The Dillon herald. [volume] (Dillon, S.C.) 1894-????, 1911-07-06
GODS HAND INTERVIEWED.
Heavy Rain Flooded the Fielt
Night Before Battle and Ruined
NAPOLEON Plans.

ed. few drops of water. more
or less, prostrated Napoleon That
Waterloo should be the end of
Auster'itz, Providence needed only
little rain and an unreasonable
cloud crossing the sky suffered for
the overthrow of the world.
The battle of Waterloo-and this
gave Blucher time 20 come up -
could not be commenced because
the ground was soft. II was neces-
sary to wait for il to acquire
some little firmness so that the ar
tiilery could maneuver.
Napoleon was an artillery officer
and he never forgot il. The foun-
dation of this prodigious captain
was the man who, in his report to
the directory upon Aboukir, said:
such of our balls killed six men"
All his plans of battle were made
for projectiles. To converge the
artillery upon given point was
his key TO victory. He treated the
strategy of the hostile general as
citadel and battered il 10 a
breach. He overwhelmed the weak
point with grape. He joined the
resolved battles with cannon. There
was craftsmanship in his genius.
To destroy squares, 10 pulverize
regiments, to break lines. to crush
and disparse masses, all this was
for him to strike, strike iuceSsant-
ly and he entrusted this duty TO
the cannon ball. A formidable
method, which joined 20 genius,
made this somber athlete OF the
pugilism OF war invincible for Is
years.
On the 18th of June he counted
On his artillery the more because
ne had the advantage in numbers.
Wellington had only l69 guns;
Napoleon had 24O.
Had the ground been dry and
the artillery able to move, the ac-
tion would have been commenced at
SIX O'Clock in the morning The
battle would have been won and
finished at two O'Clock, three hours
before the Prussians turned the
scale of fortune.
How much fault is there on the
part of Napoleon in the loss OF this
battle? Is the shipwreck to be
imputed to the pilot?
Was the evident physical decline
OF Napoleon accompanied at this
time by corresponding mental de-
cline! Had his twenty years of
war worn out the sword as we'll as
the sheath, the soul as well as the
BODY? Was the veteran Injurious
ly felt in the captain? In a word,
was the genius as many consider
able historians have thought, under
the eclipse? Had he put on frenzy
to disguise the enfeeblement from
himself? Did he begin to waver
and be hewildered by random
blast? Was he becoming - a grave
1ault IN general - careless Of dan
ger? In that class of material
great men who may be called the
giants of action, is there an age
when their genius becomes short
sighted? Old age has no. hold on
the genluSes OF the ideal: for the
Dantes and the Michael Angeles to
grow old is to grow great; for the
Hannibals and the Bonaparts is it
to grow less? Had Napoleon lost
his clear sense of victory? Could
ne no longer recognize the shoal, no
longer divine the snare, no longer
discern the crumbling edge of the
abyss? Had he lost the instinct of
disaster? Was he, who formerly
knew all the p? his of triumph, and
who from the height of his flash
ing car pointed them out with SOW
erlgn finger, now under such dark
hullucination as to drive his tumul-
tuous train of legions over the
precipiceS? Was he seized at 46
years with supreme madness?
Was this gigantic driver OF destiny
now only monstrous breakneck?
We think not
His plan of battle was, all con-
fess, masterpiece. To march
straight to the center Of the allied
line, pierce the enemy, cut them in
two, push the British half upon
Hal and the Prussian half upon
Tongres, make of Wellington and
Blucher, two fragments. carry
Mont ST. Jean, seize Brussels, throw
the German into the Rhine and the
Englishmen into the sea. All this
for Napoleon was in the battle.
What would follow anybody can
Was it possible that Ma
poleon should win this battle? We
answer - No! Why? Because OF
Wellington? Because of Blucher?
No! Because of God
For Bonapart TO be ccnQuerer at
Waterloo was not in the law of the
nineteenth century. Another series
Of Facts were preparing in which
Napoleon had no place The ill
will of events had long been an
nounced.
1t was time that the vast man
should fall
The excessive weight of this man
in human destiny disturbed the
equilibrium. This individual count
ed himself alone more than the
universe besides. The plethoras of
all human vitality concentrated in
single head, the world mounting
to the brain OF one man, would be
fatal to civilization if they should
endure. The moment had come for
incorruptible supreme equity to
look OF it. Probably the principles
and elements upon which regular
gravitation in the moral order as
well as in the material depend be-