Prussians Arrive at Waterloo…
Posted by Mitch Williamson in Prussia on Wednesday, January 18, 2012
18 June 1815
Forces Engaged
Anglo-Dutch: 50,000 infantry, 12,500 cavalry, and 156 guns.
Commander: Field Marshal Arthur Wellesley, the duke of Wellington.
Prussian: 61,000 men. Commander: Field Marshal Prince
Gebhard von Blücher.
French: 49,000 infantry, 15,570 cavalry, and 246 guns.
Commander: Napoleon Bonaparte.
During Ney’s cavalry assaults on the British squares, across
to the east, the Prussians were advancing in force, and by 5.30 p.m. von
Bülow’s front two brigades (the 15th and 16th) were heavily engaged in trying
to capture the château of Frischermont from General Lobau, whom Napoleon had ordered
to hold up the Prussians for as long as possible while he tried to break
Wellington’s line. Von Gneisenau adopted a manoeuvre for arriving on the
battlefield that passed the rear corps to the east through the others, which
rested by the roadside. This meant that although the advance was slightly
slowed when they did hit the battlefield there were no gaps in the Prussian
line.
Von Bülow’s entire corps numbered around 30,000 men against
10,000 under Lobau’s command (of whom only 7,000 were infantry), but Lobau was
a tough and resourceful general who had proved himself redoubtable in rearguard
actions before, notably at the battle of Essling. His infantrymen were the 5th
Line Regiment, the same men who were sent to arrest Napoleon near Grenoble when
he returned from Elba, but who had acclaimed him instead.
Sheer weight of numbers began to tell, however, as brigade
after brigade issued forth out of the Bois de Paris, and Lobau was forced out
of Frischermont and back to the village of Plancenoit. Later he was forced out
of that too, and his force was particularly vulnerable once it was out in the
open, particularly to von Bülow’s plentiful infantry, cavalry and artillery.
Seeing the danger of being cut off from his line of retreat, Napoleon ordered
Duhesme to recapture Plancenoit with the Young Guard Division, which he managed
to do by about 6.45 p.m.
The arrival of the Prussians on the battlefield in large
numbers emboldened and encouraged Wellington’s army as much as it demoralised
Napoleon’s. When at 4.30 p.m. two Prussian aides de camp passed in front of the
British line in search of Wellington they were heartily cheered on their way by
the Anglo-Allied soldiers. Fourteen thousand of Napoleon’s reserve had to be
drawn off to try to contain the Prussians, severely limiting his options and
weakening his assault in the centre. As the two Prussian corps of von Pirch and
von Zieten marched in from the east at about 6.30 p.m., Wellington at last saw
the prospect of winning the upper hand.
Zieten’s arrival on Wellington’s left flank permitted a
useful realignment when the 4th Brigade, commanded by Major-General Sir John
Vandeleur (the 11th, 12th and 16th Light Dragoons), and the 6th Brigade under
Major-General Sir Hussey Vivian (the 1st Hussars KGL, 10th and 18th Hussars),
plus Sir Robert Gardiner’s Horse Artillery Group, moved from the far left of
the Anglo-Allied line to the centre, on von Müffling’s advice. Looking through
his telescope from his vantage point at Papelotte the Prussian liaison officer
had seen both Zieten’s proximity to Wellington’s left and an ominous massing of
the French infantry reserve around La Belle Alliance, presaging another huge
assault on the Anglo-Allied centre and right-centre.
Vandeleur, Vivian and Gardiner arrived just in time. Captain
(later Colonel) Tomkinson of the 16th Light Dragoons recalled how: ‘In passing
along the line it appeared to have been much cut up, and the troops, which in
part held their position, were but few, and had suffered greatly. From marching
under the shelter of the hill we could not distinctly see: yet I conceived from
all I could learn that many points in the position were but feebly guarded.’
Some historians believe that without the moral and material support that
Wellington was afforded by this strengthening of his centre, the fourth phase
of the battle might have gone badly awry.
Meanwhile, over at Wavre, seven miles to the east of the
slopes of Mont St Jean, Lieutenant-General von Thielmann was finding himself
hard-pressed by Grouchy’s much larger force. He sent Gneisenau a warning of
defeat if he was not sent reinforcements. ‘Let Thielmann defend himself as best
he can,’ was Gneisenau’s typically blunt answer to the aide de camp who brought
the message. ‘It matters little if he is crushed at Wavre, so long as we gain
the victory here.’ Not only was Grouchy’s help far too little far too late, but
the Prussian high command was clear-headed enough not to allow it to draw men
away from the crucial area of decision — at Waterloo.
#
To illustrate how ‘close run’ a battle Waterloo was, one
only has to consider how near the Prussian 1st Corps came to doubling back just
as it appeared on Wellington’s left flank. For General von Zieten’s advance
guard had suddenly halted, turned around and returned, it transpired, upon the
intelligence report of a young and inexperienced staff officer who had
misinterpreted wounded men moving to the rear of the Anglo-Allied line as
fleeing fugitives. Blücher had ordered Zieten to close up the 1st Corps with
the main body of the Prussian army, and if it had not been for the prompt
action of General von Müffling, who reassured Zieten that the Anglo-Allied line
was holding and that von Bülow did not need help, then Müffling’s words — ‘The
battle is lost if the First Corps does not go to the Duke’s rescue’— might have
come hideously true. Fortunately, Zieten’s mind was not as prosaic as de Grouchy’s
had been, and the 1st Corps engaged, despite the failing light.
Napoleon did not have much time in which to unleash the
Imperial Guard onto the Anglo-Allied line, as von Zieten’s column had already
reached the hamlet of Smohain, thereby allowing Wellington to bring troops in
from his left flank to protect his centre. Although the Prussians’ advance on Napoleon’s
eastern flank might have been arrested, the same was not true of their forces
debouching onto the battlefield further north, where they were connecting with
their Anglo-Allied comrades-in-arms. The jaws of the Anglo-Prussian trap were
springing shut with every new man of Blücher’s army who arrived on the
battlefield.
Napoleon meanwhile gave five battalions of the Guard to Ney
for the great assault, and rode to within 600 yards of Wellington’s line to
salute them as they went into battle, and to acknowledge their loyal cries of
‘Vive l’Empereur!’ Another three battalions formed a second wave but did not
advance beyond La Haye Sainte. Of the rest of the Guard, two battalions were
installed in Plancenoit, and there were a further two at La Belle Alliance and
one at Le Caillou to cover a retreat if need be. The five battalions that were
about to attack — two of grenadiers and three of chasseurs — were supported by
the two corps under Reille and d’Erlon, as well as cuirassiers, Guard cavalry
and horse artillery.
When battle was joined before noon, and the Grand Battery’s
eighty-four guns had opened up on the Anglo-Allied position, Grouchy ought to
have immediately marched westwards towards the sound of them, as his
subordinate General Gérard urged. Yet this would have been to disobey
Napoleon’s direct orders, sent at only ten o’clock that morning, to march on
Wavre. It is also unlikely that even if Grouchy had taken Gérard’s advice and
marched towards Plancenoit he would have got there in time to affect the outcome
of the battle, because he would have soon encountered the Prussian divisions of
Pirch and Thielmann, which would have held up his advance, while those of Bülow
and Zieten could have carried on to help Wellington.
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