Shooting Stars: Ten Historical Miniatures

by Stefan Zweig

  Napoleon immediately assesses the deadly danger. He knows there is no time to wait for the pack to assemble. He must separate them and attack them separately, the Prussians, the British, the Austrians, before they become a European army and the downfall of his empire. He must hurry, because otherwise the malcontents in his own country will awaken, he must already be the victor before the republicans grow stronger and ally themselves with the royalists, before the double-tongued and incomprehensible Fouché, in league with Talleyrand, his opponent and mirror image, cuts his sinews from behind. He must march against his enemies with vigour, making use of the frenzied enthusiasm of the army. Every day that passes means loss, every hour means danger. In haste, then, he rattles the dice and casts them over Belgium, the bloodiest battlefield of Europe. On 15th June, at three in the morning, the leading troops of the great—and now the only—army of Napoleon cross the border. On the 16th they clash with the Prussian army at Ligny and throw it back. This is the first blow struck by the escaped lion, terrible but not mortal. Stricken, although not annihilated, the Prussian army withdraws towards Brussels.

  Napoleon now prepares to strike a second blow, this time against Wellington. He cannot stop to get his breath back, cannot allow himself a breathing space, for every day brings reinforcements to the enemy, and the country behind him, with the restless people of France bled dry, must be roused to enthusiasm by a draught of spirits, the fiery spirits of a victory bulletin. As early as the 17th he is marching with his whole army to the heights of Quatre-Bras, where Wellington, a cold adversary with nerves of steel, has taken up his position. Napoleon’s dispositions were never more cautious, his military orders were never clearer than on this day; he considers not only the attack but also his own danger if the stricken but not annihilated army of Blücher should be able to join Wellington’s. In order to prevent that, he splits off a part of his own army so that it can chase the Prussian army before it, step by step, and keep it from joining the British.

  He gives command of this pursuing army to Marshal Grouchy, an average military officer, brave, upright, decent, reliable, a cavalry commander who has often proved his worth, but only a cavalry commander, no more. Not a hot-headed berserker of a cavalryman like Murat, not a strategist like Saint-Cyr and Berthier, not a hero like Ney. No warlike cuirass adorns his breast, no myth surrounds his figure, no visible quality gives him fame and a position in the heroic world of the Napoleonic legend; he is famous only for his bad luck and misfortune. He has fought in all the battles of the past twenty years, from Spain to Russia, from the Netherlands to Italy, he has slowly risen to the rank of Marshal, which is not undeserved but has been earned for no outstanding deed. The bullets of the Austrians, the sun of Egypt, the daggers of the Arabs, the frost of Russia have cleared his predecessors out of his way—Desaix at Marengo, Kléber in Cairo, Lannes at Wagram—the way to the highest military rank. He has not taken it by storm; twenty years of war have left it open to him.

  Napoleon probably knows that in Grouchy he has no hero or strategist, only a reliable, loyal, good and modest man. But half of his marshals are dead and buried, the others, morose, have stayed on their estates, tired of the constant bivouacking. So he is obliged to entrust a crucial mission to a man of moderate talent.

  On 17th June, at eleven in the morning, a day after the victory at Ligny, a day before Waterloo, Napoleon gives Marshal Grouchy an independent command for the first time. For a moment, for a single day, the modest Grouchy steps out of the military hierarchy into world history. Only for a moment, but what a moment! Napoleon’s orders are clear. While he himself challenges the British, Grouchy is to pursue the Prussians with a third of the army. It looks like a simple mission, straightforward and unmistakable, yet it is also pliable as a double-edged sword. For at the same time as he goes after the Prussians, Grouchy has orders to keep in touch with the main body of the army at all times.

  The marshal takes over his command with some hesitation. He is not used to acting independently, his normal preference for circumspection rather than initiative makes him feel secure only when the emperor’s brilliant eye tells him what to do. He is also aware of the discontent of the generals behind him, and perhaps he also senses the dark wings of destiny beating. Only the proximity of headquarters is reassuring, for no more than three hours of forced marching separate his army from the imperial troops.

  Grouchy takes his leave in pouring rain. His men move slowly after the Prussians, or at least going the way that they think Blücher and his soldiers took, over the spongy, muddy ground.

  THE NIGHT IN LE CAILLOU

  The northern rain streams down incessantly. Napoleon’s regiments trot along in the dark like a herd of wet livestock, every man with two pounds of mud on the soles of his boots; there is no shelter in sight, no house, not so much as a roof. The straw is too soggy for anyone to lie down on it, so groups of ten or twelve soldiers gather close together and sleep sitting upright, back to back, in the torrential rain. The emperor himself does not rest. His nervous febrility keeps him pacing up and down, for the men who go out to reconnoitre find the rain impenetrable, and reports brought back by scouts are at best confused. He still does not know whether Wellington will accept his challenge to give battle, and no news of the Prussians has come from Grouchy yet. So at one in the morning, ignoring the cloudburst as the rain goes on, he is striding along the line of outposts to within firing range of the British bivouacs, which show a faint, smoky light in the mist now and then, and thinking about his plan of attack. Only as day begins to dawn does he return to the little hut in his shabby headquarters at Le Caillou, where he finds Grouchy’s first dispatches: confused reports of the retreat of the Prussians, but at least there is the reassuring promise to keep following them. The rain gradually slackens. The emperor paces impatiently up and down his room and stares at the yellow horizon to see whether the terrain in the distance will be revealed at last—and with it his decision.

  At five in the morning—the rain has stopped—his inner cloud, a cloud of indecision, also clears. The order is given: the whole army is to form up in rank and file, ready to attack, at nine in the morning. Orderlies gallop off in all directions. Soon drums are beating to summon the men. Only now does Napoleon throw himself on his camp bed to sleep for two hours.

  THE MORNING OF WATERLOO

  Nine in the morning, but the troops are not yet assembled in their full numbers. The ground underfoot, sodden after three days of rain, makes every movement difficult, and slows down the artillery as the guns come up. The sun appears only slowly, shining in a sharp wind, but it is not the sun of Austerlitz, radiant in a bright sky and promising good fortune; this northerly light is dull and sullen. But at last the troops are ready and now, before the battle begins, Napoleon rides his mare all along the front once more. The eagles on the banners bow down as if in a roaring gale, the cavalry shake their sabres in warlike manner, the infantry raise their bearskin caps on the tips of their bayonets in greeting. All the drums roll, the trumpets sound to greet their field marshal, but above all these sparkling notes, rolling thunderously above the regiments, rises the jubilant cry of Vive l’empereur! from the throats of 70,000 soldiers.

  No parade in Napoleon’s twenty-year reign was more spectacular and enthusiastic than this, the last of them. The cries of acclamation have hardly died away at eleven o’clock—two hours later than foreseen, two fateful hours later!—than the gunners are given the order to mow down the redcoats on the hill with case-shot. Then Ney, “the bravest of the brave”, advances with the infantry, and Napoleon’s deciding hour begins. The battle has been described a thousand times, but we never tire of reading the exciting accounts of its vicissitudes, whether in Sir Walter Scott’s fine version or in Stendhal’s episodic rendering. It is seen from both near and far, from the hill where the field marshals met or from the cuirassier’s saddle, as a great incident, rich in diversity; it is a work of art with tension and drama brought to bear on its constant alternation of hope and fear,
suddenly resolving into a moment of extreme catastrophe. And it is a model of a genuine tragedy, because the fate of Europe was determined in one man’s destiny, and the fantastic firework of Napoleon’s existence shoots up once more into the skies, before flickering as it falls and goes out.

  From eleven to one o’clock, the French regiments storm the heights, take villages and military positions, are thrown back, storm into the attack once more. Ten thousand men already lie dead on the wet, muddy hills of the empty landscape, and nothing has been achieved but the exhaustion of the two adversaries. Both armies are tired to death, both commanders are uneasy. They both know that the victory will go to whichever of them gets reinforcements first, Wellington from Blücher, Napoleon from Grouchy. Napoleon keeps nervously raising his telescope, he keeps sending more orderlies out. If his marshal arrives in time, the sun of Austerlitz will shine over France again.

  GROUCHY LOSES HI S WAY

  Meanwhile Grouchy, unaware that he holds Napoleon’s destiny in his hands, has set out according to his orders on the evening of 17th June, following the Prussians in the prescribed direction. The rain has stopped. The young companies who tasted gunpowder for the first time yesterday stroll along, as carefree as in peacetime; the enemy is still not in evidence, there is still no trace of the defeated Prussian army.

  Then suddenly, just as the marshal is eating a quick breakfast in a farmhouse, the ground shakes slightly under their feet. They prick up their ears. The sound rolls over the country towards them with a muted tone that is already dying away: they are hearing cannon, batteries of them, being fired far away, but not too far away. A march of three hours, at the most, will get them there. A few of the officers throw themselves down on the ground, in the style of American Indians, to get a clear idea of the direction the sound is coming from. That distant noise is constant and muted. It is the cannonade of Saint-Jean, the beginning of Waterloo. Grouchy holds a council of war. General Gérard, one of the commanders under him, a hot-headed and fiery soldier, wants them to make haste in the direction of the gunfire—“il faut marcher aux canons”. A second officer agrees: they must get there as fast as they can. None of them is in any doubt that the emperor has attacked the British, and a fierce battle is in progress. Grouchy is not so sure. Used as he is to obeying, he sticks anxiously to his handwritten sheet of paper, the emperor’s orders to him to pursue the retreating Prussians. Gérard becomes more insistent when he sees his superior officer’s hesitation. “Marchez aux canons!” This time he makes it sound like a command, not a suggestion. That displeases Grouchy. He explains, more strongly and sternly, that he cannot deviate from his orders unless word comes from the emperor cancelling them. The officers are disappointed, and the cannon thunder on against the background of a hostile silence.

  Gérard tries for the last time: he begs and pleads to be allowed at least to go to the battlefield with his division and some of the cavalry, pledging himself to be on the spot in good time. Grouchy thinks it over. He thinks it over for the length of a second.

  THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD IN A MOMENT

  Grouchy thinks it over for a second, and that single second shapes his own destiny, Napoleon’s, and the destiny of the world. That second in a farmhouse in Walhain decides the course of the whole nineteenth century, and its immortality hangs on the lips of a very brave but very ordinary man, it lies flat and open in his hands as they nervously crumple the emperor’s fateful order in his fingers. If Grouchy could pluck up his courage now, if he could be bold enough to disobey that order out of belief in himself and the visible signs he sees, France would be saved. But a natural subaltern will always obey the orders he was given, rather than the call of destiny.

  And so Grouchy firmly declines to change their plan. It would be irresponsible, he says, to split up such a small corps even more. His orders are to pursue the Prussians, no more. He declines to act in defiance of the emperor’s orders. The officers, in morose mood, say nothing. Silence falls round him. And in that silence the deciding second is gone, and cannot be recalled by words or deeds. Wellington has won. So they march on, Gérard and Vandamme with fists clenched in anger, Grouchy soon feeling ill at ease and less and less sure of himself with every hour that passes—for, strange to say, there is still no sign of the Prussians. They are obviously not on the route going straight to Brussels, and messengers soon report suspicious signs that their retreat has turned into a flanking march to the battlefield. There would still be time to put on a last quick spurt and come to the emperor’s aid, and Grouchy waits with increasing impatience for the message bringing an order to go back. But no news comes. Only the muted sound of the cannon thunders over the shaking ground, but from farther and farther away: the guns are casting the iron dice of Waterloo.

  THE AFTERNOON OF WATERLOO

  By now it is one o’clock. It is true that four attacks have been repulsed, but they have done considerable damage to the emperor’s centre; Napoleon is already preparing for the crucial storm. He has the batteries in front of La Belle-Alliance reinforced, and before the cannonade lowers its cloudy curtain between the hills, Napoleon casts one last glance over the battlefield.

  Looking to the north-east, he sees a dark shadow moving forward as if it were flowing out of the woods: more troops! At once he turns his telescope that way; is it Grouchy who has boldly exceeded his orders and now, miraculously, is arriving at just the right moment? No, says a prisoner who has been brought in, it is the advance guard of General von Blücher’s army. Prussian troops are on their way. For the first time, the emperor realizes that the defeated Prussians must have eluded pursuit to join the British early, while a third of his own troops are manoeuvring uselessly in open country. He immediately writes Grouchy a letter telling him at all costs to keep in contact with the Prussians and prevent them from joining the battle.

  At the same time Marshal Ney receives the order to attack. Wellington must be repelled before the Prussians arrive. No risk seems too great to take now that the chances are so suddenly reduced. All afternoon ferocious attacks on the plateau go on, and the infantry are always thrown back again. Again they storm the ruined villages, again and again they are smashed to the ground, again and again the wave of infantrymen rises, banners fluttering, to advance on the squares of their adversaries. Wellington still stands firm, and still there is no news of Grouchy. “Where is Grouchy? Where can he be?” murmurs the emperor nervously as he sees the Prussian advance guard gradually gaining ground. The commanding officers under him are also feeling impatient. And, determined to bring the battle to a violent end, Marshal Ney—as recklessly bold as Grouchy is over-thoughtful (three horses have already been shot under him)—stakes everything on throwing the entire French cavalry into action in a single attack. Ten thousand cuirassiers and dragoons attempt that terrible ride of death, smashing through the squares, cutting down the gunners, scattering the rows of men in front. They in turn are repelled again, true, but the force of the British army is failing, the fist holding those hills tightly in its grasp is beginning to slacken. And now, as the decimated French cavalry gives ground, Napoleon’s last reserve troops, the Old Guard, move forward heavily, slow of step, to storm the hill whose possession will guarantee the fate of Europe.

  THE MOMENT OF DECISION

  Four hundred cannon have been thundering without a break since morning on both sides. At the front, the cavalcades of horsemen clash with the firing squares, drumsticks come down hard on the drumheads, the whole plain is shaking with the noise. But above the battle, on the two hills, the field marshals are listening to a softer sound above the human storm.

  Above the stormy crowds, two watches are ticking quietly like birds’ hearts in their hands. Both Napoleon and Wellington keep reaching for their chronometers and counting the hours and minutes that must bring those last, crucial reinforcements to their aid. Wellington knows that Blücher is near, Napoleon is hoping for Grouchy. Neither of them has any other reserves, and whoever brings his troops first has decided the course of
the battle. Both commanders are looking through telescopes at the outskirts of the woods, where the Prussian vanguard begins to appear in the form of a light cloud. But are those only a few men skirmishing, or the army itself in flight from Grouchy? The British are putting up their final resistance, but the French troops too are weary. Gasping like two wrestlers, the troops face each other with arms already tired, getting their breath back before they attack one another for the last time. The irrevocable moment of decision has come.

  Now, at last, the thunder of cannon is heard on the Prussian flank, with skirmishing and rifle fire from the fusiliers. “Enfin Grouchy!” Grouchy at last! Napoleon breathes a sigh of relief. Trusting that his flank is now secure, Napoleon gathers together the last of his men and throws them once more against Wellington’s centre, to break the defensive wall outside Brussels and blow open the gateway to Europe.

  But the gunfire was only part of a mistaken skirmishing that the approaching Prussians, confused by the uniform of the men they take for enemies, have begun against the Hanoverians. Realizing their mistake, they soon stop firing, and now the massed crowd of them—broad, powerful, unimpeded—pours out of the wood. It is not Grouchy advancing with his troops, but Blücher, and with him Napoleon’s undoing. The news spreads fast among the imperial troops, who begin to fall back, still in reasonably good order. Wellington, however, seizes this critical moment. Riding to the edge of the victoriously defended hill, he raises his hat and waves it above his head at the retreating enemy. His own men immediately understand the triumphant gesture. All at once what are left of his troops rise and fling themselves on the enemy, now in disarray. At the same time the Prussian cavalry charge the exhausted and shattered French army. The mortal cry goes up, “Sauve qui peut!” Within a few minutes the Grande Armée is nothing but a torrential stream of terrified men in flight, carrying everything along with it, even Napoleon himself. The cavalry, spurring their horses on, make their way into this swiftly retreating stream, easily fishing Napoleon’s carriage, the army treasury and all the artillery pieces out of that screaming foam of fear and horror, and only nightfall saves the emperor’s life and liberty. But the man who, at midnight, soiled and numb, drops into a chair in a low-built village inn is no emperor now. His empire, his dynasty, his destiny are all over: a small and insignificant man’s lack of courage has destroyed what the boldest and most far-sighted of adventurers built up in twenty heroic years.