WARS and BATTLES
From Ancient Greece - to modern day.
If he could separate the Prussians from the British, so as to attack each in detail, he felt sanguine of success, not only against these, the most resolute of his many adversaries, but also against the other masses that were slowly laboring up against his southeastern frontiers. The triple chain of strong fortresses, which the French possessed on the Belgian frontier formed a curtain, behind which Napoleon was able to concentrate his army, and to conceal till the very List moment the precise line of attack which he intended to take. On the other hand, Blucher and Wellington were obliged to canton their troops along a line of open country of considerable length, so as to watch for the outbreak of Napoleon from whichever point of his chain of strongholds he should please to make it. Blucher, with his army, occupied the banks of the Sambre and the Meuse, from Liege on his left, to Charleroi on his right; and the Duke of Wellington covered Brussels, his cantonments being partly in front of that city, and between it and the French frontier, and partly on its west; their extreme right being at Courtray and Tournay, while their left approached Charleroi and communicated with the Prussian right. It was upon Charleroi that Napoleon resolved to level his attack, in hopes of severing the two allied armies from each other, and then pursuing his favorite tactic of assailing each separately with a superior force on the battle-field, though the aggregate of their numbers considerably exceeded his own. On the 15th of June the French army was suddenly in motion, and crossed the frontier in three columns, which were pointed upon Charleroi and its vicinity. The French line of advance upon Brussels, which city Napoleon resolved to occupy, thus lay right through the center of the line of the cantonments of the allies. The Prussian general rapidly concentrated his forces, calling them in from the left, and the English general concentrated his, calling them in from the right toward the menaced center of the combined position. On the morning of the 16th, Blucher was in position &'* Ligny, to the northeast of Charleroi, with 80,000 men. Wellington's troops were concentrating at Quatre Bras, which lies due north of Charleroi, and is about nine miles from Ligny, On the 16th, Napoleon in person attacked Blucher, and, after a long and obstinate battle, defeated him, and compelled the Prussian army to retire northward toward Wavre. On the same day, Marshal Ney, with a large part of the French army, attacked the English troops at Quatre Bras, and a very severe engagement took place, in which Ney failed in defeating the British, but succeeded in preventing their sending any help to Blucher, who was being beaten by the emperor at Ligny. On the news of Blucher's defeat at Ligny reaching Wellington, he foresaw that the emperor's army would now be directed upon him, and he accordingly retreated in order to restore his communications with his ally, which would have been dislocated by the Prussians falling back from Ligny to Wavre if the English had remained in advance at Quatre Bras. During the 17th, therefore, Wellington retreated, being pursued, but little molested by the main French army, over about half the space between Quatre Bras and Brussels. This brought him again parallel, on a line running from west to east, with Blucher, who was at Wavre. Having ascertained that the Prussian army, though beaten on the 16th, was not broken, and having received a promise from its general to march to his assistance, Wellington determined to halt, and to give battle to the French emperor in the position, which, from a village in its neighborhood, has received the ever-memorable name of the field of Waterloo.
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