It is singular that Napoleon, who at Fleurus held so powerful a Reserve as that consisting of the Imperial Guard and the Sixth Corps, and who was in perfect ignorance of the true state of affairs at Quatre Bras, should have ventured to withdraw from Ney a force amounting to more than one half of that which he had originally placed at his disposal. It was decidedly a false step, from which no advantage resulted on his own Field of Battle, whilst there can be very little doubt that it lost him that of Quatre Bras.
The losses sustained in this Battle by the Anglo-Allied Army in killed, wounded, and missing, were as follows:—
| British | 2,275 |
| Hanoverians | 369 |
| Brunswickers | 819 |
| ——— | |
| 3,463 |
To these must be added the loss of the Dutch-Belgian troops, amounting probably to about 1,000 killed and wounded, which makes the entire loss of the Anglo-Allied Army equal to about 4,463 men.
The French loss amounted to about 4,000 killed, wounded, and missing.
Such was the Battle of Quatre Bras: a battle in which the British, the Hanoverian, and the Brunswick, Infantry, covered itself with imperishable glory; to estimate the full extent of which we must constantly bear in mind, that the whole brunt of the action fell upon that Infantry; that throughout the greater part of the day it was totally unaided by any Cavalry, that Arm of the Allies in the field having, at the outset, proved itself incompetent to engage with the French; and, lastly, that it was completely abandoned in the latter part of the action by the Second Dutch-Belgian Infantry Division, amounting to no less than 7,533 men.
When the imagination dwells upon that which constitutes one of the most prominent features of the Battle—the manner in which the gallant Picton, on finding there was no Cavalry at hand wherewith to charge effectively that of the Enemy, led on the British Infantry, and dashed into the midst of the French masses, stoutly maintaining his ground in defiance of their oft repeated assaults, invariably scattering back their charging Squadrons in confusion, and this, too, in the face of a splendid Cavalry, animated by the best spirit, and headed by a Kellermann, whose fame and merit were so universally acknowledged—with what exulting pride and heartfelt gratitude must not the British nation reflect on the heroic valour displayed by her sons in their noble fulfilment of the desires and expectations of her Cambrian Chief!
The zealous and cordial support which the Hanoverians and the Brunswickers afforded to their British brethren in arms, the devotion with which they commingled with them in the thickest of the fight, are indelibly engraven in the grateful memory of every true German, and remain recorded as a lasting theme of admiration in the history of their fatherland.