D’Erlon, had on his own initiative ordered the I. Corps to the eastward) the general considered he ought to return to the left wing, and leaving one division at Wagnelée he withdrew his force. The incident was immeasurably unfortunate for the French. Had the I. Corps been thrown into the doubtful struggle at Quatre Bras, it must have crushed Wellington; had it been used at Ligny it would have entailed Blücher’s annihilation. But oscillating between the two fields, it took part in neither. When the fighting was over, at 10 p.m., Ney wrote a short and somewhat one-sided account of the action to Soult.
On the other flank there had meanwhile been waged the bitterly fought battle of Ligny. As Blücher’s dispositions gradually became clearer the emperor realized that the first decisive day of the campaign had actually come, and he promptly made arrangements for defeating the Prussian army in his front. Blücher, to cover the Namur road, held with Ligny. the I. Corps the villages of Brye, St Amand and Ligny, whilst behind his centre was massed the II. Corps, and on his left was placed the III. Corps. Wellington and Bülow on arrival would act as general reserve. Blücher’s army, as he finally disposed it, was quite visible to Napoleon on the bare open slopes which it occupied above St Amand and Ligny, the II. Corps being especially exposed. The emperor decided to bear down Blücher’s centre and right with the corps of Vandamme and Gérard and with Girard’s division which he had drawn into his operations, containing the Prussian left meanwhile with the squadrons of Pajol and Exelmans, assisted by a few infantry. The Guard and Milhaud were in hand at Fleurus. Further, he could order up Lobau, and direct Ney to move his rearward corps across and form it up behind Blücher’s right. When the battle was ripe, he would crush the Prussian centre and right between the Guard and D’Erlon’s corps. It was a somewhat complicated manœuvre; for he was attempting to outflank his enemy with a corps that he had subordinated to Marshal Ney. Much depended on whether Ney would grasp the full purport of his orders; in a similar case at Bautzen he had failed to do so, and he failed as badly now. The usual Napoleonic simplicity was wanting at Ligny, and he paid in full for the want.
It was just after 2.30 p.m. when Napoleon, hearing the sound of Ney’s cannon to the westward and realizing that Wellington was attacked and neutralized, commenced the battle at Ligny. Blücher’s force was numerically very superior. The Prussians numbered about 83,000 men to Napoleon’s 71,000 (including Lobau, who only came up at the end of the day). A fierce fight was soon raging for the villages. Vandamme and Girard attacked S. Amand, whilst Gérard attempted to storm Ligny; on the right Grouchy held Thielemann in play, and in the centre near Fleurus were the Guard and Milhaud in reserve, close to the emperor’s headquarters on the mill. At 3.15 p.m., when the battle was in full swing, Napoleon wrote in duplicate to Ney, saying, “The fate of France is in your hands,” and ordering the marshal to master Quatre Bras and move eastwards to assist at Ligny. Immediately afterwards, hearing that Ney had 20,000 men in front of him, he sent the “pencil-note” by General La Bédoyère which directed Ney to detach D’Erlon’s corps to Ligny. This, as we know, the A.D.C. in a fit of mistaken zeal took upon himself to do. Hence the corps appeared too soon, and in the wrong direction. But neither order made it sufficiently clear to Ney that co-operation at Ligny was the essential, provided that Wellington was held fast at Quatre Bras. In other words, Ney had merely to hold Wellington with part of the French left wing all day, and detach the remainder of his force to co-operate in the deathblow at Ligny. This is clear when the first letter to Ney is studied with the orders, as it was meant to be; but Ney in the heat of action misread the later instructions. Meanwhile the emperor ordered Lobau to bring up his corps at once to Fleurus where he could hardly be of great service, whereas had he been directed to move on Wagnelée he might have co-operated in the last struggle far more efficiently. The fight for the villages continued to rage fiercely and incessantly, each side behaving as if its mortal foe was in front. The villages were captured and recaptured, but generally the French had the better of the fighting, for they compelled Blücher to use up more and more of his reserves, and prevented the Prussians from breaking through to the southward of S. Amand. Eventually the fighting became so furious that the troops engaged literary melted away, particularly at Ligny, and the emperor was finally compelled to call on his reserve to replenish the troops first engaged. But hardly had the Young and Middle Guard marched off to reinforce Vandamme and Gérard, when Vandamme sent word that a hostile column, over 30,000 strong, was threatening the French left (in reality this was D’Erlon’s corps). Vandamme’s exhausted troops were unnerved at the sight of this fresh foe, and an incipient panic was only quelled by turning guns on the fugitives. It was now between 5.30 and 6. The emperor concluded that this could not be D’Erlon, because he had arrived too soon and was marching in an evidently wrong direction. He at once sent an officer to reconnoitre. Meanwhile the reinforcements which he had dispatched were most opportune. The Prussians had seized the opportunity offered by the slackening of the French attacks to rally and deliver a counterstroke, which was parried, after achieving a small measure of success, by the bayonets of the Young Guard. It was about 6.30 before Napoleon learned that the unknown force was actually D’Erlon’s, and somewhat later he heard that it had counter-marched and withdrawn westwards. Repeated orders sent to the commander of the division left by D’Erlon failed to induce him to engage his command decisively, and thus Napoleon obtained no direct co-operation from his left wing on this, the first decisive day of the campaign. Thus relieved about his left, but realizing that D’Erlon had returned to Ney, the emperor had perforce to finish the battle single-handed. Blücher now delivered a general counterstroke against Vandamme. Massing every available man he led the attack in person; but he vainly attempted to make ground to the south of S. Amand; the exhausted Prussians were overpowered by the chasseurs of the Guard and forced to retire in disorder. Napoleon’s opportunity to finish the battle had come at last. He could at least beat Blücher and render the Prussians unfit for any serious operation except retreat on June 17, although he could no longer expect to destroy the Prussian army. Lobau’s corps, too, was now arriving and forming up on the heights east of Fleurus. The artillery of the Guard, therefore, came into action above Ligny to prepare Blücher’s centre for assault. Some delay was occasioned by a thunderstorm; but, as this passed over, the guns opened and the Old Guard and Milhaud’s cuirassiers proceeded to form up opposite to Ligny. About 7.45 p.m. a crashing salvo of 60 guns gave the signal for a combined assault to be delivered by Gérard and the Guard, with Milhaud moving on their right flank. Blücher’s worn-out soldiers could not withstand the tremendous impact of Napoleon’s choicest troops, and the Prussian centre was pierced and broken. But the gallant old marshal still had some fresh squadrons in hand, and he promptly launched them to stem the French advance. While leading one of the charges in person his horse was shot and fell under him, but he was rescued and borne in a semi-conscious condition from the field. Without doubt, the personal risk to which Blücher exposed himself at this crisis was far too great; for it was essential that the command of the Prussian army should remain vested in a chief who would loyally keep in touch and act entirely in concert with his colleague. In this way only could the allies hope to obtain a decisive success against Napoleon. By 9 p.m. the main battle was over, and everywhere the French pushed resistless forward. Napoleon was master of Blücher’s battlefield, and the beaten Prussians had retired to the north of the Namur-Nivelles road. Under the circumstances, the late hour, the failing light and the lack of information as to events on the left wing, immediate pursuit was out of the question.
The execution had again fallen short of the conception; Blücher though beaten was not destroyed, nor was his line with Wellington cut. If the Prussians now retired northwards, parallel to the direction which Wellington would follow perforce on the morrow, the chance of co-operating in a decisive battle would still remain to the allies; and Gneisenau’s order issued by moonlight, directing the retreat on Tilly and Wavre, went
