The Battle of Quatre Bras

 

 

Trouble is Delaborde won too. He was sent to delay Wellington while Junot's forces mustered. He did. He Held up a larger force for virtually the whole day and retreated successfully.

 

Mission accomplished better that Junot could have hoped.

 

 

 

Lol.  Well my first suggestion would be to actually read what I wrote.  Everything that I have posted has been trying to refute the claims that Ney clearly won at Quatre Bras.  If anything is clear, it's that Ney didn't win a clear cut victory.  The one article that I posted called it a strategic draw and a British tactical victory.  I guess my entire point is that this battle is a good example of where it is difficult to simply chalk it up as a simple win or loss. 

 

From my perspective for the most important point is that it was a missed opportunity for the French.  Ultimately it cost them the campaign, but there was still quite a bit of fighting between the end of the day on the 16th and final defeat on the 18th.  Clearly Napoleon had outmanoeuvered Wellington up the 15th.  Wellington himself admitted as much.  However, through some fine generalship on the 16th, combined with some mistakes on the other side, Wellington managed to 'dodge a bullet' (figuratively) at Quatre Bras.  To me, that is a far more meaningful assessment than simply trying to apply an arbitrary label of 'win', 'loss' or 'draw'.

 

Ah, but Ney's job was to ensure Quatre Bras was held so that The Prussians could be crushed by troops attacking down that road. ney had considerable numerical supremacy for many hours and should have carried out his task easily and quickly. With the Prussians destroyed as a fighting force, Napoleon's full force would be turned on the army under Wellington's command with the intention of destroying that. Then Napoleon hoped he could persuade the Austrians and Russians to fall back and leave him in peace to rule France.

 

As it was Ney's blunder meant that whilst defeated, The Prussians still remained a viable force who could send troops to assist Wellington. That blunder destroyed Napoleon's strategy.

 

On a perdu La France