The Battle of Waterloo: Europe in the Balance (6 page)

Louis-Nicolas Davout, 1770 - 1823

Chapter 3
 
‘Humbugged me, by God’
 

Wellington to the earl of Malmesbury, 15 June 1815[6]
 

As dusk fell on 14 June the Prussian commander of I Corp, Zieten, ordered his men to sleep in their uniforms and with their weapons within reach. Additional outposts were pushed forward and officers told to rouse their men an hour before dawn. He was expecting to be attacked and was determined not to be taken by surprise.

Wellington went to sleep in a calmer state of mind. Unknown to his allies, or indeed nearly all his own commanders, Wellington had sent his top spy south of the French border. Colonel Grant was riding in uniform – so that he would not be shot if captured – but he was co-ordinating a mass of royalist sympathisers who could move freely about northern France. Wellington had relied upon Grant during the Peninsular War, and he was depending on him again now. Wellington had learned to trust no intelligence, no matter how outwardly impressive, unless Grant had approved it. Now Wellington would not move until he had word from Grant.

On the evening of 14 June the long-awaited message from Grant arrived. It was accurate in every detail, giving Napoleon’s strength and the road he was taking towards Brussels. The message arrived at the Hanoverian cavalry outposts of General von Dornberg’s division on Wellington’s far right flank. Dornberg passed the message on promptly but, not realizing the significance, omitted to state that the message had come from somebody called Grant. When the message arrived at Wellington’s headquarters it was added to the pile of incoming reports from scouts. In all likelihood, Wellington never even saw it.

Wellington and Blücher met to discuss the latest intelligence and scouting reports.

Only a few days before, Wellington and Blücher had met and discussed despatches from their superior, Schwarzenberg. These had reviewed the latest intelligence and scouting reports. It was generally agreed that Napoleon would behave as he had done in 1814 when defending France and launch a pre-emptive strike across the upper Rhine. Militarily it was the sensible thing to do. Blücher and Wellington had separated agreeing that they would invade France together once Napoleon had attacked on the Rhine. By the evening of 14 June nothing had happened to change their minds.

Around 3 am soldiers in a Prussian outpost were surprised to find themselves approached by three French officers. The surprise grew greater when the officers turned out to be General Louis de Bourmont and two colonels. Bourmont brought with him a copy of Napoleon’s orders to his army for the next few days. He was taken to see Blücher, who instead of welcoming Bourmont called him a traitor to his face. Blücher’s chief of staff, August von Gneisenau, stepped in to remind Blücher that Bourmont now wore the royalist white cockade in his hat and was therefore an ally.

‘Cockade be damned,’ shouted Blücher. ‘A dirty dog is a dirty dog.’ He threw Bourmont out of his headquarters and refused to see him again.

Despite his anger, Blücher had gained from Bourmont’s defection. He now knew beyond doubt that Napoleon and his main army were marching into the Netherlands. What he did not know was quite what Napoleon’s intentions were.

Hearing of the desertion, Napoleon made some changes to his plans, but the overall pattern could not be altered substantially as the men were already marching.

The fighting begins

The first shots were fired at 3.30 am when French advanced scouts made contact with outposts of Zieten’s corps. At about 4.30 am Zieten himself heard the rumble of distant cannon fire at his headquarters. The noise was coming from the south and, after spending some time trying to pinpoint the source of the noise more accurately, Zieten sent messengers to Blücher and Wellington announcing that his outposts were being attacked and that, should the attack turn out to be serious, he would fall back towards Fleurus.

Although Zieten could not be certain, the cannons were in fact French guns firing directly south of Charleroi. They marked the French assault on Zieten’s most southerly units as they marched directly north to seize Charleroi.

When Blücher received Zieten’s report at about 10.30 am he sent out messages ordering his corps commanders to hurry up and get to Sombreffe as fast as possible. One of those orders – to von Bülow, the commander of the Prussian IV Corps – was to cause massive confusion. An earlier order had told Bülow to march his corps to Hannut, a few miles to the north-east of Sombreffe. This was probably to prevent the Prussian army congesting the roads, but Bülow had managed to convince himself that the entire Prussian army was going to gather at Hannut.

Matters were not helped by the fact that Bülow outranked Blücher’s chief of staff, Gneisenau, and was notoriously prickly about status. Rather then write the sort of blunt order he would address to other officers, therefore, Gneisenau had couched his message to Bülow as a request. Bülow completely failed to gather from this message that there was any urgency at all. Not realizing that Napoleon was attacking, Bülow continued to Hannut and spent the night there.

Bülow sent a message to Blücher informing him of what he was doing. Blücher fired off an angry response telling Bülow to march to Gembloux to join up with the rest of the Prussian army. This confused Bülow even more. In the event he let his men sleep and did not move until the morning of the 16 June.

Zieten’s message to Wellington arrived at a little after 9 am. Wellington was frustrated by the rather vague nature of the message. Cannon were firing somewhere south of Zieten’s headquarters. That could mean anything. Still concerned about his communications to the Channel ports, and having received no message from the spy Grant, Wellington sent urgent messages to his own forward units asking for news of any enemy movements to their front. Crucially this message for the first time told his forward commanders to instantly tell him if a message arrived from somebody called Grant. Unfortunately when the message reached Dornberg, who had earlier received a report from Grant, it was merely logged by his staff.

A regiment of hussars of the King’s German Legion sent back a report of a party of French cavalry probing north near Mons towards the right flank of Wellington’s position. This caused Wellington real concern. Was Napoleon merely feinting toward Charleroi while the real attack would be toward the Channel ports? In fact the French cavalry were a strong force sent by Napoleon to find out if Wellington was still in position or if he had moved to join Blücher.

Zieten was, meanwhile, organizing a fighting retreat. As he had earlier decided, he fell back toward Fleurus. This town lay between Blücher’s headquarters at Namur and Wellington’s at Brussels. He could, therefore, continue to act as a link between the two main armies. At 11 am Zieten abandoned Charleroi and its important road junction. There then followed a pause while the French main body got over the river Sambre, resuming their advance at 3 pm.

It was at about this time that a wounded Prussian cavalryman arrived at Quatre Bras, a crossroads where the Namur-Nivelles road crosses that from Charleroi to Brussels. There he found the 2nd Nassau Regiment peacefully encamped and entirely unaware that any fighting was taking place at all. The Nassau Regiment was part of the Netherlands Army, which was under Wellington’s command. Major Philip von Normann of the Nassauers listened to what the Prussian had to say. He then sent a galloper off to Brussels to give Wellington the news, pushed scouts south toward Charleroi and drew his men up for battle. The man riding to Brussels passed several other units of the Netherlands army and told them his news.

News of the fighting had meanwhile arrived at the headquarters of the Dutch army. Their commander was Prince William of Orange, later to become King William II of the Netherlands. Prince William had served in the British army for two years from 1811 to 1813, mostly on active service in the Peninsular War under Wellington. His jovial nature and calm courage under fire won him many admirers in the British army. He was, however, still only 23 years old during the Waterloo Campaign and comparatively inexperienced.

Having interviewed the scouts who had seen the French around Charleroi, Prince William leapt on his horse and, with a small escort, spurred north to tell Wellington what was going on. Arriving in Brussels, William found Wellington at about 5 pm and blurted out his news. Wellington listened patiently, then asked some questions. Prince William’s news did not really add very much to what he already knew. The French were attacking near Charleroi but in numbers that might add up to only a single corps. The location of the bulk of Napoleon’s army was still unknown. The Prince of Orange rode back to his headquarters to discover more news.

Wellington’s orders

Nevertheless, Wellington decided it was time to take action. The messages were written by Wellington’s aide, Sir William de Lancey, and sent out by courier. The messages were clear, but cautious. All divisions were to gather together immediately and be ready to march at dawn next day.

At 6 pm scouting parties of French lancers appeared in front of Normann’s Nassauers south of Quatre Bras. Skirmishing followed, forcing Normann to fall back to the crossroads. A Netherlands battery of cannon arrived at this point and opened fire, driving the lancers away. The cannon fire was heard by Prince Bernhard of Saxe Weimar, who at once marched his three regiments towards the sound of gunfire. He arrived at Quatre Bras at about 8 pm and took command of the situation. By nightfall he had with him a mixed force of Dutch and Brunswick troops that together made up about half a division in strength.

Among the men who received Wellington’s orders was Count Perponcher, who commanded the 2nd Netherlands Division – of which both Normann and Saxe Weimer were a part. His orders told him to collect his men at Nivelles and be ready to march at dawn next day. Only a short time earlier, however, Perponcher had received messages from Saxe Weimer outlining the situation at Quatre Bras. He recognized the strategic importance of the crossroads and concluded that it was his duty to try to hold it. He ignored the direct orders of Wellington, reasoning that Wellington must have issued his orders before he heard of events at Quatre Bras. Instead of gathering his division at Nivelles, he mustered it at Quatre Bras.

At the same time none of the Prussian corps were where Blücher wanted them to be. The II Corps was camping about about 10 km from Sombreffe, the III Corps about 25 km away and Bülow’s unfortunate IV Corps was 100 km away. Zieten’s I Corps was closest – at Fleurus; but his men were tired after a long day of a fighting retreat. In fact the only Prussians at Sombreffe were Blücher himself and his headquarters staff.

Dancing in Brussels

Wellington was at this point arriving in his finest evening clothes at a ball being given by the duchess of Richmond. The ball had been arranged some days in advance, and Wellington had made it clear that he wanted it to go ahead. The last thing he wanted was for panic to spread among the civilians of Brussels. Fear would achieve nothing, and if the civilians fled they would block the roads that Wellington was going to need for his army. Whatever else happened, Wellington was determined to give the impression that everything was perfectly normal.

Soon after the ball began, the Prussian liaison officer, General Karl von Müffling, arrived with detailed news of events from Blücher. The message had been written at noon and gave detailed descriptions of what Blücher knew of the events so far. This was the first time that Wellington was made aware that the main French body was crossing the river Sambre at Charleroi. Wellington retired to a side room to read the despatches and discuss them with his senior officers.