Next, note the numbers of each and their disposition. The mixed force
under the Duke of Wellington was somewhat over 100,000 men, with just over
200 guns.[2] They consisted in two corps and a reserve. The first corps
was under the Prince of Orange, and was mainly composed of men from the
Netherlands. Its headquarters were at Braine le Comte. The second corps
was under Lord Hill, and contained the mass of the British troops present.
Its headquarters were at Ath. These two between them amounted to about
half of Wellington's command, and we find them scattered in cantonments at
Oudenarde, at Ath, at Enghien, at Soignies, at Nivelles, at Roeulx, at
Braine le Comte, at Hal. A reserve corps under the Duke's own command was
stationed at Brussels, and amounted to more than one-fifth, but less than
one-quarter, of the whole force. The remaining quarter and a little more
is accounted for by scattered cavalry (mainly in posts upon the river
Dender), by the learned arms, gunners and sappers, distributed throughout
the army, and by troops which were occupying garrisons--in numbers
amounting to rather more than ten per cent. of the force.
The eastern Prussian or left half of the line was, as is apparent in the
preceding map, somewhat larger. It had a quarter more men and half as many
guns again as that under the Duke of Wellington, and it was organised into
four army corps, whose headquarters were respectively Charleroi, Namur,
Ciney, and Liège.
The whole line, therefore, which was waiting the advance of Napoleon, was
not quite two and a third hundred thousand men, with rather more than 500
guns. Of this grand total of the two halves, Wellington's and Blucher's
combined, about eighteen per cent. came from the British Islands, and of
that eighteen per cent., again, a very large proportion--exactly how large
it is impossible to determine--were Irish.
Now let us turn to the army which Napoleon was leading against this line
of Wellington and Blucher. It was just under one hundred and a quarter
thousand men strong, that is, just over half the total number of its
opponents. It had, however, a heavier proportion of guns, which were
two-thirds as numerous as those it had to meet.
This "Army of the North" was organised in seven great bodies, unequal in
size, but each a unit averaging seventeen odd thousand men. These seven
great bodies were the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th Army Corps, the 6th Army Corps,
the Imperial Guard, and the reserve cavalry under Grouchy.
The concentration of this army began, as I said in a previous section,
upon the 5th of June, and was effected with a rapidity and order which are
rightly regarded as a model by all writers upon military science.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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