The citizen. (Frederick City, Md.) 1895-1923, 1905-06-16

A wiser plan the Captain never drew
But the rain falls and - this is
Waterloo. WIN YOUNG.
A rain on the night of June
18th. 1915, frustrated the plans
of an Emperor, defeated n
empire, and changed the whole
map of Europe. Had it not rained
that night the future of Europe
would have been different, but a
thunderstorm turned Napoleon's
fortune, and started him on the
road to St. Helena.
That Waterloo might be the
sequel to Austerlitz, Providence
needed only little rain, and an
unluckY thunder cloud crossing
the sky was sufficient to upset a
continent.
The battle of Waterloo-and
this gave time for Marshal
Butcher to come up-could not
commence before 11.30. And why?
Because the ground was soft from
the rain, and it was necessary to
wait until it hardened a little to
permit the artillery to move.
Napoleon was an artillery officer
and he never forgot it
The foundation of this great
military strategist was the man
who in his report on Aboukir to
the Directory, said, "Such and
such of our balls killed six men. y
All of his plans were laid for the
projectile. To converge his ar
tillery upon a given point was the
key to his victory. He treated
the strategy of the opposing gen
eral as a citadel aud carried it by
storm. He overw helmed b e
weak point with grape; he joined
battle and resolved it with a ter
uble cannon fire. Workmanship
was his genius.
Suppose the ground dry and
the artillery able TO move" SAYS
Victor Hugo. "the action would
have begun at six o'clock in the
morning. By = O'Clock the battle
would have been won and over,
three hours before the Prussians
brought catastrophe. How far is
Napoleon to blame for the loss of
the battle? Is the Shipwreck to
be laid at the pilots door? Was
the evident physical decline of
Napoleon atteRded at this time
with a corresponding mental de-
cliuel Had his twenty years of
warfare worn out the sword as
well as the scabbard? Had he
put on madness to hide this
weakness from himselfl Was this
Titanic driver OF fate no more
than Prince of Breaknecks! We
think not.
''IliS plan of battle was, all
admit, a masterpiece. To plunge
straight for the center of the
allied lines, drive a gap through
the enemy, cut them in two,
push the British half upon Hal
and the PruSsians upon Tongres,
make two fragments of Yelling
ton and Butcher, carry Mount St.
Jean, take Brussels, hurl the
Germans into the Rhine and the
English into the sea. All this
for Napoleon lay in the battle.
The rest one could see.'
The old adage, however, "that
man proposes, but God disposes,n
was never more properly applied,
than on that bloody Sabbath
afternoon OF ninety years ago,
when the Caesar of the nineteenth
century resolved to risk his empire
on a single charge. Europe had
been put upon the plains of
Waterloo to be contested for in a
rattle of death. The greatest
military skill and energy the
world possessed had been tasked
to the utmost during that long,
sultry June day. Thrones were
tottering on the bloody field, and
the shadows of fugitive rulers
lifted behind the smoky curtains
of battle
BOnaparte's star trembled in
the zenith-now blazing out in all
Its splendor of former years. then
suddenly paling before his anxious
gaze. At length, when the Prus-
sian advance, and Bulow appeared
in heavy columns upon the field,
he resolved to stake Europe on
one bold throw.
he committed himself and his
empire to Marshal Ney, and saw
the fate of both rest on a single
desperate charge of the Old
Guard.
The intense anxiety with which
the advance of that devoted col
umn, that in the past had never
advanced only in the path of vic
tory, and the terrible suspense he
suffered when the smoke of battle
hid it from his view, and the
utter despair of his great heart
when the curtain lifted on a fugi-
tive army, and the despairlng