The Waterloo Campaign.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 810, 9 September 1887, Page 10

The Waterloo Campaign.

In an interesting review of -*iL» Campagne •de 1815,’ published at Brussels, the Avenir Militaice of April 15 gives some views of the battle ©£ Waterloo from a standpoint different from that which is generally taken, in this country. The Avenir Militaire remarks that if a Frenchman be asked what was the cause of the defeat of Napoleon, he will answer, ‘The treason and the faults of his general*.'* An Englishman, on the contrary, will attribute it to the solidity of the British troops. The Avenir contends that it was the Hank march of Blncher which was the essential factor of the military operations of the day. A Prussian prince, bearing the honored name of Bluchsr, a diplomatist and a soldier——still, we believe, alive—visiting Aspley House, and looking there in vain for any souvenir of his great ancestor, asked with simplicity, ‘ls it still belie ved-by anyone in England that Wellington -won the battle of Waterloo {all by himself:

From the other Bide we may repeat a story which we heard recently from the lips of a French prince. When he was a boy there often came to his father’s house one of the most distinguished of generals, and from him he heard au incident exceedingly, characteristic af the feeling at the time amongst the great officers of the French army. It was after the combat at Quatre Bras. Napoleon had issued his orders for the attack on the allied position, and the general who told the story, meeting Ney on the evening of Jane 17, said to him, ‘We are ordered to attack, I see, in battalion columns. I fear that the Emperor has not sufficiently considered the terrible effect of the fire of English infantry drawn up in line, converging on the heads of columns. If the Emperor had had any experience of the tremendous power of fire from loug lines of infantry on the narrow heads of the columns, as you and I had in -Spain, I am sure he would have modified his tactics, :1s it too late to point out to his Majesty the necessity of some alterations in the attack on the English ?’ The genera replied, * I am a cavalry officer, and I certainly am not inclined to be told by the Emperor to mind my own business. So if you want to speak to his Majesty about the subject, you had better do it yourself!’ Tne other observed, •I have already had a wigging to-day, and I do not care to run the risk of another.’ And so the matter ended. The faults committed on both sides were stupendous. Wellington was certainly caught dancing, if not napping, at Brussels. He kept 17,000 troops at Kal’-e, fearing for his communications during the battle ; whilst, as Grouchy was marching against the last line of communication of ths Prussians by Louvain, Blucher abandoned his communications with Liege, and fell back on Wavre. Bat Wellington, as Colonel Chesney points out, had no faith in his allies, and therefore he held on like a bulldog to his ships at > Ostend ; while Blucher, on the other band, quite sure of his allies, risked everything to keep his position in contact with him, and completely deceived Napoleon who, grandest of all strategists as he was, could not believe it possible that the Prussians could attack his flank at Waterloo. It is often overlooked in ■ this country that the coup de foudre which Napoleon meditated on the Prussians wa3 averted by the desertion of General Bourmont and two of his Btaff officers ,to Blucher on the morning of the 15th, with the news that he was to be attacked immediately, which caused him to concentrate the whole of his army cn Sombrtff. It is Interesting to read in a French author, Qainet, an account of the charges of English Cavalry on the squares of the French Guard, which to a certiin extent reverses the role in English narratives, where the English equares are. represented as being exposed to the constant attacks of the French horse. Tne French author asserts that no regiment or brigade of our cavalry broke the ranks of the Imperial Guard, who saved their colours—hat is to say, their eagles—and were only finally borne down by the press of fugitives and by the combined attacks of the whole of the allied armies. M. Taine and other eminent Frenchmen have sought to take down Napoleon from the summit of the historical column more lasting than that which the Communists levelled and M. Thiers restored in the Place Vendome. If it ia the glory of Weliington to have been'the conqueror of conquerors, it is to hia credit that he has rendered homage to the personality of Napoleon, to whose presence on the field he attributed the value of many thousands of men. Bonaparte will be to all time one of the not many great generals in whom the power of command, the faculty of execution, and conception were united in a stupendous whole, constituting him Imperator—a master •in war, in administration, and in imperial attributes. —Army and Navy Gazette.