Hendrik de Perponcher-Sedlnitsky

Hendrik George de Perponcher-Sedlnitsky commanded the division that ignored Wellington's orders at Quatre Bras and was never reprimanded for it. He was a Dutch nobleman of Huguenot descent whose family had gone into exile when the French took the Netherlands, served in the Prussian and then the Russian army against Napoleon, and returned in 1813 to help raise the army of the restored kingdom. In June 1815 he had the 2nd Netherlands Division, part of the Prince of Orange's corps, posted around Nivelles and Quatre Bras. Wellington's concentration order on the night of the 15th would have pulled it away from the crossroads. Perponcher, on the report of his brigade commander Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar that French troops were advancing up the Charleroi road, disregarded the order and reinforced the position instead - the decision, taken on the initiative of two subordinate officers acting on what they could see, that kept the road between Wellington and Blucher open. His division held through the 16th at heavy cost and fought again at Waterloo on the 17th and 18th, where his Dutch-Belgian troops were later disparaged in British accounts in ways the Dutch records do not support. He was made a count, served as ambassador to Portugal and to Prussia, and died in 1856. His son was killed at Waterloo. The Netherlands army of 1815 had been raised in barely two years and included many men who had served under Napoleon, which is part of why its steadiness at Quatre Bras surprised everyone. He signed the report that recorded the disobedience as a decision of his own, protecting the brigade commander who made it. He was seventy-two when he retired from diplomacy and eighty-five when he died.

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