A Commentary on Hofschroer's
"1815 The Waterloo Campaign"
by Jonathan Gingerich, USA
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It is instructive to first examine Peter's take on the competition for the forces of the independent north German states. Peter presents Wellington as the wily negotiator "outmanoeuvring and outwitting his erstwhile and future ally on several occasions" at the Congress of Vienna. How is this determined? By comparing the maximal demands of the Prussians with the Allied consensus on the matter. Initially, the Prussians conceded Brunswick and Oldenburg to Wellington, then claimed them too, leaving only Hannover undisputed. Britain appeared to be in genuine need of troops, with Wellington sincerely inquiring into recruiting Portuguese! The Allies concurred and at one point offered Wellington command of a Prussian corps. When the Prussians would not relent, Wellington threatened to accept this offer, causing the Prussians to come to terms on dividing the forces of the independent states. Peter presents this as an "astute" coup, but it seems to me the Prussians overreached, making demands that were bound to be disappointed given the Allied interest in Wellington having sufficient forces at his disposal. Leaving aside Saxon forces, which were about a third of the total and still in dispute, Peter sums up the roughly equal split and declares that Britain had won two to one! How is this possible? Well, through some rather creative bookkeeping. Leaving out the Saxons is immaterial, since Prussia was proposing to split them anyway. But throwing in 17,000 Hannoverians who had been formally part of the British Army in 1814 and now were "British ruled" and had never been part of the dispute, while at the same time ignoring the 12,000 Hessians of Westphalia who had been incorporated into the Prussian army in anticipation of the annexation of their state, does make a difference. Furthermore, this was all in theory. In reality the Hanseatic forces never left paper, Prussia persuaded Oldenburg to declare for Prussia days before the settlement, and they so poisoned relations that Saxony mutinied. Peter paints the Duke studiously uninvolved in the situation, then in a notable lapse, makes a completely unsubstantiated assertion that the mutiny pleased Wellington! In the end, the British got Brunswick, who had a long history of co-operation, and Nassau, half of whom were already in the pay of the Dutch-Belgian king! This hardly seems worth the candle, especially when one notes that Austria ended up with 100,000 foreign Germans in its army. Throughout, there is a palpable tone of injury. Peter never questions Prussian demands, as if some natural law dictated that the German states should fight with German Prussia, and Britain was somehow interfering with this unification of Germans. He acts shocked that Britain would make its financial support contingent on acquiring allies, as if the British treasury, in contrast, were a shared Allied resource. To be sure, Peter never hides any of these facts, but I did feel the need to keep a close watch. This brings us to the history of the campaign itself. Peter's thesis follows Gneisenau's charges: that Wellington had specific obligations to the Prussians, and, failing to meet them, brought harm. Peter goes further to suggest that once the Duke realised he would miss his commitments, he attempted to deceive the Prussians and doctor the record to cover up his errors. Peter offers the number of missing messages between Wellington and the Prussians in the critical early days as one piece of evidence. Okay, but given that three of the missing messages were in Prussian hands, it is decidedly mixed evidence. Furthermore, there is more smoke than fire here. The message to Zieten on the 14th was sent by Muffling as noted in the text, not Wellington as misstated in the table. The next two messages are from Zieten, the second being the infamous report of the start of hostilities. I am dubious of the reality of the first message which is presumably evidenced only by Greig and is not mentioned in the extensive discussion between Gerwien and Silborne quoted in Peter's article in "The Age of Napoleon". Zieten's other message caused enough concern among the Prussians that they formally interviewed Zieten about it. Then the issue lay dormant until Siborne's first edition. Thus Wellington had little cause to comment about it, although he made a private memorandum late in life that Peter interprets to be denying the message. But as Peter notes, this is not consistent with what he told Greig. I believe the problem is in the interpretation. The memorandum is referring to the militarily significant news that the Prussians have retreated to Charleroi, and, indeed, that news did not arrive until 3PM. The Gerwien/Siborne conversation offers some interesting detail. According to Gerwien, Zieten wrote his message when alerted by gunfire, before reports came in from his outposts. In addition, Zieten did not make a copy. Peter explains the general wrote the message out himself in French, but this is no obstacle to rote copy, and again suggests haste. Zieten says he did request concentration at Nivelles, but without the message it is difficult to know how compelling it would appear. Certainly one can, and many Anglophone authors do, fault Wellington for not preparing to move at that point, but it is also notable that for the next six hours, no one anywhere in the Prussian organisation thought to inform the Duke about what was going on. Wellington appeared to be genuinely shocked by the appearance of the French at Quatre Bras. Next up are two documents that appeared years later, the Disposition and the Frasnes letter. Peter makes a case for the letter being the real thing, while the disposition being a fraud created years later possibly to cover the Duke's memorandum. There are two problems with this. First, why create a document to cover the unpublished memorandum, rather than just destroy the memorandum? Secondly, the letter and the disposition agree in all particulars. (Peter tries to made a case that "one division here and Quatre Bras" means one division in Frasnes and one division in Quatre Bras, but I'm not buying.) It is very difficult to believe that the letter was not written with disposition in hand. The disposition poses a problem of interpretation. If one assumes that the centre column represent the approximate location of the unit and the last column its order in hand, the disposition is a fiction. But, if the centre column represents the previous orders sent, and the last column represents the orders that have just been committed out the door, then it makes perfect sense. In practice, it would be necessary to keep track of the stream of orders sent rather than guess what has arrived at the remote end. In best prosecutorial style of course, Peter chooses the first interpretation. What is needed is a timetable and the Frasnes letter provides that. The Reserve is to arrive midday at Genappe and the Cavalry the same time at Nivelles. The cavalry appeared very late at Quatre Bras and apparently missed orders because Wildman was sent back to Braine-le-Comte to bring them up as soon as he arrived at HQ. But, if Wellington intended to keep them at Braine-le-Comte, they appear to have been quite late getting there as well. Peter makes the point that the Reserve was at Waterloo without orders. They had been ordered to where the road diverges - Mont St. Jean - the night before, and the fact that the Rifles, at the rear of the division, were nearer Waterloo is not inconsistent. They were eating breakfast at the time Wellington passed but that does not preclude them from being "on the march". They arrived in Genappe a little before 2PM. It is not clear if this qualifies as midday or not. It certainly is not twelve o'clock noon, but then Wellington did not state "twelve o'clock noon" either. In any case, they certainly could have arrived two hours earlier, and the timing is consistent with Wellington telling them to hold until he nosed around Quatre Bras a bit, then calling them up. On the other hand, if this was a deliberate design in case he wished to move toward Nivelles, why not order them up immediately then send them on to Nivelles? As to Hill's Corps being at Braine-le-Comte, Peter takes this to mean at that moment and therefore preposterous. But in the absence of an explicit time or mention of further destination, Wellington might have been indicating a final destination for the day. Certainly there is no hint of support from the corps in anything allegedly said later that day. Regardless of the interpretation of the disposition, Peter's analysis of morning orders to the 2d division is flawed. If the overnight orders had been promptly implemented, the division would have been well on its way to Enghien, so the courier would have delivered the morning follow on a couple hours sooner and the division would be on its way to Braine-le-Comte by the time the Frasnes letter was written. The Brunswickers appear to have marched 20-25 miles, the 2d division about the same if everything had gone smoothly, and the cavalry about 35 miles, which seems reasonably consistent. There is no question that the concentration went poorly. The Reserve was late, the Cavalry very late, and the II Corps apparently scattered all over the place. Was Wellington too good a general to let this happen, as Peter contends? Two points to ponder: Wellington had not commanded an army near this size since Vittoria; the political constraints that prevented either abandoning Brussels or invading France left very little time and space to work with. A similar situation in the Wars does not come readily to mind. The inherent dangers are vividly illustrated by Wellington's mistake in initially ordering the concentration at Nivelles and leaving Quatre Bras open. Peter makes a bit too much of this as the "order" was by necessity a "request" and I doubt any but the most incompetent subordinate would interpret the request as forcing them to abandon Quatre Bras in the presence of the enemy. It would not have opened the door to Brussels, as the Reserve was coming south, but it would have certainly hurt the Prussians. What is overlooked here is that Zieten requested just this in his initial message, and the reports from the Prussians Wellington had in hand spoke of falling back to Gosselies. The final missing message is from Wellington to the Prussians late on the 15th based circumstantially on references to it made by Gneisenau in other letters. He says Wellington wrote in "some detail" about concentrating in "12" hours and then each army, if not attacked, falling on the enemies rear. But this is very close to what Muffling reported at about this time and no other evidence supports the existence of this missing message. In another letter, Gneisenau claims Wellington assured them that he would fall on the French rear if the Prussians were attacked. Clearly this cannot happen while Wellington is still concentrating, and Gneisenau appears to be excusing the defeat at Ligny on Wellington's failure to follow "the plan". This then brings up full circle. What plan? There were vague assurances between the two armies that they would unite as soon as Napoleon showed his hand. But there is a clear lack of detailed plans, protocols, or communications - culminating in 6 hours of silence after Zieten's initial message when the Prussians should have made clear that Charleroi was being attacked in strength. Prussian reluctance to submit to the command of their nominal C-in-C Wellington was certainly a factor in the loose co-ordination. Wellington did concentrate at Quatre Bras. He was late and slow. This did not delay him from falling on the rear of the French, since this would not have occurred on the 16th regardless. It may have belied his promises at Brye. Peter tries hard to determine what they were. I am more struck by what was not asked. No one discussed when the Duke would have the whole army up, or where and when he would fall on the French rear. Instead, they remember only an offer of limited support, and if the difference between 20 or 15 thousand, 2PM or 3PM was critical, no one seemed to pay particular attention at the time. If he failed to meet his promises, it is not in my opinion because he was attempting an alternative deployment. Peter strains to find evidence that Wellington's promises made the difference in the Prussian decision to stand at Ligny. What strikes me is Nostitz's description of the meeting the previous evening, where Blucher, who hasn't exchanged a word with Wellington, ends the discussion with the declaration that Wellington will indeed support them. I tend to think the Prussians fought because it was in Blucher nature to do so, but as long as we are speculating, the fact that Prussia would have politically benefited from defeating Napoleon with little help from the British must be taken into consideration. This leaves us with only the battle, and as we know, the Wellington drew into an interior straight. He fought a touch and go battle, tied down 45,000 French through sheer dumb luck, protected the Prussian right flank from an devastating attack, and ended up holding the field. Meanwhile, the Prussians with 20,000 more men than the French, and no one but themselves to blame for Bulow's absence (typically, Peter interprets British intelligence about the critical personal rivalry as simply an attempt to take advantage!), were unable to effectively use the III Corps and left the field unable to support Wellington for the next 40 hours. As a juror it is easy to sympathise with the plaintiff. Waterloo was a German victory, and Blucher, who did so many things right, ended up smelling of gin and garlic, while Wellington, who did so many things wrong, ended up smelling like a rose. But generalship is even more of a lottery than life, and getting a bad hand is not title to sue. Not guilty! 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May I offer some thoughts on Peter Hofschröer's "1815 The Waterloo Campaign"? The book has a number of themes including discussion of the campaign and its context from the Prussian point of view and an examination of the interaction of the Prussian and British commands. On this basis, the book is an unqualified success, a remarkably scholarly work from an amateur historian, and should be included in any Waterloo bibliography. But as we all know the most stimulating part of the book is Peter's attempt to make a case for a conniving Wellington deceiving and taking advantage of his allies. I find myself still sceptical, not because I have a disagreement with the facts, of which I am not particularly familiar, but because of the nature of the argument. Peter proposes a courtroom examination of the history, but the role he plays is one of a prosecutor and the reader is faced with either playing the defence counsel or being rushed to judgement.