by Tim Clayton
Anybody writing on the Waterloo campaign at present owes a great debt of gratitude to those who have been working hard over recent years to publish manuscript letters and journals and to bring rare published material into wider currency, namely Gareth Glover who is about to publish his own conclusions from the new material he has discovered in Waterloo: Myth and Reality, and John Franklin and their colleagues and collaborators. John Franklin is also making his own interpretation of the new material in a series of books with Gary Embleton, Waterloo 1815. I am also grateful for the hard work of Pierre de Wit in his painstaking and detailed moment-by-moment reconstruction of the campaign in his website ‘The Campaign of 1815: a Study’ (http://www.waterloo-campaign.nl). This is especially useful as a ready way of consulting the orders issued by all armies which are there transcribed in their original language.
The web has made many things possible that were unimaginable a few years ago. For the appearance of places one can get a long way with a combination of Google Earth and the Ferraris survey (http://www.ngi.be/FR/FR1-4-2-3.shtm) but the topography of the Ligny battlefield is exceptionally well presented on the web, with zoomable panoramas from the sites of the windmills used by Napoleon (http://www.fleurus-tourisme.be/photographies/panorama360.htm) and Blücher (http://www.fleurus-tourisme.be/photographies/panorama360bussy.htm), as well as views of all areas of the battlefield (http://napoleon-monuments.eu/Napoleon1er/1815 Ligny-Fleurus.htm) and a selection of useful documents (http://www.fleurus-tourisme.be/napoleon/documents_ancients.htm). Some of the other websites that I have found most useful are listed in the bibliography, but there are a lot, and I would like to say a general thankyou to all concerned in publishing articles, documents, uniforms, discussions and pictures. One of the reasons why I have not included detailed orders of battle for the armies in this book is that they are so readily consultable on the web. Not all are perfect (some details remain debatable!) but they all get the basics right.
For various favours and loans I would like to thank Neil Clayton; Guillaume and Nicolas Cousin and the Poulle family collective; the Marquess of Douro and Lady Jane Wellesley; Bill Drummond; Alan Forrest; Robert Gildea; Loyd Grossman; JJ Heath-Caldwell (for kind gifts and an introduction to his splendid family archive); David Kenyon; Anne Lyles for help with Constable, encouragement and hospitality; Peeps Macdonald, Kevin Rogers; Martin Stiles; Nigel Talbot and the staff of Grosvenor Prints.
I must thank Alastair Massie of the National Army Museum for permission to quote from manuscripts in their collection and the staff there for their help; the staff of the British Library; Cambridge University Library; Alexandra Franklin of the Bodleian Library, Oxford; Josephine Oxley at Apsley House; Professor Chris Woolgar, former Head of Special Collections at the University of Southampton, and the staff of the archive, especially for returning the lead of my laptop; Mark Philp and Katherine Astbury of Warwick University for a useful preliminary exchange of views in the run-up towards their Hundred Days exhibition.
My interest in the Napoleonic period was greatly stimulated and my awareness of its issues broadened through conferences and exhibitions organised by Wolfgang Cillessen, Philippe Kaenel, Alberto Milano and Rolf Reichardt (sorry, Rolf). For help with French affairs I would like to thank Pascal Dupuy for invaluable advice on journalism and caricature in England and France, Philippe de Carbonnières, whose book on the Grande Armée in caricature will appear in the near future, Stéphane Calvet and Martine Sadion.
As ever I owe a great deal to my agent, Julian Alexander, and to regular hosts and friends David and Barbara Bradshaw, Steve and Pauline Mobbs, Phil and Frances Craig, to my old wargaming opponent and now fellow author Robert Fabbri, and to my family who have put up with a lot. (My son is at last proving himself useful, though: I owe one footnote to his research).
I am especially grateful to Sheila O’Connell and her colleagues at the Print Room of the British Museum where I have been helping to prepare and curate the exhibition Bonaparte and the British which will run from February to August 2015. Inevitably, the two projects have collided and those at the British Museum have been very patient over my commitment to Waterloo. At the same time there has been a great deal of cross-fertilisation and it has been extremely useful to discuss ideas and canvass the opinion of the many highly talented specialists I have met there.
NOTES
AN Archives nationales, Paris
BL British Library, London
BM British Museum, London
BNP Bibliothèque nationale, Paris
ImofFr Image of France (website)
NAM National Army Museum, London
SHD Service historique de la Défense, Vincennes
TNA The National Archives, London
WD Wellington’s Dispatches
WSD Wellington’s Supplementary Dispatches
Prologue
1 Lean, Napoleonists, 261.
2 Gneisenau to Hardenberg, 22 June 1815, in Delbrück, Leben, 531.
3 Creevey, Creevey Papers, 236.
4 Pringle, ‘Remarks’, cxli.
5 Wellington to John Wilson Croker, 8 August 1815 in WD, XII, 590.
6 Wellington to Sir John Sinclair, 13 and 28 April 1816 in WSD, X, 507. Sinclair edited Müffling’s History of the Campaign (1816).
7 Wellington to William Mudford, 8 June 1816 in WSD, X, 509.
8 Ellesmere, Personal Reminiscences, 192.
9 James in Glover, Waterloo Archive, I, 6.
10 Lord Uxbridge’s letter giving the officers of his favourite 7th Hussars his authorised version of their ‘complete rout’ is an example: see pp. 263–4.
11 Gourgaud, Campagne, iii; defence of Ney begins with Gamot, Réfutation, Janin, Campagne de Waterloo.
12 Carey, ‘Commissariat officer’, 730.
13 Waymouth in Siborne, Letters, no. 25.
14 For instance, Erckman and Chatrian’s fictional memoir, Waterloo, is quoted by Adkin, Waterloo Companion, 346, as if it were a genuine memoir; the authors claimed, however, that their work was a novel based on interviews with genuine veterans.
1 The Violet Season
1 See Woodberry, Journal, 271; Violettes du 20 Mars after Jean Canu, registered 27 March 1815 (BM 1868, 0808.8194). A print of violets was also published by Marchand in September 1814 (ImofFr. no. 4390).
2 Schom, Hundred Days, 13–15.
3 Mauduit, Derniers jours, I, 204–10, but see Waresquiel, Cent Jours, 86–92.
4 Foulkes, Dancing into Battle, 30.
5 Levavasseur, Souvenirs Militaires, 261–74.
6 Amabel Yorke, Lady Lucas, diary, 30, 67–8 – she noted that the Duchess of Wellington left Paris on 13 March; Ravard to his brother, 27 March 1815, in Calvet, Destins de braves, 43.
7 Edmund Walcot in Brett-James, Hundred Days, 11; see Waresquiel, Cent Jours, 47–53.
8 Postmaster Antoine-Marie Lavalette in Brett-James, Hundred Days, 14; Bourdon de Vatry in Grouchy, Mémoires, 98–9.
9 Chevalier, Souvenirs, 316; Martin, Souvenirs, 268; Canler, Mémoires, 14.
10 Houssaye, 1815: Waterloo, 1.
11 Je jure que ça sent la violette (BM 1868, 0808.8242).
2 The Devil is Unchained
1 Pitt-Lennox, Three Years, 100–1. A dispatch from the Austrian consul at Livorno stating simply that Napoleon had disappeared from Elba caused Metternich to hold an immediate conference; the news was kept secret but rumours spread instantly (Muir, Britain and the Defeat, 344).
2 Hamilton-Williams, Waterloo, 44–8; Hofschröer, German Allies, 30–8.
3 Morris, Memoirs, 55.
4 Miller, Duchess of Richmond’s Ball, 45; see Moore Smith, Life of John Colborne, 210–13.
5 Mackworth in Glover, Waterloo Archive, IV, 8.
6 Capel Letters, 97–8; Hope, Military Memoirs, 92; Miller, Duchess of Richmond’s Ball, 46–7 and 28.
7 Wheatley, Diary, 57.
3 Glory, Liberty and Peace
1 Richard Whately, Historic Doubts relative to Napoleon Buonaparte, Oxford 1819, Third ed
ition 1827, 2; Walter Scott, quoted in Simon Bainbridge, Napoleon and English Romanticism, Cambridge 1995, 9.
2 Couvreur, ‘Des Belges à Waterloo’, 24.
3 Gibney, Recollections, 146–7.
4 Waresquiel, Cent Jours, 217; James, Campaign of 1815, 13n.
5 Charras, Campagne de 1815, 6, 11–12.
6 Mathieu Molé, Director-General of Roads and Bridges, in Tulard, Napoleon, 333.
7 Waresquiel, Cent Jours, 86–7; Bertaud, ‘Regard des Français’, 112.
8 Martin, Souvenirs, 268.
9 The diary of the architect Pierre Fontaine in Tulard, Napoleon, 335.
10 Pion des Loches, Mes Campagnes, 465. Recent studies tend to stress the equivocal nature of the welcome for Bonaparte. See Forrest, ‘Des droits de l’homme à Waterloo’, 70–1; Calvet, Destins de braves, 195–6.
11 Ravard in Calvet, Destins de Braves, 43; Lemonnier-Delafosse, Campagnes, 348–50. Martin, Souvenirs, 167, received an eagle in 1813 and described the experience in very similar terms.
4 Old Hooky Takes Charge
1 WD, XII, 288. The King of Prussia had replaced Kleist with Prince Blücher. Gneisenau took over at Aachen on 2 April and Blücher arrived on 12 April.
2 WD, XII, 292.
3 Longford, Years of the Sword, 32–3.
4 Chandler, Waterloo, 43.
5 Longford, Years of the Sword, 114–22.
6 Charles Greville, The Greville Memoirs: a Journal of the Reigns of King George IV, King William IV and Queen Victoria, ed. Henry Reeve, 3 vols, London: Longmans, II, 83. At the time of Waterloo Greville was private secretary to Lord Bathurst.
7 Chandler, Waterloo, 41–7.
8 Bell, Letters, 230.
9 Tomkinson, Diary, 273.
10 Amabel Yorke, diary, 30, 68; Gibney, Recollections, 148–9.
11 Muir, Britain and the Defeat, 354.
12 Couvreur, ‘Des Belges à Waterloo’, 24 and 26.
13 On 10 April Wellington was expecting to get contingents from Saxony, Brunswick, Oldenburg, Nassau and the Hanse towns. Two days later he complained that apart from the Saxons he was only likely to get the Brunswick corps and was hoping for Portuguese troops (WD, XII, 296, 300 and 302).
14 Jacobi in Glover, Waterloo Archive, II, 121–3.
15 WD, XII, 319.
16 WD, XII, 358.
5 The Prussians
1 Lieber, Letters, 99.
2 Grolmann, ‘The English and Prussian Armies’, 291.
3 Schmidt, Prussian Regular Infantryman, 43.
4 Jackson, ‘Recollections’, part 3, 2.
5 Chandler, Waterloo, 51.
6 Hofschröer, German Allies, 100.
7 WSD, X, 62; Ollech, Feldzuges von 1815, 20-25.
8 WD, XII, 293–4.
9 WSD, X, 69–70; WD, XII, 311. Muir, Britain and the Defeat, 352 agrees that ‘contrary to some accounts, [Gneisenau] showed a great inclination to cooperate closely with the British.’
10 The Examiner, IX, 308.
11 WSD, X, 204–5, 216.
12 WD, XII, 346.
13 Müffling, Memoirs, 231–2; Houssaye, 1815: Waterloo, 116–17; Chesney, Waterloo Lectures, 119; Ollech, Feldzuges von 1815, 45. Müffling, 224, claimed that the demarcation line between Prussians and Britons was his idea, agreed with Lowe in March and afterwards approved by Wellington.
14 Ollech, Feldzuges von 1815, 45–6; WSD, X, 239.
15 Ollech, Feldzuges von 1815, 38–9; Nostitz, ‘Tagebuch’, 11. WD, XII, 345 and 349–50.
16 WD, XII, 350.
6 Honneur aux Braves
1 Charras, Campagne de 1815, 15.
2 Fouché, Memoirs, 283. France and Britain were at peace but if this is true it is typical of Britain’s rapacious commercialism.
3 Morris, Memoirs, 50.
4 Calvet, Destins de braves, 123.
5 Calvet, Destins de braves, 58 and 134.
6 Calvet, Destins de braves, 134n from SHD, 22 Yc 107 (registre matricule of the 13th Demi-brigade of Light Infantry).
7 ‘Rectification de quelques faits relatifs à la campagne de 1815 par un officier général ayant combattu à Waterloo’ in Souvenirs et correspondance, 93.
8 Bowden, Armies at Waterloo, 18 and note.
9 Bonaparte, Mémoires, 161–2.
10 Neither Berthier’s intentions nor his death has ever been explained. Gus Frazer, commander of the Royal Horse Artillery, who had heard about the ‘suicide’ by 9 June, assumed Berthier was hostile: ‘being known to be entirely in Bonaparte’s interest he has been under the surveillance of the police’ (Letters, 531).
11 Guyot, Carnets, 288–9.
12 Soult’s Order of the Day, 1 June 1815, in Mauduit, Derniers jours, I, 463–8.
13 Las Cases, Mémorial, 1823, VII, 179–82; misquoted by Houssaye, 1815: Waterloo, 499–500, see Le Gallo, ‘“Waterloo” de Houssaye’, 58–9.
7 The Scum of the Earth
1 Mainwaring, ‘Four Years’, 406.
2 Hope, Military Memoirs, 379.
3 James, Journal, 6; Gibney, Eighty Years Ago, 156.
4 Tomkinson, Diary, 273–4; Mercer, Journal, 7; Edward Heeley Journal, NAM 1984-09-98.
5 Frazer, Letters, 487; Wheeler, Letters, 160.
6 Haythornthwaite, Waterloo Armies, 41.
7 Haythornthwaite, Armies of Wellington, 54.
8 Hennen, Military Surgery, 159 and 172.
9 A British Officer, ‘The Statements of the Pussian Generals Grollmann and Muffling refuted’, United Service Journal, XCII (July 1836), 311. In June 1815 Parliament was debating military punishment and it was pointed out that in the 10th Hussars in one year sixty-two people had received a total of 14,100 lashes, and that ‘no person would dare treat his own brute animal at Charing Cross as cruelly as those English soldiers were used’ (Morning Post, 22 June 1815, 2). The system was not abolished until 1880, the Duke of Wellington being a strong advocate of strict discipline enforced by corporal punishment and chiefly responsible for its longevity.
10 Since 1782 infantry regiments had had some local affiliation but usually it was merely nominal. The Royal Scots were 18 per cent Scottish, 42 per cent Irish and 37 per cent English; the 73rd, originally a Highland regiment, was 20 per cent Scottish; the Royal Welch Fuzileers were 27 per cent Welsh. The exceptions to this rule were the 27th Inniskilling Fusileers, who when first recruited were 96 per cent Irish (half Protestant, half Catholic), and the three kilted Highland regiments: the Gordon Highlanders and Black Watch were 89 per cent Scottish and the Camerons 82 per cent. Among themselves these soldiers often conversed in Gaelic. TNA, WO 27/77; Haythornthwaite, Waterloo Men, 11.
11 Playford, Lifeguardsman, 9.
12 Morris, Memoirs, 51.
13 Lowe had been attaché to the army of Silesia in 1813–14, so he was able to brief Sir Henry Hardinge on the personalities of Gneisenau and the Prussian Quartermaster-General Karl von Grolmann when Hardinge joined the Prussian staff as liaison officer in April (Müffling, Memoirs, 215).
14 Frazer, Letters, 520; Gibney, Eighty Years Ago, 173.
15 Mackworth in Glover, Waterloo Archive, IV, 14.
16 Urban, Rifles, 261.
17 Woodberry, Journal, 292–3.
18 Woodberry, Journal, 302.
19 Mercer, Journal, 115.
20 Mercer, Journal, 92.
21 Mercer, Journal, 108–9.
8 Intelligence
1 Wellington to Lord Charles Stewart, 8 May 1815, WD, XII, 359.
2 Fouché, Mémoires, II, 341–3; De Bas and Wommerson, Campagne de 1815, I, 346; Mauduit, Derniers jours, I, 495; Hamilton-Williams, Waterloo, 108. Secret intelligence from Paris was a prized asset, guarded with discretion, as Müffling, Memoirs, 218 confirms: ‘The Duke of Wellington communicated to me verbally all I wanted to know; and as this included all his secret intelligence from Paris, I considered these communications confidential, and observed strict silence on the subject of them with all the military envoys at head-quarters.’ Creevey Papers, I, 227.
3 W
D, XII, 336.
4 The idea that Grant was ‘in advance of the British outposts’ came from William Napier in 1857. Long ago, Pflugk-Harttung (Vorgeschichte, 220–2) convincingly discredited Napier, point by point. The unpublished order of battle (Wellington papers 1/466/42) attributed to Colquhoun Grant AQMG is headed ‘Quartier Général à Bruxelles 7 juin 1815’. On Grant see Haswell, Spy, 220; Hamilton-Williams, Waterloo, 148; Fletcher, Desperate Business, 31–2; Uffindell, Eagle’s Last Triumph, 59–60 and 81.
5 See WD, XII, 362, Wellington to Hardinge 8 May. Diarist Fanny Burney’s husband Alexandre d’Arblay was one of those involved.
6 WD, XII, 323.
7 Dörnberg had fought the French until 1806, latterly under Blücher. After the French conquest of Germany he fled to England to organise resistance to French rule of his homeland, Kassel having become the capital of Napoleon’s new Kingdom of Westphalia. With the Tugendbund (‘League of Virtue’), a patriotic German underground movement that included Gneisenau, Grolmann and the Duke of Brunswick, Dörnberg plotted risings in Westphalia as part of a national insurgency in 1809. Dörnberg’s part was dangerous, being planted in Kassel as a double agent, commanding the Jägers of King Jérôme’s guard. In the event, Napoleon swiftly defeated the Austrians and the Prussian conspirators failed to persuade their king to declare war. The risings were crushed, including Dörnberg’s attempt to seize Kassel with 5000 men. Dörnberg escaped in disguise with a price on his head, but joined the Black Brunswickers who fought their way to the mouth of the Elbe. He then fought with the British until 1812, when he was sent to north Germany to foment patriotic resistance to France. The Tugendbund was a Prussian secret society dedicated to the revival of national spirit after the Treaty of Tilsit. It was suppressed by the French after the risings of 1809. See Müffling, Memoirs, 226: ‘Gneisenau, Boyen, Grolmann, were noted as the most active members of the Tugendbund, who were accused of very anti-royal tendencies.’