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Bluecher with his German troops was advancing up the Moselle to Nancy; Schwarzenberg with the Austrians crossed the Rhine to the south at Basel and Neu Breisach; Bernadotte in the Netherlands was welding Swedes, Dutch, and Prussians into a northern army.
He decided not to wait for the attack, but to assail the two armies of Bluecher and Wellington in Belgium. His plan was to attack them separately. On the same day, Wellington so far checked Ney in his attack at Quatre Bras, that he could not strike the Prussians on the flank, as Napoleon had designed.
"That's the idea." Spike gasped. His world was falling about his ears. Now that he had met Mr. Chames again he had looked forward to a long and prosperous partnership in crime, with always the master mind behind him to direct his movements and check him if he went wrong. He had looked out upon the richness of London, and he had said with Bluecher: "What a city to loot!"
Ropes considers that, misled by the erroneous "Disposition," Wellington honestly believed he would be able to co-operate with Bluecher, and that he "certainly did give that commander some assurance of support by the Anglo-Dutch army in the impending battle."
Napoleon had again marched on Bluecher, who had escaped from him thrice: on the left of the Marne, by a sudden frost, which hardened the muddy ways amongst which the Prussians had involved themselves, and were in danger of perishing; on the Aisne, through the defection of Soissons, which opened a passage to them, at a moment when they had no other way of escape; and Laon, by the fault of the duke of Ragusa, who prevented a decisive battle, by suffering himself to be surprised by night.
But in Ney's default of accomplishing this Napoleon, in his solicitude that Wellington should be hindered from supporting Bluecher, determined to delay his own stroke against the latter until Ney should be in possession of Quatre Bras with the left wing, where, in Soult's words, "he ought to be able to destroy any force of the enemy that might present itself," and then come to the support of the Emperor by getting on the Prussian rear behind St.
Bluecher neglected this in his, in other respects unexceptionable, pursuit after La Belle Alliance. Such marches tell upon the pursuer as well as the pursued, and they are not advisable if the enemy's Army rallies itself upon another considerable one; if it has a distinguished General at its head, and if its destruction is not already well prepared.
It was a running fight, covering over one hundred miles and lasting four hours. At the end of this time the German armored cruiser Bluecher was at the bottom of the sea and two of the German battle cruisers had been damaged.
Because the losses which Bluecher had sustained almost amounted to a defeat, which gave Buonaparte such a preponderance over him as to make his retreat to the Rhine almost certain, and at the same time no reserves of any consequence awaited him there.
He placed himself skilfully between Bluecher, who was descending the Marne, and Schwartzenberg, who descended the Seine; he hastened from one of these armies to the other, and defeated them alternately; Bluecher was overpowered at Champ-Aubert, Montmirail, Chateau-Thierry, and Vauchamps; and when his army was destroyed, Napoleon returned to the Seine, defeated the Austrians at Montereau, and drove them before him.
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