The Napoleon Options has just been released by Greenhill and contains ten brilliant scenarios looking at the great 'what ifs?' of the Napoleonic era. To give you a taste of the book, we present below an extract from John Elting's chapter on June Is 15. This describes the decisive moment when the French begin to rally after Waterloo and change the tide of victory in the 1815 campaign. "Generalleutenant Graf August von Gneisenau, Prussian chief of staff, was a man of frustrations. But now, with the French at last cleared from Genappe, he saw opportunity and seized it. It was exciting, exhilarating riding down the moonlit highway - squealing fugitives failing under Prussian sabre strokes, begging mercy or scattering blindly from the road. There were occasional blocks - bayonet-bristling cores of regiments tight around their eagles, men who knew it was both dishonour and death to break ranks and so held together - but the Prussians flowed past these seeking easy prey. There were isolated guns and caissons, drivers vainly flogging their horses, vainly trying to defend themselves; knots of horsemen, overtaken and lanced from behind. He passed a farm at a crossroads - Quatre Bras already! Then, a mile or so beyond, the flow of flight and pursuit slowed - a patter of shots and wounded troopers dropping back. Wagons across the road, they said, some French seemed to be trying to rally. 'Fools!' Gneisenau tumed to his aide-de-camp riding at his elbow. 'Infantry to the front! We'll -' With one obliterating crash, his sky fell in. Cavalry, even solid regiments, could be a skittery thing, especially after dark. No competent commander used it either for rearguard or advance guard after dusk. And Blucher's cavalry, with its high proportion of landwehr and recently reorganised units, was not solid. In that sudden blaze and blast of short-range fire, panic gripped and maddened horse and man alike. Gneisenau's cornmand stampeded back toward Genappe, riding down the hapless infantry that had accompanied it, troopers from the leading regiments literally sabering their way through the less damaged ones behind. French prisoners broke free, French stragglers in woods and farms along the road took heart and began firing into the tormented column. French gunners worked their guns furiously, 12-pdr shot richocheting down the hard surface of the Brussels road, 6-pdrs belching canister, until those six rounds were fired and French infantry swarmed across the highway, mopping up. Gneisenau, wounded and pinned under his horse, was captured. Out of the shadowed Nivelle road, Merle swang his grab-bag squadron onto the fleeing Prussians, the old wolf-yell, Vive I'Empereur' ringing above the hoot-roar and tumult, trumpeters lustily sounding charge. Genappe was a trap, its narrow bridge and main street still cluttered with abandoned wagons and now filled with units from all the Prussian corps, slowly fumbling their way through it. Into this jumble poured the Prussian cavalry, flogging their horses, striking at anyone in their way. They jammed the bridge; some went into the river on either side of it, splashing through the shallow water - and God help the man whose horse stumbled. Marshal Blucher had established a makeshift headquarters in Genappe. Exhausted, bruised, jubilant with honest pride, he was enjoying a hastily-prepared meal and a large tumbler of brandy when the cannon opened at Quatre Bras. Then, louder and louder, came the uproar of retreat, yells of 'Raus! Raus!' until the room's walls shook. Furious, Blocher went out of the door, shaking off officers who tried to hold him back, and into the street, sword in hand, cursing expertly, throwing himself into the rout with thunderous orders to rally. It was hopeless. The old hussar had used up his luck at Ligny. In the dark nobody recognised him - he was ridden down and trampled under. The aide who had saved him at Ligny tried a second rescue, but fell under flailing sabres - whether Prussian or French, nobody knows. Spilling northward out of Genappe, the confused mob cavalry, infantry, and what-not - rolled towards Wellington's bivouacs. " Back to Greenhill Military Book News No. 97 Table of Contents Back to Greenhill Military Book News List of Issues Back to Master Magazine List © Copyright 2000 by Greenhill Books This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com