CHAPTER VII

While it was not disorganized or demoralized, Blücher’s army was in great peril. Two of his army corps were concentrated at Wavre, one was at Gembloux, and the fourth at Wandesett. Had the French been vigilant, these separated corps might have been overwhelmed in detail. Through the carelessness of videttes, the lack of enterprise in the leaders of reconnoitering parties and the unpardonable neglect of General Exelmans, neither Napoleon nor Grouchy was informed of the movement of the Prussian corps.

After Grouchy was given command of 33,000 troops to pursue the Prussians, the delays in starting, the slowness of the march, the lack of harmony between Grouchy and his two lieutenants, Vandamme and Gérard, made the “pursuit” the most futile on record.

How it was that an army of 70,000 Prussians could get lost to the French, then found, then lost again, is something that the untutored civilian labors in vain to understand.

Yet that is the truth about it. The morning after the battle of Ligny the French did not know what had become of the Prussian army. They began to hunt for it. The search was clumsy and far afield. But at length Thielman’s corps was located at Gembloux. Grouchy’s entire army might have enveloped and crushed it. Not being attacked, Thielman sensibly retired, and when the French entered Gembloux they did not even know what had become of those Prussians. A strange “pursuit,” truly.

Although he still had two hours of daylight, Grouchy decided that the “pursuit” had been pushed far enough for one day, and he postponed further activities until the morrow. During the night he received intelligence that the whole Prussian army was marching on Wavre. That Wavre was on a parallel line to the line of Wellington’s retreat, and that Blücher’s purpose might be to succor Wellington when necessary never once entered Grouchy’s head. On the contrary, he believed that Blücher was making for Brussels and would not tarry at Wavre. Yet he knew that the Emperor was expecting a battle _just where that of the next day was fought_.

Then why not put his 33,000 men nearer to the Emperor than Blücher would be to Wellington? To do so he had but to cross the little river Dyle and march along its left bank. Wavre is on the left bank of the Dyle, and therefore he would have to cross it in any event, going to Wavre. And by maneuvering on that side of the river he could the more readily keep in communication with the Emperor and succor him in case of need. That Napoleon expected Grouchy to do this is shown by the orders which he gave to General Marbot to throw out cavalry detachments in that direction. On the morning of the fateful 18th the well-rested troops of Grouchy might have marched at three. Yet they were not ordered to move till six, and did not actually get under way until about eight. When the French of Grouchy left Gembloux for Wavre, _the Prussians had already been four hours on the desperate march to Waterloo_.

Having at length got his army off, the admirable Grouchy rode as far as Walhain, where he entered the house of a notary to write a dispatch to the Emperor. Having done this,--it was now about ten o’clock,--Marshal Grouchy coolly sat down to his breakfast. At this hour the Prussian advance guard had reached St. Lambert, and Wellington knew it. And here was Napoleon’s lieutenant, placidly working his way to those historic strawberries, blissfully ignorant of the fact that his stupendous folly had wrecked Napoleon’s last campaign.

Upon this breakfast enter the excited officers who have heard the opening guns at Waterloo. “A rearguard affair, no doubt,” thinks the admirable Grouchy. But soon the distant thunder and the cloud of smoke tell of a battle, a great battle--a battle of which men will talk as long as there are human tongues to wag, as long as there are human hearts to feel.

“The battle is at Mont-Saint-Jean,” says a guide. And that is where the Emperor thought the fight would be. “We must march to the cannon,” says Gérard. So says General Valezé. But Grouchy pleads his orders. “If you will not go, allow me to go with my corps and General Vallin’s cavalry,” pleads Gérard. “No,” said Grouchy; “it would be an unpardonable mistake to divide my troops.” And he galloped away to amuse himself with Thielman, as Blücher had meant that he should do.

So, all day long, while the Emperor strained his eyes to the right, looking, looking, oh how longingly! for his own legions, his own eagles, Grouchy was in a mere rearguard engagement with Thielman.

When Bülow appeared like a sudden cloud in the horizon, the Emperor hoped it was Grouchy. When the cannonade at Wavre reached La Belle Alliance, the Emperor fancied that the sound drew nearer--that Grouchy was coming, at last. The agony of suspense which drew from Wellington the famous “Blücher, or night,” could only have been equalled by the storm which raged within the Emperor’s breast--the storm of impotent rage, and of regret that he had leaned so heavy upon so frail a reed as Grouchy.

The positive order which the Emperor sent to Grouchy, after the appearance of the Prussians at Chapelle-Saint-Lambert, were delivered in time for a diversion in Bülow’s rear which would have released Napoleon’s right. But Grouchy decided that he would obey this order _after_ he had taken Wavre. As he did not take Wavre until nightfall, he might just as well have been openly a traitor to his flag. During the whole of two days he had been repeating “my orders, my orders,” and his apologists are forever prating about those orders; but what about this last order, hot and direct, from the field where all was at stake? How could a victory over Thielman be anything but a trivial affair in comparison with the tremendous conflict going on over there at Mont-Saint-Jean?

Ah, well, he took Wavre, licked his Thielman, extricated his army very cleverly from a most perilous position made for it by the disaster of Waterloo, got back into France in admirable shape, and had the satisfaction of knowing that he had made a record unique in the history of the world.

As the man who did not do the thing he was sent to do, Grouchy has no peer. As a man who, in war, exemplified the adage of “penny wise and pound foolish,” Grouchy is unapproachable. As a man who,--by an almost miraculous union of inertness, stupidity, pig-headed obstinacy, complacent conceit, jealous pride, and inopportune wilfulness,--caused the last battle of the greatest soldier of all time to become the synonym for unbounded and irremediable disaster, Grouchy occupies a lofty, lonely pillar of his own--a sort of military Simeon Stylites.