Friday, July 17, 2015
Charleroi, Sombreffe, and Quatre Bras check map
THE OPPOSING ARMIES
The Anglo-Allied Army of the Low Countries
Wellington’s Army comprised troops of many nationalities,
speaking four principle languages—Englishmen, Dutch,
Germans and French-speaking Belgians.
The Germans were troops of the armies of Brunswick and
Hanover. The King’s German Legion—raised also in Hanover
—had served in the Peninsular War in the service of King
George III who ruled as Duke of Hanover.
The Netherlands had just been forcibly united with
Belgium in March, upon word of Napoleon’s return to France.
The unification forged between Dutch and Belgian units—
many of which had fought under Napoleon the year before, and
still wore their French-style uniforms—was necessarily fragile.
Two Nassau units came from the German principality
lying along the east bank of the Rhine opposite Koblenz. The
line troops had been in the Netherlands service for a long time,
and were commanded by a German Prince, Bernard of SaxeWeimar.
The two Landwehr (militia) battalions under Kruse
had just joined the army at the beginning of June.
Among the English Troops, 15 understrength battalions
remained in Holland after the 1814 campaign; in the Spring of
1815, these were shifted into Belgium and filled up with young
conscripts. Three regiments had just returned from America
upon the conclusion of the War of 1812-1814 (two of these
were in Adam’s brigade of Clinton’s division). The cadre of
these 26 battalions were veterans of the Spanish campaign, and
they were the best troops available to Wellington. Veterans
accounted for only about 60% of British troops; whereas all
the KGL troops were veterans, most of the other contingents
were green troops.
Wellington welded this diverse force into a unified
command by attaching one brigade of KGL and one of
Hanoverian troops to each brigade of British regulars. These
divisions were dispersed in their cantonments and needed half
a day from receipt of their march orders to get underway. It
would take days to assemble the entire army. The town of
Quatre Bras was selected as the central concentration point,
just five miles west of the Prussian Army's focus.
The Prussian Army of the Lower Rhine
Blücher’s Army included many troops from the minor German
states who had fought on the other side in years past. About
57% of the Army were regular troops and the remainder militia
or Landwehr. Some of these were solid veterans while those
raised from territories recently-acquired by Prussia were of
questionable reliability.
There was no question about the leadership of the army
however, beginning with the fire-breathing Marshal Blücher
and his chief of staff, Gneisenau, who had been a part of the
commission that re-built the Prussian Army after its defeat in
1807. Had Blücher not eluded capture at Ligny, however, it is
unlikely that Gneisenau—who disliked the British—would
have marched so speedily to their aid on the 18th.1
The Prussian Army occupied a wedge-shaped cantonment
area along the Sambre and Meuse Rivers, with two brigades at
its westernmost point extending to Charleroi and Fontaine
1 Sources agree that Wavre was chosen as their rallying point only because it
was the one town all present could find on their maps.
l’Eveque, to cover the hinge with the Anglo-Allied
cantonments. The objective of this deployment was to delay
any advance through Charleroi long enough for the two armies
to concentrate on Quatre Bras and Sombreffe, which lie just
nine miles apart. If allowed to unite their forces, the AngloPrussians
would be able to oppose the French in a single body
of 220,000 men. The zone between Charleroi, Sombreffe, and
Quatre Bras was the critical lynch-pin that the French would
have to seize.
The French Armée du Nord
The 128,165 men of L‘Armée du Nord, virtually all of them
veterans, represented less than one-quarter of the manpower
available to La Grande Armée. About 66,000 men of the line
were required in the depots of the regiments, and up to 69,000
more line troops were assigned to other field armies, along
with 50,000 mobilized National Guards. In the numerous
fortresses on the frontiers, 85,500 National Guards were placed
in garrison alongside 108,000 second and third line troops. A
further 12,000 veterans, 46,000 conscripts, and 32,000 newlymobilized
National Guards stood in reserve or were still in
formation in the depots.
The quality and devotion of the rank and file of L’Armée
du Nord was not matched by the skill and dedication of their
commanders. The years of constant warfare had taken their
toll, and many great leaders who had survived did not rally to
Napoleon in 1815. The commanding generals of his I and II
Corps, d’Erlon and Reille, had never before commanded at that
level, though Vandamme and Gérard were experienced and
capable. At Imperial Headquarters, among the 73 officers only
12 (17%) had as much as 8 years experience on the General
Staff.
2
The others were working together for the first time.3
Most notably absent was Marshal Berthier, who had taken care
of the details for Napoleon since 1796. It is arguable that the
critical errors committed by the inexperienced staff, and their
inept Chief, Marshal Soult, cost Napoleon the campaign.
The Emperor himself was not at his best in these warm
early days of summer. His physical condition was
deteriorating, leaving him without the stamina for long hours in
the saddle and nights spent dictating orders. Aside from
making a poor choice of Marshals—Ney and Grouchy—to
lead the Army’s two wings, he compounded this by directing
Marshal Grouchy beyond supporting distance after Ligny,
detaching more than one third of his army in the wrong
direction, and then failing to provide further orders to that
Marshal during the 17th.
4
Having chosen Marshal Ney—
whose great tactical skill was only for defensive fights—to
lead his offensive battle at Waterloo, he retired for a nap at a
crucial moment. Ney conducted the mid-phase of the battle
like a rear-guard action in the Peninsular Campaign, failing to
provide infantry support for his spectacular cavalry charges. Louis Sheehan.
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