Chapter 75 June 18, 31815

It is the storyteller's prerogative to go back to the source, assuming we are in 1815 and a little earlier than the offenses described in the first part of this book. Had it not rained on the night of June 17-18, 1815, the situation in Europe would have been changed.A few drops of rain, or a few drops of rain, became the key to Napoleon's survival.A few drops of rain from heaven can make Waterloo the end of Austerlitz, and a thin cloud crossing the sky contrary to the season's wind is enough to collapse a world. Only when the Battle of Waterloo begins at half past eleven can Blücher arrive in time.Why?Because the ground is wet.The artillery team has to wait until the ground is a little dry, otherwise it cannot move.

Napoleon was a master of artillery, and he thought so himself.In his report to the Directorate on the battle of Aboukir, he said: "Our shells killed six people in this way." This sentence can illustrate the characteristics of that genius general.All his war plans were based on shells.Concentrating the cannon fire on a certain point was the secret of his victory.He regarded the strategy of the enemy general as a fortress, and attacked it head-on.He used bullets to attack the enemy's weak points, challenged and cleared the siege, all of which depended on the power of the gun.His genius is best at using cannons.To capture the phalanx, to crush the regiments, to break through the lines, to destroy and scatter dense formations, all that was his way, to fight, to fight, to fight, and he left the job of that fighting to the cannonballs.That relentless approach, combined with his genius, made this brooding punch-throwing hero on the battlefield invincible for fifteen years.

On June 18, 1815, precisely because the artillery position was dominant, he placed even more hope in exerting the power of the artillery.Wellington had only one hundred and fifty-nine firearms, while Napoleon had two hundred and forty. Had the ground been dry and the artillery easy to move, it would have fired at six o'clock in the morning.The battle ended at two o'clock, three hours before the sudden appearance of the Prussians, and was already victorious. How much was Napoleon's fault in the defeat of that war?Should the shipwreck be blamed on the helmsman? Did Napoleon's apparent weakening of physical strength cause a decline in his energy by then?Did twenty years of war wear out the blade as well as the scabbard, and wear out the spirit as much as the body?Does this general also feel the tiredness of age?In short, is the genius, as many good historians admit, waning?Did he act rashly in order to conceal his weakness?Did he start to lose his grasp in a risky confusion?Did he commit the taboo of being a general and become a person who does not understand the danger?Is there really a period of degeneracy of genius in those iron-boned men who might be called great activists?Old age has no influence on mentally gifted men, who, like Dante and Michelangelo, grow older with age; Does it fade with age?Had Napoleon lost his penetrating eye for victory?Was he to the point where he couldn't recognize the danger, guess the pitfalls, or distinguish the precipice on the edge of the pit?Had he lost his sense of disaster?He used to have insight into all the roads to success, holding the thunder and lightning in his hand, following and instigating, could it be that now he is so stunned that he throws himself into desperation and pushes the thousands of troops under him into the abyss?At the age of forty-six, did he suffer from an incurable madness?Is the strange man who controls his destiny just a big savage?

We never think that way. His battle plan is known to be a masterpiece.Go straight to the center of the Allied line, penetrate the enemy line, cut it in two, drive the half of Britain to Arles, and the half of Prussia to Tungre, keep Wellington and Blücher out of line, take Mont St. John, Take Brussels, throw the Germans into the Rhine and the British into the sea.All that, in Napoleon's view, could have been achieved in that war.As for the future, we will see later. Of course we do not have the luxury of writing a history of Waterloo here. The story we are going to talk about now is related to that war, but that period of history is not our theme, and that period of history has already been compiled, and it has been compiled eloquently. Yes, on the one hand, there is Napoleon's self-report, and on the other hand, there are the works of the seven wise men of history.As for us, let those historians go to court, we are only a witness after the fact, a passer-by in the wilderness, a person who bows his head to search the bloody place, and may be a person who regards the appearance as the actual situation. We have no right to speak from the scientific point of view of the general intricacies and mysteries, and we have no military experience and strategic talent to be a monologue; The general is governed by a chain of accidents.As for fate, the mysterious accused, we, like the people, the innocent judge, pass our judgment on it.