Wellington and Waterloo

by Foster, R E

  There was a sound of Revelry by night;

  And Belgium’s Capital had gather’d then

  Her Beauty and Her Chivalry.

  Thus Byron’s imagination immortalised the Duchess of Richmond’s ball for posterity. It also probably explains why so many came to believe that it was held on the eve of Waterloo, not Quatre Bras. Such a detail was inconsequential juxtaposed against the powerful image of youthful manhood enjoying itself when only hours later:

  Who could guess

  If ever more should meet those mutual eyes;

  Since upon Nights so sweet such awful Morn could

  rise?

  The more typical approach to Waterloo was taken by the Poet Laureate, Robert Southey. Somebody who had celebrated news of the battle by going with Wordsworth and other Lakeland acquaintances to the summit of Skiddaw, where they ate roast beef and plum pudding whilst singing the national anthem, might reasonably be expected to write about it.202 The ‘Poet’s Pilgrimage to Waterloo’, a narrative poem of his walk from Brussels to Mont St Jean, duly fulfilled that expectation. Like many, Southey regarded June 1815 as having eclipsed the nation’s exploits of a century before:

  And even our glorious Blenheim to the field

  Of Waterloo and Wellington must yield.

  Roughly a quarter of the poem is given over to an account of the battle with very considerable attention paid to the devastation in and around Hougoumont. But it is Wellington to whom the day belongs:

  The leader, on whose equal mind

  Such interests hung in that momentous day;

  So well had he his motley troops assigned,

  That where the vital points of action lay,

  There had he placed those soldiers whom he knew

  No fears could quail, no dangers could subdue.

  In ‘Poet’s Pilgrimage’, it is Napoleon who is not mentioned at all. The Prussians too, appear only in one line to rout the French (‘Consummated their great and total overthrow’). It is the Duke’s,

  Our great Commander’s eagle eye

  Which comprehended all, secured the victory.

  Published in 1816, the poem was a commercial and critical success. It generated £215 within two months of its first publication. The June 1816 Monthly Review declared that, ‘The Pilgrimage to Waterloo appears to us to be […] the best of the numerous effusions on that victory.’ By the end of 1817, the second edition could be bought for 10s 6d.203

  The Duke did not meet Southey until 1824. Generally, he did not like poets. ‘I hate the whole race. I have the worst opinion of them. There is no believing a word they say – your professional poets, I mean – there never existed a more worthless set than Byron and his friends for example.’ A relative exception to his rule was Walter Scott, who had idolised Wellington since at least the Battle of Talavera. Scott spent a fortnight in Brussels in August 1815 and then three weeks in Paris, seeing Wellington ‘repeatedly’, even sitting next to him at supper, ‘by special invitation’, where he heard all ‘about his campaigns & particularly about the Battle of Waterloo’.204 With the benefit of such privileged access he duly completed the manuscript of ‘The Field of Waterloo’. It was published on 23 October with an initial print run of 6,000. Like Southey he judged the battle to be greater than that of Agincourt or Blenheim. So too, he left the reader in no doubt whose contribution was decisive:

  But HE, his country’s sword and shield,

  Still in the battle-front revealed,

  Where danger fiercest swept the field,

  Came like a beam of light,

  In action prompt, in sentence brief –

  ‘Soldiers, stand firm!’ exclaimed the Chief,

  ‘England shall tell the fight!’

  Scott was savaged by the critics. As the anonymous author of ‘On the lamented fall of a late poet in “The Field of Waterloo”’ put it:

  On Waterloo’s ensanguined plain

  Full many a gallant man was slain,

  But none, by sabre or by shot,

  Fell half so flat as Walter Scott.205

  The public, however, disagreed. ‘The Field of Waterloo’ was in its third edition by the end of 1815 with people encouraged to buy it if only because profits were being donated to the Waterloo Fund.206

  More durable in literary terms was Scott’s January 1816 Paul’s Letters to His Kinsfolk. Comprising sixteen chapters – or letters – to his relations, they are a good example of a popular contemporary literary genre. In Scott’s case, however, they were far more than fiction, corresponding closely with what he had written in his private correspondence. This was in turn based on research and his first-hand dinner experiences, for example Wellington’s claims that he was confident of holding out all day on 18 June without Prussian help; similarly that he could have conducted a retreat through, and defence of, the forest of Soignes long enough for the Prussians to have come to his assistance the next day. Though not purporting to be history as such, letter eight provides a detailed account of Waterloo, including what Sir Colin Campbell thought to be ‘the best and most correct [account] that had yet been published’ of Wellington’s ubiquitous directing genius during the battle.207

  Whilst it is reasonable to suppose that Wellington did indeed utter the sentiments Scott ascribes to him, one should bear in mind that he was meeting him nearly three months after the battle and that he knew Scott would almost certainly publish. Some retrospective embroidering was inevitable. Gone, therefore, are Wellington’s concerns that he might not be able to save Brussels; banished too, the idea that there was any doubt that his army alone could have prevailed or that the battle was a close run thing. More reliable, perhaps, in terms of what the Duke really thought, is the record of a conversation he had with Thomas Sydenham on 14 July, when memories were still raw. Compared to a month before, it offers us a more nuanced assessment of how well British troops had performed at Waterloo but is chiefly important for providing us with a more definite and coherent view of how the battle climaxed than that contained in his Despatch:

  I observed that in talking of the Battle of Waterloo, he invariably mentioned it with some expression of horror, such as, ‘It was a tremendous affair’, ‘It was a terrible battle’, ‘it was a dreadful day’, holding both his arms above his head and shaking his hands. He repeatedly said he had never taken so much pains with a battle; that no battle had ever cost him so much trouble or anxiety; that he owed the victory entirely to the admirable conduct of old Spanish infantry (meaning the regiments which had served under him in Spain), which he says he is certain is the best infantry in the world; that the other English regiments, though they behaved tolerably well, yet often in the course of the day shuffled, got unsteady, and alarmed, and that it required great exertion to keep them together. As for all the rest of the troops, they repeatedly gave way, and would probably have left the field altogether if they had not had the infantry to rally under […] I asked the Padrone what had led to the sudden and general extinction of the French army. He said that a general attack on the left of his line having entirely failed, the enemy retired with great precipitation and in much disorder. Soon after this he observed the fire of Bülow’s columns advancing rapidly on the flank and rear of the enemy. He then saw he could attack the enemy with certain success and immediately ordered the whole line to advance.208

  In other words, Wellington was now unambiguous that he had defeated the Imperial Guard before the Prussian intervention became consequential. Neither, in this fresh telling of the story, was his German ally deemed to have been decisive. This may well be what the Duke saw and what he remembered – or what he thought he saw and remembered. More probably, it was the version of events he had settled on after a month’s reflection. Either way, it had become, at least for him, the unalterable truth.

  The Duke was clearly happy, as his conversation with Sydenham illustrates, to talk informally about Waterloo. Croker, who dined with him in Paris in July, reported him ‘in exceeding good spirits; he was ready enough to give d
etails of his battle’. Peel confirmed much the same thing. Wellington was even prepared to take the time and trouble to think about, and nominate, Corporal James Graham to the Reverend J. R. Norcross as a man deserving of an annuity for bravery during the defence of Hougoumont.209 Perhaps, now beginning to enjoy his victory and surrounded by friends, he genuinely believed that his account of events would come to be accepted. In Britain, at least in broad terms during his lifetime, it would be.

  But, as he quickly discovered, acceptance would not extend to every salient point. Wellington particularly objected to elements of Southey’s article on himself for the July 1815 number of the leading Tory intellectual journal, the Quarterly Review. Southey, though relatively less laudatory about Wellington and Waterloo in his prose than in his poetry, was hardly overly-critical: his article accepted the Duke’s contention that the battle was won before the weight of Prussian numbers became significant and credited him with being ‘everywhere; always where the struggle was most arduous’. But his proofs did dare to suggest that the Duke had been caught somewhat off guard on 15 June and that the Prussians had contributed materially to the day. As he put it, ‘Even if the British Army had not repulsed the enemy, assailed him, and already driven him to flight, this movement of the Prussians [on Napoleon’s right] would have been decisive.’ Via Croker in Dublin, forewarning of the piece reached Wellington in Paris. Even though, on the latter point at least, Southey was only really paraphrasing the Waterloo Despatch, the Duke bridled. As Southey, in turn incensed, recorded, two interpolations were added to what he had written: ‘the first was to deny in the most audacious and insolent terms that the Duke of Wellington had been surprised, and that of the second to deny in the same manner that any merit whatever was due to the Prussians in the victory!’ Having got wind that something was amiss (publication of the July number was delayed until late November), Southey used his own reputation to insist that Croker’s supposed emendations be omitted. Wellington and his proxy were defeated. John Taylor Coleridge judged it ‘a compleat trial of principle […] he has […] exposed himself to the full weight of the Duke of Wellington’s personal indignation for the sake of historic truth […] Lord Wellington has behaved as smally as Southey has greatly.’210 It was a sign of things to come.

  Even as this tussle was unfolding, Croker proposed, at the start of August 1815, that he might himself write an account of Waterloo. Though Wellington hardly enthused at the suggestion, he responded to his friend with the promise that, ‘I am most ready to give you every assistance and information in my power.’ Ten days later, he duly obliged, providing him with answers to a list of queries, including when the battle had started and the loss of La Haye Sainte. But his earlier caveats had hardened by then into the conviction that, ‘You may depend upon it you will never make it a satisfactory work.’ Croker thereupon deferred to the Duke’s recommendation ‘to leave the battle of Waterloo as it is’.211 Other would-be authors received shorter shrift. William Mudford, for example, was refused permission to dedicate his account of Waterloo to him the following spring. At the same time, Sir John Sinclair, the former Scottish MP and agriculturalist, recalled that his soliciting Wellington’s help for a history of the battle had elicited the less-than-helpful response that:

  I can give you no information that would be of any use to you. My mind was so completely occupied with the great events of the battle, that I could not pay any attention to its minor details. All that I can tell you is, that we met the enemy; that we fought a battle; and that we gained a victory.212

  This was partly literary license on Sinclair’s part but it was true that he, like Croker, had been favoured with the considered opinion that ‘the Duke entertains no hopes of ever seeing an account of all its details which shall be true’.213

  Wellington’s responses raised the not unreasonable questions, asked by Mudford and Sinclair, as to whether he was opposed to all histories of the battle, and, if not, what sources might with propriety be used? The Duke, it turned out, was not opposed to Britons having an accurate history:

  but I do object to their being misinformed and misled by those novels called ‘Relations’, ‘Impartial Accounts,’ & C. & C., of that transaction, containing the stories which curious travellers have picked up from peasants, private soldiers, individual officers, & C. & C., and have published to the world as the truth.

  An accurate history could be written only on the basis of reliable, official reports. But Alava’s had got some details wrong, whilst Müffling’s was flawed by his having been off the field towards the end of the battle. Thus he could refer them ‘only to my own despatches published in the “London Gazette”’ – in other words the Waterloo Despatch was definitive!214 It was a circular and, in Wellington’s mind, neat argument.

  If he honestly believed it, Wellington’s logic was also naive. Though he was genuinely disgusted with all that he had read about Waterloo, he could not stop fresh outpourings on the subject. It also raises the question of why the official Prussian record of the campaign should be viewed as being of inferior authority to his. Arguably the best way of arbitrating between the two is to consider the French perspective. Napoleon, after all, was better placed than anyone to pass judgement on the relative importance of the Anglo-Allied and Prussian forces ranged against him. Decoster’s testimony appears to lend weight to Wellington’s version of events, that the British had won the battle. Bonaparte, he maintained, watched as the Imperial Guard was ‘annihilated in an instant […] when he saw the old guard destroyed, he lost all hope; and, turning to Bertrand, said, “All is now over – let us save ourselves.”’215 It is to Wellington’s credit that he never cited this, consistent as he was in deriding peasants as the lowest of all possible sources. Decoster is nevertheless supported by other accounts from the French side. An anonymous Frenchman’s account of the battle relating ‘that the French army was disordered, and even beaten, before the arrival of the Prussian troops’ was widely republished in the British press. The newspapers also reproduced a letter of 18 July from an anonymous sailor – Napoleon had surrendered himself to British custody three days earlier – claiming to have heard him say that:

  never was a battle so severely contested as that of Waterloo […] they were only overcome by the superiority of British discipline and British intrepidity. He was astonished at the firmness with which his charges were received and repulsed by our troops […] and he feels no hesitation in saying that the Duke of Wellington was a better general than himself.216

  The latter account, if true, may well have been an attempt by Napoleon to ingratiate himself with his captors. If so, it failed. His incarceration on St Helena did not thereafter predispose him favourably towards his jailers. Whilst there, he was served as secretary for a time by General Baron Gaspard Gourgaud. In 1818, Gourgaud’s account of the Waterloo campaign – by proxy, Napoleon’s – was published in English. It caused a furore, given added grist by the fact that Gourgaud was then living in England, albeit in the process of being deported, controversially, under the terms of the Aliens Act. The Times dismissed him as ‘this silly man’ and refused to give credence to this ‘very foolish account of the battle of Waterloo’.217

  Gourgaud’s book is very obviously an exercise in self-exculpation tempered by sour grapes: Napoleon insisted that he was badly let down by Grouchy and Ney; by all the laws of probability he ought to have triumphed on 18 June. There is little on Wellington as such, though the Duke is censured for not knowing where the French were before 15 June, and for fighting in front of a forest at Mont St Jean. He should also have retreated further north and joined with the Prussians before risking battle. What raised British hackles most, however, was that the explanation for Waterloo’s outcome accorded more with Gneisenau’s despatch than Wellington’s. Napoleon, through Gourgaud, claimed that without the necessary diversion of Lobau and sections of the Imperial Guard, the full weight of the French Army would have won the day by 3 p.m. Instead, Ziethen’s arrival impacted decisively upon the
morale of both the Anglo-Allied and French armies.218

  Napoleon was clearly inconsistent in explaining his defeat. In his mind, the main point was that he should not have been defeated. What to him was the incidental detail of whether a British or Prussian Army had prevailed largely depended upon his mood. Sir Thomas Reade, who spoke with him on St Helena, had it right when he said that Bonaparte had told him:

  that the Duke of Wellington, ought, if he had been a good general, to have retreated, and not made his stand where he did. Yet, at other times, feeling peculiarly indignant at the Prussians, he, of course, will not allow them to have had any share in the result of that action, but describes his defeat to the firmness of the English infantry alone, by which all his plans were disconcerted.219

  The publication of Gourgaud’s account was nevertheless taken sufficiently seriously that it prompted a substantial letter to the British press saying that it offered a different interpretation from the one the British had become used to. It restated at length the Wellingtonian line: that the Duke had acted cautiously but prudently on 15 June. Whilst not denying that the Prussians made a contribution to the success of the day, Wellington had ordered his army to advance with the French already in confused retreat. The letter is simply signed as being from ‘a British officer present’. Given that he was evidently well-informed, he was presumably somebody senior, possibly FitzRoy Somerset.