Battle of Quatre Bras

• 1. Introduction

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  The Battle of Quatre Bras was fought on the 16th of June 1815, two days before the decisive Battle of Waterloo. Wellington captured how badly Napoleon had wrong-footed him at the outset: "Napoleon has humbugged me, by God; he has gained twenty-four hours' march on me." A crossroads village in what is now Belgium became the stage for a struggle between the Duke's Anglo-allied army and Napoleon's left wing. That left wing was commanded by Marshal Michel Ney. Wellington possessed the field when the fighting ceased at dusk. Yet by occupying his forces all afternoon, Ney had kept him from marching to the Prussians, who were fighting alone at Ligny that same day. Before Ney could advance toward Brussels, a staff officer at the coalition headquarters in Genappe would have to make a decision nobody had sanctioned.

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• 2. Napoleon's Wedge

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  Napoleon's plan when he crossed into what is now Belgium in June 1815 depended on speed and separation. He faced two armies approaching from opposite directions. Wellington's Anglo-allied force was arriving from the west; the Prussians under Field Marshal von Blücher were coming from the east. Knowing that their combined strength would surpass his own, Napoleon needed to defeat each in isolation before they could join. He planned to push a wedge between them, destroy the Prussians first, force them eastward, and then wheel to drive Wellington back toward the coast.

  The crossroads at Quatre Bras sat on the Nivelles-Namur road, the direct route linking Wellington's army to Blücher's Prussians. If the French held it, Wellington could not move south-eastward to reinforce Blücher. Marshal Ney, commanding the left wing, was tasked with securing Quatre Bras. Once that was done, he was to link with Napoleon's main force for a night march on Brussels.

  Wellington received his first reports of French hostilities at around 15:00 on the 15th of June from the Prince of Orange. He also received false intelligence of a French flanking move through Mons to the southwest, which left him uncertain where to concentrate. At 18:00 he drafted initial orders, but hesitation kept him from committing to a direction. Not until almost midnight, when word arrived that the Mons front was clear, did he order his forces toward the Prussians. That nine-hour gap made it impossible to support Blücher at Ligny the following afternoon.

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• 3. Rebecque's Gamble

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  Major-General Jean Victor de Constant Rebecque, chief of staff to the Prince of Orange, recognized the danger before Wellington had resolved his uncertainty. Rebecque was at the I Corps headquarters in Genappe, about five kilometres from Quatre Bras. He ordered Lieutenant-General Hendrik George de Perponcher Sedlnitsky, the commander of the 2nd Dutch Division, to dispatch a brigade to the crossroads at once. That brigade was led by Prince Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach and consisted of two Nassau regiments. They arrived at approximately 14:00 on the 15th of June, deploying before the first French scouts appeared.

  Those scouts were lancers of the Guard Light Cavalry Division under General Lefebvre-Desnouettes. They clashed with the Nassau troops at Frasnes and pushed them back into the Bois de Bossu, a thick stretch of forest near the crossroads. Lefebvre-Desnouettes requested infantry from Ney to press the advance, but Ney declined. With night approaching and his infantry strung out along the Brussels-Charleroi road, Ney chose to camp and resume in force the following morning. Rebecque then extended his defiance of Wellington's orders. He directed the 1st Brigade to reinforce Prince Bernhard's position rather than concentrating the I Corps at Nivelles, as Wellington had instructed. That unauthorized decision, taken on the evening of the 15th of June, ensured a battle would be fought at the crossroads the next day.

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• 4. At the Windmill of Bussy

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  Shortly after 11:00 on the morning of the battle, Wellington rode out with his staff and a small cavalry escort to meet von Blücher. They met at the Windmill of Bussy, also known as the Windmill of Brye, which stood at the highest point of the Prussian line. From that elevation, both commanders could observe the French deploying for their assault on von Blücher's position. Wellington concluded that Napoleon was concentrating his main strength against the Prussians. He proposed to assist by advancing on Frasnes and Gosselies once he had massed sufficient troops, striking the French from their left and rear.

  The primary sources do not agree on what was precisely promised at the windmill. All accounts confirm that Wellington pledged some form of aid to Blücher; they divide on whether that pledge was unconditional. Siborne, drawing on eyewitness accounts, recorded that Wellington expressed his "confident expectation of being enabled to afford the desired support." He also noted that any direct assistance was "necessarily contingent on circumstances, and subject to the Duke's discretion." When Ney launched his full assault that afternoon, those circumstances dissolved the commitment before Wellington could act on it.

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• 5. The Battle for the Crossroads

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  At 14:00, Ney massed a battery of 22 guns and opened his bombardment on the coalition positions. He commanded 18,000 men, including 2,000 cavalry and 32 guns. Facing him at the start were 8,000 allied infantry and 16 guns, under William, Prince of Orange. Dutch pickets east of the Brussels highway gave ground at once under the weight of the French columns. The Nassauers of the 2nd Brigade fell back toward Grand-Pierrepont farm, while the allied forces clung to the Bois de Bossu.

  The 5th National Militia, defending Gemioncourt Farm, lost 62 percent of its original strength that day. Driven out by the 4th light and 100th Line regiments, the militia regrouped. They charged the farmhouse again without support and cleared the French from the surrounding area, though not from the building itself. Picton's 5th British Infantry Division reached the field at around 15:00. He deployed his men on the allied left to halt the French advance east of the road. The Brunswick Corps arrived around the same time. The Duke of Brunswick received a mortal wound while leading a charge, and the attack failed.

  At 15:30, the Dutch 2nd Light Cavalry Brigade, led by the Prince of Orange, charged the French line. French cavalry repulsed the charge, but the action gave the battered Dutch infantry time to regroup. When the Dutch cavalry disengaged and fell back, Scottish infantry briefly fired on them, mistaking their uniforms for those of French chasseurs. At 17:00, the British 3rd Division under Alten arrived from Nivelles and shifted the numerical balance. At quarter past the hour, Ney learned that the French I Corps under d'Erlon had moved east without his orders. At 17:30 he received an unclear order from Napoleon to seize Quatre Bras and then turn to crush Blücher. Unable to accomplish either objective without d'Erlon, Ney recalled him urgently. He ordered General Kellermann to charge through the allied line with his one available brigade of cuirassiers.

  Kellermann's horsemen caught the British 5th Brigade under Halkett in line: the 33rd (West Riding), the 69th (South Lincolnshire), and the 73rd. The 69th were badly mauled and lost their King's colour, the only battalion under Wellington's direct command to suffer that distinction at the battle. The 33rd and 73rd ran for the safety of Bossu Wood. The cuirassiers reached the crossroads itself, but close-range artillery and musket fire drove them back. The arrival of the British 1st Infantry Division, the Guards Division under Cooke, gave Wellington sufficient strength to counter-attack. Prince Jérôme was forced to retreat and surrender the Bossu Wood to the Guards. When the Guards emerged from the wood, the 6th Lancer Regiment of Piré's 2nd Cavalry Division attacked. They drove the Guards back into the forest, inflicting heavy casualties. D'Erlon's corps, having marched toward Ligny and then been recalled, had contributed to neither battle.

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• 6. After the Guns

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  The battle cost Ney 4,000 men and Wellington 4,800. The allied hold on the crossroads denied Ney a clear road northward toward Brussels. The Prussian defeat at Ligny that same afternoon forced Wellington to withdraw along the Brussels road. Blücher's army retreated northeast toward Wavre, pulling the two allied forces further apart.

  Dutch King William I awarded Wellington the title Prince of Waterloo after the campaign. Along with the title came lands encompassing a large section of the Quatre Bras battlefield. Wellington and his successors treated the land as private property and had a large part of the Bois de Bossu felled for timber. The debate over what d'Erlon's I Corps might have achieved, had it fought at either Ligny or Quatre Bras, was never fully settled.

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