t treason, simply because
the man was not a traitor. It proceeded solely from obedience to orders;
but these orders were fatal because Ney made an error of judgment both as
to the real state of the double struggle--Quatre Bras, Ligny--and as to
the time required for the countermarch. This I shall now show.

Briefly, then:--

Erlon, as he was leading his army corps up to help Ney, his immediate
superior, turned it off the road before he reached Ney and led it away
towards Napoleon.

Why did he do this?

It was because he had received, not indeed from his immediate superior,
Ney himself, _but through a command of Napoleon's, which he knew to be
addressed to Ney_, the order to do so.

When Erlon had almost reached Napoleon he turned his army corps right
about face and led it off back again towards Ney.

Why did he do that?

It was because he had received at that moment _a further peremptory order
from Ney, his direct superior, to act in this fashion_.

Such is the simple and common-sense explanation of the motives under which
this fatal move and countermove, with its futile going and coming, with
its apparent indecision, with its real strictness of military discipline,
was conducted. As far as Erlon is concerned, it was no more than the
continual obedience of orders, or supposed orders, to which a soldier is
bound. With Ney's responsibility I shall deal in a moment.

Let me first make the matter plainer, if I can, by an illustration.

Fire breaks out in a rick near a farmer's house and at the same time in a
barn half a mile away. The farmer sends ten men with water-buckets and an
engine to put out the fire at the barn, while he himself, with another ten
men, but without an engine, attends to the rick. He gives to his foreman,
who is looking after the barn fire, the task of giving orders to the
engine, and the man at the engine is told to look to the foreman and no
one else for his orders. The foreman is known to be of the greatest
authority with his master. Hardly has the farmer given all these
instructions when he finds that the fire in the rick has spread to his
house. He lets the barn go hang, and sends a messenger to the foreman with
an urgent note to send back the engine at once to the house and rick. The
messenger finds the man with the engine on his way to the barn, intercepts
him, and tells him that the farmer has sent orders to the foreman that the
engine is to go back at once to the house. The fellow t