by Tim Clayton
Once over the river, Napoleon intended to give new orders to his generals according to circumstances. There was no fixed objective for the day, but the ultimate goal was to seize two strategically important crossroads on the cobbled road linking Namur in the east to Nivelles in the north-west at the inns of Quatre Bras and Point du Jour, thus cutting the main line of communication between Wellington’s and Blücher’s armies. These crossroads were about thirty miles distant, and Napoleon must have appreciated that to get so far in one day was ambitious. French armies normally marched between ten and twenty-two miles in a day, so on one when he expected fighting and a contested river crossing, a march of thirty miles was an ideal outcome rather than a realistic expectation.
Heavy rain had been falling all day on 14 June on ground that was already sodden from previous downpours. It was a first depressing blow for the Emperor that conditions for marching were so poor. As a British Guards officer wrote on 15 June, ‘the weather here is at present very unfavourable for campaigning and indeed for all manner of field sports as it rains at all times of the day and night and has done for the last fortnight and promises fair to do the same for another fortnight. I wonder whether St Swithin has anything to do with the state of the weather in this country as in England.’1 The riders carrying Soult’s movement orders rode down from Beaumont in darkness and were soon drenched. The wet conditions did have compensations, though: if Napoleon’s men found progress slow and difficult as they filed along muddy tracks through woodland, it was at least a night to discourage sentries, and even the most zealous and alert could see and hear little in torrential rain that gave way during the night to drizzle and thick mist. The sun rose about a quarter to four but the fog lingered.
The Emperor had ridden out of Beaumont at about half past three with his petit quartier-général and his duty squadrons of Guards cavalry, followed by his service d’expedition of senior staff in a convoy of fourteen carriages and his service léger of thirty green-liveried valets riding mules with portmanteaux strapped to them. Each valet led two more mules each carrying two leather-covered boxes containing silver plates and cutlery, coffee cups, decanters, provisions and bottles of the burgundy – Chambertin – that Napoleon invariably drank, usually diluted with water.
He rode with his Grand Equerry, Albert Fouler, who was responsible for the imperial train and for Napoleon’s horses, one of his duties being to provide a constant supply of fresh mounts. Whenever the party came up against any feature capable of concealing danger, Fouler led the way. Close to the Emperor rode a page with his telescope, Mameluke Ali with a flask of brandy, a cloak and a spare coat, three grooms, Napoleon’s personal surgeon and Dominique Larrey, the Imperial Guard’s surgeon. They were surrounded by a bodyguard of twenty mounted chasseurs, one of whom had charge of a portfolio with maps and writing equipment, and followed by aides and orderlies. Napoleon announced that he would be found riding with the advance guard and wanted his lieutenant-generals to send information and reports to him quickly and frequently. The target was to cross the Sambre before midday.
Jean-Siméon Domon, one of the more brilliant French cavalry commanders, with a thousand green-coated chasseurs-à-cheval, the specialist scouts of the army, had led the way at 2.30 a.m., sending parties of fifty horsemen in all directions to investigate the ground ahead and seize or drive in enemy outposts. The job of the light cavalry, especially these ‘hunters’, was to chase down the enemy – locate, harry and pursue. They were armed with a curved sabre, a pair of pistols and a short musket called a carbine which was generally fired from the saddle, though in emergency they were capable of fighting on foot.
Behind this screen, over which he had authority, rode Claude-Pierre Pajol with six regiments of hussars, lancers and chasseurs – nearly three thousand more light cavalry. Pajol, who had made his name in Napoleon’s great victory over the Austrians and Russians at Austerlitz in 1805, was another of the Emperor’s most trusted lieutenants, brave and flamboyant, astute and resourceful, and a highly experienced leader of horsemen. The hussars differed little from chasseurs except in their brightly coloured dress, fierce moustaches and traditional élan. The lancers meanwhile were the shock troops of the light cavalry, wearing green uniforms with brass helmets; their front rank were armed with nine-foot spears, while their rear rank usually carried carbines. Each cavalry division had its own battery of horse artillery, in which all the gunners were mounted so that it could keep up and act in close support. These intrepid artillerymen regarded themselves as an elite and came into their own in mobile situations such as this, where they could be called in to blast away obstacles obstructing a rapid advance. French horse batteries had four conventional guns firing 6-pound solid shot, and two howitzers to lob explosive shells at troops under cover. Domon had been ordered to give his artillery to the leading battalion of III Corps’ infantry, but Pajol had two batteries with his troops.
The 16,000 infantry and artillery of Dominique Vandamme’s III Corps had orders to march on Charleroi at 3 a.m. Each division was to be accompanied by its artillery and field hospital, but the baggage was not to move until all the troops had passed, and any unauthorised vehicles found with the columns were to be burned. Georges Mouton, comte de Lobau’s VI Corps, 10,300 strong, was to march an hour behind Vandamme and the 4000 Young Guard an hour behind Lobau, followed by the Old Guard.
The trumpets of the leading division of Grouchy’s heavy cavalry sounded the boute-selle, the signal to mount up, at 5 a.m. and they walked off, taking by-roads parallel to the main column. The heavy cavalry were big men on big horses for use on the battlefield as shock troops and were not generally employed for scouting and outpost duties. They comprised cuirassiers who wore steel breast- and back-plates as well as helmets over their blue uniforms, carabiniers whose breast-plates were coated with brass and who wore white with red crests over their brass-plated helmets, and dragoons, dressed in green, who did not wear armour and were more versatile, capable of undertaking any cavalry duty and even of fighting on foot. They were armed with long, straight swords, pistols and dragoon muskets, shorter and lighter than the infantry model.
On the right flank, the 16,000 men of Maurice Gérard’s IV Corps, ‘the army of the Moselle’, was a little behind schedule, straggling after the tough last leg of an eight-day march. Its leading division had passed Philippeville, twenty miles east of Maubeuge, but the other three were all short of the town with the rear one trailing by eleven miles. Their orders were to march on Charleroi at 3 a.m., trying to keep pace with Vandamme, but this was conditional on the corps being closed up at Philippeville; since it was not, a delay while Gérard’s trailing units caught up was inevitable. To slow him down further he was to march closed up in order of battle in case he might be attacked, with his cavalry scouting ahead and to the east. Jacques Delort’s division of cuirassiers was to follow as a rearguard.
On the left flank, on the bank of the Sambre, the drummers of Honoré Reille’s II Corps were to beat the diane at 2.30 a.m. and his 25,000 men were to march at 3 a.m., aiming to reach Marchiennes-au-Pont, eighteen miles away and just to the west of Charleroi, before 9 a.m. On the way, moreover, they were to secure each crossing of the river and let no one pass over so that no news reached Wellington. They were to make sure they captured the bridges before the enemy could destroy them, especially the bridge at Marchiennes by which they would cross the river. Reille was moreover to interrogate the inhabitants of the towns of Thuin and Marchiennes and the intervening villages about the strength and location of the enemy armies and was to seize and read all letters in the post offices. To advance at three miles an hour over minor, winding roads was therefore a challenge.
Jean-Baptiste Drouet, comte d’Erlon’s I Corps, another 20,400 men, was to follow Reille, throwing bridgeheads across the Sambre to secure the bridges at the small town of Thuin and at the ruined Abbaye d’Aulnes. He was to guard the bridges and to send cavalry patrols towards the fortress of Mons and the walled town of Binche to keep an ey
e out for enemy movement, but they were not to cross the border.
The generals were to keep in touch with each other through chains of cavalry patrols and arrange to arrive simultaneously at Charleroi. Each corps was to have Flemish-speaking officers with forward patrols to gather news without revealing that the whole army was behind them, and sappers were to march just behind the first light infantry to clear any obstacles. Sappers were big engineers armed with axes and trained to build and repair bridges and roads, break into a building or prepare it for defence; light infantry was seen as the dynamic innovation of the last twenty years of warfare, being trained to move quickly and to shoot fast and accurately in dispersed formations or in small squads. Little, agile men, they were taught to think for themselves and fight in pairs. They were trained to set ambushes and conduct raids, taught how to operate in woodland, seize hills and storm buildings. Naturally they led an advance or formed the rearguard in a retreat.
The sappers and sailors of the Guard – the sailors were also specialist engineers, for the navy was excellent at improvising ropes, boats and pulleys to move cannon up mountains or across rivers – with the army’s reserve of sappers, were to march just behind the leading element of Vandamme’s III Corps. They were to take only two or three wagons of equipment, leaving the bulk to follow the main body of the corps, and deal with any obstacles on the main route, repairing bad areas of road and making bridges across any awkward streams, ditches or floods. A section of engineers with sufficient components for three pontoon bridges over the Sambre was to accompany the engineering wagons following Vandamme’s men. The heavy cavalry of the Guard – the Empress’s dragoons and the proud Horse Grenadiers – acted as a final rearguard, leaving at 8 a.m.2
The baggage of the entire column came last of all under the orders of the vaguemestre-général, remaining a long distance behind the army. His thankless role was to direct a vast array of vehicles carrying supplies and equipment. First onto the road was the heavy baggage of the Emperor’s household, a huge column of carriages, wagons and horses, followed by the headquarters baggage. After that came the army’s field hospital, the baggage of the Guard and of III and VI Corps, while at the same time the vaguemestre was to get the heavy cavalry baggage following in the wake of the horsemen. The intendant, responsible for paperwork and procurement, was to attach all his administrative staff and their wagons to this column. Each unit was assigned its place and each wagon was numbered and identified.
Every battalion had four authorised women and each squadron two, and they all rode with the baggage. Usually two were vivandières, some owning wagons and some riding horses with huge panniers, carrying brandy and items like writing paper, buttons and vinegar to sell to the soldiers; two were blanchisseuses who washed the soldiers’ shirts and gaiters. Strictly speaking, there was a distinction between vivandières and cantiniers or cantinières, the latter being authorised to bring mobile shops selling a wider range of goods from wagons, but in common usage cantinières and vivandières were synonyms. In addition to these licensed traders there were wagons carrying rations for men and horses. It took fifty wagons to carry two days’ supply of forage for 2500 horses. There were hundreds of wagons carrying rice, dried peas, beans, lentils and salt under the direction of the despised and detested riz-pain-sels who supplied the troops with food. There were masons to build bread ovens and bakers to bake bread. Fifty ovens could supply an army such as this of 123,000 men. Fifty gendarmes helped the vaguemestre keep each vehicle in this immense column in its allotted place. Behind and beside the vast convoy of vehicles there were herds of cattle and sheep being driven along to supply the troops with fresh meat, and behind all that the unauthorised camp followers.
Unsurprisingly perhaps, things did not go smoothly. While trying, in pouring rain, to find Vandamme, who had changed his headquarters without telling anyone where he had gone, the single messenger carrying his movement orders fell off his horse and broke his leg. Consequently, the first Vandamme knew of his order to move came at least an hour late when first General Joseph Rogniat, commander of the army’s engineers, and then Colonel Janin of the staff of VI Corps, tracked him down, complaining that Vandamme’s men, who should be on the march, were instead blocking their path. With the rain having given way to fog, Vandamme’s troops were unaware that the army was on the move, much of it stacked up behind them. Whatever the main cause of the failure to contact Vandamme may have been, the blame has to lie ultimately with Soult’s staff, who should have known Vandamme’s location and should have sent more than one messenger. This was a first, crucial example of the poor staff work that was to prove disastrous during the campaign.3
Taking on Dominique Vandamme was like confronting Shakespeare’s Ajax. Catapulted from private to brigadier-general during the Revolution, Vandamme had led the charge at Austerlitz in the greatest victory of 1805 that regained the Pratzen heights. Napoleon, who rated him for his bravery, brutality and determination, is supposed to have said that were he to launch a campaign against Lucifer in Hell, he would give Vandamme the vanguard, but looting, insubordination and a bad temper made him a difficult colleague. More Jacobin than Bonapartist, he hated Soult for going over to the king and detested Grouchy, the aristocratic cavalry commander, for being made a marshal ahead of him. An officer whose aunt was married to Grouchy reckoned that Vandamme was embittered by the campaign of 1813 and tired of war. He had all the faults of an old grognard: truculent, wilful, insubordinate, ill-disciplined and malevolent, he executed orders in his own time and when he felt like it, not even fearing Napoleon. An aide to Grouchy who delivered messages to Vandamme received so much foul-mouthed abuse that he refused to take any more.4
Vandamme moved fast once he realised he was holding up the army, but the damage was done. Rogniat set off ahead with his engineers but the main column was three hours late. Napoleon ordered the Guard to make forced marches on a parallel byway to overtake Vandamme; its commander, Marshal Mortier, was struck down by sciatica, gout or disgrace and did not leave Beaumont.5
Gérard’s IV Corps was also delayed, first by waiting for its straggling rearguard to reach Philippeville and then when shortly after 5 a.m. the commander of its leading division, Louis de Bourmont, deserted to the enemy taking his staff with him. It took some time for the new divisional commander to reassure and pacify his 9th Light Infantry, who led the column, and the division did not advance until 7 a.m., an hour behind Vandamme.
There had been delays, but the huge operation of moving a large army rarely went off without some time-consuming hitch. By the time Gérard’s men and the Guard broke camp, however, muffled gunfire could already be heard from somewhere deep in the woods that loomed ahead through the mist and drizzle.
13
The Prussian Outposts Attacked
15 June, early morning on the border near Charleroi
Napoleon’s opponent that morning, Hans von Ziethen, the commander of the Prussian I Corps, was intelligent, diligent and energetic, a few months younger than the Emperor. Blücher thought highly of the former hussar who, in the campaigns of 1813 and 1814, had always been ready to execute orders, and had never criticised the high command or complained that too much was being asked of him or his men.1
In the event of a French attack through Charleroi the Prussian staff had determined to make a stand above the village of Ligny, in front of the cobbled highway from Namur to Nivelles. They had reconnoitred this potential battlefield, and distributed the resulting survey to senior officers on 22 May.2 Ziethen’s orders were to fall back as slowly as possible to the town of Fleurus, just in front of the pre-selected battlefield, fighting delaying actions during his corps’ withdrawal.
Ziethen had issued a contingency plan on 2 May so that each of his units knew what to do if the French attacked, and so when they really did attack no fresh orders were needed.3 Ziethen had a line of outposts to raise the alarm, situated roughly seven and a half miles in front of his brigades. A Prussian brigade was equivalent in size to a F
rench or British division and Ziethen had four, of which two were in action: Karl von Steinmetz’s 1st Brigade, based furthest west at the walled town of Fontaine l’Evêque, adjacent to the Netherlands cavalry outposts, and Otto von Pirch’s 2nd Brigade, guarding the bridges at Marchiennes-au-Pont and Charleroi, directly in the French line of march; the 4th Brigade was engaged in watching river crossings further east and Ziethen’s 3rd Brigade was in reserve at Fleurus. In total he had 30,000 men.
On the French left flank it was the job of Honoré Reille, commander of II Corps, to drive things forward. The conscientious Reille was a revolutionary volunteer who had started his career as a simple grenadier. He distinguished himself in Bonaparte’s early Italian campaigns, commanded a division after Austerlitz and was an aide to Napoleon in 1807 and 1809. In Spain he became one of Marshal Soult’s key lieutenants. Reille’s men marched along the narrow road following the high ground south of the river Sambre, which flowed through a valley with wooded hills either side. Scouting ahead were 2000 mounted chasseurs and lancers and a six-gun battery of horse artillery, led by the thirty-seven-year-old Breton aristocrat Hippolyte de Rosnyvinen, comte de Piré, a devoted Bonapartist. Piré’s family had left France at the Revolution. In 1795 he was wounded at Quiberon during the British-inspired royalist attempt to retake Brittany, before fighting with the royalist Armée de la Vendée. When Bonaparte sought reconciliation with the royalists, Piré joined the First Consul’s volunteer hussars. After distinguishing himself at Austerlitz, he fought with the Grande Armée, rising to become général de division in 1813. At Napoleon’s return, Piré immediately declared for him and campaigned with Grouchy against the royalists in Provence. In close support of his cavalry was a light infantry spearhead, the four battalions of the 2nd Light, well over 2000 strong and commanded by another trusty Bonapartist, Pierre-François Maigrot.4 The French were considered to have the best light infantry and Maigrot’s men were the best in Napoleon’s army.