Produced by The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net. (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries.) WATERLOO [Illustration] WATERLOO By HILAIRE BELLOC LONDON STEPHEN SWIFT AND CO., LTD. 16 KING STREET, COVENT GARDEN WEST CENTRAL MCMXII CONTENTS PAGE I. THE POLITICAL OBJECT AND EFFECT OF THE WATERLOO CAMPAIGN 9 II. THE PRELIMINARIES: NAPOLEON'S ADVANCE ACROSS THE SAMBRE 24 III. THE DECISIVE DAY: FRIDAY, THE 16TH OF JUNE-- LIGNY 63 QUATRE-BRAS 84 IV. THE ALLIED RETREAT AND FRENCH ADVANCE UPON WATERLOO AND WAVRE 129 V. THE ACTION 158 WATERLOO I THE POLITICAL OBJECT AND EFFECT OF THE WATERLOO CAMPAIGN It must continually be insisted upon in military history, that general actions, however decisive, are but the functions of campaigns; and that campaigns, in their turn, are but the functions of the political energies of the governments whose armies are engaged. The object of a campaign is invariably a political object, and all its military effort is, or should be, subsidiary to that political object. One human community desires to impose upon the future a political condition which another human community rejects; or each is attempting to impose upon the future, conditions irreconcilable one with the other. Until we know what those conditions are, or what is the political objective of each opponent, we cannot decide upon the success of a campaign, nor give it its true position in history. Thus, to take the simplest and crudest case, a nation or its government determines to annex the territory of a neighbour; that is, to subject a neighbouring community to the laws of the conqueror. That neighbouring community and its government, if they are so old-fashioned as to prefer freedom, will resist by force of arms, and there will follow what is called a "campaign" (a term derived from the French, and signifying a countryside: for countrysides are the theatres of wars). In this campaign the political object of the attempted conquest on the one hand, and of resistance to it on the other, are the issue. The military aspect of the campaign is subsidiary to its political objects, and we judge of its success or failure not in military but in political terms.