Last week we left Waterloo just as the battle was starting with a French attack on the chateau at Hougoumont.
My post on the battle for Hougoumont has been updated and can now be seen here: http://tomwilliamsauthor.co.uk/hougoumont-revisited/
While Napoleon was chasing off the Prussians (see last week’s blog post) he had left the bulk of his force heading directly for Brussels under the command of Marshal Ney. Ney was ordered to head for a hamlet called Quatre Bras. He should sweep up any Prussian rearguard on his route and prepare to be joined by Napoleon for a triumphant entry into Brussels.
Ney was a courageous general, fiercely loyal to Napoleon, but he was no great military strategist. He moved northward in “a leisurely fashion” (Marshall-Cornwall). On 16 June, as Napoleon engaged the Prussians at Ligny, Ney ordered his leading commander to dislodge the enemy holding the crossroads at Quatre Bras.
In England, a tiny hamlet like Quatre Bras would probably be called Four Ways. It was a few houses and some farms clustered around a crossroad on the main route north from Charleroi to Brussels.
Wellington had not expected Napoleon to move into Belgium through Charleroi and only a small force was positioned on that road. Unfortunately for Ney, Wellington had reacted quickly to news of the attack on Charleroi and the leisurely advance of the French meant that by the time they arrived at Quatre Bras some reinforcements were already in place there.
Quatre Bras was held by about 7,000 men and eight guns. They were Dutch-Belgian troops under the command of William, Prince of Orange. William was far too young and inexperienced to be in command of anything important, but Wellington had not realised until too late where Napoleon’s main thrust would be made. British troops were on the way from Brussels, but until they arrived William was to face the French – 20,000 men and 60 guns – on his own. More than 20,000 Frenchmen were marching north to join them. There was, it seemed, no realistic prospect of Prince William’s troops holding the position. Indeed, by 2:30 the French were close to taking the crossroads. Prince William’s forces had increased to sixteen guns and 8,000 men, but this was all that stood between Marshall Ney and Brussels.
Nobody knows why Ney hesitated. It seems likely that Napoleon’s orders had been unclear and that Ney was reluctant to commit himself without definite instructions. His reserve had already been ordered away from Quatre Bras to support Napoleon at Ligny (nobody thought to tell Ney) and he was finding the Dutch-Belgian resistance greater than he had expected. Napoleon’s orders weren’t helping – in the midst of the battle Ney received an order from Marshal Soult at Ligny:
“His Majesty intends that you should attack whatever is in front of you and, after driving it back vigorously, that you should move to our support and help to envelop the enemy.”
It was the first of a series of command blunders that suggest that Napoleon was no longer the brilliant general in complete command of his forces, as he had been before Elba. Some of his most solid and dependable marshals were no longer available to him and Ney was simply not a good enough general to cope on his own in the absence of clear instructions. He hesitated, and Wellington took advantage of Ney’s uncertainty, taking personal command of the Allied troops and moving more and more forces from Brussels to reinforce his position at Quatre Bras.
Brunswickers at Quatre Bras by Richard Knotel
Throughout the afternoon both sides moved more troops into the fight. On several occasions, it seemed that the Allied positions must be overrun, but, every time, reinforcements arrived at the critical moment. The fighting was intense. Much of it was in fields of rye which grew up to eight feet high. The infantry could not see each other. (It’s quite possible that if Prince William had been able to see how many French he faced at the beginning of the fight, he would have withdrawn.) There was extensive use of skirmishers and the cavalry often advanced in very loose order, unable to group for a classical charge because of the amount of woodland at key points around the battlefield. The result was a very fluid fight, much of it very close quarters. At one point, the Duke of Wellington himself was almost captured, riding a little too far ahead of his line. He famously escaped by fleeing at a gallop toward his own troops and ordering them to lie flat as his horse jumped across the British soldiers who then rose to their feet and drove off the French cavalry that had been pursuing their general.
Black Watch at Quatre Bras by William Barnes Wollen
At the end of the day, both armies were in a similar position to where they had been when the engagement had started. To the east, though, Napoleon’s troops had been successfully driving back the Prussians at Ligny. Wellington feared that, as the Prussians withdrew, Napoleon would be able to do exactly what he had planned: defeat the British the next day at Quatre Bras and then turn his army against the isolated Prussians. Wellington therefore took the decision to withdraw back toward Brussels, in the hope that he would be able to form a common front with the Prussian army further north. We now know that that was exactly what happened. The Prussians were able to join up with Wellington’s forces at Waterloo, and it was their arrival which finally produced an Allied victory. At the time, though, Wellington was taking an enormous gamble. With no proper communications with the Prussian army, he could not be sure that they would not just retreat for home.
For the French, Quatre Bras was a victory. The day after the battle, the British were withdrawing northward, and the French were in pursuit. The British, though, have always considered Quatre Bras as an Allied victory. An overwhelming French force was held at bay for a full day, with the British making an orderly withdrawal to a previously planned position in order to meet up with the Prussians at a strategically optimal point.
In fairness, Quatre Bras is best regarded as a score draw. The French were not defeated, but they were delayed. The British were able to withdraw in good order and prepare themselves at Waterloo for the battle that would take place there two days later. What is clear is that if Ney had smashed through Prince William’s lines at the point when he had overwhelming superiority, the French troops would have been on Brussels before the British could position themselves to mount an effective defence. It is quite probable that Napoleon would have ended by defeating the British. The Prussians, already beaten at Ligny would have withdrawn to Prussia, leaving Napoleon in control of Belgium. Many of the Belgian army would have rejoined the Eagles.
Could victory at Quatre Bras have saved Napoleon? In the long-term, probably not, but he would have seen off the British and Prussian Armies and been in a much stronger position to negotiate some sort of settlement with the great powers. It is possible that the young Prince William, inexperienced and totally out of his depth – and maybe only trying to hold the position because he lacked the strategic understanding that it should have been impossible to do so – changed the course of European history. It is also clearly true that the British victory at Waterloo was made possible because of the outstanding courage of the Dutch and Belgian troops who were later to be dismissed as “Waterloo cowards”.
General Sir James Marshall-Cornwall (1967) Napoleon as Military Commander
Picture at head of page is ‘The 28th Regiment at Quatre Bras’ by Elizabeth Thompson
The battle of Quatre Bras features in Burke at Waterloo. (“A good general account of the battles described.” – Amazon review.) Burke at Waterloo has just been republished and is available on Kindle at a ludicrously cheap £3.99.
Today is the anniversary of the Battle of Ligny, one of the often forgotten battles that made up the Waterloo campaign. 27,000 people died in that battle, so here is an extra blog post to remember just why they were fighting.
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Back in 1815 there was no such country as Germany. Instead, there were a number of German states, some quite large and others just tiny principalities. Amongst all these states, the dominant one was Prussia. Prussia had been around since 1525 and it was not only large but, because of its militaristic approach to international relations, it was powerful too.
During the Napoleonic Wars the conflict between Prussia and France had been particularly vicious. When Napoleon escaped from Elba, some Prussians saw this as providing an opportunity to take the revenge that they felt they had been robbed of when the French surrendered in 1814 before Prussian troops could sack Paris.
The Prussian army was to work with Wellington’s troops to protect Belgium from attack. Naturally enough, the British line was toward the west of the country, because they had arrived by sea in Ostend, while the Prussian line was more to the East with their supply train heading back towards Prussia. This is shown very crudely in the picture below.
This doesn’t show the substantial reserves that the British held around Brussels, but it does show how Napoleon’s strike at Charleroi achieved his first goal of splitting the Prussian and British forces. As they withdrew, the Prussians pulled back on their supply lines, moving north eastward, leaving the road north unguarded.
The Prussian troops were commanded by Field Marshal Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher. Blücher was 72 years old but in robust health and a general who (as was common in those days) believed in leading from the front. Blücher was a professional soldier, who would probably have been happy to fight anybody, but he was particularly enthusiastic about fighting the French, his hatred of that nation being almost pathological.
As Blücher pulled back, Napoleon divided his forces. He personally led 38,000 men in pursuit of the Prussians while sending his Marshal Ney to take what he believed to be the undefended (or virtually undefended) road north to Brussels with 45 to 50,000 men.
Napoleon had, however, seriously underestimated the strength of the Prussian army. Blücher commanded his forces personally and concentrated 70,000 men on the battlefield, substantially outnumbering Napoleon.
The Prussians made their stand near the village of Ligny. Although Napoleon was outnumbered, neither side was able to gain a decisive advantage. Casualties on both sides were enormous, with neither the French nor the Prussians inclined to take prisoners. 16,000 Prussians and 11,000 French died on the field.
After they had been fighting all day, Napoleon sent a column of his elite Young Guard to smash into the Prussian centre. Faced by these fresh troops after a day taking horrendous punishment, the Prussians broke and fled northward.
During the fighting Blücher’s horse had been killed and had fallen on the Field Marshal. Blücher was trapped for some time while the battle ebbed and flowed across him. His aide-de-camp, Count Nostitz, threw a greatcoat over his commander, to hide his rank and the French never knew that they had the opportunity to take or kill him.
Blücher’s injuries were quite severe and he was not really in any condition to ride, but he insisted on resuming command. Bandaging his damaged ribs and self-medicating liberally with schnapps he was soon back in the saddle.
What happened next was to prove decisive. Blücher had agreed with Wellington that they would join forces and make a stand together. Many of Blücher’s senior officers considered that the idea of trying to swing the army round toward the West to rendezvous with the British was madness. Surely, faced with the whole of Napoleon’s army heading toward Brussels, the British would withdraw. If they did, then if the Prussians headed west they could find themselves exposed to Napoleon’s forces who had just defeated them once and would surely defeat them again. And even if Wellington did make a stand, what was to say that he would fare any better than they had at Ligny? Far more sensible, surely, to take the wise course of withdrawing along their lines of communication, heading east back towards Prussia.
Blücher would have none of it. He had given his word to Wellington and it is reasonable to think that he was also determined to have another crack at Napoleon’s army. The army was to swing westward towards Waterloo.
Some authors have suggested that the orders for the line of march were deliberately confused by senior officers who hoped that the delays caused would mean that the Prussians would arrive on the field after Napoleon had won and they could then withdraw without a fight. If this was the plan, it didn’t work. The Prussian army made good time towards Waterloo. What happened when they got there is a story for later.
Why am I writing about the Waterloo campaign (besides the fact that it’s quite interesting)? Well, this is the background to Burke at Waterloo, which, besides being a great spy story with beautiful women and assassination plots and desperate pursuits on horseback, does include quite a lot about the battle. It’s a jolly good read and you’ll know more about an important part of European history after you read it. And it’s available as an e-book at the usual ridiculously low price these things are sold at. So why not treat yourself to a copy and pretend it’s because you want to study the period?
If you live in the USA, it’s available through Simon & Schuster (with a different cover).
There is a paperback edition, also available through Amazon at https://www.amazon.co.uk/Burke-Waterloo-Assassination-Majestys-Confidential/dp/1983268313.
The image shows the Battle of Ligny by Theodore Jung.