3. If we are right in this conclusion, we can easily understand why Ney failed to carry out the order given to him at five o’clock on the afternoon of the 15th, to seize Quatre Bras that evening. We have left the much disputed question of the giving of this order on one side in our narrative[287] for reasons already stated; but we have, nevertheless, expressed our opinion[288] that the order was given. Ney’s conduct on the 16th is of a piece, we believe, with his conduct on the 15th.
4. No serious criticism can be passed, we think, on the tenor of the orders issued to the corps-commanders of the left wing, or to the commander of that wing, during the afternoon of the 15th and the morning of the 16th. Neither the Emperor nor Soult could well have done more than they did to arouse the energy of the officers who had charge of the operations there.[289] The orders were precise and imperative. The trouble was that the officers to whom they were addressed lacked either the disposition or the energy requisite to carry them into effect.
5. But why, it may be fairly asked, did not Napoleon, as soon as he had found out that Ney had not seized Quatre Bras on the evening of the 15th, order him forthwith to proceed to do so in the early morning of the 16th? Why this delay in sending him a formal written order?
This question will be considered in the next chapter, when we come to describe Napoleon’s doings on the 16th.
[289] For an explanation of Chesney’s (pp. 118, 119) severe strictures, see _ante_, p. 51, n. 29.
THE MORNING OF THE SIXTEENTH OF JUNE: NAPOLEON.
It is time that we returned to the headquarters of the French army.
Marshal Ney, as we have seen in the last chapter, reported in person to the Emperor at Charleroi at midnight of the 15th. “He rendered account” to him, says Colonel Heymès,[290] “of the dispositions he had made.” Napoleon was thus informed that Ney had halted at Frasnes and had not occupied Quatre Bras, the evening before. Ney must have stopped at Charleroi about an hour and a half, as he reached Gosselies on his return about two in the morning. He must have told the Emperor where some, at any rate, of his troops were,—that Bachelu’s infantry division and Piré’s cavalry division of the 2d Corps were at Frasnes; that the divisions of Jerome and Foy were at Gosselies; that Durutte’s division of the 1st Corps was between Jumet and Gosselies. So much as this Ney knew. But his arrival at the army had been so recent, and his occupations since his arrival had been so engrossing, that he could not probably have had much more information to give the Emperor as to the whereabouts of the 1st Corps. His almost total deficiency of staff officers was a grievous drawback, and prevented him from getting that hold on his entire command which otherwise he no doubt would have secured even by this time. Very possibly he had already sent word to d’Erlon to hurry up to the front. But he must have reported to the Emperor that a large part of the 1st Corps, perhaps half of it, was still far to the rear.