XII.
EXTRACT FROM WELLINGTON’S REPORT OF THE OPERATIONS: June 19, 1815.
Gurwood, vol. xii, p. 478.
TO EARL BATHURST.
Waterloo, 19th June, 1815.
My Lord,
Buonaparte, having collected the 1st, 2d, 3d, 4th, and 6th corps of the French army, and the Imperial Guards and nearly all the cavalry, on the Sambre, and between that river and the Meuse, between the 10th and 14th of the month, advanced on the 15th and attacked the Prussian posts at Thuin and Lobbes, on the Sambre, at daylight in the morning.
I did not hear of these events till in the evening of the 15th; and I immediately ordered the troops to prepare to march, and afterwards to march to their left, as soon as I had intelligence from other quarters to prove that the enemy’s movement upon Charleroi was the real attack.
The enemy drove the Prussian posts from the Sambre on that day; and General Ziethen, who commanded the corps which had been at Charleroi, retired upon Fleurus; and Marshal Prince Blücher concentrated the Prussian army upon Sombref, holding the villages in front of his position of St. Amand and Ligny.
The enemy continued his march along the road from Charleroi towards Bruxelles; and, on the same evening, the 15th, attacked a brigade of the army of the Netherlands, under the Prince de Weimar, posted at Frasne, and forced it back to the farmhouse, on the same road, called Les Quatre Bras.