Battle of Quatre Bras
Ney fought Wellington at Quatre Bras on 16 June 1815 while Napoleon fought Blücher at Ligny a few miles east, and neither French attack was pressed home. Napoleon had crossed into Belgium on 15 June, placing his army between two allied armies that together outnumbered him. The plan depended on beating each separately, and the crossroads at Quatre Bras was the point where the Prussians and the Anglo-Dutch could reach each other. Ney was ordered to take it. He arrived to find it held by a Dutch-Belgian brigade under Prince Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar and Perponcher, who had disobeyed instructions to concentrate elsewhere and stayed put — a piece of insubordination that probably saved the campaign. Ney delayed through the morning, and allied units arrived piecemeal all afternoon: Picton's division, the Brunswickers whose duke was killed, and finally the Guards. Kellermann's cuirassiers charged and broke a British battalion, the 42nd and 44th were caught in line, and the position held. The decisive failure was d'Erlon's corps of some 20,000 men, which spent the day marching between the two battles under contradictory orders from Napoleon and Ney and fought in neither. Ligny was a French victory but not a destroying one, and Blücher's army retreated north rather than east, keeping contact with Wellington. They arrived at Waterloo two days later. That is the whole campaign in one sentence. Napoleon's plan required the two allied armies to be driven apart, and because Quatre Bras held and d'Erlon marched all day without fighting, they were not — and Blücher's corps came onto the French right flank on 18 June.
- Year: 1815 CE
- Category: Military
