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The Battle of
Waterloo in 3 minutes
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The
Battle of
Waterloo
in 3
minutes
or
'My republic
for a cell phone'
June 18th
1815
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What
if?
Supposing Napoleon had
NOT
sent Marshal Grouchy off on a mission to 'seek and
delay' Field Marshal Blücher
- the Prussian commander - and
therefore had 30,000 more troops to fight
Wellington in the first seven hours.
Could this have
altered the course of the battle?
If you have thoughts on this
and other aspects and would like to express them
for possible inclusion on this site, please e-mail
lawrence@carol.net
with the subject
'Waterloo'.
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'What if' submission by:
Charles Reilly
<chuck@mail.midcom.com>
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The "what ifs"
concerning the Battle of Waterloo are so
numerous they could fill an entire text.
There are two most important "what ifs",
however. What if Napoleon hadn't had
absolute contempt for his two adversaries
and studied their previous tactics
(particularly Wellington's use of reverse
slopes). He would have first realized that
Wellington's position on the battlefield
was advantageous only to the Allies and
that an all-day assault, even if somewhat
victorious, would completely drain his
entire army of resources and
manpower.
Also, the forest at
Wellington's rear wouldn't have prevented
an Allied retreat. In fact, Wellington
himself had scouted the area the previous
year and knew that there was but little
undergrowth and that he could easily slip
his men and artillery through it in quick
order if he had to.
Also part of the
first "what if" is Napoleon's disbelief in
the recuperative powers of the Prussia
Army and its commander, Marshal Blucher.
If there was any doubt in Napoleon's mind
about the impossibility of Blucher
rejoining with Wellington, he certainly
didn't exhibit it on the morning of the
18th of June 1815. He merely scoffed at
his aides, Marshal Ney and, in particular,
his own brother Jerome who warned him of
the disasters ahead. Napoleon simply
didn't take either Blucher or Wellington
serious enough to warrant any contingency
plans or alternate strategies, therefore
he had none on this fateful day.
The second most
important "what if" is what if Napoleon
decided to disengage from Wellington and
attack the remaining forces of Blucher
instead. If he had employed this strategy
the outcome of the war may have been
entirely different. Here again, because of
his lack of knowledge of Wellington, he
never considered this option. He didn't
realize that Wellington was a notoriously
slow pursuer, even after the most lopsided
victories and probably would have taken
his good-old-time to come to Blucher's aid
( if he decided to come at all ). Can you
imagine the utter chagrin of Blucher if,
as he's heading towards Wellington to
assist him, he instead runs into
Napoleon's main forces head-on? Old
Blucher would have died cursing Wellington
and the British in his last breath.
The are many
so-called "what ifs" regarding this
fateful day and Wellington, in his
long-lived years after the war, heard them
all. In his extreme old age, one of his
former Peninsula officers asked him this
question: "Why didn't Napoleon merely
defend France in the spring of 1815
instead of attacking everything in sight?
He would have had plenty of time to build
an impregnable defence system, and surely
he would have lasted much longer than the
100 Days." The old Duke, smiled a bit and,
after shaking his head in his customary
manner, replied with this famous quote:
"My dear fellow, the reason is this. A
conqueror is like a cannonball...he can
only go forward. Once he rebounds his
career is over."
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'What if' submission by:
FrankieB401@aol.com
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Instead of sending Grouchy, Ney should
have been sent with a smaller force. Also
going North, but instead of following in
the Prussians wake they would be used to
guard Napoleon's right flank. This would
have given the French both more men and
more time. The Guard's battalions and all
of Lobau's divisions would have been
available for crushing blows even if Ney
had over 30,000 men with him. The key here
is Ney's force instead of being almost 15
miles from the battle would have been only
three to five miles away and parallel to
Napoleon's right flank. Even as he would
be battling the Prussians, who were trying
to reach Wellington, he could have easily
afforded to have a brigade or two attack
Wellington's left flank. Oh yes, I almost
forgot, Soult would have been the man to
choose to lead the main attacking force,
not Ney.
Thanks for letting me express my views.
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'What if' submission by:
Bill
Cunningham
<bill.cunningham@
connectfree.co.uk>
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Wellington also had 17000 prime troops
guarding his line of retreat so you can
ask the same what if. If those troops were
there it would undoubtably of made a
differance.
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'What if' submission by:
Fedor
Zarhin
<zarhin@hotmail.com>
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What interests me is what would have
happenned if Boney didn't wait for the
fields to dry to get the artillery out. If
he would have started the attack right at
7 o'clock, he would have gotten an extra 4
hours before the Prussians came. Of
course. he could have been battered by the
enemy artillery... Nevertheless, i think
in his earlier days he would not have
delayed.
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'What if' submission by:
Tom
Utterback
<sagemenscircle@yahoo.com>
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I feel sorry for Ney. He has been
severly criticized for his decision-making
at Waterloo. It seems to me this is
unfair. Ney was a very young man, of
unquestionable personal bravery who had
distinguished himself in many previous
battles. We know that Napolean was ill and
distracted at Waterloo, thus forcing more
decision-making responsibility upon Ney.
If I recall correctly, Ney had 3 horses
shot out from underneath him at Waterloo.
He was also wounded several times, at
least one of which was fairly serious.
Thus, he was exhausted, in pain, highly
stressed. Add to that that this was 1815
and the field of battle was covered in
smoke from cannon fire and no one had a
"cell phone" and one could very easily
come to the conclusion that this could
just have easily have happened on the
other side. Seeing wounded British troops
withdraw from the battle could easily have
been interpreted as a general retreat. Add
to that the luck of Blucher's arrival made
possible by the rain, the decision by
Napolean to send Grouchy off, etc and we
see why Wellington called this a "damn
near thing". Ney deserves more credit than
he has been given.
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'What if' submission by:
Peter
<budgell5@nb.sympatico.ca>
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I think the reason the battle was lost,
was because Marshal Ney took it upon
himself about 330 pm in the afternoon,
after he had been attacking La haye
Sainte, which he didn"t capture, to order
up the cavalry of Milhaud to attack the
British center. Quite simply he had no
orders to do so. Napoleon gave him orders
to take the farm house, that's all. I
believe if Ney hadn't attacked the Allied
center at this time, and had reported
directly to Napoleon, on his further
course of action, which at this time
wouldn't have been given. Remember the
Emperor had said that morning he would
pound the allies with his artillery,
launch his cavalry and march straight at
them with his Guard. Ney knew this,
and with the Prussian intervention shortly
after, I think this grand attack would
have been made not so long after Neys
failed attack on La haye Sainte, and if
this had happened even with the Prussians
attacking his right, he'd have won the
battle.
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'What if' submission by:
John Valastro
<jon1@sympatico.ca>
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Napoleon should have marched with
150,000 men. This total would have given
him sufficient strength to fight
Wellington and Blucher in combination or
it would have delayed the battle. The
essence of Napoleon's mistake was that he
fought on Wellington's terms. A smaller
force of 10-12,000 would have scouted the
Prussians. Napoleon should have attacked
the wings of Wellington's army at 7
A.M.and continued the attack without
pause. Since Napoleon would have had a
strong centre, it is unlikely that
Wellington could have launched a decisive
attack. Napoleon should have wittled away
Wellington's flanks simultanously with
concentrated attacks that would have
drained Wellington's reserves and
preserved his own centre. The strategy of
Napoleon should have been to squeeze
Wellington like an accordian thus
netrualizing Wellington's use of the
slopes. Wellington would have lost the
battle because his line would have been
overextended attempting to hold right and
left while his centre would have been
paralyzed by the threat of Napoleon's
strong centre. A numerical advantage is
always beneficial to a highly skilled
commander. Also, Marshals Davout and Soult
should have been present at Waterloo.
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'What if' submission by:
Phil Carroll
<pwol123@hotmail.com>
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Napoleon left his Imperial guard idle
for too long during the battle. One of his
prime strategies was to ensure
(unsuccessfully) that the British and the
Prussians should not join forces.
Rather than send Grouchy to find the
Prussians he should have kept his main
force together, perhaps sending fast
cavalry to locate Blucher. Wellington had
deliberately placed his strength in the
centre and the right expecting his left to
be reinforced by Bluchers arrival. An all
out assault by Napoleon on
Wellingtons left would have outflanked the
British forces, forcing Wellingtons
retreat and thereby having the same
desired effect of preventing the link
up between the Allied armies.
Blucher would have been unlikely to
launch an attack at that time of the day
on his own against a French army holding
the field and would have had no
option but to seek to rejoin Wellington in
Brussels. Although Napoleon could have won
the battle it is difficult to see where he
would go next, Even if Brussels had
fallen he still had the might of
almost all the rest of Europe against him.
He would have fared far better by
restricting his activities to France and
suing for peace. His reforms within
France still carry weight today.
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'What if' submission by:
Michael Dock mins
<neo_napoleon@msn.com>
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I think that if used decisively, the
extra 30,000 could have been able to
defeat Wellington, but only if done
incredibly quickly. Then Napoleon would
have to turn to his right and face Blucher
with a depleted army that had just fought
a hard battle. So maybe it wouldn't have
mattered because Napoleon might have lost
to the Prussians afterwords anyways. Just
my thoughts.
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'What if' submission by:
"Phil"
<p_carroll@blueyonder.co.uk>
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Further to
my comments above, hows this for a WHAT
IF. What if Wellington had employed
companies of ARCHERS at Waterloo. The
British Baker rifle was accurate at range
but slow to reload, the infantry's musket
was quicker to load but very inaccurate at
anything over 50 yards. The french
tactic of sending in columns to
batter down the enemy was Napoleons well
known favourite usage of the
Imperial Guard. This however badly
restricted their fire power as only
the front ranks and the files on either
side of the column could effectively use
their muskets as they attacked. By the
same token troops firing into the
column would only take out the front
ranks. Imagine if instead archers with
longbows had poured arrows into the
centres of the columns firing
high and fast (5 - 10 times the
rate of musket fire) and pretty well
unable to miss in those
packed columns. Faced with that lot
dropping out of the sky I for one
would have been hi-tailing back down
that hill PDQ
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'What if' submission by:
Aykut Koç
<aykutkoc@stanford.edu >
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I trace the most important, and to me
the most decisive, 'what if' situation
about Waterloo in not the exact day of
Waterloo but just two days before: 16th of
June 1815, when the battles of
"Quatre-Bras" and "Ligny" were fought
simultaneously. When speaking of Waterloo,
these three days of actions from the 16th
to 18th should be considered as a whole
and as subparts of the general term of
"Waterloo", in a more broad sense. This is
because, after Napoleon had crossed the
border and engaged the Allies, the events
and decisions leading to the French
disaster happened rapidly and continuously
as a 3-days long battle (similar to
Leipzig maybe), though not happened on a
continuos front and with a no-action day
of 17th. Thus, Waterloo cannot be
abstracted from the battles of 16th.
In 16th, when Marshal Ney was fighting
against Wellington at Quatre-Bras, General
D'Erlon's I Corps of French Army was
supposed to be under Ney's command and Ney
taken into account this corps to launch
his decisive assault on Wellington to
master the crossroads at Quatre-Bras and
also to beat Wellington's army. After
Wellington managed to settle the balance
of manpower at Quatre-Bras, Ney have to
wait for the arrival of D'Erlon's corps.
Napoleon, however, was fighting the
Prussians at Ligny and thinks about using
this corps. Although Napoleon crushed the
Prussians, he was not able to put them in
a total rout and his plan is to use
D'Erlon's corps to envelop the right wing
of the Prussian army. Clearly this cause
to a total disaster for the Prussians and
most probably they was not able to even
think to continue fighting. Due to the
lack of corresponce and some other
effects, D'Erlon, whose corps was marching
towards Quatre-Bras in a line just between
the Napoleon at Ligny and Ney at
Quatre-Bras, had received inconsistent
orders from both of his superiors, Ney and
Napoleon, saying him to march both left
and right, respectively. He had to change
the marching direction of his corps twice
and waste so many hours resulting in an
unfortunate situation that he could
intervene NONE of the engagements. As a
result, Ney cannot beat English Army but
only prevent them joining the Prussians at
Ligny and Napoleon cannot totally enjoy
his victory at Ligny by eliminating the
Prussian Army. Both Allied armies managed
to survive the day and continue to their
course of rejoining afterwards.
The orders given to D'Erlon in 16th
both by written and oral were very
controversial and were not totally put
under light. What if this discrepency did
not happen? What if Napoleon or someone
from his staff did not ask D'Erlon to
march Ligny by by-passing his direct
superior, Ney and by not considering Ney's
plans? What if Ney did not send an order
to turn D'Erlon for a second time when he
was informed that I corps was marhcing out
of Quatre-Bras. What if D'Erlon did use
his initiative other than merely obeying
the newly arrived order and pursue only
one of the ways insistingly and showed up
either of the battle scenes? For sure, the
course of Waterloo in a general sense
would be different and maybe the next
battle would be fought in somewhere else,
resulting most probably in favor of the
French. If Ney was able to use D'Erlon's
corps, he would crush the English at
Quatre-Bras and pursue them away from the
Prussians. Or, if D'Erlon had arrived the
left wing of Napoleon, most of the
Prussian Army, which had been already
beaten, would be destroyed and they can
only retreat in total disorder towards
Namur, far away from the English.
I think this action of I corps in 16th
played more decisive role than any other
action seen in this battle, I think even
more than the engagements in Waterloo
itself.
Thank you very much for this
oppurtuniy.
Aykut Koç Graduate Student
Stanford University
Department of Electrical Engineering
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'What if' submission by:
OLIVER, STUART
< 0201142@abertay.ac.uk >
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Wellington proved that he was inept as
a General at Waterloo. Had it not been for
three pieces of unforeseeable and
unbelievable strokes of luck he would
have, not only succeeded in destroying his
whole army and subsequently condemning the
Prussians to inevitable destruction, but
also have destroyed the entire allied
grand strategy.
Firstly, unless Wellington had some
divine gift he could not have known that
the day and night before the battle would
be characterised by an unseasonal and
incessant rainfall. This succeeded in
delaying Napoleons attack sufficiently to
allow Blucher to reach the battlefield in
time to influence things. All other
factors remaining the same, had the
weather not been so severe Napoleon would
have attacked earlier and driven
Wellington off the ridge by shortly after
mid-day. (A further point is that the
massive bombardment of Wellington's centre
would have been devastating had the ground
not been damp enough to absorb the
majority of the blast from each round
shot)
Secondly, Wellington could not possibly
have known that Marshal Grouchy, a man
with a satisfactory military record and
who should have been more than adept at
handling a medium sized body of troops,
would succeed in neither preventing the
Prussians reaching the battlefield or,
when he failed to do so, arrive on the
battlefield himself. He achieved a feat
that no-one could have foreseen and
Grouchy was the officer who can be most
attributed with the Allied victory as he
surely could not have played a bigger part
in Napoleons defeat at Waterloo even if he
and his men were on the opposing side!
Thirdly, Unless taken into confidence
by Dr Larrey, Wellington can not have
known that Napoleon would fail to be
present for large parts of the battle due
to illness. He may well have known of
Napoleons deteriorating health but his
actual physical and mental state on June
the 15th can clearly not have been known
to Wellington. All other factors remaining
and even though Napoleon was no longer the
genius of old, his continued presence on
the field would have prevented the
mistakes that cost the French so dear. For
one the undoubtedly courageous but , by
this stage of his career, completely
incompetent Ney, would not have destroyed
the entire cavalry in a ridiculous and
unsupported charge. Had Napoleon been able
to prevent the destruction of his cavalry
then, even if the battle had ended in
defeat, he would have had a good chance of
executing a more ordered retreat and
saving a large portion of his army. This
combined with the men that Grouchy had
somehow managed to avoid committing would
have allowed Napoleon another stand,
unless his health failed which it is
realistic to surmise.
"from the sublime to the ridiculous is
but a step". These words by Napoleon
summarise Wellington's involvement at
Waterloo and through the whole 100 days.
The most amazing run of luck in history
prevented Wellington being destroyed and
undoing the entire allied strategy and he
is now revered as a Military genius.
Napoleon's strategy was sound, if luck
had been on his side he would hav
destroyed the British and Prussians which
would, in my view, have resulted in the
remaining allied nations accepting peace.
The French nation would have gained a
tremendous lift also and so even if the
remaining allied forces had continued the
war, France would have been very difficult
todefeat.
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