the Hundred Days

Hundred Days, the (1815). Declared an outlaw by the Allies on his escape from Elba in March 1815 Napoleon decided to take the offensive against the forces massing against him. The two nearest enemy forces were the Anglo-Dutch-German army under Wellington and the Prussians under Blücher, and he aimed to destroy them in detail before they could unite their forces.

Napoleon crossed the frontier into Belgium in the early hours of 15 June, surprising the Prussians and British, whose forces were still dispersed; an alarming gap threatened to open up between Wellington and Blücher. Napoleon divided his Army of the North in a right and a left wing under Ney and Grouchy, maintaining the reserve under his own command. After taking Charleroi, he sent Grouchy towards the Prussians at Fleurus, while Ney headed up the Brussels road.

On 16 June Napoleon joined Grouchy and attacked Blücher at Ligny. The Prussians fought stubbornly, but were defeated. But the battle was not a knockout blow and the pursuit under the command of Grouchy was dilatory. They retreated to Wavre, from where on 18 June they were able to link up with Wellington at Waterloo, despite Grouchy's efforts to interfere.

Ney's advance on 15 June was halted by a small force under the Prince of Orange at the key crossroads of Quatre Bras. Wellington rushed forces to the battlefield, and Ney's decision to delay attacking until the afternoon of 16 June bought the ‘Iron Duke’ more time. By the early evening Wellington had sufficient forces to drive back the French. Thanks to confused and incompetent command, D'Erlon's corps, which might have proved decisive at either Quatre Bras or Ligny, spent the day marching back and forth between the two battles without intervening in either. Wellington fell back on Waterloo, where on 18 June he met Napoleon in the climactic battle of the campaign.

Napoleon delegated command of his attack to Ney, and did not begin the battle until the ground had dried sufficiently to allow him to move his 12-pounders into a great battery facing Wellington's centre. He then allowed too many troops to get sucked into the fight for Hougoumont, on Wellington's centre right, and what could have been decisive attacks up the Brussels road were poorly co-ordinated. Grouchy was certainly not in his master's mind, and failed to prevent the Prussians from appearing in the afternoon. The battle was undeniably a close-run thing, but Wellington's well-judged defensive skill and the timely arrival of the Prussians proved too much for an emperor who was visibly past his best. After the Guard's last attack had failed the French army broke, and the Prussian cavalry was unleashed in pursuit. Napoleon's spell was broken, and he was again exiled, this time to St Helena.

Napoleon's strategy for the campaign was good in military terms (if poorly executed) but divorced from political reality; even victory at Waterloo would have probably only delayed his defeat at the hands of the Allies. Wellington was distinctly off-form at the beginning of the campaign. Recent suggestions by Peter Hofschroer that Wellington behaved in a devious way towards his allies notwithstanding, after a shaky start, the Anglo-Dutch and Prussian armies co-operated effectively to defeat the ‘Corsican Ogre’.

Bibliography

• Chandler, David, The Campaigns of Napoleon (London, 1966).
• Hamilton-Williams, David, Waterloo New Perspectives (London, 1993).
• Hofschroer, Peter, 1815 the Waterloo Campaign (London, 1998)

— Gary Sheffield