ingly, between six and seven o'clock, the Imperial Foot Guards, to the number of nearly 18,000, were drawn from behind the ridge which had hitherto co vered them from our fire ; directed to advance along the high road leading to our centre ; and harangued by Bonaparte, whom they answered with reiterated cries of Five tEmpereur. We are now come to the decisive part of the battle, that part in which till now, whether at Marengo, at Austerlitz, or at Lig ny, success had uniformly attended the charge of a fresh and numerous corps. By what means did it fail at Waterloo ? The answer is, that our line, though thinned, was nowhere disordered ; our bat talions, though reduced, were firm in their position. Besides, the Duke, apprised of the approach of his allies, moved round an additional force from his left to his centre, and directed our battalions to deploy from their squares into line ;—a line not of two ranks, but of four. Its formidable aspect, and the know ledge of the approach of the Prussians, prevented Ney from attempting the last alternative, a bayonet charge by the Guards. Their ranks, however, were rapidly thinned, for the fire from our line was much more extensive and destructive than that of the co lumns of the enemy. It was now that the Duke saw the approach of the Prussian main body, and ordered a general movement forward ; the French retired, at first slowly and in good order ; but seeing that behind them all was falling into confusion, the artillerymen and waggon train, cutting the traces of their horses, and pressing to gain the high road to which the Prussians were fast advancing, the retreat became a rout. Our troops advanced over the field of battle, crossed the hollow beyond it, and, to wards nine at night, reached the ridge occupied by the French Staff during the day. Their task was now fulfilled, and the Prussians were left to follow the flying enemy. The loss on our side was 18,000 men ; that of the French opposed to us, exclusive of the loss caused by the Prussians, was about 20,000.
This great battle displayed no manceuvring; the plan once formed, the whole was a succession of impetuous attacks and obstinate repulses ; but the talents of either commander were not the less dis played, the one in making no fruitless application of his force ; the other in never permitting the ardour of his troops to lead them from their ground or to deviate from a defensive plan. Bonaparte commit ted only one error,—that of ordering the advance of his guards, who, though they might penetrate our line at a particular point, had no chance of gaining a victory, and were besides likely to be soon wanted as a rear-guard to their own army. In the battle, Lord Wellington appears to have committed no er ror ; on the preceding days, his fault lay in supposing Blucher likely to act with discretion, and in remain ing personally at Brussels, instead of keeping near to his impatient coadjutor. Had the latter avoided fight ing on the 16th, and retreated only twelve or fifteen miles, the allied forces would have been completely in co-operation, and their numbers (160,000) would have deprived Bonaparte of every chance.
From Waterloo to Paris, the advance of the allies was an almost uninterrupted march ; marked on our part by the capture, by escalade, of two towns, Cambray and Peronne ; on that of the Prussians by an unremitting pursuit of the enemy. On one oc casion (2d July, near Versailles), a corps of French cavalry reasserted their claim to fame, and taught the Prussians the hazard of a precipitate advance ; but the success was partial, the evacuation of Paris unavoidable, and resistance hopeless; now that al most all Europe was pouring her armies into the French territory. Hence the second treaty of Pa ris (see the Article FRANCE), concluded after many vain appeals to the generosity of the allies, and which burdened France with contributions to the amount of nearly L.30,000,000 Sterling, exclusive of the
support of an allied army on her frontier. This ar my, amounting at first to 150,000 men, was reduced in 1817 to 120,000, and withdrawn in the end of 1818; since which all has borne the aspect of tran quillity on the Continent.
The time is not yet arrived for viewing, with the calm impartiality of history, our war against Bona.' parte; but the more reflecting part of our country men can hardly fail to regret our participating in the war of 1792. Those who know the inoffensive state of the French nation at that time, their general wish for peace, and the reduced condition of their army, can have no doubt that the efforts which subse quently poured forth such a host of combatants, ow ed their existence to the threats of the allied pow ers ; without these the Jacobins would not have triumphed, nor would a military adventurer, like Bonaparte, have had the means of acquiring an as cendancy. Louis XVI. might have been brought to the scaffold, and republican visions have prevailed for a season, but the eyes of the people would have been opened to the blessings of a constitutional mo narchy much earlier than when threatened with in vasion, and.obliged, in self-defence, to throw undue power into the hands of their new rulers. The first great error,.—the coalition of 1792,—was the act of Austria and Prussia; but of the continuance of the Continental war, after 1795, we were almost the sole cause. Belgium and Holland had, it is true, fallen into the hands of France, and to recover them was an object of the highest interest; but in attempting this, our ministers made no adequate al lowance for the jealousies, the prejudices, we may add, the incapacity of the governments whose aid was indispensable to success. In 1803, circumstan ces had become extremely embarrassing ; France was confirmed in the possession of the Netherlands and Italy, and at the disposal of an ambitious despot, who studied in peace only the means of farther en croachment. What course was our Government to follow ? Were they to continue in peace, and to trust for our eventual safety to the progressive ex tension of our resources and the improvement of our army ; or were they to resort to immediate war, and present, by our declared hostility, a rallying point to other powers ? An experienced government would have preferred the former ; the ministry of 1803 adopted the latter; not from views of ambition, but from yielding to that popular impulse, which it would not, however, have been impracticable to guide and control. As to the course of the war, it was, during the two first years, a contest with ' out decided success on either side. In its third year, an ill conducted coalition gave to France that superiority which was to be expected in the case of a great military power directed by a single head. Such, in a farther degree, was the result of the con tinental operations of 1806 and 1807. In 1808, Spain gave an unexpected change to the calcula tions of politicians, and showed, m an encouraging light, the power of popular resistance ; still its effects, aided even by our military means, produced little decisive of the grand objects of the war. We were proceeding with great zeal and gallantry, but without any definite hope or object, when, a ca tastrophe, as little expected by ourselves as by the French, entirely changed the aspect of affairs, and made it incumbent on us to omit no exertion, financial or military, to redeem the independence of Europe. The success was complete ; but it was not till the close of the struggle that we became aware of the amount of the sacrifices incurred in its prose - cution.