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in battle after battle the length and breadth of Europe. Yet Napoleon left him kicking his heels while less talented men commanded corps and armies.
    Also missing was Marshal Ney. Like Murat, Ney was a talented commander who was enormously popular with the rank and file of the French army. Ney was skilled at co-ordinating cavalry, infantry and artillery and was a dogged and tenacious commander who had kept Napoleon’s rearguard together during the horrific retreat from Moscow in 1812. In 1814 it had been Ney who had been instrumental in persuading Napoleon to abdicate as emperor and, although Ney had been among the first to join Napoleon in 1815, he had not been properly forgiven. Like Murat he was treated well, but given no work to do.
    The third missing figure was, arguably, the most important: Marshal Louis-Alexandre Berthier. From 1795 to 1814 Berthier had been continuously at Napoleon’s side. He was the imperial chief of staff, the man responsible for the crucial staff work that converted Napoleon’s intentions into battlefield reality. Berthier’s tasks involved keeping maps showing which bridges could support artillery and supply wagons, and which could cope with only infantry. He knew how many wagons were needed to keep an infantry division supplied, and how many were needed for a cavalry corps. Most important, he knew how to convert Napoleon’s often brusque and generalized verbal orders into polite and precise written orders for the generals to follow.
    Unlike Murat and Ney, Berthier was sent for by Napoleon. Unfortunately the Emperor’s return to France caught Berthier on a visit to Bamberg in Bavaria. The Bavarians put him under house arrest. A few weeks later a column of Prussian troops marched through Bamberg and that very same day Berthier died when he fell out of the attic window of the house where he was staying. The Prussian general announced that Berthier had been so upset by the sight of Prussians marching to invade France that he committed suicide. Very few people believed the story and it is widely believed that the Prussians murdered him.
     
    Movements before battle
     
    That night the French army camped close to the Netherlands border, all units carefully positioned to the south of woods or hills so that their campfires would not be seen by the Allied cavalry scouts to the north. The ruse worked in part, but Prussian piquets saw the glow of the fires near Beaumont. Prussian scouts on their left flank noticed that the French outposts that had been visible for the past two weeks were gone. Pushing cautiously forward for more than 3 km they found only abandoned French camps. The French troops had moved somewhere else.
    Another item of news that reached the Prussian outposts that night came from a Dutch farmer who was hurrying home to get away from the large French army. He could not give a reliable estimate of numbers, but he did pass on the news that Napoleon was there in person.
    The Army of the North was divided into three for the march north to ease congestion on the roads – particularly for the artillery. On the left flank, marching by way of Solre-sur-Sambre, were I and II Corps – about 44,000 men. In the centre, going through Beaumont, were the 60,000 men of III and VI Corps, the Imperial Guard and the Cavalry Reserve. On the right was IV Corps – 16,000 men.
    Dawn the next day came clear and bright, promising good campaigning weather. The officers of every unit had been issued overnight with a proclamation from Napoleon that they were to read out to their troops as the units paraded before marching off. It read as follows:
    ‘Soldiers: This day is the anniversary of Marengo and Friedland, which twice decided the destiny of Europe. Then, as after the battles of Austerlitz and Wagram, we were too generous. We believed in the protestations and oaths of princes to whom we left their thrones. Now, however, leagued together, they strike at the independence and sacred rights of France. They