The battle opened at close to 2pm, marked by a heavy artillery barrage and the advance along the whole front of a thick line of skirmishers. Writing in the third person, General Reille later wrote:
Only the 5th and 9th Infantry Divisions of the 2nd Corps, led by General Reille, started their attack over difficult ground. A brigade of the 9th Division [Foy] occupied the Gémioncourt farm, whilst the 5th Division [Bachelu] crossed the two shallow valleys under the protection of the artillery . . .1
In the light of the relatively few allied troops that could be seen on the edges of the woods, the sunken tracks, high crops and in the folds of the ground, the French artillery fire seems to have been concentrated against the line of Dutch guns on the heights of Gémioncourt. The experienced French artillerymen soon found their range and the Dutch battery started to take casualties in both manpower and horses. Such was the effectiveness of the French fire that both Dutch batteries were ordered to retire to the shallow ridgeline closer to Quatre Bras marked by the Bati-Saint-Bernard track. Two guns required immediate repair.
Freed from the threat of enemy artillery fire, the whole French front line began their advance. General Foy described the initial move.
Bachelu marched in the direction of a small lake [the Étang Materne] that was near Gémioncourt; I followed him supporting his left with my first brigade, and whilst my second finished forming up, my last regiment waited at the farm in front of Frasnes until it had been relieved by the troops of the following division.
Having received the order, Bachelu and I, being the head of the column to the left, took the direction towards the northern point of the Bossu wood. The enemy showed many men outside the wood, around the houses of Quatre Bras and on the Namur road. Four guns fired on us; our numerous horse artillery returned fire.2
On the right flank, the 2nd légère advanced on Lairalle, the tentative move of their skirmishers suggesting that they expected to have to fight for the farm. However, finding that they did not come under fire, the tirailleurs rushed forward and after a quick search found it was deserted.
In the centre, the French skirmishers made rapid progress against their equivalents of the 27th Ja¨gers. The latter were quickly pushed back across the Pré des Queues stream towards their supports by the veteran French tirailleurs, who appeared particularly adept at picking off officers and NCOs. The infantry columns, which had initially skirted around the edge of the Delhutte wood, now wheeled to their left so that they formed a long line from the Étang Materne to the main road, with other columns following them up in reserve. Although the Dutch skirmishers had been ordered to concentrate their fire on the more vulnerable columns, this was almost impossible due to the need to protect themselves from the pressing French tirailleurs. It quickly became apparent that their fire did little to deter the French advance.
However, whilst the skirmishers were able to choose their routes and use available cover to the best advantage, this was not true of the columns. As the skirmish line crept forward towards the low ridge of the Gémioncourt heights in pursuit of the withdrawing ja¨gers, the following columns were not able to maintain the pace of their advance. As they met the line of the Pré des Queues stream, the boggy ground, hedges and undergrowth forced them to slow down and they had to take a far more structured and controlled approach to their movement. This was complicated by the inconsistent difficulty of the obstacles and some battalions were able to negotiate them more easily than others. Those units that had moved through relatively unhindered were then forced to hold and wait for the other battalions to catch up to avoid losing the order and integrity of the advance. Although the opposition was relatively weak, the bulk and lack of manoeuvrability of the columns across difficult ground made their advance painfully slow.
The slow French advance gave the Prince of Orange the time to take action to meet the developing attack: the Dutch 5th National Militia and Belgian 7th Line Battalion were moved forward to support the front line. Their advance to a position about 450 metres behind the Gémioncourt farm was made under artillery fire that caused their first casualties. The 5th Militia advanced astride the main road, heading for Gémioncourt, with the 7th Line moving through the Bossu wood and then taking position parallel to their right. Meanwhile, the 27th Ja¨gers were in danger of being overwhelmed by the mass of advancing French skirmishers and at about 2.30pm they rallied and started their withdrawal in column back towards Gémioncourt. As they approached this farm, two companies were sent forward to occupy the buildings.
The French continued their advance towards the farm. The heat of the day was already beginning to be felt; an officer in Bachelu’s division wrote, ‘We continued our march in the direction of Gémioncourt. The rapidity of our movement, along with the extreme heat, made this advance very tiresome.’3
As the advance of the French infantry columns freed up space on the Balcan heights, so more French artillery was able to deploy. These guns quickly came into action and once again, with a paucity of infantry targets, the Dutch artillery became the focus of attention. With the Dutch guns concentrating their fire on the vulnerable French infantry columns, the French artillery returned their fire free from harassment. Very soon Bijleveld’s troop was being pounded by the French guns at a range of just 600 metres. The limbers and caissons, with their large teams of horses, made relatively easy targets and soon so many horses were falling that the point was approaching when the guns would be stranded. If this were to happen, the battery would surely be destroyed and so it was ordered to fall back towards the crossroads. Once again, just as the pressure was mounting on the forward infantry, they were losing their precious artillery support.
With the withdrawal of Bijleveld’s troop, the French artillery turned all its attention to the guns of Stevenaar. Within only a short time, crews, horses and equipment were all suffering from the heavy fire. Two guns were damaged and had to be withdrawn for repair. To stay was to invite annihilation and the Prince of Orange ordered that this battery too was to withdraw. The French artillery was having a devastating effect. Both batteries made their way back and re-established a line along the heights along which ran the chemin de Bati-Saint-Bernard. Stevenaar’s howitzer became separated on this latest move and, now reduced to a total of just six guns and one howitzer, the two batteries were courageously trying to support their hard-pressed infantry, but were being over-whelmed by the power and accuracy of their opponents.
On the right of the French advance, Colonel Maigrot’s 2nd légère now continued their advance towards the farm and hamlet of Piraumont, a far more daunting-looking position than Lairalle. However, once again this farm and cluster of buildings was found to be undefended and they consolidated their gains. A strong skirmish line was pushed forward towards the Namur road and the following columns drew up waiting for the next move. It appears that it was at this point that the 2nd légère was split; it was well suited to a flank protection task, but its specialist skirmishing role also required it to support the main advance. It seems that two battalions were designated to the extreme right flank around Piraumont and towards Thyle, whilst the other two battalions provided some of the thick skirmisher screen ahead of the rest of the division’s advance that was to cause the allies such trouble throughout the rest of the day.
On the French left there had been little activity, although a number of allied sources describe a charge by the Red Lancers of the Guard. However, given Napoleon’s strict instructions that Ney was not to use them, it seems inconceivable that he would have engaged them so early in the battle: no French sources mention their use. However, some French artillery was active on this flank and caused casualties to members of the 2nd Nassau-Usingen Regiment who, unable to retaliate, were pulled back into the cover of the trees.
Most of the significant action was therefore now taking place in the centre, where the bulk of the French infantry, cavalry and artillery were deployed. The suffering Dutch artillery were given no respite by their opposite numbers and no sooner had they come into action in their new position than they began taking another hammering. So many of the Dutch and Nassau troops were either in the cover of the woods or fighting in open order that it seems there were few other worthwhile targets. Crewmen and horses were again beginning to fall, a limber was destroyed and Stevenaar himself was struck down and killed. Having occupied the buildings of Gémioncourt, the rest of the 27th Ja¨ger formed a skirmish line in the hedges and bushes that lined the stream as it ran down towards the Étang Materne. However, this had to be done under fire as the French skirmishers followed up the retreating Dutchmen closely and maintained the pressure on them. Significantly, a continuing number of Dutch officers were falling and control of the battalion, spread as it was in skirmish order, was beginning to suffer. Hiding in the crops on the heights of Gémioncourt, the tirailleurs shot down on to the sweating, green-clad troops. However, they were soon to get some support; the 5th Militia were ordered to move forward down the main road to link up with this battalion and continue its line to the west. Its two élite companies occupied the orchard and gardens forward of the farm and the centre companies straddled the road. However, they soon came under increasingly accurate and annoying fire from the ubiquitous French skirmishers. In an effort to push these back, a company was sent forward in open order, but they were soon overwhelmed by fire and, with the French manoeuvring to cut them off, they lost all cohesion and rushed back to the main body of the battalion having suffered heavy casualties.
Up to this point the clouds of French skirmishers had proved particularly effective and had generated a slow but inexorable forward momentum. No need had yet been identified for the long line of battalion columns following them up. They had been left free to tackle the difficulty of negotiating the Pré des Queues stream and the hedges lining it, and as long as the skirmish line was not being held up by a well-formed and effective defence line, the French infantry commanders were clearly content to let them have their head. The heat was intense.
The 27th Ja¨gers and 5th Militia were in great danger of being overwhelmed. Although still only engaged by skirmishers, the French fire had proved to be particularly effective and the Dutch troops had struggled to contain the open order infantry hidden amongst the high crops who were expertly picking off the officers that were trying to organise and galvanise the defence. However, as things began to look precarious, the 7th Line Battalion emerged from the Bossu wood and formed in line between the wood and the road.
The Dutch and Belgian troops had now established a defence line anchored on Gémioncourt and, although it was somewhat brittle, they appeared determined to hold and the French skirmishers did not have the power to break it alone. However, it was not the line of infantry columns that moved forward to test the strength of this line, but Piré’s cavalry. Advancing north along the western side of the main road, one of his regiments, no doubt believing that the Dutch line was close to breaking, fell on the 5th Militia. The militia, however, had sufficient time to form square, and displaying an admirable steadiness, awaited the French attack. The battalion broke the cohesion of the first squadron with their fire. The succeeding squadrons, despite the urging of their riders, were unable to goad their horses into the hedge of bayonets and none of the following squadrons were able to threaten the steadiness of the square. Trying to re-establish order after their failed charge, and now taking casualties from both the square and the Dutch guns to the north, the cavalry broke off the attack and returned to their own lines to rally. The Belgian 7th Line chose not to form square but retired to the safety of the woods before any cavalry gave chase. Once the cavalry had withdrawn, the 5th Militia and 7th Line retook their original positions in line with Gémioncourt.
On the French left, the situation remained relatively quiet: an artillery battery was bombarding the allied troops who were deployed just forward of the Bossu wood and the entrances to it. Still lacking the men to do any more, Ney was content to keep any ambition the allied troops here might have had in check with this artillery fire. Little did he know, however, that the effect of this fire, the inexperience of the units placed there and the unsettling effect of hearing the fighting taking place in the centre, but being unable to see what was happening, was having an adverse effect on their morale. So jumpy were the battalion of Orange-Nassau that they were panicked by the appearance of a small group of horsemen and began a disordered withdrawal back towards the imagined security of the wood. The horsemen turned out to be none other than the Prince of Orange and his staff and the battalion was halted and brought back under the control of its officers. However, as a precaution, both this battalion and the 8th National Militia were pulled back into the Pierrepont wood to give them some shelter from the French artillery fire. Shortly afterwards these two battalions were ordered to withdraw north and take a new position in the Bossu wood. This would bring them more into line with the battalions defending the position around Gemioncourt. Exposed once more to the French artillery, they again took casualties which caused some confusion in the ranks. The allied troops on this flank were showing poor morale even before they had been seriously engaged; if Ney had only had the whole of Reille’s corps available, a determined attack on this flank might well have succeeded.
Indeed, the whole allied line appeared close to breaking point and it seemed that all that was required was a determined advance by the infantry columns straight towards Quatre Bras itself. Although until Prince Jérôme’s division came up Ney did not enjoy an overwhelming superiority of numbers, his troops were well concentrated and in hand; in contrast, the Prince of Orange’s men were spread in a long, thin arc trying to defend all points of an extended front. Consequently, he now made an effort to strengthen and consolidate his line with the troops he had available and pulled back his southernmost battalions to reduce his front. If Ney could quickly shake himself out of his apparent lethargy and caution, victory was beckoning; his battering ram was aimed at the very centre of a crumbling allied line. It was 3 o’clock.