, 359. I follow the "received"
version of this despatch. For a comparison of it with the "Grouchy"
version see Horsburgh, p. 155, note.]

[Footnote 504: Ropes, pp. 266, 288; Houssaye, p. 316, with a good
note.]

[Footnote 505: Ollech, pp. 187-192; Delbrueck's "Gneisenau," vol. ii.,
p. 205. I cannot credit the story told by Hardinge in 1837 to Earl
Stanhope ("Conversations," p. 110), that, on the night of the 16th
June, Gneisenau sought to dissuade Bluecher from joining Wellington.
Hardinge only had the story at second hand, and wrongly assigns it to
Wavre. On the afternoon of the 17th Gneisenau ordered Ziethen _to keep
open communications with Wellington_ (Ollech, p. 170). The story that
Wellington rode over to Wavre on the night of the 18th on his horse
"Copenhagen" is of course a myth.]

[Footnote 506: "Blackwood's Magazine," October, 1896; "Cornhill,"
January, 1901.]

[Footnote 507: Beamish's "King's German Legion," vol. ii., p. 352. Sir
Hussey Vivian asserts that the allied position was by no means strong;
but General Kennedy, in his "Notes on Waterloo" (p. 68), pronounces it
"good and well occupied." A year previously Wellington noted it as a
good position. Sir Hudson Lowe then suggested that it should be
fortified: "Query, in respect to the construction of a work at Mt.
Jean, being the commanding point at the junction of two principal
chaussees" ("Unpublished Memoirs").]

[Footnote 508: Wellington has been censured by Clausewitz, Kennedy and
Chesney for leaving so large a force at Hal. Perhaps he desired to
protect the King of France at Ghent, though he was surely relieved of
responsibility by his despatch of June 18th, 3 a.m., begging the Duc
de Berri to retire with the King to Antwerp. It seems to me more
likely that he was so confident of an early advance of the Prussians
(see his other despatch of the same hour and Sir A. Frazer's
statement--"Letters," p. 553--"We expected the Prussian co-operation
early in the day") as to assume that Napoleon would stake all on an
effort against his right; and in that case the Hal force would have
crushed the French rear, though it was very far off.]

[Footnote 509: Wellington to Earl Bathurst, June 25th, 1815. The Earl
of Ellesmere, who wrote under the Duke's influence, stated that not
more than 7,000 of the British troops had seen a shot fired. This is
incorrect. Picton's division, still 5,000 strong, was almost wholly
composed of tried troops; and Lambert's brigade