CHAPTER V.
THE QUID OBSCURUM OF BATTLES.
All the world knows the first phase of this battle; a troubled,uncertain, hesitating opening, dangerous for both armies, but more sofor the English than the French. It had rained all night; the groundwas saturated; the rain had collected in hollows of the plain as intubs; at certain points the ammunition wagons had sunk in up to theaxle-trees and the girths of the horses; if the wheat and barley laidlow by this mass of moving vehicles had not filled the ruts, and madea litter under the wheels, any movement, especially in the valleys,in the direction of Papelotte, would have been impossible. The battlebegan late; for Napoleon, as we have explained, was accustomed to holdall his artillery in hand like a pistol, aiming first at one point,then at another of the battle, and he resolved to wait until the fieldbatteries could gallop freely, and for this purpose it was necessarythat the sun should appear and dry the ground. But the sun did not comeout; it was no longer the rendezvous of Austerlitz. When the firstcannon-shot was fired, the English General Colville drew out his watch,and saw that it was twenty-five minutes to twelve.
The action was commenced furiously, more furiously perhaps than theEmperor desired, by the French left wing on Hougomont. At the sametime Napoleon attacked the centre by hurling Quiot's brigade on LaHaye Sainte, and Ney pushed the French right wing against the Englishleft, which was leaning upon Papelotte. The attack on Hougomont was,to a certain extent, a feint, for the plan was to attract Wellingtonthere, and make him strengthen his left. This plan would have succeededhad not the four companies of Guards and Perponcher's Belgian divisionfirmly held the position; and Wellington, instead of massing histroops, found it only necessary to send as a reinforcement four morecompanies of Guards and a battalion of Brunswickers. The attack of theFrench right on Papelotte was serious; to destroy the English left,cut the Brussels road, bar the passage for any possible Prussians,force Mont St. Jean, drive back Wellington on Hougomont, then on Brainel'Alleud, and then on Halle,--nothing was more distinct. Had not a fewincidents supervened; this attack would have succeeded, for Papelottewas taken and La Haye Sainte carried.
There is a detail to be noticed here. In the English Infantry,especially in Kempt's brigade, there were many recruits, and theseyoung soldiers valiantly withstood our formidable foot, and theybehaved excellently as sharp-shooters. The soldier when thrown out _entirailleur_, being left to some extent to his own resources, becomes asit were his own general; and these recruits displayed something of theFrench invention and fury. These novices displayed an impulse, and itdispleased Wellington.
After the taking of La Haye Sainte, the battle vacillated. There isan obscure interval in this day, between twelve and four; the middleof this battle is almost indistinct, and participates in the gloom ofthe _mêlée._ A twilight sets in, and we perceive vast fluctuations inthis mist, a dizzying mirage, the panoply of war at that day, unknownin our times; flaming colpacks; flying sabretaches; cross-belts;grenade pouches; Hussar dolmans; red boots with a thousand wrinkles;heavy shakos enwreathed with gold twist; the nearly black Brunswickinfantry mingled with the scarlet infantry of England; the Englishsoldiers wearing clumsy round white cushions for epaulettes; theHanoverian light horse with their leathern helmets, brass bands, andred horse-tails; the Highlanders with their bare knees and checkeredplaids, and the long white gaiters of our grenadiers,--pictures but notstrategic lines; what a Salvator Rosa, but not a Gribeauval, would haverevelled in.
A certain amount of tempest is always mingled with a battle, _quidobscurum, quid divinum._ Every historian traces to some extent thelineament that pleases him in the hurly-burly. Whatever the combinationof the generals may be, the collision of armed masses has incalculableebbs and flows; in action the two plans of the leaders enter into eachother and destroy their shape. The line of battle floats and winds likea thread, the streams of blood flow illogically, the fronts of armiesundulate, the regiments in advancing or retiring form capes or gulfs,and all these reefs are continually shifting their position; whereinfantry was, artillery arrives; where artillery was, cavalry dash in;the battalions are smoke. There was something there, but when you lookfor it, it has disappeared; the gloomy masses advance and retreat;a species of breath from the tomb impels, drives back, swells, anddisperses these tragic multitudes. What is a battle? An oscillation.The immobility of a mathematical plan expresses a minute and not aday. To paint a battle, those powerful painters who have chaos intheir pencils are needed. Rembrandt is worth more than Vandermeulin,for Vandermeulin, exact at mid-day, is incorrect at three o'clock.Geometry is deceived, and the hurricane alone is true, and it is thisthat gives Folard the right to contradict Polybius. Let us add thatthere is always a certain moment in which the battle degenerates intoa combat, is particularized and broken up into countless detail factswhich, to borrow the expression of Napoleon himself, "belong ratherto the biography of regiments than to the history of the army." Thehistorian, in such a case, has the evident right to sum up; he can onlycatch the principal outlines of the struggle, and it is not given toany narrator, however conscientious he may be, absolutely to fix theform of that horrible cloud which is called a battle.
This, which is true of all great armed collisions, is peculiarlyapplicable to Waterloo; still, at a certain moment in the afternoon,the battle began to assume a settled shape.