Chapter 17

The Morning of the 17th

The 17th dawned with no orders from Napoleon. All the French participants who left accounts are mysteriously silent on what they did first thing in the morning. No doubt for those soldiers who had marched all day on the 14th, marched and skirmished on the 15th, and fought throughout the day of the 16th, the rest would have been very welcome. The 1st Corps were providing the security, and d’Erlon wrote that morning:

Dated ‘in bivouac’, before Frasnes, 17 June, morning.

M. le Maréchal, conforming to the orders of His Majesty, the 1st Corps is holding the first line astride the Brussels road; the 1st Cavalry Division is covering its front and flanks.

I have the honour to inform Your Excellency that the 1st Cavalry Division made a number of successful charges and that it captured a number of wagons and prisoners. [Presumably from the Prussians]1

Colonel Heymès tells us ‘On the morning of the 17th, the marshal had ordered his troops to be under arms early; he was himself at the advance posts first thing.’2 Surprisingly, there is no other account of the rest of the left wing standing to and preparing to meet an allied counter-offensive. It is possible that Ney believed that Wellington would not dare to attack having learnt of the Prussian defeat, but this would seem to have been a risky assumption and it is not clear that Ney knew of the result of the previous day for certain either. Some in the 1st Corps were more worried about their baggage:

On the 17th, sent in the morning by my general to look for our baggage, I travelled up and down the road taken by the fugitives without finding what I was looking for and without obtaining any information that would help me; returning once again to the road on which was spread all the broken trunks and rags, open porte manteaux, I found mine in the ditch next to the road on the right, but cut open by a knife along its entire length and turned inside out, I had lost all of my possessions, my papers and the little money that I possessed; and to complete my misery, my general and his second ADC had also lost their baggage and everything that we would need to look after ourselves.3

French accounts give no mention of any fighting or alarm, so we must turn to those of the allies to confirm that the outposts were active:

. . . a popping fire of musketry, apparently close at hand, aroused me again to consciousness of my situation . . . From whatever the musketry might proceed we could see nothing – not even the flashes . . . A smart skirmish was going on amongst the hedges, etc., already mentioned, and this was the firing we had heard all the morning. Our infantry were lying about, cleaning their arms, cooking, or amusing themselves, totally regardless of the skirmish . . . After much firing from the edge of the wood, opposite which our riflemen occupied all the hedges, I saw the French chasseurs suddenly make a rush forward in all directions, whilst the fire of our people became thicker and faster than ever. Many of the former scampered across the open fields until they reached the nearest hedges, whilst others ran crouching under cover of those perpendicular to their front, and the whole succeeded in establishing themselves – thus forcing back and gaining ground on our men. The fire then again became sharper than ever – sometimes the French were driven back . . .4

Although many other allied accounts talk of almost continuous skirmishing between the outposts, it seems that the main forces of both sides were more concerned with resting than fighting. Although Ney had been substantially outnumbered at the end of the battle the previous day, now that d’Erlon had arrived he had concentrated about 35,000 men after the casualties of the previous day are deducted. Girard had died a heroic death leading his division the day before and they had suffered such heavy casualties that they were left at Ligny to recover and did not rejoin their corps until after Waterloo. Durutte’s division did not rejoin until late on the 17th. In contrast, Wellington had received further reinforcements during the night and in the morning had between 42 and 47,000 men around Quatre Bras.

Ney understandably feared that Wellington was now considerably stronger than himself and did not dare to provoke the allied commander into attacking him. However, as this must have been a real possibility, it is surprising that the marshal appears not to have taken any defensive measures, such as deploying his force to meet such an attack. We can only speculate that Ney intended to withdraw if Wellington showed any indication of stirring himself. As it was, Wellington too was awaiting definite news of Blücher’s situation before committing himself to action; he did not want to find the Prussians had been beaten having already compromised himself. And so the two armies sat tranquilly watching each other, waiting for news of the outcome of Ligny before deciding what to do.

General Flahaut had spent the whole of the 16th with Ney at Quatre Bras and had observed all that had gone on there. He returned to imperial headquarters in the morning and informed the emperor of what he had seen. In particular, he reported that Ney had still not been informed of the result of Ligny and consequently remained unsure of what he should do; until he had been given some orders he was inclined to remain on the defensive. This alarmed Napoleon, who had presumed that Ney had retaken the offensive to fix Wellington in place so that the emperor could march along the Namur road and attack Wellington’s flank whilst he was engaged to his front with Ney. Napoleon immediately had Soult write to Ney to make clear the victory that he had won and to press the commander of the left wing to immediately attack the forces in front of him.

Fleurus, 17 June 1815.

M. le Maréchal,

General Flahaut, who has just arrived, has informed us that you are still unsure on the results of yesterday. I thought you had been warned of the victory that the emperor has won. The Prussian army has been routed, General Pajol is in pursuit on the roads to Namur and Liège. We have already taken several thousand prisoners and 30 cannon. Our troops were well led: a charge of six battalions of the Guard, the service squadrons and Delort’s cavalry division broke the enemy line, throwing their ranks into disorder and taking the position.

The emperor is going to the mill at Bry where the main road which goes from Namur to Quatre Bras passes. It is thus possible that the English army will act in front of you, if this is the case, the emperor will march directly against it by the main road to Quatre Bras, whilst you attack it from the front with your divisions which, currently, should be concentrated, and this army will be destroyed in an instant. Thus, inform His Majesty of the exact location of your divisions, and all that happens to your front.

The emperor is disappointed that you did not concentrate your divisions yesterday; they acted individually and so you suffered casualties.

If the corps of Counts d’Erlon and Reille had been together, not an Englishman of the corps that attacked you would have escaped. If the Count d’Erlon had executed the movement on Saint-Amand that the emperor had ordered, the Prussian army would have been totally destroyed and we would have made perhaps 30,000 prisoners.

The corps of Generals Gérard, Vandamme and the Imperial Guard were always concentrated; one exposes oneself to a reverse when detachments are made.

The emperor hopes and desires that your seven infantry divisions and the cavalry are well concentrated and formed and that together they do not occupy more than a league of ground, in order to have them well in hand and available to use in case of need.

The intention of His Majesty is that you take position at Quatre Bras, as soon as the order is given; but if this is not possible, send details immediately and the emperor will move there as I have already told you. If, to the contrary, there is only a rear-guard, attack it and take position there.

It is necessary to finish this operation today and to resupply ammunition, rally isolated troops and call in detachments. Give the necessary orders to assure yourself that all the wounded have been tended to and transported to the rear; there are complaints that the ambulances have not done their duty.

The famous partisan Lutzow, who has been captured, said that the Prussian army is lost and that Blücher has exposed the Prussian monarch for the second time.

Le Maréchal d’empire, major général, Duc de Dalmatie5

Soult’s intimation that he ‘thought you had been warned of the victory that the emperor has won’ suggests that some effort had already been made to inform Ney of the previous day’s result, but it might also have been an attempt by Soult to cover up his own failing. More important is the effect of this reprimand on Ney after his frustrations of the previous day. Although this letter does not have a time attached to it, various French writers have estimated that it was written between seven and eight o’clock, after Flahaut had returned to imperial headquarters. Heymès says that it arrived with Ney ‘towards 9am’.6 Perhaps more drawn to the paragraph on resupplying, rallying and tending to the wounded, inexplicably Ney took absolutely no action to confront Wellington after receiving this order. Whether this was anger and frustration or an unwillingness to goad the army in front of him is unclear, but the majority of his troops appear to have sat in their bivouacs, cleaning their weapons and no doubt trying to procure some breakfast. Lieutenant Henckens and his fellow chasseurs were lucky enough to be issued some rations:

The night of the 16th to the 17th was very quiet; the morning of the 17th at an early hour there was a distribution of rations for men and horses from which we profited immediately, awaiting new orders.7

But Napoleon too is universally accused of wasting the morning. The French emperor had conducted some relentless pursuits in his heyday; perhaps the most famous against the Prussians in 1806 after the victories of Jena and Aüerstadt. Now another was needed; having failed to gain the decisive victory he desperately sought, an aggressive pursuit could have denied the Prussians the opportunity to collect and rally. But Napoleon allowed his tired troops to rest whilst he awaited the news on which direction the Prussians had retreated in and visited the battlefield of the previous day.

For his part, Wellington awoke the next morning concerned that Ney would attack again and was relieved when he was informed that the French showed no inclination to continue the fight. He needed to know what had happened at Ligny before he could decide on what his next action should be. It was not until seven-thirty that he was informed of Blücher’s defeat and, although he knew this meant he must retreat, French inactivity convinced him there was time for his troops to have breakfast, and he set the time for the first units to fall back as ten o’clock. This might have been considered rather risky, but there is no doubt that he felt confident that with the force he now had he could comfortably resist any French attack.

It was only at midday that Napoleon turned his mind back to Ney and Wellington. He had Soult write:

In front of Ligny, 17 June, midday.

Monsieur le Maréchal, the emperor is going to take position in front of Marbais with an infantry corps and the Imperial Guard. His Majesty directs me to inform you that his intention is that you are to attack the enemy at Quatre Bras, chase them from their position, and that the corps which is at Marbais will second your operations. His Majesty will move to Marbais, and awaits your reports with impatience.

Le Maréchal d’empire, major général, Duc de Dalmatie8

Whilst his plan to fall on Wellington’s flank was sound and in line with his original intent, it was carried out five hours too late. For this only Napoleon can take the blame.

Once Grouchy’s pursuit of the Prussians had been sent off, Napoleon put himself at the head of the 6th Corps, Imperial Guard and Milhaud’s cuirassiers, and marched towards Quatre Bras. He stopped at Marbais, surprised that he could not hear any firing to indicate Ney had started his attack. He sent the 7th Hussars forward to meet up with Ney’s troops and ironically the hussars exchanged shots with Ney’s outposts, who had mistaken them for the enemy. An English woman who had been with the allied army had been captured and was brought before Napoleon; she revealed that only a rear-guard composed of cavalry and artillery still occupied Quatre Bras. Angry, Napoleon galloped forward to join the left wing. Gourgaud takes up the story:

The emperor was greatly astonished to find that Marshal Ney’s corps was still bivouacking before Frasnes. Irritated at this delay, he instantly ordered the troops to march forward and join him. He had to wait upwards of an hour for them.9

Lieutenant Philippe-Gustave Le Doulcet de Pontécoulant of the Guard Horse Artillery was a part of the force that Napoleon led towards Quatre Bras and took a leading role in the subsequent pursuit of Wellington’s army to Waterloo. He wrote:

Marshal Ney had been warned of these movements by the major général who had at the same time reiterated the order to advance against the enemy who was at Quatre Bras with vigour, and announced to him the co-operation of Count Lobau who was at Marbais in order to support him.

Despite these formal and repeated instructions no activity was apparent towards Quatre Bras; all appeared calm and in perfect tranquillity. Napoleon, astonished to see his intentions so badly seconded, then set off in the lead with all the troops that he had immediately to hand.10

It will be remembered that General d’Erlon’s 1st Corps was the foremost of Ney’s troops and he later wrote:

He [Napoleon] then came with the rest of his army, to rejoin Marshal Ney at Quatre Bras, which had already been evacuated by the English. The emperor found me before this position and said to me with great sorrow, these words which have been forever engraved in my memory, ‘France is lost; go my dear general, put yourself at the head of this cavalry and press the English rear-guard hard.11

In his account of the campaign, Gourgaud states that Napoleon criticised d’Erlon for his failures of the day before, but perhaps it is unsurprising that d’Erlon does not mention this. However, both Foy and Desalles appear to have been witness to this criticism. The latter wrote:

He [Napoleon] expressed his discontent to Count d’Erlon, who explained that he found himself in an embarrassing position, since he was under the orders of Marshal Ney. His Majesty did not reply and gave me his orders: ‘Get the horse artillery moving forward and pursue the enemy without respite.’12

A little later Napoleon was joined by Ney and the emperor demanded an explanation as to why his orders had not been obeyed; Ney tried to excuse himself by saying he believed he had the whole of the allied army in front of him. But Heymès, in his attempts to defend Ney, claims, ‘It is not true that the emperor showed his discontent to Marshal Ney; it is also not true that the troops were still in their bivouacs when he appeared for they were under arms at daybreak.’13

Dismissing his lieutenant, Napoleon put himself at the very head of his troops and set off after Wellington. The pursuit of the allies was led by cavalry and horse artillery; Captain Duthilt reported that the 2nd Division of the 1st Corps left, ‘. . . at 2 o’clock in the afternoon’.14 The 2nd Corps was left to bring up the rear; General Foy wrote in a letter home, ‘The army set off . . . in the afternoon. Why so late? I do not know’.15 and Colonel Jolyet of the 1st légère merely records, ‘On the 17th June, we remained in our camp until towards 4pm.’16

In the morning General Durutte and his division had been ordered to rejoin the rest of their corps at Quatre Bras, but were then ordered to stop; presumably to let the 6th Corps and Imperial Guard pass. Captain Chapuis, already frustrated by the failure of Durutte to intervene at Ligny, had even more to complain about:

Held up in our march by the rain, the mud and the numerous columns that were all advancing towards the same point as us, we arrived so late in the position allocated to us that it was impossible for the soldiers to get any shelter from the poor weather.17

The whole of the French army was now in motion following up Wellington’s troops. The stage was set for the cataclysmic battle that was to be fought the next day at Waterloo.

Analysis – the 17th

It is hard to censure Ney for not having attacked Wellington before he knew the outcome of Ligny. Whilst he had sufficient forces to impose on his opponent for a time, given that he was outnumbered and may even have been facing virtually the whole of Wellington’s army, such an attack, without the promise of a sizeable force coming to support him from Ligny, could have been suicidal. What’s more, Napoleon’s first order of the day merely directed him to, ‘take position at Quatre Bras, as soon as the order is given; but if this is not possible, send details immediately and the emperor will move there as I have already told you.’ In these circumstances, Ney probably felt justified in not attacking Wellington; although he does not appear to have made this clear in any communications with Napoleon, leaving the latter unclear on the situation he was facing. However, as we have seen, the order went on to say, ‘If, to the contrary, there is only a rear-guard, attack it and take position there.’

It is perfectly reasonable to expect Ney to have taken a close interest in what the allies were doing to his front. The news of the Prussian defeat certainly made an attack by the Anglo-Netherlands army highly unlikely, but equally it made a retreat extremely likely. He should therefore have been looking for signs of this retreat so that he could both warn Napoleon and identify the time to launch an attack that would fix part of the force in place, well set up to be destroyed by the emperor’s flanking move. Ney appears to have been struck by a wave of complete apathy; he took no interest in what Wellington was up to at all, made no efforts to comply with Napoleon’s orders and had not even bothered to get his formations ready to move. This was unforgiveable and it is no surprise that the emperor was angry and chose to lead the pursuit himself.

But Napoleon was not free from blame for the wasting of time this morning either. He was slow to find out where the Prussians had gone and slow to despatch an effective pursuit. Although his troops had marched and fought for three days, he of all people understood that a commander must not spare his men when the opportunity for a decisive pursuit offered itself. He was also slow to turn on Wellington, giving him the opportunity to slip away from a moribund Ney. Although Ney was complicit in the failings of the day, it was Napoleon’s lack of energy and decisiveness that were the key to French failure on the 17th; not Ney’s inactivity.

Through the 14th, 15th and even the 16th, Napoleon had maintained the initiative and forced the two allied commanders to dance to his tune. He had outmanoeuvred and outfought them, and although he had not achieved the results he had hoped by first light on the 17th, it is wrong to lay the blame solely at his door; he had still not lost the opportunity to win the campaign. Blücher’s army had taken a beating, although it had not been destroyed as Napoleon had wanted, but a swift pursuit should have kept it out of the game whilst he turned with his fresh troops (the 6th Corps and majority of the Imperial Guard) against Wellington with the rest of Ney’s wing.

At first light on the 17th, the campaign was still Napoleon’s to win, but by lunchtime the Prussians had escaped a punishing pursuit, which would allow them the time to rally and reorganise, and Wellington had started his retreat towards the position at Waterloo without mishap. In a few short hours, and without any fighting, the pendulum had swung decisively in favour of the allies; forty-eight hours later, the French army had been destroyed and Napoleon’s hopes lay in ruins.