powerful foe.

Rather more tempting were the armies of Wellington and Blücher in the Netherlands. Napoleon knew that a sound defeat of the Prussians might very well split apart the coalition formed against him. Moreover, there were weaknesses in the positions adopted by Wellington and Blücher.

For a start there was no natural barrier protecting the front of the two allies. Frimont had the Alps, Schwarzenberg had the Rhine; but Blücher and Wellington had only the Sambre – a river that was bridged in many places and also had several fords.

Secondly, both armies were scattered across the southern Netherlands (now Belgium). This dispersed disposition had been forced on the armies by the need for supply and billeting, but it meant that the two forces would be slow to concentrate in an emergency.

Third, both Wellington and Blücher had very good cause to be worried about the flanks of their positions, but for opposite reasons. Wellington was supplied from Britain with supplies coming through the Channel ports, principally Antwerp, that lay behind his right flank. A French attack that went to the west around his right flank would cut him off not only from sources of supply but also from any possible line of retreat. Wellington would correctly identify this as being the key weakness of his position.

Blücher, on the other hand, drew his supplies from the east, though Liège and Aachen. In that direction, also, lay his lines of retreat back to Prussia. He would be as worried about his left or eastern flank as Wellington was about his right or western flank. Napoleon could not be certain, but he guessed that neither Wellington nor Blücher could be comfortable where they were: both knew their supply lines and lines of retreat were open to threat if Napoleon made a sudden move.

Even more tempting were the political opportunities. Until only a year before, the area now known as Belgium had been part of France. The allies had taken it away and given it to the Kingdom of the Netherlands. The people of the area were French-speaking and, generally, favoured the reforms of the Revolution. If Napoleon managed to drive the allies out of the area – or even just march into the largest city, Brussels, amidst popular rejoicing – it would send political shockwaves across Europe, stirring up revolutionaries and causing the more reactionary rulers to pull their troops home to secure their thrones.

Just as critical were the respective strengths of the two Allied armies. Together they outnumbered Napoleon’s forces, but separately they were each outnumbered by Napoleon. If Napoleon could separate Blücher and Wellington then attack each in turn, he could bring his temporary superior strength to bear and defeat them both. Napoleon knew that Blücher preferred to attack, while Wellington preferred to defend – and he planned his strategy accordingly.

Attack in the Netherlands

The opportunity for which Napoleon was looking came in the first week of June when the disposition of the Allied armies shifted somewhat. Wellington moved his left-wing units back towards Brussels, while at the same time Blücher moved his right-wing units slightly towards Namur. This opened up a small gap between the two armies. In itself this might not have been crucial, but the gap was at the town of Charleroi, a key position where many roads met and where there were good bridges over the river Sambre.

If Napoleon grabbed Charleroi he would have put his army between those of Wellington and Blücher. He could, therefore, attack whichever one he wanted to destroy first before the other had a realistic chance of concentrating its forces from its dispersed billets and getting into action. Knowing that Blücher was more likely to attack aggressively than was Wellington, Napoleon decided to destroy the Prussian army first.

Having decided to fight the decisive battle in the Netherlands, Napoleon had to arrange his own deployments. In this he was aided by Marshal Louis-Nicolas Davout, arguably the finest French commander of the period – after Napoleon himself.

When Davout took up his position as minister of war a few days after Napoleon’s return he had no idea where the decisive battle might be fought, but guessed it would be either on the Rhine or in the Netherlands.

It had been the French who had first developed the corps system, and Davout now organized Napoleon’s growing army into 12 corps, together with a cavalry reserve and the Imperial Guard. Each corps was a complete army in miniature composed of infantry, cavalry and artillery with its own supply system, staff and command structure. Each corps could, therefore, operate quite independently, or could join with other corps to form a larger army.

The first six corps were all substantial forces commanded by experienced and talented marshals of France, and were all stationed in north-eastern France. The I Corps, under d’Erlon, was at Lille. The II Corps, commanded by Reille, was at Valenciennes. Vandamme was with the III Corps at Rocroi. The IV Corps under Gérard was at Metz. The V Corps, commanded by Rapp, was at Strasbourg. The VI Corps, under Lobau, was near Laon. The cavalry reserve was likewise in north-eastern France, at Guise, while the Imperial Guard was in Paris under Napoleon’s personal command.