What happened at the Battle of Quatre Bras?
On 16 June 1815 Marshal Ney attacked the Anglo-Allied army at the crossroads of Quatre Bras, south of Brussels, while Napoleon fought the Prussians at Ligny. A Dutch-Belgian division held the crossroads until Wellington's reinforcements arrived, and the battle ended in a stalemate at nightfall. Ney's fight kept d'Erlon's corps away from Ligny, and the next day Wellington fell back to Waterloo.1
On 16 June 1815, two days before Waterloo, Napoleon fought two battles at once. With his right wing and the Guard he attacked Blücher's Prussians at Ligny. To the west his left wing under Marshal Ney was to take the crossroads of Quatre Bras, where the main road from Charleroi to Brussels met the road that linked Wellington's army to Blücher's.
A division that ignored its orders
When the French crossed the border on 15 June, Wellington's orders sent the Dutch-Belgian division of General Perponcher to gather at Nivelles, to the west. Its brigade under Prince Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar had already concentrated at Quatre Bras without orders, and Perponcher, backed by the Prince of Orange, chose to keep his whole division there instead. Alfons Libert of the Napoleon Series judges that Perponcher's presence at Quatre Bras undoubtedly saved the day for the Allies.2
On the morning of the 16th the Prince of Orange had about 7,400 infantry and 16 guns at the crossroads, and no cavalry, according to François Tsas of the Fondation Napoléon. Libert writes that Ney had a six to one advantage in those hours.3
Ney waits
Ney did not use it. Napoleon's written orders reached him only at 11 in the morning, and his corps was strung out on the roads behind; by one o'clock he had only two infantry divisions and his cavalry at hand. He attacked at about two. The Dutch-Belgian troops lost the farms in front of the crossroads but held the Bossu wood.4
Wellington arrives
From about three o'clock the battle became a race of reinforcements. Wellington rode back from his meeting with Blücher, and Picton's division of about 7,700 men came up from Brussels, followed by about 4,900 Brunswickers. Jérôme Bonaparte's division brought Ney to about 21,000 men. The Duke of Brunswick was killed while trying to rally his young troops near the crossroads.5
Napoleon now wanted more from Ney than a fight. An order dictated at Ligny at two told him to attack what was in front of him and then turn toward the Prussians; a second, at a quarter past three, demanded that he fall on the Prussian rear at once, adding that the fate of France was in his hands. Tsas argues that this was impossible while the enemy at the crossroads had not been driven back.6 › Napoleon Bonaparte
The lost corps and the cuirassiers
Ney's own reserve, d'Erlon's I Corps, had meanwhile been redirected toward Ligny without his knowledge. Furious, he ordered it back to Quatre Bras. It spent the afternoon marching between the two battlefields and fought at neither: Libert has it back near Quatre Bras only at nine, when the fighting was over.7
In desperation Ney sent Kellermann's cuirassiers against the crossroads without infantry support, at about six according to Tsas; Libert places the charge after the French attack of about a quarter past four. They broke the 33rd Regiment, cut up the 69th and briefly reached the crossroads before artillery fire and two British regiments drove them back; Kellermann's horse was killed under him. Tsas puts the charging force at 770 cuirassiers and describes their rout. In Libert's account Kellermann himself thought a cavalry charge without infantry against formed infantry was suicide.8
Stalemate at nightfall
In the evening the divisions of Alten and Cooke reached Wellington, who went over to the offensive, retook the farm of Gemioncourt and pushed the French back toward their starting positions. The fighting ended around nine. Tsas puts the French loss at about 4,400 and the Allied at about 5,600; Libert gives about 4,300 and 4,800 killed and wounded.9
Why Quatre Bras mattered
Libert calls the result a stalemate. But Ney had kept Wellington from helping Blücher, as Ropes concedes, and his recall of d'Erlon had also kept a whole French corps away from Ligny, where they might have destroyed the Prussian army. On 17 June, learning that the Prussians had been beaten and had retreated, Wellington pulled back through Genappe in pouring rain to the ridge south of Mont St. Jean, where the Battle of Waterloo was fought the next day.10
