CHAPTER XII.
THE BATTLE OF QUATRE BRAS.
Marshal Ney, as we have seen, took no steps what ever, on his return to Gosselies from his midnight interview with the Emperor, to get his command in readiness for the work of the coming day. Frasnes, in any event, he must have known, would have to be occupied in force, whether an advance from that place to Quatre Bras should be decided on or not.[396] Yet, instead of getting the divisions of Foy and Jerome up to Frasnes at once, where Bachelu and Piré already were, and supplying their place at Gosselies by the divisions of the 1st Corps, one of which, we know (Durutte’s), had bivouacked between Jumet and Gosselies, he suffered them to remain at Gosselies; and, so far as appears, sent officers to hurry up d’Erlon only after he had ordered him to Frasnes (ante, p. 119), that is, after 11 A.M. Then there was a delay of an hour and three-quarters, for which Ney was not directly responsible, which was caused by Reille,[397] who, instead of obeying Ney’s order to march promptly from Gosselies to the front on receipt of any orders of movement from the headquarters of the army, delayed doing so until he had informed Ney, who was at Frasnes, that he had heard from Girard that the Prussians were concentrating near St. Amand, and had thereupon received fresh orders. But this delay could never have occurred had Reille been at Frasnes himself, to which place he ought to have been ordered by Ney hours before.
It is, therefore, perfectly correct to say, that if Reille’s two divisions at Gosselies had been, early in the morning, ordered to Frasnes, where Bachelu and Piré had been since the previous evening, Marshal Ney could have commenced the battle of Quatre Bras with all the 2d Corps, except Girard’s division, which was with the main army, at eleven o’clock, the hour when he received his orders from Soult and his letter from the Emperor. Or, if he had thought best to defer the attack until he should have communicated to the Emperor the information as to the concentration of the Prussian army near St. Amand conveyed by Girard,[398] he would have been able to obey his orders, whatever they were, the moment his messenger returned. There was also no reason why d’Erlon should not have been likewise ordered up from Gosselies to Frasnes to support Reille, certainly with Durutte’s division, leaving the other divisions to come along as fast as they could. And it is not going too far to say that the measures above suggested were simply those which common sense would dictate, to an officer in Ney’s position.[399]
However, as a matter of fact, Ney did not take these measures, nor did he, even on the receipt of his orders, which, as we have seen, peremptorily directed him to assemble the 1st and 2d Corps and Kellermann’s two divisions of cavalry, and with this force to carry Quatre Bras, proceed to comply with them. He ordered d’Erlon to halt at Frasnes; he ordered Kellermann[400] to station one division at Frasnes and one at Liberchies; and he assailed the enemy’s position at Quatre Bras about 2 P.M. with the infantry divisions of Bachelu and Foy, and the cavalry division of Piré. It was not until nearly 3 o’clock[401] that the division of Jerome[402] arrived, and took its place in the line of battle. With the 2d Corps alone, then, did Marshal Ney attempt the task which he had been directed to undertake with all the troops which had been assigned to him. The 1st Corps and the cavalry he ordered to stay behind to protect his flanks and line of retreat.
When such are the preparations, nothing but extraordinary luck can give success in battle; and at first it seemed as if this luck was in store for Marshal Ney. When he began the action, Perponcher’s Dutch-Belgian division constituted the sole force of the enemy at Quatre Bras; and Wellington not having yet returned from Brye, where he had been to see Blücher, the Prince of Orange, a gallant young officer, but possessing no remarkable abilities, was in command. Ney’s two divisions gave him a slight superiority in infantry, which was augmented by the arrival of the third, and his soldiers were much the better fighters. He easily gained ground, and success seemed assured.
The Duke of Wellington reached the field about half-past two; and of course assumed control. He now had occasion to see how far the statements of the “Disposition” were from the actual facts; he found himself obliged to sustain a vigorous and well-conducted attack by superior forces, as best he might. Fortunately, about 3.30 P.M.,[403] Picton’s British division arrived, followed immediately by the Duke of Brunswick’s Corps, and Ney found himself slightly outnumbered.[404] Nevertheless, the quality of his troops, both officers and men, was so good, and his superiority to his antagonists in cavalry and artillery was so great, that he continued the fight with the expectation of success and with the chances in his favor.[405] But no efforts of his could overcome the steadiness and courage of the British infantry. The Dutch-Belgians retired after a couple of hours’ fighting; the Brunswickers were broken, and the Duke of Brunswick was killed; but the British and Hanoverian troops, though outmatched at this stage of the action, stubbornly maintained the fight.
At five or soon after, two brigades of Alten’s 3d British division arrived, and gave Wellington an equality, perhaps even a slight superiority in force. Ney, on the other hand, had not been reinforced either by d’Erlon or by Kellermann’s two divisions of cavalry, all which troops had been placed at his disposal by the Emperor, and all which he had been, by the last order which he had received from Marshal Soult, expressly directed to employ in the movement upon Quatre Bras. That is to say, as late as five o’clock, when the battle had been in progress for three hours, Ney had not got his command together, had not, in fact, assembled one-half of it on the field. Where were these missing troops? (See Map 7.)
Take, first, the case of the 1st Corps. We have seen that the division of the 2d Corps, which was the last to arrive, arrived on the field of battle at or shortly before 3 P.M. Quatre Bras is distant from Frasnes about two miles and a half, and the field of battle, therefore, was about two miles beyond Frasnes. Since Jerome arrived on the field at 3 o’clock, he must have left Frasnes about or soon after 2 o’clock. If Durutte, who commanded the leading division of the 1st Corps, had followed Jerome promptly from Jumet, which is not over a mile and a half to the south of Gosselies, he would have reached Frasnes before 3 o’clock. The other two divisions, which were ordered to Frasnes, should have arrived certainly in the course of the next hour and a half; so that by 4 or 4.30 P.M. Ney should have had the three divisions of the 1st Corps which he had ordered to Frasnes, ready for use there.