Talk:Battle of Quatre Bras/Archive 1

Untitled
"Picton" is a town or two in the current version of WP. So this gentlemen should be disambiguated (nicely, please!). Robin Patterson 01:30, 23 Jul 2004 (UTC)


 * This was done a long time ago: Sir Thomas Picton – PBS 18:05, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Who Won?
I have just reverted this Article from an Allied stratigic win to a French stratigic win.


 * ''If they could combine with the Prussians commanded by Gebhard von Blücher the allies combined army would be larger than Napoleon's. Napoleon's strategy had been to cross the border without alerting the allies and to defeat the Prussians before turning on the Anglo-allied army. He was very successful in this move. By dispatching Marshal Ney with a corps to block the crossroads it stopped any contingents of the Anglo-allied army going to the aid of the Prussians during the Battle of Ligny.


 * ''It was a strategic victory for the French, because along with the French victory at the Battle of Ligny it forced the Allied armies to retreat in different directions while the French were free pursue either allied Army.

I am not sure how 209.86.18.216 can argue
 * ''it was a strategic victory for the allies, because it denied the chance for Napoleon to possibly annihalate the Prussians at the Battle of Ligny using Ney's men (which were caught up at Quatre Bras). Napoleon, after sending the still-intact Prussians fleeing

because if Nay had not held the Allies they would have arrived at Ligny, much as the Prussians arrived at Waterloo. Look at the map, the Allies forces nearest to Ligny were dispersed around Nivelles. Which is why Napoleon sent Ney to block at Quatre Bras. QB sits on the crossroads of the main Nivelles-Namur road which is a much easier and faster route to Ligny than the cross country one the Prussians had to use to get to Waterloo. If it is a question of the wisdom of detatching Nay to block the road in the first place, I would go with Napoleon's judgment over 209.86.18.216. PBS 09:31, 17 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Prelude
Given the fact, that Napoleon wanted Ney to push his vanguards on to Brussels that day, at least no later that 17 June, it was a strategical defeat to the french. Because of the alertness of Dutch commanders, Napoleon's plan to fully drive a wedge between the allies did not succeed. With regard to french pre-war plans and ambitions Quatre Bras has to be regarded as a strategical loss.


 * Napoleon did drive a wedge between the coalition armies. PBS

Personally I do believe that this stage of the campaign can't be understood without taking into account Wellington's flawed handling of intelligence and extremely cautious troop deployment. In fact his orders and deployments left Quatre Bras and the road to Brussels wide open to any french advancement. Wellington's hesitation to accept the inexpected fact, that the main thrust of the french advance was aimed along the road from Charleroi to Brussels, did almost lead to desaster. While Wellington was waiting for news from Paris (Fouché?) about the expected attack via Mons and having lunch for one hour and a half at midday, Prussian outposts and finally the entire 1st Army Corps (Ziethen) were already engaged in heavy combat in and around Thuin/Sambre and then Charleroi. It took Wellington nine (!) hours from 9am to 6pm to react to the intelligence he had received throughout the day, starting with Ziethen's handwritten account, which arrived at his headquarters at 9am on 15 June. &mdash;The preceding unsigned comment was added by Canadian historian (talk &bull; contribs) 19:18, 8 October 2005  (UTC)


 * You can not have your cake and eat it. If Wellington had been the dilettant you imply and the French had wanted to reach Brussles, then one Dutch Corps would not have stopped them. As a general rule the French did not look on cities as objectives, they looked for the enemy to engage them in a pitched battle. I think the two battle that day were a stratigic victory for the French just as the battles two days later were a French stratigic loss. PBS 01:14, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

(EDIT by CanHist):I do not "imply" that Wellington was a "dilettant", that's your reading. He just wasn't up to the task on 15/16 June and failed to react properly after having received numerous reports about the beginning of hostilities, waiting for definitive confirmation from Paris, that Napoleon would not attack via Mons. They did not "fully" drive a wedge through the allied forces' positions, as can be proven by the events on 17/18 June. Can't you just quit your tone: "you can not have your cake and eat it" [sic!] and base your argument on factual data? That would be more helpful. Another riposte (see discussion battle of Waterloo) : Why do you write "stratigic" and not strategic and even worse: "Nay" instead of Ney? If we were to combine efforts we could easily turn these erroneus, flawed articles on wikipedia about the entire campaign into true marvels. But that would require a approach to data and thinking based on factual evidence. &mdash;The preceding unsigned comment was added by 67.68.7.33 (talk &bull; contribs) 08:17, 16 October 2005  (UTC)


 * Why do I make spelling mistakes? Because my spelling is bad! Usually I run it through a spelling checker but not all I write all the time, particularly if I decide to tweak something I have already written. One of the nice things about this project is that there are people about like you who can and do correct my bad spelling. That you think Wellington fail to react properly is your (and others) POV. The problem are that the "facts" which historians use are frequently disputed because, as Wellington said, you may as well try to write a history of a ball as a battle. There were so many players making so many decisions simultaneously and recording them sometimes many years afterwards from their perspective, or not at all, that all the "facts" are not known and can not be subject to full coherent analysis. Then interpretation of the "facts" are always subject to the POV of the historian. Now with some battles, history may allow a consensus to emerge as to what the relevant facts are, along with a generally accepted POV. But so long as nationalism is a potent force in Europe The Waterloo campaign and its battles will never have a generally agreed POV. Even battles, where the English perspective has been settled for hundreds of years, can suddenly flare up into a contested interpretation by historians who specialise in the battle. For example Professor Anne Curry's new (none trivial) analysis of French numbers at the Battle of Agincourt has thrown into doubt the traditional view of the number of Frenchmen engaged in the battle and that this an impact of other facets of the traditional view of the battle. PBS 12:44, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

(EDIT by CanHist): I do totally agree with you with regard to what you've said about different view points and nationalism. But still, as Hofschroer succeeded to show: It is one thing to word writings in a biased tainted fashion and quite another to bluntly omit sources and data at hand that is readily accessible, in part probably because of language barriers and in part because of shere ignorance or even fear to lose ground in a discussion fuelled by nationalist motives. It started with Wellington's treatment of Siborne. We should at least try to overcome this now, don't you think? Spelling? Well then please write Neidhardt von Gneisenau correctly (also in the links) and I shall drop my "riposte" and I shall silently hunt down spelling errors. Thanks very much! &mdash;The preceding unsigned comment was added by 67.68.21.123 (talk &bull; contribs) 04:06, 17 October 2005  (UTC)

BTW I disagree with much of what you added to the Prelude to this battle but I do not have a decent reference book here, so I have delayed editing it not because I think your addition is completly correct, but I want to check one or two things first. PBS 10:57, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

(EDIT by CanHist): I do not expect you to agree 100% on this version, BUT you should have read what has been said in this article before: A narrative just gruesome and terrible! Same applies to the description of events at Ligny. Please do include Hofschroer in your readings ;-) and perhaps Chesney. Hamilton-Williams is interesting too.... - specifically when it comes to examine faulty fabrications of the very same old style. ;-) Fact is, that Wellington risked the outcome of the entire campaign by being a late riser as he was relying too much on intelligence other than that timely given by his allies.


 * Again, late at night on June 15, and long after Hofschröer maintains that Wellington ought to have moved, Blücher himself was writing: "Tomorrow will decide if Napoleon will turn against me or Wellington.". What are your thoughts on this? PBS 17:38, 20 October 2005 (UTC)
 * An other opinion which has been voiced is that Wellington didn't believe the information that was coming to him about Napoleon concentrating at the frontier because he thought it was coming from French spies and not from his own chief intelligence officer whereas one of his own generals, commanding a brigade at the border, had been negligent to mention that the information was coming from the aformentioned colonel when he forwarded it to Brussels. Thus Wellington discarded the information and didn't start to act untill Ziethen's posts were already under attack near Charleroi (the "humbugged"). - fdewaele 19:50 CET

Hofschroer is a historian 'with an axe to grind' (his own words I believe), and his highly critical opinions of Wellington may not be entirely unbiased. He has weaknesses as much as many other historians, and there's no particular reason to base this article around his opinion rather than others. There's also a Wellingtonphobe - if not Anglophobe - community out there which the early part of this article possible panders excessively to: the tone of 'long before any British troops started to intervene' doesn't strike me as neutral. Which I may as well deal with shortly, actually...Agema 17:30, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

I've made a few subtle changes to the prelude. With hindsight, it's clear Wellington's failure to move to Quatre Bras in strength early enough was a serious error. However, at the time he had to worry about being flanked and having his line of communication cut, so his caution is not worthy of the outright negativity as the article stood. Secondly, although it was clearly a serious error not to move to support Blucher (even without hindsight), Wellington was not lying to believe he could get about 20,000 men to Blucher. At the time of his promises, even when they spoke at 10am on the day of the battle, Quatre Bras was both held by his troops and free of a substantial French presence. Finally, I removed a couple of links because the site that runs those pages is unreliable: it's severely racist against the British.Agema 19:03, 1 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Having known Peter for more than a decade I would take offense and as several that have been rather insulting to his work I'd ask that: 1. Read his books before making comments like that and 2: Read Chesney on the same subject as he is even less forgiving on the subject. I would assume that the chair of Sandhurst would have reliable enough credentials for you.  Now having despensed with the stupid subject lets move on to the point, Wellington utterly relied upon his intelligence network in France that on this occasion utterly failed him.  The Prussians had been bracing for days and had been sharing what they found with Wellington for days (the letters from Gen Zieten to Gen Wellington both being noted) and he continued to keep his forces well spread out.  Now we can call that however it suits but most tacticians of this or any time would have considered this a major mistake.  To point of fact, had Ligny not been a full blown battle thing get really nasty really quick for Wellington.  Having your army spread over hell's half acre with an assembled enemy to your front is about as bad as it gets no matter how we paint it.  Now as for Wellington lying to Blutcher, if he didn't believe their was a threat he wouldn't have been lying and as to after the fact what commander on the face of the planet would admit he was caught with his pants down?  Frankly its a bit naive and entirely human.  I blame Wellington for not acting on available information much sooner as to the rest it just followed the former, I can't blame the man for not supporting the Prussians when he had in fact all he could handle defending his assembling army. Tirronan 04:20, 5 September 2007 (UTC)


 * I have read one of Hofschroer's books, I have ventured no opinions with regard to his character, nor have I doubted his competence. My accusations of racism, as I clearly stated, refer to a website that - to the best of my knowledge - he neither owns nor administrates. With regards to the rest of your analysis, isn't that essentially what I already said? (This is why I avoid editing Wikipedia these days.)Agema 21:00, 30 September 2007 (UTC)
 * And for that matter, I just popped into a bookshop to take a quick look, and in "Waterloo 1815: Quatre Bras and Ligny" Hofschroer says that Wellington sent his initial concentration orders about 6PM as well, not 6AM as you changed it to. I've changed the time accordingly, although I'm guessing the reference page is still accurate, if you want to double check.Agema 21:30, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

d'Erlon
Why are references about the consequences of d'Erlon's countermarching being removed? Many distinguished European scholars (N. Vels Heijn, L. De Vos, D. Hamilton-Williams) have stated in their work that if d'Erlon had entered either battle he would have tipped the scales... if he had entered at Ligny, (as ordered by Napoleon) he would have made a French victory into an even bigger one, Austerlitz scale, if he had entered Quatre Bras, he and his 20.000 men would have flanked Wellington's position. fdewaele 20:31 CET


 * Because it is speculation, as Churchill said "The terrible ifs accumulate". I do not disagree with the analysis but that is not what this encyclopaedia is about. PBS 23:10, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

Defeat for Wellington?
So according to this page, this is Wellington's one and only defeat? I'm sure the anglophiles of wikipedia will be here to "correct" this soon. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.78.132.138 (talk • contribs) 17:10, 1 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Well, technically it wasn't a defeat but a tactical draw. It must be said however that Quatre Bras wasn't Wellington's finest hour cause he bungled the concentration of his army... but neither was it Ney's. fdewaele 5 May 2006, 19:25

I concur. Lots of battles are fairly described as draws and yet one side has gained a strategic advantage. For that matter, sides have won battles and suffered a strategic defeat (a Pyrrhic victory, as an obvious example), but you don't go around pretending they haven't won the actual battle. For that matter, the strategic victory is arguable. Napoleon's intention was to split the allied armies and defeat them in turn. Quite evidently as Waterloo showed, he failed to adequately split them, even if he stopped them combining on the day.Agema 17:17, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

I must say I'm a bit astonished about who is considered the victor for this battle. Wellington had planned to concentrate well north of the Quatre Bras crossroads. As far as I know he had no plan to march to the support of the Prussians at this time (and leave his LOC open). As a result of his battle he was able to temporarily occupy a more advantageous position. Ney on the other hand had the order to seize the crossroads (orders from the previous day) and received new orders to proceed to Ligny and fall onto Blücher's flank (the entire left wing, not just d'Erlon's corps). Due to the dutch-belgian resistance this move became impossible. According to that I'd say the anglo-dutch achieved more then their day's aims and were not sufficiently weakened to imperil their future operations. The french on the other hand did not achieve either of their aims (a firm hold on the crossroads) and mount a flank attack on the Prussians (that order by Napoleon was not too realistic anyhow). The french also took substantial casualties which affected their action later in the campaign. So in my opinion it's a french tactical victory (they were left in control of the battlefield) and anglo-dutch strategic (they made execution of the french orders impossible).

Lastly, it is not quite that clear what caused d'Erlon's countermarching. At one time at least the Ist corps received direct orders by one of Napoleon's aide de camps without informing d'Erlon (returning from Ney's HQs he found his corps marching towards Ligny, he immediatelly turned the corps around before he could be informed of new orders (an AdC had no business overuling d'Erlon's orders regardless of the orders he was carrying)).--Caranorn 14:48, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

Title of the article
Shouldn't it be Battle of Quatre-Bras? (with a -) Otto 10:19, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

French strategic victory???
Let me see if I understand this. It was a French strategic victory because Wellington (who was outnumbered by Ney) did not come to the support of Blucher (who outnumbered Napoleon)?? Ney did not prevent the allies from reinforcing Blucher, so much as the allies prevented Ney from either crushing their scattered forces, or crushing Blucher's flank. Wellington did about as well as could have been hoped, and Ney squandered all his strategic opportunities. How is this a French strategic victory? -Gomm 00:37, 26 January 2007 (UTC)


 * It was a stratigic victory for the French just as the Battle of Wavre was a stratigic loss. The French could not have known how quickly Wellington's army was concentrating, so blocking Quatre Bras to stop any chance of Wellington going to the aid of Bluecher was a sound tactical move. --PBS 08:23, 26 January 2007 (UTC)


 * To expand a bit. First the easy one. It was a tactical victory for Wellington because he held the field at the end of the battle. Second the complicated one. The only reason for Napoleon to split his forces when crossing the frontier was because it aided him in his overall strategic aim of splitting up the Coalition forces and engaging them separately. He could not know for certain that the Wellington's forces could not combine quickly enough to go to the aid of the Prussians and if his intention had been to destroy Wellington before his forces combined then he would have attacked Wellington first (presumably sending Grouchy with the right wing of the army to block Bluecher). I would put it to you that the strategic level that Ney did what was needed. That the two Coalition generals trusted each other enough (and respected each others abilities enough) to continue working together after Ligny was Napoleon's misfortune because it could easily have gone the other way: "The nearest run thing you ever saw in your life". --PBS 09:27, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Indeed. Napoleon's plan of operations for the campaign had always been dividing the opponents and defeating them piecemeal. He had no idea which of the two armies would be his prime target, that depended on the circumstances. As the Prussians were the first encountered and the first to mass three corps against him, they were his personal objective on June 16, the left wing was then to screen then rest of the main army from interference of the other allied army so Napoleon could destroy the Prussians. In which the left wing succeeded as not a single soldier of the Anglo-Dutch army reached the Ligny battlefield.
 * The fact that Ney somehwat bungled the left wing operations by his tardiness only caused Ligny to be a victory and not a Jena style victory. Had Ney acted sooner and ordered an attack earlier he would have been able to sweep away the Dutch division holding QB and would have isolated Wellington from his army as he was returning from his meeting with Blucher. With this happening the arriving British troops (starting to arrive around 3 PM) would probably not have attacked the French holding QB and part of Ney's forces could have marched along the chaussee towards Ligny, taking Blucher in the flank or rear. If this had been done (as Napoleon had planned/expected for Ney: take the crossroads and then march into Blucher's flank), Ligny probably would have been ranked on the level of Austerlitz, Jena and Friedland. But with the Prussians defeated but not beaten, the stage was set for June 18...
 * One could also pose the question wether Ney and Napoleon weren't a bit negligent on the 17th. With Wellington still at Quatre Bras and not knowing of Blucher's defat, Napoleon could have marched along the high way from Ligny to QB and really given Wellington a surprise... taking him into a vice between himself and Ney. Ney's probably to blame for that as he communicated insufficient towards GHQ. -- fdewaele, 26 January 2007, 11:55.
 * So (just for my own clarification) the only way that the battle could have not been a French Strategic Victory, is if the Dutch had marched out, destroyed the entire French left wing, allowing Wellington to march past, smash Napoleon, and save Blucher (who already had enough troops to outnumber Napoleon). Is that right?  Ney won a strategic victory just by not being driven from the field by the Dutch?  -Gomm 21:27, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
 * But did Bluecher have 40,000 more than Napoleon? ("his presence on the battlefield was worth 40,000 men" --Wellington). And yes all Ney had to do was stop any of Wellingtons troops going to the aid of Bluecher, just as a few days later all Grouchy had to do was stop Bluecher going to the aid of Wellington, "Give me Bluecher or give me the night". --PBS 23:23, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure I agree with you. Ney had orders to take the crossroad and march on Blucher's flank. Wellington was going to try to get to Blucher's flank also. Essentially, Ney and Wellington just cancelled each other out. Sure, Ney stopped the allies linking, but equally Wellington/Prince of Orange stopped Blucher's army being annihilated by a flank attack. As history shows, Napoleon's division of the allied armies was ultimately a failure: Blucher got to Waterloo.Agema 11:04, 1 July 2007 (UTC)
 * I can't agree with this is still declared a French strategic victory, when the battle is just a prelude to Waterloo. Ekem (talk) 01:56, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

Copyright infringement?
I removed text from the ground section because it seems to be copied from http://www.fortunecity.com/victorian/riley/787/Napoleon/100/quat.html. The section was created on Jun 30, 2004. The text on that website was added previously, according to web.archive.org (this is the version of Jun 4, 2004]). --Gia.cossa 15:12, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Prelude2
Someone reverted my edit. I've done a bit more reading on the battle, and I have several problems with the old (and now, again, current) version as stands. Firstly, it says the first message of the outbreak of hostilities arrived in Brussels at 9am. This is wrong: Ziethen wrote it at 9am at Charleroi after his pickets were attacked, it then took hours to get Brussels. Secondly, the Hofschroer quote is misleading. Muffling's record of the battle clearly states the offer of support Wellington gave to Blucher was conditional, so Wellington was hardly breaking a 'promise'. Finally, the general tone of the prelude judges Wellington's actions as a catalogue of errors. I'd agree Wellington could - and probably should - have done more to link up with the Prussians. However, Wellington both had to protect his lines of communication and had orders to defend Brussels; he had received information about an attack through Mons; nor could he know at the time that Napoleon would turn on Blucher first rather than him. Although in hindsight moving to Quatre Bras in force would have been a great success, for Wellington at the time it would have been extraordinarily reckless. Hence as stands the article is arguably unfair.Agema 11:04, 1 July 2007 (UTC)


 * This is wrong: Ziethen wrote it at 9am at Charleroi after his pickets were attacked, it then took hours to get Brussels. Nice to include this information and cite the source in the footnotes. If there is another source that says something different then I suggest it is sourced and written like the first couple of sentences in Battle of Waterloo --PBS 12:52, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

Bogus Citations?
User:PBS said that the Hofschröer was not cited in the article and not needed but,  yet added a citation from Hofschröer without a page number, if no page number did User:PBS actually look this up? Is this a vaild citation, anyone?--Bryson 17:24, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

No I did not look it up, I put it in as a compromise to the revert that I made to your revert Bryson109 (Talk | contribs | block) m (10,931 bytes) (Undid revision 141624106 by Agema (talk) why remove reference?) which contained the initial citation. I then highlighted the fact the the page number had not been given in the original citation (in the version you reverted to). If you do not want it in then take it out along with the bracketed text I added. --PBS 18:19, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

I have both of PH's books on the subject and I have inserted the page numbers and the book referrences. I would hope that this will end this forever. Tirronan 04:06, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Dutch Light cavalry brigade
I changed the "2nd Dutch Light cavalry brigade arrived" to "3rd Dutch Light cavalry brigade arrived." Because the Order of battle of the Waterloo Campaign states that Van Merlen commanded the 3rd Brigade. This was discussed on the OOB talk page in a section Dutch Belgian Cavalry Division. If the commander was not Van Merlen or the Brigade number is not correct please let me know on my talk page and discuss it further on the OOB talk page. --PBS 14:25, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

New external link to be added?
Dear fellow Napoleonic fans, does anybody find it useful to add an external link to the site of the Dutch 8th Militia?

http://home.scarlet.be/~tsh40803/8/8st.html

This unit was part of the van Bijlandt brigade, and the site is an enormous source of background information. There is also a full account of Quatre Bras and Waterloo, and the role the 8th played in these battles. The site is fully based in primary sources from, direct from the archives. All secondary literature is passed! The webmaster is closely working together with the site of Erwin van Muilwijk (also noted in the external links). Anyone interested to submit the site as an external link?

greetings, Marco Bijl0130 (talk) 12:57, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

Dear fellow Napoleonic fans, it is not usually my style to interject suggestions, but I would think an image of the painting "Schwarze Herzog" would be most appropriate in this article. The painting shows the death of "The Black Duke," Prince Friedrich Wilhelm von Braunschweig-Wolfenbütel-Oers, just after he is shot in the Battle of Quartre Bras. It does appear to be within the public domain, as it is being offered by a few of those "Let us paint your favorite masterpiece for just one-tenth-of-one-percent of its actual purchase price and a mere fraction of its quality!" sites. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mizzllat (talk • contribs) 11:31, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

We come to bury Wellington not to praise him
From the prelude section of article:

"This nine-hour delay meant it was too late for him to move his army in sufficient" says who?

"This nine-hour delay meant it was too late for him to move his army in sufficient strength to eventually provide Field Marshal Gebhard von Blücher with the support he needed (and which one source says he had promised)"

The source is Hofschröer who to put it mildly had a point to prove. The standard British history of the morning of 16 June is: That Baron Muffling (the Prussian liaison officer) and Wellington road from Brussels to Quatre Bras where the French were not attacking and road on to Ligny, where they found found Marshal Blucher and his staff at the windmill of Bry. Wellington wanted to finish concentrating his army and then attack Napoleon in his flank and rear. Blucher preferred that Wellington should march his men from Quatre Bras by the Namur road, so as to form a reserve in rear of the Prussian army. The Wellington replied, "Well, I will come if I am not attacked myself," and galloped back with Muffling to Quatre Bras, where the Ney's attack had started (making it impossible for him to go to Blucher's aid that day). This sentence needs to be rewritten so it does not give undue weight to this alleged breach of promise.

"(He was later to claim doing so in order to cover his misjudgement, although the orders issued and received do not correspond with that claim.)" This presenting a specific unflattering point of view and it needs a in text attribution source because whether it was a misjudgement of an incorrect analysis based on faulty intelligence is a point of view.

"The headquarters of William, Prince of Orange however decided to ignore Wellington's order to assemble Dutch forces in and around Nivelles and instead took the initiative to defend Quatre Bras, where they received substantial aid from the Brunswickers and Nassauers".

This needs a citation, both for their orders to concentrate Nivelles, and for their "initiative" where they ordered to disengage from Quatre Bras, who for example ordered the Brunswickers and Nassauers to the crossroads, if they were in the Prince of Orange's Corps then the mentioning of them as if they were separate units is misleading. It is also misleading in that Nivelles is about 5k from Quatre Bras with Genappe where the Corps headquarters (directly between Quatre Bras (3k away) an Brussels). As the Corps directly in the path of Ney it was their responsibility to stop an French advance be that anything from scouts, through to a reconnaissance in force. If they had abandoned their positions or not reinforced their front to delay Ney's advance, then they would have been acting irresponsibly. Wellington would have expected any corps in his command to behave in a similar way.

The tone of these paragraphs needs to be altered because at the moment it is far from presenting the facts in a neutral tone, or to giving an unbiased presentation of the different historical interpretation of those facts. -- PBS (talk) 20:57, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

There is one thing you haven't mentioned: Wellington learned his trade in the ill-fated campaign of Walcheren and later in the Peninsular. His first goal was to secure his LOCs (the ports of the southern Dutch coast) and Brussels.


 * Wellington "learned his trade" in India.Lathamibird (talk) 11:14, 10 February 2016 (UTC)

There is another important fact you have to keep in mind. the Time was running against the French and Boney not against the allies. Several forces where deployed to crush Boney, ranging from the Austrian and Russia to the Portguese and Spanish. Conslusion: Boney had to win (destroy the allies armies), the alllies just had to avoid defeat.

Source: Several documentaries about the capaign, including Battlefield Detectives and Line of Fire, alls commented by RMA staff.

--37.24.8.179 (talk) 04:01, 16 June 2015 (UTC)

External links modified
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Outcome of the battle
@user:Keith-264 as someone who has been editing here since 2006, you ought to abide by the terms of WP:BRD.

A discussed before on this talk page. The outcome was not inconclusive. As the sources state: it was a tactical victory for Wellington (he held the field of slaughter), but it was a strategic victory for the French because he was prevented from aiding Blucher. How was it inconclusive and what is your source for saying it was inconclusive? -- PBS (talk) 23:14, 16 January 2017 (UTC)
 * I'd be grateful if you kept your remarks constructive and read the guidance provided Template:Infobox military conflict here

"result – optional – this parameter may use one of several standard terms: "X victory", "Decisive X victory" or "Inconclusive". The choice of term should reflect what the sources say. In cases where the standard terms do not accurately describe the outcome, a link to the section of the article where the result is discussed in detail (such as "See the 'Aftermath' section") should be used instead of introducing non-standard terms like "marginal" or "tactical" or contradictory statements like "decisive tactical victory but strategic defeat". It is better to omit this parameter altogether than to engage in speculation about which side won or by how much."


 * would you prefer See the 'Aftermath' section? Regards. Keith-264 (talk) 23:25, 16 January 2017 (UTC)
 * @user:Keith-264 My comments are constructive, and I have read the guidance provided. It is guidance and is not policy, and when there are sources to support a different choice of words, the guidance does not trump usage in reliable sources.  How is such a statement contradictory? It is no more contradictory than the outcome of the Battle of Asculum (Pyrrhic victory) or do you suggest that the outcome of that battle is altered to one of "X victory", "Decisive X victory" or "Inconclusive"? -- PBS (talk) 18:37, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

What exactly constitutes a tactical victory?
Can someone explain how this is an allied tactical victory? Wellington lost more men and he had to retreat thereby preventing him from helping at Ligny. How is this in any sense a victory for the allies?!


 * Because the battle itself was a tactical victory, not the aftermath. Wellington managed to fight Ney to a standstill, thwarting Ney's goals of the day, which were to occupy the crossroads and then march towards the Prussian flank at Ligny. This resulted in Blucher being defeated in stead if being annihilated and at the end of the day the tide of war had put Ney on the defensive. It's only after Blucher had to retreat post haste towards Wavre, that the position Wellington held became untenable and forced him to withraw. -- fdewaele, 20 July 2006, 14:58.

And elsewhere when the English retreated from the field, after being mauled, to take refuge elsewhere and only came back when the enemy left a week later, it was "indecisive" lol — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.104.160.57 (talk) 05:20, 25 May 2017 (UTC)

Casualties
None of the casualties are sourced. What are they taken from? 86.5.160.43 (talk) 16:54, 16 March 2021 (UTC)