the day. The key of the duke’s position was now in Napoleon’s hands, Wellington's centre was dangerously shaken, the troops were exhausted, and the reserves inadequate. But the Iron Duke faced the situation unmoved. Calmly he readjusted his line and strengthened the torn centre. Happily for him, Pirch I.’s and Zieten’s corps were now at hand. Pirch I. moved to support Bülow; together they regained possession of Plancenoit, and once more the Charleroi road was swept by Prussian round shot. Napoleon, therefore, had to free his right flank before he could make use of Ney’s capture. To this end he sent two battalions of the Old Guard to storm Plancenoit. The veterans did the work magnificently with the bayonet, ousted the Prussians from the place, and drove them back 600 yards beyond it. But Napoleon could not turn now on Wellington. Zieten was fast coming up on the duke’s left, and the crisis was past. Zieten’s advent permitted the two fresh cavalry brigades of Vivian and Vandeleur on the duke’s extreme left to be moved and posted behind the depleted centre. The value of this reinforcement at this particular moment can hardly be overestimated.
The French army now fiercely attacked Wellington all along the line; and the culminating point of this phase was reached when Napoleon sent forward the Guard, less 5 battalions, to attack Wellington’s centre. Delivered in three échelons, these final attacks were repulsed, the first Fifth phase. échelon by Cohn Halkett’s British Brigade, a Dutch-Belgian battery, and a brigade of Chassé’s Dutch-Belgian division; the second and third échelons by the Guards, the 52nd, and the Royal Artillery. Thus ended the fifth phase.
As the Guard recoiled (about 8 p.m.) Zieten pierced the north-east corner of the French front, and their whole line gave way as the allies rushed forward on their now defenceless prey. Three battalions of the Guard indeed stood their ground for some time, but they were finally overwhelmed. Rout of the French. Afterwards, amidst the ruins of their army, two battalions of the 1st Grenadiers of the Guard defied all efforts to break them. But, with the exception of these two battalions, the French army was quickly transformed into a flying rabble. Bülow and Pirch I. now finally overpowered Lobau, once more recaptured Plancenoit, and sealed the doom of the French army. But Lobau’s heroic efforts had not been in vain; they had given his master time to make his last effort against Wellington; and when the Guard was beaten back the French troops holding Plancenoit kept free the Charleroi road, and prevented the Prussians from seizing Napoleon’s line of retreat.
When Wellington and Blücher met about 9.15 p.m. at “La Belle Alliance,” the victorious chiefs arranged that the Prussians should take up the pursuit, and they faithfully carried out the agreement. Pushing on through the night, they drove the French out of seven successive bivouacs and at length drove them over the Sambre. The campaign was virtually at an end, and the price paid was great. The French had lost over 40,000 men and almost all their artillery on June 18; the Prussians lost 7000, and Wellington over 15,000 men. So desperate was the fighting that some 45,000 killed and wounded lay on an area of roughly 3 sq. m. At one point on the plateau “the 27th (Inniskillings) were lying literally dead in square”; and the position that the British infantry held was plainly marked by the red line of dead and wounded they left behind them.
A few words may now be bestowed on Marshal Grouchy, commanding the right wing. The marshal wrongly determined on the 18th continue his march to Wavre in a single column, and he determined, still more wrongly, to move by the right bank of the Dyle. Breaking up Grouchy’s operations June 18–19. from bivouac long after dawn, he marched forward, via Walhain. Here he stopped to report to the emperor some intelligence which turned out to be false, and he remained for breakfast. Hardly had he finished when the opening roar of the cannonade at Waterloo was heard. Grouchy was now urged by his generals, especially by Gérard, to march to the sound of the firing, but he refused to take their advice, and pushed on to Wavre, where he found the Prussians (Thielemann’s corps of 16,000 men) holding the passages across the Dyle. A fierce fight (called the Action of Wavre) began about 4 p.m., in which the Prussians were for long victorious. Instead of concentrating his force upon one bridge over the swampy and unfordable Dyle, Grouchy scattered it in attacks upon several; and when the emperor’s despatch arrived, saying Bülow was in sight, the marshal was powerless to move westward. Towards the end of the day Colonel Vallin’s Hussars stormed the Limale bridge, and a large part of Grouchy’s force then promptly gained the left bank. The action continued till about 11 p.m., when it died out, to recommence shortly after dawn. Thielemann was at length overborne by sheer weight of numbers, and towards 11 a.m. he was forced to retire towards Louvain. The losses were considerable, about 2400 men on each side.
Grouchy’s victory was barren. In the far higher duty of co-operation he had failed miserably. His tactical achievement could avail the emperor nothing, and it exposed his own force to considerable danger. Whilst pondering on the course he should follow, the marshal received the news of the awful disaster that had overtaken the emperor at Waterloo. In a flash he realized his danger and made prompt arrangements to begin his retreat on Namur, the only line to France that was then available. This retreat he carried out resolutely, skilfully and rapidly, slipping past Blücher and finally bringing his force to Paris. But the rapid advance of the allies gave France no time to rally. Napoleon was forced to abdicate, and finding escape was impossible, he surrendered (on July 14) to the British—“the most powerful, the most unwavering and the most generous of his foes.”
The causes of Napoleon’s failure in the Waterloo campaign were as follows:—The French army was numerically too weak for the gigantic task it undertook. Napoleon himself was no longer the Napoleon of Marengo or Austerlitz, and though he was not broken down, his physical strength was certainly impaired. Ney failed to grasp and hold Wellington on the critical 17th June; and on the 17th and 18th Grouchy’s feeble and false manœuvres enabled Blücher to march and join Wellington at Waterloo. Napoleon’s chance of success was dangerously diminished, if not utterly destroyed, by the incompetence of the two marshals whom in an evil hour he selected for high commands. Another dominant influence in shaping the course of events was the loyalty of Blücher to his ally, and the consequent appearance of the Prussian army at Waterloo. Nor must we overlook Wellington’s unswerving determination to co-operate with Blücher at all costs, and his firmness on June 18; or the invincible steadiness shown by the British troops and those of the King’s German Legion.
Bibliography.—Some of the principal books on the campaign are Colonel Grouard, Critique de 1815; H, Houssaye, Waterloo; General Pollio, Waterloo (1815); Shaw-Kennedy, Battle of Waterloo; Captain W. Siborne, 9th Foot, History of the Waterloo Campaign; Clausewitz, Campagne de 1815; Colonel Charras, Histoire de la Campagne de 1815, Waterloo; L. Navez, Les Quatre Bras, Ligny, Waterloo et Wavre; General H. T . Siborne, R.E., Waterloo Letters; Colonel Chesney, Waterloo Lectures; Wellington, Despatches and Memorandum on the Battle of Waterloo; Correspondence and Commentaires of Napoleon.
In this article the writer has been greatly assisted by the advice and suggestions of Lieut.-Col. H. W. L. Hime, R.A. (A. F. B.*)
WATERLOO-WITH-SEAFORTH, an urban district in the Bootle and Ormskirk parhamentary divisions of Lancashire, England, at the mouth of the Mersey, 4 m. N. by W. of Liverpool. Pop. (1891) 17,225; (1901) 23,102. On account of its facilities for bathing, firm sands, pleasant scenery and nearness to Liverpool, of which it is a suburb, it is much frequented both by visitors and by residents.
WATERLOW, SIR ERNEST ALBERT (1850–), English painter, was born in London, and received the main part of his art education in the Royal Academy schools, where, in 1873, he gained the Turner medal for landscape-painting. He was elected associate of the Royal Society of Painters in Water-Colours in 1880, member in 1894, and president in 1897; associate of the Royal Academy in 1890, and academician in 1903; and he was knighted in 1902. He began to exhibit in 1872 and has produced a considerable number of admirable landscapes, in oil and water-colour, handled with grace and distinction. One of his pictures, “Galway Gossips,” is in the National Gallery of British Art.
See Sir E. A. Waterlow, R.A., P.R.W.S., by C. Collins Baker (Art Journal Office, 1906).
