Bamberg palace in Bavaria. His place was taken by Soult, whose speciality
was to issue opaque or sibylline orders that required an expert on
hieroglyphics to decipher. This meant that instead of a top-flight winning
combination of Suchet, Davout, Murat and Berthier, he had the three
greatest duds among the marshalate as his aides: Soult, Ney and
Grouchy.
After saying goodbye to Marie Walewska, who had rejoined him in
Paris for their final period together as lovers, Napoleon left for the north.
Already his health was giving cause for concern. Everyone remarked that
he was obese, with a puffy face, greenish complexion, dull eyes and a
heavy walk. He seemed to need far more sleep than in his vintage years
and could not keep awake at night, no matter how much coffee he drank.
Throughout the short Belgian campaign he was fatigued, needed lots of
sleep, was lethargic and indecisive and generally prone to inertia. The
omens for success were not good.
The Emperor left Paris at midnight on the evening of II-12 June,
lunched at Soissons, slept at Laon and arrived at Avesnes on the 13th.
Roll-call next day established the Army's strength at 122,000. When
Napoleon crossed into Belgium by the Sambre at Charleroi on 15 June,
his spies placed Wellington in Brussels with a mixed force of British,
Dutch, Belgians and Hanoverians and Bliicher at Namur with his 120,000
Prussians. The Grand Army was a better fighting force than in 1814.
This time it included a credible cavalry army, the Guard and five army
corps under Generals Drouet d'Erlon, Reille, Vandamme, Lobau and
Gerard (one of Napoleon's favourites). It was singularly unfortunate that
the Emperor had had to deploy troops in five other main theatres: the
Vendee (under General Lamarque), the Var (under Marshal Brune);
the Alps (under Suchet), the Jura (under General Lecourbe) and at the
frontiers of the Rhine under another old favourite, General Rapp. Had
even one of these 8,ooo-strong forces been available for the campaign in
Belgium, their presence might have made all the difference.
Napoleon's strategy was to get between the two enemy armies and then
destroy each in turn. He decided to attack the Prussians first since
Blucher was restless and mercurial where Wellington was cautious and
slow-moving; it was therefore likely that Bliicher would move faster to
Wellington's aid than vice versa. On the other hand, alive to contingency,
he realized his plan might miscarry so put out patrols on both left and
right as 'antennae', ready to deal with whichever enemy first appeared; as
soon as either one was 'pinned', Napoleon himself with the centre would
move in for the coup de grace.
Both Wellington and Bliicher were taken by surprise by the speed of
marcin
(Marcin)
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