Note Back to Main Text — Chapter XV

Almost simultaneously with the battle of Ligny was fought that of Quatre Bras. At eleven Ney received orders outlining a general plan for the day; about half an hour later came the specific command to unite the forces of d'Erlon, Reille, and Kellermann, and carry Quatre Bras; at five arrived in hot haste the messenger with the third order. At two o'clock there were not quite seven thousand Anglo-Belgians in Quatre Bras, but, successive bodies arriving in swift succession, by half-past six o'clock there were over thirty thousand. At two Ney had seventeen thousand men, and though he sought to recall d'Erlon, yet, owing to the withdrawal of Durutte, and to d'Erlon's indecision, he had at half-past six not more than twenty thousand. Not one of d'Erlon's men had reached him: Girard's division of Reille's corps was with Vandamme before St. Amand. Gérard's corps had been kept at Ligny. Had he advanced on the position the previous evening, or had he attacked between eleven and two on the sixteenth, the event of the campaign might have been different from what it was. But if he really believed, as Heymès afterward asseverated was the case, that his orders were merely to push and hold the enemy, then his conduct throughout was gallant and correct.[22] The weight of evidence favors the claim of Napoleon that the marshal was perverse in his refusal to take Quatre Bras according to verbal orders. Whatever the truth, the behavior of Ney's men was admirable when they did advance, but they were forced back to Frasnes before superior numbers.