Wellington, soldier and statesman, and the revival of the military power of England . r, migl\t have begun at about ten 2 ; butthe state of the ground, sodden with incessant rain,made the manoeuvring of cannon and horsemenvery difficult; at the instance of Drouot, one of hisbest officers, Napoleon postponed his onset for atime. Opinions have differed whether this was nota grave mistake; the delay was an advantage ina certain sense, but it favoured a Prussian marchfrom Wavre; all that can be said, with certainty, isthat, on the 18th of June, the sun in its coursefought against Napoleon ; Wellin
Wellington, soldier and statesman, and the revival of the military power of England . r, migl\t have begun at about ten 2 ; butthe state of the ground, sodden with incessant rain,made the manoeuvring of cannon and horsemenvery difficult; at the instance of Drouot, one of hisbest officers, Napoleon postponed his onset for atime. Opinions have differed whether this was nota grave mistake; the delay was an advantage ina certain sense, but it favoured a Prussian marchfrom Wavre; all that can be said, with certainty, isthat, on the 18th of June, the sun in its coursefought against Napoleon ; Wellington must havebeen defeated had the attack been made at aboutten, on reasonably solid ground. Wellingtons army,we have seen, was composed of about 70,000 men, For Napoleons conclusive reasoning on this subject referencemay be made to Comment., v., 210-211. The passage is unan-swerable and avoided by English and German critics. See also myCampaign 0/1815, pp. 193-194. 2 The order for the attack at nine is in La Tour dAuvergne,Waterloo, p. 251. Charras most improperly suppressed Waterloo 293 comprising 13,500 cavalry and 159 guns1; but itwas crowded with very inferior levies; it did notcontain 50,000 really good troops; it was not nearlyso powerful as the army it opposed ; all the morereason that its chief should not have accepted Duke had made his arrangements for the de-fence at an early hour; with one great exceptionthey were, on the whole, masterly ; they fully re-vealed the consummate tactician. Ever apprehen-sive for his right, he left 17,000 men near Hal andhad thus greatly weakened his main army; unques-tionably this was a strategic error2; even in thedispositions he made at Waterloo his right was, per-haps, too strongly occupied. But, as a rule, thechoice of this position had been admirably made,and the means he adopted to hold it were, in thehighest degree, excellent. The front of his mainbattle was covered by a crossroad, leading fromOhain to Braine le
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