Waterloo: Napoleon's Last Gamble. Andrew Roberts
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all-important question of the numbers present at the battle, I propose to take those quoted in Mark Adkin’s excellent book The Waterloo Companion, which as well as their innate scholarly worth are close to those of most of the other experts. After their losses of 17,500 men at Ligny and Quatre Bras, and Grouchy’s detaching with 30,000 men, the French army under Napoleon comprised 53,400 infantry, 15,600 cavalry and 6,500 artillerymen servicing 246 guns, along with 2,000 support staff from medics to engineers, making a total of 77,500. After losing 4,500 at Quatre Bras, and stationing 17,000 at Hal, the Anglo-Allied army under Wellington comprised 53,800 infantry, 13,350 cavalry, 5,000 artillerymen servicing 157 guns and one rocket section, and 1,000 support staff, totalling 73,150 men. The Prussian troops available to assist Wellington if Blücher’s plan was properly implemented consisted of 38,000 infantry, 7,000 cavalry, 2,500 artillerymen servicing 134 guns, and 1,500 support staff, totalling 49,000 men. Of the Prussian forces, IV Corps would arrive on the battlefield at about 4.30 p.m. with 31,000 men and eighty-six guns, II Corps would get there at about 6.30 p.m. with 12,800 men, and I Corps at around 7.30 p.m. with 5,000 men.
By the time the sun rose on the undulating plateau of Mont St Jean on Sunday, 18 June it was clear to everyone that there was going to be a major engagement that day – a battle on the scale of any of the great clashes of the Napoleonic Wars, such as Marengo, Friedland, Austerlitz, Borodino or Leipzig. ‘Ah! Now I’ve got them, those English!’ Napoleon is said to have exclaimed when he was certain that the Anglo-Allied army had not filed away down the road through the Forest of Soignes during the night. He later expressed incredulity that Wellington had fought with an impassable forest to his rear, but in fact Wellington did this on purpose. ‘It is not true that I could not have retreated,’ he told his friend Harriet Arbuthnot eight years later. ‘I could have got into the wood and I would have defied the Devil to drive me out.’16
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