Battles of English HistoryGeorge, H. B. (Hereford Brooke)
History
Battles of English History
George, H. B. (Hereford Brooke)
Battles -- Great Britain
Napoleon could bring into the field about 125,000 men, practically
all veterans commanded by excellent officers, though the successive
re-organisations after his first overthrow and on his restoration had
left it lacking in the perfect mutual confidence of officers and men
which makes a veteran army so formidable. Of these nearly 24,000 were
cavalry; and there were 344 field guns. The Prussians under Blucher
were not much inferior in numbers to the French, about 121,000, but
their proportion of cavalry (12,000) and guns (312) was lower, and the
quality of part at least of the army inferior. Wellington had about
94,000 men, of whom over 14,000 were cavalry, with 196 guns, but, as
has been said before, barely half[73] of them were really trustworthy
troops. Thus Napoleon was nearly equal to his opponents in number of
cavalry, but was outmatched in guns in the proportion of about three
to two, and in infantry by at least seven to four, though the superior
quality of his troops went some way towards compensating for this
inequality. He had the further advantage of unity of command, while the
armies of the allies not only were separate, with no further concert of
action than what the voluntary accord of the chiefs might establish,
but drew their supplies from opposite directions, the Prussians from
the Rhine, the English from the Belgian ports. Both sides seem to have
been fairly well informed as to the strength of the other. Napoleon
also had information as to the position of the allied troops, nor
were Wellington and Blucher quite in the dark when the French troops
concentrated on the frontier, skilfully as Napoleon had arranged their
movements, though they could not at first be certain what was real
attack, what feint.
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