Waterloo - the truth?

[NigelR]

There will always be oversimplification of history to make it palatable and easily digestible to the non-historian. And of course, it also plays a huge role in creating national and personal myths that people do not like to see challenged. Add to that the rivalry between historians, each promoting their own research, and it's difficult to get a balanced view. I remember reading Pieter Geyl's historiography of Napoleon and it was the first time I realised that the interpretation of history changes over time to suit the political and societal climate of the time.

As far as correcting some of the myths about Waterloo, I would hope Napoleonic buffs have been aware of this for some time. I remember in the late 90s the furore that Peter Hofschroer caused with his research which was the first detailed analysis of the true role of the Prussians, told from their perspective. Since then everything I have read on Waterloo seems to be more balanced, but obviously there are still differences. Glover has done a lot of research in the British archives and has added a lot of detail from the British perspective, but he and Hofschroer have had their spats in the journals. And Dawson has a more Francophile view, so that's another perspective to add into the mix (although I find Dawson's work the least well structured and argued of the three).

 

[The Riveteer]

Very true NigelR. I've just watched two Americans reacting to a very basic and standard account of Waterloo. It perpetuated some myths but got the job done for their level of interest. - That's fine but I did cringe on hearing the age old Wellington's polyglot army faced Napoleon's professional veterans. On one hand I was glad to see people with a passing interest watching a napoleonic documentary but annoyed to see that they were still being told outdated details that I found misleading. It sounded like they were trying to suggest the French army was unstoppable to make Wellington's achievement even more astonishing.

. We probably all have out own interpretation of the collective evidence but the more of that evidence we get, the more we have to work with. As no one seems to agree on the minutiae I think we should apply our own deductive reasoning and independent thought a little more often and find our own solutions as to why and where and when.

One question I have never seen adequately answered is why did the French cavalry attacks persist for so long?

We usually get the "Ney sees aa retreat, commits the cavalry, and it escalates". To my mind Ney might have been impetuous but he was still an experienced and intelligent soldier, as were, (if not many of the troopers), the officer cadre of the cavalry.
So if they all knew that breaking squares was virtually impossible (as we are often led to believe) why didn't they stop after the first attack? .....Why didn't Ney realise the "mistake" and call it off? ......Why didn't the individual regimental officers gradually stall or pull their men out of the "mutual suicide pact"? Dunno, yet the cavalry attacked again and again.
That suggests to me (somewhat backed by some of the Allied witness accounts) that those attacks were being seen as far more effective than we have been led to believe. Persisting with the cavalry attacks would have also allowed the supporting horse artillery (which was doing a lot of damage to the squares in between charges) to remain in place doing their job in weakening the squares, breaking them up for subsequent attacks to succeed.

Ney may have been trying to overcompensate for rebukes about inactivity at Quatre Bras but he did not have the power to repeatedly force thousands of men into fruitless and costly action without their compliance, as evidenced by his inability to stem the subsequent rout of the Middle Guard. It also seems odd that many of these regiment's officer's loyalty, especially the Carabineers was considered suspect but even they complied - It doesn't seem to make sense.
An extremely costly tactic but, on the day, was the breaking of the Allied squares considered likely to have been achievable by the French? Does it seem as dumb a manoeuvre as it's made out to be in those circumstances?

Yes I know, I haven't got a T.A.R.D.I.S. but it's fun to speculate.

David[/quote]

 

[NigelR]

One question I have never seen adequately answered is why did the French cavalry attacks persist for so long?

IMO simply because Ney probably believed they could break the Allied line with cavalry and Napoleon (who could see this happening) did nothing to stop him or support him with infantry and artillery. Ney definitely impacted the troops with the force of his personality, de Brack of the Red Lancers stated (after the initial attacks) "We retired slowly, and turned to face the enemy again when we reached the foot of the slope, just out of sight of the first English line. It was then that Ney, alone and unaccompanied by any of his staff officers, galloped along our front and harangued us, calling out the names of those officers that he knew. His face was contorted and he called out a number of times ‘Frenchmen! Don’t go further back! It’s here that you will find the keys to your liberty!’ Those were his exact words." Interestingly, de Brack also states that the Guard light cavalry became involved in the attack by mistake, his account of this is in Glover's book but Dawson ignores this.

When Ney's first attacks failed, Napoleon ordered Kellerman to support Ney, so he directly ordered more cavalry alone into the maelstrom. So the combination of Ney and Napoleon made the attacks continue. Eventually the cavalry tired and the attacks petered out (Trooper Pilloy of the Cuirassiers states that "We charged three times....... You can believe me that my poor horse was exhausted.)

The cuirassiers and Guard cavalry were elite troops, none of them were suspect. Dawson quotes General Delort as saying "10,000 elite cavaliers surged forward, and for three hours when death was all around them, they maintained themselves in the face of the English on the ground they endeavoured to conquer. Arguably our military annals perhaps do not record such devotion in the midst of such memorable prodigies of courage by French soldiers." So the cavalry were clearly up for the fight.

The Carabiniers were not involved in the initial attacks, they were the very last throw of the dice. When Kellerman's troops were ordered forward he held the Carabiniers back as a reserve. After Kellerman's attack failed, Ney saw the Carabiniers and ordered them to charge on their own (despite Kellerman later saying he had sent word to stop them). They charged and suffered badly as a result (the Osprey book on Napoleon's Carabiniers has a good analysis of this).

It was definitely a dumb manoeuvre - Kellerman realised this, and Napoleon stated after the initial attacks failed that it was a premature action which could have catastrophic consequences. But Napoleon did nothing to take the correct action to address the situation.

 

[The Riveteer]

Fair enough. I am familiar with Be Brack etc but the attack without artillery doesn't hold up. One well quoted Allied source (forget who offhand) recounted that they were relieved when the cavalry attacks recommenced because it gave them respite from the relentless Artillery barages. I don't think that can refer to 2nd Corps artillery which wouldn't be so numerous or so devastating to have created so much damage from the opposite ridge.

In his book "Marshal Ney at Quartre Bras" Dawson points out (referring to recent research by Ian James Smith into the Carabinier regiments" that following the defection of General de Bourmont, two Carabinier officers deserted on th 15th June and six defected in total. He explains that the two regiments had become affiliated to the Kings brother in the first restoration and that the regiments had even published a declaration signed by all the officers that Napoleon was a usurper . On 26th May a major of the 9th lancers was put on trial for plotting with two officers of the 1st Regiment Carabiniers to recruit and arm loyalist sympathisers. Kellerman is stated to have had to personally given pep talks to the the two regiments whose loyalty was considered questionable. Smith and Dawson further theorise that this was maybe why Kellerman failed to keep Staff headquarters uninformed of his whereabouts in the days before Quatre Bras and maybe the very reason why the Brigade was kept in reserve until the last minute on the day.

As for the elite status of many of the French troops Dawson does a very detailed debunk of this by comparing the average age and length of service of the regiments on the day compared with the British equivalents. The regimental status of the regiments and the Guard were more daunting than the experience of the troops on the whole. Where did all the Veteran troops come from considering a few years before the Army was coping with masses of Marie- Louises?

I don't doubt the bravery or commitment of any of the troops but the cohesiveness of the French army was no more reliable than the oft-mentioned (and somewhat unfair) references to Dutch Belgian troops who did a grand job at Quatre Bras.

David

 

[NigelR]

Fair enough. I am familiar with Be Brack etc but the attack without artillery doesn't hold up.

IMO that's absolutely Ney's fault, compounded by Napoleon's failure to act. Ney wasn't the greatest battlefield commander, he probably had memories of Eylau (when cavalry did the job) and appears to have underestimated the tenacity of the Allied resistance. He definitely wasn't in a good place mentally, and also didn't have a well organised staff to help him because he was recalled at short notice. Ney had the infantry divisions of Foy and Bachelu under his command and he didn't order them forward until after the cavalry attacks had failed and thus their attack failed. Had he coordinated these attacks better things could have been different. When he attacked La Haye Sainte he brought forward horse artillery, it's clearly his fault he didn't do that earlier. IMO he got too embroiled in leading from the front instead of doing a commander's job. Napoleon is also at fault for not taking control of he situation. When Napoleon acted, he did the wrong thing.

It's very plausible that Kellerman held the Carabiniers back as he might have been worried about them, but when called upon to carry out a pointless charge when it was clear the cavalry attacks were failing, they still did so and paid the price. While it's definitely the case that overall the French army was nowhere near the quality it had been in the past, the cuirassiers were still regarded as elite troops and certainly showed no lack of courage in their continued charges.

 

[The Riveteer]

It's all very easy to view the past with Hindsight.
I'm no great fan of Ney. and think Davout should have been at Waterloo. but I think Ney's reputation as a scapegoat taints our image of him. If he hadn't been at Waterloo we'd probably all be remembering him for getting his command out of Russia.

I don't criticise him for inactivity at Quarte Bras. That's the standard textbook spiel I'm trying to get everyone to look beyond.
IMO Ney had been given an impossible task at Quarte Bras. Until he arrived he had no idea of what his command consisted of, who his officers were or what Napoleon expected of him (Napoleon's or Soult's bad there for giving him ambiguous and conflicting orders). He only had two Divisions of infantry and Pire's cavalry to open with and could for all he knew have been facing Wellington's entire army in strength behind Quatre Bras. Dense woods occupied by the enemy the west, a large lake to the east, and fields of crops over six feet in height in-between; making reconnaissance difficult in any other way than by probing attacks. Add to that, no idea of where Kellerman was and Guard cavalry that he was ordered not to use! I'm not surprised he lost time.

Ney was at fault in initially underestimating what strength was at the crossroads and sending that misleading information to Napoleon, but as it is, Foy, Bachelu and later Jerome all had a hard time of making any progress anyway. Ney was also waiting for D'Erlon to arrive; and if he had shown up, Ney may have had enough strength to make the difference. What is so wrong with waiting for your forces to consolidate before tackling unknown odds? What would we be saying if he had piled in unprepared and been overwhelmed? Exactly what we've been saying about him at Waterloo. A case of damned if you do, damned if you don't.

Napoleon expected Ney to take the crossroads, feeling he had enough men to overcome the underestimated enemy strength he had reported early in the day, but at the same time Napoleon had ordered him to post a Brigade/Division (that he didn't have to spare) on the road between Quatre Bras and Ligny. Ney should have sent further updates once he realised Allied reinforcements were continually arriving throughout the day and greatly outnumbering him; but maybe he was too busy )

Despite all these problems Ney did enough for the Allies to retreat the following day (and reduced a few regiment's effectiveness at Waterloo two days later) yet still earned a scolding from Napoleon (and history) despite it. Who can blame him, being as hot-headed as he was renowned for being, in seeking to break the enemy at Waterloo and redeem himself?

David

 

[samson]

Can any recommend a good document to stream on Napoleon ? Thanks

 

[NigelR]

I don't know of any. The BBC did a three-part series on Napoleon but it was the work of Andrew Roberts, who is very biased in favour of Napoleon. Might be good to get a general overview of his life.....

 

[The Riveteer]

I don't know of any. The BBC did a three-part series on Napoleon but it was the work of Andrew Roberts, who is very biased in favour of Napoleon. Might be good to get a general overview of his life.....

Having a bias doesn't necessarily mean unreliable. I remember that series being pretty good at covering Napoleon's whole career both military and civil ,and probably the best introduction for a general audience. It's not as if there aren't many other documentaries with a Wellingtonian bias to balance things out.
There are plenty of short documentaries on You Tube covering Napoleon, his campaigns, his Marshals, Josephine, Marie Louise, etc pretty effectively without going into too much detail.


David

 

[sd0324]

I love this thread. Good interesting discussion among knowledgeable folks.


Steve