The Coconino weekly sun., 1893-11-16
NAPOLEON ON WATERLOO.


 Among the Officers in Ills Army.
 Napoleon said many of his officers deserted previous to the battle of Waterloo, and in speaking of the trench nation he said that the lower orders of the people were the most sim cere, the most firm, and at the same time the best dispositioned in the world; but in the proportion asyou rose the class their characters became worse, and above the bourgeois they were too fickle and too volatile to be at all depended on. They had one prin- clple for to-day and another for to- morrow, according to the circum- stances of the moment, and he at tlouted his Waterloo disasters solely to the disaffected officers of his army. In talking of the battle he assured the admiral he had never for a moment mlstook the Prussians for Grouchy's diVlslon, but that he knew early in the day that the Prussians were closing on ms Hank; that this, however, gave him little or no uneasiness, as he depe ended on ten. Grouchy also closing with him at the same time and he had ordered a sufhclent force to oppose the Prussians, who were in fact already checked And he added that he considered the battle throughout the day to be very much in his favor, but so soon as it was dusk the disatfected off CTS promulgated the cry of 'Sauve qui peut"' which spread such confusion and alarm throughout his whole line that it be- came impossible to counteract it or to rally his troops, situated as they were
 But, he said, had it been daylight an hour longer he was positive the result would have been very different He further said that had he been able, when the alarm and confusion first took place, to have placed himself in a conspicuous situation in front, it would have insured the rallying of all his troops around him, but as it was treach- cry and darkness combined rendered his ruin inevitable.
 He said that the morning of June IS he did not entertain the most distant idea that the duke of Wellington would have willingly allowd him to have brought the English army to decisive battle, and consequently he had been the more anxious to push on if possible to force it, considering nothing else could offer him chance of surmount- ing the difficulties with which he was surrounded. But, he added, could he have beaten the English army he was positive scarcely one would have escaped being either killed or taken, in which case the Prussian army, having been already beaten the 10th, must have made precipitate retreat, or most probably would have been dispersed, and certainly entirely disorganized.
 It was his intention then to have pushed on by forced marches to have met the Austrians before any junction could have been made between them and the Russians, which would have placed the game in his own hands, even if hostilities had been obstinately per severed in, though in the state of things he had built on the idea that a victory over the British army in Bel gium, with its immediate results, would have been sufficient to have produced change of administration in England, and have afforded him chance of con- cluding an armistice, which he said was really his first object, as he felt that France was not equal to the efforts she was then making, and it was perfectly impossible for her to think of making adequate resistance against the numer- ous forces of the allies, if once united and acting in concert against him. Century.