Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission.

Similar documents
The Battle Of Ligny 16 June, 1815 A Grande Armée scenario by Lloyd Eaker

French and Allied Forces Battle of Vauchamps 14 February 1814

The mission of colonel Marbot.

The Battlefield. Eylau Umpire Notes

ARMIES OF THE 18 TH CENTURY

Le Retour de l'empereur

French Order of Battle November l806-january l807

% D class, Élan 60% C class Élan 20% B class, Élan. ABILITY Hussars, Chasseurs a Cheval

Napoleon s plan at Ligny.

napoleon's battles at divisional and onehalf

French Army of Spain 15 January 1810

French Armies in Spain 15 October 1812

Rearguard action near Genappe 17 th June 1815.

The Bridgehead at Villamuriel de Cerrato

This scenario was setup without specific goals though the French were designated to attack and the Allies to defend.

...& Blenheim Palace. Amendments to Black Powder For battles with model soldiers In the Age of Marlborough

French Army and Various Garrisons l5 January l8l4

Waterloo. Leadership that changed the world. Jürgen Oschadleus MAIPM ILPF PMP 11 November 2015

French Army 25 January Colonel Général des cuirassiers, Count Belliard

ARMIES OF THE SEVEN YEARS WAR

The Battle of Waterloo

ONE IF BY LAND" - AMERICAN 1:10 SCALE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE RULES by Bob Bergman. Infantry/Cavalry figure 10 men Artillery crew figure 5 men

COMMANDS AND COLORS NAPOLEONICS PLUS

French V, VI, VII, & IX Corps 1 May 1806

Allied and French Forces Battle of Montmirail 11 February 1814

French Briefing. The Battle of Großbeeren 23rd August, 1813

The casualties on the 16 th of June. The battle of Ligny. The Prussian casualties.

French V, VI & VII Corps 24 April 1806

Gunzberg, 9th October, A scenario for:

French Army Before Troyes under Macdonald 2 March 1814

First contact on the Sambre: 15 th June, A small scenario for Republic to Empire by Barry Hilton

King George Commands and We Obey

Trench Warfare Begins on the Aisne by Col. (later Maj-General) Edward D. Swinton, DSO

Altenburg. September 28, 1813

The Battle of Cowpens 1781

Austrian Army Vanguard Brigade. Brigade Commander Staff Rating 7: 0pts Staff Rating 8: 25pts

French Army of Portugal 1 October 1812

After Action Report, Ocaña

The battle of Pultusk 26 th December 1806

information will be used as instructional material for further study of our recent

The Battle Of Raab 14 June 1809 by Chuck Hamack

Part 1 Scenarios for General de Division. Sample file

Napoleonic Battles. Introduction

Glory Days! Introduction. Troop Types and Figures. freewargamesrules.co.uk presents. by Craig Cartmell

Contents.

To Reach the Po... Elliott (the gamemaster) explained the situation on a white board:

French Forces in the Crimea l854-l856

The French advance and order of battle.

BATTLE FOR 2MM EARTH 1418: The Great War (Version 0.8)

March Toward the Sound of Guns

3rd Edition RULES OF PLAY

Les Champs de Bataille NAPOLEONIC WARGAME RULES ON THE BATTALION LEVEL WITH GRAND TACTICAL ASPIRATIONS

French Reinforcements March l809

Battle of Waterloo Weekender th th April A walk- thro guide to to gaming with with. Republic to Empire PART 2

The Battle of Raszyn 19 April 1809 a Grande Armée scenario by Chuck Hamack

The death of Sir William Ponsonby.

The Battle Of La Coruña (Elviña)

The Battle of Alcaniz, 23 rd May A scenario for: Grand Manoeuvre: Black Powder & Blue Steel. Napoleonic Miniatures.

Wertingen 8th October, A scenario for

Battle of Vittoria. June 21 st, 1813 unit from their command. The two engineer stands of Gazan s Army of the South may

SNAPHANCE RULES FOR PIKE AND SHOT BATTLES

[DRAFT] SNAPHANCE RULES FOR PIKE AND SHOT BATTLES

The first battle of Polotsk 17 th -18 th August Introduction

Deployment Bailen Rear Guard Re-Fight Initiative Round 1:

Marengo. Turn One 0600 Hours 14 June 1800

Grunberg. October 6, 1813

Volley and Bayonet, Road to Glory. American Revolution Period Specific Rules. Jeff Glasco ( 2011)

Mini-Nap. RULES FOR CORPS SCALE WARGAMES IN THE NAPOLEONIC ERA USING THE 6mm SCALE

Blucher Spring 1813 Campaign Report SITREP 1A Week 1 and the Battle of Madgeburg

Part1 Setting up the Game. Sample file

William Henry Clerke

The Maximilian Adventure

Wissembourg 4 th August 1870

ADDENDUM TO THE VISUAL EFFECTS ASSESSMENT FOR THE PROPOSED DOMINION VIRGINIA POWER SURRY TO SKIFFES CREEK 500 kv TRANSMISSION LINE

Chosen Men Fat. 1. Sequence of play. Base Morale;

The second French attack upon Wellington s centre. The second attack on the farm of La Haye Sainte and the second advance of the 1 st corps.

Gettysburg Campaign. June-July Fauquier County in the Civil War. Goose Creek Bridge in Photograph by Garry Adelman.

War Diary, Machine Gun Corps, from

Black Powder House Rules

OLD TROUSERS WARFARE IN THE HORSE & MUSKET ERA

Introduction:... 4 Character Classes;... 4 Weapons:... 4 Organisation:... 4 Actions:... 5 Movement:... 5 Shooting:... 5 To Hit:...

THE WAR OF THE SPANISH SUCCESSION PAPERBOYS RULES

Napoleon divides his forces: the right wing. Introduction.

Fields of Blue & Grey

The Battle of Waterloo and research on John Lambert, OC. by Christopher Tsang (S) and Koh Ishikawa (V)

HOME BEFORE THE LEAVES FALL

Rules Update for Warmaster Ancients

Waterloo - 18 June 1815

French Army 1-6 January 1814

Musket and Pike Users Manual

Black Powder: Club Army Guidelines Version 1: February 2013 (Exodus 20:15 - Thou shall not steal.)

Green Jackets Rules for Napoleonic Skirmishes

The Battle of Neerwinden, 18 th of March 1793 A Grande Armee Scenario by Greg Savvinos

Why did Captain Johnston Charge?

OLD TROUSERS II WARFARE IN THE HORSE & MUSKET ERA

m a? United States Military Academy West Point, New York 10996

French Briefing. The Battle of Sacile 16th April, 1809

NAPOLEON S INFLUENCE ON WARFARE

Seven Years War. Generals

The battle of Quatre Bras: observations. Wellington s army.

Transcription:

The French Losses in the Waterloo Campaign Author(s): C. Oman Source: The English Historical Review, Vol., No. (Oct., 0), pp. Published by: Oxford University Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/5 Accessed: 0//00 0:5 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, noncommercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at http://www.jstor.org/action/showpublisher?publishercode=oup. Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a notforprofit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. Oxford University Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The English Historical Review. http://www.jstor.org

0 The Frenc/z Losses in the Waterloo Campazgn. T may be said that till within the last few years there were no definite data available for the calculation of the losses of the French army during the Waterloo campaign. Siborne, the most careful of English writers on the subject, contented himself with stating that they were 'immense, but difficult to estimate,' and did not commit himself to figures. More modern narrators of the campaign from this side of the Channel have either copied his example or reproduced French estimates, which are themselves usually echoes from Gourgaud's,0, or the,500 of the Victoires et Conqu'tes. Henry Houssaye, whose volumes on 5 have completely superseded the earlier French accounts, because of his infinitely greater care in consulting original documents, gives much higher figures. He allows for 5,000 men lost at Waterloo alone,,00 at Ligny and QuatreBras, some,000 for Grouchy's casualties at Wavre and Namur, and a few hundred for the skirmishes with the Prussians on June 5, in all a total of 5,000 men. This estimate is undoubtedly far nearer to the truth than any which had hitherto appeared, but think that it is now possible to arrive at a result which approaches even closer to exactitude. The new evidence which enables us to attack the problem from a secure basis is contained in M. Martinien's ' Tableaux par Corps des Officies tues et blesses pendant les Guerres de l'eimpire 05 5.' This magnificent work of pages consists of regimental lists of all officers killed and wounded in the Napoleonic campaigns, extracted item by item from the records of the regiments at the Archives of the Ministry of War at Paris. t is no mere table of figures, but gives the name and rank of each person cited, and even notes the death of all officers who, though rettrliied as merely wounded, ultimately succumbed to their injuries \ ithin a couple of months of the engagement in which they had been disabled. The whole being drawn up by regiments, not by battles, the inquirer must go through the titles of all units engaged in a campaign, if he wishes to obtain the total of losses in it, and then add up the See Gourgaud, p... See Victoires ct Conzqw,etes, xxiv.. See Houssaye's Waterloo, pp. ;, and 0.

THE FRENCH LOSSES N Oct. results for himself. This have done for all the regiments which took part in the Waterloo campaign, in the hope that by the aid of the figures thus obtained we may arrive at some general facts concerning the French losses in 5. The results are embodied in the annexed tables. t will be seen that they differ very appreciably from the totals given by M. Houssaye; e.g., he asserts that 0 French officers were killed or wounded on June, and cites M. Martinien as his authority. But the 'Tableaux,' published a year later than his book, show that the real total was not 0, but,05. Similarly his estimate for the casualties of Ligny and QuatreBras is, but Martinien's list of names gives no less than 0 killed and wounded officers. But it is not only the losses of the whole army considered in general that M. Martinien's tables display to us. We can also deduce from them how the stress of each battle bore upon the larger units of Napoleon's host, the corps, divisions, and brigades. To show the proportion in which each suffered, it is only necessary to prefix to its losses the total number of officers present at the opening of the campaign. These figures have procured from another admirable work, which has appeared within the last few years, Couderc de SaintChamant's DernieXres Armees de Napoleon (0). Not till this book came to hand was it possible to arrive at the exact number of officers who took the field with each unit. But by printing in full the last morningstates of the Waterloo army, those of 05 June, recovered from the miscellaneous documents of the Section Historique, Captain Couderc has enabled us to see what precisely is the meaning of M. Martinien's lists of losses. For example, if we had only the latter before us, we could merely know that at Waterloo the st Leger and the st of the Line each lost twentythree officers. But when we note in Captain Couderc's columns that the former regiment had officers in the field, while the latter had but officers, we realise that the one lost only per cent. of its commissioned ranks, the other more than 50 per cent. These percentages of loss in the various units of the army have turned out to be so interesting that have devoted several paragraphs of comment to them. The method in which the figures thus collected can be utilised is that which has been applied in many similar cases by military statisticiansthe multiplying of the number of casualties among the officers by twenty, as a rough but fairly accurate way of arriving at the number of casualties among the rank and file. This proportion is not that of the actual officers and men present at the opening of the campaign, which seems to have stood at to, but allows for the undoubted fact that 'the epaulette attracts the bullets; ' i.e. that in all the Napoleonic wars, no less than in the wars of today, the officer took more than his fair pro

0 THE WATERLOO CAMPAGN portional risk, because his duty sent him to the front. That this figure of 0 to errs rather on the side of understatement than of overstatement seems to result from an examination of the French losses in the Peninsular war. n ordinary line versus column engagements, such as the imperial troops were wont to wage with the British in Spain, the average number of casualties of men per officer was decidedly over twenty. The figures of Albuera, Salamanca, and Vittoria were never properly returned by the French commanders, but those of the other main battles of the Peninsular war stand as follows: Talavera. officers killed or wounded:,00 men:: officer: men Busaco.,,,,,,, officer: men Barrosa.,,,,,5,, officer: men The Pyrenees.,,,, 0,,, officer: * men Nivelle.,,,,,0,, officer: men Bayonne & St. Pierre.,,,, 5,05,, officer: men At Busaco, if Massena's return is accurate, the proportion of officers to men disabled is abnormally great; at Talavera and the Pyrenees it is abnormally light. Taking the whole series of battles together, we find that the proportion is one officer killed or wounded to men. But we must remember that the Waterloo army was heavily officered; the regiments had their full cadres in the commissioned ranks, even when (as in many cases) they were not up to regulation strength in men. n several cavalry regiments the officers stood to the men in a proportion so high as to, and in the infantry to was the average. n the Peninsula, on the other hand, it is a repeated complaint of the French commanders, especially of Soult in, that the regiments were short of officers. Statistics bear out this allegation: in Massena's army in 0 the infantry showed one officer to men; in Soult's army in there was but one officer to men. We should allow, therefore, that in the Waterloo campaign fewer men per officer were likely to fall, simply because there were fewer men per officer in line. f we find that the Peninsular battles show an average of men hit to one officer, when or men per officer were present, we may grant that a loss of 0 men per officer should be the probable figure for 5, when only men per officer were in line. The headings of the columns in the annexed tables for the most part explain themselves. But it is perhaps necessary to point out that the casualties in the column headed ' Small Fights' include () the losses of 5 June suffered by the Guald Cavalry, the Reserve Cavalry (Excelmans and Pajol) and Vandamme's infantry,

THE FRENCH LOSSES N Oct. while driving in Ziethen's corps towards Fleurus; () the casualties of June which Subervie's Lancers suffered at the combat of Genappe, when they were engaged with the th Hussars and the Household Cavalry of Wellington's rearguard; () the casualties of Maurin's cavalry, and of Gerard's and Vandamme's infantry during Grouchy's retreat on 0 June; () those of Teste's division of the th Corps, while defending the walls of Namur against the pursuing Prussians on June, on the second day of this same retreat. The third item is far the heaviest, and accounts for just over half of the total of 0 officers killed and wounded in the 'small fights.' have included the losses of Ligny and QuatreBras in the same column, as they were fought on the same day by different fractions of the French army, and there can be no confusion between them. Those of QuatreBras belong to the nd Corps (minus Girard's division), L'Heritier's cuirassiers, and the light cavalry of the Guard: they amount to officers killed and 5 wounded. The far heavier losses of Ligny ( officers killed and 0 wounded) are distributed between the rd and th corps, Girard's division of the nd Corps, the Reserve Cavalry corps of Pajol, Excelmans, and Milhaud, and the infantry and heavy cavalry of the Guard. Of the casualties of the staff in these two battles have identified and distributed those of the generals by name, but in regard to the aidesdecamp, adjoints de 'etatmajor &c., the only possible course (since M. Martinien gives them simply as 'losses on June') was to credit them to Ligny and QuatreBras in the proportion of the other losses of the dayviz. to the first named, and to the second engagement. Divisio Dii Regiment R,rm ou Br Waterloo Wavre Fg Total QliatreBras Fights S st CORPS k. w k. w. k. w. k. w. k. w. D'ERLON nfantry 5th Line 0 Allix. j55th,, 5 5 5 th,, 05th,, th Lger 0 Donzelot th Line 5 5 th,, ' 5st,, 0 st Line th,, Marcognet l5thi, 0 0 0 5th,, th Line 0 0 Durutte th, 0 0 r 5th,, 0 5 5 5th, 0 Cavalry th Hussars Jacquinot rd Chasseurr 0 0 q *rd Lancers th,,.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~0) 0........,. _.

0 THE WATERLOO CAMPAGN 5 0) Ligny and Waterloo Wavre Small D)ivision Rqggiment DiiSo m Wi"a n aterloo Wavre Total QuatreBras " Fights nd CORPS k. w. k. w. k. w. k. w. k. w. RELLE nfantry rd Line 5 5 0 5 5 0 Bacheu st 0 s,, d 0 5 5 5 5 0th, lst Lcer Prince Jerome n, 5 5 0 0 rst Line 5 5 ndtl 5 5 0 5 ilth Lger 0?? 0 0 G~?irard' nd Line th Lger 5? th Line? 5 nd Line 0 5 Foy rd,, th Le'ger 5 l00th Line 5 Cavalry at Chasseurs 0 Pir Pir~ th,, 5th Lancers 5 th 0 5 5 rd CORPs VANDAMME nfantry 5thi LUer 0 LefLol rd Line 5 th 5 0 th 0 th Line 55 5 th,, 5 Habert nd,, 55 5 0th,, 5 0 5 nd Swiss lth Line ~ 5th Berthezene Ln i l rd,? 5 th 5 Cavalry ( th Chasseurs Domon. th, 5 0??? th,, 0 0 5 5 th CORPS GJcRARD nfantry 0th Line 5 th,, 5 5 rd,,?? 0 5th,, 5 5th Line 5 5 th Vichery,, th,, 0 5 5? 5 5 0 th,,??? 5 thldger 5 0??? 0 Hulot flllth Line 5 0 th?? 0 50th,, 0 5 Cavalry th Hussars 5 Maurin th Chasseurs 5 th Draaoons 0? th 0)?? 5s 5 ;, 5 This division was detached from its corps, anidi fonght at Ligny, not Quatre Bras. This division was detachied from its corps, anid fouight at WVterloo, thiough the Srd Corps was present at Wavre.

r THE FRENCH LOSSES N Oct. i Division th CoRPs LOBAU nfantry Zimmer. Jeannin Teste.. Reqgimnent 5th Line th, th th,, 5th Lger 0th Line th,, 0th,, th Lger 0th Line 5th,, 5th,, 5th Dragoons th,, 5th, 0th,, th Dragoons th th,, th,, 0 0 E 0p 5 0 lever oined Never oined r, CAVA E. RY RESERVE st CORPS PAJOL { st Hussars P. Soult th,, 5th st Lancers Subervie. nd, th Chasseurs } nd CORPS EXCELMANS Strolz Chastel i ;_ ~ Ligny and Waterloo QuatreBra is k. w. 5 5 k 5 w. 0 0 Wavre k. w. k Small Fights w. k. 5 : Total W. 5 5 0 5 5 5 0 5 5 rd CoRPS KELLERMANN L'Hertier Roussel nd Dragoons } th,, th Cuirassiers th st Carabineers nd,, nd Cuirassiers rd,, 5 5 0 5 0 0 5 0 5 th CoRPS MLHAUD Wathier Delort st Cuirassiers th th,, th 5th Cuirassiers th, th 0th,, 0 0 5 5 5 i!,l 0 This division was detached, and fought at Wavre, though the corps was at Waterloo. This division was detached and served at Waterloo, though Pajol was at Wavre.

0 THE WATERLOO CAMPAGN Division Regiment Ligny andl Waterloo Quatre..Bras Wavre Small Figlhts Total Artillery Horse Field batteries of lst, nd, and th Regiments batteries of nd, 5th, th, and th Regiments 0 k. W. k. W. k. W. k. W. k. W. 0 Train companies of st, nd, rd, 5th, th, th, Sth battalions 5 Engineers Etatmajor particulier' Sappers and Miners 0 MPERAL GuARD nfantry Old Guard Friant Morand Middle Guard Roguet Michel Young Guard Duhesme Barrois Her,vy Cavalry Guyot Light Cavalry Lefebvre Desnouettes st Grenadiers.nd l st Chasseurs nd rd Grenadiers i th ) {rd Chasseurs th,, {st Tirailleurs rd t st ' Voltigeurs rd ) JGrenadiers cheval Dragoons Gendarmes Lancers Chasseurs Li 5 5 0 0 } i, ~~~ i 5! ~ 5 5 5 5 0 0 0 0 Artillery { field batteries~ t 5 horse,, Train? 0 lj i 0 i 5 "i i

THE FRENCH LOSSES N Oct. STAFF AND NONREGMENTAL OFFCERS Rank W Ligny and Small l s Waterloo Wavre Fml QuatreBras Fights Total k. w. k. w. k. w. k. w. k. w. Generaux de division.. 5 Generaux de brigade Adjudantscommandants i Adjoints d'tatmajor 0 ngenieursgeographes Aidesdecamp.. Commissaires des guerres. Total.? 0 Grand total of whole campaign.? 0 5, 5 5,0,5 These were :Killed at Ligny, Girard, of the nd Corps; wounded at Ligny, Habert. of rd Corps, and Domon and Maurin, of the cavalry. Wounded at QuatreBras, Kellermann. Killed at Waterloo, Desvaux, Michel, and Dullesne, of the mperial Guard ; woundedl at Waterloo, Bailly le Monthion, Barrois, Colbert, Friant, Guyot, of tlle Guard, Durutte, of the st Corps, Baclielu and Foy, of the nd( Corps, Zimmer. of tle th Corps, Delort. L'Heritier, Roussel, of the cavalry reserve, Radet 'Grandl PrevOt d(e l'armee.' Wound!ed at Wavre, Gerard, commanding th Corps, Teste of th Corps. Small Fights: killed, Letort, of mperial Glard, on 5 June, near Charleroi; woundel, Vandamme, commandling rd Corps, in front of Namur, 0 June. These were :Killed at Ligny. Le Capitaine, of th Corps; wou,nded at Ligny, Billard and Dufour, of rd Corps. Berruyer, of th Corps, Devilliers andi Piat. of Girard's (livision of nd Corps, Farine, of reserve cavalry; wounded at QuatreBras, Gauthier, of nd Corps. Killed at Waterloo, Aulard, of st Corps, Baudoin and( Jallin, of nd Corps, Donop, of reserve cavalry. Wounded at Waterloo: Gohrecht, Noguez, and Bourgeois, of st Corps, Campy and Vatlliez, of nd Corps, Farine, Guiton, Dubois, Picquet, Travers. Blancard, of reserve cavalry, Cambronnc, Harlet, Henrion, Lallemand, of the Guard, Durrieu. of the staff. Killed at Wavre. Penile, of Cth C.r?s. Of this QuatreBras killed, 5 wounded = 0; Ligny killed, wounded = 5. The first observation called forth by a study of these tables is that the French losses at Ligny must have been considerably understated by all the historians. We note that at QuatreBras officers fell; on an estimate of 0 men hit to each officer, this should give a total casualty list of,00 men: as a matter of fact the number was somewhat greater, for Ney and Reille repor,00 disabled, a proportion of not of 0 to. But at Ligny we find that 5 officers were killed or wounded, while in deference, apparently, to Napoleon's statement that he had lost only some,000 or,000 men, the historians, down to M. Houssaye himself, state the French casualties at figures varying up to, but never exceeding,,500 men. This proportion, which would give only men hit per officer, seems entirely improbable. There was nothing in the character of the fighting at Ligny which would make it likely that the officers should suffer in such an abnormal proportion: neither the long cannonade, nor the street firing in Ligny and the two St. Amands, ought to have proved so peculiarly deadly to the commissioned ranks. am driven to conclude that it would be safer to estimate the total French loss at 0,000 men; even this would be lower than the proportion of 0 to which we have agreed to accept as normal. Descending to details, we find that by far the heaviest casualties at Ligny fell upon Girard's division of the nd Corps, the unit detached from Reille which fought so desperately in the Hameau de St.Amand. t lost 0 officers out of present, more than These figures seem perfectly genuine and certain; see Houssaye, pp., 0, and the notes of Gourgaud, who gives the figure at,0, Foy, and others.

0 THE TWA TERLOO CAMPAGN 5 per cent. This fact corroborates all the narratives which speak of it as practically hors de comtbat at nightfall, and accounts for Napoleon having left it behind him on the field of Ligny, to recuperate itself, when he marched off upon the following day. Of the other troops present at Ligny Vandamme's corps lost 5 officers out of 0 present, a portion of about one in five, or more exactly per cent. Grard's corps suffered 5 casualties among 5 officers present, or about 5*5 per cent. The Reserve Cavalry, who were mainly occupied in observing the Prussian left wing, and of whom only one or two divisions were seriously engaged, seem to have lost only officers out of some 00 present, about per cent. The mperial Guard suffered even less: the infantry had 5 officers wounded and one killed, the heavy cavalry two killed. t is clear, therefore, that Gourgaud's estimate of 00 of all ranks killed and wounded for the whole Guard is not far wrong, though 0 would be nearer the mark. M. Houssaye's hypothetical estimate of 00 must be hopelessly erroneous; it would give men hit per officer. The figures also render incredible his statement that the th Chasseurs of the Guard were so cut up at Ligny that they were reduced from two battalions to one at Waterloo: they had not in the battle of Ligny one single officer killed or wounded, and probably nota score of men. t is clear, therefore, that they had still two battalions on the day of Waterloo, and that Ney's final charge on June was conducted by six not (as M. Houssaye asserts) by five battalions of the Guard.5 The figures for QuatreBras have nothing very noticeable in them. Reille's corps had 0 officers present (Girard's division being detached at Ligny) and lost 5, one in five, or 0' per cent. The unit that suffered most was Foy's division, which had 5 casualties among officers, i.e. per cent. Kellermann's cuirassiers, who gave the English squares so much trouble, must be considered to have got off very lightly with officers hurt out of some 50 present in the one brigade that was engaged. Of these, only one, by a curious chance, seems to have been killed outright. Pire's Lancers, who broke the British th and nearly rode over the nd also, had four officers killed and wounded out of 5exactly the same proportion of losses as that suffered by the cuirassiers. Passing on to June we find that the only serious fighting on that day was the combat of Genappe, where Subervie's Lancers, the head of Napoleon's pursuing column, drove in the British th Hussars, but were themselves ridden down by the Life Guards. They are recorded to have lost 5 officers out of present, a s M. Houssaye (p. ) quotes General Petit's narrative as his authority for the statement that the th Chasseurs were thus cut up at Ligny and were a battalion short at Waterloo. But there is no such allegation in this narrative, printed in extenso in the English Historical Review for 0, pp. 5. VOL. XX.NO. LXXV. y Y

0 THE FRENCH LOSSES N Oct. sufficient proof that the sharpness of the check has not been exaggerated in British accounts of the skirmish. Of Wellington's two regiments engaged, the th lost, the st Life Guards officer so that it seems probable that the total French casualties were as three to one compared with the British. We now come to the awful slaughter of Waterloo. M. Martinien's figures show officers killed and, wounded as the casualty list of the great battle. This total of,05 would seem to give a probable loss of,00 for the French army, putting unwounded prisoners aside. Of the latter, as we gather from Wellington's and Bliicher's despatches, there were about,500 or,000, of whom a very small proportion were officers; for at Waterloo, as in other battles, the rank and file surrendered freely when cut off, while the officers either resisted and were shot down, or made desperate efforts to get away and succeeded. n the rout and pursuit after nightfall, during which the majority of the prisoners were taken, this last was more especially the case. Nearly the whole of the remainder of the unwounded captives were taken during the charge of the Union Brigade, when the British cavalry got in among the infantry of Allix, Donzelot, and Marcognet and captured whole companies en masse. Two thousand men laid down their arms in ten minutes at this point, but am compelled by M. Martinien's figures to believe that, while the rank and file yielded, the officers resisted and were cut down. For in the 5th and 05th regiments, which bore the brunt of the charge and both lost their eagles, find that officers out of 5 present were killed or wounded, though the number of unwounded rank and file taken was very large indeed. But while it is certain that in this part of the field the officers as compared with the men suffered much heavier casualties than their normal onetotwenty percentage, imagine that the general average of losses must have been corrected in the pursuit after dark, where the rank and file surrendered, but the officers, having greater initiative and a stronger dislike for capture, got off and escaped. should conclude, therefore, that we must place the total loss of the French army at Waterloo at something like,000 men out of the,000 present, or about 50 per cent. This would allow for the,05 officers whom we know to have been killed or wounded, for,00 rank and file killed or wounded, and for,500 unwounded prisoners, of whom should guess that not more than 00 were officers. When we turn to look at the details of the losses of the various Several narrators speak of one of the main features of the battlefield next morning as being whole rows of muskets neatly laid down in line opposite Picton's position, where organised bodies of French had surrendered simultaneously, on being cut off by the Union Brigade.

0 THE WATERLOO CAMPAGN units of Napoleon's army, the first fact that strikes us is the very moderate casualty list of those divisions which were opposed to the Prussians, as compared with that of those which fought the British. The force with which Lobau so long held back Bliicher consisted of the two infantry divisions of Zimmer and Jeannin, the Young Guard under Duhesme and Barrois, and Domon and Subervie's Cavalry, with the addition late in the day of three battalions of the Old Guard (one each of the nd Grenadiers and the st and nd Chasseurs). The casualty list of these units stands as follows : Zimmer's division. officers present, killed or wounded, or p.c. Jeannin's division.,,,,,,,, or 5,, Young Guard.,,,,, or Domon's cavalry. 0.,, 0,,,, or '5, Subervie's cavalry. 0,,,,,,,, or,, The losses of the three battalions of the Old Guard cannot be separated from those which the other battalions of their regiments suffered in the main battle. But taking the rest of Lobau's force together, we find that it lost 0 officers out of present, or a percentage of. This would be considered sufficently heavy in any ordinary battle, but at Waterloo it contrasts very strongly with the awful casualty list of the divisions which were engaged with the British army, where no less than per cent. of the officers present were disabled. After making all due allowance for the fact that Lobau's men were acting on the defensive, and partly protected b the buildings of Planchenoit, it still remains astounding that they should have held their own for five hours against an adversary who had at first a threefold and afterwards a sevenfold advantage in numbers. One can only conclude that the Prussian fire was far less deadly than the Englishone of the many consequences of column as opposed to line formation. t was not without reason that Soult observed to Napoleon that morning, 'Sire, l'infanterie anglaise en duel, c'est le diable.' Taking together all the fractions of the imperial army which were opposed to the English alone, we get the following results: st Corps.. officers present, 5 killed or wounded, or 50 p.c. nd Corps.. 5,,,, 0,,, or,, Middle Guard.,,,,,, or 5,, Reserve Cavalry: Kellermann. officers present, killed or wounded, or '5 p.c. Milhaud,,,,,,, or 500,, Guard Cavalry. 55,,,,,,,, r Total...,,,,,,0,,,, or,, Deduction being made of the losses of these units at the battle of Ligny and the combat of Genappe. After deducting previous losses at QuatreBras and Ligny. After deducting previous losses at Ligny. YY

T'HE FRENCH LOSSES N Oct. have had to leave the infantry of the Old Guard out of the calculation, as five of its battalions were engaged with the British and three with the Prussians, while M. Martinien's tables only give the losses by regiments not by battalions, so that they cannot be properly distributed between the two halves of the battle. t will be noted that the Old Guard's casualty list was only officers out of present, i.e. ' per cent., a smaller proportional loss than that of any other unit of the French army, save the infantry of the Young Guard. The literary tradition which will have it that the famous squares of the Old Guard perished en masse, while covering the retreat of the emperor, is obviously erroneous. These veterans suffered far less than the line and the cavalry. On the other hand, we note that the st Corps, which, after enduring the charge of the Union Brigade, maintained for the rest of the day a bitter strife with the infantry of the British left wing, lost a full half of its officers killed and wounded. f we allow for the unwounded prisoners made by the British cavalry in addition to the casualties, it is evident that much more than half of this unfortunate corps was destroyed. The cuirassiers of Milhaud and Kellermann, who delivered the great charges on Wellington's squares during the afternoon hours, also suffered a loss of about 50 per cent. So did the six battalions of the Middle Guard, with which the emperor delivered his last thrust at nightfall against Wellington's right centre. t is somewhat surprising to find that the Guard cavalry, who joined in the same charges as the cuirassiers, show the much smaller casualty list of only some per cent. This is partly, but not wholly, accounted for by the fact that the emperor retained four of the light Guard squadrons about his person till the end of the day. They were only engaged for a few minutes with Vivian's Hussars after nightfall, and can have suffered little. But, even allowing for this, the numbers lost seem small: is it possible that there is some small omission of names in M. Martinien's rolls of the lancers and chasseurs? Those of the horsegrenadiers and dragoons show a far higher proportional loss, yet we know that the light cavalry was as deeply engaged as the heavy. The greatest individual losses in cavalry regiments at Waterloo are those of the th Cuirassiers, officers disabled out of 0 present; the lth Cuirassiers and st Carbineers lost almost as heavily in proportion. n the infantry the greatest sufferers were the 05th line, casualties out of present, the 5th and 5th, with casualties each out of 0 and respectively presentall in the st Corpsand then the st of the line of the nd Corps, with casualties out of present. The heaviest losses of the Guard infantry were in Roguet's brigade, which supplied half the column that delivered the last great attack on Wellington's right

0 THE WA TERLOO CAMPAGN centre: in it officers fell out of present. But a score of regiments in the st and nd Corps show heavier proportional losses than this. t only remains to speak of Grouchy's casualties at Wavre and tamur. Those at Wavre were very moderate, as might be expected from the rather slack way in which the marshal pushed the inferior Prussian force in front of him. Four of his seven infantry divisions seem hardly to have been engaged: Berthezene, Pecheux, Teste, and Hulot have only officers wounded between them. The other three divisions show officers killed and 5 wounded out of present, a mere per cent. The cavalry was lightly engaged, and shows only 5 officers hit. The marshal's total loss must have been well under,000 men. The combat in front of Namur on 0 June, indeed, must have been almost as serious a business, though so little is made of it in most histories. Probably the total of Grouchy's losses from to June may have amounted to,00 men, as he would seem to have lost about officers in that period. Our general estimate, the.efore, of the French losses in the whole campaign is somewhat as follows: QuatreBras..,00 killed and wounded. Ligny... 0,000, Waterloo..,500,,,,,..,500 prisoners unwounded Wavre..,00 killed and wounded. Small fights..,00,, i Total.. 55,00 These figures, as it will be seen, exceed those of M. Houssaye by some,000 casualtiespartly owing to what am inclined to consider his underestimate of the loss of Ligny, partly on account of Waterloo, where think that he is about,000 short, partly because of the high figure which must apparently be allowed for the small fights, more especially the combat of 0 June. As the emperor took the field with,000 men, he lost some per cent. of his army in the week between 5 June and June. C. OMAN.