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Notable Events of the Nineteenth Century - Great Deeds of Men and Nations and the Progress of the World by Various
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first, and this had now been rolled back by the tide of France. A
German wave was coming, however, and another French billow, either or
both of which might break at any moment.

On the morning of June 18, at the little town of Wavre, fifteen miles
southeast of Brussels and about eight or ten miles from Waterloo, a
battle had been fought between the French contingent under Marshal
Grouchy and the Prussian division under Thielmann, who commanded the
left wing of Marshal Blücher's army. That commander had a force of
fully forty thousand men under him, and was on his way to join his
forces with those of Wellington on the plateau of Mont St. Jean.
Grouchy had at this time between thirty and forty thousand men, and
was under orders from Napoleon to keep in touch with his right wing,
watching the Prussians and joining himself to the main army according
to the emergency.

These two divisions--Blücher's and Grouchy's--were _sliding along_
toward Waterloo, and on the afternoon of the eighteenth it became one
of the great questions in the history of this century which would
first arrive on the field. Napoleon believed that Grouchy was at hand.
Wellington in his desperation breathed out the wish that either night
or Blücher would come. The ambiguous result of the principal conflict
made it more than ever desirable to both of the commanders to gain
their reinforcements, each before the other. The event showed that the
arrival of Bülow's contingent was really the signal for the oncoming
of the whole Prussian army. The French Emperor, however, remained
confident, and at half-after four he felt warranted in sending a
preliminary despatch of victory to Paris.

Just at this juncture, however, an uproar was witnessed far to the
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