Napoleon’s tragic miscalculation is known to everyone: he looked for Grouchy but it was Blücher who came - death instead of life.
Here in this chapter Hugo presents a list of little details that would have changed the outcome of this battle - and by extension the war and the fate of the 19th century - had they gone differently.
Whenever we talk about things like this, situations where possibilities and potentials all come to a head to decide some critical outcome in one direction or another, words like “fate” and “destiny” are thrown around and the results are often projected back onto a God who is either praised or cursed for their outcome. What if we took a different perspective? What if instead of talking about what was “fated” or destined” or what “God’s will” was or was not in the situation, we took a step back and talked about all of the variables, all of the different things at play, and the little decisions along the way that brought us to this point?
It seems short-sighted to take a thing like “The Battle of Waterloo” and then project the responsibility for the outcome (for good or bad) onto some external deity. It’s almost as if we look to the heavens and say “Now that we’ve started this fight, you have to decide who wins and live with that choice.” What about all of the choices that led to this point? What about all of the different avenues that could have led to something other than war in the first place? Was God forcing the hand in those as well?
In a world that can often feel chaotic and out of control, it can be comforting to assume that there is someone controlling everything. The underside of that perspective is that we have to accept that this external force is one that is responsible for a tremendous amount of seemingly unnecessary loss of life and in the extremes profoundly meaningless suffering. I take no comfort in that. Instead, for better or worse, I think the responsibility for the decisions we make is on us. It isn’t just the intent but the impact we are accountable for. We can’t directly control the outcome, but we can try and make the most of each choice presented to us, and orient ourselves toward the things that make for flourishing for all of humanity, and all of the living world. Projecting “fate” onto some external deity is a cop out. Instead I believe that God, the universe, the spark of creativity that moves through everything - whatever you want to call it - I believe that is not coercive in any way, but is instead calling us into something better, offering a chance for something new. It’s up to humanity to choose.
When looking back on something like the battle of Waterloo, it sure seems to me like it’s a story of power enacted through violence; a story of a series of selfish and inwardly focused choices that led to two opposing wills attempting to assert their dominance at the cost of thousands of lives. I don’t know if it was avoidable. I only know that today, as we move forward, we will be presented over and over again with opportunities to continue walking a road where society and humanity turn on an axis of power enacted through violence, or to turn and walk the narrower path where we choose love enacted through forgiveness.
We stand on the stories of our past, and we look toward a vision of the future that will shape our decision making. As I stand today and make decisions small and large, I am choosing a commitment to love and forgiveness that seeks the restoration of all things. I don’t look for Grouchy or Blücher. I look for swords that are beaten into plowshares and hands that forget the making of war.