What happened at the Battle of Ligny?
On 16 June 1815 Napoleon attacked Blücher's Prussian army along the Ligny stream in present-day Belgium. After an afternoon of fighting in the villages, the Imperial Guard broke the Prussian center at dusk. Blücher was trapped under his dead horse, but the Prussians retreated north in order and two days later helped Wellington win at Waterloo.1
In June 1815 Napoleon marched into Belgium to strike the two allied armies there before they could join: Wellington's Anglo-Dutch army around Brussels and Blücher's Prussians to the east. On 16 June he fought them both on the same day, Wellington at Quatre Bras and Blücher at Ligny.
The Prussians stand on the Ligny
Napoleon had split his army into two wings and a reserve: Marshal Grouchy led the right, Marshal Ney the left, and the Imperial Guard stayed with the emperor. Finding the Prussians in strength around Sombreffe, he turned on them with his right wing and reserve.2 › Napoleon Bonaparte
Blücher had three of his four corps on the field; Bülow's corps did not arrive in time. Even so he had the larger army. Alfons Libert of the Napoleon Series counts about 84,000 Prussians with 224 guns against about 68,000 French with 210; Gareth Glover of Project Hougoumont gives 83,000 Prussians and 224 guns against 63,000 French and 230 guns. Glover adds that many Prussian units were newly raised militia, so the numbers flattered them. They held the line of the Ligny stream, with its villages turned into small fortresses.3
Villages taken and lost
The French attack began at about half past two. Ligny and Saint-Amand changed hands again and again through the afternoon. Glover describes the dead and dying piling up in houses and streets, in a fight where quarter was seldom given. By five o'clock, Jensen writes, every Prussian unit had been committed, while Napoleon still had his reserve fresh.4
The corps that marched away
Napoleon had planned for part of Ney's wing to swing onto the Prussian right and rear. Toward evening a column appeared on the French flank. It was d'Erlon's I Corps, but it was not where Napoleon expected it, and its arrival first caused alarm in the French ranks. Then, about half past six, it turned and marched back west: Ney, fighting hard at Quatre Bras and furious at losing the corps, had recalled it. Only Durutte's infantry division, with Jacquinot's cavalry according to Libert, stayed near Ligny. Libert judges that things would have gone very differently had d'Erlon's corps arrived.5
The Guard and the fallen marshal
With no help coming from Ney, Napoleon sent in the Imperial Guard, at about seven according to Libert and about half past seven according to Jensen. The Guard broke through at Ligny and the Prussian center gave way.6
Blücher rallied his cavalry and led a charge himself. It failed, and as the horsemen fell back his horse was shot and fell on him. French cuirassiers rode past him at least twice in the twilight without recognizing him. Siborne tells how his aide, Count Nostitz, stood over him with drawn sword and then stopped some passing uhlans, who lifted the dead horse and carried the half-conscious marshal to the nearest infantry. Glover concludes he was saved only by the darkness.7
North, not east
With Blücher missing, command fell to his chief of staff, August von Gneisenau. John Codman Ropes writes that Gneisenau first ordered the two beaten corps to retire on Tilly and then, told that Tilly was not on every map, named Wavre instead. Siborne records his message to Thielmann's corps leaving it free to retire by Tilly or Gembloux. That choice gave up the Prussian line of retreat on Namur, although, as Ropes notes, it did not yet commit the army to joining Wellington.8
Counting the cost
Libert puts the Prussian loss at 16,000 killed and wounded, 600 prisoners and 21 guns, and the French at 11,500. Glover gives about 16,000 Prussians and 12,000 French, about 19 percent of each army. Both also count thousands of Prussian deserters: 8,000 on the night of the battle according to Glover, 9,000 to 12,000 in the following days according to Libert.9
A victory left unfinished
By nightfall the French held the field, but a large part of the Prussian army had escaped destruction. Napoleon considered the Prussians beaten for the time being. Blücher, recovered, resolved to support Wellington, and two days later his army marched from Wavre to strike Napoleon's flank at Waterloo.10
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