When, after a very hard-fought and a long-doubtful day, Napolean had succeeded in driving back the Prussian army from Ligny, and had resolved on marching himself to assail the Engglish, he sent, on the 17th, Marshal Grouchy with 30,000 men to pursue the defeated Prussians, and to prevent their marching to aid the Duke of Wellington. Great recriminations passed afterward between the marshal and the emperor as to how this duty was attempted to be performed, and the reasons why Grouchy failed on the 18th to arrest the lateral movement of the Prussian troops from Wavre toward Waterloo. It may be sufficient to remark here that Grouchy was not sent in pursuit of Blucher till late on the 17th, and that the force given to him was insufficient to make head against the whole Prussian army; for Blucher’s men, though they were beaten back, and suffered severe loss at Ligny, were neither routed nor disheartened; and they were joined at Wavre by a large division of their comrades under General Bulow, who had taken no part in the battle of the 16th, and who were fresh for the march to Waterloo against the French on the 18th. But the failure of Grouchy was in truth mainly owing to the indomitable heroism of Blucher himself, who, though severely injured in the battle at Ligny, was as energetic and active as ever in bringing his men into action again, and who had the resolution to expose a part of his army, under Thielman, to be overwhelmed by Grouchy at Wavre on the 18th, while he urged the march of the mass of his troops upon Waterloo. "It is not at Wavre, but at Waterloo," said the old field-marshal, "that the campaign is to be decided;" and he risked a detachment, and won the campaign accordingly. Wellington and Blucher trusted each other as cordially, and co-operated as zealously, as formerly had been the case with Marlborough and Eugene. It was in full reliance on Blucher’s promise to join him that the duke stood his ground and fought at Waterloo; and those who have ventured to impugn the duke’s capacity as a general ought to have had common sense enough to perceive that to charge the duke with having won the battle of Waterloo by the help of the Prussians is really to say that he won it by the very means on which he relied, and without the expectation of which the battle would not have been fought.
Napoleon himself has found fault with Wellington[1] for not hav-
- ↑ See Montholon's "Memoirs," vol. iv., p. 44.
