The Terrible Defeat at Waterloo
June 18th was the crucial day in Napoleon’s career, the one in which his power was to fall, never to rise again. Here we shall but sketch in outline this famous battle, reserving a fuller account of it for our next chapter, under the story of Wellington, the victor in the fray. The stupendous struggle, as Wellington himself described it, was “a battle of giants.” Long the result wavered in the balance. All day long the British sustained the desperate assaults of their antagonists. Terrible was the contest, frightful the loss of life. Hour after hour passed, charge after charge was hurled by Napoleon against the British lines, which still closed up over the dead and stood firm; and it seemed as if night would fall with the two armies unflinchingly face to face, neither of them victor in the terrible fray.
The arrival of Blücher with his Prussians turned the scale. To Napoleon’s bitter disappointment Grouchy, who should have been close on the heels of the Prussians, failed to appear, and the weary and dejected French were left to face these fresh troops without support. Napoleon’s Old Guard in vain flung itself into the gap, and the French nation long repeated in pride the saying attributed to the commander of this famous corps: “The guard dies, but it never surrenders.”
Napoleon Meets His Fate
In the end the French army broke and fled in disastrous rout, three-fourths of the whole force being left dead, wounded, or prisoners, while all its artillery became the prize of the victors. Napoleon, pale and confused, was led by Soult from the battlefield. It was his last fight. His abdication was demanded, and he resigned the crown in favor of his son. A hopeless and unnerved fugitive, he fled from Paris to Rochefort, hoping to escape to America. But the British fleet held that port, and in despair he went on board a vessel of the fleet, trusting himself to the honor of the British nation. But the statesmen of England had no sympathy with the vanquished adventurer, from whose ambition Europe had suffered so terribly. He was sent as a state prisoner to the island of St. Helena, there to end his days. His final hour of glory came in 1842, when his ashes were brought in pomp and display to Paris.
THE EVE OF WATERLOO
No more impressive scene could be imagined than this peaceful slumber of an army on the eve of what was to prove one of the most famous battles of history. On the succeeding night many of these slumberers slept the sleep of death, but their hands had brought to an end the career of Napoleon.
WELLINGTON AT WATERLOO GIVING THE WORD TO ADVANCE
This spirited illustration figures the final event in the mighty struggle at Waterloo when the French, after hurling themselves a dozen times against the unyielding British ranks, like storm waves upon a rock-bound shore, staggered back in despair, and Wellington gave the magic word of command: “Let all the line advance!” Those words signified the final downfall of Napoleon.
CHAPTER V.
Nelson and Wellington, the Champions of England.
England and France on Land and Sea
For nearly twenty years went on the stupendous struggle between Napoleon the Great and the powers of Europe, but in all that time, and among the multitude of men who met the forces of France in battle, only two names emerge which the world cares to remember, those of Horatio Nelson, the most famous of the admirals of England, and Lord Wellington, who alone seemed able to overthrow the greatest military genius of modern times. On land the efforts of Napoleon were seconded by the intrepidity of a galaxy of heroes, Ney, Murat, Moreau, Massena, and other men of fame. At sea the story reads differently. That era of stress and strain raised no great admiral in the service of France; her ships were feebly commanded, and the fleet of Great Britain, under the daring Nelson, kept its proud place as mistress of the sea.
Nelson Discovers the French Fleet in Aboukir Bay
The first proof of this came before the opening of the century, when Napoleon, led by the ardor of his ambition, landed in Egypt, with vague hopes of rivaling in the East the far-famed exploits of Alexander the Great. The fleet which bore him thither remained moored in Aboukir Bay, where Nelson, scouring the Mediterranean in quest of it, first came in sight of its serried line of ships on August 1, 1798. One alternative alone dwelt in his courageous soul, that of a heroic death or a glorious victory. “Before this time to-morrow I shall have gained a victory or Westminster Abbey,” he said.
In the mighty contest that followed, the French had the advantage in numbers, alike of ships, guns, and men. They were drawn up in a strong and compact line of battle, moored in a manner that promised to bid defiance to a force double their own. They lay in an open roadstead, but had every advantage of situation, the British fleet being obliged to attack them in a position carefully chosen for defence. Only the genius of Nelson enabled him to overcome those advantages of the enemy. “If we succeed, what will the world say?” asked Captain Berry, on hearing the admiral’s plan of battle. “There is no if in the case,” answered the admiral. “That we shall succeed is certain: who may live to tell the story, is a very different question.”
The Glorious Battle of the Nile
The story of the “Battle of the Nile” belongs to the record of eighteenth century affairs. All we need say here is that it ended in a glorious victory for the English fleet. Of thirteen ships of the line in the French fleet, only two escaped. Of four frigates, one was sunk and one burned. The British loss was 895 men. Of the French, 5,225 perished in the terrible fray. Nelson sprang, in a moment, from the position of a man without fame into that of the naval hero of the world—as Dewey did in as famous a fray almost exactly a century later. Congratulations and honors were showered upon him, the Sultan of Turkey rewarded him with costly presents, valuable testimonials came from other quarters, and his own country honored him with the title of Baron Nelson of the Nile, and settled upon him for life a pension of £2,000.
The first great achievement of Nelson in the nineteenth century was the result of a daring resolution of the statesmen of England, in their desperate contest with the Corsican conqueror. By his exploit at the Nile the admiral had very seriously weakened the sea-power of France. But there were powers then in alliance with France—Russia, Sweden and Denmark—which had formed a confederacy to make England respect their naval rights, and whose combined fleet, if it should come to the aid of France, might prove sufficient to sweep the ships of England from the seas.
The weakest of these powers, and the one most firmly allied to France, was Denmark, whose fleet, consisting of twenty-three ships of the line and about thirty-one frigates and smaller vessels, lay at Copenhagen. At any moment this powerful fleet might be put at the disposal of Napoleon. This possible danger the British cabinet resolved to avoid. A plan was laid to destroy the fleet of the Danes, and on the 12th of March, 1801, the British fleet sailed with the purpose of putting this resolution into effect.
The Fleet Sails for Copenhagen
Nelson, then bearing the rank of vice-admiral, went with the fleet, but only as second in command. To the disgust of the English people, Sir Hyde Parker, a brave and able seaman, but one whose name history has let sink into oblivion, was given chief command—a fact which would have insured the failure of the expedition if Nelson had not set aside precedent, and put glory before duty. Parker, indeed, soon set Nelson chafing by long drawn-out negotiations, which proved useless, wasted time, and saved the Danes from being taken by surprise. When, on the morning of April 30th, the British fleet at length advanced through the Sound and came in sight of the Danish line of defence, they beheld formidable preparations to meet them.
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