THREE:By six o'clock in the evening the Allied army had lost ten thousand men in killed and wounded, besides a great number of the dispersed Belgians and other foreigners of the worst class, who had run off, and taken refuge in the wood of Soigne. But the French had suffered more severely; they had lost fifteen thousand in killed and wounded, and had had more than two thousand taken prisoners. At about half-past four, too, firing had been heard on the French right, and it proved to be the advanced division of Bulow. Grouchy had overtaken the Prussians at Wavre, but had been stopped there by General Thielemann, by order of Blucher, and kept from crossing the Dyle till it was too late to prevent the march of Blucher on Waterloo; so that whilst Thielemann was thus holding back Grouchy, who now heard the firing from Waterloo, Blucher was on the track of his advanced division towards the great battle-field. When Buonaparte heard the firing on the right, he thought, or affected to think, that it was Grouchy, whom he had sent for in haste, who was beating the Prussians; but he perceived that he must now make one gigantic effort, or all would be lost the moment that the main armies of the British and Prussians united. Sending, therefore, a force to beat back Bulow, he prepared for one of those thunderbolts which so often had saved him at the last moment. He formed his Imperial Guard into two columns at the bottom of the declivity of La Belle Alliance, and supporting them by four battalions of the Old Guard, and putting Ney at their head, ordered him to break the British squares. That splendid body of men, the French Guards, rushed forward, for the last time, with cries of "Vive l'Empereur!" and Buonaparte rode at their head as well as Ney, as far as the farm of La Haye Sainte. There the great Corsican, who had told his army on joining it this last campaign that he and they must now conquer[100] or die, declined the death by suddenly wheeling his horse aside, and there remaining, still and stiff as a statue of stone, watching the last grand venture. The British right at this moment was wheeling towards Buonaparte's position, so that his Guards were received by a simultaneous fire in front and in the flank. The British soldiers advanced from both sides, as if to close round the French, and poured in one incessant fire, each man independently loading and discharging his piece as fast as he could. The French Guards endeavoured to deploy that they might renew the charge, but under so terrible a fire they found it impossible: they staggered, broke, and melted into a confused mass. As they rolled wildly down the hill, the battalions of the Old Guard tried to check the pursuing British; but at this moment Wellington, who had Maitland's and Adams's brigades of Guards lying on their faces behind the ridge on which he stood, gave the command to charge, and, rushing down the hill, they swept the Old Guard before them. On seeing this, Buonaparte exclaimed, "They are mingled together! All is lost for the present!" and rode from the field. The battle was won. But at the same moment Wellington ordered the advance of the whole line, and the French, quitting every point of their position, began a hasty and confused retreat from the field.
FORE:As at Eylau, so at Friedland, Napoleon made no attempt to follow the Russians. But the battle, nevertheless, produced important consequences. The King of Prussia did not think himself safe at K?nigsberg, and he evacuated it; and the unhappy queen prepared, with her children, to fly to Riga. The Russians retreated to Tilsit, and there Alexander made up his mind to negotiate with Napoleon. He was far from being in a condition to despair; Gustavus, the King of Sweden, was at the head of a considerable army at Stralsund; a British expedition was daily expected in the Baltic; the spirit of resistance was reawakening in Prussia; Schill, the gallant partisan leader, was again on horseback, with a numerous body of men, gathered in various quarters; and Hesse, Hanover, Brunswick, and other German provinces were prompt for revolt on the least occasion of encouragement. Buonaparte felt the peril of crossing the Niemen, and advancing into the vast deserts of Russia, with these dangerous elements in his rear. Besides, his presence was necessary in France. He had been absent from it nearly a year; he had drawn heavily on its resources, and a too long-continued strain without his personal influence might produce fatal consequences. To leave his army in the North was to leave it to certain defeat, and with the danger of having all Germany again in arms. These circumstances, well weighed by a man of genius and determination, would have induced him to make a resolute stand, and to draw his enemy into those wilds where he afterwards ruined himself, or to wear him out by delay. Alexander, however, had not the necessary qualities for such a policy of procrastination. He was now depressed by the sufferings of his army, and indignant against Britain.
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FORE:The history of the Chartist petition was the most extraordinary part of this whole business. It was presented on the 10th of April, by Mr. Feargus O'Connor, who stated that it was signed by 5,706,000 persons. It lay upon the floor of the House in five large divisions; the first sheet being detached, the prayer was read, and the messengers of the House rolled the enormous mass of parchment to the table. A day was appointed to take its prayer into consideration; but in the meantime it was subjected to investigation, and on the 13th of April Mr. Thornley brought up a special report from the select Committee on Public Petitions, which contained the most astounding revelations. Instead of weighing five tons, as Mr. O'Connor alleged, it weighed 5? cwt. The signatures were all counted by thirteen law-stationers' clerks, in addition to those usually employed in the House, who devoted seventeen hours to the work, and the number of signatures was found to be only 1,975,496, instead of nearly 6,000,000. Whole consecutive sheets were filled with names in the same handwriting; and amongst the signatures were "Victoria Rex," Prince Albert, the Duke of Wellington, Sir Robert Peel, Lord John Russell, etc. The Duke of Wellington's name was written thirty times, and Colonel Sibthorpe's twelve times. Some of the signatures were not names at allsuch as "No Cheese," "Pug Nose," "Flat Nose," etc. There were also many insertions so indecent that they could not be repeated by the committee.Sir Arthur Wellesley, brilliantly seconded by General Lake, Stevenson, and others, had thus worked out the plans of the Governor-General, Lord Wellesley. With small forces, and those principally native ones, but admirably disciplined, they had beaten two hundred and fifty thousand men in four pitched battles and eight sieges. They had taken from them upwards of one thousand pieces of cannon, besides an enormous amount of ammunition, baggage, and other spoil. They had made themselves masters of all the Mahratta territory between the Jumna and the Ganges; of Delhi, Agra, Calpee, the greater part of the province of Bundelcund, the whole of Cuttack, and a territory in Gujerat, which secured us all the ports by which France could have entered, so that we enjoyed the whole navigation of the coast from the mouth of the Ganges to the mouth of the Indus. They had added most important acquisitions to the territories of our allies, the Peishwa and the Nizam of the Deccan, and to the Company itself a stronger frontier in the latter region; and all this had been achieved in the short space of four months. The French influence was completely annihilated, and every part of India placed in greater strength and security than it had ever known before.
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FORE:All this time, too, the brave Tyrolese were in open revolt, so that the success of Austria would have instantly produced a universal rising of the country. But for six weeks the Austrians continued to allow Napoleon to keep open his communication with Vienna, whence he procured every material for building, not one bridge, but three; timber, cordage, iron, and forty engines to drive the piles, were procured from its ample magazines. Besides building the bridges, Buonaparte had quickly fortified the island, and placed batteries so as to prevent any successful attack upon him, whilst he was now furnished with the means of issuing from the island almost at pleasure. Since their being cooped up on Lobau, the French had received numerous reinforcements; and though the Archduke John was marching to join the Archduke Charles, Eugene Beauharnais was close at his heels, continually harassing him and compelling him to fight. On the frontiers of Hungary, the town of Raab ought to have enabled John to resist and retard Beauharnais, and have allowed the Archduke Regnier, who was organising another army in Hungary, to come up; but Raab only stood out eight days, and John was obliged to cross the Danube at Pressburg, to endeavour to advance and make a junction with the Archduke Charles. But Eugene Beauharnais managed to join Buonaparte still earlier, and the Emperor did not then allow John to unite with Charles; for, on the night of the 5th of July, he began to fire on the Austrians, on the left bank of the Danube, from gunboats; and whilst they were replying to this, he quietly put his forces across the river. At daylight the next morning the Archduke Charles was astonished to find the French army on the open land; they had turned his whole position, had taken the villages of Esslingen and Enzersdorf, and were already assailing him in flank and rear. The archduke retired upon Wagram, which was lost and taken several times during the day. Buonaparte attempted to break the centre of the Austrian line by a concentrated fire of grape-shot, but the Austrians replied vigorously with their artillery. The French were held in check, if not repulsed. The Saxons and other German troops displayed a disposition to break, and go over to the Austrians. Buonaparte spoke sharply to Bernadotte of the conduct of the Saxons, and the marshal replied that they had no longer such soldiers as they brought from the camp of Boulogne. When night closed the French were in confusion, and, in reality, worsted. The next morning, the 6th of July, the archduke renewed the attack on all the French lines, but is said to have left his centre too weak. Buonaparte again endeavoured to break it, but failed. Bernadotte, Massena, and Davoust were all in turn driven from their positions. Buonaparte, in a state of desperation, cried, "The Austrian centre must be battered with artillery like a fortress." He ordered Davoust to make a desperate charge on the left wing, and called on Drouet, the general of his artillery, to bring up all the artillery of the Guard, and support Davoust. Davoust directed the whole of his force on the left wing, which was broken, and then Buonaparte, forming a dense and deep column of all his best troops, old and new Guards, and his celebrated[591] Grenadiers cheval, under Macdonald and Beauharnais, drove against the centre with a fury that shattered it, and the battle was decided. But at what a price! The Austrians had twenty-six or twenty-seven thousand killed and wounded, and the French upwards of thirty thousand. Buonaparte lost three generals, and had twenty-one wounded. The Austrians had thirteen generals killed or wounded; but they had taken many more prisoners than they had lost. Whilst the battle was raging, the Archduke John was approaching from Pressburg; but Austrian slowness, or, as it is said, conflicting orders from his brother and the Aulic Council, did not permit him to come up in time, or he would assuredly have turned the day.Braves, with broad sail, the immeasurable sea;
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