Battle of Quatre Bras
Fought on 16 June 1815, the same day as Ligny a few miles away, Quatre Bras was a meeting engagement at a strategic crossroads Wellington needed to hold to keep his line of communication with Blucher's Prussians open. Marshal Ney, commanding the French left wing, attacked piecemeal as his corps arrived through the day rather than waiting to concentrate his full force -- a decision historians have long debated, since a fully concentrated French attack early in the day might have overwhelmed Wellington's thin initial deployment before Allied reinforcements arrived. Wellington's forces, arriving piecemeal in turn through the afternoon, held the crossroads by day's end. Neither side achieved a decisive result, but the delay proved strategically important: it kept Wellington's escape route to the Waterloo position open, and the roughly 20,000 French troops engaged at Quatre Bras were unavailable to reinforce Napoleon at Ligny.
- Year: 1815 CE
- Category: Military
