THE BATTLE OF WATERLOO – PART THREE
The rest of the Allied infantry brigade now moving up to Quatre Bras was commanded by the twenty-three-year-old Colonel Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar, heir to the grand duchy of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, temporarily commanding the brigade because his superior, Colonel Frederick van Gödecke, had been kicked by a horse that morning. These men were hardly comparable with the British and Portuguese infantry that Ney had faced on the ridge at Bussaco. One of his line battalions was armed with British muskets, most of which were old and had been hurriedly refurbished, another with the smaller calibre French musket, while the skirmishers, a jäger (light infantry) battalion, were equipped with four different calibres of rifles – Saxe-Weimar would have to ensure that his quartermaster was able to procure six different types of ammunition.
Wellington had insisted on attending the ball in Brussels, as his non-appearance could have been perceived as panicking. As it was, it was not until his Prussian liaison officer brought him reports of fighting to the south and that Napoleon himself and elements of the Imperial Guard had been positively identified, and these reports were backed up further supported by the arrival of a staff officer from Lieutenant General Sir Wilhelm Kasper Ferdinand von Dörnberg, commander of the 3rd Cavalry Brigade at Mons, that Wellington could be sure that the main French thrust was indeed coming north for Brussels and not round the British right flank at Mons. Dörnberg’s despatch reported that there were no camp fires to his front, such French troops that there were on the French side of the border were all National Guardsmen and all the French cavalry had moved east. Wellington now sent ADCs and orderly dragoons to order units to stand to while the chief of staff, Delancey, prepared operational orders telling each formation where to go, concentrating the army at Quatre Bras and reversing the previous instructions to go to Nivelles.
Earlier, Saxe-Weimar’s brigade had been ordered to Nivelles, but he and his divisional commander, Lieutenant General Henri-Georges Perponcher-Sedlnitzky of the 2nd Netherlands Division, decided to ignore that order and concentrate at Quatre Bras. No doubt any concern they might have had at disobeying an order was mitigated by their recall of an instruction issued by Colonel Wellesley in 1803, one in which he reminded his officers that an order may be given which, ‘from circumstances not known to the person who gave it at the time he issued it, would be impossible to execute . . .’. Perponcher also ordered up the other brigade in his division, that of Major General Willem Frederick van Bijlandt, whose command consisted of a (French-speaking) Belgian line battalion, three Dutch militia battalions, a Dutch jäger battalion and a battery of guns. This action by Perponcher and Rebeque was critical to the forthcoming battle.
As Napoleon rode back to Charleroi to spend the night, and despite the failure of Ney to crack on up the Brussels road – something he may not even have known about – he would have been reasonably pleased with the day’s progress. His army had covered thirty miles against opposition stiffer than had been expected, and his enemies’ armies were not yet concentrated and a very long way from joining. He must have thought that his plan was still capable of achievement and that on the morrow he could defeat one of his opponents and then turn on the other. Orders to Ney that night instructed him to press on the following morning and although apologists for Ney have claimed that the contradictory nature of the various instructions he received – was he to take Quatre Bras, or to advance towards Brussels? – must have confused him, as an experienced soldier Ney should surely have realised that taking and holding the crossroads and preventing the Allied armies from joining must have been a priority. As it happened, of course, the Allied armies did not join at that stage of the campaign, nor did they attempt to, but had Ney shown more of a sense of urgency, the French plan might have had a chance of working.
All night British and Dutch-Belgian infantry, cavalry and guns were on the march, the reserve from Brussels, others from Nivelles and from Mons, all heading for Quatre Bras, while seven miles off to the east Prussian troops were arriving in the vicinity of Sombreffe. It now really was a race against time, for if the French bestirred themselves and attacked north towards Quatre Bras before the troops that Wellington had set in motion got there, they would easily brush aside Perponcher’s one division. Wellington, having approved the orders written by DeLancey, snatched a few hours’ sleep before being awakened by the arrival of General Dörnberg himself, who emphasised what his previous despatch had said. The duke and his immediate staff then left Brussels by horseback at around 0700 hours on 16 June and met the Prince of Orange at Quatre Bras. The prince had been there since around 0600 hours and was supervising the deployment of the battalions of Bjilandt’s brigade which were still arriving. He explained to the commander-in-chief that the French had as yet made no move, and that apart from some desultory firing between piquets and a minor skirmish when the Dutch-Belgians had pushed back a French cavalry patrol and regained some of the ground they had given up the previous day, all was quiet. Wellington rode round the Dutch-Belgian defence line, pronounced himself satisfied and rode six miles east over the Roman road to meet Blücher.
The Prussian commander had appreciated that the French attack would come from the direction of Fleurus and had positioned Ziethen’s corps in a rough semi-circle along the Ligny brook, with his left in the village of Ligny, through his centre in Saint-Armand to his right flank at Wagnelee. The brook itself was no obstacle – an infantryman could jump over it with ease – but its valley was marshy and would be a problem for artillery and wheeled vehicles. The brook would also likely slow any cavalry attack, and as a clearly visible feature it was an obvious boundary to give to the troops. Each village, hamlet and cluster of farm buildings was in the process of being fortified, with roads blocked by furniture taken from houses, overturned farm carts and felled trees, and the soldiers were making loopholes in the walls and roofs of houses, to cover all likely approaches, with gun batteries sited to support the defenders. Ziethen’s, being the nearest corps to the concentration area, was first to come in, followed by Pirch’s II Corps, which Blücher ordered to take post on the slope south of the hamlet of Brye where they could overlook the Ligny brook. The last corps to arrive before the action started was Thielemann’s – Bulow’s stately progress meant that he would not arrive until the coming battle was over – and he was positioned on the left of Pirch, between Sombreffe and Mazy, four and a half miles east. Blücher therefore was covering a frontage of around twelve miles with Ziethen’s 32,000 men with a brigade of cavalry under command holding the Ligny brook salient, supported by Pirch’s 33,000 and Thielemann’s 25,000 on the high ground above the brook. Behind Pirch and Thielemann were two brigades of cavalry and altogether the Prussians fielded 312 artillery pieces, including some twelve-pounders. On the face of it, they should have been a match for anything the French might throw at them, particularly as there were only four bridges over the brook and its marshy valley that could take artillery.
Wellington arrived at Brye around midday. He and Blücher met at a windmill, long since demolished, to the south of the hamlet. Wellington advised the Prussian field marshal that to have the bulk of his troops formed up on the forward slope would make them a very tempting target for the French artillery, and suggested that they might be moved to the reverse slope. A reverse slope position, always a favourite of Wellingtonian defensive postures, meant that men could administer themselves and rest out of sight of the enemy and out of direct fire. Skirmishers would be in cover on the forward slope to give warning of an approach, but an attacking force could not see the troops they were supposed to be taking on until they had got to the top of the crest, tired and unsure where their objective actually was. Blücher is supposed to have retorted, ‘My boys like to see their enemy’, but the real reason for his deployment was almost certainly that desertion would be much harder from the forward slope, whereas to slip away would be much easier on the far side of the crest. Blücher was well aware that for much of the Prussian rank and file this would be their first experience of battle. Wellington assured Blücher that if he was attacked he, Wellington, would come to his assistance ‘provided I am not attacked myself’. Conspiracy theorists have made much of this meeting, claiming that Wellington promised assistance with no qualification and then deliberately left the Prussians to their own devices. Never mind that there was no earthly reason why Wellington should have wanted the Prussians to be defeated, the conversation was recorded by both Colonel Hardinge, liaison officer from the British to the Prussians, and his opposite number General Muffling, to whom Wellington’s statement was quite clear: he would assist if he could. And as we shall see, he could not.
Meanwhile there was confusion in the French camp. Napoleon now seems to have been reconsidering his initial view that his first target would be the Prussians, and certainly Ney appears to have been under the impression that Napoleon and the powerful reserve would be coming to support him in pressing on to Brussels. There were indeed a plethora of orders going out to both wings, and these in the emperor’s own handwriting – something that, due to its near illegibility, Berthier would never have allowed. Here we see more evidence of bad staff work at imperial headquarters, and the possible cause of Ney’s otherwise inexplicable delay in doing anything on the morning of 16 June, when, had he moved in strength at first light, he could still have been well up the Brussels road, with the crossroads of Quatre Bras in his pocket, before Wellington’s reinforcements could have arrived.
By the time that Ney did stir himself – and well before he received Napoleon’s final order which made clear that he was to take Quatre Bras – most of Perponcher’s 2nd Netherlands Division was in place. To the west of the Brussels road was Saxe-Weimar’s brigade in Bossu Wood, which ran south from the crossroads as far as and just over the ridge, cut back to a distance of one hundred yards or so from the road. They were able to overlook a large farmhouse on their right flank, Grand Pierpont (now a golf clubhouse), in which the French were ensconced, and they could give covering fire to the gun battery which was still positioned either side of the road. This looked to be a strong position – any commander was (and is) wary of attacking into woods – but the brigade had only ten rounds per man for muskets and rifles, and nobody was sure where their ammunition wagons had got to.
To the east of the high road were Bjilandt’s battalions, some of whom had been marching all night, with his headquarters and two battalions in the farm of Gemioncourt. This lay about 700 yards south of the crossroads and was a stoutly built manor house with adjoining barns; it was the property of the local diocese, and probably then around 200 years old, and it had been built for defence in age when life in the cockpit of Europe was even more unstable than it was in 1815. Also arriving as Bjilandt’s supporting artillery was another battery, giving the Dutch-Belgians a total of sixteen guns. A section of Prussian cavalry from the Silesian Hussars, who had become separated from their parent regiment and had attached themselves to the Dutch, now clattered off to Sombreffe, having discovered from Wellington where the Prussian army was.
At this stage, therefore, all that was standing between Ney and Quatre Bras was nine battalions of infantry, much of it inexperienced, and the sixteen guns. Having lost his borrowed Prussian cavalry, and well aware of the preponderance of French horsemen in the area, the Prince of Orange sent an ADC to Braine le Compte, fourteen miles off to the east, to order up the light cavalry brigade of Major General Jean-Baptiste van Merlen, consisting of the 6th Dutch Hussars and the 5th Belgian Light Dragoons. Merlen had served in the French cavalry of the Imperial Guard and should, the prince thought, know how to deal with his erstwhile comrades, but it would take at least four hours before he could arrive at Quatre Bras.
The Cliff hanger continues… despite the outcome known.
So well done.