Redeeming a Nation (Timeless Teaching)

by Philip Quenby

  On the morning of Sunday 18 June 1815 some 140,000 soldiers faced each other across the fields of Flanders. The French army under Napoleon was slightly the larger, with 71,947 men and 246 guns to the 67,655 men and 156 guns commanded by the Duke of Wellington. In practice, the Duke’s army was considerably weaker: only 24,000 of its number were British, the remainder being German or from the United Provinces of the Netherlands. These latter were of doubtful loyalty. Many had previously fought under French colours and in the battle to come an entire brigade under General-majoor van Bijlandt fled at the first French advance on their position. By contrast, Bonaparte’s troops were seasoned veterans willing to die for their Emperor. He for one had no doubt as to the relative merits of forces from different nations. At the outset of the campaign, he declared: “A French soldier would not be equal to more than one English soldier, but would not be afraid to meet two Dutchmen, Prussians or soldiers of the Confederation [of the Rhineland].” French victory over Blücher’s Prussians at Ligny a few days earlier seemed to confirm that assessment.

  Such was the position immediately before the first shot was fired at Waterloo. The contest started late in the morning, as the French waited for the ground to dry after the soaking rain of previous days. Once battle was joined, however, it raged until evening, when at last the arrival of Marshal Blücher’s army put the issue beyond doubt. In retrospect, many have found it difficult to understand how Napoleon lost, and every attempt to recreate the contest has ended with French victory. There is no doubt that Wellington chose his ground with great skill and that his British and German troops fought with tenacity. Yet it is uncertain whether that alone would have been enough. Three elements in particular stand out on the French side. The Emperor, who had been so vigorous in mustering his troops and who had conducted them adroitly and energetically as recently as 15 June, was unaccountably lethargic at key points. Marshal Grouchy, who commanded 32,000 men and 96 guns just a few miles from the battlefield, failed to join the main French force although his staff pleaded with him to do so and the sound of gunfire from Waterloo was clearly audible. Perhaps most inexplicable of all, Marshal Michel Ney, a commander well aware of the capabilities of cavalry, persistently committed unsupported horsemen to fruitless charges against defensive squares of British infantry.

  So the allies prevailed, by the skin of their teeth. Wellington said of it afterwards: “It has been a damned serous business – Blücher and I have lost 30,000 men. It has been a damned nice thing – the nearest run thing you ever saw in your life ... I do not think it would have done if I had not been there.” Of his French opponent, he commented: “He is just an old pounder, after all.”

  Napoleon tried his strength for the first time against Wellington at Waterloo, and his strength was found wanting.

  The source of strength.

  Human beings tend to have a view of their own strength and importance that is at one and the same time too elevated and not elevated enough. It is too elevated in that we do not give the proper respect and glory to God, failing to recognise that his hand is in all things and that even evil can only persist because, for a time of his choosing, the Almighty allows it to be so. It is not elevated enough in that we do not ascribe to our deeds the eternal significance which they in fact have, and nor do we take proper account of the influence which we can wield for good or ill.

  The sovereignty of God, over heaven and earth, over man and all his doings is emphasised by the prophet Zechariah in words spoken over two thousand five hundred years ago. The Almighty is: “The LORD, who stretches out the heavens, who lays the foundation of the earth, and who forms the spirit of man within him” (Zechariah 12:1). He is the source of our strength and of our very being, the one who created and sustains the universe. The point is repeatedly emphasised in Scripture: “In the beginning, you laid the foundations of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands. They will perish, but you remain; they will all wear out like a garment. You will roll them up like a robe; like a garment they will be changed. But you remain the same, and your years will never end.” (Psalm 102:25-27 and Hebrews 1:10-12). God is in charge, whatever we might think.

  Similarly, the impact and intervention of God in the affairs of men is clearly described: “’On that day I will strike every horse with panic and its rider with madness,’ declares the LORD. ‘I will keep a watchful eye over the house of Judah, but I will blind all the horses of the nations.” (Zechariah 12:4). So it was during the battle of Waterloo, as Ney’s French cuirassiers and Polish lancers hurled themselves repeatedly upon massed bayonets. It was madness, and any dispassionate observer knew it.

  The prophet recounts what human experience repeatedly affirms: that God can turn our weakness to good account and can bring us low for all that we seem to be mighty.

  Strength in numbers.

  The French fought bravely at Waterloo, but it was not enough. As the tide of battle turned, retreat turned to rout. So complete was the wreck that within a week it was clear that the Emperor’s cause was beyond salvage.

  So ended the Hundred Days and so ended the Napoleonic Wars. The conflict was one in which France enlisted the soldiers of many nations: Poles and Italians in large numbers, Germans, Belgians, Dutchmen and Spaniards, inspired by the slogans of the Revolution and a desire for national self-determination, or simply conscripted. Whole nations were dragooned into an attempt to blockade Britain through the Continental System and a mighty army gathered at the Channel ports for a planned invasion of these islands. At times it might well have seemed to the people of this land that “all the nations of the earth are gathered against her” (Zechariah 12:3) and that she was indeed “besieged” (Zechariah 12:2). Yet for all that her enemies had strength in numbers, they did not prevail.

  In the event, crushing victory over the combined French and Spanish fleets at Trafalgar in 1805 made a Channel crossing impractical. Britain proved “an immovable rock for all the nations [on which] all who try to move it will injure themselves” (Zechariah 12:3), whilst continued British resistance became the hope of those who wished to cast off French vassalage. Frustrated, Napoleon unleashed the Grande Armée elsewhere, to eventual ruin in the snows of Russia. The strength of France ebbed away, encouraging the formerly cowed peoples of Europe to rise in revolt. The Emperor was driven slowly but surely back to his own borders and from thence to his first exile on Elba.

  Growing strength.

  Waterloo set the seal on European freedom from French domination. It also confirmed Britain’s place in the world. The decades-long preoccupation of France with Europe, an obsession reinforced by British blockade, caused not only her own but also her satellites’ overseas empires to waste away. Some colonies were captured by the British, some fell to local insurrections. Others were simply too expensive or too far away to maintain: hence Napoleon’s sale of Louisiana to the United States for US $6 million. The result was to leave Britain at the war’s end by far and away the mightiest imperial power. By the second quarter of the nineteenth century her dominance was clear to all. The great contest with France, which had smouldered and flamed intermittently for a century through the Wars of the Spanish and Austrian Successions, the Seven Years’ War, the Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic War was effectively decided in her favour. It may not have been comfortable for others to admit it, but “Then the leaders ... [said] in their hearts, ‘The people of Jerusalem are strong’” (Zechariah 12:5). Waterloo marked Britain’s growing strength and the start of her long ascendancy.

  It is important that we place this period of British power and influence in its rightful setting. Zechariah describes the people of Jerusalem as being strong for no other reason than “because the LORD Almighty is their God.” (Zechariah 12:5). To apply this to the circumstances of a particular people at a particular phase in history does not mean that we have to assert the ludicrous claim that all Englishmen were models of godly virtue and those of all other nations the opposite. Neither does it mean that we have to make the equa
lly preposterous statement that the British state was the archetype of all that is good. The slightest familiarity with the times will show that neither proposition can hold water.

  Yet if we wish to weigh the picture in the round, to consider the type of men that came to the fore under one system as opposed to another, we can do worse than consider the attitude of the commanders at Waterloo towards casualties. When le petit caporal, supposedly the soldiers’ soldier, spotted French corpses at Eylau in 1807 he remarked: “Small change, small change. One night in Paris will soon make good these losses.” The depths of cynicism, the sheer disregard for human life that this conveys is beyond expression. By contrast, shortly after the battle of Waterloo had ended Wellington, so often a reactionary in politics, wrote: “My heart is broken by the terrible loss I have sustained in my old friends and companions, and my poor soldiers. Believe me, nothing except a battle lost can be half so melancholy as a battle won; the bravery of my troops has hitherto saved me from the greater evil; but to win such a battle as this of Waterloo, at the expense of so many gallant friends, could only be termed a heavy misfortune but for the result to the public.”

  Strength of ground.

  Great events often turn on apparently small happenstances, yet there is nothing that comes about by chance or unplanned by God. It was no accident that Wellington gave battle at Waterloo. Moving a vote of thanks to the Duke in the House of Lords after victory was won, Lord Bathurst recalled that when passing through Flanders in the summer of 1814 Wellington had particularly remarked the strength of this position. The general made a note of it at the time, telling those who were with him that, if ever he were to fight in that area for the protection of Brussels, this would be his chosen ground. Its strength allowed optimum deployment of his troops just one year later.

  We place ourselves on the strongest of grounds when we put ourselves under the guidance and protection of God: “On that day I will make the leaders of Judah like a brazier in a woodpile, like a flaming torch among sheaves. They will consume right and left all the surrounding peoples, but Jerusalem will remain intact in her place.” (Zechariah 12:6). Like the Israelites of old, however, we appear to have forgotten this simple maxim and to be seeking strength everywhere but through our Lord. This is foolishness of the highest degree, a confusion of cause and effect, of the source with what is derived from that source. We need once more to seek out the strong ground so that we can stand firm in the battle for our nation and prevail as our forebears did one June day almost two hundred years ago.

  Conclusion.

  Napoleon Bonaparte abdicated for the second time on 22 June 1815 for a lifetime’s exile on St Helena. Looking back, he had little doubt that victory at Waterloo would have seen him secure in power: “If the English army had been beaten at Waterloo, what would have been the use of those numerous bodies of troops, of Prussians, Austrians, Germans and Spaniards, which were advancing by forced marches to the Rhine, the Alps and the Pyrenees?” This was not just wishful thinking: such was the tactical superiority of the French over continental armies that at Auerstadt in 1806 Marshal Davout’s 26,000 men had attacked, enveloped and destroyed 63,000 Prussians. In the years before and since Austrians, Russians and Spaniards had each been trounced in their turn. There is no reason to believe that it could not have happened again.

  Waterloo was not one of the largest battles of all time. Neither was it the longest, nor the bloodiest. It was, however, one of the most influential. It is no exaggeration to say that allied victory saved Europe from the man who had been its peace-breaker and mischief-maker for a generation, whose proclamations of good intent on his return to France were, to put it neutrally, of uncertain reliability. Many times had he sent “the surrounding peoples reeling.” (Zechariah 12:2). Given that record, nobody could risk letting him loose again.

  Napoleon remains one of the greatest generals of all time, a man who understood how to apply overwhelming strength at the critical time and place. For many Frenchmen he remains a powerful symbol of glory and national pride, a titan amongst men. On one occasion this same Bonaparte, so talented and so driven, reflected not just on battles won and lost, but on the nature of power and dominion. He said: “I know men; and I tell you that Jesus Christ is no mere man. Between Him and every other person in the world there is no possible term of comparison. Alexander, Caesar, Charlemagne and I myself have founded empires; but upon what do these creations of our genius depend? Upon force. Jesus alone founded his empire upon love; and to this day millions would die for him.”

  Napoleon’s nemesis at Waterloo, Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington, never lost a battle. After the contest that is forever associated with his name was over, he said, “I do not think it would have done if I had not been there.” In doing so, he touched upon the personal responsibility that we each have to be a channel of God’s strength and a force for good in our nation and in the world. Free will means that our decisions affect how the future will play out. Our diligence or negligence, our ability to apply God-given reason with appropriate wisdom and foresight, our temporising or prompt action all have an impact. It would not do if we were not there either, in whatever situation God has placed us. We must start to act as though we really believe it.

  35. Aftermath

  Ezekiel 37.

  Key word: regeneration.

  The years immediately following the battle of Waterloo were hard. There was little in the way of post-war boom and soon there was full-scale slump. Agitation was widespread. Luddites smashed machines in country areas as well as in the towns. Fearful of a repeat of the French Revolution, regimes of all stripes were swift to stamp out any signs of incipient revolt. In 1817, for example, hundreds of Manchester weavers set out on a protest march to London, but were dispersed after the arrest of their leaders. [84] Just two years later the charged atmosphere contributed to an appalling and unnecessary outrage: eleven members of a peaceable demonstration in Manchester were killed by a charge of the Yeomanry – the so-called Peterloo Massacre. Far from sparking contrition in high places, this was followed by the passing of the Six Acts designed to restrict public meetings and demonstrations.

  Antipathy to the organisation of labour continued for decades. In the wake of further rural unrest, including rick-burning and machine-breaking, in 1834 Home Secretary Lord Melbourne decided to make an example of six labourers from a village in Dorset. They were tried and found guilty under an Act of Parliament which forbade the administering or taking of unlawful oaths for seditious purposes. Despite no evidence of any seditious intent, they were given the maximum sentence: transportation to Australia for seven years. There were vigorous protests at the harsh treatment of these ‘Tolpuddle martyrs’, partly in consequence of which the men were given a free pardon in 1836 and gradually made their way home. Yet reaction and repression remained the order of the day, whilst large numbers of ordinary people continued to suffer from bad living conditions, long hours of work, low wages and lack of a political voice. For those at the bottom of the heap, workhouses were so dreaded that they were known as ‘Bastilles.’

  Against this background, the People’s Charter was published in 1838. It made six demands: annual Parliaments, manhood suffrage, vote by ballot, abolition of property qualifications for MPs, payment of MPs and equal electoral districts. Mass petitions were organised in its favour. A whiff of uprising was in the air. In various areas working men armed and drilled, and in 1839 some three thousand miners tried unsuccessfully to seize Newport in Monmouthshire to release an imprisoned Chartist leader. At length the movement collapsed, undermined by poor leadership and disunity, unable to gain the necessary support for a programme which was too far in advance of its time. The ‘hungry forties’ gave way to better times, whilst the working classes turned increasingly to what became the trade union movement.

  Back to back.

  It is easy to forget that, whilst Britain forged ahead of her rivals to become the dominant political and economic power of the nineteenth century, there was
a battleground at home. In a world where there were precious few democracies, she was increasingly admired abroad for her freedoms and representative government, even as many of her own people experienced little of either. So deeply entrenched were the social divisions that in 1845 Benjamin Disraeli could write: “I was told that the Privileged and the People formed Two Nations.”

  God takes the prophet Ezekiel to a battleground: “The hand of the LORD was upon me, and he brought me out by the Spirit of the LORD and set me in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones ... Then he said to me, ‘Prophesy to the breath; prophesy, son of man, and say to it, ‘This is what the Sovereign LORD says: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe into these slain, that they may live.’” (Ezekiel 37:1 and 9). What God has in mind is mind-numbing in scope, wondrous in beauty and awesome in extent. He intends not merely to bring back to life those who were killed in battle and to make good all that has been marred by human sin, but also to bring about a new era in the relationship between man and God. Hence:

  • Unity will replace division: “This is what the Sovereign LORD says: I am going to take the stick of Joseph - which is in Ephraim’s hand – and of the Israelite tribes associated with him, and join it to Judah’s stick, making them a single stick of wood, and they will become one in my hand ... I will make them one nation in the land, on the mountains of Israel” (Ezekiel 37:19 and 22).[85]

  • Gathering will replace dispersal: “This is what the Sovereign LORD says: I will take the Israelites out of the nations where they have gone. I will gather them from all around and bring them back into their own land.” (Ezekiel 37:21).