Two things impress themselves upon us as we consider the total result of that critical day, the 16th of June, which saw Ney fail to hold the Brussels road at Quatre Bras, and there to push away from the advance on Brussels Wellington’s opposing force, and which also saw the successful escape of the Prussians from Ligny, an escape which was to permit them to join Wellington forty-eight hours later and to decide Waterloo.
The first is the capital importance, disastrous to the French fortunes, of Erlon’s having been kept out of both fights by his useless march and countermarch.
![[Larger Image]](#5300365465260990400_i109.jpg.id-5471225501333154675.wrap-0.html.html){kind=link}
The Elements of Quatre Bras.
The second is the extraordinary way in which Wellington’s command came up haphazard, dribbling in by units all day long, and how that command owed to Ney’s caution and tardiness, much more than to its own General’s arrangements, the superiority in numbers which it began to enjoy from an early phase in the battle.
I will deal with these two points in their order.
As to the first:—