Waterloo_ June 18, 1815_ The Battle for Modern Europe - Andrew Roberts [39]
The loss of La Haye Sainte has also been put down to Wellington’s not supervising the resupply of ammunition to Baring’s 2nd Light Battalion of the King’s German Legion, who fought with rifles rather than standard-issue muskets and therefore needed specialised powder and shot. The wagon that carried the battalion’s ammunition had overturned in a ditch, but it was surely up to Baring rather than the commander-in-chief to see to its rescue.
By contrast with these relatively footling complaints, the errors made by Napoleon and other French commanders during the Waterloo campaign were severe, indeed perhaps even decisive. The first blunder might simply have been for Napoleon to have quitted Elba at all, considering the unanimity of European opinion about his unfitness for the throne and therefore the inevitable invasions of France that it would trigger. Yet his own destiny was always more important to Napoleon than the thousands — and finally millions — of lives that were lost in the course of his pursuit of it.
The Emperor’s next error, at least so Wellington believed, was to have struck north and fought on coalition territory rather than fighting defensively inside France. Some of Napoleon’s best victories had been won with relatively small forces in 1814, and the border fortresses of France could have held up large numbers of coalition soldiers for months. Instead Napoleon was impelled by the political advantages he felt would accrue from a restoration of la Gloire and a magnificent entry into Brussels.
Although Ney has been criticised for not capturing Quatre Bras early on 16 lune, there is some debate about exactly when Napoleon actually ordered him to do so. This has been gready complicated by the ex-Emperor’s almost complete inability when in exile on St Helena to tell the truth about anything much regarding the campaign.4 His zeal in laying the entire blame for his defeat on Ney, d’Erlon, Grouchy and several others — none of whom was admittedly guiltless — led him to play very fast and loose with the facts. Over Quatre Bras, for example, he claimed that he had ordered Ney to capture the crossroads at dawn, whereas twenty years later Ney’s son published the actual orders which showed that of the three instructions Ney received, the first did not mention Quatre Bras and the one that did was written several miles away, at Fleurus, at about 10 a.m. Indeed, Weiler goes so far as to state of Ney: ‘That he began his battle as soon as he did is probably to his credit.’5
Whoever was to blame for the fact that General d’Erlon’s corps arrived at neither the battlefield of Quatre Bras nor at Ligny on 16 June, at either of which it could have been decisive, must bear heavy responsibility for the loss of the campaign. History has still not precisely ascertained the guilty party. The fact that d’Erlon spent six hours marching between battlefields cannot wholly be put down to the General himself, who had little option but to obey the commands of the Emperor, Marshal Ney, or Marshal Soult, the chief of staff, but a little more initiative from him when he was within striking distance of either Ligny or Quatre Bras would have paid dividends. If Nelson could affect a blind eye to a signal, d’Erlon might just as easily have disobeyed the command to trek back across country until 9.30 p.m. without ever firing a shot