Further Intelligence Reports
14 and 15 June 1815
by John Hussey, UK
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I offer them here because of their intrinsic value.
The first document is a letter from Major-General
van Reede, Netherlands military commissioner
at Wellington’s headquarters in
Brussels, [2]
addressed to Baron van Capellen,
the Netherlands Secretary of State for the
Belgic provinces, also based in Brussels.
It is three pages long, written in French in an elegant
and very legible hand. Enclosed with it is
a second document one-and-a-half pages long,
in legible French, unheaded and unsigned but
stated by van Reede as written by the Director
of Police in the Department of Jemappes.
Jemappes itself is about 2 miles west of
the Netherlands fortified town of Mons and
thus some 12 miles west of Binche where
Wellington’s Anglo-Allied outposts touched
those of Blücher’s Prussians; in other words
the information is principally from that part of
France opposite Wellington’s sector, with the
French frontier town of Maubeuge some 12
miles due south and Valenciennes 17 miles to
the WSW of Jemappes.
Van Reede’s letter is only partially accented (and I have left this
unchanged) and very lightly punctuated,
mainly with commas: in certain places I have
replaced commas with semi-colons where the
sense of the phrases seemed to require it. The
translation into English is mine.
1. Major-General van Reede to Baron van Capellen
I have the honour to send Your Excellency
a report of the director of police of the Department
of Jemappes which agrees perfectly with
the reports received yesterday from General
Ziethen; it was not certain from those that Bonaparte
had arrived: however everything gave
rise to the belief that he was between Maubeuge
and Bavai [about 8 miles west of Maubeuge] or
in one of those localities. The troops from Valenciennes
[19 miles west of Maubeuge] have
moved to their right [eastwards] and joined
with those which had come [inserted above the
line: to Mézières - i.e. 50 miles SE of
Maubeuge] to the right of Maubeuge, which
was placed on their left, in order to concentrate
around that place; an artillery park of 40 pieces
of cannon had, it was said, come from Valenciennes.
From these movements one assumes the
possibility of an attack on Mons, and if the
news continues to indicate this it is probable
that the Duke’s army will assemble in the position
of Ath [12 miles NW of Mons].
However, up to the present there is no movement on our
side so far as I know[;] at least here there is no
order given for the departure of troops, so that
we appear [paraît-on] still nowise convinced
that Bonaparte can have serious schemes of
attack, in part because of the disadvantages of
his position even in the case of a success at one
point, in part because he would be seeking out
the army [i.e. his opponents’ army] in its full
strength, whereas in letting it enter France it
will diminish [in numbers] by the need to leave
in rear all which the masking [l’observation] of
[French] fortresses will indispensably require.
I was first informed yesterday, Monsieur le
Baron, that Prince Louis de Salm- Salm had
been arrested but without as yet receiving any
detail about what had been found chez lui; as
soon as I know anything I shall inform you of it. [3]
Yesterday during the day the Duke of
Cumberland [fifth son of King George III, and
currently the King’s deputy at Hanover] arrived
here and after passing several hours with
the Duke has continued his journey to England.
In the previous night [Dans la nuit
d’auparavant] there arrived an aide-de-camp
of Prince Schwartzenberg [supreme commander
of the Allied forces, currently in central
Germany], Count Paer, as well as the
Russian Lieutenant-General Baron de Toll. [4]
My despatch having reached this point I
had occasion to see the Duke of Wellington
who spoke to me in precisely these terms: I do
not believe that we shall be attacked[;] we are
too strong. I [van Reede] have learned moreover
that the dispositions are such that at need
in 6 to 8 hours his army can be concentrated
[and that] he intends to remain here in person
and generally wait until the French movements
are more evident before himself moving.
[Ma depeche en étant là j’ai eu occasion de
voir le Duc de Wellington qui m’a dit en autant
de termes: je ne crois pas qu’on nous attaquera
nous sommes trop fort. J’ai appris encore que
les dispositions étaient telles que dans 6 à 8
heures son armée peut au besoin être reuni il
compte rester ici de sa personne et attendre en
général que les mouvements des Français soyent
plus prononcés avant de se mouvoir.]
I have the honour to be, Monsieur le
Baron, 2. Report enclosed with the above letter
Mons, 14 June 1815
Information which I consider certain
states that the French arrived in force yesterday
at Merle-le-Château [Mérbes-le-Château,
8 miles ENE of Maubeuge], that there are
estimated to be at least 25,000 men between
this point on the Sambre and Solre-le-Château
towards Maubeuge.
The officers say that they are very numerous
and that they await Bonaparte’s arrival at
any moment for the start of hostilities. Napoleon
left Paris in the night of 11/12 June according
to the Gazette de France. They seem full of
ardour and the desire to penetrate into Belgium.
News from frontier points towards Valenciennes
say that the French advanced posts have
been withdrawn, even that there are few
[troops] at Valenciennes although 21 thousand
men were reviewed there three days ago.
All the French frontier communes are
overwhelmed with requisitions of all kinds.
The armed forces act like bailiff’s men and
furthermore have made numerous arrests of
the most important people to ensure the delivery
of the required contributions and produce.
Police supervision has become so very suspicious
that everyone is frightened and in general
the inhabitants of the communes pray for
the moment when they will be delivered from
all such agonies and excessive requisitions,
for it is said there are communes from which
more is demanded than they possess.
We should first of all remember that Napoleon
left Paris at 4 a.m. on 12 June and was
at Laon that night, reaching Avesnes on the 13th. His army moved east of Maubeuge and
crossed the border into Belgium not long after
dawn on Thursday, June 15, 1815, striking
against the Prussian army in front of Charleroi,
not at Wellington’s at Mons. The Allied
high command’s Intelligence had been slow
to detect this plan.
The fullest reports of Allied Intelligence
in the weeks leading up to the invasion are
found in Wellington Supplementary Despatches
vol x (1863), p.424 onwards, and may
be summarised as follows.
On 6 June reports said Napoleon was leaving Paris that day for
Douai (wrong), that artillery was gathering at
Laon and that Napoleon’s plan was to make a
feint against the Prussians and a real attack on
Wellington.
On the 7th reports (wrong) came of the Emperor going to Valenciennes
(opposite Wellington’s western sector), and
the next day that the Old Guard would go to
Maubeuge, the Young Guard and many line
regiments to Valenciennes (wrong).
On the 9th the Prussian Major-General von Müffling
reported that the main concentration area was
Valenciennes-Cambrai, but that the Young
Guard would go to suppress the royalist revolt
in La Vendée (wrong). That same day Gneisnau
believed that the French would withdraw
from the Belgian frontier southwards to a
Somme-Aisne position.
On 10 June Wellington had received a
report (wrong) that Napoleon had reached
Maubeuge (only 12 miles due south of Mons
in the Duke’s sector) and had gone west to
Lille (under 40 miles from the Duke’s supply
port of Ostend), while his outpost commander,
Dörnberg, thought (wrongly) that Napoleon
was already at Laon with 80,000 men.
On the 11th Dörnberg heard that Napoleon had
apparently been in Valenciennes for five days
and was now in Avesnes (both reports incorrect),
while the Duke now thought that the
Emperor had still been in Paris up to the 7th
(correct); however, Wellington remained concerned
over the defences of Mons, the Condé
canal and Tournai.
On 12 June Gneisnau at Namur declared
that any danger was ‘fast disappearing’, but
reports came in that day of a massive concentration
forming between Maubeuge and Mézières
-- a span of nearly 50 miles, however --
with the Emperor expected at Avesnes, i.e.
due south of Maubeuge (on the western
flank), while other information suggested that
the French would attack on the anniversary of
Marengo [14 June].
In sum, much (but not all) of the information suggested that if the French
really should attack and were not merely
bluffing, then the sector west of Mons and
Maubeuge was most at risk.
But the information sent to Brussels and
Namur on the 14th was both more precise and
more accurate and it indicated a considerable
French movement eastwards, with Maubeuge
perhaps being at the left flank (and not the
centre or right) of Napoleon’s host.
This did not affect Wellington’s views. Gneisnau only
began to think of concentrating his ‘widely
scattered’ forces at noon that day; towards
dusk he thought ‘in case of necessity’ a further
concentration might prove wise; around 10
p.m. he believed fighting might be imminent. [5]
To the evidence in WSD I would add three
further items highlighting Allied thinking: two
of 13 June and the other of the 14th.
The meeting of Blücher’s staff officer Colonel von Pfuel
with Wellington and Major-General von Müffling,
the Prussian commissioner in Brussels,
took place on the 13th and was concerned not
with defensive measures but with plans for the
Allied invasion routes into France: this meeting
is covered in detail by my article The Shadow
of Ligny. [6]
The second, a message from the
Prince of Orange concerning administrative
questions on 13 June, and the third, Orange’s
report of frontier activities on the 14th, both
appeared in the Journal of the Society for Army
Historical Research in 1999. [7]
We know that on the morning of 15 June
Müffling was still relying on the previous
day’s reports from the Prussian forward commander
Lieutenant-General von Ziethen, and
now we find van Reede similarly aware of
Ziethen’s 14 June reports, besides that of the
Jemappes police chief. [8]
The information from the police chief
about the sufferings of French civilians at the
hands of their own troops strongly suggests
that had Napoleon achieved the ‘liberation’ of
Belgium his new subjects would have faced
difficult times.
Save for van Reede’s letter it has not been
noticed, I believe, that Wellington was obliged
to give up several hours on Wednesday the
14th to discussions with HRH the Duke of
Cumberland. There had been a certain amount
of disagreement concerning pay and subsidies
for Hanoverian troops and this possibly could
have been among the topics raised, but even if
it was not it is plain that Wellington’s attention
was being distracted by many different inter-Allied
or royal protocol matters at this time.
It is interesting that General van Reede
should have concluded in Brussels on the
15th, from information just received, that if
French movements meant anything they could
indicate a possible attack on Mons in the
Anglo-Allied sector.
We know from the account
of Dörnberg that he himself on 14 June
had convinced General Clinton, commanding
at Ath, of the imminence of a French attack,
though Clinton added that Wellington did not
believe it. This disbelief is now independently
re-confirmed by van Reede. [9]
The Allies had variously estimated
Napoleon’s field army in the North as up to
120,000 men; [10] against this Blücher’s Prussians
numbered 130,000 and Wellington’s
heterogeneous Anglo-Allied force a further
90,000, excluding garrison troops.
This over-all inferiority of the French informs van
Reede’s estimate of the difficulties of
Napoleon’s ‘position even in the case of a
success at one point’. However, his words
show him preoccupied with the Anglo-Allied
sector Mons-Ath and hence his next phrase
about the danger for Napoleon in ‘seeking out
the army in its full strength’ implies, I think,
that the opposing army ‘in its full strength’
would outnumber the 120,000 French -- in
other words that the Anglo-Allied 90,000
would be joined with the Prussians to form a
united and preponderating force. [11]
It was only after writing most of his despatch
on 15 June that van Reede saw Wellington.
This is perhaps the most interesting part of
the letter for van Reede then learned that Wellington
still did not expect the Allies to be
attacked because of their overall strength, and
that the Duke estimated the concentration time
needed for his army at six to eight hours.
Wellington’s statement of his determination to
make no premature move, preferring to wait for
the French to disclose their hand unmistakably,
implies that he judged the risk of making a false
move greater than the disadvantage of consequent
loss of time.
In summary, General van Reede’s letter
gives a good deal of fresh and very interesting
information on the events of the 14th, the
prospects for the coming days as seen by a
senior Dutch officer, and the opinions of Wellington
on the eve of the campaign.
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Thanks to the generosity of two good
friends in Belgium, Mr Philippe de
Callatay and Dr Jacques Logie, I
have seen two hitherto unpublished documents
bearing upon the opening of the Waterloo
campaign and unearthed by Dr Logie in
the Nationaal Archief at The Hague. [1]