little more rain, and a cloud traversing the sky out of season sufficed to make a world crumble.
The battle of Waterloo could not be begun until half-past eleven o''clock, and that gave Blucher time to come up.
Why?
Because the ground was wet.
The artillery had to wait until it became a little firmer before they could manoeuvre.
Napoleon was an artillery officer, and felt the effects of this. The foundation of this wonderful captain was the man who, in the report to the Directory on Aboukir, said:
Such a one of our balls killed six men.
All his plans of battle were arranged for projectiles. The key to his victory was to make the artillery converge on one point. He treated the strategy of the hostile general like a citadel, and made a breach in it.
He overwhelmed the weak point with grape-shot; he joined and dissolved battles with cannon.
There was something of the sharpshooter in his genius.
To beat in squares, to pulverize regiments, to break lines, to crush and disperse masses,--for him everything lay in this, to strike, strike, strike incessantly,-- and he intrusted this task to the cannon-ball. A redoubtable method, and one which, united with genius, rendered this gloomy athlete of the pugilism of war invincible for the space of fifteen years.
On the 18th of June, 1815, he relied all the more on his artillery, because he had numbers on his side.