Napoleon and the "saddle sore" that afoot in Waterloo. The pain prevented him from riding and the Emperor did not see the battle (which, as is known, ended in defeat).
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An attack of hemorrhoids and the lack of a few pounds of nails. You can lose a battle (also) for two little trouble like that. It happened to Napoleon at Waterloo in 1815. To avoid being shot by fans of the Little Corporal and the professional historians, it should say at once that the defeat that ended once and for all the First Empire was not caused only by such trivialities. But it had some influence, by going to add weight to elements of higher education as well, for example, the superb leadership of the Duke of Wellington, the tenacity of the British soldiers and the poor training of the French troops. To understand how and why, you should get on a hypothetical time machine and go back to June 18 of 195 years ago to look down on the battlefield. The dawn has risen recently. It rained all night, the ground is soft and muddy, so that the artillery, the formidable French artillery, will be less dangerous than usual because the ball sink instead of bouncing and stop, killing far fewer soldiers than normal. As the sun heats the air, however, the land dries out and begins to smoke. The wheat covers the fields that separate the French lines from those of the English opponents, which moreover are deployed largely behind the crest of the hills that stand in the way to Brussels and are therefore not very visible by their opponents. We in June, the wheat harvest is ripe but not yet there: the farmers, with all those soldiers who will face in the area for days, have fled or hid, waiting to emerge out of a battle to go over at night to rob the dead and wounded. The rows of soldiers who come to the British, while the sound of drums and thundering guns already, they disappeared between the ears. Then, when the opposing infantry begin to fire, the smoke of gunpowder covers everything in every report of Napoleonic battles, it emphasizes the darkness that invades a few minutes later the battlefield (and the thirst that invariably haunts fighters with sore throats). In short, in Waterloo, including wheat, steam and smoke, soon is not seen nothing. Moreover almost always happened. And the generals of the time, in order to have a minimum visibility and control, you simply place a horse on a hill behind the grid and from there, as on a chessboard, moving their training, the reserves were to intervene, trying to find and exploit what the Germans call the Schwerpunkt, the focal point of the battle, where you decide the day. But Napoleon's hemorrhoids, is hardly in the saddle (on the other side Wellington tireless rides from one side of the grid), moves into the carriage and takes much of the battle from behind, seated on a chair in one point, the pains are so strong that the Emperor is forced to resort to the care of doctors, who apply compresses of lead acetate on the inflamed and filled with laudanum (tincture of opium).
The Napoleon of Austerlitz, that horse looked from the Pratzen the attack of the Austro-Russian and plans to defeat, is a distant memory. Waterloo to not "see" the battle, either physically or through the eyes of the mind throughout the day, his tactic seems to run slow and not always at the height of his fame, his grip on the situation seems far from firm. The strategic genius is always a time and shows the plane that brought him to Waterloo: the first to hold off the British and the Prussians beat (and we almost succeeded in Ligny, two days before), then put all the weight Army against Wellington and beating. But the field is losing shots. It would be a tragedy if his officers were those triumphs. But the chief of staff is no longer Berthier, the man who had the task of transforming the words of genius in the operational plans: died June 1 fell from her window, perhaps an accident, possibly suicide, possibly killed by the faithful Bourbon to stop to meet the emperor. Now in its place is the Marshal Soult, which its predecessor has neither the competence nor charisma. And to command the soldiers were on the field Marshal Ney, the "bravest of the brave" but not an eagle, and Grouchy, who is in pursuit of the Prussians. Or rather, he believes to chase them when in fact the bulk of their forces have done a tour and is returning to Waterloo to the French right wing.
So when, at about 15.30, Ney decided to use against the British, who have rejected all the attacks of the French infantry, five thousand cuirassiers of his heavy cavalry, the emperor is far away from piles bent in the rear, not knows, perhaps not aware of it and does not stop him. Why the move to Ney is idiotic: the infantry attacked by cavalry closed in square formation that bristled with bayonets, was virtually impenetrable. The squares were however very vulnerable to artillery. To be able to break through, then had to threaten them with artillery inmodo that the infantry was forced to open up and redeployed in line at which point it could attack with the cavalry. Ney's move had only one justification: to force the British to abandon their artillery pieces and take refuge in the squares, in order to win the guns, to deprive the British soldiers for their support of fire and carry out their artillery. And Ney, albeit at the cost of heavy losses, he can not.
But at this point in the dance nails, or rather the lack thereof. The Napoleonic guns were heavy and sturdy contraptions with primitive pointing devices, hard to damage. But a system to knock out there: they planted a nail hammered in Focone without heads, the hole that allowed to set fire to the office of launch. But Ney did not cuirassiers nails: maybe no one has thought to bring, perhaps the sacks containing them are hung on the saddle of the dead horses lying everywhere. So as soon as the horse moves away, the British gunners come out of square and resume shooting. The cuirassiers dismounting and mounting, but without concluding anything, if not bleed to death and deprive the emperor of all stocks of heavy cavalry. Meanwhile, the Prussians are coming. The British counter-attack. It's over. ( www.corriere.it )
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