The Outbreak of Hostilities

The expected French offensive had commenced about 3.30 a.m. on 15 June.¹⁹ The French assault on the Prussian positions in the village of Thuin began shortly after sunrise, at 4 a.m., when a battery of Reille’s Corps opened fire on the 2nd battalion of the 2nd Westphalian Landwehr ²⁰ The latter, anticipating the French attack, was already under arms.²¹ The noise of this bombardment could be heard as far as Charleroi, in the headquarters of Generallieutenant von Zieten, commander of the Prussian I Army Corps. The Prussian general had tried to snatch a few hours sleep. Expecting the French offensive to start at any time, he went to bed fully clothed, and, on hearing the first sounds of the French offensive, sprang out of bed. He called his aides to him, sending Major Count Westphalen with the news to Blücher in Namur, just over 30 km away, and Kolonnenjäger (courier) Merinsky to Brussels, nearly 50 km distant, with a letter in French that Zieten had personally written to Wellington.²²

These dispatches left Charleroi about 4.45 a.m. Westphalen arrived in the Prussian headquarters in Namur before 8.30 a.m.²³ Merinsky, travelling further, arrived in Wellington’s headquarters by 9 a.m.²⁴ While Blücher immediately ordered the concentration of the remainder of his army, Wellington, appears to have kept the news to himself, or at least amongst his close associates. Müffling does not appear to have been informed of its arrival.²⁵

News of the outbreak of hostilities appears to have reached the Anglo-Allied listening post in Mons, about 35 km from Charleroi, just before 9.30 a.m. Although this post was near to where the French offensive had begun, the news arrived there relatively late. Atmospheric conditions had prevented the sound of the French cannonade from reaching even the right wing of Generallieutenant von Steinmetz’s 1st Prussian Brigade, part of Zieten’s I Army Corps. Major von Arnauld, the officer sent by Steinmetz to communicate the news to the Allies in Mons, had to spend time spreading the alarm among the Prussian outposts he met on his way. Thus, it was only at 8 a.m. that he arrived at the headquarters of Merlen’s brigade of Netherlands cavalry in St Symphorien.²⁶ From here, the news was passed on to Mons, arriving there at 9.30 a.m. Major-General von Dörnberg, an officer of the King’s German Legion, a Hanoverian formation in British pay, responsible for gathering intelligence at this Dutch outpost, forwarded this message on to Wellington via corps headquarters at Braine-le-Comte. It arrived at Braine by about midday.²⁷ Two hours later, Lt.-Colonel Sir George Berkeley, Wellington’s representative in the Netherlands headquarters, sent it on to Brussels.²⁸ This delay was due to Berkeley having waited for more news from the front before sending a report to Brussels. Needing a good three hours to cover that distance, the courier would only have arrived at Wellington’s headquarters some time after 5 p.m.²⁹ Fortunately, at 10.30 a.m., Behr, the commanding general at Mons, had written directly to the Prince of Orange in Brussels,³⁰ a report that reached him in Brussels about 3 p.m.³¹

Further reports were sent from Charleroi that morning. At 8.15 a.m., Zieten reported to Namur that he was being forced back by strong French forces.³² Zieten’s next message to the two headquarters reported the fall of Charleroi to the enemy. This dispatch to Brussels was sent at around 11 a.m., this time to Müffling and not to Wellington. It arrived there at about 3 p.m., almost the same time as Behr’s communication to the Prince of Orange.³³ These confirmations of Zieten’s earlier reports seem to have attracted the Duke’s attention. Dinner was interrupted by the Prince of Orange and Müffling bursting in with his news. It would seem the French offensive was perhaps not a bluff after all. However, if it was not, then Wellington considered the assault on Charleroi to be a feint, drawing attention away from the real French line of advance via Mons. The Duke was concerned with having his right flank turned by the French. Müffling reported Wellington stating,      ‘If part of the enemy does come via Mons, then I must concentrate more to my centre. This is the reason why I must await the report from Mons before I determine my rendezvous’.³⁴

The Prince of Orange confirmed this, telling Constant Rebecque, ‘At first, the Duke believed that the attack on Charleroi to be a feint; only when the report of the appearance of the enemy at Frasnes arrived [that is, about midnight on 15 June], did he decide to move all his forces to Quatre Bras’.³⁵

Wellington awaited further news, particularly from his sources in Paris. Apparently, by 3 p.m., he still considered any reaction to be premature.

Zieten’s news had reached the Prussian headquarters in Namur at 8.30 a.m. on 15 June, confirming the view held there since the previous evening that the French offensive was imminent.³⁶ Blücher’s immediate reaction had been to order the concentration and movement of his army. Once the relevant orders had gone out, Blücher sent a full report on the situation to Müffling in Brussels, indicating he was concentrating his forces on the Sombreffe position, where Blücher and Wellington had agreed at their meeting in Tirlemont on 3 May 1815 to concentrate the Prussian army. Here, he would stage the planned holding action against any French offensive in the area.³⁷ This message arrived in Brussels at about 5 p.m. Wellington still did not react. So far, he had received news only from the Prussians and the Netherlanders; but, the next news to arrive, some time before 6 p.m., was from the Englishman, Berkeley, based at Braine. Shortly after that, Wellington had orders issued for the concentration of his forces,³⁸ though only part of his troops were ordered to move, and these on Nivelles, particularly the Netherlands troops that were, unbeknown to the Duke, already engaging the French. This order would have opened the vital road from Charleroi to Brussels, which ran via Quatre Bras, to the French. The Duke was still convinced that the French were going to launch their main attack via Mons.³⁹ His informants in Paris would no doubt confirm this shortly. However, the expected news never arrived.

At 10 p.m., Wellington issued ‘After Orders’ in which the movement of part of his army was accelerated.⁴⁰ Significantly, the Duke ordered his Reserve (5th and 6th Divisions, the Brunswick and Nassau contingents) to march the next morning ‘…from Bruxelles by the road of Namur to the point where the road to Nivelles separates…’⁴¹ These orders were probably issued as a result of receiving the news that Blücher was concentrating at Sombreffe and would fight a battle if the Duke supported him. Significantly, Wellington had not ordered his Reserve as far as Quatre Bras, but only as far as the road junction at Waterloo. From that point, the road forked, one road going towards Namur and the Prussian positions around Sombreffe, the other towards Nivelles from where it could be sent to deal with any French advance via Mons. This indicates that Duke, despite his claims to the contrary, had yet to make up his mind where he was going to send his army the next day.

Towards midnight, Müffling sent a report to Blücher indicating that Wellington’s army would be concentrated within twelve hours, and that he would have 20,000 men at Quatre Bras by 10 a.m. on 16 June.⁴² This claim was inconsistent with the orders Wellington had issued that evening, particularly as he had ordered the Netherlands troops to move away from Quatre Bras to Nivelles, while most of his army had merely been ordered to concentrate at its assembly points. Fortunately, the Netherlanders had used their initiative and held the vital crossroads at Quatre Bras.

News from Braine

Between 11 p.m. and midnight, Wellington went to the Duchess of Richmond’s ball.⁴³ He could not have been there long when Lt. Sir Henry Webster, a young officer of the 9th Light Dragoons attached to the Prince of Orange’s staff, arrived. Breathless and covered in dust and foam, he was carrying urgent news.⁴⁴ The message Webster was carrying had left Braine-le-Comte at 10.30 p.m., covering the distance to Brussels at high speed. He had first ridden to Wellington’s headquarters in the Rue Royale in Brussels. Finding that the Duke of Wellington and the Prince of Orange had already left for the Duchess of Richmond’s ball, a servant led him to its venue. They reached there after midnight. Here, Webster handed this dispatch to the Prince of Orange. The letter, from Constant Rebecque contained the news that the French, who had crossed the Sambre river, invading Belgium early that morning, had that evening broken through to Quatre Bras. Communications with the Prussian headquarters in Sombreffe were thereby threatened. Napoleon was on the point of successfully driving a wedge between the two wings of the Allied forces which he then hoped to defeat in detail. A perplexed Prince passed the news on to a dumbfounded Duke. Now, and only now, did Wellington accept the seriousness of the situation; he had lost valuable hours that day in pondering the significance of the various reports he had received from the front and awaiting news from other sources. At such a late hour, it would not be possible to move his army that day. Besides, due to the wide dispersal of its cantonments and the time needed for orders to reach them, there was now little the Duke could do to accelerate its movements the next day. Wellington, considered one of the best-informed men in Europe, had failed to treat much of the news he had received that day with sufficient earnestness. He seemed firmly of the belief that the French offensive that day was a bluff designed to cover a withdrawal into the interior of France to take up a central position and await the Allied advance.⁴⁵ It is possible that Wellington was expecting this information to be confirmed during the course of 15 June, thus making unnecessary any movement on his part that day.

It is also possible that Fouché the duplicitous French minister of police had deceived the Duke. The latter claimed to have promised to provide Wellington with the French plan of campaign, but then had the agent carrying it held up at the border. The Duke was known to have sources close to Général Bertrand, a close confidant of Napoleon, whose wife was the niece of a certain Colonel Henry Dillon. Important information had come in from this source earlier.⁴⁶ Waiting for a report of French intentions may explain why Wellington had ignored so much of the information he received from the front that day, and why he failed to take the appropriate action until it was too late.

At this stage of the day, there was little more the Duke could do. He sent the Prince of Orange back to his headquarters at Braine-le-Comte. Picton, whose division was in the Brussels area, was ordered to march off to his destination at the road junction near Waterloo at 2 a.m. on 16 June instead of at 4 a.m., as had originally been instructed. By 1 a.m., Wellington had sent back his senior officers to their units, one by one,⁴⁷ and that done, he retired to his bed sometime between 2 and 3 a.m.

The Ride to Quatre Bras

Wellington got up on the morning of 16 June 1815, having only slept for an hour or two and he conferred with De Lancey and Picton before starting off for the front.⁴⁸ Accompanied by Müffling, he then rode down the Brussels to Namur road. On the way, he rode past his Reserve that had started marching south along this highway. About 9 a.m., he passed Picton’s 5th Division which was resting, having its breakfast just south of the Forest of Soignée, to where the Duke had ordered it the previous evening.⁴⁹ He left it there, then continued his ride south, to Quatre Bras, along the road via Genappe. This road was devoid of any troops. Wellington arrived at Quatre Bras at 10 a.m., where he inspected his troops’ positions. Half an hour later, he wrote the Frasnes letter to Blücher in which he stated. ‘The Reserve is on the march from Waterloo on Genappe where it will arrive at midday.’ Having left the Reserve eating its breakfast just north of Waterloo, and not having seen a single soldier south of that until he reached the Netherlanders at Quatre Bras, Wellington knew that statement was not true. After writing this misleading letter to Blücher, the Duke then ordered 5th Division to move to Quatre Bras. This order reached the 5th Division between noon and 1 p.m.⁵⁰ As it was about one hour’s ride from Quatre Bras, then Wellington must have issued that order between 11 a.m. and noon, that is, just after he had written to Blücher giving him different information.