บทที่ บทที่ 76 · 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 midday 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 pell-mell. 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.