Marshal Ney on Waterloo

The most false and defamatory reports have been publicly circulated for some days, respecting the conduct which I have pursued during this short and unfortunate campaign. The journals have repeated these odious calumnies, and appear to lend them credit. After having fought during twenty-five years for my country, and having shed my blood for its glory and independence, an attempt is made to accuse me of treason; and maliciously to mark me out to the people, and the army itself, as the author of the disaster it has just experienced.

Compelled to break silence, while it is always painful to speak of oneself, and particularly to repel calumnies, I address myself to you, sir, as the president of the provisional government, in order to lay before you a brief and faithful relation of the events I have witnessed. On the 11th of June, I received an order from the minister of war to repair to the imperial head-quarters. I had no command, and hod no information upon the force and composition of the army. Neither the emperor nor his minister had given me any previous hint, from which I could anticipate that I should be employed in the present campaign; I was consequently taken unprepared, without horses, without equipage, and without money; and I was obliged to borrow the necessary expenses of my journey. I arrived on the 12th at Laon, on the 13th at Avesnes, and, on the 14th, at Beaumont. I purchased, in this last city, two horses from the Duke of Treviso, with which I proceeded on the 15th, to Charleroi, accompanied by my first aide-de-camp, the only officer I had with me. I arrived at the moment when the enemy, attacked by our light troops, was retreating upon Fleurus to Gosselies.

The emperor immediately ordered me to put myself at the head of the first and second corps of infantry, commanded by Lieutenant-Generals d'Erlon and Reille, of the divisions of light cavalry of Lieutenant-General Pire, of the division of light cavalry of the guard under the command of Lieutenants-General Lefebvre Desnouettes and Colbert, and of two divisions of cavalry of Count Valmy, forming altogether eight divisions of infantry and four of cavalry. With these troops, a part of which only I had as yet under my immediate command, I pursued the enemy, and forced him to evacuate Gosselies, Frasne, Millet, and Heppiegnies. There I took up a position for the night, with the exception of the first corps, which was still at Marchiennes, and which did not join me until the following day.

On the 16th, I was ordered to attack the English in their position at Les Quatre Bras. We advanced towards the enemy with an enthusiasm difficult to be described. Nothing could resist our impetuosity. The battle became general, and victory was no longer doubtful; when, at the moment that I intended to bring up the first corps of infantry, which had been left by me in reserve at Frasne, I learned that the emperor had disposed of it, without acquainting me of the circumstance, as well as of the division of Girard of the second corps, that he might direct them upon St. Amand, and to strengthen his left wing, which was warmly engaged with the Prussians. The shock which this intelligence gave me confounded me. Having now under my command only three divisions, instead of the eight upon which I calculated, I was obliged to renounce the hopes of my victory; and, in spite of all my efforts, notwithstanding the intrepidity and devotion of my troops, I could not do more than maintain myself in my position till the close of the day. About nine o'clock, the first corps was returned to me by the emperor, to whom it had been of no service. Thus twenty-five or thirty thousand men were absolutely paralyzed, and were idly paraded, during the whole of the battle, from the right to the left, and the left to the right, without firing a shot.

I cannot help suspending these details for a moment, to call your attention to all the melancholy consequences of this false movement, and, in general, of the bad disposition during the whole of the day. By what fatality, for example, did the emperor, instead of directing all his forces against Lord Wellington, who would have been taken unawares, and could not have resisted, consider this attack as secondary? How could the emperor, after the passage of the Sambre, conceive it possible to fight two battles on the same day? It was to oppose forces double ours, and to do what the military men who were witnesses of it can scarcely yet comprehend. Instead of this, he had left a corps of observation to watch the Prussians, and marched with his most powerful masses to support me, the English army would undoubtedly have been destroyed between Les Quatre Bras and Gemappe; and that position, which separated the two allied armies, being once in our power, would have afforded the emperor an opportunity of outflanking the right of the Prussians, and of crushing them in their turn. The general opinion in France, and especially in the army, was, that the emperor would have bent his whole efforts to annihilate first the English army; and circumstances were favourable for the accomplishment of such a project: but fate ordered it otherwise.

On the 17th, the army marched in the direction of Mont St. Jean.

On the 18th, the battle commenced at one o'clock, and though the bulletin which details it makes no mention of me, it is not necessary for me to say that I was engaged in it. Lieutenant-General count Drouot has already spoken of that battle in the chamber of peers. His narration is accurate, with the exception of some important facts which he has passed over in silence, or of which he was ignorant, and which it is now my duty to disclose. About seven o'clock in the evening, after the most dreadful carnage which I have ever witnessed, General Labedoyere came to me with a message from the emperor, that Marshal Grouchy had arrived on our right, and attacked the left of the united English and Prussians. This general officer, in riding along the lines, spread this intelligence among the soldiers, whose courage and devotion remained unshaken, and who gave new proofs of them at that moment, notwithstanding the fatigue with which they were exhausted. What was my astonishment, (I should rather say indignation,) when I learned, immediately afterwards, that, so far from Marshal Grouchy having arrived to our support, as the whole army had been assured, between forty and fifty thousand Prussians were attacking our extreme right, and forcing it to retire!

Whether the emperor was deceived with regard to the time when the marshal could support him, or whether the advance of the marshal was retarded by the efforts of the enemy longer than was calculated upon, the fact is, that at the moment when his arrival was announced to us, he was still only at Wavre upon the Dyle, which to us was the same as if he had been a hundred leagues from the field of battle.

A short time afterwards, I saw four regiments of the middle guard advancing, led on by the emperor. With these troops he wished to renew the attack, and to penetrate the centre of the enemy. He ordered me to lead them on. Generals, officers, and soldiers, all displayed the greatest intrepidity; but this body of troops was too weak long to resist the forces opposed to it by the enemy, and we were soon compelled to renounce the hope which this attack had for a few moments inspired. General Friant was struck by a ball at my side, and I myself had my horse killed, and fell under it. The brave men who have survived this terrible battle, will, I trust, do me the justice to state, that they saw me on foot, with sword in hand, during the whole of the evening, and that I was one of the last who quitted the scene of carnage at the moment when retreat could no longer be prevented. At the same time, the Prussians continued their offensive movements, and our right sensibly gave way. The English also advanced in their turn. There yet remained to us four squares of the old guard, to protect our retreat. These brave grenadiers, the flower of the army, forced successively to retire, yielded ground foot by foot, until finally overpowered by numbers, they were almost completely destroyed. From that moment the retrograde movement was decided, and the army formed nothing but a confused mass. There was not, however, a total rout, nor the cry of Save who can, as has been calumniously stated in the bulletin. As for myself, being constantly in the rear-guard, which I followed on foot, having had all my horses killed, worn out with fatigue, covered with contusions, and having no longer strength to walk, I owe my life to a corporal, who supported me in the march, and did not abandon me during the retreat. At eleven at night, I met Lieutenant-General Lefebvre Desnouettes; and one of his officers, Major Schmidt, had the generosity to give me the only horse that remained to him. In this manner I arrived at Marchienne-au-Pont, at four o'clock in the morning, alone, without any officers of my staff, ignorant of the fate of the emperor, of whom, before the end of the battle, I had entirely lost sight, and who, I had reason to believe, was either killed or taken prisoner. General Pamphile Lacroix, chief of the staff of the second corps, whom I found in this city, having told me that the emperor was at Charleroi, I supposed that his majesty intended to place himself at the head of Marshal Grouchy's corps, to cover the Sambre, and to facilitate to the troops the means of rallying near Avesnes; and with this persuasion I proceeded to Beaumont; but parties of cavalry following us too closely, and having already intercepted the roads of Maubeuge and Philippeville, I became sensible of the total impossibility of arresting a single soldier on that point to oppose the progress of the victorious enemy. I continued my march upon Avesnes, where I could obtain no intelligence concerning the emperor.

In this state of things, having no intelligence of his majesty, nor of the major-general the disorder increasing every instant, and, with the exception of some veterans of the regiments of the guard and of the line, every one pursuing his own inclination, I determined to proceed immediately to Pris by St. Quentin, and disclose, as quickly as possible, the true state of affairs to the minister of war, that he might send some fresh troops to meet the army, and rapidly adopt the measures which circumstances required. At my arrival at Bourget, three leagues from Paris, I learned that the emperor had passed through that place at nine o'clock in the morning.

Such, M. le Duc, is a faithful history of this calamitous campaign.

I now ask those who have survived that fine and numerous army, how I can be accused of the disasters of which it has been the victim, and of which our military annals furnish no example. I have, it is said, betrayed my country--I who, to serve it, have shewn a zeal which I have perhaps carried too far; but this calumny is not and cannot be supported by any fact or any presumption. Whence have these odious reports, which spread with frightful rapidity, arisen? If, in the inquiries which I have made on this subject, I had not feared almost as much to discover as to be ignorant of the truth, I should declare that every circumstance proves that I have been basely deceived, and that it is attempted to cover, under the veil of treason, the errors and extravagancies of this campaign; error which have not been avowed in the bulletins that have appeared, and against which I have in vain raised that voice of truth which I will yet cause to resound in the chamber of peers. I expect from the justice of your excellency, and from your kindness to me, that you will cause this letter to be inserted in the journals, and give it the greatest possible publicity.

Christopher Kelly. A Full And Circumstantial Account Of The Memorable Battle of Waterloo. (London: 1836).