"Importance: Quatre Bras vs Ligny" Topic

Which battle was more critical to the Waterloo campaign?

As a Dutchman I could only say Quatre Bras..

If Ney had not fought Wellington to a standstill, the rout of La Belle Alliance might have occurred two days early, with the Prussian playing the role of steady defense and the Anglo-Allied army turning Napoleon's flank and rear.

Obviously Ligny. If Napoleon loses, the campaign is probably over. If he wins a greater victory (such as d'Erlon becoming more involved) or he gets a more effective pursuit going the next day, then the Prussian army might be out of action for a couple of days, leaving Wellington to decide what he's going to do with his army.

If Ney captures and secures the crossroads, he can't do anymore – d'Erlon is already gone – and Wellington retreats back to Mont St Jean. If Wellington wins, he still has to decide whether to stand at Quatre Bras or retreat to cooperate with the Prussian army.

Some of the variables are: for the French, does d'Erlon get more involved at Ligny? If he joins the battle at Quatre Bras, Wellington still retreats, just a little sooner. For the Allies, what happens if the Netherlands troops don't get to the crossroads in time with sufficient force? What happens at Ligny if Bulow gets to the battlefield?

The Prussian lost Ligny but came back with Von Bulow's IV corps and part of the I's corps, at Waterloo.

The Dutch Belgians proved themselves at Quatre Bras, and with the help of English troops slowed the French advance.

I would say Ligny. If Napoleon had inflicted a decisive defeat on the Prussians not even Blucher could have rallied them in time to help Wellington, who in any case would not have stood at Mont St Jean.

Ligny. Given where all the troops involved started the day, it is hard to envisage a series of events which makes Quatre Bras more decisive.

Ligny for reasons already stated.

Ligny

Both, occurring simultaneously. It is not an either/or situation.

Rick

The Brunswickers proved themselves at Quatre Bras, and with the help of English and Dutch Belgian troops slowed the French advance.

fixed that for you, wrgmr1

Just joking – I love the Brunswickers – can't help myself…

Doug

On balance, Ligny, with Quatre Bras being significant but slightly less important for the readons stated.

That's a great question. I think others have already said, but I would say it this way. Ligny was more important. Change the results at Quatre Bras and you arguable do not change the remaining campaign significantly. Change the results at Ligny one way or the other and the remaining campaign changes significantly. Maybe Waterloo never occurs? Maybe the Young Guard attacks the British at the end of the day because the Prussians are no where. Good question.

Another vote for Ligny.

Is it not, to some extent, analogous with Jena-Auerstadt, where the numerically smaller battle has considerable influence on the outcome of the larger/main action?

Neither. The most important aspect, which involves both, is D'Erlon wasting a day and his corps marching between them.

But if I had to pick one, I'd also vote for Ligny, which is where D'Erlon would have had the most impact.

But if I had to pick one, I'd also vote for Ligny, which is where D'Erlon would have had the most impact.

Actually D'Erlon would have had maximum impact on either battle. He was presented with an either/or question and should have realized that there was no wrong answer. Imagine a 4:30 arrival time with Kellerman at Quatre Bras. How about a 6:30 arrival time at Ligny?

My vote would go for Quatre Bras – but as a French strategic failure, which had an enormous impact on the next two days of the campaign.
If the French had occupied the crossroads and advanced to Genappe on the 16th, it is possible/probable that Wellington may not have been able to concentrate on his pre-selected position at Mont Saint Jean on the night of the 17th. The French advance further along the Brussels/Charleroi road would potentially have driven further distance between Wellington and Blucher, making a union on the 18th, or later, even more problematic. Subsequently allowing Napoleon to engage Wellington without a Prussian intervention.

I think they were equally important. Having said that, only Ligny ever had a chance of being awarded as a battle honour to the regiments that took part. Unless the Emperor was there in person the battle didn't count. I also have a feeling that Ligny made it onto the Arc de Triomphe while Quatre Bras did not (presumably for the same reason?)

@Ligniere,

In your counterfactual, the French left wing would have risked getting hammered in a manner reminiscent of 1813. The French were reasonably lucky that Allied numerical superiority wasn't overwhelming until it was too late in the day for Ney to be crushed. If you move the French force three hours up the road, you are looking at re-enacting Kulm or similar.

@Whirlwind,
If the french under Ney could have pushed that far up. We know Davout would have seen this and made it happen….
Your indication of 1813 result is only 40% or less probable as to reason is….
I see
1) Some significant support would have had to come from D-erlon for Ney to travel that far forward. Most probably be directed towards Nivelles to hold/pin P of Orange.
2) It would have significantly divided Prince of Orange from Wellington and the RES Corps
3) Because of Pt 1 &2 we then have two more what ifs
a) Is Ney able to crush and rout the Prince of Orange?
b) Does Wellington Panic immediately pull back, as mentioned in another reply above, and has to re-group some amount further north of Waterloo so that battle field does not occur? The Res in a march to the scene vs the French II corp with Hvy Cav support would have been severely at a disadvantage w/o PoO's corp.

So QB does become much more significant.
my vote is still stuck but leaning towards Ligny.

MG

I would have to vote equally for both (can I do that?) since it was the combined presence of both armies that divided the French force and created the d'erlon 'narrative' – a unique moment in time that set the stage for the rest of the campaign.

@Whirlwind
My thoughts are based upon the orders issued on the morning of the 16th from Napoleon's HQ. At that point, Napoleon didn't believe he was going to be fighting a major action at Ligny. It was only later, in the early afternoon, that he fully understood he was confronting a major portion of the Prussian forces.
In accordance with Napoleons instructions to Ney, the French left wing should have been strung out along the Brussels/Charleroi road. Bachelu, Pire and Lefebvre-Desnouettes were expected to have advanced as far as Genappe, midway between Mont St.Jean and Quatre Bras.
If Perponcher had been driven back towards Genappe, by an aggressive French drive, it's possible that the other allied divisions [Alten and Cooke] would have been less likely to march towards the crossroads, and been redirected back towards Waterloo along the Nivelles/Brussels road. Wellington's desire would have been to concentrate his forces. Perponcher would have fallen back, Picton and Brunswick would have halted at Mont St. Jean to await Alten, Cooke and Uxbridge.
The battle of Waterloo would have been fought on the 17th, and continued, perhaps, into the 18th. The only issue with this scenario would have been the weather – it was pretty bad in the afternoon and evening of the 17th. But clearly, the Prussians would have been nowhere near Plancenoit on the 17th.

@ Ligniere
What if Perponcher fell back/was driven back towards Nivelles back upon the PoO's Corps?
Then what unfolds in your theory above?
I would imagine there would have been more chaos in the Allied Army and perhaps be some amount of Wellington's orders issued from the "Ball" being very inaccurate then along with some amount being captured or not received due to the resulting interruption of that action late on the 15th and early on the 16th.
Curious
MG

What a painful question. I love both of the battles. But, considering Quatre Bras was mainly an intended, or at least, became a holding action for Napoleon, he had to win at Ligny. That, to me, as much as I feel both are as important as each other, slightly places Ligny as the more critical action to the campaign.

@MG
I don't think the French would have driven Perponcher towards Nivelles. Perponcher may have fallen back, with a portion of his force, with the intent of concentrating with the other divisions of I Corps [Alten and Cooke]. But if the French had done their job effectively, Perponcher would have been broken, and part would have been driven north towards Genappe, and the remainder screened or ignored, as they fell back towards Nivelles. The left wing French orders, of the 16th, were to push on towards Brussels, not to divert towards Nivelles in pursuit of a broken enemy.

It's the failure, of the French, to achieve this, that makes the Quatre Bras action pivotal in the campaign, in my opinion.

Ligny achieved little for the French – sure, it chalked up a last Imperial victory, and it degraded the fighting potential of I and II Korps. But, III Korps survived relatively intake, and IV Korps wasn't even involved, and ultimately both these corps were engaged on the 18th either at Wavre or Waterloo. It was the failure at Quatre Bras on the 16th which resulted in the allied retreat throughout the 17th and the presented the opportunity for the two allies to unite on the 18th, when they comprehensively defeated Napoleon and the French.

Tough call since both battles were so closely inter-related, but I would say Ligny was more important, because Napoleon BELIEVED he had decisively defeated the Prussians. I think that's why the pursuit of the Prussians was so lethargic, because he thought he'd effectively knocked the Prussian army out of the campaign. Of course, he was proved wrong on the 18th.

@ Ligniere
I agree with most of what you said except:
Perponcher would have not separated himself from PoO's Corps and would have had to fall back towards Nivelles.
An if he did find himself going with a withdrawal towards Genappe, his command would been very isolated at that point and thus most likely utterly destroyed once under heavy pursuit by Pire.

It will be interesting to see how the players handle this in my QB at Historicon since many of the "what if" could materialize, depending on their game plans.

MG

Having recently run two simultaneous games where a central army attempts to defeat one army whilst trying to hold off the other. Albeit on a smaller scale and basing it on Murat's 1815 campaign with a hypothetical battle before the Battle of Tolentino. TMP link

The think I learned was that (a) it's actually quite difficult for the attack to pull off, and, (b) you should really view them as a single large battle, rather like that at the Battle of Jena-Auerstädt.

Maybe we should be referring to it as the Battle of Ligny-Quatre-Bras. (Even if that is rather inelegant).

@MG
I totally agree, Perponcher would have wanted to retreat back towards I Corps and Nivelles, but had the French attack been successful, cohesion might have been lost, and at least part of the force would have been driven north. Pire would probably have been detached with a brigade to screen and shepherd Perponcher towards the west, whilst his other brigade, supported by the Guard Light Cavalry would have pounded north, gathering up the remnants of Bijlandt and Saxe Weimar's brigades. At some point close to Genappe [or further north] Picton and the French cavalry would have slammed into one another. Things would have been very different.

Ligniere, you brought up a good point. Napoleon might not have been expecting to fight a major action on the 16th. But he was facing someone (Blucher) who was probably even more aggressive than he was. I went back to read Ropes, one of the better older accounts of the campaign:

link

Beginning on page 5, according to Gourgaud:

"The Prussian army, having intimation of the enemy's intentions eight or ten hours before the English, would accordingly be first concentrated. Hopes were even entertained of attacking the Prussians before their four corps were united, or of obliging them to fall back in the direction of Liege…"

"In these calculations, the characters of the enemy's commanders were much to be considered. The hussar habits of Marshal Blucher, his activity and decided character, formed a strong contrast with the cautious disposition, the deliberate and methodical manner of the Duke of Wellington. Thus, it was easy to foresee, that the Prussian army would be the first to be concentrated,…All these considerations rendered it desirable that the attack should be commenced against the Prussian army; it necessarily would, so we thought, be the first to be concentrated, and this turned out to be the fact."

In his Notes for Chapter 1 (page 13) Ropes states:

"If Blucher fought at all at that stage in the campaign, it stood to reason that he would fight to the south of Sombreffe, for the preservation of his line of communication with Wellington…"

On pages 56 – 61 Ropes discusses whether Napoleon planned to reach Sombreffe on the 15th, which would have separated the two allied armies and forced Blucher to retire, or if Napoleon stopped at Fleurus as he himself said in order that Blucher would stand and fight a battle.

So I believe that Napoleon really did expect a battle on the 16th. The questions are (1) how much of the Prussian army did he expect to confront and (2) why he delayed the battle till the afternoon. Ropes believes that Napoleon delayed the attack primarily to give his left wing (including the I Corps) under Ney time to come up even with him. As far as how many Prussians Napoleon thought he would face, he stated later that he attacked the center instead of the right in order to destroy the Prussian I and II Corps rather than go around their right, pushing them towards the III and IV Corps.

138SquadronRAF

An interesting thought but considering both battles were at different locations and the armies on both sides for both actions were under different commands, I feel they have to be seen as separate battles. The same goes for Jena and Auerstadt, in my opinion. But they are very closely linked and both had an effect on the following events.

Rather than assessing the battles by counter-factual outcomes. What happens if we remove the battles?

Without Ligny Napoleon continues to push his 'central position' but won't push too hard in order to avoid becoming trapped between them. Would he opt to deliver the knock out to Wellington or Blucher? Who knows, but he certainly will not be doing it at a time of the Allies' choosing (Mont St Jean) where they could hold long enough for the other to move against him.

Without QB Napoleon reinforces his central position, breaks communications between his adversaries and pushes both back un their lines of supply.

I feel that both are important. Ligny by what it achieved, QB by what would have been in place without it.

I realized after I posted the above from Ropes that there is a big error, and I was surprised no one "caught" me on it. Napoleon at St Helena gave some good dissertations on strategy, but he also left out some important "issues" to make his point and to make him sound good.

Ropes was correct in his analysis that Blucher would want to stand in front of Fleurus in order to keep communications open with Wellington, but Napoleon was not in a position to decide whether to move on Sombreffe or Fleurus on the 15th. Zieten's corps fell back to Fleurus and in front of Ligny and St Amand on the evening of the 15th and waited for the rest of the army to come up the next day.

I remember someone bringing up the point once that this campaign wasn't really a "central position" type operation. That would have had the main army going up the highway to get in between the two allied armies, then moving against one army while blocking the other army from interfering. But rather the French are operating in two fairly equal wings with a reserve (the Guard and VI Corps), ready to take on whichever army they would meet up with first. Napoleon had to know that the odds were that he would be fighting the Prussian army first.

So by Napoleon fighting the first battle against the Prussian army, that became the main battle for that day, and Ney's job was mainly keeping Wellington's army from interfering, which is what happened in effect. (Ney didn't fight the battle with that so much in mind because he was instead trying to keep to his orders to occupy the crossroads and move the advanced units of his wing as far as Genappe.)

I think Quatre Bras becomes important not in the results of the battle on the 16th but because Napoleon did not move from the Ligny battlefield fast enough, he and Ney did not keep good communications between them, and Ney didn't try to pin Wellington in position early on the 17th, perhaps making the battlefield Quatre Bras instead of Waterloo.

Napoleon may have ordered Ney to take the cross roads at Quatre Bras because had he ordered Ney to just hold Wellington back, Ney may have remained far more inactive and slow moving. He needed the Allies to be unaware of who his main aim would be directed at and so Ney had to act aggressive. Just a thought and I'm not sure if it makes either action more important.

I'd say Ligny, if only because Napoleon was there.

If he'd won there more decisively it could have meant victory at Waterloo.
If he'd lost there it might have meant Waterloo was easier for the allies… If he'd lost there heavily it might even have meant no Waterloo.

Quatre Bras resulted in Ney failing but I doubt the allies would have been finished until Napoleon faced them so win or lose another battle would have been fought.

One cannot seperate these two battles, some eye witnesses speak for example of the left wing (and did mean the Prussians).

Both played well out for the Allies, Quatre Bras prevented an crushing victory for the French in Ligny and Ligny enabled Wellingtons army to hold their position.

Drouets corps would certainly committed fully in one or the other.