|
THE QUID OBSCURUM OF BATTLES
Every one is acquainted with the first phase of this battle;
a beginning which was troubled, uncertain, hesitating, menacing
to both armies, but still more so for the English than for the
French.
It had rained all night, the earth had been cut up by the
downpour, the water had accumulated here and there in the hollows
of the plain as if in casks; at some points the gear of the artillery
carriages was buried up to the axles, the circingles of the horses
were dripping with liquid mud.
If the wheat and rye trampled down by this cohort of transports
on the march had not filled in the ruts and strewn a litter beneath
the wheels, all movement, particularly in the valleys, in the
direction of Papelotte would have been impossible.
The affair began late.
Napoleon, as we have already explained, was in the habit of
keeping all his artillery well in hand, like a pistol, aiming
it now at one point, now at another, of the battle; and it had
been his wish to wait until the horse batteries could move and
gallop freely.
In order to do that it was necessary that the sun should come
out and dry the soil. But the sun did not make its appearance.
It was no longer the rendezvous of Austerlitz.
When the first cannon was fired, the English general, Colville,
looked at his watch, and noted that it was thirty-five minutes
past eleven.
The action was begun furiously, with more fury, perhaps, than
the Emperor would have wished, by the left wing of the French
resting on Hougomont.
At the same time Napoleon attacked the centre by hurling Quiot's
brigade on La Haie-Sainte, and Ney pushed forward the right wing
of the French against the left wing of the English, which rested
on Papelotte.
The attack on Hougomont was something of a feint; the plan
was to draw Wellington thither, and to make him swerve to the
left. This plan would have succeeded if the four companies of
the English guards and the brave Belgians of Perponcher's division
had not held the position solidly, and Wellington, instead of
massing his troops there, could confine himself to despatching
thither, as reinforcements, only four more companies of guards
and one battalion from Brunswick.
The attack of the right wing of the French on Papelotte was
calculated, in fact, to overthrow the English left, to cut off
the road to Brussels, to bar the passage against possible Prussians,
to force Mont-Saint-Jean, to turn Wellington back on Hougomont,
thence on Braine-l'Alleud, thence on Hal; nothing easier. With
the exception of a few incidents this attack succeeded Papelotte
was taken; La Haie-Sainte was carried.
A detail to be noted.
There was in the English infantry, particularly in Kempt's
brigade, a great many raw recruits.
These young soldiers were valiant in the presence of our redoubtable
infantry; their inexperience extricated them intrepidly from the
dilemma; they performed particularly excellent service as skirmishers:
the soldier skirmisher, left somewhat to himself, becomes, so
to speak, his own general.
These recruits displayed some of the French ingenuity and
fury.
This novice of an infantry had dash. This displeased Wellington.
After the taking of La Haie-Sainte the battle wavered.
There is in this day an obscure interval, from mid-day to
four o'clock; the middle portion of this battle is almost indistinct,
and participates in the sombreness of the hand-to-hand conflict.
Twilight reigns over it.
We perceive vast fluctuations in that fog, a dizzy mirage,
paraphernalia of war almost unknown to-day, pendant colbacks,
floating sabre-taches, cross-belts, cartridge-boxes for grenades,
hussar dolmans, red boots with a thousand wrinkles, heavy shakos
garlanded with torsades, the almost black infantry of Brunswick
mingled with the scarlet infantry of England, the English soldiers
with great, white circular pads on the slopes of their shoulders
for epaulets, the Hanoverian light-horse with their oblong casques
of leather, with brass hands and red horse-tails, the Scotch with
their bare knees and plaids, the great white gaiters of our grenadiers;
pictures, not strategic lines--what Salvator Rosa requires, not
what is suited to the needs of Gribeauval.
A certain amount of tempest is always mingled with a battle.
Quid obscurum, quid divinum.
Each historian traces, to some extent, the particular feature
which pleases him amid this pellmell. Whatever may be the combinations
of the generals, the shock of armed masses has an incalculable
ebb.
During the action the plans of the two leaders enter into
each other and become mutually thrown out of shape.
Such a point of the field of battle devours more combatants
than such another, just as more or less spongy soils soak up more
or less quickly the water which is poured on them. It becomes
necessary to pour out more soldiers than one would like; a series
of expenditures which are the unforeseen.
The line of battle waves and undulates like a thread, the
trails of blood gush illogically, the fronts of the armies waver,
the regiments form capes and gulfs as they enter and withdraw;
all these reefs are continually moving in front of each other.
Where the infantry stood the artillery arrives, the cavalry
rushes in where the artillery was, the battalions are like smoke.
There was something there; seek it.
It has disappeared; the open spots change place, the sombre
folds advance and retreat, a sort of wind from the sepulchre pushes
forward, hurls back, distends, and disperses these tragic multitudes.
What is a fray? an oscillation?
The immobility of a mathematical plan expresses a minute,
not a day.
In order to depict a battle, there is required one of those
powerful painters who have chaos in their brushes. Rembrandt is
better than Vandermeulen; Vandermeulen, exact at noon, lies at
three o'clock. Geometry is deceptive; the hurricane alone is trustworthy.
That is what confers on Folard the right to contradict Polybius.
Let us add, that there is a certain instant when the battle
degenerates into a combat, becomes specialized, and disperses
into innumerable detailed feats, which, to borrow the expression
of Napoleon himself, "belong rather to the biography of the
regiments than to the history of the army."
The historian has, in this case, the evident right to sum
up the whole.
He cannot do more than seize the principal outlines of the
struggle, and it is not given to any one narrator, however conscientious
he may be, to fix, absolutely, the form of that horrible cloud
which is called a battle.
This, which is true of all great armed encounters, is particularly
applicable to Waterloo.
Nevertheless, at a certain moment in the afternoon the battle
came to a point.
|
