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LETTER FROM NEY TO FOUCHE:
Defending his Actions at Waterloo
Foreign Intelligence
By the Ludlow, from Bordeaux
Letter of Marshal the Prince of Moskwas, to his Excellency the
Duke of Otranto.
Monsieur Duke --
The most defamatory and the most lying rumours have been
circulated for some days among the public upon my conduct in this
short and disastrous campaign. The public journals repeat them
and seem to give credit to the most odious calumny. After having
fought for 23 years, and shed my blood for the glory and
independence of my country, they dare to accuse me of treason! Me
it is, whom they point out to the people, and even the army, as
the author of the disaster which it has just encountered.
On the 11th of June I received an order from the Minister of War,
to repair to the imperial quarters. I had held no command nor had
I any information upon the composition and force of the army.
Neither the emperor nor the minister had previously said any
thing to me which could lead me to expect that I should be
employed in this campaign. I was consequently taken unawares,
without horses, without equipage, without money, and I was
obliged to borrow to enable me to repair to my destination.
Arrived on the 12th at Laon, on the 13th at Avesnes, and on the
14th at Beaumont, I purchased in the last named town, of the Duke
of Treviso, two horses, with which I repaired on the 15th to
Charleroy, accompanied by my first Aid-de-camp, the only officer
whom I had near me. I arrived at the moment when the enemy,
attacked by our light troops, fell back upon Fleurus and
Gosselies.
The Emperor ordered me immediately to put myself at the head of
the 1st and 2nd corps of infantry, commanded by the Lieut. Gens.
d'Erlon and Reille, of the division of light cavalry of the guard
under the orders of the Lieut. Gens. Lefebvre, Desnouettes and
Colbert, and of two divisions of cavalry of count Valmy, and
which formed eight divisions of infantry and four of cavalry.
With these troops, of whom meanwhile I never had but a part under
my command, I repulsed the enemy, and obliged him to evacuate
Gosselies, Frasne, Mellet, and Hoppignie. There they took
position with the exception of the 1st corps, which was yet at
Marchiennes, and which rejoined me the next day.
On the 16th, I received an order to attack the English in their
position of Quatre Bras. We marched upon the enemy with an
enthusiasm difficult to be described; nothing resisted our
impetuosity; the battle became general and the victory was not
doubtful, when , at the moment in which I was about to advance
the 1st corps of infantry, which until then had been left by me
in reserve at Frasne, I learned that the Emperor had disposed of
it without informing me, as well as the division of Gerard of the
2nd corps, to direct them upon St. Amand and support his left
wing which was severely engaged against the Prussians. The blow
which this news gave me was terrible. Not having under my orders
more than three divisions, instead of eight, on which I
calculated, I was obliged to suffer victory to escape, and in
spite of my efforts, and in spite of the bravery and devotedness
of the troops, I could do nothing more than preserve my position
to the end of the day. Near 9 o'clock in the evening the 1st
corps was sent back to me by the Emperor, for which he had had no
use. Thus, 25 or 30,000 men were, so to speak, paralyzed, and had
been marched about during the whole battle with arms in their
hands from the left to the right, and from the right to the left,
without firing a gun.
It is impossible to avoid suspending for a moment these details,
to remark to you, M. Duke, all the consequences of this false
movement, and in general of the bad dispositions made during the
day.
By what fatality, for example, did the Emperor, instead of
bringing all his force against Lord Wellington, who might have
been attacked by surprise, and was not equal in force, regard
this attack as secondary. How could the Emperor, after the
passage of the Sambre, conceive the possibility of giving two
battles in one day? That nevertheless took place, against forces
double our numbers, and this, military men who saw it, have been
unable to comprehend.
Instead of this, if he had left a corps of obsertion (observation?)
to restrain the Prussians, and marched with his strongest masses
to support me, the English army would have been undoubtedly
destroyed between Quatre Bras and Genappe; and this position
which separated the two allied armies once in our power would
have given the Emperor the facility of approaching the right of
the Prussians, and crushing them in their turn. The general
opinion in France, and especially in the army was that the
Emperor wished only to destroy the British army; and the
circumstances were favorable for that, but the destinies ordered
it otherwise. On the 17th, the army marched in the
direction of Mount Saint-Jean. On the 18th the battle commenced
about 1 o'clock, and although the bulletin which gives the
recital of it makes no mention of me, there is no need of
affirming that I was present.
Lieut. Gen. Count Drouet has already spoken of the battle in the
House of Peers. His narrative is exact with the exception only of
some important parts, on which he was either silent or ignorant,
and which I ought to make known.
About 7 o'clock in the evening, after the most frightful carnage
I have ever seen, Gen. Labadoyere came to inform me from the
Emperor, that Marshal Grouchy had arrived on our right and had
attacked the left of the English and Prussians united. This
General officer proceeding along the lines spread this news among
the soldiers, whose courage and devotedness was always the same,
and who gave new proofs of it at this moment, notwithstanding the
fatigue with which they were exhausted. In the mean time, what
was my astonishment, I ought to say my indignation, when I
learned some moments after that Marshal Grouchy had not arrived
to our support, as it had just been assured to the whole army,
but that 40 to 50,000 Prussians attacked our extreme right and
forced it to fall back. Whether the Emperor was deceived upon the
moment when Marshal Grouchy might arrive to support him, or
whether the march of the Marshal had been more retarded than had
been anticipated, by the efforts of the enemy, the fact is that
at the moment when his arrival was announced to us, he was only
near Wavre upon the Dyle; that is, for us as if he had been at a
hundred leagues distance from our field of battle.
A short time after I saw arrive four regiments of the middle
guard, conducted by the Emperor in person, who wished with these
troops renew the attack, and penetrate the center of the enemy.
He ordered me to march at their head with General Friant.
Generals, officer, soldiers all showed the greatest intrepidity,
but this corps of troops was too weak to be able to resist a lone
time the forces that the enemy opposed to them and it was soon
necessary to renounce the hope, which for some moments, this
attack had given.
Gen. Friant was struck by a ball, at my side. I had my horse
killed and was thrown under him. The brave men, who will return
from this terrible affair, will render me the justice, I hope, of
saying that they saw me on foot, sword in hand, the whole evening,
and that I quitted not the scene of carnage, but one of the last,
and at the moment when retreat was necessary. Meantime, the
Prussians continued their offensive movement, and our right
sensibly fell back. The English in their turn advanced. There
remained to us yet four squares of the Old Guard, placed
advantageously for protecting the retreat. Those brave grenadiers,
the elite of the army, successively forced to fall back, only
yielded the ground foot by foot, until finally overwhelmed by
numbers, they were almost entirely destroyed. From that moment,
the retrograde movement was ordered, and the army formed but a
confused column. There was not heard, however, in the rout, the
cry not save himself who can, with which the army has been
calumniated in the bulletin. As to myself, constantly in the rear
guard, which I followed on foot, having had all my horses killed,
exhausted with fatigue, covered with bruises, and having no
longer strength to march, I owe my life to a corporal of the
guard, who supported me in my march, and did not abandon me
during the retreat. Towards 11 o'clock in the evening, I found
Lieut. Gen. Lefebvre Desnouettes; and Major Schmidt, one of his
officers, had the generosity to give me the only horse that he
had remaining. Thus I arrived at Marchienne-au-Pont, at four in
the morning, alone, without officers, ignorant of what had become
of the Emperor whom some time before the end of the battle I had
entirely lost
sight of, and whom I believed to be taken or slain. Gen. Pamphyle
Lacroix, chief of the etat major of the 2nd corp, whom I found in
that city, told me that the Emperor was at Chambray. I supposed
that the Emperor would put me at the head of the corps of Marshal
Grouchy, to cover the Sambre, and to facilitate the means of the
troops rallying towards Avesnes, and in that persuasion, I
repaired to Beaumont. But some parties of cavalry following us
very near, and having already intercepted the road of Maubeuge,
and Phillippeville, I perceived the total impossibility of
stopping a single soldier at that point, and of making any
opposition to the progress of the victorious enemy. I continued
my progress upon Avesnes, where I could not obtain any
information, of what had become of the Emperor.
In this state of things, obtaining no news of his Majesty or of
the Major General, the disorder increasing every moment, and,
with the exception of some regiments of the guard and the line,
every one matching at pleasure, I determined to repair to Paris
by St. Quentin, to make known as promptly as possible to the
Minister of War, the true state of affairs, so that he might at
least send to meet the army some new troops, and take immediately
the measures which circumstances rendered necessary. On my
arrival at Bourget, three leagues from Paris, I learned that the
Emperor had passed there at 9 o'clock in the morning.
This is, M. Duke, an exact recital of this fatal campaign. Now I
demand of those who have survived of this beautiful and numerous
army, in what manner can I be accused of the disaster of which it
has been the victim, and to which our military annals afford no
parallel? I, it is said, have betrayed the country. I, who to
serve it, have shown a zeal perhaps too great, which has betrayed
me. But this calumny is not, and cannot be supported by any
presumption. Whence then can these odious rumors proceed, which
are all at once circulated with a frightful rapidity? If in my
inquiries on this subject, I did not fear almost as much to
discover, as to conceal the truth, I should declare, that every
thing compels me to the belief, that I have been shamefully
deceived, and that it is attempted to envelope in the veil of
treason, the faults and extravagances of this campaign; faults
which care was taken not to acknowledge in the bulletins which
have appeared and against which I have uselessly disclosed, with
the accents of truth, what I have just declared in the House of
Peers.
I expect of the justice of your Excellency, and of your kindness
to me, that you will insert this letter in the public journals,
and give it the greatest publicity.
I renew to your Excellency the assurance of my high consideration.
The Marshal Prince of Moskwa,
(Signed) NEY
Paris, June 26, 1815 -- Gazette de France.
(From late English Papers, by the cartel ship Lord Forbes,
arrived at Boston, August 10.)
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