The two armies were nearly equal in numbers; and had that of the Duke of Wellington been equal in point of material to that of the Emperor, the advantage of position which it possessed would have fully made up for the slight superiority in numbers possessed by the French. As it was, however, the superiority of the French, not only in artillery and cavalry, but so far as a large part of the Anglo-Dutch army was concerned, in _moral_, was unquestionable, and Wellington’s only justification for receiving battle lay, as Kennedy points out above, in his expectation of receiving help from Blücher. Napoleon, as we have seen, dictated his plan of battle before eleven o’clock. It provided that,[701] as soon as the whole army should be ranged in order of battle, about 1 P.M., and the Emperor should give the order to Marshal Ney, the attack should commence, having for its object to get possession of the village of Mont St. Jean, where the road from Nivelles strikes into the Charleroi turnpike. This attack was to be made by the 1st Corps, supported on the left by the 2d Corps. To aid this attack a formidable battery of seventy-eight guns, many of them twelve-pounders, was to be moved forward on the east side of the road to a ridge which ran in front of and parallel to the French line of battle, and only 600 yards from the English position. The Emperor had then definitely decided before eleven o’clock to defer the principal move of the day till about one in the afternoon. In this decision he was mainly, if not wholly, influenced by the difficulties which he saw would be caused by the deep mud of the fields over which his troops would have to manœuvre. The determination of Napoleon to make his main effort against the village of Mont St. Jean, so as to possess himself of the principal avenue of retreat open to the enemy,—the road to Brussels,—has always elicited the commendation of military men. The Emperor undoubtedly intended to aid the attack of the 1st Corps by advancing the 6th Corps in its support; but this, as we shall see, owing to the intervention of the Prussians, he did not attempt. Whether, in case the attack had succeeded, so far as to give to the French the possession of the Brussels road, the Forest of Soignes would have afforded cover to Wellington’s retreating army, as English writers have always maintained, or would have necessitated the abandonment of the greater part of their artillery, as Napoleon contended, is a question which we will not undertake to discuss here.