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We have seen what the 15th of June was in those four short days of which Waterloo was to be the climax. That Thursday was filled with an advance, rapid and unexpected, against the centre of the allied line, and therefore against that weak point where the two halves of the allied line joined, to wit, Charleroi and the country immediately to the north of that town and bridge.

We have further seen that while the unexpectedness of the blow was almost as thorough as Napoleon could have wished, the rapidity of its delivery, though considerable, had been less than he had anticipated. He had got by the evening of the day not much more than three-quarters of his forces across the river Sambre, and this passage, which was mapped out for completion before nightfall, straggled on through the whole morning of the morrow—a tardiness the effects of which we shall clearly see in the next few pages.

Napoleon’s intention, once the Sambre was crossed, was to divide his army into two bodies: one, on the left, was to be entrusted to Ney; one, on the right, to Grouchy. A reserve, which the Emperor would command in person, was to consist in the main of the Imperial Guard.

The left-hand body, under Ney, was to go straight north up the great Brussels road.

Napoleon rightly estimated that he had surprised the foe, though he exaggerated the extent of that surprise. He thought it possible that this body to the left, under Ney, might push on to Brussels itself, and in any case could easily deal with the small and unprepared forces which it might meet upon the way. Its function in any case, whether resistance proved slight or formidable, was to hold the forces of Wellington back from effecting a junction with Blucher and the Prussians.

Meanwhile, the right-hand body, under Grouchy, was to fall upon the extremity of the Prussian line and overwhelm it.

Such an action against the head of the long Prussian cordon could lead, as the Emperor thought, to but one of two results: either the great majority of the Prussian force, coming up to retrieve this first disaster, would be defeated in detail as it came; or, more probably, finding itself cut off from all aid on the part of Wellington’s forces to the west and its head crushed, the long Prussian line would roll up backwards upon its communications towards the east, whence it had come.

In either case the prime object of Napoleon’s sudden move would have been achieved; and, with the body upon the left, under Ney, pushing up the Brussels road, the body upon the right, under Grouchy, pushing back the head of the Prussian line eastward, the two halves of the Allies would be separated altogether, and could later be dealt with, each in turn. The capital disadvantage under which Napoleon suffered—the fact that he had little more than half as many men as his combined enemies—would be neutralised, because he would, after the separation of those enemies into two bodies, be free to deal with either at his choice. Their communications came from diametrically opposite directions,5 and, as the plan of each depended upon the co-operation of the other, their separation would leave them confused and without a scheme.

Napoleon in all this exaggerated the facility of the task before him; but before we go into that, it is essential that the reader should grasp a certain character in all military affairs, to misunderstand which is to misread the history of armies.

This characteristic is the necessary uncertainty under which every commander lies as to the disposition, the number, the order, and the information of his opponents.

It is a necessary characteristic in all warfare, because it is a prime duty in the conduct of war to conceal from your enemy your numbers, your dispositions, and the extent of your information. It is a duty which every commander will always fulfil to his best ability.

It is therefore a characteristic, be it noted, which no development of human science can conceivably destroy, for with every advance in our means of communicating information we advance also in our knowledge of the means whereby the new means of communication may be interrupted. An advantage over the enemy in the means one has of acquiring knowledge with regard to him must, of course, always be of supreme importance, and when those means are novel, one side or the other is often beforehand for some years with the new science of their use. When such is the case, science appears to uninstructed opinion to have changed this ancient and fixed characteristic which is in the very nature of war. But in fact there has been no such change. Under the most primitive conditions an advantage of this type was of supreme importance; under conditions the most scientific and refined it is an advantage that may still be neutralised if the enemy has learnt means of screening himself as excellent as our means of discovering him. Even the aeroplane, whose development in the modern French service has so vastly changed the character of information, and therefore of war, can never eliminate the factor of which I speak. A service possessed of a great superiority in this new arm will, of course, be the master of its foe; but when the use of the new arm is spread and equalised among all European forces so that two opposing forces are equally matched even in this new discovery, then the old element of move and countermove, feint, secrecy, and calculated confusion of an adversary, will reappear.6

In general, then, to point out the ignorance and the misconceptions of one commander is no criticism of a campaign until we have appreciated the corresponding ignorance and misconceptions of the other. We have already seen Wellington taken almost wholly by surprise on the French advance; we shall see him, even when he appreciated its existence, imagining it to be directed principally against himself. We shall similarly see Napoleon underestimating the Prussian force in front of him, and underestimating even that tardy information which had reached Wellington in time for him to send troops up the Brussels road, and to check the French advance along it. But we must judge either of the two great opponents not by a single picture of his own misconceptions alone, but by the combined picture of the misconceptions of both, and especially by a consideration of the way in which each retrieved or attempted to retrieve the results of those misconceptions when a true idea of the enemy’s dispositions was conveyed to him.

* * * * *

Here, then, we have Napoleon on the morning of Friday the 16th of June prepared to deal with the Prussians. It is his right-hand body, under Grouchy, which is deputed to do this, while he sends up the left-hand body, under Ney, northwards to brush aside, or, at the worst, at least to hold off whatever of the Duke of Wellington’s command may be found upon the Brussels road attempting to join the Prussians.

The general plan of what happened upon that decisive 16th is simple enough.

The left-hand body, under Ney, goes forward up the Brussels road, finds more resistance than it expected, but on the whole performs its task and prevents any effective help being given by the western half of the Allies—Wellington’s half—to the eastern half—the Prussian half. But it only prevents that task with difficulty and at the expense of a tactical defeat. This action is called Quatre Bras.

Meanwhile, the right-hand body equally accomplishes the elements of its task, engages the head of the Prussian line and defeats it, with extreme difficulty, just before dark. This action is called Ligny.

But the minor business conducted by the left, under Ney, is only just successful, and successful only in the sense that it does, at vast expense, prevent a junction of Wellington with Blucher. The major business conducted on the right, by Napoleon himself, in support of Grouchy, is disappointing. The head of the Prussian line is not destroyed; the Prussian army, though beaten, is free to retreat in fair order, and almost in what direction it chooses.

The ultimate result is that Wellington and Blucher do manage to effect their junction on the day after the morrow of Ligny and Quatre Bras, and thus defeat Napoleon at Waterloo.

Now, why were both these operations, Quatre Bras and Ligny, incompletely successful? Partly because there was more resistance along the Brussels road than Napoleon had expected, and a far larger body of Prussians in front of him than he had expected either; but much more because a whole French army corps, which, had it been in action, could have added a third to the force of either the right or the left wing, was out of action all day; and wandered aimlessly over the empty zone which separated Ney from Grouchy, Quatre Bras from Ligny, the left half of Napoleon’s divided army from its right half.

This it was which prevented what might have been possible—the thrusting back of Wellington along the Brussels road, and even perhaps the disorganisation of his forces. This it was which missed what was otherwise certainly possible—the total ruin of the Prussian army.

This army corps thus thrown away unused in hours of aimless marching and countermarching was the First Army Corps. Its commander was Erlon; and the enormous blunder or fatality which permitted Erlon and his 20,000 to be as useless upon the 16th of June as though they had been wiped out in some defeat is what makes of the 16th of June the decisive day of the campaign.

It was Erlon’s failure to be present either with Ney or with Grouchy, either upon the left or upon the right, either at Quatre Bras or at Ligny, while each of those two actions were in doubt, which made it possible for Wellington’s troops to stand undefeated in the west, for the Prussians to retire—not intact, but still an army—from the east, and for both to unite upon the day after the morrow, the Sunday, and destroy the French army at Waterloo.

It is upon Erlon’s blunder or misfortune that the whole issue turns, and upon the Friday, the 16th of June, in the empty fields between Quatre-Bras and Ligny, much more than upon the famous Sunday at Waterloo, that the fate of Napoleon’s army was decided.

In order to make this clear, let us first follow what happened in the operations of Napoleon’s right wing against the Prussians opposed to it—operations which bear in history the name of “the Battle of Ligny.”