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Updated: June 17, 2025
Blücher, loyal to his engagements, retired upon Wavre; Wellington, relying upon Blücher's loyalty, took his stand on the field of Waterloo; and this error on the part of Napoleon determined the fortunes of the campaign. The British army retreated upon Waterloo almost unmolested.
I related the story of the battle of Waterloo, and he told me that the 4th battalion on leaving Fleurus had taken the route toward Wavre with the whole of Grouchy's corps, and that in the afternoon of the next day, the 18th, they heard the cannon on their left and that they all wanted to go in that direction, even the generals, but the marshal having received positive orders, had continued on the route to Wavre.
During the siege, people had learnt to recognize the voice of every fort of Antwerp. They said to each other: "That is Lizele, Wavre Ste. Catherine, Waelhem." One after the other the Belgian guns were silenced, first Wavre, then Waelhem ... and the vibrating boom of the German heavies was heard louder than ever.
Both the allied armies hastened to unite at Quatre Bras; but their junction there was already impossible. Blücher with eighty thousand men was himself attacked by Napoleon at Ligny, and after a desperate contest driven back with terrible loss upon Wavre.
They had to traverse country roads softened by the rain; the men were up to their ankles in mud, guns and carriages stuck fast, and it was not until after tremendous efforts that the leading squadron of their cavalry passed through the wood of Wavre and came in view of the battle that was raging.
Clausewitz re-entered the Prussian service in 1815, and served as Chief of the Staff to Thielman's corps, which was engaged with Grouchy at Wavre, on the 18th of June. After the Peace, he was employed in a command on the Rhine. In 1818, he became Major-General, and Director of the Military School at which he had been previously educated.
We crossed the bridge, and passed on to Malines under the guns of Fort Waelhem, with the great fortress of Wavre St. Catharine standing away to the left, impregnable to anything but the huge guns of to-day. Malines is a large town of 60,000 inhabitants, and is the cathedral city of the Archbishop of Belgium, the brave Cardinal Mercier.
But he pleaded the letter of Napoleon's instructions, and reached Wavre only to find Blücher gone. After an encounter with a Prussian corps, which had been left behind, he received news of Napoleon's defeat, and ultimately escaped into France. The march of the allies into France after the battle of Waterloo was not wholly unchecked, but it was far more rapid than in 1814.
The general informed him of the whole events of the preceding day, and gave him the important intelligence that Blucher had retreated to Wavre, and would join hands with Wellington at Mount St. Jean, which the English general had previously fixed upon as the scene of the battle for the defense of Brussels. The news relieved Wellington of all anxiety.
If we followed La Dernière Heure we would go to Namur; L'Etoile was strong for Tirlemont. Would we lose if we plunged on Wavre? Again, the favorite seemed to be Louvain. On a straight tip from the legation the English correspondents were going to motor to Diest. From a Belgian officer we had been given inside information that the fight would be pulled off at Gembloux.
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