Fought on 16 June 1815, two days before the Battle of Waterloo, the
Battle of Quatre Bras has been described as a tactical Anglo-allied
victory, but a French strategic victory. The French Marshal Ney was
given command of the left wing of Napoleon's army and ordered to seize
the vital crossroads at Quatre Bras, as the prelude to an advance on
Brussels. The crossroads was of strategic importance because the side
which controlled it could move southeastward along the Nivelles-Namur
road.
Yet the normally bold and dynamic Ney was uncharacteristically cautious.
As a result, by the time he mounted a full-scale attack upon the Allied
troops holding Quatre Bras, the Duke of Wellington had been able to
concentrate enough strength to hold the crossroads.
Ney's failure at Quatre Bras had disastrous consequences for Napoleon,
whose divided army was not able to reunite in time to face Wellington at
Waterloo. This revelatory study of the Waterloo campaign draws primarily
on French archival sources, and previously unpublished French accounts,
to present a balanced view of a battle normally seen only from the
British or Anglo-Allied perspective.