nay and Liege, will be grasped from the sketch map upon the
next page.

The reader who would grasp the campaign in the short compass of such an
essay as this had best consider the numbers and the positions in a form
not too detailed, and busy himself with a picture which, though accurate,
shall be general.

Let him, then, consider the whole line between Liege and Tournay to
consist of the two halves already presented: a western half, which we
will call the Duke of Wellington's, and an eastern half, which we will
call Blucher's: of these two the Duke of Wellington was
Commander-in-chief.

[Illustration]

Next, note the numbers of each and their disposition. The mixed force
under the Duke of Wellington was somewhat over 100,000 men, with just over
200 guns.[2] They consisted in two corps and a reserve. The first corps
was under the Prince of Orange, and was mainly composed of men from the
Netherlands. Its headquarters were at Braine le Comte. The second corps
was under Lord Hill, and contained the mass of the British troops present.
Its headquarters were at Ath. These two between them amounted to about
half of Wellington's command, and we find them scattered in cantonments at
Oudenarde, at Ath, at Enghien, at Soignies, at Nivelles, at Roeulx, at
Braine le Comte, at Hal. A reserve corps under the Duke's own command was
stationed at Brussels, and amounted to more than one-fifth, but less than
one-quarter, of the whole force. The remaining quarter and a little more
is accounted for by scattered cavalry (mainly in posts upon the river
Dender), by the learned arms, gunners and sappers, distributed throughout
the army, and by troops which were occupying garrisons--in numbers
amounting to rather more than ten per cent. of the force.

The eastern Prussian or left half of the line was, as is apparent in the
preceding map, somewhat larger. It had a quarter more men and half as many
guns again as that under the Duke of Wellington, and it was organised into
four army corps, whose headquarters were respectively Charleroi, Namur,
Ciney, and Liege.

The whole line, therefore, which was waiting the advance of Napoleon, was
not quite two and a third hundred thousand men, with rather more than 500
guns. Of this grand total of the two halves, Wellington's and Blucher's
combined, about eighteen per cent. came from the British Islands, and of
that eighteen per cent., again, a very large proportion--exactly how large
it is impossibl