Triumph and Disaster: Five Historical Miniatures Read online

  The After noon 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.

  Retur n to Daily Life

  As soon as the British attack has struck Napoleon down, a man then almost unknown is speeding in a fast barouche along the road to Brussels and from Brussels to the sea, where a ship is waiting. He sails to London, arriving there before the government’s couriers; and, thanks to the news that has not yet broken, he manages to make a fortune on the Stock Exchange. His name is Rothschild, and with this stroke of genius he founds another empire, a family dynasty. Next day England knows about the victory, and in Paris Fouché, always the traitor, knows about the defeat. The bells of victory are pealing in Brussels and Germany.

  Next morning only one man still knows nothing about Waterloo, although he was only four hours’ march away from that fateful battlefield: the unfortunate Grouchy. Persistently and according to his orders, he has been following the Prussians—but, strange to say, has found them nowhere, which makes him feel uncertain. Meanwhile the cannon sound louder and louder, as if crying out for help. They feel the ground shake, they feel every shot in their hearts. Everyone knows now that this is not skirmishing, that a gigantic battle is in progress, the deciding battle.

  Grouchy rides nervously between his officers. They avoid discussing the situation with him; he rejected their advice.

  So it is a blessed release when they reach Wavre and finally come upon a single Prussian corps, part of Blücher’s rearguard. Grouchy’s men storm the Prussians barring their way. Gérard is ahead of them, as if he were searching for death, driven on by dark forebodings. A bullet cuts him down, and the loudest of those who admonished Grouchy is silent now. At nightfall they storm the village, but they sense that this small victory over the rearguard means nothing now, for suddenly all is silent from over on the battlefield. Alarmingly silent, dreadfully peaceful, a dead and ghastly quiet. And they all feel that the gunfire was better than this nerve-racking uncertainty. The battle must be over, the battle of Waterloo from where Grouchy—too late!—has received Napoleon’s note urging him to come to the emperor’s aid. It must be over, but who has won? They wait all night, in vain. No message comes from the battlefield. It is as if the Grande Armée had forgotten them and they were empty, pointless figures in impenetrable space. In the morning they strike camp and begin marching again, tired to death and long ago aware that all their marching and manoe
uvring has been for nothing.

  Then at last, at ten in the morning, an officer from the General Staff comes thundering towards them. They help him down from his horse and fire questions at him. But the officer, his face ravaged by horror, his hair wet at the temples, and trembling with the superhuman effort he has made, only stammers incomprehensible words—words that they do not, cannot, will not understand. They think he must be drunk or deranged when he says there is no emperor any more, no imperial army, France is lost. Gradually, however, they get the whole truth out of him, the devastating account that paralyses them with mortal fear. Grouchy stands there, pale and trembling as he leans on his sword. He knows that his martyrdom is beginning, but he firmly takes all the blame on himself, a thankless task. The hesitant subordinate officer who failed to make that invisible decision at the fateful moment now, face to face with nearby danger, becomes a man again and almost a hero. He immediately assembles all the officers and—with tears of anger and grief in his eyes—makes a short speech in which he both justifies and bewails his hesitation. The officers who still bore him resentment yesterday hear him in silence. Any of them could blame him and boast of having held a better opinion. But none of them dares or wants to do so. They say nothing for a long time, their depth of mourning silences them all.

  And it is in that hour, after missing the vital second of decision, that Grouchy shows—but too late now—all his military strength. All his great virtues, circumspection, efficiency, caution and conscientiousness, are obvious now that he trusts himself again and not a written order. Surrounded by superior strength five times greater than his own, he leads his troops back again right through the middle of the enemy—a masterly tactical achievement—without losing a single cannon or a single man, and saves its last army for France and the empire. But when he comes home there is no emperor to thank him, and no enemy against whom he can lead the troops. He has come too late, for ever too late, and even if outwardly his life takes an upward course, if he is confirmed in his rank as a marshal and a peer of France, and he proves his worth manfully in those offices, yet nothing can buy him back that one moment that would have made him the master of destiny, if he had been capable of taking it.

  That was the terrible revenge taken by the great moment that seldom descends into the life of ordinary mortals, on a man unjustly called upon to seize it who does not know how to exploit it. All the bourgeois virtues of foresight, obedience, zeal and circumspection are helpless, melted down in the fire of a great and fateful moment of destiny that demands nothing less than genius and shapes it into a lasting likeness. Destiny scornfully rejects the hesitant; another god on earth, with fiery arms it raises only the bold into the heaven of heroes.

  THE RACE TO REACH

  THE SOUTH POLE

  CAPTAIN SCOTT, 90 DEGREESL ATITUDE

  16 January 1912

  The Struggle for the Earth

  The twentieth century looks down on a world without mysteries. All its countries have been explored, ships have ploughed their way through the most distant seas. Landscapes that only a generation ago still slumbered in blissful anonymity serve the needs of Europe; steamers go as far as the long-sought sources of the Nile. The Victoria Falls, first seen by a European only half a century ago, obediently generate electricity; the Amazon rainforest, that last wilderness, has been cleared; the frontiers of Tibet, the only country that was still virgin territory, have been breached. New drawing by knowledgeable hands now covers the words Terra incognita on old maps and globes; in the twentieth century, mankind knows the planet on which it lives. Already the enquiring will is looking for new paths; it must plunge down to the fantastic fauna of the deep sea, or soar up into the endless air. For untrodden paths are to be found only in the skies, and already the steel swallows of aeroplanes shoot up, racing each other, to reach new heights and new distances, now that the earth lies fallow and can reveal no more secrets to human curiosity.

  But one final secret preserved the earth’s modesty from our gaze into the present century, two tiny parts of its racked and tormented body were still saved from the greed of its own inhabitants: the South Pole and the North Pole, its backbone, two places with almost no character or meaning in themselves, around which its axis has been turning for thousands of years. The earth has protected them, leaving them pure and spotless. It has placed barriers of ice in front of this last mystery, setting eternal winter to guard them against the greedy. Access is forbidden by imperious frost and storms; danger and terror scare away the bold with the menace of death. No human eyes may dwell on this closed sphere, and even the sun takes only a fleeting glance.

  Expeditions have followed one another for decades. None has achieved its aim. The body of the boldest of the bold, Andrée, who hoped to fly over the Pole in a balloon and never returned, has rested in the glass coffin of the ice for thirty-three years and has only now been discovered. Every attempt is dashed to pieces on the sheer walls of frost. The earth has hidden her face here for thousands of years, up to our own day, triumphing for the last time over the will of her own creatures. Her modesty, pure and virginal, defies the curiosity of the world.

  But the young twentieth century reaches out its hands impatiently. It has forged new weapons in laboratories, found new ways to arm itself against danger, and all resistance only increases its avidity. It wants to know the whole truth, in its very first decade it aims to conquer what all the millennia before could not. The rivalry of nations keeps company with the courage of individuals. They are not competing only to reach the Pole now, but also for the honour of flying the national flag first over newly discovered land: it is a crusade of races and nations against places hallowed by longing. The onslaught is renewed from all quarters of the earth. Mankind waits impatiently, knowing that the prize is the last secret of the place where we live. Peary and Cook prepare to set out from America to conquer the North Pole, while two ships steer southward, one commanded by the Norwegian explorer Amundsen, the other by an Englishman, Captain Scott.

  Scott

  Scott, a captain in the British Navy. An average captain, with a record befitting his rank behind him. He has served to the satisfaction of his superior officers, and later took part in Shackleton’s expedition. Nothing in his conduct suggests that he is a hero. His face, reflected by photography, could be that of 1,000 Englishmen, 10,000: cold, energetic, showing no play of muscles, as if frozen hard by interior energy. His eyes are steely grey, his mouth firmly closed. Not a romantic line in it anywhere, not a gleam of humour in a countenance made up of will-power and practical knowledge of the world. His handwriting is any Englishman’s handwriting, no shading or flourishes, swift and sure. His style is clear and correct, strikingly factual, yet as unimaginative as a report. Scott writes English as Tacitus writes Latin, as if carving it in unhewn stone. You sense that he is a man who does not dream, fanatically objective, in fact a true blue Englishman in whom even genius takes the crystalline form of a pronounced sense of duty. Men like Scott have featured hundreds of times in British history, conquering India and nameless islands in the East Indian archipelago, colonizing Africa and fighting battles against the whole world, always with the same iron energy, the same collective consciousness and the same cold, reserved expression.

  But his will is hard as steel; you can sense that before he takes any action. Scott intends to finish what Shackleton began. He equips an expedition, but his financial means are inadequate. That does not deter him. He sacrifices his own fortune and runs up debts in the certainty of success. His young wife bears him a son, but like another Hector he does not hesitate to leave his Andromache. He soon finds friends and companions; nothing on earth can change his mind now. The strange ship that is to take the expedition to the edge of the Antarctic Ocean is called the Terra Nova—strange because it has two kinds of equipment: it is half a Noah’s Ark, full of living creatures, and also a modern laboratory with a thousand books and scientific instruments. For they have to take everything that a man needs for his body and m
ind with them into that empty, uninhabited world. The primitive equipment of primitive people, furs, skins and live animals, make strange partners here for the latest sophisticated modern devices. And the dual nature of the whole enterprise is as fantastic as the ship itself: an adventure, but one as calculated as a business deal, audacity with all the features of caution—endlessly precise and individual calculations against the even more endless whims of chance. They leave England on 1st June 1910. The British Isles are a beautiful sight at that time of year, with lush green meadows and the sun shining, warm and radiant in a cloudless sky. The men feel emotion as the coast vanishes behind them, for they all know that they are saying goodbye to warmth and sunlight for years, some of them perhaps for ever. But the British flag flies above the ship, and they console themselves by thinking that a signal from the world is travelling with them to the only part of the conquered earth that as yet has no master.