In this letter, moreover, he said in so many words that his reserve, the large body upon which he mainly depended, would be within three miles of him by noon, the British cavalry within seven miles of him at the same hour.

Then he rode over to see Blucher on the field of Ligny before Napoleon’s attack on that general had begun. He got there at about one o’clock.

An acrimonious discussion has arisen as to whether he promised to come up and help Blucher shortly afterwards or not, but it is a discussion beside the mark, for, in the first place, Wellington quite certainly intended to come up and help the Prussians; and in the second place, he was quite as certainly unable to do so, for the French opposition under Ney which he had under-estimated, turned out to be a serious thing.

But his letter, and his undoubted intention to come up and help Blucher, depended upon his belief that the units of his army were all fairly close, and that by, say, half-past one he would have the whole lot occupying the heights of Quatre Bras.

Now, as a fact, the units of Wellington’s command were scattered all over the place, and it is astonishing to note the discrepancy between his idea of their position and their real position on the morning of the day when Quatre Bras was fought. When one appreciates what that discrepancy was, one has a measure of the bad staff work that was being done under Wellington at the moment.

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The plan (p. 127)[12] distinguishes between the real positions of Wellington’s command on the morning of the 16th when he was writing his letter to Blucher and the positions which Wellington, in that letter, erroneously ascribes to them. It will show the reader the wide difference there was between Wellington’s idea of where his troops were and their actual position on that morning. It needs no comment. It is sufficient in itself to explain why the action at Quatre Bras consisted not in a set army meeting and repelling the French (it could have destroyed them as things turned out, seeing Erlon’s absence), but in the perpetual arrival of separate and hurried units, which went on from midday almost until nightfall.