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From: Carl von Clausewitz and Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington. On Waterloo: Clausewitz, Wellington, and the Campaign of 1815. Ed./trans. Christopher Bassford, Daniel Moran, and Gregory W. Pedlow. Clausewitz.com, 2010. ISBN-10: 1453701508. ISBN-13: 9781453701508. 318pp. List price: $18.00.

NOTES
TO PART 8

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[1] For Wellington’s initial hostile reaction to Clausewitz’s work see above, section IV, “Correspondence Within Wellington’s Circle,” Wellington to Gurwood, 17 September 1842. The letter forbidding Gurwood to publish the Memorandum was written on 4 October 1842. The Memorandum remained unpublished until 1863, when the Duke’s son included it in a new collection of Wellington's papers. Duke of Wellington, Supplementary Despatches, Correspondence, and Memoranda of Field Marshal Arthur Duke of Wellington, K.G., 15 vols. (London: John Murray, 1851-1872), 10:513-531 [hereafter cited as WSD for “Wellington Supplementary Dispatches”].

 

[2] As noted previously (footnote 19 of Section V above), Clausewitz underestimated the extent of the Prussian deployment and overestimated that of Wellington’s army. The latter error may have occurred because he was not aware that the units posted on Wellington’s far right were never intended for use in the front line. The true nature of Wellington’s deployment is shown in a letter written on 15 June 1815 by Lieutenant Ernst-Ludwig von Gerlach of Blücher’s staff. After discussing Wellington’s dispositions with the British liaison officer to the Prussian headquarters, Lt. Col. Henry Hardinge, Gerlach wrote that “Everything could be quickly concentrated at Braine-le-Comte or Hal; that which stands beyond the Scheldt [River] are troops that Wellington intends to leave in his rear.” Hans Joachim Schoeps, ed., Aus den Jahren Preussischer Not und Erneuerung. Tagebücher und Briefe der Gebrüder Gerlach und Ihres Kreises, 1805-1820 (Berlin: Haude & Spener, 1963), 144-145.

 

[3] See above, section V, chapter 11. Clausewitz’s statement that Wellington had promised, on 3 May 1815 at the Tirlemont meeting, to concentrate his army at Quatre Bras in the event of an attack on the Prussians, should not be taken literally as referring to the tiny crossroads of Quatre Bras, which was unknown prior to the battle there, but rather to the far left of Wellington’s army. Allied pre-war meetings and plans always made reference to cities or large towns that could easily be found on a map. As for the subjects discussed at this meeting, Blücher’s aide-de-camp wrote that these were the rebellion of Blücher’s Saxon troops and the future of this contingent, plus the overall campaign for the pending invasion of France. August-Ludwig Ferdinand Graf von Nostiz, Das Tagebuch des Generals der Kavallerie, Grafen v. Nostitz, Kriegsgeschichtliche Einzelschriften, vols. 5-6 (Berlin: E.S. Mittler, 1884-5), 6:11. Evidently there was also some discussion of defensive plans, because Wellington wrote that evening that the meeting had been “very satisfactory” in that he had received “the most satisfactory promises of support” from Blücher. Cited in John Hussey, “The Tirlemont Meeting in Context: Wellington and Blücher, 3 May 1815,” First Empire no. 99 (2008), 16-24. The orders issued by Field Marshal Blücher after Tirlemont suggest that there was also some discussion of possible aid to the Prussians on the part of Wellington. John Hussey, “The Aftermath of Tirlemont: 2-12 May 1815,” First Empire no. 100 (2008), 23-24.

 

[4] See above, section V, chapter12.

 

[5] Napoleon, Mémoires, 57-58.

 

[6] See above, section V, chapter 14.

 

[7] Ibid.

 

[8] Lord Liverpool’s manuscript translation of Clausewitz’s history is found in WP 8/1/2.

 

[9] Unless otherwise noted, this and all other quotations from Wellington are taken from his Memorandum of 24 September 1842 (section VI above).

 

[10] See above, section VI. For the sensitive diplomatic and political situation facing Wellington in 1815, see Gregor Dallas, 1815: The Roads to Waterloo (London: Richard Cohen, 1996), 331-364.

 

[11] Prussian officers and officials frequently expressed concern about the Dutch king’s shaky loyalty to the Allied coalition. Thus on 12 June 1815, Prince Blücher’s chief of staff, General Neithardt von Gneisenau, wrote to Prussia’s chief minister Karl von Hardenberg that “In this country every informed individual has no doubt that if the Allied armies suffered a setback, the King of the Netherlands would immediately attempt to negotiate peace and an alliance with France.” Hans von Delbrück, Das Leben des Feldmarschalls Grafen Neithardt von Gneisenau, vol. 4, 1814-1815 (Berlin: G. Reimer, 1880), 518-20.

 

[12] See above, Campaign of 1815, chapter 16. For the difficulties encountered by the Prussian army in receiving sufficient provisions from the Dutch government and the impact this had on its ability to concentrate, see Carl von Damitz, Geschichte des Feldzuges 1815 in den Niederlanden und Frankreich, 2 vols. (Berlin, Posen and Bromberg: Siegfried Mittler, 1837), 1:45. Soon after his arrival in Brussels, the new Prussian liaison officer to Wellington’s headquarters, General Carl von Müffling, reported that “I have already become convinced that it is best for us to avoid uniting completely with the English army, except for battles.” Müffling to Gneisenau, 28 May 1815, Geheimes Staatsarchiv, Stiftung Preussischer Kulturbesitz, VI HA Nachlass Gneisenau, Paket 23, Mappe A40, fol. 56.

 

[13] Wellington’s statements of 8 May, 11 May, and 13 June are found in J. Gurwood (ed.), The Dispatches of Field Marshal The Duke of Wellington [hereafter cited as WD for “Wellington Dispatches”] (London, 1838), 12:359-360, 373, 462. For reports indicating that Napoleon was unwilling or unable to attack (i.e., French troops being removed from the borders to deal with internal unrest or French defensive preparations along the borders), see WD, 12:372, 437; WSD, 10:222, 274, 280, 290, 387, 393, 408, 412, 413, 417. For Wellington’s statement on the morning of 15 June see John Hussey, “Further Intelligence Reports, 14-15 June 1815,” First Empire 81 (2004), 31-33.

 

[14] Adolf Saager, ed., Blüchers Briefe an seine Frau (Stuttgart: Robert Lutz, n.d.), p. 107; Oskar von Lettow-Vorbeck, Napoleons Untergang 1815, 2 vols (Berlin: Ernst Siegfried Mittler, 1904), 1:192; Delbück, Gneisenau, 4:518.

 

[15] WSD, 10:476.

 

[16] Lettow-Vorbeck, Napoleons Untergang, 194-199. General von Lettow-Vorbeck believed that this new intelligence must have come from high-ranking French deserters and noted that it did not seem to have been shared with Wellington.

 

[17] See above, section V, chapter 21.

 

[18] See above, section VI.

 

[19] Wellington and his circle were particularly upset by the frequent allegations that he had been caught by surprise when Napoleon attacked. This was one of the main reasons why he provided the July 1842 version of the Memorandum to Lord Francis Egerton for use in the Quarterly Review article attacking the British historian Archibald Alison. Alison had claimed that Wellington had been surprised because he was waiting for information that French Interior Minister Joseph Fouché had promised but then deliberately delayed sending. See above, section IV, Gurwood to Wellington, 6 September 1842.

 

[20] In 1848 Prussian diplomats and officers sent a series of letters to Captain William Siborne arguing that Zieten’s message to Wellington had arrived at 9 a.m. Siborne revised the third (1848) edition of his History of the Waterloo Campaign to reflect this allegation despite the weak evidence provided by the Prussians. This evidence included a letter written by Zieten in 1819 claiming that he had sent his message about the French attack to Wellington at 3:45 a.m. (This is not very credible in view of the fact that his own first message to Field Marshal Blücher that morning clearly stated that hostilities did not start until 4:30 a.m.). It also included an ambiguous letter written by Wellington to the Duc de Feltre in French at 10 p.m. on 15 June 1815 [WD, 12:473] saying “I have received the news that the enemy attacked the Prussian outposts at Thuin on the Sambre this morning and appears to be threatening Charleroi. I have received nothing from Charleroi since 9 a.m.” As most historians of Waterloo campaign have recognized, this statement has two possible meanings—either nothing since a report that arrived at 9 a.m. or nothing since one that had been sent at that hour—and thus cannot be taken as firm evidence for either view. The Prussian correspondence with Siborne is found in Gareth Glover, Letters from the Battle of Waterloo: Unpublished Correspondence by Allied Officers from the Siborne Papers (London: Greenhill Books, 2004), 311-319. Renewed claims for a 9 a.m. arrival time based upon the same evidence offered in 1848 are found in Peter Hofschröer, 1815: The Waterloo Campaign, 2 vols. (London: Greenhill Books, 1998, 1999) [hereafter cited as Hofschröer, 1815, followed by the volume and page number]; 1:194, 334, 339-40; 2:329-330.

 

[21] The head of the Prussian military archives prior to World War I, Professor Julius von Pflugk-Harttung, reached this conclusion after studying all the available evidence, including that provided to Siborne in 1848. “Die Preußische Berichterstattung an Wellington vor der Schlacht bei Ligny,” Historisches Jahrbuch 24 (1903), 54-55; idem., Vorgeschichte der Schlacht bei Belle-Alliance—Wellington (Berlin: Richard Schröder, 1903), 49-50. Two recent studies of this issue agree and have demonstrated that postwar statements made by Zieten about his message to Wellington are not credible because their alleged times of dispatch took place before the start of hostilities at 4:30 a.m. (In addition to the above-mentioned 1819 letter, Zieten claimed a dispatch time of 2:15 a.m. in his error-ridden 1839 autobiography that Peter Hofschröer mistakenly identified as an 1815 journal in 1815, 1:170, 193.)  John Hussey, “At What Time on 15 June 1815 Did Wellington Learn of Napoleon’s Attack on the Prussians,” War in History 6 (1999), 88-116; the first page, all of the footnotes, and an access-wall link can be found at https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/096834459900600104. Gregory W. Pedlow, “Back to the Sources: General Zieten’s Message to the Duke of Wellington on 15 June 1815,” First Empire no. 82 (2005), 30-36. [This article is visible on the internet at researchgate.net.]

 

[22] The Prussian General Staff’s history of the Waterloo campaign stated that messages in 1815 were carried at speeds between 6 and 7 minutes per kilometer (5¼-6¼ m.p.h.). Lettow-Vorbeck, Napoleons Untergang, 199. John Hussey’s analysis of the transmission times for messages sent on 15 June 1815 reached the same conclusion (5-6 miles per hour). Hussey, “What Time,” 96-97. Both studies note that some messages took much longer than expected to arrive.

 

[23] Maj. Gen. A. Pfister, Aus dem Lager der Verbündeten, 1814 and 1815 (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlagsanstalt, 1897), 366. See also Hussey, “What Time,” 112. General Hügel’s statement that the results of the French attack were not yet known must refer to the overall situation rather than simply to the fate of the outpost at Thuin, because the village’s fall was already known by the time Zieten wrote to Wellington. (It was mentioned in a message sent by Zieten to Blücher at 8:15 a.m.)

 

[24] Lettow-Vorbeck, Napoleons Untergang, 287-288.

 

[25] Peter Hofschröer has argued [“Reply to John Hussey: At What Time on 15 June 1815 Did Wellington Really Learn of Napoleon’s Attack on the Prussians?,” War in History 6 (1999), 474] that the Prussian letter that arrived in Brussels at 5 p.m. was the one sent by Blücher from Namur at noon. This cannot be correct, however, because that letter from Blücher was based on Zieten’s very sketchy initial report that shots had been heard. It therefore contained no mention of an attack on Thuin or Zieten’s withdrawal plans. Furthermore, Hügel quite specifically mentioned reading “Zieten’s report,” not “Blücher’s letter.”

 

[26] At the present book's time of publication, two Dutch historians are currently publishing extensively researched histories of the Waterloo Campaign on the internet, drawing from a wide range of sources including many previously unpublished Dutch sources. For the Prince of Orange’s discovery of the French attack while visiting St. Symphorien, see Pierre de Wit, “15 June 1815, Observations Part 3, The Sector of the Army of the Netherlands: Communication Toward Braine-le Comte and Brussels,” in “The Campaign of 1815: A Study.” This mss used to be available on the internet at https://www.waterloo-campaign.nl. It appears to have been subsumed by a series of nine volumes plus an atlas, privately published but available via that same iink. Similarly, Erwin Muilwijk, “15 June 1815, Events During the Morning Concerning I. Anglo-Allied Corps,” in “Waterloo Campaign 1815: The Contribution of the Netherlands Mobile Army.” That manuscript was previously available on the internet but has withdrawn while being prepared for private publication via Lulu.com.

 

[27] [“C. de M.”], History of the British, Dutch, Hanoverian, and Brunswick Armies, under the Command of the Duke of Wellington, and of the Prussians, under that of Prince Blucher of Wahlstadt, in the Year 1815 (1816; reprinted London: Ken Trotman, 1983), 1. Müffling’s 1816 history is considered by most historians to be far more accurate than his much later memoirs.

 

[28] “Lord Fitzroy Somerset’s Account of the Events from 15-18 June 1815,” in Edward Owen, ed., The Waterloo Papers: 1815 and Beyond (Tavistock: AQ & DJ Publications, 1997), 7. Owen dated the manuscript containing Somerset’s account and other letters and accounts relating to the battle at around 1820, while Somerset’s biographer, John Sweetman, who published this same account in Raglan: From the Crimea to the Peninsula (London: Arms & Armour Press, 1993), 48-69, thought it was written in the autumn or winter of 1815. John Hussey, “Toward a Better Chronology of the Waterloo Campaign,” War in History 7 (2000), 477.

 

[29] John Hussey, “‘Evening’ and the Waterloo Dispatch,” Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research 79 (2001), 336-338.

 

[30] Clausewitz’s statement is in section V above, chapter 21.

 

[31] Wellington’s initial orders to the Prince of Orange stated that he should “collect at Nivelles the 2nd and 3rd divisions of the army of the Low Countries; and, should that point have been attacked this day, to move the 3rd division of British infantry upon Nivelles as soon as collected. This movement is not to take place until it is quite certain that the enemy’s attack is upon the right of the Prussian army and the left of the British army." WD, 12:472-473.

 

[32] At 8:15 a.m. on 15 June 1815, Zieten wrote to Field Marshal Blücher informing him that the French had captured Thuin, pushed back his outposts, and were now advancing on both banks of the Sambre. He added, “I have informed the Duke of Wellington of this and have entreated him to concentrate his troops without delay near Nivelles.” Lettow-Vorbeck, Napoleons Untergang, 253.

 

[33] Pflugk-Harttung, Vorgeschichte, 54, 76-77.

 

[34] WD 12:473.

 

[35] For a full discussion of Constant Rebeque’s role in saving the vital crossroads of Quatre Bras, see F. de Bas and J. de t’Serclaes de Wommersom, La campagne de 1815 aux Pays-Bas d’après les rapports officiels néerlandais, 2 vols. plus atlas (Brussels: Librairie Albert Dewit, 1908), 1:436-441.

 

[36] From a manuscript by Dörnberg formerly in the Prussian Military Archives, cited by Pflugk-Harttung, Vorgeschichte, 292.

 

[37] Pflugk-Harttung, Vorgeschichte, 89-90. For accounts of the pause at Waterloo by officers in the Reserve, see Hofschröer, 1815, 1:223-224. While these accounts show that the Reserve did indeed pause at Waterloo, they do not necessarily agree with Clausewitz’s statement that this pause lasted until Wellington returned from his meeting with Blücher after 2 p.m.

 

[38] This expectation was clearly reflected in General Müffling’s 7 p.m. letter to the Prussian headquarters on 15 June, in which he expressed the hope that “we can shoot [guns to celebrate] victory on the 17th.” General Hügel’s previously cited 6 p.m. letter also expressed the belief that the decisive battle would be fought on the 17th, a belief that he certainly picked up in Wellington’s headquarters.

 

[39] Pflugk-Harttung (Vorgeschichte, 64-65) noted that the War Diary of the Prussian 1st Corps showed that all of the plans that the corps had made to defend against a French attack had called for the Sambre River crossings to be defended. He commented that Wellington was aware of this and was counting on it.

 

[40] See above, section VI.

 

[41] A wide range of often contradictory reports about French movements and intentions can be found in WSD, 10:212-481.

 

[42] See the 6 June report from General Dörnberg, passing on intelligence of a possible forthcoming “false attack on the Prussians and a real one on the English army,” and another report on the same day from the Dutch General Behr containing intelligence that “the Emperor will be going in person to Avesnes to conduct a false attack on the Allies by Maubeuge with the principle attack coming from Flanders between Lille and Tournai, toward Mons.” WSD, 10:423-424. The Prussian General Staff’s 1825 history of the campaign concluded that “the prevailing opinion in Brussels seems to have been that the enemy wanted to attract the allies toward Charleroi by means of a feint and then attack somewhere else with the main force. It is said Wellington was expecting to be attacked via Mons.” Johann Christian August Wagner, Pläne der Schlachten und Treffen, welche von der preussischen Armee in den Feldzügen 1813, 1814 und 1815 geliefert worden sind, 4 vols. (Berlin, 1821-1832), 4:21. Wagner was a captain attached to Blücher’s headquarters during the campaign of 1815.

 

[43] See above, section VI.

 

[44] “Somerset’s Account” in Owen, ed., Waterloo Papers, 7.

 

[45] Herbert Maxwell, The Life of Wellington: The Restoration of the Martial Power of Great Britain, 3rd edition (London: Sampson, Low, Marston and Co., 1900), 2:23.

 

[46] Wellington’s concern that the French attack on the Prussians might be merely a feint is also confirmed by Constant Rebeque’s journal of the Waterloo campaign. He wrote that the Prince of Orange returned from Brussels at 3 a.m. on 16 June and “informed me that the Duke had at first believed the attack upon Charleroi to be a feint, but my report concerning the appearance of the enemy at Frasnes had finally made him decide to send all his forces to Quatre Bras.” Constant Rebeque’s account is found in John Franklin, ed., Waterloo: Netherlands Correspondence, vol. 1, Letters and Reports from Manuscript Sources (Dorchester: Dorset Press, 2010), 9.

 

[47] Gurwood to Wellington, 24 September 1842, WP 8/3/15. See also Gurwood’s 16 September 1842 letter to Lord Greenock [WP 8/3/8; and at this link], in which he described how he returned from the Duchess of Richmond’s ball at midnight and slept until 3 a.m. at his own lodgings in Brussels. Afterward he went to the 10th Hussars, whose troops had not yet turned out at 6 a.m. on the 16th. He noted that “had they started at 7 o’clock even, 3 hours after daylight, three or four brigades might have been at Nivelle[s] before 3 o’clock.”

 

[48] Andrew Uffindell, The Eagle’s Last Triumph: Napoleon’s Victory at Ligny, June 1815 (London: Greenhill Books, 1994), 56.  Pflugk-Harttung commented (Vorgeschichte, 73) that “one must recognize that the English commander could scarcely do anything during the day [15 June]. There was just one thing that he could have done and thus should have done—to assemble his troops in their cantonments, possibly even in their brigade areas. This would not have led him into any false movement, thus not risked anything, but it would have made his army ready to march immediately after receiving further orders, thus ready to act, which was not the case now.”

 

[49] The official Prussian historian of the campaign of 1815, General Oskar von Lettow-Vorbeck, wrote in 1904 that “The course of the battle of Ligny clearly reveals that the assistance that was promised [by Wellington] but did not arrive had a very unfavorable impact on the battle and was a major cause of the defeat.” Napoleons Untergang, 312. More recent claims that the Prussians would not have stood and fought at Ligny had Wellington not deceived them by promising support he knew he could not deliver are found in Hofschröer, 1815, 1:212-215, 232-242, 331-351 and idem., “Did the Duke of Wellington Deceive His Prussian Allies in the Campaign of 1815?,” War in History 5 (1998), 185.

 

[50] Julius von Pflugk-Harttung, “Zu Blüchers Brief an den König von Preußen vom 17. Juni 1815,” Jahrbücher für die deutsche Armee und Marine (1904 ), 219-221. Gneisenau to his wife, 17 June 1815; Gneisenau to Hardenberg, 22 June 1815; Gneisenau to Arndt, 17 August 1815; in Karl Griewank, Gneisenau: Ein Leben in Briefen (Leipzig: Koehler & Amelang, 1939), 323, 325, 332.

 

[51] In 1827 Wellington said that the Prussians at Ligny had “persisted contrary to the Duke’s advice in exposing their whole line to cannon-shot.” Francis Egerton, Earl of Ellesmere, Personal Reminiscences of the Duke of Wellington (London: John Murray, 1904), 127. The Earl of Stanhope recounted an 1837 conversation in which Colonel Hardinge recalled Wellington saying to him at Brye, “If they fight here, they will be damnably mauled.” (Conversations, 108-109.) Wellington then told Stanhope that the Prussian troops were posted “along the slope of a hill, so that no cannon-ball missed its effect upon them.” Considerable doubt about the accuracy of such “war stories” told by Wellington long after the event is found in Hofschröer, 1815, 1:239-242, 343-344, but Clausewitz also offered some criticism of the Prussian positions at Ligny (e.g., in section V, Chapter 33 above). Several contemporary accounts also support Wellington’s views on the Prussian deployment. Captain Robert Batty commented on pages 58-59 of his An Historical Sketch of the Campaign of 1815, 2nd. ed. (London: Bodwell, Martin & Clark, 1820) that “the French batteries were posted on the heights behind the villages of St. Amand and Ligny, and, owing to the long slope of ground on which the Prussian columns were posted, the fire of the French artillery was very destructive, the shot bounding en ricochet in to the Prussian reserves on the heights.” Similarly a French eyewitness wrote in 1815 that “the cannonade did not slow down for an instant, and our artillery, from what one could see, played havoc with the Prussian columns which—posted in mass on the slopes that formed the amphitheatre [of the Prussian position at Ligny] and on the plateau that terminated it—presented themselves without cover and received all the shots fired by the numerous batteries established along our line. [René de Bourgeois], Relation Fidéle et détaillée de la dernière campagne de Buonaparte, terminée par la Bataille de Mont-Saint-Jean dite de Waterloo ou de la Belle Alliance par un témoin oculaire, 2nd ed. (Paris: P.J. De Mat, 1815), 25-26.

 

[52] See above, section V, chapter 29.

 

[53] Carl von Müffling, Passages from My Life, together with Memoirs of the Campaign of 1813 and 1814, 2nd ed. (London: Richard Bentley, 1853), 233-237. Dörnberg’s account is in Pflugk-Harttung, Vorgeschichte, 293. Pflugk-Harttung analyzed the various accounts of the meeting at Brye and concluded that Wellington had not made any unconditional promises of support. “Die Verhandlungen Wellingtons und Blüchers auf der Windmühle bei Brye (16. Juni 1815),” Historisches Jahrbuch 23 (1902), 80-97. 

 

[54] See section V above, chapter 29. Pflugk-Harttung suggested (Vorgeschichte, 65-66) that Blücher and Gneisenau actually preferred taking on Napoleon alone and therefore did not initially ask directly for Wellington’s assistance but merely inquired as to his intentions. They wanted Wellington’s forces in the vicinity in case the battle did not go their way, but hoped that an unaided Prussian victory would give their country increased prestige—and thus greater bargaining power—at the Congress of Vienna. Only when it became clear that the Prussian 4th Corps would not arrive in time did they begin to seek definite promises of support from Wellington. General von Lettow-Vorbeck strongly disagreed with this suggestion that the Prussians initially wished to try to defeat Napoleon by themselves. Napoleons Untergang, 273 fn.

 

[55] Neil Carey has calculated that if Wellington had not been attacked, he would have been able to send a column of at least 20,000 men from Quatre Bras to the Prussian right flank by 4:30-5:15 p.m. “Quatre Bras and Ligny: Did Wellington Really Deceive the Prussians at Brye on 16th June 1815?” First Empire no. 43 (1998), 33.

 

[56] Gneisenau’s letter to his king on 17 June 1815 claimed that 80,000 Prussians had fought 120,000 Frenchmen at Ligny, while his letter of 22 June spoke of the Prussians’ three corps being “such disproportionately small forces against the overwhelming numerical superiority of the enemy.” Griewank, Gneisenau, 319, 322. Andrew Uffindell has concluded that 83,000 Prussians with 224 guns faced 63,000 Frenchmen with 230 guns. Eagle’s Last Triumph, 79.

 

[57] Gneisenau’s report on the battle of Waterloo was published in English in Christopher Kelly, The Memorable Battle of Waterloo (London: Thomas Kelly, 1818), 61.

 

[58] Viscount Castlereagh to Earl Bathurst, [1] July 1815, in WSD, 10:638.

 

[59] See above, pp.144, 150.

 

[60] David Hamilton-Williams argues for the decisive impact of Zieten’s attack in Waterloo: New Perspectives, The Great Battle Reconsidered (London: John Wiley and Sons, 1994), 344-345. Hofschröer, 1815, 2:138-145, emphasizes Zieten’s attack but considers the Prussians’ capture of Plancenoit, which he depicts as coming before Wellington ordered a general advance of his army in the wake of the Imperial Guard’s repulse, to be the decisive blow against Napoleon.

 

[61] Julius von Pflugk-Harttung, “Das I. Korps Zieten bei Belle-Alliance und Wavre,” Jahrbücher für die deutsche Armee und Marine (1908), 200-201.

 

[62] The Prussian 1st Brigade, which led the advance of the 1st Corps, suffered only 31 killed, 158 wounded and 111 missing on 18 June 1815. The accompanying 1st Cavalry Brigade, alleged by some accounts to have slashed its way through the French right wing, lost only 2 killed and 11 wounded. Barry Van Danzig, Who Won Waterloo? The Trial of Captain Siborne (St. Leonards-on-Sea: UPSO Limited, 2006), 266-267.

 

[63] Pflugk-Harttung, “I. Korps Zieten,” 239.

 

[64] I share Peter Hofschröer’s view (1815, 2:332-333) that Wellington’s 1842 account of the orders he issued prior to Quatre Bras is far less accurate than Clausewitz’s history. And it cannot be claimed that the passage of years had dimmed the duke’s recollection of the events, because he definitely consulted volume 12 of his dispatches containing his correspondence and orders for June 1815 prior to writing his Memorandum. This is shown by a letter from Arbuthnot to Egerton, 22 July 1842, in section IV above.

 

[65] Charles Chesney, The Waterloo Lectures (1907; reprinted London: Greenhill Books, 1997), 79, 95-96.

 

[66] John Codman Ropes, The Campaign of Waterloo: A Military History (1893; reprinted Tyne & Wear: Worley Publications, 1995), 90-.

 

[67] See above, p.123.

 

[68] WD, 12:590.

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