APPENDIX
Letter sent by Marshal Soult to Ney on the 17th
June.
His Majesty was grieved to learn that you did not
succeed yesterday; the divisions acted in isolation, and therefore
sustained losses.
If the corps of Count Rellie and d’Erlon had
been together, not a soldier of the English corps that came to attack
you would have escaped; if Count d’Erlon had executed the movement
on Saint-Amand ordered by the Emperor, the Prussian army would have
been totally destroyed and we should perhaps have taken 30,000
prisoners.
The corps of General Vandamme and Gérard and the
Imperial Guard were kept together all the time; one lays oneself open
to reverses when detachments are jeopardized.
The Emperor hopes and desires that your seven
divisions of infantry and cavalry will be well formed and united,
occupying as a whole less than a league of territory, so that they are
well in hand for use if necessary.’
From the above we can see that, even though Napoleon
mentions the fact that, ‘if Count d’Erlon had executed the movement
on Saint-Amand,’ this should not be taken in isolation. When the
sentence is read as a whole it can be seen that Soult is simply
discussing two possibilities. Concerning the movement on
Saint-Amand, he is referring to the order dispatched at 3.15 p.m., not
to the mysterious pencilled note, therefore it would appear that
Napoleon was not expecting any aid from Ney if he became fully engaged
with Wellington. (See Edith Saunders, The Hundred Days, page 303)
 
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