Chapter XV: Appendix: , No. I.--Storming of San Sebastian 493 (14)

But, panic-struck and disorganized, the French resistance was short and feeble. The Prussian cannon thundered in their rear--the British bayonet was flashing in their front--and unable to stand the terror of the charge, they broke and fled. A dreadful and indiscriminate carnage ensued. The great road was choked with equipages, and cumbered with the dead and dying; while the fields, as far as the eye could reach, were covered with a host of helpless fugitives.[315] Courage and discipline were forgotten; and Napoleon’s army of yesterday was now a splendid wreck--a terror-stricken multitude! His own words best describe it-- “It was a total rout!”

Never had France sent a finer army to the field--and never had any been so signally defeated. Complete as the _déroute_ at Vittoria had appeared, it fell infinitely short of that sustained at Waterloo. Tired of slaughtering unresisting foes, the British, early in the night, abandoned the pursuit of the broken battalions and halted. But the Prussians, untamed by previous exertion, continued to follow the fugitives with increased activity, and nothing could surpass the unrelenting animosity of their pursuit. Plunder was sacrificed to revenge--and the memory of former defeat and past oppression produced a dreadful retaliation, and deadened every impulse of humanity. The _væ victis_ was pronounced--and thousands, besides those who perished in the field, fell that night by Prussian lance and sabre.

What Napoleon’s feelings were when he witnessed the overthrow of his guard--the failure of his last hope--the death-blow to his political existence, cannot be described, but may be easily imagined. Turning to an aide-de-camp, with a face livid with rage and despair, he muttered in a tremulous voice--“_A présent c’est fini!--sauvons nous_;” and turning his horse, he rode hastily off towards Charleroi, attended by his guide and staff.

* * * * *

In whatever point of view Waterloo is considered, whether as a battle, a victory, or an event, in all these, every occurrence of the last century yields, and more particularly in the magnitude of results. No doubt the successes of Wellington in Spain were, in a great degree, primary causes of Napoleon’s downfal; but still the victory of Waterloo consummated efforts made for years before in vain to achieve the freedom of the Continent--and wrought the final ruin of him, through whose unhallowed ambition a world had been so long convulsed.

As a battle, the merits of the field of Waterloo have been freely examined, and very indifferently adjudicated.[316] Those who were best competent to decide, have pronounced this battle as that upon which Wellington might securely rest his fame--while others, admitting the extent of the victory, ascribe the result rather to fortunate accident than military skill.[317]

Never was a falser statement hazarded. The success attendant on the day of Waterloo can be referred only to the admirable system of resistance in the general, and an enduring valour, rarely equalled and never surpassed, in the soldiers whom he commanded. Chance, at Waterloo, had no effect upon results;--Wellington’s surest game was to act only on the defensive--his arrangements with Blucher, for mutual support, being thoroughly matured, he knew that before night the Prussians must be upon the field. Bad weather and bad roads, with the conflagration of a town in the line of march, which, to save the Prussian tumbrils from explosion, required a circuitous movement--all these, while they protracted the struggle for several hours beyond what might have been reasonably computed, only go to prove that Wellington, in accepting battle, under a well-founded belief that he should be supported in _four hours_--when single-handed he maintained the combat and resolutely held his ground during a space of _eight_, had left nothing dependent upon accident, but, providing for the worst contingencies, had formed his calculations with admirable skill.

The apologists for Napoleon lay much stress on Ney’s dilatory march on Quatre Bras, and Grouchy’s unprofitable movements on the Dyle. The failure of Ney upon the 16th will be best accounted for by that marshal’s simple statement. His reserve was withdrawn by Napoleon-- and when the Prince of Moskwa required and ordered it forward, to make a grand effort on the wearied English, the corps “was idly parading” between Quatre Bras and Ligny; and during the arduous struggle at both places, that splendid division had never faced an enemy or discharged a musket. Ney’s failure in his attack was therefore attributable to Napoleon altogether--for had his reserve been at hand, who can suppose that the exhausted battalions of the allies, after a march of two-and-twenty miles, and a long and bloody combat, must not have yielded to fresh troops in overpowering masses, and fallen back from a position tenable no longer? To Grouchy’s imputed errors, also, the loss of Waterloo has been mainly ascribed both by Napoleon and his admirers. But that marshal’s conduct was not obnoxious to the censure so unsparingly bestowed upon it--for, had he disobeyed orders, and acceded to the proposition of his second in command, would a movement by his left have effected any thing beyond the delay of Napoleon’s overthrow for a night? By following Girard’s advice, and marching direct on Waterloo, the day would have ended, probably, in a drawn battle--or even Wellington might have been obliged to retire into the wood of Soignies. But in a few hours Blucher would have been up--in the morning the Anglo-Prussian army would have become assailant--and with numbers far superior, who will pretend to say that Napoleon’s defeat upon the 19th, would not have been as certain and as signal as his _déroute_ at Waterloo, upon the fatal evening that closed upon a fallen empire and a last field?

The allied loss[318] was enormous, but it fell infinitely short of that sustained by Napoleon’s army. Of the latter nothing like an accurate return was ever made--but from the most correct estimates by French and British officers, upwards of five-and-twenty thousand men were rendered _hors de combat_; while multitudes were sabred in the flight, or perished on the roads from sheer fatigue, and in deserted villages for want of sustenance and surgical relief.

On the 19th the Duke of Wellington was again in motion, and having crossed the frontier, he marched upon the French capital by Binch, Malplaquet, and Château Cambresis. Colville’s division, composed of part of the sixth British and sixth Hanoverians, took the advance of the army, and carried Cambray by assault on the evening of the 24th. Peronne la Pucelle was on the following day stormed by the Guards--and on the 30th, the Duke of Wellington’s light cavalry were close to the walls of Paris.

Grouchy’s _corps d’armée_, amounting to forty thousand men, when detached on the 17th by Napoleon to prevent a junction of the Prussians with the British, reached Gembloux immediately after Blucher’s rear-guard had quitted that place on its route to Wavre. At Baraque, early next morning, the French cavalry overtook the Prussians, attacked, and drove them back. At one o’clock a heavy cannonade was distinctly heard--and Girard urged Grouchy to leave a corps of observation in front of the Prussians, and march direct on Waterloo, while Vandamme, on the contrary, pressed the marshal to move at once on Brussels. Grouchy, however, was determined to obey the strict letter of his instructions, and made every effort to bring the Prussians to action. At six in the evening, one of many officers, despatched by Napoleon to order Grouchy to march to his assistance, succeeded in finding the marshal and delivered the order of the emperor. It was now six o’clock--and the marshal crossed the Dyle and moved rapidly towards Waterloo--but all there was lost; and at daybreak, on learning the fatal news, Grouchy abandoned his line of march, repassed the Dyle in four divisions, and joined the cavalry of Excelmans at Namur on the following morning. The marshal, for a time, held that town; while his rear-guard, commanded by Vandamme,[319] checked the Prussians--and then retiring by Dinant, he brought his corps safely to Paris after a march of eight days, and by a retreat that his enemies admitted to be conducted with admirable skill.

Meanwhile, Blucher, having masked the fortresses of Maubuge, Landrecy, and Phillipville, took possession of St. Quentin, while Zeithen advanced to Guise. On the 29th, he halted in front of the French position between St. Denis and Vincennes--having succeeded in gaining a day’s march on his indefatigable ally the Duke of Wellington.

On that evening Napoleon quitted the capital never to enter it again. Hostilities ceased immediately--the Bourbons were recalled, and placed upon the throne--and Europe, after years of anarchy and bloodshed, at last obtained repose--while he, “alike its wonder and its scourge,” was removed to a scene far distant from that which had witnessed his triumphs and his reverses--and within the narrow limits of a paltry island, that haughty spirit, for whom half Europe was too small, dragged out a gloomy existence, until death loosened the chain, and the grave closed upon the Captive of Saint Helena.

THE LATE INDIAN CAMPAIGNS

AGAINST

THE AFFGHANS, THE BILUCHIS,

AND

THE SIKHS.

1838 to 1846.

THE
LATE INDIAN CAMPAIGNS,
_&c._

PRELIMINARY REMARKS.[320]

Condition of Europe after the battle of Waterloo.--Necessity for peace.

A period of undisturbed repose succeeded that fearful interval in European history, extending from the murder of a weak and worthless monarch, to the deposition of the master spirit of the age, who had founded a blood-cemented throne on the ruins of a corrupt and licentious dynasty. From the revolutionary outbreak to the peace of Paris, the annals of these stormy times are but a continuous record of violence and slaughter--for the brief cessation of hostilities in 1801, was employed, on both sides, in active preparations to recommence a deadlier struggle--and France and England, like angry and exhausted duellists, rested only for the moment, until, with recruited strength, they might renew the game of death more furiously. As “time and the hour run through the longest day,” so national resources at last must find a limit--for if war be a sanguinary, it is also a most expensive pursuit. Save those of Britain and France, the European exchequers were exhausted--one country finding her marvellous resources in the honest supplies which flowed in from possessions on which a sun never sets[321]--the other, by adopting a nefarious policy of making war support war--or, in plain language, obliging the aggressed to find all for the aggressor that he might require. War cripples trade--and “the nation of shopkeepers,” as Napoleon contemptuously designated England, felt the monetary pressure heavily--and John Bull, when called upon again and again, growled as he unclosed his purse-strings--but he always came forward when money was required. The enormity of these demands, appeared only to elicit the boundless extent of the means upon which England could fall back--for in one year[322] the naval and military expenditure of the country exceeded the almost incredible total of forty-two millions sterling, without including immense subsidiatory outlays to friendly powers and foreign mercenaries.[323]

On the continent, the conscriptive system then in operation was virtually the same, although under different provisions and modifications. The greater European powers could always bring a force to the field numerically imposing--but that all-important requisite to carry out war--namely, the _métallique_, was wanting. Men without money are mere automatons--they have no motive capability,--and before a continental brigade could make an opening march, England had to furnish them with what is figuratively, but correctly called--“the sinews.”

Did France escape the iron pressure of the times that all besides upon the continent felt so sensibly? Her trade had been for years annihilated--and, unscrupulous as the means resorted to were by which her empty coffers might be filled, the end now could not be realized. Plunder, territorial or fiscal--the annexation of a state, or the imposition of a forced loan--all these from a too frequent repetition, had failed at last. Her neighbours, who formerly had been her El Dorado, were neither in temper nor situation to be longer made available to meet her necessities. Schoolmen say “ex nihilo nihil fit,”--Napoleon found the truth of that admitted adage,-- and “beautiful France” was required to look to her fair self for her resources.

But however, and by what means, money might have been procured, to meet exigencies which towards the end of the war daily became more stringent, a more fearful difficulty occurred, because it was not remediable--not only the wealth, but the _physique_ of the country was exhausted--and the eternal drains made upon the French population shewed the natural consequences which all must have foreseen. Thousands after thousands of her best and bravest had crossed the frontier never to return--and anticipated conscriptions produced in a levy of raw youth but indifferent food for powder. When addressing the council of state on his return from his disastrous campaign in Germany, this fatal truth escaped,--and on this occasion Napoleon, descending from his former affectation of Roman dignity, betrayed the exhaustion of the country. His language was common-place and passionate, and his disjointed harangue hurried from his dangers to his designs. “Wellington,” said he, “is in the south--the Russians threaten the northern frontier--Austria the south-eastern,--yet, shame to speak it, the nation has not risen in mass to repel them! Every ally has abandoned me: the Bavarians have betrayed me!--Peace? no peace till Munich is in flames! I demand of you 300,000 men; I will form a camp at Bordeaux of 100,000, another at Lyons, a third at Metz: with the remnant of my former levies, I shall have 1,000,000 of men in arms. But it is men whom I demand,--full-grown men; not these miserable striplings who choke my hospitals with sick, and my highways with carcases. Give up Holland? rather let it sink into the sea! Peace, it seems, is talked of when all around ought to re-echo with the cry of war!”

No wonder, therefore, when after his most singular and successful evasion from Elba, that all save those nameless men, on whom war bestows an evanescent consequence, sincerely desired the state of tranquillity which followed so quick upon the hundred days’ _émeute_. Europe, as Napoleon used to say, when “peace was on his lips and deadly intents raging in his bosom”--required repose. All felt the necessity and admitted it--and for more than a quarter of a century, the external relations of the continental powers have since continued amicable.

There were times, however, when this peaceful state of things was threatened with interruption--but happily the temperate policy of the prudent countervailed the rashness of those desperate men, who, in a settled order of things, have no position in society. Occasionally, the thunder grumbled--but the gathering clouds dispersed again. A revolution was effected--and not a bloodless one--and yet the rest of Europe looked calmly on. As at Algiers, Navarino, and elsewhere, the great powers found it necessary sometimes to put forth their strength-- but generally, these operations were in connection. France has carried on a petty and inglorious contest in Polynesia, and a more unprofitable one in Africa;--and Russia, with neither credit nor success, made vain attempts upon the Circassian mountaineers--England the while looked calmly on; her attitude was dignified--the lion couched--but woe betide any who provoked his spring! The absurd and unjust demands of her transatlantic neighbours--“a little more than kin, and less than kind”--were temperately but emphatically negatived. The idle threats of a feeble power--feeble from conflicting interests, and inert from its overgrowth, were heard with full contempt--Yankee orators thundered her _delenda_--but England smiled, and merely asked them to pay their debts--for she well knew that, like stubble fired, a demagogue’s fury blazes, scintillates, and becomes smoke.

And did Britain thus remain unmoved in the abundant conviction of her own security?--No--she despised impotent threatenings, as strongly as she repudiated impudent demands. She knew that to America, war would produce annihilation. The thunderbolt was lying at her foot--and the hand was ready to launch it. The first angry shot discharged would have covered the ocean with her fleets--and in a few brief months, nothing under stars and stripes would have been seen upon the Atlantic--a ruined trade and servile war must have resulted--and the States would have been as a consequence partitioned.

A radical’s course of action, in or out of Parliament, is the same. His business is not to see what is right, but if possible to discover what is wrong--and if he can’t find it, he must fancy it. No one can deny that the Admiralty--Whig and Tory, without distinction, are blundering eternally--but as the resources of England seem illimitable, failures are rendered nugatory--and errors, when remediable, heedless of the expense uselessly occasioned, are corrected. Every candid and unprejudiced officer will admit that Britain had never a navy before, to be compared with that which she now possesses--and on careful examination, it will be found that her military establishment is still more perfect.

Never did a great power spring from military insignificance to acknowledged superiority, so rapidly as Great Britain. In 1805, she was a by-word among nations--in 1815, her martial character was first in European estimation, although ten brief years before it had held the lowest place.[324] Like ore unsought for, talent, as gold when in the mine, often continues for centuries in abeyance, until circumstances evoke it. As in individuals, so also national capabilities may be accidentally developed--and what England was ignorant of possessing, the Peninsula was first fated to disclose.

* * * * *

To a far more limited extent than that which had been felt in France-- England found that the deteriorating effects of twenty years’ war were making themselves apparent upon her own population. The necessity of dragging beardless boys from home to fill her hospitals did not exist-- but an immense bounty, and a lowered standard in recruiting, proved that the Moloch of the battle-field made demands which with difficulty could be answered.[325] In her militia she had an admirable reserve to fall back upon--their _élite_ volunteered freely for the line-- and hence, the strength of regiments in the field was maintained by constant drafts of disciplined soldiers. As the war progressed, the efficiency of the Peninsular divisions as steadily advanced--until Wellington might say, as he did, with truth, that the army with which he crossed the Pyrenees was “the most perfect machine that ever had been constructed, and one with which he could do any thing and go anywhere.”--Glorious be the memory of these matchless soldiers!

Peace came--and the military establishment of Britain was of necessity reduced. With a few exceptions, the regiments of the line lost their additional battalions--every man not thoroughly serviceable was discharged--and the militias were disbanded. But England had at last found where her hidden strength had so long lain dormant. Formerly her sole dependence rested on her wooden walls--her dominion over ocean was undisputed--there was not a sea on which her proud ensign did not float--nor a corner of the earth unvisited by her trading vessels. The Peninsula, however, had given her another arm--she had proved its power, and determined that the integrity of its strength should be preserved--and, while in number her army was reduced, in efficiency it was augmented. No longer drained of the flower of her youth, and obliged to fill up the casualties incident to siege and battle-field with levies from her population, physically inferior, she now only recruited picked men. To the experience of the past, the improvements of modern science were united--and under the chief-commandership of the honoured and lamented Hill, the organization of the British army became perfect. Sacred be that great and good man’s memory! Living--he was easy of access, bland in his manner, and honest in his purpose-- and dead, he bequeathed to the soldier the example of a well-earned fame--and to his country, an army--as far as numbers go--unmatched, unmatchable--in Europe.