18 June: Boreham on Waterloo

Waterloo
The anniversary of "that world-earthquake, Waterloo," awakens emotions of pride and thankfulness such as no similar encounter in the whole course of the world's history is able to excite. However intensely a man may loathe all thoughts of war, and however fondly he may cherish the loftiest ideals of peace, he will feel a certain glow of subtle satisfaction as he recalls the details of the famous fight that settled the destinies of Europe on June 18, 1815. Military men delight in telling and retelling the thrilling story of that memorable Sunday because it represents to them not merely the dogged endurance and splendid audacity of brave men, but also the desperate operations of two master-minds pitted the one against the other in decisive combat.

From the dispositions of the two armies in the early hours of that June morning, to the thunderous charge of the British regiments in the gathering dusk, every order issued by either Napoleon or Wellington takes its place as a classic in the annals of tactics and of strategy.

An Epic Of History
No battle in history has been more frequently or more vividly described than has the battle of Waterloo. No scene is more familiar. The grey and misty morning after the drenching downpour of that Saturday night; the two armies, each occupying a front of about a couple of miles, facing each other from opposite slopes, with a valley a mile wide between them; Napoleon's fatal delay in opening his attack; the belated rumble of artillery at noon; the fearful onslaught of the French infantry two hours later; the dogged and unswerving determination of Wellington to maintain a stubborn defensive until his enemy had beaten himself to pieces on the immovable and impenetrable British columns; the wild delight of those impatient regiments when, amid the lengthening shadows of that midsummer evening, the Iron Duke decided on attacking his exhausted foe; the tremendous charge that converted the pride of the French army into a disorderly rabble and even decimated the Old Guard upon which Napoleon so implicitly relied; the panic stricken flight of the shattered battalions; the timely arrival of the Prussians and their pitiless chase of the dejected fugitives all through the hot June night. These things, as well as Napoleon's own lonely and ignominious return to Paris, constitute themselves an integral part of the mental imagery of every educated Briton.

The battle of Waterloo will always rank as one of the very greatest battles in the world's history, not by reason of its immensity, but because of its extraordinary decisiveness and because of its incalculable historic effect. The chroniclers, in playing that most fascinating game to which the human imagination ever lends itself, the game of What-Might-Have-Been, have vied with each other in depicting the kind of world that would have existed today if Wellington had lost the battle of Waterloo. The lurid pictures that they paint stand in striking contrast to one another, yet they all agree in declaring that the world of today would have been a very different and a very much worse world if Napoleon had vanquished the armies of Wellington on that June day. At Waterloo the Duke of Wellington not only defeated Napoleon; he destroyed him. At one fell stroke he swept the Napoleonic element out of history. He left his enemy without an army and without the means of forming one. He thus brought to a close the wars of 20 years and laid a spectre that had filled all European statesmen with unutterable dread. By that one culminating and magnificent victory, he crushed the despotism with which the world had so long been threatened and gave us the liberties which, for a century and a quarter, we have so unfeignedly enjoyed.

Exit the Big Battalions
The dramatic result of the battle has never been satisfactorily explained. Napoleon possessed the advantage of vastly superior numbers. His troops formed a compact, united and strongly welded whole while Wellington's comprised a medley of heterogeneous and incongruous elements. At noon Napoleon said that he had the British entirely at his mercy, and at 3 pm he despatched a courier to Paris to announce that victory was absolutely certain. Why, then, did the day end as it did? Can it be seriously argued that, of the two, Wellington was really the greater general? Lord Roberts confesses that the schemes of Napoleon were more comprehensive, his genius more dazzling and his imagination more vivid than Wellington's. Nothing can be more absurd than to argue, as several learned writers do, that Napoleon had passed his prime and that his brain had lost its old celerity and flexibility. He was 46, an age that in a commander in the Great War, would have seemed positively boyish.

It is perhaps nearer the mark to suggest that even the cleverest men have their good days and their off days. There are occasions on which a century is hopelessly beyond the reach of a Bradman. Nobody can strike twelve every time. The fateful day that decided the destinies of Europe found Napoleon at his feeblest and it found Wellington at the top of this form. The Emperor was never so agitated; the Duke was never so calm. Napoleon perpetrated blunder after blunder; the Duke seemed omniscient and infallible. Over and above this, too, it has to be recognised that Waterloo was the crushing rejoinder of history to the Napoleonic blasphemy to the effect that God is always on the side of the big battalions.

The people of Great Britain have learned by repeated experience that there are moral and divine forces that invariably co-operate with good men for the enthronement of justice and the overthrow of tyrants. In this sublime confidence they peruse once more the stirring records of the struggle that we commemorate today, and in this sure faith they await with tranquil hearts and with loins girt the most stupendous issues of the great days still to come.[1]

[1] This editorial appears in the Hobart, Mercury on June 18, 1938. It has been abbreviated to keep it consistent in length with other editorials. The original version contains a further section on the emancipation of France.

F W Boreham

Image: Battle of Waterloo