Napoleon's Waterloo Campaign An Alternative History

Introduction

11:55 June 18th, 1815: On The Road To Wavre

The steady tramp of marching feet and grumbling voices filled the air as Lieutenant Jean Pichot, aide de camp to the commander of the II Cavalry Corps General Count Exelmans, waited with growing impatience at the far end of the small bridge ready for any chance he could get to cross over. The column was a long one, all infantry of, if he could make out the few exposed shako plates correctly, the 37th Ligne and they had no interest in letting any fancy dressed horseman splash mud all over the place simply because he couldn't wait his turn. Several eyes looked at him with undisguised envy, obviously they had no idea what it was like to have ridden continuously the better part of four days including an especially miserable ride the night before. The sky had cleared by now, the sun even gracing the landscape for a change, but the ground still held the proof of what he had gone through on the 17th where even the most water proof cape had not been able to keep a person, especially a cavalry aide de camp, from getting soaked through to the bone. Involuntarily, he shivered which caused his mount to do something similar and some of the passing infantry chuckled at his plight but none said a word to him. His clothes were reasonably dry now, except for some of the more inconvenient areas, but the thought of last night was enough for him not to wish to renew that particular feeling and force the rain swollen stream; imagine what the infantry would say if he slid off his saddle there? Besides, they had time. Everyone knew that the Prussians weren't going anywhere they weren't supposed to and French troops could march faster than any in the whole world. Still, duty did beckon and so, when he saw a break in regiments, he put spur to horse and galloped across the narrow bridge accompanied by the curses of the foot sloggers who were soon splashed with mud as he swept by. He gave no heed to them; no mere fantassin would get the better of him. Traveling forward regardless of the deep puddles (or perhaps because of them) the young lieutenant passed several more overcoat clad regiments of infantry until what he sought came plainly into view. There, just off the road on a slight mound were a group of men wearing bicorne hats, a sure sign that some high ranking officers were present. One man he noted as he approached nearer, the one in the middle of the group, had white feathers on his hat though these appeared to be somewhat more worse for wear than he was used to when he made his reports to his superiors (Marshall Berthier's feathers had always been perfect). Nevertheless, this was the man he sought.

Riding up confidently, Pichot raised a hand to his fur busby in salute. "Lieutenant Pichot reporting sir!"

The man in the fancy bicorne looked up slowly from the map he was holding, his eyes seemingly wanting to examine the wet but fancy dressed aide before actually talking to him. The officer, Marshall Emmanuel Grouchy, nodded to Pichot slightly, his aristocratic upbringing dictating his very calming presence. When he spoke, the words were very articulate, clear and polite, something of a rarity for the ears of the lieutenant. "Make your report, sir, if you please."

Instinctively, Pichot straightened up in the saddle, ignoring for the moment his sore behind. "Sir, our troops have scouted all the way to Wavre as ordered with units fanning out in both directions."

Nodding slightly again, Marshall Grouchy quickly countered. "And what did you find? Where have the Prussians retreated to?"

"The Prussian army, sir, has split up all over the place but the bulk of the enemy have marched north, to Wavre. There are still deserters along most of the minor roads but General Exelmans is confident that he has located the main Prussian army and it seems to be in good order. Prisoners that we captured said that Prussians have been moving since early morning to join Wellington. Scouts to the west reported hearing gunfire just before I left," the aide said as he pointed in the direction of Mont St. Jean where the main French army under the Emperor Napoleon was most probably by now.

Letting the words sink in for a moment, Grouchy looked back down at his map of the area and let his troubled thoughts collect. He might be calm on the outside but he knew that the decision he would have to make in a moment might be the biggest of his career. The Prussian army of Field Marshall Blucher had retreated on Wavre not like a mass of paniced fugitives but rather like a real army and now they were marching to join the British. Guns had been heard firing to the west which meant a battle had started. So it wasn't his imagination or Gerard's; guns were deployed and the Emperor only fired his beloved cannon when things were in earnest. Battle between the main army and the Anglo-Dutch, it would seem, was joined. But where? "Lieutenant Pichot, did you find out where the guns were heard? This is critical for our plans."

Suddenly feeling like a fish out of water, the aide de camp swallowed hard and thanked God he knew the answer. "Local farmers said the sound was beyond the forest of Paris."

A slight breeze arose and curled the map over. Momentarily losing his cool, Grouchy angrily slapped the offending end back over. Where was this forest of Paris, he thought, as his finger raced across the paper to locate it. As he half expected, the forest, the Bois de Paris, was very much north of his current position and if he didn't get his troops moving faster, he could expect another rebuke from a very impatient emperor. Already he had delayed marching north during the hours of the morning; he hoped with all his faith that this did not cost him. Guessing the distance and remembering where the Prussians were, Marshall Grouchy could see that the dreaded decision was coming upon him ever faster now.

To the right of the marshall, General of Division Maurice Gerard reached over and held a corner of the map so he could see where everything was taking place. His horse stamped a hoof nervously in a shallow puddle. Noting where the two forces were, the main French army and their wing, he could see quite quickly that they were marching away from the Emperor and not toward him. Marshall Grouchy was taking his men, all 30,000 of them, out of the potential battle area and he felt duty bound to let it be known. "Sir! We are going the wrong way."

Another voice cut in, this one loud, harsh and coming from the marshall's left. It belonged to the very outspoken General of Division Dominique Vandamme. "Marshall Grouchy! Our course is obvious! March to the sound of the guns!" he declared as he pushed a finger onto the map.

Marshall Grouchy gritted his teeth as he eyed the man whom he knew to be a good soldier but whom he considered nothing more than a brigand. "General Vandamme! Kindly keep your opinions to yourself. If I need them, I will ask for them."

Not to be brushed off so easily, the fiery Vandamme rocked his head back slightly as if holding his ground. "The Emperor is in battle with Wellington somewhere to the west. It is our duty to keep the damned Prussians off his back so that he can crush them without interference. I volunteer to march my corps immediately to the sound of the guns."

Not again. The marshall stared at the map without really looking at it. Vandamme and he had had quite a flare up on the 15th and here again it seemed that something might come up between them. This was not good for the command and only could lead to disaster if he did not take control of things now. The general was eager, perhaps too eager, to receive the baton of the marshalate but Napoleon liked men who were aggressive and he had to admit that the fire breathing general of Kulm was at least that. The battle of Kulm had been a defeat for France but it did show the spirit of the troops under Vandamme to be very high and that he let few things stand in his way. Unfortunately for everyone concerned, except the enemy, the clash of personalities between the generals and their commander was such that it was affecting the entire right wing of the Armee du Nord. Vandamme had already dragged his feet in carrying out some of his orders and Gerard too seemed ready to mutiny and go his own way. Now more than ever he had to take control of the situation. Napoleon had warned him this might happen as they walked on the battlefield of Ligny just as he had filled him in on everything he needed to know to command a wing of an army on campaign. The Emperor had known it was his first such appointment but he had nonetheless placed his confidence in his new marshall to carry out the assignment to pursue Blucher and this meant keeping him away from the flank of the main army if it should engage the English somewhere to the west. He mustn't disappoint a given trust like that.

Gerard searched for the marshall's eyes. "Sir? Do we march to the guns?"

Pichot watched with hesitant fascination the battle going on in the commander's head. At that moment he had no desire to advance to anything higher than a mere lieutenant. Imagine the responsibility! Thirty thousand men marched to his orders and no others. One mistake and many lives could be lost for little gain. No. Command was best left to the generals.

Not receiving any answer, Gerard pulled at the edge of the map. Pointing with his white handed glove, he made some quick calculations in his head. "Sir, if we march now from here and presuming Blucher moves with the Prussians from Wavre, we could meet them around, around..."

"Lasne," Grouchy said as both their fingers hit the little town on the map at the same time. "But that assumption presupposes that Blucher is not going to continue his retreat to Liege or Brussels. If we march on Lasne, we could be missing an excellent opportunity of destroying the Prussians by a direct pursuit to Wavre. And suppose Blucher debouches from Wavre on to me and takes me in the flank? I shall be compromised for not having obeyed my orders which, you well know, are to march against Blucher."

Vandamme shook his head in obvious disgust. The new marshall, this general of cavalry, had no business commanding this force if at this moment he did not know what to do. How could it be more plain? The Emperor was in battle and they had barely begun to march. If someone didn't do something, and soon, they would end up, like d'Erlon on the sixteenth, doing nothing but the consequences would be far worse. At the moment, no one was in contact with Blucher except for the cavalry scouts. Their whole force should have been in front of Wavre by now to see for itself where the Prussians were; Blucher could march nowhere with a formidable French army right on his boot heels. He grunted loud enough to annoy the ears of his commander. "Sir, a snail can't catch a bleeding dog with its tail between its legs. If we had started marching hours ago-"

"General Vandamme!" Grouchy growled, finally losing his cool, "be so good as to rejoin your corps this instant to await my orders before you are relieved of command. Do not come back unless I ask you to, understood?"

Sensing that he had crossed the line (like he had so many times before), Vandamme nodded, impressed that his commander had actually threatened him. It might be a hollow threat but then again it might not and this general could not stand being out of any potential fight. Saluting stiffly, he turned his horse around and trotted away followed by his staff officers. Much to the marshall's chagrin, however, his troops cheered him as he rode by.

Regaining his composure while he shook his head, he looked back at Gerard who was patiently waiting his instructions. "I suppose you wish to march to the sound of the guns as well?"

"It would seem to be the prudent choice, sir, and the Emperor has long preached this to us," Gerard replied firmly. He, too, did not care for the new marshall but, seeing Vandamme nearly dismissed, he tried another approach to try and get his superior officer to change his plans. "So long as we keep Blucher away, we have fulfilled our mission and, if we can intervene at the Emperor's battle, well, so much the better. Besides, the Prussians are in good order and united. I would wish the main army to be together when we fight him instead of our few corps."

"Well thought," Grouchy complimented. He knew that Gerard disliked him as well but at least he had the sense not to fan the flames of discord. But what should they do? More and more he felt that fate rested on his shoulders and that agonizing decision was clearly something of great magnitude. The Emperor had entrusted him with a third of the Armee du Nord to command as he saw fit. Should he march on Lasne? Was it even feasible? Already Vandamme's troops were marching on Wavre and so they would have to be stopped and countermarched in the other direction so he could keep his command together. This was sounding more and more like d'Erlon's unfortunate marching routine on the 16th when he had covered a lot of territory yet had managed to remain out of both the battle Quatre Bras and Ligny. But perhaps Gerard was right. Today there was only one battle to fight, the Emperor's, and if he could keep Blucher occupied then that battle could be fought without anyone looking over his shoulder for the Prussians.

Marshall Grouchy had something to prove to his subordinates but probably mostly to himself. His lethargy at the end of the battle of Friedland had gone virtually unnoticed in the wake of the huge victory but his indecision had allowed a small part of the Russian army to escape that day because he had done nothing as they scurried by. The marshall, a cavalryman by trade, had thought about that often over the years but he didn't think that he would ever have a chance to repeat the scene a second time. Now here it was. He had to do something. He did not want to be marked in history as a poor general or, worse yet, a coward who had failed the great man during France's most desperate hour. Part of him cried out from inside. He was a good general, he knew that. Why would the Emperor have given him the right wing if he also did not think the same? Did he not have a reputation of excellence as a cavalry commander to uphold? He had to remember that and forget any of these gloomy and self degrading thoughts. Nonetheless, the decision still waited for him because he was the commander. No one, not even the fiery Vandamme, could make this decision for him.

Gerard could tell his superior was in turmoil and he did not envy his situation. Suddenly, events seemed to be moving very rapidly and only a move now, right now, could avert catastrophe. He considered pushing the issue again when no other response was forthcoming but, for a moment, held his tongue to allow Grouchy some space and time to think. A few minutes more would not hurt anyone.

To the marshall, there appeared to be three choices. First, he could march to the sound of the guns as Vandamme had declared so passionately and it would mean that his whole force would be united in any battle with the enemy. Unfortunately, this also meant the loss of valuable time as Vandamme counter marched and he recalled Exelmans from Wavre. Also, this choice presupposed that the Prussians were marching to aid Wellington. If they did not, he would indeed be named d'Erlon. The second choice was just the opposite. All of his forces could move on Wavre, leaving Exelmans’ troops to keep contact with the Prussians for him and report on any moves they might make. This idea was appealing as he believed that Blucher was retreating away from everyone and could not engage the Emperor in any case. But suppose he was wrong about the intentions of the enemy? What then? The last option involved detaching a corps of infantry to parallel the Prussians and slow them down while the other infantry corps continued the march on Wavre; the cavalry corps could keep the line of communications open between them in case one was attacked by superior forces. The third option was a bold one as he risked having his force divided and defeated in detail before anyone could help. But was this option really so bad? Grouchy knew how the Prussians were organized and he knew that they would have trouble constructing anything like a battle plan on the spur of the moment. Perhaps this was the way...

General of division Gerard decided that his boss had had enough time. He leaned forward in his saddle and said, quietly but firmly, "Sir, is something wrong? What shall we do? My corps is nearly here..."

The aristocrat snapped his head around to face his subordinate. He nodded twice. "General Gerard, you will take your corps and march to Lasne via the village of Mousty. Be sure and get the attention of any troops that are to your front. If the Prussians are marching to relieve Wellington, then it is up to you to stop them. I will position the cavalry of General Exelmans to cover the area between you and General Vandamme."

"Then Vandamme will continue to march on Wavre?" Gerard said, only a hint of hesitation in his voice as he did not wish to have Grouchy change his mind if he complained that the whole force wasn't marching west with him.

"Yes. The rest of our force will tie down any Prussians that you do not find and bring them to battle," Grouchy declared strongly even though his mind was still riddled with doubt. "March quickly general and give my regards to the Emperor."

Gerard saluted smartly. He had wanted more but duty and honor told him to be satisfied with what he had received. "Yes sir!" He waved forward his senior aide de camp. "Capitaine Mattei, the corps will change its route of march. From here we march west. March to the sound of the guns!"

Marshall Grouchy eyes registered the patient Pichot to his front. Once one made an order one then had to be able to translate it easily to others. "Lieutenant, ride to General Exelmans and inform him that General Gerard is marching west to join with the Emperor and that his corps will cover our flank from Wavre to Chapelle St. Lambert. Inform him also that General Pajol's cavalry will support him shortly in this task. More detailed instructions will follow."

The aide de camp, resplendent in his hussar style uniform, gave the most correct salute in his life and spurred his horse to the main road where the last of Vandamme's infantry were nearing that narrow little bridge. Splashing everywhere, he ignored the insults and rode as fast as he could through the muddy tracks beyond. Having heard the conversation of the generals, he suddenly felt very important and the speed at which both horse and rider moved suggested that perhaps something very big was going to happen this day.

The aide's departure left one man with his lonely thoughts. Taking a last glance at the map while an artillery team noisily rolled by, he prayed inside that he had made the right decision...

CHAPTER 1: THE EAGLE RETURNS

Capitaine Bouchery, formerly of the 33nd Ligne, records his observations at the return of Napoleon to the continent and his own subsequent actions in rejoining the army.

I was at my home in Normandy, a half pay officer who hadn't seen a real franc in months and who's main ambition in life at the moment was to plant a vegetable garden, when the news came that the Emperor had returned from the island of Elba. The word had spread like wildfire and, without hesitation, I picked out my old uniform and hurried off to Paris thinking that this was perhaps the best way to rejoin any regiment that cared to have me. Unfortunately, in my haste I had left my old white cockade in place and so when I entered the capital I was instantly jeered and pelted with various disagreeable objects by the poorer townsfolk who caused me to beat a hasty retreat into an alley to remove the offending article. After a short time and a quick cockade switch, I reappeared and found the people who had so recently disparaged me were now my ready friends. Picking through them, I hastened to the Tuileries where the Emperor was certain to have gone. My excitement was great and for all the world it seemed that the eleven month rule of the Bourbon monarch had all been just a bad dream. Along the way I ran into an old friend from the 2nd Ligne who told me that the Emperor had already arrived some time before but that the word was already spreading that all available soldiers were being called together to either rejoin their old regiments or help to form new ones from the parts of the old. This was welcome news though the thought that France was going to be invaded again left a dry note in one's mouth. Nevertheless, I reflected that I was where I belonged and, come what may, I was there to serve the Emperor.

Napoleon's return to France in March of 1815 marked the end of one series of remarkable events and the beginning of another. Napoleon Bonaparte, greatest soldier of the age and crowned Emperor of the French in 1804, had been forced to abdicate his throne in 1814 as the allied armies of Austria, Prussia and Russia captured Paris and his own marshals turned against their master in order to force him to renounce his rule over France.

Various reasons have been given to explain the seemingly final result but most, if not all, have entirely missed the point as to why these wars lasted as long as they did in the first place. The common line of thought is that Napoleon's ambition was to blame for all the bloodshed because he wanted to rule all of Europe like some mindless conqueror but, while this trait was involved to a certain degree, the real explanation is of a simpler nature. Two great factors were in play during this time much as they were later before World War One began: money and pride. Like the 1914-18 struggle, war was inevitable when a pair of mighty adversaries ranged themselves against one another. England and France, at war for much of the eighteenth century, were no exception to this rule.

In great part, the Napoleonic War was essentially an economic struggle that had its roots dating back to the 1600s. With the growing reliability of the square rigged sailing ship, the various European nations sent out their fleets and merchant marines to explore and bring back the wealth that could be generated overseas. The value of this trade cannot be underestimated. England was able to not only maintain her huge fleet against a host of enemies but they were also able to subsidize the armies of Europe, quite liberally as well, in order to carry the fight to Napoleon and France over the course of almost twenty years. If any one country was able to monopolize the trade of the overseas world then it would count itself the most powerful nation on the planet. For a time, Spain had been able to do this. Now, England held most of the cards and she was very jealous to let any other country have a piece of her lucrative pie.

Inevitably, as the seafaring nations got a taste of the money to be made, clashes occurred between the great naval powers and all throughout the seventeenth century England and Holland, the two greatest proponents of the sea, fought with the latter country in the end losing its strength to England. France's seapower began to grow in the eighteenth century and they too struggled with the English with, except for the big win in America, largely the same result. The resurgence of France under Napoleon set the stage for the next series of clashes that went on during the latter part of the eighteenth century. In the 1800s, the formula for success had not changed and the country with the most seaborne commerce would be the nation that held the greatest power in the world.
 
 

England had for many years now successfully maintained her policy of playing the continental powers of Europe against one another and it had paid off well for the island nation. Not only did it allow English fleets to control the vital trade routes (and therefore bag richly laden Spanish vessels whenever they went to war) but it also provided a tremendous amount of security to an island nation that greatly feared an invasion from the continent. Obviously then, in the eyes of the government and to a lesser extent the people of England, the idea of keeping other nations bickering (especially long time rival France) and at war with one another was a good one and one that also provided quite excellent bonuses to the growing empire. Paradoxically, England and France were two very heavy trading partners that benefited greatly from the other's economies and if one was doing well the other would also benefit yet despite the obvious advantages they kept at war for most of the eighteenth century. Certainly an amount of pride, harmful and misplaced at best, was at work here just as it was later in 1914 and did not help matters at all. Nevertheless, however much war was going on in the world between France and England, the smuggler trade across the channel never ceased for a moment just as Dutch banks very probably backed by English funds would help France get back on a war footing in 1815!

As the French revolution began, the rest of Europe, including England, watched France fall into anarchy and at the time this was not unwelcome. France had always been an aggressive neighbor to the continent and most recently she had helped inflict a stinging defeat on England during the American Revolution. However, when the Prussians faltered at Valmy in 1792, the rest of Europe began to realize that the new France, though she might be quite disorganized, was growing to be an even more formidable foe than she had ever been before. What was more, if this new and vigorous France was allowed to mature, she could pose a very serious threat in the area that England had all but taken for herself: the world trade market. France did gradually mature and soon her armies had defeated all the invading great powers leaving the corrupt Parisian government time to plan an extravagant campaign in 1798 to be led by one of her most celebrated soldiers: General Napoleon Bonaparte. This commander, famed for his brilliant Italian campaigns where he routed successive attempts by several enemy commanders to defeat him, had hit upon the idea to bring a threat to India via Egypt thereby shaking England's confidence to her core and striking her where she would feel it most. While the military campaign ended in failure, hastened by the wasting of the fine fleet at Aboukir by Admiral Brueys, it did give a clear indication that the French knew how to aim at the lifeline of the island nation and this knowledge would make them very dangerous if they were given the chance to rebuild the navy, the one component crippled by the revolution and as yet not healed. Navies take time to revive and the ideal situation for France would be to have several years of peace so that the sailors and admirals could gather experience and gradually turn the fleet back into the excellent fighting force it had been during the American Revolution. So far, France had not had a breather.

With the ascension of Napoleon Bonaparte as First Consul, the pictured changed dramatically. Bonaparte's vision, or perhaps call it his ambition, was to make France the premier nation in the world to replace England who, as explained earlier, had years before replaced the Dutch as the leader in the world market. In order to do this, the First Consul, amongst other great achievements, began a steady and well thought out reorganization of the navy in order to turn it into the force it had once been. He even managed to give it some time, if only for a short span, to recuperate when he signed with England the Peace of Amiens in 1802. Neither side was under any illusions that the peace would last as Bonaparte followed his plans to carry France into the world economic market and England kept to her established plan of letting no country, save herself, have any real share of the lucrative trade available on the high seas. As could be expected, war broke out again the following year and by 1805 England had organized (and financed) the Third Coalition consisting of herself, Austria, Russia and Sweden. Napoleon, as he was now called after crowning himself Emperor, proved himself the finest commander of the age again as his armies strategically and tactically defeated every major enemy army culminating with the annihilating victory at Austerlitz in December of that year. Undaunted, England formed other coalitions to keep Napoleon occupied and exhaust his forces but names like Jena, Auerstadt, Friedland and Wagram only added up to an enormous amount of money spent with no gain save the fact that no lasting peace was forthcoming to allow France to escape from its continental boundaries.

By the end of the 1809 campaign against a regenerate Austria, it was readily clear that Napoleon was the master of Europe but even so he had to maintain control over the new styled Empire because, it was certain, the moment he withdrew his forces from any conquered country another army, as always financed by England, would mushroom into existence and attack him. The realization of this fact was not unexpected but the cruel reality of it meant that the war would go on. Napoleon knew that any peace treaty signed would not last as long as one of the parties engaged remained solid in their stance so he set up his Continental System in order to deprive England of one of her most important markets, the continent. Not having a competent navy, he could do nothing else to strike back at the moment. England in the meantime had dropped off an army under Arthur Wellesley, the future Duke of Wellington, in Portugal in an attempt to overextend the French and keep a foothold into continental Europe. In this they succeeded though the long, arduous and not always successful campaign again must have cost England a great deal. However, given the size of the English overseas empire, cash flow was not the problem. Napoleon, however, had an annoying tendency of remaining both alive and in power while at the same time increasing the size of the French navy until it might once more challenge the Royal Navy of England.

At this point, with Napoleon wed to an Austrian arch duchess and therefore seemingly solidifying his position in the continental hierarchy, England cast about for a cooperative friend on the mainland and came across land hungry Russia in the person of the Czar Alexander I. Persuading him to open his ports to English goods proved to be fairly simple (gold has a way of opening many doors); this course also had the benefit of aggravating Napoleon, the idea being to knock another hole in the armor of the feared Corsican. Disliking the idea of any sort of free Poland (one of the results of the Napoleon’s great victory at Friedland in 1807), Alexander had already been quietly on the warpath himself and the flow of English gold into his coffers certainly was not unwelcome. War between France and Russia broke out in 1812.

The Russian campaign was the beginning of the first end to Napoleon Bonaparte's remarkable military life. The Grande Armee was bled white and by 1813 a whole new force had to be made from scratch. Nevertheless, the French armies under Napoleon still proved to be tough opponents, their tradition of better leadership time and again allowing them to beat stronger and better trained enemy forces. New victories were gained, the finest being the battle of Dresden, but perhaps no one knew better than Napoleon that the deadly game of checkers being played by France and England would continue regardless of how many times he defeated the Russians or Austrians or Prussians (or the occasional Swede). Offered peace by the allies, he knew it was only a breather and it seems that his patience for the game had finally worn thin. So long as England could hire out the armies of continental Europe, he could not achieve what he wished for France. Ambition may well have played a role in his rejection of the offers but it also seems likely that he actually wanted it all to end as, to use his own phrase, "Death is nothing; but to live vanquished and without glory is to die every day." Without greatness and confined by England to the continent as a second rate power, Napoleon could not rule his France. Slowly but surely the allies pushed him back into France and, despite some new glory, he was forced to abdicate when Paris fell in 1814. The meteoric life of the Emperor seemed to have come full circle and left him as he had begun in 1792: a man lost in a crowd of humanity with no power to change the course of history.

With the fall of Napoleon's France in 1814, the conquering powers of Europe met in Vienna to carve up the continent. Lord Castlereagh, representing England, made sure that no one power in Europe came away materially stronger than before by catering to none and all at the same time. France would not be dismembered in any way as she was needed as the continental power to balance the growing influence of Prussia and Austria; her navy, however, was carefully stripped of many new vessels and the rest left to the incompetence of the Bourbon government which had arrived on the "coat tails" of the allied armies. Knowing any hurt to the new France could mean the potential loss of millions of francs, the treasonous but capable Talleyrand showed up at the conference to represent France in the stormy negotiations which was very much like a group of poisonous snakes thrown into the same basket. The most serious breach was when England, France, Austria and Spain got together in a secret alliance against Prussia and Russia who were demanding large amounts of territory, Saxony and Poland respectively. Eventually, however, these demands were modified and a redrawn map of Europe began to emerge. Not surprisingly, no one power ended up with a great piece of the territorial pie and none, save Spain, received any of France's overseas colonies other than England. Matters having been settled, the monarchs of Europe looked forward to a return to the ways of old, none the wiser after all the years that had passed and all the lives they had lost. A group of small vessels sighted in the Gulf of San Juan changed all that.

Napoleon had been sent to the island of Elba off the western coast of Italy by the allies in 1814 and from there, like an eagle perched on a small rock, he watched and listened to the events going on in far away capitals, events he was no longer a part of. He received only a few visitors on Elba, the most significant absentees being his wife Marie Louise and his son, and had to settle himself with running his little "kingdom" with what money he had. It was not a happy time for a man who used to put in long hours every day governing an empire that had stretched across most of Europe. A man of action if there ever had been, Napoleon felt his physical and mental energy draining away in a place that left him no opportunity to use his great brain. His army list fit on a single piece of paper, his staff was but a handful of men and Elba offered only so many things to do before there were no other municipal projects he could accomplish. Indeed, in a note to Bertrand, he told his companion to reprimand the gardener for employing too many men in the upkeep of a garden "the size of my hand". The great brain could not go on like this and, knowing this fact, he felt the exile was killing him just as assuredly as any assassin. Fortunately for him, enough of a commotion was beginning just a narrow stretch of water away that he realized that his story might not be quite over as he had perhaps thought.

Napoleon's ears didn't have to be so finely tuned to hear about what was happening in France as there was enough grumbling going on to tell him how the people were feeling and if any return was indeed possible. Speaking with General Bertrand one day, Napoleon asked what he thought of the plan to return to France. "I am told by some that the people would welcome me, what do you feel Bertrand?"

"Sire," replied the faithful general, "the people have had their fill of our august King. Success will greet us."

The return of the Bourbons, the ancient ruling family, to France in 1814, sponsored by England and Talleyrand, seemed to be the best solution to an awkward problem. Only they fulfilled the particular needs of all the allied sovereigns but it was hardly their good qualities that assured this (if indeed they had any). The continental powers looked upon them as a group that would restore "legitimacy" to the ruling class in France and, because of their undoubted incompetence, also leave her weak and out of any race to grab unclaimed territory. England, for her part, saw them as just the perfectly chosen rulers that would leave her commercial empire nicely intact and undisturbed (the French navy went into quick oblivion when they arrived). Finally, the master thief Talleyrand saw them as a fat cow ready for more milking. Therefore, France received Louis the XVIII, the "unavoidable".

The new king, fat from good living abroad but endowed with remarkable patience and even some dignity, returned to a France that could well have been a foreign country. However, this fact did not bother him; the throne he had eagerly sought (if at a great distance) was now in his possession and he intended to "continue" his reign for some time more. Nevertheless, a great deal had changed during the intervening years of his self imposed exile but this made little difference to the grand entourage that came back on the coat tails of the newly "restored" monarch. Many of the King's followers had fought against their country for many years in the service of foreign armies while others had simply leached off their respective hosts but all had one unique quality in common: Once Napoleon had abdicated, the clock once more read 1789 and everyone concerned had better get used to it. This singular thought on the part of the Bourbons would be one of the main causes for their bloodless but very speedy downfall when the Emperor returned from Elba. France simply was not the same place as it had been before. Napoleon's government had probably been the closest thing to an honest government any country at the time had ever experienced and the people had grown used to it; what was more was that country was benefiting greatly by it. Public works, the arts, the sciences and more had been stimulated by the imperial government and put France at the forefront of nations. How could anyone expect the people of France, a group raised on real signs of governmental care and nurtured with military glory, to renounce all that they had heard and had been part of just to welcome back a large, pesky group of blue bloods who wanted to put their boots back onto the peasants as if nothing had ever happened? Incredible as it seems, the Bourbons did just that and quickly alienated most of the population.

It all seemed so trivial at first but in troubled times little things have a tendency to become very much greater than the sum of their parts. The people of France could not go back to the way things had been. How many peasants had purchased their first land from the broken up estates of fleeing Royalists? How many non-Catholic churches had been given over to worship by Protestants, a group traditionally mistreated by French governments? How many soldiers had risked their lives in battle to win the Legion of Honor? How many indeed. There were many more questions like those above to be asked but the Bourbon governmental machine managed to just about snuff out every important piece of progress that had occurred in the last twenty five years. The reversal of all these acts seemed inconceivable at the time especially when France was war weary and in need of peace (much as she had been almost one hundred years previously during the reign of a wholly different Louis). More than likely, any government that even showed signs of trying to rule constitutionally would probably have been accepted and eventually even hailed. The Bourbons, curious group of cowards and indolents that they were, could not even achieve that.

There were a couple of good things that resulted from the arrival of Louis and his clan. The King's restoration to power led to the removal of the allied armies occupying France and the latter probably left with some sense of relief, especially those troops stationed in eastern France. Alarming reports were coming in of no nonsense Frenchmen who were busy building up their tallies of waylaid Cossacks and other raiders who had never ceased brutalizing their zones of occupation and were now paying for it with interest. It was said that the wells around Strasbourg seemed to produce some of the strangest tasting water...

The other favored point that the new Bourbon government managed to achieve was the end of the hated conscription but this act was far too obvious to be attributed to anything but sheer practicality. France was no longer at war and she didn't need a large influx of men to fill out her campaigning regiments; the days of universal military service were apparently over and no one was going to mourn its passing. The money saved from this decree should have been significant and could well have been put to good use if the monarchy had had any real sense of what it was doing. Fortunately or unfortunately, they did not. The end of conscription was a sensible and realistic course of action but the related problems resulting from the overall idea of reducing the strength of the army produced some of the most insulting outrages that any honest Frenchman had ever suffered. The prickly task of reducing the army to a peace time force would be indicative of how the Bourbons would deal with the country as a whole. It wouldn't be easy for many people but with an honest hand and some intelligence the problem could be overcome and everyone satisfied with the result. As one might expect by now, things didn't work out that way.

Napoleon's army had been composed of many soldiers whose entire adult lives had been spent on campaign and they knew little else than the art of soldiering (though they were very good at that). For these men, peace would not be easy and the smoothest route that could be taken was needed to put them back into society with a minimum of shock. The Bourbons tackled this question like a man being suddenly dumped with a bucket of ice cold water. Instead of thinking about the soldiers or even what they were doing, the new government promptly cast adrift thousands of soldiers with barely enough money to live in squalor in their own home towns. These men, the victors of Austerlitz, Friedland and a host of other battles, had come to expect something more than this shameful act and, by collecting in cafes across the land, they grumbled across watered down wine and hoped for the day when Napoleon would make his return. It was much the same for the returning prisoners of war; no sooner were they in France when they learned that their regiment was no longer in existence and that they had been put on half pay to be replaced by another officer. One can imagine the anger of all the soldiers when they found that returning emigres were getting their old posts while they had to return home to beg on the streets to eat. It wasn't right and the more wine they had the worse it got. Maybe he would return some day.

Curiously, with France nearly bankrupt (much like during the 1790s), one would think that raising new troops, especially guards, would not even be considered. Any why should it? France already had the finest troops in the world as her guard, Napoleon's Imperial Guard, and, with a slight change of name and perhaps a uniform accouterment, this should have sufficed. Indeed, Louis could have benefited by reconciling these old sweats to him in such a way as to bring France closer to him. Louis, for all his blue blood, was nothing more than another foreign prince usurping a throne given to an emperor who had been approved overwhelmingly by the people. Tact would be a necessity once again but, as the guard was doing its normal duties, some progress could eventually have been made. As before, the Bourbon knack of doing just the wrong thing at the wrong time came to haunt them.

From the start, the Old Guard was shunned by the swarms of emigres that flocked around the king like hungry buzzards and, instead of any reconciliation, they were completely alienated and thrust into eastern France to rot in obscurity as garrison troops in Nancy and Metz. Once there, all they could do was sit around and join all the other disgruntled soldiers in the cafes and barracks to grumble; all too soon this grumbling would be heard across the nation. After dealing with the Old Guard, the Bourbons quickly built up a group of former Imperial regiments to form King's regiments of various sorts only to get scared of them, too, and send them away from their sensitive eyes (and ears probably). Finally, Louis and his sons came up with the hair-brained and fiscally damaging idea to turn the army back into a pre-Revolutionary one by raising very expensive guard show regiments of cavalry and infantry and naming all the other regiments instead of using the new numbering system. The veteran soldiers were outraged at this obvious snub to their duty and yet more discomfort was created in the ranks. As one can see, the handling of the army clearly showed to the people how things in France as a whole might progress under the new government and the future wasn't looking too rosy.

The indications soon started to become reality. Louis was besieged by "loyal servants" who calmly but firmly asked for their former estates to be returned to them and the new peasant owners to be evicted immediately. Was it not time for the lower classes to show their proper respect again for their betters? This physical threat was soon joined by another of a more psychological nature. Napoleon had established the famous Legion of Honor in 1804 and had awarded it to outstanding soldiers and civilians alike. The Bourbons, whose only claim to fame was that they were related to someone, many generations before, who had done something worthy, detested this revolutionary idea and sought to make it common and therefore unnoticeable to the people. To this end, it was awarded wholesale to as many undeserving people as could be imagined (like the Army of Conde which had attempted, poorly, to fight against Napoleon). As could be expected, this act by itself alienated both the army and the people and taken all together further widened the growing gap between France and Louis.

While these actions damaged the standing of the Bourbons and promoted that of the former emperor, perhaps the most pressing matter that faced Napoleon was one of time. The Bourbon government had already cut off his promised funds and there was a real possibility that his little "kingdom" would go bankrupt in a short time. In addition, there was the sinister possibility that he would be moved; St. Helena, that god forsaken mid-Atlantic stopover, had been discussed and this made Napoleon shiver. If he was moved, especially there, any chance of regaining the world stage would be over and, in a way, so would his life. There had to be one more chance and the time to do it seemed to be nearing.

The year of 1815 began with the French nation simmering with revolt. All across the land the people spoke in code of the anticipated event that seemed certain to happen in the springtime. They, like the soldiers in the army, were under no illusions, however, and they tempered their enthusiasm with a real caution; if something went awry and one was caught on the wrong side, things might get ugly. The repeated invasion of France was considered a certainty if the Emperor came back, especially since the allied nations were still in meeting at Vienna making their deals and intrigues to carve up Europe. Napoleon had upset the balance in the hereditary oligarchy of the continent and it was not at all likely that they would accept him now since they were still falsely strutting in the dearly bought confidence of having beaten the Emperor only the previous year. In view of these facts, the people hoped for the best but more than likely expected the worst.

While the population of the country boiled quietly like water in a covered pot, there were others who were just as quietly, and perhaps even more so, doing their part to open the road again to the exiled leader of France. The most important man of that determined breed was none other than Marshal of France Jean de Dieu Soult, the same man who for so many years faced the Duke of Wellington in the Iberian peninsula. Marshal Soult must be considered one of the cleverest of the commanders of the period as he seemed to be able to ingratiate himself with the Bourbons, becoming their Minister of War, while at the same time doing everything he could to make them lose touch with the army and make it easier for someone else to come back. These things he did in such a way that when he alienated the Bourbons after several incidents against his former comrades, he was actually following his orders and acting like a good Royalist. He knew that the soldiers might distrust him later but he was willing to sacrifice his own reputation in order to fan the flames of revolt which would only help to bring around the quick and bloodless removal of his current benefactors from power. Soult was too smart not to realize what he was doing and it seems likely that he was in careful involvement with his former ruler and was doing his level best to prepare the army for Napoleon's return. Such loyalty could well have determined the latter to have this marshal as his chief of staff on campaign despite his relative inexperience in written staff work. Also, Napoleon would have liked to keep an eye on him, too. One thing was certain: Marshal Soult was playing the dangerous game of a double agent but he played it so well that the Bourbons never did figure it out while the future Armee du Nord began to shake itself into shape in northern France.

Marshal Soult began his involvement first by ridding the government of General Dupont, the man who had lost his head at Baylen in Spain in 1808 and surrendered his force intact to a rabble Spanish army. Taking the place of the rightly despised Dupont as Minister of War in the King's government probably was the biggest coup of Soult's back alley political career as it made some of the following actions possible and far easier than they ever would have been before. The marshal knew that if the emperor returned to the country, there was the very real possibility that France would be torn by civil war. To make sure this didn't occur, it seemed a good idea to rid Louis of any real fighting troops he might have around his person and leave only his worthless Royal Guards whose only thoughts in a crisis would be to run for the border once Napoleon had landed; no doubt Louis would follow or perhaps even lead them in the race. It is possible that if Louis had had any courage to take the field against the former emperor and did so in person (or nearly so, perhaps in a strong carriage) someone might have fired and started a bloodbath. As it was, Soult shunted the ex-Guard cavalry out of Paris and over to Mortier (a former commander of the Imperial Guard, strangely enough) and the other newly formed royal cavalry regiments (made up of Grande Armee veterans) to the outlying provinces effectively denuding Paris of any fast shock troops that could be deployed quickly in case of an emergency. Soult's hand may have been a loaded one but he had gotten the cards for himself in legitimate style and was playing them exceedingly well.

The grand stage was now set for the return of "the Corsican". The people were disgruntled, the soldiers dishonored and the great clock of time frighteningly poised with its arms pointing to 1789. Still, there was only one man in the world who could have taken advantage of such a situation and the question was when he was likely to do it. Everyone, it seemed, knew he would return but would his timing be right? Did the Emperor still have that magic glance that could take in an enemy position and instantly know how to defeat it? Those boats in the gulf of San Juan said that he did.

On February 26th, 1815, Napoleon, with eleven hundred men of his Old Guard, set sail from Elba to return to France. For the former emperor it must have been a tense time when any little thing could have ended the venture for good. Fortune, however, still followed and favored him.

The enterprise that Napoleon had now undertaken was one that would require some of his greatest expenditures of energy. He knew what would happen when he landed back in France and had prepared accordingly. Once his plans to return were set, Napoleon had become his old self again, erupting out of a stupor that had begun to claim him on Elba. A few days before he left he sent an aide to visit an old friend who was still ruling in the flea bag Kingdom of Naples: Joachim Murat. Napoleon, still stinging from the greed exhibited by his own sister through his former marshal in 1814 when they had betrayed him, swallowed his pride for the moment and told his former comrade of his intentions insofar as the moves he would take politically when he reached Paris. Warned to ready his colorful and questionable army but told not to do anything rash, Murat as usual failed to understand his former master and proceeded to mobilize his army for just such an adventure. Napoleon only approached Murat for one reason and that was time. This shows how far ahead the former emperor was planning as he knew that if he was to move against one enemy force, say the English or Prussians, it would be very useful to have Murat cooperate in Italy and pin down a goodly chunk of Austrians or other allies and prevent them from interfering for a while in France. Napoleon knew that the Neapolitan army was near worthless; the threat of the Neapolitan army, however, magnified its strength many times. Unfortunately for him, King Joachim had other ideas and would squander the lot before anything began in earnest.

The landing came amidst the shocked eyes of the inhabitants as the legendary bearskins of the Old Guard (so recently removed when the brig that carried them had been hailed by a French naval vessel, the first heart stopper) made their proud comeback on the shores of the country they had once called home. At this point, Napoleon was still just a bold adventurer and he knew it. Southern France was traditionally a Royalist enclave and he could only expect limited and probably very quiet support from the peasants who dare not risk showing any form of favoritism to their former master. With General Cambronne leading the way, the little column of troops neared Cannes around one in the morning. Aside from gathering some provisions, they would not enter the town. Instead, the mini "Grande Armee" launched itself into a forced march that would carry it quickly through Provence and towards Grenoble and Lyons where Napoleon was sure he would run into some of the "Royal" army and where the whole gamble would be put to the test. Speed was of the essence. Not only did the Emperor know that he needed all the days ahead to prepare France for a renewed conflict, he also knew, on a far more local level, that if his march was fast enough it would give the impression to the army and the Bourbons alike that his success was inevitable and that the whole country was going over to him.

The news of Napoleon's return moved like lightning to every corner of France. The whole country writhed in a great nervous twitch as old hatreds, so recently put away, arose again and with new fervor. He had returned. What would happen now? How would the King react? Would there be civil war? These questions were on everybody's lips but no answer could be found as yet. The people still remembered what had happened during the Terror and dared not commit to any side until one was certain that it was going to win. There can be little doubt that Napoleon was the preferred leader to the bulk of the population but with the allied armies still hovering menacingly along France's borders it was more of a wait and see call than anything else. This time, no one wanted to be on the wrong side.

One group, however, had immediately decided to whom they would owe their allegiance: the Imperial Guard. Shunted into obscure garrison duty in Metz with Marshal Oudinot, the men of the foot grenadiers and chasseurs had already made plans to dispose of their despised white cockades and break out their carefully hidden eagles to adorn their flags once more. Oudinot, realizing that these men were very much a barometer for the entire army, thought that if he could sway them then just maybe a 'disaster' could be avoided. Unfortunately, it was already too late if indeed he could have ever achieved what he had been sent to do; the men of the Old Guard knew but one master and he wasn't in Paris, not yet. Nevertheless, Marshall Oudinot, a veteran of many years and innumerable wounds, tried his level best to convince them that they should stay loyal to the king.

At a review one day, he walked in front of the assembled men. Taking aside one scarred officer of grenadiers, he had asked him what he and his men would do when he shouted, "Vive le Roi!"

The officer had stared at him blankly before opening a sly grin. "Monsieur le Marechal, the men and all of us will answer 'Vive le Empereur'!"

Oudinot had shaken his head. The king was lost.

The Bourbons reacted to the news in typical fashion, the great mass of Louis refusing to move any hidden muscles and instead deferring the decision to his Minister of War, the quietly conspiring Marshal Soult. Irony of ironies... If there was something that this marshal knew about his troops it was that they would go over to Napoleon like bees attracted to blooming violets. Already there were troops aligned along the Emperor's route of march, the first significant grouping being south of Grenoble near La Mure, and Soult knew that if his former chief could win these men over, it was likely that the whole army would do the same.

The Royalists were convinced early on that the puny tide of Bonapartism would quickly be swept back into the sea when the people cast their indignant eyes on them and that there was little to fear. They were still living in another world. Some of these men, commanding army units along Napoleon's future line of march were actually anxious at first to "have a go at Bonaparte's brigands" but as the news became more concrete this desire became somewhat abated. Most Royalists were not real soldiers and all the posturing in the world would do no good when the Old Guard leveled their muskets and let fly with a horrific volley. The soldiers that many of them commanded were under no delusions, however, and they happily had already made up their minds when they had heard and had prepared as best they could for the return. Tricolor cockades, battleworn flags and eagles began to make a clandestine reappearance from some of the most unlikely hiding places as if the soldiers knew that their august commander would soon come back to them. It was a tense time for officers and men alike as neither trusted the other and each wondered what the other would do when the time came to engage the force marching from the coast. Who would meet them first? Would anyone fire? These questions were quietly in everybody's collective heads but no easy solution had presented itself. All would have to wait until the front line of whatever unit was confronting the former emperor was given the order to fire. Only then would the world have its answer.

The Emperor still marched with speed, forcing his way through difficult terrain as much as to hurry his advance as to avoid populated centers where any number of unexpected things could happen. He had already declared that he wanted his return to the throne to be a natural and bloodless event and so far it had been. By avoiding major urban areas in Royalist Provence, he was safe from the badly aimed pistol ball that could begin an unwanted and grievous bloodbath; Napoleon wanted everything on his side to be perfect or at least to appear perfect to those outside, especially those men still in Vienna. A triumphal return, not marred by any unfortunate incidents, would show that the people wanted him and a quick but unharmed exit of the Bourbons would show the rest of the world that he was serious about keeping the peace, even if it meant letting men who had plotted to kill him many times get away. All these things were in the future and they depended completely on the private in the front line who would have his musket leveled at Napoleon. Would he fire? One shot, whether it hit him or not was immaterial, would end the enterprise in the heat and slaughter of a civil war. He didn't want that, not in a million years.

The march north had been a prodigious one, much like the great sweeps that the Emperor had done so many years before. The troops were in good spirits as everything still seemed to be going exactly as their chief had planned. Now however, the test was to come. It was March 7th, 1815, and the sun was nearing its apex in the clear sky. A battalion of the 5th Ligne, a unit which boasted Wagram as one of its former battle honors, lay deployed across the road clearly barring the path into the town of Grenoble.

What thoughts must have gone through Napoleon's mind when he saw the first formed body of troops barring his advance. Here the die was cast. Here, too, the affair would succeed or fail with the flash of a musket. After snapping shut his glass, he turned to Capitaine Raoul, an aide de camp, and gave a nod. The act must begin in order to finish the play.

The young but confident Raoul approached the line of infantry and studied them for a moment just as the Emperor had told him to. They seemed nervous. Stopping his horse, he harangued them briefly, aiming his comments at the Royalist commander, a man named Delassart. "You will answer before France," he concluded, still watching for any reactions. There were none. The men stood like so many statues, though the aide noticed that many of them would not look up at him. His job finished for the moment, he turned his mount around and rode back toward the little force that was finishing deploying along the road.

The men of the 5th were fully bursting at the seams now and the tension that filled the air must have been awful. Their minds racing with mixed emotions, they were now subjected to a visual torment: the bearskins of the Old Guard began to fill their eyes along with the red and white pennons of the formidable Polish Lancers who were now fast approaching their position. This was too much to ask for. The battalion began to lose its appearance of statues and become far more shaky. Men began to glance at their officers half hoping that they would end the charade and allow them to welcome back their true leader. But duty and doubt told them to stay put. Each man knew how he would react, but would the others follow? Why did it have to be them?

Delassart easily caught the feeling in the air as the small troop of Polish Lancers made their way up the road. It wasn't good but for the life of him he couldn't come to terms with his own feelings about the situation either. He could see Napoleon on his horse in the distance sitting motionless watching his men deploy and all he felt was that it was nearly irresistible not to simply throw his hat in the air and cry 'Vive l'Empereur!' What was going on? He knew his duty and he was determined to do it, like he had been taught to do so. But what about the men in the ranks? What about their feelings? Just by their motions he could tell they were afraid of starting something that they didn't want to do. Napoleon was their leader...

The lancers continued up the road at a steady trot and they were getting close, almost as if they were going to charge. Quickly, orders were given to pull the battalion back some but even as the motion began it became evident that it was too late. The lancers were very close now. The shout to about face rang out and the men turned again, their bayonets bristling from the front ranks but their hearts sunken in their stomachs. The lancers came to a sudden halt and then, as quickly as they had come up, they wheeled to the right and fell back to the main line of the Old Guard infantry that was marching up the road. It was now that they really got a good look at him. The Emperor had dismounted and was on foot just like any ordinary soldier of the line. The old beaten overcoat, the unadorned hat, the green habit, all these things reminded them of former days, days when France was truly great.

"Take aim!" a voice rang out from the Royalist line. Automatically, muskets were raised to eye level and heads tilted behind the locks of the massed guns.

Napoleon took stock of the situation and there and then knew he had to make a crucial decision. These men, the men of the 5th Ligne, represented the whole army and if he could win them over then, he believed, the whole of France would come over to him too. One last shot of conscience rolled through his body as to whether he was doing the right thing but it was dismissed with a solemn nod and put to rest. The future now stared him in the eye. He turned to Colonel Mallet. "Have the men carry their weapons under their left arms."

Mallet's eyes widened. "Reversed, sire? Would that not be dangerous in the face..."

Napoleon glanced at him in an almost fatherly fashion and his voice had no sound of irritation. "Mallet, obey your orders."

"Sire!"

The Emperor did not witness the slight confusion within the ranks of the over protective Old Guard and instead started walking towards the battalion of the 5th that blocked his way north. As he stepped softly over the lightly crunching gravel under his feet, he saw that every musket was aimed at him, aimed at his head, and the scene, except for a few horse noises, was eerily quiet. A slight breeze wandered easily through the ranks, the swirl of dust it left making the scene even more bizarre. He stopped, his hands firmly clasped behind his back and, for a moment, his heart lumped solidly in his throat. It was now or never.

There was to be one more test, though, before he could even try to speak to his former soldiers. The same Royalist voice as before cracked angrily through the motionless scene. "There he is! Fire!"

Napoleon's eyes flinched with the word but the absolute silence of the stage was not broken by any sharp retort of a musket. Nothing changed and no one moved. It was if nothing had been heard by anyone save the officer who had yelled the order. No one so much as twitched an eyebrow and, more importantly, no one pulled a trigger. The tense stand off continued.

The Emperor, his hands moist from hidden sweat, swallowed to clear his throat. "Soldiers of the 5th," he began, his voice slightly raspy at first but rapidly becoming normal and familiar, "you know me."

Napoleon paused just for a moment to let the words sink in even though the excitement he felt was building mightily inside of his body. Eyeing every man in a quick sweep of his eagle eyes, he continued, his voice echoing his feelings. "If there is a man among you who would shoot his Emperor, here I am."

For a moment it seemed as if the ground shook with pent up emotion until in a frenzy it exploded into the open. "Vive l'Empereur!"

All across the field the men cheered and rushed forward and in an instant Napoleon knew he had won his greatest victory. The mighty gamble had paid off. Everywhere he looked, the soldiers of his army, of France, cried out his name and waved their shakos high on the ends of their muskets. It was a day to remember, to tell one's grandchildren. The Old Guard speedily ran up to protect the Emperor from the crowds but during that moment he defied them and waded into the soldiers as they moved to touch his hand, his coat, or anything else so that they might count themselves among the first to have come back to him. Everywhere, white cockades were tossed to the ground and, as if by magic, the blue, white and red reappeared from every corner. The noise was deafening but no one cared here, a family had been reunited on this day. This, they knew, was the meaning of true glory.

That glory of the dusty field carried itself easily into the town of Grenoble where he knew he was once more an emperor. The people crowded to see him just as his soldiers had and he had been right; the 5th Ligne had indeed represented France and she had come over to him without a drop of blood being spilled at all. Even in his wildest dreams he had dared not hope for a coup without a struggle but the moment had somehow transpired and it was time he reveled in its warmth. No man, he knew, had ever done what he had just been able to do and this fact separated him from ordinary rulers. Now, there was nothing that could stop his triumphal entry into Lyons and from there all the way to Paris itself.

For those not directly involved in Napoleon's march north, reliable news was hard to come by and, especially at first, led everyone from peasants to ministers to wonder if the whole enterprise was nothing more than a hair-brained attempt at regaining some vain limelight before an eventual and inevitable triumph of the allied powers. After all, how could the "adventurer" from Elba hope to gain any support in a nation so fully devoted to its new king and his benevolent court? The men thinking these thoughts were not Frenchmen. The Congress of Vienna, that famous meeting of land hungry empires, was still in session when Napoleon made his return and the ministers of all the various "legitimate" monarchies were still making their plays for soil that could be added to their respective countries while trying to prevent anyone else from doing the same thing. Something of a tentative agreement had been reached when the return of the French Emperor put a halt to anything more and pitched the ministers into confusion again. Once more, they felt, their armies would have to do the work of all good men and save the continent from the commoner who dared call himself the only truly legitimate ruler in Europe.

Ironically, the allied sovereigns found out the news that Napoleon had landed in France on the very same day, March 7th, that Napoleon won back his country. Notwithstanding, these same sovereigns decided on a course of action to rid the world once and for all of the menace of "Buonaparte". Hammering out an agreement (with Talleyrand's active blessing; he feared losing his cash cow) to act together in a full scale invasion of France they at first thought that it would be only a formality as many expected the King's loyal troops to take control of the situation and do the dirty work for them. Unfortunately for them, the King had no loyal troops and thus it was to be that they would once more have to take on the renegade Frenchman and restore the rightful ruling order to France. Confidence ran high and why not? Had they not taken on Napoleon only a year before and handed him a series of defeats leading right up to his own capital? Yes, they told themselves in a wave of stale compliments each ruler gave the other. It was only Lord Castlereagh of England that seemed to remember that the previous February they had been perilously close to losing everything again and had it not been for his bottomless purse...It was, however, decided, signed and, most impressively for any allied cause, put immediately into action. Declaring Napoleon an international outlaw, they set the stage for a crusade against a single man, saying that the coming war was not directed against France but only Napoleon himself. Seldom had so much fear been directed against a single man.

The allied plan of action called for a massive quantity of troops to make their way into France, bludgeon like, from every corner of her long border. The Anglo-Dutch army of the Duke of Wellington and Blucher's Prussian army were encamped in Belgium and would form the northern pincer of the invasion. In the center, Schwarzenberg's composite Austrian army would march into the mid-section of France while Frimont's Piedmontese army would attack from farther south in the relatively unfortified Italian frontier. Finally, the decrepit Spanish army would march north from the Pyrenees and thereby complete the circle. Far off in Poland a slowly moving Russian army under Barclay would provide the needed reserve punch when the time came in France. All told, over 700,000 men marched on France. Formidable in numbers, the allied armies would have the age old problem of all powers working together: they had to try and stay together as their strength lay in their numbers. Ignoring proper strategy was normal for the allies, however, and so, with their separate camps allocated along the border of France, they opened themselves up to be defeated in detail by a smaller and very fast marching French army under the soldier who had so many times humbled the rest of Europe. By quickly concentrating his army against the closest and most competently led force, it could be possible to defeat it in detail and then repeat the process against foes whose leaders were even less competent.

The allied offensive was to begin on the first of June but various hitches from a slow moving Russian army to a full scale mutiny by impressed Saxon troops in the Prussian army led to continued postponements by the overall commander, Prince Schwarzenberg of Austria (the man who had been chosen over Czar Alexander I after the Duke of Wellington nearly had a heart attack when he learned that the Russian leader wanted to command the armies), who was probably eyeing the situation for his own sovereign and not taking any chances if the French suddenly won a major action. Austria, always the professional fence squatter, would side with the allies at first but, as Emperor Francis may have told his commander, there might come a time when a switch of allegiance could prove to be most profitable; besides, the Austrian ruler held a formidable trump card, or perhaps insurance policy, in the persons of Napoleon's son and his wife Marie Louise who was Francis' daughter. Thus informed, the Austrian supreme commander ordered the attack postponed, again, to June 27 when he figured that everything that could be readied would be and that the French would be caught between anvils of troops and be crushed.

The campaign that had resulted in Napoleon's abdication in 1814 had been rightly hailed as one of his finest with his troops using interior lines to repeatedly outmaneuver the larger allied armies and defeat them in detail. That he failed despite his fine strategy was as much a part of the irresolution of his subordinate commanders (and curious siblings) as it was to what even he figured to be inevitable against a foe who never seemed to shrink in strength; a solid and large foe could be defeated but rarely could a war be won against it. The fact of this also showed exactly what the allies thought he would do and what he actually would choose to do. The allied commanders fully expected Napoleon to remain on the defensive and repeat his previous campaign in 1814; his successes from before, they figured, dictated this strategy which was why they had decided to come over with even greater strength than before. Consequently, they were lax in their approach to frontier security as they expected the French army to stay solidly planted in French soil. No one seemed to notice the occasional overly observant peasant or traveler who seemed to wander into areas of troops, ask questions and then leisurely vanish from sight, generally in a westerly direction. What good would it do Napoleon anyway? Like Xerxes of Persia before the invasion of Greece, would it not do even greater harm to Napoleon if he knew how bad things were going to be? These thoughts of unbridled confidence spouted from the likes of Alexander and Frederick William of Prussia but Schwarzenberg, a man who maintained perhaps more than his share of respect for the French emperor, knew better than to think like that. He knew that some serious battles were in the offing but he didn't quite figure where the first ones were going to fall.

One man who knew better than most what might happen was another great fence squatter, Talleyrand. Still in his position as French Foreign Minister though to a government that no longer existed, he quietly sat back in the safety of the Austrian capital to sip some more of Francis' excellent wine content with himself that, for the moment, he would be out of the reach of Napoleon and the noose he so readily deserved. As news came in from the fronts later, however, he began to think more along the lines of Moscow or perhaps London...

Napoleon entered Paris on March 20, 1815, ending what was the most amazing coup in history. The whole city turned out to see him and cries of "Vive l'Empereur" could be heard from all corners well into the night; the last doubts of his decision to return were now put to rest. Safely installed in the Tuileries palace, the Emperor could for a moment relax and consider what had happened and perhaps what would happen in the near future. The army had come over to him wholeheartedly during his march to Paris to the point that it was so large that feeding everyone almost became a problem. The rank and file, he knew, were with him and that made him feel good; real power lay with the common man. Similarly, the whole nation seemed to have heaved a grand sigh of relief at getting rid of the pesky Bourbons and for that night at least could sleep soundly. Grimmer thoughts would probably be in the air when they awoke but for now everything was right in the world of the Emperor.

During the night before Napoleon arrived, the Bourbons scurried away like so many frightened children accompanied by a few of the worthless Royal Guard and the bellowing laughter of Marshall Macdonald who watched them pack but then decided it was best to leave with them. One could only imagine what went through their confused minds during the flight, probably shades of January 1793, but they could not know that Napoleon had given orders that they be allowed to safely vanish across the border with only a force of cavalry under General Exelmans to gently push them from behind. What started out as a respectable column soon disintegrated, however, as the Royal Guard began to feel that trading expensive uniforms for anonymity was probably a good thing and soon there was little for Exelmans to chase. Nevertheless, the general came away with some guns and a bit of loot and succeeded in his orders of "helping" to see Louis out of France. The Bourbon reign had lasted less than one year.

The nation that awoke on March 21 was one that badly needed a reform in the government, the military and in national morale. Everything was a shambles and would have to be rebuilt anew which seemed incredible when compared to a France that had been functioning efficiently even during the dark days of 1814. The army was scattered and disorganized with regimental officers floundering on half pay and the men discharged to the wind. The once mighty navy, an arm the latest group Bourbons had no time for, was quietly rotting away without crews or workmen in its ports. Finally, the government was, to put it nicely, in a state of transition and the nation both fearful and mildly enthusiastic. It would take a miracle to get things back into any sort of shape before the expected invasion began. Facing this monumental task was a single man and for a brief second he mused that perhaps he should have stayed on Elba instead of getting himself mired in endless leagues of bureaucratic red tape. All sorts of work would be needed in his country but there had never been a man more committed to sorting it out than the one now occupying the throne. Money for financing was not a problem, he soon found out, but getting the time to implement these changes and reforms was another matter entirely. If there ever was one thing Napoleon knew he would never have enough of it was time and now, when he needed it most of all, he had even less to lose.

With Napoleon busy carefully balancing his new government, fate decided to curse him with an old friend whose ambition coupled with yet another of the Emperor's curious siblings conspired to rob him of some of that valuable time he so desperately needed to preserve. Former Marshall Joachim Murat, the current King of Naples, had been one of the most celebrated cavalrymen in the world at one time and his marriage to Napoleon's ambitious sister Caroline seemed to have guaranteed loyalty to France when everything had been arranged. Contrary to hoped for expectations, Murat had turned traitor to Napoleon and France in 1814 to keep his worthless throne but had immediately turned to Napoleon when the latter was on Elba and the allies began to mutter about giving that particular fleabag throne to the Neapolitan Bourbons. The Emperor, probably realizing what a miserable stroke of luck had just hit him, warned him to stay put with his colorful but cowardly army until such time that they could operate together to defeat the common enemy. Given a major French victory, Murat's throne would have been assured but, if he was anything, he was a hot head of legendary proportions. Misreading Napoleon's intentions, he believed that his old boss would take the opportunity to reenter Northern Italy and retrieve the Iron Crown for himself before King Murat had a chance to. This was a typical move for the former marshall as he failed to realize that just maybe Napoleon would have other worries on his mind than the occupation of Northern Italy.

"If only he had an ounce of sense for every pound of courage he has," lamented Napoleon to Marshall Davout, "he would be the wisest of fellows."

Murat's mobilization in Naples confirmed the thought that the rulers in Vienna had come up with, namely, that the upstart King was working with the returned Emperor and would strike to draw away forces from other fronts. This helped to convince them that Napoleon had no intention of keeping the peace which he had declared already and that he was preparing for the war that must now surely follow. However, like Napoleon but for different reasons, the allies had no intention of solving the problem in a diplomatic fashion and, besides, they had worn thin much of their treaty credibility the previous year when they had blatantly ignored virtually every convention they had entered into. The allies had no intention to avoid the war even if perhaps Napoleon did and instead ordered more troops up to the front to support the mighty crusade that was about to begin in Europe. Murat's vain stupidity really became the last straw for both Napoleon and the foreign ministers because it ate away at the time the French Emperor had and ruined any chance to achieve a peace with Europe without anymore fighting. However, given the previously mentioned facts, it was doubtful that any agreement would have occurred between the two great foes, Napoleon and England, without a major disaster striking one or the other to the point where they could not continue the struggle.

"My dear crowned brothers declare me an outlaw!" he was heard to say one day to General Savary. "Yet the English banks see fit to loan me the money I need to undo the damage left by our august king."

"And at reasonable interest rates as well, sire," Savary added as he reflected on his knowledge of the transaction with the Dutch banks that had the backing of England.

"Indeed," Napoleon replied. "But will they give me the time to use it?"

Savary shrugged. "Unfortunately, sire, even English gold cannot purchase time."

The Emperor laughed. "Then come along general, we have an army to rebuild."

Napoleon's response to the challenge of rule in the France of 1815 quickly became among the most prodigious efforts of his whole life. With little time to quibble over small details, he set about writing a more open constitution that he felt would help rally the disparate fragments of France and unite them behind his cause. To this end he whistled up Benjamin Constant to prepare an additional act to the current constitution whereby he entangled himself in a legal web that could potentially hobble his efforts to control the country if a crisis came to pass. Napoleon felt it was a small price to pay to gain the support of most of the factions and hoped that he would never have to test it. Besides, if he were able to win a great victory somewhere along the front then it would not matter what had been written on that piece of paper as he would be strong enough to ignore it if he needed to. It would be another story if he were defeated but he felt he could not give that more than a passing thought as the crisis at hand was to win the fight, not lose it. Already he was prepared to gamble once more for a great victory that would undoubtedly solidify his cause, rally the fickle French people and, if he was able to inflict a signal defeat on the English, bring his foremost enemy to the negotiating table.

Napoleon's efforts in the months before the Waterloo campaign began were rapid in bearing fruit though the people were, for the most part, still afraid of what would happen should their armies be defeated in battle. This attitude was very understandable given the volatility of the French nation as everyone remembered the excesses of the Terror twenty years earlier and no one wanted another government like that to appear if Napoleon somehow failed in his turn. The Emperor knew this as he was told by a great many people to that effect and it was now that he decided, in secret to no one but himself, that if the Waterloo campaign failed and he lost the support of the government, he would abdicate the throne rather than plunge France into another long and probably hopeless campaign. The one most prickly action he reenacted during these short months was the call up of the class of 1815 to service in the army. The end of the mandatory military conscription had been the most welcomed act announced by the Bourbon government and renewing it could well make a great many people very unhappy. Thinking long and hard on the subject, Napoleon came up with the story that the class of 1815 was merely on a sort of extended leave since they had been called up already and were therefore eligible for a recall to arms. Response to this was actually quite good and as the French army marched into Belgium, these new men were just reaching their depots prior to being trained and sent on their way as replacements for the army. That done, he turned to other problems where he invested his tremendous reserves of energy in the rebuilding of just about everything else. He even found time to rename a number of ships of the fleet to their original non-Royalist names. It was truly a remarkable feat that he performed on the government of the nation though he knew that some of his patches and fixes would have to be checked or replaced when he had more time.